Beach Books, Summer Reading

Hello! It's August! Definitely time for the beach...
or the lake, the mountains. Paris? [no.]

No beach bag is complete without a good novel to read while relaxing under the umbrella, toes curling happily into the dry white sand!


totes from LL Bean

Here's a brief round up of a few recent reads....

James MacManus The Language of the Sea: half science*-half fantasy, a charming novel that really took me by surprise.
Despite the many errors of the Cape Cod setting (I am surprised his editors didn't catch some of these! For ex, the Coast Guard tells Leo's family he should be able to survive in the warm May water of Nantucket Sound. Hello? In May NS's water is in the 50's F and estimated exposure-til-death elapsed time is 1-6 hours. Or high tide coming at the same time every day;  the widow's lover in what seems to be the next town...Falmouth to Chatham is over fifty miles, more than an hour's drive! A pivotal Island that does not, could not exist on a Continental Shelf which is there but nott THERE....etc etc....) I enjoyed every page of this unique story. The ending is perfect! A little garbled re: sequences....when? huh? but perfect.
*The science is murky at best; the protagonist, Leo Kemp is supposed to be a marine biologist; obviously the writer is NOT and it shows. Still loved it!click here for details

James Patterson/ Michael Ledwedge have a fast paced, riproaring thriller/ mystery in Now You See Her. Set in exotic, fun-filled (well not if you're our heroine) Key West.
Oh the plot twists, turns, and tries to surprise. Or maybe I/m just the suspicious type? I was actually amazed that Nina's new boyfriend the laid-back K lawyer is not in cahoots...well, I won't spoil it.
And the final revelation? Saw it coming like a freight train from about page 5. But cool heroine, I loved Nina...and a good story. Def. worth a spot on the list! details

Elin Hilderbrand's Silver Girl was pretty good, but I hope or more, better, when I open one of Hilderbrand's Nantucket novels.
The two post middle aged heroines are annoying. One is a thinly disguised version of Mrs Bernie Madoff and the plot revolves around her story. Just how you picture Mrs Madoff's life must have been. Gee, too bad. And I kept cringing that the son would commit suicide*, that's how close it is to what I can recall about the Madoff story! (*he doesn't.)
And this is another Cape Cod and the Island book with oddball errors, repeated again and again. (Note to author: eel grass is seaweed; marsh grass is phragmites.Esoteric?---maybe but the woman in the book is supposed to be someone who knows her native beach lore intimately and well; a Nantucket almost-native. details

Best for last: Luanne Rice. The Silver Boat. Rice's books are so beautiful, so lyrical. Gently intricate. Picture perfect, details, like the small cottage on the ancient Matha's Vineyard land grant plot.
The heroine is an artist who does graphic novels! And the descriptions of it all...sigh. I want to be there with the sisters, share their lives....
Just so ...lovely. details





And...a pretty tech sleeve for your eReader/
Kindle/ whatever from Vera Bradley. Great colors!

How about you guys? Any summer favs so far?  My Kindle is almost empty, I'm just slogging through Brad Thor's tedious Full Black....? Man needs an editor to red pencil and write in telling (as opposed to showing.)
Very boring. And , uh, Sweden? Hotbed of terrorism?
I'll stick with my man Mitch Rapp, by Vince Flynn. Action all the way! (coming soon, I think.) details

So let me know what  you liked this summer, okay?


love

     lizzy

gone to the beach.......

PS I should add that both the Brad Thor book and Hilderbrand's Silver Girl got much better reviews than the one's I just gave. So????

 psst! more pretty beach totes! these are from Vera Bradley, like the Kindle sleeve....

web photos except the beach pix are by me...