The Mixed Marriage Project: A Memoir of Love, Race, and Family by Dorothy Roberts was recommended by a friend. I listened to it on a recent long car trip and was totally drawn in. Amazon: “Dorothy Roberts grew up in a deeply segregated Chicago of the 1960s where relationships barely crossed the “colorline.” Yet inside her own home, where her father was white and her mother a Black Jamaican immigrant, interracial marriage wasn’t just a part of her upbringing, it was a shared mission. Her father, an anthropologist, spent her entire childhood working on a book about Black-white marriages—a project he never finished but shaped every aspect of their family life. As a twenty-one-year-old graduate student, Dorothy’s father dedicated himself to the study of interracial marriage and her mother soon became his full-time partner in that work. Together over the years they interviewed over five hundred couples and assembled stunning stories about interracial marriages that took place as early as the 1880s—studying, but also living, championing, and believing in their power to advance social equality. Decades later, while sorting through her father’s papers, Roberts uncovers a truth that upends everything she thought she knew about her family: her father’s research didn’t begin with her parents’ love story—it came long before it. This discovery forces her to wrestle with her father’s intentions, her own views about interracial relationships, and where she fits in that story. Rather than finish the book her father never published, Roberts immerses herself in their archive of interviews to trace the story of her parents and to better understand her own. Though grounded in her parents’ research, it’s Roberts’s captivating storytelling that drives this memoir. In following the arc of her parents’ interviews and marriage, The Mixed Marriage Project invites us into the everyday lives of interracial couples in Chicago over four decades. Along the way, Roberts reflects on her own childhood as a Black girl with a white father, and how those experiences shaped her into one of today’s most prominent public thinkers and scholars on race. Blurring the boundaries between the political and the personal, between memoir and history, The Mixed Marriage Project is a deeply moving meditation on family, race, identity, and love.” This was a wonderful and interesting book, though a long audiobook. A great listen, though. I love how the family story weaves into the history.

Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood was another one recommended by a friend this summer. While not a new read, and a bit long, overall, it was a good fictionalized true story. “It’s 1843, and Grace Marks has been convicted for her involvement in the vicious murders of her employer and his housekeeper and mistress. Some believe Grace is innocent; others think her evil or insane. Now serving a life sentence, Grace claims to have no memory of the murders. An up-and-coming expert in the burgeoning field of mental illness is engaged by a group of reformers and spiritualists who seek a pardon for Grace. He listens to her story while bringing her closer and closer to the day she cannot remember. What will he find in attempting to unlock her memories?” (Amazon) I did really get into this story, but I couldn’t give it four-and-a-half stars becuase it was too, too long.

Emily Giffin is always good for a beach read and Love You More was no exception. Easily readable in a day on the beach, it was a good story even though some of it was a little implausible. Amazon: “Billie has built the perfect life. Her medical practice in New York City is thriving, and she’s finally found the right partner in Dean after years spent trying to move on from her high-school sweetheart, Mick. Their young love had been intense and true, but distance and ambition pulled them apart when she left Wisconsin for medical school. Then one morning, just after she’s accepted Dean’s romantic marriage proposal, Billie’s phone rings. It’s Mick—calling for the first time in nearly a decade. His news is urgent and in a moment, everything changes. As Billie boards a plane back to Wisconsin, her past comes rushing in—her hometown friendships, the love she and Mick shared, and the choices that shaped them all. What awaits her is a reckoning with what she’s lost, what she’s built, and what she still wants.” Good choice to throw in your beach bag.

Only Daughter by Anna was also left in my little free library. Amazon: “In 2003, sixteen-year-old Rebecca Winter disappeared. She’d been enjoying her summer break: working at a fast-food restaurant, crushing on an older boy and shoplifting with her best friend. Mysteriously ominous things began to happen—a presence in her room at night, periods of blackouts, a feeling of being watched—though Bec remained oblivious of what was to come. Eleven years later she is replaced. A young woman, desperate after being arrested, claims to be the decade-missing Bec.” This was a very quick and easy read and surprisingly good. I definitely did not predict the ending at all.

Laurie Frankel is a terrific writer and I was excited to get Enormous Wings as an audiobook from the library. “At seventy-seven, Pepper Mills is too old to be a stranger in a strange land. She didn’t choose the Vista View Retirement Community of Austin, Texas—that would be her three grown children—but when she grudgingly moves in, she not only makes new friends, she falls in love. Then the exhaustion, vomiting, and confusion start. She fears it’s cancer, dementia, a stroke. But a raft of tests later, the news is even more shocking: She’s pregnant. As word gets out, everyone wants a piece of her: the press and paparazzi, activists and medical researchers, belly-rubbers and rubber-neckers all descending on Vista View while Pepper struggles to determine her next move. Soon she has some hard decisions to make—and some she’s not allowed to make. Enormous Wings is an urgent novel about female agency and bodily autonomy, morality and mortality. It’s about what happens when you don’t get to choose anymore. It’s about motherhood and family, sex and love and friendship, and how those bedrocks—even so late in the day—can still change, and then change everything.” (Amazon) This was a terrific listen. Highly recommend!

