What is your idea of the perfect summer beach read? A light romantic comedy? Maybe a fast-paced thriller or a head-scratching who-dunnit?
For me, I like my vacation reads fast-paced and fun, something light that I can spend a lazy afternoon with. This month, I picked a couple of lighter reads, a sort of palate cleanser before my two month journey of darkness, The 31 Books of Halloween, begins on September 1.
First up is a new cozy mystery series from Mindy Quigley, Six Feet Deep Dish. Set in a small resort town in Wisconsin, we have a woman opening a pizza shop who stumbles onto a murder and is aided by her quirky friend and an oversized cat named Butterball. Basically, all the markers of a good cozy! My other selection is one from a series I haven’t picked up in some time, Janet Evanovich’s Eleven on Top. I think it’s been nearly two years since I last visited private eye Stephanie Plum and her weirdly chaotic world and I think it’s time to fix that!
July Wrap-Up
My July reading goal was to catch up on my 2022 TBR that I had set at the beginning of the year. I did finish two from the list of twenty-two, Crow Lake by Mary Lawson, and You Will Be Safe Here by Damian Barr. Both were good overall, but for my reading experience I felt they both fell a bit flat at times, thus my 3.5 star ratings for both. I also started a third book from my 2022 TBR, The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa. I’m only about 16% into it, but it’s shaping up to be a potentially intense and perhaps tragic read.
Goodreads Group Reads
The past couple of months, it seems like the same titles have been coming up in my Goodreads groups for their monthly reads, but Shine and Shadow has one that has been on my to-read for a bit now: Five Little Indians by Michelle Good. The story of five indigenous children taken from their families and sent to a remote religious residential school, their journeys into adulthood and their struggles to cope with the trauma they endured. Not a light read for sure, but I’ve heard a lot of great things so I’m hoping to track down a copy soon.
What is on your August reading list? Drop me a line and let’s talk books!
Stay safe and Happy Reading!