One of the best things about summer (and there’s a lot) is that I have more time to read. Factor in that much of my reading is done al fresco and I’m in heaven. Today I’m sharing the books I hope to read before the kids start back to school in early August. I thought my list would be mostly rom coms, but I love thrillers too much to go all summer without one. I also included a book that a dear friend and recommended and OH MY GOSH I don’t even know what is happening. I’ll start there…
Yesteryear
I’m referring to Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke. This book was not even on my radar until my friend told me I needed to read it. I looked it up and was immediately intrigued. I’m about one third through the novel just experienced the first (for me) WTH moment. The Book Tok accounts that addressed this book are very fired up about it, and I can see why. I cannot wait to see how this story ends.
Amazon’s blurb:
My name was Natalie Heller Mills, and I was perfect at being alive.
Natalie lives a traditional lifestyle. Her charming farmhouse is rustic, her husband a handsome cowboy, her six children each more delightful than the last. So what if there are nannies and producers behind the scenes, her kitchen hiding industrial-grade fridges and ovens, her husband the heir to a political dynasty? What Natalie’s followers—all 8 million of them—don’t know won’t hurt them. And The Angry Women? The privileged, Ivy League, coastal elite haters who call her an antifeminist iconoclast? They’re sick with jealousy. Because Natalie isn’t simply living the good life, she’s living the ideal—and just so happens to be building an empire from it.
Until one morning she wakes up in a life that isn’t hers. Her home, her husband, her children—they’re all familiar, but something’s off. Her kitchen is warmed by a sputtering fire rather than electricity, her children are dirty and strange, and her soft-handed husband is suddenly a competent farmer. Just yesterday Natalie was curating photos of homemade jam for her Instagram, and now she’s expected to haul firewood and handwash clothes until her fingers bleed. Has she become the unwitting star of a ruthless reality show? Could it really be time travel? Is she being tested by God? By Satan? When Natalie suffers a brutal injury in the woods, she realizes two things: This is not her beautiful life, and she must escape by any means possible.
A gripping, electrifying novel that is as darkly funny as it is frightening, Yesteryear is a gimlet-eyed look at tradition, fame, faith, and the grand performance of womanhood.
I truly have no idea where this is going or, honestly, how I feel about it. I just know I can’t stop reading it. This would be an excellent book club selection. Begin this wild ride here: https://amzn.to/4aeKQRk
Moving on to more quintessential summer reading material, next on my list is Pink Sand Summer by Chassity Evans. I’m usually a Kindle girl, but I will buy this as a hard copy because it’s so pretty. Here’s the summary:
On a pink-sand island where everyone knows your story, one summer brings her face-to-face with the love that once broke her and a man who makes her question what comes next.
Lucy returns to her grandmother’s beloved island house on Harbour Island planning to get her footing and figure out what it means to inherit not just a home, but a life that still echoes in every room. What she finds instead is a summer that pulls her straight back into the love, and the version of herself she thought she’d left behind.
Jack is history. Familiar and devastating in all the ways that matter. He knows Lucy without asking, carries years of shared summers and unfinished conversations, and still holds a piece of her heart she never quite got back, no matter how hard she tried.
Noah arrives on the island with a guitar and a way of paying attention that catches Lucy off guard. New to Harbour Island, he feels unclaimed by her history. He asks unexpected questions and makes her curious about who she might be becoming, without offering any guarantees.
As island life fills her days, Lucy’s focus keeps getting pulled back into the familiar orbit of friends and routines, and toward Jack, in ways that feel accidental but never quite are. Afternoons meant for painting slip sideways, the pressure of her upcoming island show building as distraction becomes harder to resist.
Dinner parties stretch late, conversations tangle as Lucy finds herself in the same room with both men at once. Then one unforgettable evening at Graham Vale’s storied home shifts her understanding of the past, and what she wants for her future.
Drawn deeper into Harbour Island’s rhythm and the people who make it feel like home, Lucy inches toward a choice she can’t avoid. Because choosing wrong would mean leaving behind more than a summer. It would mean losing the life she’s only just beginning to imagine.
Set entirely on the dreamy shores of Harbour Island, The Bahamas, Pink Sand Summer is an immersive escape about love in all its forms. Romantic. Platonic. And the kind that roots you to a place forever. It’s a heartfelt, comfort-forward beach read for anyone who believes the right summer, with the right people, can change everything.
Pink Sand Summer
I think this deserves to be read while actually on Harbour Island, no? Ben, please make that happen.