I like Christina Baker Kline and was excited to learn something new in The Foursome: A Novel – A Sweeping Historical Fiction of Two Sisters and a Forgotten Chapter of American History. “When Eng and Chang Bunker arrive in Wilkes County in 1839, they’re not just a curiosity—they’re a sensation. Everyone is eager to learn whether the salacious rumors about them are true. Within months, the twins have opened a general store, bought land, and begun building a plantation. Now, word has it, they’re looking for wives—and in a place that thrives on gossip and legacy, their ambitions set the community on edge. Sarah and Adelaide Yates, daughters of a once-prominent local family brought low by scandal, are drawn into their orbit. Bold, beautiful Adelaide sees in the twins’ fame a chance to reclaim her future. Sarah, quiet and observant, isn’t so sure. When the twins’ lives become entangled with theirs, they must navigate loyalty, longing, and identity in a world where everything—including race, class, and gender—is rigidly defined. Spanning five decades and unfolding against the backdrop of a fractured nation hurtling toward war, The Foursome is both intimate and epic: a story of love and constraint, identity and reinvention. With piercing insight and emotional precision, Kline brings to life a forgotten chapter of American history and the complex, boundary-defying marriages at its center.” (Amazon) This was a GREAT read. I really, really enjoyed it. It wasn’t one of the best ever, but it was pretty close. A great choice.

The Weekend by Bernhard Schlink was left in my little free library and I liked The Reader, so I thought it would be worth a try. I hated this book, I am sorry to say. I skimmed through it to find out the ending, but otherwise, not for me. “Old friends and lovers reunite for a weekend in a secluded country home after spending decades apart. They excavate old memories and pass clandestine judgments on the wildly divergent paths they’ve taken since their youth. But this isn’t just any reunion, and their conversations about the old days aren’t your typical reminiscences: After twenty-four years, Jörg, a convicted murderer and terrorist, has been released from prison. The announcement of his pardon will send shock waves through the country, but before the announcement, his friends—some of whom were Baader-Meinhof sympathizers or those who clung to them—gather for his first weekend of freedom. They have been summoned by Jörg’s devoted sister, Christiane, whose concern for her brother’s safety is matched only by the unrelenting zeal of Marko, a young man intent on having Jörg continue to fight for the cause.” (Amazon) While the cover is nice on this one, I’d give it a skip.

This is Not About Us by Allegra Goodman came highly recommended from a friend whose book choices I agree with. “Was this just a brief skirmish, or the beginning of a thirty-year feud? In the Rubinstein family, it could go either way. When their beloved sister passes away, Sylvia and Helen Rubinstein are unmoored. A misunderstanding about apple cake turns into a decade of stubborn silence. Busy with their own lives—divorces, dating, career setbacks, college applications, bat mitzvahs and ballet recitals—their children do not want to get involved. As for their grandchildren? Impossible. With This Is Not About Us, master storyteller Allegra Goodman—whose prior collection was heralded as ‘one of the most astute and engaging books about American family life’ (The Boston Globe)—returns to the form and subject that endeared her to legions of readers. Sharply observed and laced with humor, This Is Not About Us is a story of growing up and growing old, the weight of parental expectations, and the complex connection between sisters—a big-hearted book about the love that binds a family across generations.” (Amazon) I enjoyed this one. A good, family story. Not much happens, but it doesn’t really have to.

Love Story by Lindsey Kelk is another choice I added to my summer list for no particular reason other than a romance is a nice beach option. Amazon: “She’s a small-town schoolteacher, he’s a hotshot creative director. Together, it’s hate at first sight. Sophie Taylor has a secret and Joe Walsh is the last person she’d tell. He’s devilishly handsome, incredibly hot – and far too sure of himself. But Sophie desperately needs his help. Because she’s not just hiding something small. She is Este Cox, the mysterious romance author the entire world is desperate to unmask. When a trip to the countryside means sharing a cottage with only one bed, it’s a short step to sharing a whole lot more besides… Can Sophie trust Joe with the truth – and be herself?” This was an entertaining summer read, but took forever for the romance to actually happen, which was a little painful.

I am not sure why I added The Bridesmaid by Cate Quinn to my summer reading list. It only has 3.6 stars on Amazon, which generally is a clue to me that it isn’t going to be a choice I love. “When a celebrity bridesmaid is murdered weeks before an exclusive society wedding, forensic attorney Holly Stone is drafted as an unlikely undercover replacement. As she works to unpick the lives of the notoriously private Kensington family, glamour-averse Holly discovers a new worst enemy in bridezilla Adrianna. Heir to a multimillion dollar fortune, Adrianna is set on throwing the event of the decade, and she won’t let anything get in her way. But beneath the veneer of poise and sophistication, Adrianna and her bridesmaids have secrets worth killing for. As the wedding day gets closer, it’s clear that one of the five hand-picked bridesmaids has committed murder – and a destination wedding is a perfect place to strike again. Soon, Holly finds herself on the playground of the rich and famous, but if she wants to find answers, she’ll have to make it out alive.” (Amazon) This was an entertaining enough beach read, but nothing amazing.