by Beth Cronk, Meeker County Librarian
Summer is the season of beach reads. So what is a beach read? It depends on who you ask, but it’s generally
a fun, not-too-heavy or intellectual book.
It could be a romance or a thriller, often something exciting that keeps
readers turning the pages, or something sweet and lightweight. Our library has plenty of choices for something
entertaining to read on the patio or on your vacation.
What better way to start than with a book with “beach” in
the title?
Beach House Reunion by Mary
Alice Monroe is the fifth in her “Beach House” series.
Monroe’s books are set in coastal South Carolina,
and her stories always feature wildlife somehow.
Sea turtles play a key part in this series.
Beach House Reunion brings together three
generations of a family at the cottage to face some destructive family patterns
and find hope for moving forward.
The
descriptions I read from the book made me want to sit next to Lake Superior and
feel the peace that comes from being next to a huge body of water.
For another beach setting to visit in your imagination, look
for
The Perfect Couple by Elin Hilderbrand, which is set on Nantucket Island.
The maid of honor’s body is discovered in
Nantucket Harbor hours before the extravagant wedding of a prominent couple,
and the story turns into a murder mystery, with flashbacks to the wedding
preparations.
Everyone has their
secrets.
Although some characters from
Hilderbrand’s previous books make appearances, this one stands alone.
Susan Wiggs is a very popular author, sometimes writing
romances and sometimes general fiction.
Her new book is
Between You & Me.
Caleb has returned to Amish life to raise his orphaned niece and
nephew.
Reese is an emergency room doctor
expected to live up to her parents’ plans for her.
They meet when she treats his nephew, and
each learns about the other’s world and the restricting expectations they both
live with.
If you like spy thrillers,
London Rules by Mick Herron
could be just the thing, especially if you also like some humor.
This is the fifth book in the Slough House
series
about
maverick British spies, some of whom have been relegated to dull desk jobs.
Herron’s style is often compared to John Le Carr
é.
In this novel, political shenanigans and a couple of odd terrorist
attacks have the MI5 agents breaking the rules.
For some summertime chills, reach for the new Stephen King, The Outsider, a mixture of mystery and horror.
A well-liked, respectable man is arrested for a terrible crime because
of eyewitness, fingerprint, and DNA evidence.
But he has evidence that he wasn’t there when the crime was committed. How can both things be true? This novel is being compared to King’s
classic It but relevant for our current era.
Some other new books in our collection that sound promising
as summer reads are
Before and Again by domestic fiction novelist Barbara Delinsky,
By Invitation Only by South Carolina author Dorothea Benton Frank,
The Cast by the reliably popular Danielle Steel,
Convenience Store Woman by Japanese
author Sayaka Murata, and
Lying in Wait by Irish author Liz Nugent. Take some
time this summer to relax and settle in with a fun book.