Purchase here: https://amzn.to/4f6ucXx
A true southern treasure, I cannot wait to dive into Kristy Woodson Harvey’s latest release, Summer State of Mind. A few of my Book B*tches have already read and loved it. She’s the Elin Hilderbrand of the Carolinas. If time allows, I might add Under the Southern Sky to my list. Here’s what Amazon has to say about Summer State of Mind:
After the worst day in her professional life, burnt-out NICU nurse Daisy Stevens runs to Cape Carolina, North Carolina, looking for a new life—and possibly new romance. On her first day at her “simpler” job, high school baseball coach Mason Thaysden discovers an abandoned baby, sending ripples through the entire tight-knit town of Cape Carolina.
Mason is still struggling to reconcile the scars of the injury that kept him out of the big leagues, stuck in his hometown, and searching for a way out. This newcomer and the child they’ve saved together might be just the motivation he needs to stay put. Sparks fly as Mason acquaints Daisy with Cape Carolina, introducing her to his friends and family, including his batty Aunt Tilley, who is looking for relief from long-buried family secrets and her own fresh start.
But as Daisy becomes increasingly attached to this abandoned child, and begins facing her own demons in the process, a startling discovery is made that threatens to rip the entire town of Cape Carolina apart, placing Daisy, Mason, and Tilley in the center of the storm. In a novel that proves that “Kristy Woodson Harvey is (the) go-to for elevated beach reads” (People), they will each learn that with love, understanding—and a community theater production of Hello, Dolly!—sometimes life conspires to bring us just exactly where we belong.
Summer State of Mind
Click here to transport yourself to the coast of Carolina: https://amzn.to/4ac822y
Can’t get more “summer reading” than a cute series set on Nantucket, which is exactly what the Beach Plum Cove books deliver. This is a collection of nine novels, but I think they can be read as stand alones. My plan is to start with the first and go from there. I read a Pamela Kelly Christmas novel last year and loved it. It was an excellent palate cleanser after several heavy books I read for my book club.
Lisa Hodges needs to make a decision fast. Thanks to her dead husband’s gambling addiction, their savings is almost gone. In her early fifties with a large, waterfront home on Nantucket to support, Lisa hasn’t worked in over thirty years, has no in-demand skills and is virtually unemployable.Her only options are to sell the house and move off-island, or, she could use her cooking and entertaining skills and turn her home into a bed and breakfast. She desperately needs it to succeed because she has four grown children with problems of their own and wants to stay close to them.
Her oldest daughter, Kate, has a fabulous career in Boston–working as a writer for a popular fashion magazine and engaged to a dangerously handsome, photographer, who none of them have met.Kate’s twin, local artist, Kristen, has been reasonably content with her on-again off-again relationship with an older, separated businessman. Her son, Chase, runs his own construction business and is carefree, happily dating here and there but nothing serious. Youngest daughter, Abby, is happily married to her high school sweetheart, and they’ve been trying to have a baby. But it hasn’t happened yet, and Abby wonders if it’s a sign that maybe their marriage isn’t as perfect as everyone thinks.
Come visit Nantucket and see how Lisa’s new bed and breakfast has an impact on almost everyone in her family. It’s the first book in a new series that will follow the Hodges family, friends, and visitors to Nantucket’s Beach Plum Cove Inn.
The Nantucket Inn
Prepare to be charmed here: https://amzn.to/4e6SDTA
Lastly, my thriller selection is Someone Knows by Vi Keeland. I stumbled across this book on an IG book account, but I can’t remember which one. This is my first Vi Keeland novel, so I am not sure what to expect, but I tend to gravitate toward books set in the college arena. Check out this summary and tell me you’re not intrigued:
An English professor’s deadly past comes back to haunt her in this chilling and sexy thriller from #1New York Timesbestselling author Vi Keeland.
As a college English professor, Elizabeth looks forward to the start of each new semester teaching her creative writing seminar. At least until she reads chapter one of The Reckoning, a tale about a high school senior who has an affair with her teacher. To anyone else it would be the beginning of a great page-turner, but to Elizabeth it is the beginning of the end.
She knows this story. It’s all familiar because she lived it. The girl in the story was her best friend Jocelyn, and Elizabeth knows exactly how the story will end—with the professor dead. Because she was the one who killed him.
Someone knows what Elizabeth did twenty years ago and her secret is about to be exposed, but who is the mystery student submitting the chapters? In an effort to find out, Elizabeth returns to her Louisiana hometown where it soon becomes clear that no matter how many years have gone by, she can’t escape her past.
Someone Knows
I cannot wait to dive into this during a summer thunderstorm from the comfort of my back porch. Join me here: https://amzn.to/4nUhZHQ
Hooray for summer and fabulous authors!
Side note: if you don’t already have a Kindle, grab one here: https://amzn.to/4nPUhwa. My Paperwhite is a game changer!
Side note 2: I am trying desperately to get my family to share my love of reading. I purchased some Elle Kennedy books for Emery and a Michael Connelly Catalina tale for Bodie/Ben. Please send me any titles your teenagers/husbands loved.
