Beach Reads
Summer is my favorite time of the year. The days are longer, the sun shines until late in the evening, shoes aren’t mandatory, boat rides are the perfect way to spend the afternoon, a bathing suit with a T-shirt is an acceptable outfit, and you can catch up on your favorite titles while sitting on the beach, soaking in the sun. Every summer there are more stories that I want to read than I have time for, so I tend to gravitate to my favorite authors. These are the titles that I consider must reads from my favorite authors this summer.
“The Tenant” by Freida McFadden
Blake Porter seems to have it all until his world unravels. One moment he’s a successful marketing VP, the next he’s jobless and scrambling to hold on to the lavish brownstone he shares with his fiancée Krista. With bills piling up, Blake makes a snap decision to rent out a room. Whitney appears like the perfect tenant: She’s friendly, attractive, and seemingly normal. Until some unsettling changes creep into Blake’s life. His neighbors grow cold. A foul stench lingers in the house, no matter how obsessively he cleans. And then there are the noises, those eerie, inexplicable sounds that wake him night after night. As paranoia takes root, Blake begins to suspect that Whitney isn’t who she claims to be and worse, someone might be on to the secrets he thought were buried.
“Atmosphere: A Love Story” by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Joan Goodwin has always found comfort in the cosmos. Quiet and introspective, she’s built a peaceful life as a physics and astronomy professor at Rice University, while helping raise her spirited niece, Frances. But when she stumbles upon a NASA ad seeking the first female scientists for the space shuttle program, her once-distant dreams ignite into something urgent and unstoppable. In the summer of 1980, Joan is selected from among thousands to train at Houston’s Johnson Space Center. There, she meets an unforgettable team of astronauts: the effortlessly cool Top Gun pilots Hank Redmond and John Griffin; Lydia Danes, a brilliant but guarded mission specialist; Donna Fitzgerald, who masks emotional weight with warmth; and Vanessa Ford, a mysterious, magnetic engineer with sky-high talent. Together, they forge deep bonds as they prepare for a place few humans will ever go. Through this intense, exhilarating journey, Joan not only rediscovers her sense of purpose but also experiences a powerful, unexpected kind of love, one that reshapes how she sees herself, her past, and her place in the universe. Then, during a pivotal mission in December 1984, a single moment changes everything.
“With a Vengeance” by Riley Sager
In 1942, Anna Matheson’s life was shattered by the actions of six individuals. Now, more than a decade later, she’s done waiting for justice, she’s going to deliver it herself. Disguising her intentions, Anna orchestrates a cunning plan: lure her family’s betrayers onto a lavish overnight train from Philadelphia to Chicago. Her mission is clear: extract confessions, expose the truth, and hand the guilty over to the authorities waiting at the final stop. Everything is meticulously planned … until one of the passengers turns up dead. As the train thunders through the darkness, Anna’s carefully planned scheme unravels. Someone else aboard is playing a far more lethal game, one that could end with a trail of bodies instead of closure. With just hours until the train arrives, Anna must unmask a killer, protect her enemies, and risk everything she has left, including her life.
“Under the Stars” by Beatriz Williams
Audrey Fisher has spent her life trying to carve out her own identity in the shadow of her mother. As a rising star in the culinary world, she’s fought to be known for her own talent, not as the daughter of legendary actress Meredith Fisher, whose glamour masks decades of unresolved pain and a tragic past. When circumstances force them back to exclusive, secretive Winthrop Island, neither woman is eager to revisit the ghosts they left behind. But when Audrey stumbles across an old trunk among her estranged father’s possessions, it sets off a chain of revelations. Inside lies a collection of paintings that are possibly the long-lost work of a famed American artist. Questions pile up. Who is the enigmatic woman captured again and again on the canvas? And how did these masterpieces end up hidden beneath the Mohegan Inn? Flash back to 1846, Providence Dare flees Boston under a false name, boarding the steamship Atlantic to outrun both scandal and suspicion. But when disaster strikes at sea and the ship is caught in a brutal storm, Providence finds herself cornered by the very man hunting her, a relentless detective investigating the suspicious death of her employer, the artist Henry Irving. With Winthrop Island looming ahead, she must gamble everything for her freedom.
“Don’t Let Him In” by Lisa Jewell
Nick Radcliffe appears to be the perfect man. He’s charming, cultured, and effortlessly kind. For Nina Swann, recently widowed and reeling from grief, Nick is a welcome light in the darkness. But her daughter, Ash, isn’t so easily convinced. Something about Nick’s perfect exterior doesn’t sit right. Without her mother’s knowledge, Ash begins peeling back the layers of his past and what she uncovers is anything but comforting. Meanwhile, in a nearby town, Martha tries to hold together her peaceful life with her baby daughter and loving husband, Alistair. But as Alistair’s business trips grow longer and more frequent, her sense of unease grows, too. Though he offers reasonable answers, Martha can’t shake the feeling that something, or someone, is being hidden from her. As Nina, Ash, and Martha each follow their own paths toward the truth, their stories begin to intertwine. What awaits them is more sinister than any of them could have foreseen. Some lies are wrapped in smiles, some truths buried deep, and one man holds the key to it all.
“The Unraveling of Julia” by Lisa Scottoline
Julia Pritzker’s life is spiraling. After losing her adoptive parents and then her husband in a tragic murder, she starts to believe her misfortunes may be more than coincidence. A chilling detail only deepens her dread: Her horoscope eerily predicted his death. With grief giving way to paranoia, Julia begins to wonder if her destiny is truly her own. Then, out of nowhere, a letter arrives. A mysterious woman named Emilia Rossi has left Julia a villa and vineyard nestled in the hills of Tuscany. The name means nothing to Julia, yet the inheritance seems impossibly personal. Could Emilia be a hidden link to Julia’s unknown birth family? Seeking clarity, Julia travels to Italy, but what she finds is far from comforting. Emilia Rossi turns out to have been a solitary and unstable woman, obsessed with the idea that she was a descendant of the powerful Renaissance figure Duchess Caterina Sforza. Even more unnerving? Julia bears a striking resemblance to both Emilia and the long-dead duchess and discovers they shared an intense fixation with astrology and fate. Soon, Julia begins to suspect she’s being watched. When terror finally erupts into violence, Julia’s grip on reality starts to fray.
