The Perfect Summer Read.

 RHYS BOWEN: I came home from England this week to some good news. My upcoming book, MRS ENDICOTT’S SPLENDID ADVENTURE, is named one of the best books of summer by Book Bub. Also a really good Kirkus review (amazing, right?)

https://www.bookbub.com/blog/best-books-summer-2025?position=seemore&source=multicontent&target=title

As you probably know it’s a story about a woman who makes a new life for herself in a small Mediterranean village.  Also as most of you know, I love to travel, and my favorite haunts are around the Mediterranean–French Riviera, Italy, Greece. Unfortunately my travels have been limited recently, due to John’s precarious health so most of my travel has been done vicariously, via books.

Being part of this lovely list has made me wonder what is my perfect summer book. Nothing scary or too tense. A happy or at least satisfying ending. And a gorgeous setting. So thank you, Jenn, for writing Paris is Always a Good Idea a couple of years ago. Set in three places I adore.

I always love a touch of romance in the book, a touch of mystery… a strange letter, or, in the case of my new book, a mystery surrounding the owner of an abandoned villa. 

Several books set in Italy come to mind. I loved Julianne Maclean’s THESE TANGLED VINES, about a woman who inherits part of a vineyard in Tuscany. Or THE BEAUTIFUL RUINS, set on the Italian coast. Last year I remember reading THE HOUSE ON THE CERULEAN SEA. Not the sort of book I usually read but I was fascinated and ended up loving it.

There is nothing nicer than sitting on a beach, in the shade of a tree, on a veranda looking out over a lake with a glass of something long and cool and a good book, is there? I’m looking forward to that this summer. 

So Reds, it’s your turn. What are your summer books. What have been recent favorites?

LUCY BURDETTE: we’ll talk more about what we’re reading next week, but Rhys made me think about Ann Mah’s THE LOST VINTAGE and Juliet Blackwell’s OFF THE WILD COAST OF BRITTANY. I think a lot of the appeal of summer books is setting–going someplace in the book and in your head that you can’t or won’t actually be visiting!

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I’m going to suggest something WAY different, but it’s been a favorite book since I was in high school: THE STORIES OF JOHN CHEEVER (1978.) Yes, I still have my battered paperback copy I got in high school! First, short stories are ideal for summer, when your want to get some reading in and then jump in the pool or start the BBQ. Second, even though the stories range over the seasons, many of them are set in what feels like an eternal WASP summer that’s been utterly lost in time. 

Third, the writing is magnificently beautiful. And fourth, Cheever’s characters, unlike the folks in the contemporary beach reads I also love, are not having a good time. You can digest a short story and then walk away, thinking, “Thank God I’m where I am,” as opposed to when I read one of Nancy Thayer’s books and I walk away wishing I could be summering in Nantucket!

JENN McKINLAY: Congratulations, Rhys! That is wonderful and I can’t wait until August 5th to grab a copy of Mrs. Endicott’s Splendid Adventure. This is such a great question, Rhys! And thank you for the nod to Paris is Always a Good Idea (I have some BIG news in regards to that title that I can’t share yet – SORRY! I hate it when people post that sort of thing and yet here I am doing it anyway – lol). 

Anyway, for me summer is always about a BIG book. When I was a teen, summer was when I tackled Gone with the Wind, The Bastard (John Jakes), Watership Down, and The Once and Future King. Now as an adult, I go for high fantasy like A Court of Thorn and Roses (a few years ago) or since we’re all studying Japanese for next year’s trip I will endeavor to read Clavell’s Shogun or something similar. Suggestions on Japanese historicals, anyone?   

HALLIE EPHRON: Yay Rhys! Big congrats!! 

I’m afraid my idea of a “summer book” used to be a really long slow read that I could take on vacation. I remember going 2 months through Europe on Eurail with Gunther Grasse’s THE TIN DRUM. 600 pages. I loved it but the only thing I remember about it was a particularly grisly  scene that involved a horse’s head and eels. I was young and and a stronger stomach.

And speaking of “late to the party” and lighter reads, I’m looking forward finally to THE MAID by Nita Prose and Elizabeth Strout’s OLIVE, AGAIN.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Yes, so much fun to read a big immersive summer book - - like THE WINDS OF WAR which I remember absolutely devouring on vacation. I bet that’s still good. I wonder… I can always tell my summer paperbacks, because they are all fluttery with salt water and sunscreen and get sand in the bindings. I love that! Oh, andI know I read THE OTHER SIDE OF MIDNIGHT by Sidney Sheldon, one loooong-ago summer, and I still think about it.  Oooh, and VALLEY OF THE DOLLS. (Right?)   And yes yes, THE GODFATHER! 

The summer I met Jonathan, I remember being at then-his house, and reading  THE GREEN MILE, by Stephen King, which came out in weekly (if I remember correctly)  little chap books. so you could only read several chapters  (maybe 10?)  at a time, and then you had to wait till the next week  for the next installment. It was absolutely riveting. and every memory of that book is also filled with sunshine and the fragrance of Bain de Soleil. 

RHYS:  Hank, I remember the Winds of War. I bought it for John when we had a getaway to Acapulco. He started it on the plane. He sat in the hotel room, the perfect hotel room on the beach, and read it while I went to swim, went to Lunch, went to the Folklorico show etc etc. He did not leave that blasted room once! But he finished the book in a weekend.

How about you, Reddies? What is your idea of the perfect summer book?

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Woo hoo, Rhys!! That is fabulous, and I wish I was going on summer vacation just so I could read Mrs. Endicott again. 

I can't remember when I've read a big summer beach-hammocky sort of book, but I'd like it to be long and not something I'd ordinarily pick up. I have been contemplating a reread of Lord of the Rings, so….