by: Erin Dower
Whether you're on the beach, porch, or couch, summer is the best time to open a book and step into another world. From scorching romance novels to riveting historical fiction and breezy beach reads, consider these popular page-turners to go with your glass of lemonade.
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At the Water's Edge
This new novel by the author of Water for Elephants is set in the Scottish Highlands in the aftermath of World War II. Wealthy Americans Madeline and Ellis Hyde leave behind high-society Philadelphia to move to a remote village in Scotland so that Ellis can hunt down the famous Loch Ness monster — a feat that Ellis' highly accomplished father failed at very publicly years earlier.
In the Unlikely Event
In Blume's first adult novel since the classic Summer Sisters, main character Miri Ammerman returns to her New Jersey hometown in 1987 to reflect on the best and worst of times in her life — the early 1950s. Miri recalls the exciting details of her youth — Elizabeth Taylor's style, Nat King Cole's music, and the promise of young love — marred by strange events: a succession of airplanes falling from the sky into her community during the early days of air travel (based on actual events in Blume's life).
The Matchmaker
Nantucket resident Dabney Beech has a knack for matchmaking, with the pairing of 42 happy couples under her belt. Her husband, renowned economist John Boxmiller Beech, and her daughter, Agnes, (who is clearly engaged to the wrong man) disapprove of Dabney's matchmaking and call it meddlesome. When Dabney's first love, Clen Hughes, returns to the island after 27 years on the other side of the world, she's forced to reflect on her own true match.
Mademoiselle Chanel
This novel imagines the life of Coco Chanel, based on her actual biography. Born into poverty, and sent to an orphanage after her mother's death, Gabrielle Chanel later uses her skills as a seamstress and her newfound connections to the wealthy to blaze a path as a fashion icon. She redefines style in 1920s Paris, rejecting the rigid, corseted styles of her youth for a more casual, minimal, sleek look for the modern woman. Her dazzling rags-to-riches story is full of heartbreak and hope.
Hugo & Rose
Rose has a great life with a beautiful family in a perfectly nice house in the suburbs. But it's overshadowed by her other life — the one she leads every night in her dreams. Ever since a childhood accident, Rose's dreams have transported her to a wondrous island where she shares adventures with Hugo, a brave boy who has grown up alongside her into a hero of a man. When Rose encounters Hugo in real life, will she let go of everything she holds dear to explore this extraordinary connection?
Love and Miss Communication
Evie Rosen can't take it anymore. The late-night emails from the partners at her law firm. The thought of another online date. The endless hashtags and selfies. She decides it's time to ditch her smartphone for good and start fresh with real-life conversations, fewer distractions, and living in the moment. But just because she unplugs her phone doesn't mean she can unplug from life — which is about to take her in a new direction.
The Rocks
This double love story is set against The Rocks, a seaside resort club with dramatic Mediterranean Sea views and lush olive groves. The story opens with a confrontation and a secret: What was the mysterious, catastrophic event that drove two honeymooners apart so suddenly and absolutely in 1948 that they never spoke again, despite living on the same island for more than 60 years? And how did their history come to shape the Romeo-and-Juliet–like romance of their (unrelated) children decades later?
Eight Hundred Grapes
A week before her wedding, 33-year-old Georgia Ford discovers an explosive, life-changing secret her fiancé has been keeping. Seeking comfort, she returns to her family's Sonoma vineyard where she grew up and learned from her long-married parents all the secrets of wine making and romance (the number of grapes it takes to make a bottle of wine: 800; the trick to ending a fight: holding hands). But Georgia soon discovers these aren't the only secrets the vineyard holds...
The Dress Shop of Dreams
This feel-good romance is set in England. Ever since her parents' mysterious death years ago, scientist Cora Sparks has poured her heart into her work at a university lab and taken solace in visiting her grandmother Etta's charming dress shop. Little does Cora know, Etta's needle has bewitching powers to free a woman's deepest desires. Walt, a shy bookseller, has been in love with Cora forever. Determined not to allow Cora to miss her chance at happiness, Etta uses one of her magical stitches to tailor fate and set a series of astonishing events in motion.
Go Set a Watchman
This highly anticipated novel is a companion to Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning To Kill a Mockingbird, published in 1960. Lee originally wrote Go Set a Watchman in the mid-1950s but it was never published. The manuscript was assumed to have been lost, but was discovered in late 2014. Go Set a Watchman features many of the same characters as To Kill a Mockingbird about 20 years later. Jean Louise "Scout" Finch returns home to Maycomb to visit her father, Atticus, and deal with both personal and political issues stemming from her upbringing in the small Alabama town.
