I am so excited to dive into my summer reading list. I’ve curated a fabulous selection based on recommendations from friends, my sister, my favorite Instagram accounts and my own research. It’s all light and fluffy, other than a Kennedy book, but I had to sprinkle in something about the most interesting First Family. Tomorrow is the first day of June and I plan to spend a few hours lounging poolside with my Kindle. Emery is having her wisdom teeth removed as I’m typing this, so our plan is to lay low all weekend. Disclaimer: If you’re not a fan of Hallmark-ish stories, this may not be the reading list for you.

I don’t know where to start!

Hannah Orenstein is a new to me author, but she’s got quite the following. The reviews for all of her books are very positive, but the plot of Head Over Heels jumped out at me the most. However, they all sound good.

The past seven years have been hard on Avery Abrams: after training her entire life to make the Olympic gymnastics team, a disastrous performance ended her athletic career for good. Her best friend and teammate, Jasmine, went on to become an Olympic champion, then committed the ultimate betrayal by marrying their controversial coach, Dimitri.

Now, reeling from a breakup with her football star boyfriend, Avery returns to her Massachusetts hometown, where new coach Ryan asks her to help him train a promising young gymnast with Olympic aspirations. Despite her misgivings and worries about the memories it will evoke, Avery agrees. Back in the gym, she’s surprised to find sparks flying with Ryan. But when a shocking scandal in the gymnastics world breaks, it has shattering effects not only for the sport but also for Avery and her old friend Jasmine.

Purchase here: https://amzn.to/4jC9Jsk

Carley Fortune is very well known, obviously. I have not read her latest, One Golden Summer, but that will change soon. This sounds like the perfect beach read.

Good things happen at the lake. That’s what Alice’s grandmother says, and it’s true. Alice spent just one summer there at a cottage with Nan when she was seventeen—it’s where she took that photo, the one of three grinning teenagers in a yellow speedboat, the image that changed her life.

Now Alice lives behind a lens. As a photographer, she’s most comfortable on the sidelines, letting other people shine. Lately though, she’s been itching for something more, and when Nan falls and breaks her hip, Alice comes up with a plan for them both: another summer in that magical place, Barry’s Bay. But as soon as they settle in, their peace is disrupted by the roar of a familiar yellow boat, and the man driving it.

Charlie Florek was nineteen when Alice took his photo from afar. Now he’s all grown up—a shameless flirt, who manages to make Nan laugh and Alice long to be seventeen again, when life was simpler, when taking pictures was just for fun. Sun-slanted days and warm nights out on the lake with Charlie are a balm for Alice’s soul, but when she looks up and sees his piercing green gaze directly on her, she begins to worry for her heart.

Because Alice sees people—that’s why she is so good at what she does—but she’s never met someone who looks and sees her right back.

It’s available here: https://amzn.to/43QG2ii

Emily Henry is the rom com queen. To date, Book Lovers is my favorite of her works. However, that may change soon. The plot of Great Big Beautiful Life sounds right up my alley. Bonus: it’s set in coastal Georgia. As you know, Sea Island is on my short list of dream destinations. I can’t wait to lose myself in this idyllic beach scene. *I find it interesting that One Golden Summer and Great Big Beautiful Life both feature main characters named Alice.

Alice Scott is an eternal optimist still dreaming of her big writing break. Hayden Anderson is a Pulitzer-prize winning human thundercloud. And they’re both on balmy Little Crescent Island for the same reason: to write the biography of a woman no one has seen in years—or at least to meet with the octogenarian who claims to be the Margaret Ives. Tragic heiress, former tabloid princess, and daughter of one of the most storied (and scandalous) families of the twentieth century.

When Margaret invites them both for a one-month trial period, after which she’ll choose the person who’ll tell her story, there are three things keeping Alice’s head in the game.

One: Alice genuinely likes people, which means people usually like Alice—and she has a whole month to win the legendary woman over.

Two: She’s ready for this job and the chance to impress her perennially unimpressed family with a Serious Publication.

Three: Hayden Anderson, who should have no reason to be concerned about losing this book, is glowering at her in a shaken-to-the core way that suggests he sees her as competition.

But the problem is, Margaret is only giving each of them pieces of her story. Pieces they can’t swap to put together because of an ironclad NDA and an inconvenient yearning pulsing between them every time they’re in the same room.

And it’s becoming abundantly clear that their story—just like the tale Margaret’s spinning—could be a mystery, tragedy, or love ballad . . . depending on who’s telling it.

It’s a Reese pick! Click here: https://amzn.to/4jxheRd

I have to have at least one juicy political book, and nobody provides more juice than the Kennedy clan. I saw Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed by Maureen Callahan on Regency Revival’s Instagram page and mentioned it to my sister. Turns out she’s already read it and shares the same opinion as Regency Revival: can’t put down. My sister even went so far as to say it’s her favorite Kennedy book yet and she didn’t want it to end.

The Kennedy name has long been synonymous with wealth, power, glamor, and—above all else—integrity. But this carefully constructed veneer hides a dark truth: the pattern of Kennedy men physically and psychologically abusing women and girls, leaving a trail of ruin and death in each generation’s wake. Through decades of scandal after scandal—from sexual assaults to reputational slander, suicides to manslaughter—the family and their defenders have kept the Kennedy brand intact. Now, in Ask Not, bestselling author and journalist Maureen Callahan reveals the Kennedys’ hidden history of violence and exploitation, laying bare their unrepentant sexism and rampant depravity while also restoring these women and girls to their rightful place at the center of the dynasty’s story: from Jacqueline Onassis and Marilyn Monroe to Carolyn Bessette, Martha Moxley, Mary Jo Kopechne, Rosemary Kennedy, and many others whose names aren’t nearly as well known but should be.

Drawing on years of explosive reportage and written in electric prose, Ask Not is a long-overdue reckoning with this fabled family and a consequential part of American history that is still very much with us. At long last, Callahan redirects the spotlight to the women in the Kennedys’ orbit, paying homage to those who freed themselves and giving voice to those who, through no fault of their own, could not.

If you share an interest in the Kennedy family, here you go: https://amzn.to/3HgoumU

We have a big trip coming up at the end of June that I cannot wait to share with you! I should have plenty of time to read on vacation and I cannot wait. Happy reading!