Secrets and surprises

Nearing the end of August, and I’m still scanning summer book lists, as if I didn’t have enough incoming on my radar. Blogging has taken a back seat to reading and napping on these slow, syrupy days. My mom’s here, and we seem to be competing as to how many books we can each finish [...]

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Destination reading

Sorry I’ve been away so long. The last week or so I’ve been happily hibernating from the heat, eating lemonade bars and getting lost in books.  I motored through Maine and then went south to Folly Beach. Destination reading, so to speak. (I also solved quite a few mysteries along the way, but that’s a future post). J. Courtney Sullivan [...]

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Summer fun fare

Chill out with your favorite cool beverage and a new novel. It’s summer, and hey, readers wanna  have fun. So do the three women in Mary Kay  Andrews’ breezy Summer Rental, who used to channel Cyndi Lauper’s peppy anthem as Catholic schoolgirls in the 1980s. Now Ellis, Julia and Dorie have planned a reunion on  North [...]

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Reading lite

Toss these two novels in the beach bag to share with your mom, sisters, daughters, gal pals. Easy reading that still illuminates the ties of family and friendship. Best-selling romance writer Debbie Macomber’s eighth entry in her Blossom Street series, A Turn in the Road, takes three generations of women from Seattle to Florida on [...]

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Leaving on a jet plane

The Nook is packed: David Nicholl’s One Day, Isabel Wolff’s A Vintage Affair, Iain Pears’ Stones Falls, couple old Martha Grimes & Georgette Heyers, The New Yorker and other assorted books for all seasons and reasons. New Tana French on order. While I’m gone, you might like Deirde Madden’s Molly Fox’s Birthday, Deborah Noyes’ Captivity, [...]

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Easy, breezy summertime

Hollywood calls them rom-coms, as in romantic comedies. Publishers label them chick-lit. I’ve always thought of them as beach books, even if I’m reading them in winter. They make me think of sun and porches and peaches and girl-talk. But now it really is summer, and I’ve been downing them like pink lemonade. Jill Murray, the likeable heroine [...]

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