I LOVED Sandwich by Catherine Newman. It was the perfect beach read for someone in their early 50s with almost grown children. Amazon: “For the past two decades, Rocky has looked forward to her family’s yearly escape to Cape Cod. Their humble beach-town rental has been the site of sweet memories, sunny days, great meals, and messes of all kinds: emotional, marital, and—thanks to the cottage’s ancient plumbing—septic too. This year’s vacation, with Rocky sandwiched between her half-grown kids and fully aging parents, promises to be just as delightful as summers past—except, perhaps, for Rocky’s hormonal bouts of rage and melancholy. (Hello, menopause!) Her body is changing—her life is, too. And then a chain of events sends Rocky into the past, reliving both the tenderness and sorrow of a handful of long-ago summers.” A terrific read, funny in parts, that speaks to the middle-aged life.

I loved This is How it Always Is by Laurie Frankel. Family Family, her latest, was a disappointment. “India Allwood grew up wanting to be an actor. Armed with a stack of index cards (for research/line memorization/make-shift confetti), she goes from awkward sixteen-year-old to Broadway ingenue to TV superhero. Her new movie is a prestige picture about adoption, but its spin is the same old tired story of tragedy. India is an adoptive mom in real life though. She wants everyone to know there’s more to her family than pain and regret. So she does something you should never do — she tells a journalist the truth: it’s a bad movie. Soon she’s at the center of a media storm, battling accusations from the press and the paparazzi, from protesters on the right and advocates on the left. Her twin ten-year-olds know they need help – and who better to call than family? But that’s where it gets really messy because India’s not just an adoptive mother…” (Amazon) I really wanted to like this story, but I couldn’t get into it.

I really did not like Several People are Typing by Clavin Kasulke. Amazon: “Gerald, a mid-level employee of a New York–based public relations firm has been uploaded into the company’s internal Slack channels—at least his consciousness has. His colleagues assume it’s an elaborate gag to exploit the new work-from home policy, but now that Gerald’s productivity is through the roof, his bosses are only too happy to let him work from … wherever he says he is. Faced with the looming abyss of a disembodied life online, Gerald enlists his co-worker Pradeep to help him escape, and to find out what happened to his body. But the longer Gerald stays in the void, the more alluring and absurd his reality becomes. Meanwhile, Gerald’s colleagues have PR catastrophes of their own to handle in the real world. Their biggest client, a high-end dog food company, is in the midst of recalling a bad batch of food that’s allegedly poisoning Pomeranians nationwide. And their CEO suspects someone is sabotaging his office furniture. And if Gerald gets to work from home all the time, why can’t everyone? Is true love possible between two people, when one is just a line of text in an app? And what in the hell does the :dusty-stick: emoji mean?” While the idea was creative, I didn’t find this book entertaining and the suspension of disbelief wasn’t possible.

I really liked David Nicholls’ One Day, though I don’t seem to have blogged about it. It was made into a Netflix series that was also good. I didn’t like (and abandoned) Us. You Are Here is his latest and it’s a good one. “Michael is coming undone. Adrift after his wife’s departure, he has begun taking himself on long, solitary walks across the English countryside. Becoming ever more reclusive, he’ll do anything to avoid his empty house. Marnie, on the other hand, is stuck. Hiding alone in her London flat, she avoids old friends and any reminders of her rotten, selfish ex-husband. Curled up with a good book, she’s battling the long afternoons of a life that feels like it’s passing her by. When a persistent mutual friend and some very unpredictable weather conspire to toss Michael and Marnie together on the most epic of ten-day hikes, neither of them can think of anything worse. Until, of course, they discover exactly what they’ve been looking for.” (Amazon) This is a perfect book to throw in your beach bag.

