Must-Read Fiction: 7 Books to Add to Your Beach Bag
Summertime and the reading is easy… There’s nothing better than a perfect summer day out, whether you go lie on the beach, or camp by a lake, or picnic in the park. But you know what spoils a perfect summer day? A lousy book. You expend all that effort packing, traveling and parking, then finding the perfect spot for your towel or blanket, and then unpacking and applying sunscreen, etc. So you don’t want a bad book to ruin all that effort. That’s why we’ve got a list of 7 books to add to your beach bag! This selection of must-read fiction is guaranteed to keep your good day going, and have you flipping pages until the sun goes down.
Golden Girl
by Elin Hilderbrand
Elin Hiderbrand, dubbed "the queen of beach reads" by New York Magazine, is back with another fantastic page-turner about a Nantucket author who dies in an accident and is given one final summer to watch the events surrounding her life. When novelist Vivian Howe is killed in a hit-and-run car accident while jogging near her home on Nantucket, she ascends to the Beyond. There she is told she can watch her family below for one last summer, and even use a few "nudges" to affect outcomes. Meanwhile, the sheriff is closing in on the person responsible for Vivian's death and it may unearth a secret from her past.
The Siren
by Katherine St. John
And here's another great addition to your list of books to read this summer. This is a sizzling tale about a Hollywood heartthrob, his co-star ex-wife, and a film set on an isolated island that will stir up long-held secrets. Cole Power and his ex-wife, Stella Rivers, have agreed to star in a surefire blockbuster being filmed on the Caribbean island of St. Genesius. But the strom brewing off the coast isn't the only tempest that threatens to upend the production.
The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu
by Tom Lin
And you should definitely add this thrilling Western adventure to your beach reads! It's about a Chinese American assassin, Ming Tsu, who was raised by the notorious crime boss to be a deadly killer. When Ming's wife is kidnapped and he's conscripted into service for the California Railroad, it doesn't take long for him to escape and be headed to rescue his love and exact his revenge. Along the way he'll be joined by a clairvoyant prophet and a troupe of circus performers with supernatural powers.
What's Mine and Yours
by Naima Coster
This was a Read with Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick! It's an excellent novel about legacy, identity, race, and wanting the best for your family. When a North Carolina school draws students from the largely Black east side of town into predominantly white high schools on the west, it sets off a chain of events for two students, Gee and Noelle, that will effect them and their families for decades.
This Close to Okay
by Leesa Cross-Smith
And this is an emotionally powerful novel about a weekend that changes the lives of two strangers. Driving home on a rainy night in October, recently divorced therapist Tallie Clark sees a man standing on the edge of a bridge. She stops and convinces him to get in her car and join her for a cup of coffee at home. His name is Emmett, and as he slowly opens up to Tallie over the weekend about his circumstances, she realizes that they both have some healing to do.
Feral Creatures
by Kira Jane Buxton
In the fabulous follow-up to the amazing speculative novel Hollow Kingdom, foul-mouthed crow S.T. is facing new adventures as he begins to make his way through a world ravaged by an apocalypse. Armed with a love of Cheetos, a filthy vocabulary, and a renewed faith in nature, and featuring a whole new cast of animal characters, readers follow along as S.T. sets off to see if he can save what is left of humanity.
Homeland Elegies
by Ayad Akhtar
And this is one of the most celebrated novels of the last year. It was one of the New York Times 10 Best Books of the Year, one of Barack Obama's favorite books of 2020, and a finalist for the 2021 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. It's a powerful story about a father and son, trying to make sense of life and understand what it is to call a place home, in a post 9/11 world. Akhtar attempts to make sense of it all through the lens of a story about one family, from America, to Europe, to Afghanistan.
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