Horse by Geraldine Brooks was recommended by one of my favorite book recommenders. She recommended one of my all-time favorites The Heart’s Invisible Furies, so I always love when I have a new books of hers to choose. Amazon: “A discarded painting in a junk pile, a skeleton in an attic, and the greatest racehorse in American history: from these strands, a Pulitzer Prize winner braids a sweeping story of spirit, obsession, and injustice across American history. Kentucky, 1850. An enslaved groom named Jarret and a bay foal forge a bond of understanding that will carry the horse to record-setting victories across the South. When the nation erupts in civil war, an itinerant young artist who has made his name on paintings of the racehorse takes up arms for the Union. On a perilous night, he reunites with the stallion and his groom, very far from the glamor of any racetrack. New York City, 1954. Martha Jackson, a gallery owner celebrated for taking risks on edgy contemporary painters, becomes obsessed with a nineteenth-century equestrian oil painting of mysterious provenance. Washington, DC, 2019. Jess, a Smithsonian scientist from Australia, and Theo, a Nigerian-American art historian, find themselves unexpectedly connected through their shared interest in the horse—one studying the stallion’s bones for clues to his power and endurance, the other uncovering the lost history of the unsung Black horsemen who were critical to his racing success.” I enjoyed this story and learning more about Lexington. I also liked the weaving of the story across time. It was a little flat for me, though, and I didn’t find it as page-turning as I thought I might.

I haven’t read a Stephen King book in quite a while, but I used to really enjoy his work. “Stephen King’s Holly marks the triumphant return of beloved King character Holly Gibney. Readers have witnessed Holly’s gradual transformation from a shy (but also brave and ethical) recluse in Mr. Mercedes to Bill Hodges’s partner in Finders Keepers to a full-fledged, smart, and occasionally tough private detective in The Outsider. In King’s new novel, Holly is on her own, and up against a pair of unimaginably depraved and brilliantly disguised adversaries. When Penny Dahl calls the Finders Keepers detective agency hoping for help locating her missing daughter, Holly is reluctant to accept the case. Her partner, Pete, has Covid. Her (very complicated) mother has just died. And Holly is meant to be on leave. But something in Penny Dahl’s desperate voice makes it impossible for Holly to turn her down. Mere blocks from where Bonnie Dahl disappeared live Professors Rodney and Emily Harris. They are the picture of bourgeois respectability: married octogenarians, devoted to each other, and semi-retired lifelong academics. But they are harboring an unholy secret in the basement of their well-kept, book-lined home, one that may be related to Bonnie’s disappearance. And it will prove nearly impossible to discover what they are up to: they are savvy, they are patient, and they are ruthless. Holly must summon all her formidable talents to outthink and outmaneuver the shockingly twisted professors in this chilling new masterwork from Stephen King.” (Amazon) This was a good, but not great read, particularly if you are a Stephen King fan.

Goldenseal by Maria Hummel all takes place within a day, with chapters alternating between present and remembrances of the past. Amazon: “Downtown Los Angeles, 1990. Alone in her luxury hotel suite, the reclusive Lacey Crane receives a message: Edith is waiting for her in the lobby. Former best friends, Lacey and Edith haven’t spoken to one another in over four decades. As young adults meeting at summer camp in Maine, and later making their way in the glitzy spotlight of postwar Hollywood, Edith and Lacey share a deep-rooted bond that once saved them from isolation and despair, providing comfort from the public and private traumas that they had each endured and which a newly optimistic world was eager to forget. Told through a continuous, twisting conversation that unfolds over the course of a single evening, in which each woman tells her story and reveals long-hidden secrets, the narratives of Edith and Lacey burn with atmosphere, mystery, resentment, and regret.” I enjoyed this book and peeling back the story of how the friends became estranged. It wasn’t a long read, and one that was interesting.

Happy Memorial Day – the weekend I publish my summer reading recommendations and my own list for summer reading.

I have already posted my choices for good summer reads that I have vetted. This post covers those I am looking forward to biting off myself.

Let me know if you have read and enjoyed or hated any of them. They will be packed in my beach bag…

As I do each year, I have listed here my favorites for the first six months of the year so you can easily find them to take to the beach. 2024 brought five 5-star books and five 4.5-star choices.

I will post another list of those I am reading this summer – who knows if they are going to be good or not…happy summer, everyone!

5-star
The Nix
The Women
The Many Lives of Mama Love
Unreasonable Hospitality
The Postcard

4.5-star
The Berry Pickers
The Last Love Note
The Secret Book of Flora Lea
The Road to Roswell
The True Love Experiment

Links to read my past summer blog posts below.

2023’s summer books are here.
2022’s summer books are here.
2021’s summer books are here.
2020’s summer books are here.
2019’s summer books are here.
2018’s summer books are here.
2017’s summer books are here.