Beach Book Preview

We're heading into Spring Break week here in Alabama, and I'm going to spend a few days on the Gulf Coast (at the lovely place above) with my family. Even though we're still having some chilly weather here, the first beach trip of the year always gets me in the mood for summer...and beach books!

Some of my favorite authors have beach-centered books coming out this summer, and even though I have to wait for them, they're definitely already on my TBR list. I love just looking at the covers alone...











Beachcombers by Nancy Thayer
Beautifully written, powerfully felt, full of both abundant joy and heart-wrenching sorrow, Beachcombers is an extraordinary novel that centers on the bittersweet reunion of three captivating, very different sisters on Nantucket over one gorgeous, exhilarating summer. (Amazon)













The Island by Elin Hilderbrand
Four women head to Tuckernuck for a retreat, hoping to escape their troubles. Intead, they find only drama, secrets, and life-changing revelations. (Borders)

Lowcountry Summer by Dorothea Benton Frank

The South Carolina coast forms a lush backdrop for Dorothea Benton Frank's tales of cheatin' husbands, nosy neighbors, and nutty families. But don't let the sand and palm trees fool you: Frank's very funny novels are smarter than the average beach read. (Barnes & Noble)

Fly Away Home by Jennifer Weiner

From the #1 "New York Times "bestselling author, a novel about a family of women who seek refuge in an old beach house. (Borders)


I'm curious...who's your favorite "summer/beach read" author?

"Waiting On" Wednesday: Perfect Reader

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted here, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

This week's pre-publication "can't-wait-to-read" selection is:

Perfect Reader

By Maggie Pouncey

Publication Date: June 15

From Amazon:

Flora Dempsey is the only child of Lewis Dempsey, beloved former college president and a famous academic in the league of Harold Bloom. On hearing the news of her father’s death, Flora hastily quits her big-city magazine job and returns to her hometown to in­habit his house. But even weightier is her appoint­ment as her father’s literary executor; it seems he was secretly writing poems at the end of his life—love poems, to a girlfriend Flora didn’t even know he had. Suddenly besieged by well-wishers and literary blog­gers alike, Flora has no choice but to figure out how to navigate it all: the fate of the poems, her relation­ship with the girlfriend who wants a place in her life, her memories of her parents’ divorce, and her own uncertain future.

What's your "waiting on" pick this week?

Want to participate? Grab the logo, post your own WoW entry on your blog, and leave a link in the comments section!

Library Loot: 3/5

Library Loot is hosted this week by A Striped Armchair.

Another great week of new releases that came up from my reserve list!

The Gin Closet by Leslie Jamison
Another Life Altogether by Elaine Beale
The Things That Keep Us Here by Carla Buckley
Dear Strangers by Meg Mullins

What did you get this week?

Quotables with Lori Lansens

When I'm reading, I love coming across "just-right" passages that have me reaching for my quote book. Quotables is an event in which I present authors with a meaningful (to me) passage from their novels and ask them to speak to it in whatever way they wish.

I just finished The Wife's Tale by Lori Lansens, an emotional and empowering story of a woman who finds herself in the journey to find the husband who's left her.

One part of the book that really stuck with me was a conversation between the main character and her father:

Shortly before he'd passed, Mary'd confided to Orin her sense of feeling stuck and unbound all at once, her failed attempts at optimism, her sense that she could only see the glass half empty, to which he'd responded impatiently, "Forget about the glass, Murray. Get a drink from the hose and push on."

From the author:

This passage really speaks to the notion of "happiness" -- a motif in the book. As Mary ponders her own lack of fulfillment and what she thinks of as her "abstract malaise," her father, a pragmatist, urges her to just "get on with it."

I'm with Orin. I think we North Americans spend too much time thinking about ourselves in general -- our weight, our needs, our wealth or lack of wealth, etc. Mary decides, as she becomes enlightened, that happiness may simply be the absence of fear. Her sense of fullfillment is strongest when she's thinking about other people and life on a grander scale.

When she stops wondering how to find "happiness," Mary grows to understand that it's there, woven into her rich tapestry of emotion and experience.

You can visit Lori Lansens online here.

"Waiting On" Wednesday: This Must Be the Place

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted here, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

This week's pre-publication "can't-wait-to-read" selection is:

This Must Be the Place

By Kate Racculia

Publication Date: July 6

From Amazon:

The Darby-Jones boardinghouse in Ruby Falls, New York, is home to Mona Jones and her daughter, Oneida, two loners and self-declared outcasts who have formed a perfectly insular family unit: the two of them and the four eclectic boarders living in their house. But their small, quiet life is upended when Arthur Rook shows up in the middle of a nervous breakdown, devastated by the death of his wife, carrying a pink shoe box containing all his wife's mementos and keepsakes, and holding a postcard from sixteen years ago, addressed to Mona but never sent. Slowly the contents of the box begin to fit together to tell a story—one of a powerful friendship, a lost love, and a secret that, if revealed, could change everything that Mona, Oneida, and Arthur know to be true. Or maybe the stories the box tells and the truths it brings to life will teach everyone about love—how deeply it runs, how strong it makes us, and how even when all seems lost, how tightly it brings us together.

What's your "waiting on" pick this week?

Want to participate? Grab the logo, post your own WoW entry on your blog, and leave a link in the comments section!

Library Loot: 2/25

I'm just a few pages away from finishing Secrets of Eden...and six new books from my library reserve list came up this week. As usual, I can't decide which one to read first...!

The Postmistress by Sarah Blake

Model Home by Eric Puchner

The Wife's Tale by Lori Lansens

The Three Weissmanns of Westport by Cathleen Schine

Eight White Nights by Andre Aciman

Brava, Valentine by Adriana Trigiani

Library Loot is hosted by ReadingAdventures.

"Waiting On" Wednesday: Husband and Wife

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted here, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

This week's pre-publication "can't-wait-to-read" selection is:

Husband and Wife

By Leah Stewart

Publication Date: May 4

From HarperCollins:

Sarah Price is thirty-five years old. She doesn't feel as though she's getting older, but there are some noticeable changes: a hangover after two beers, the stray gray hair, and, most of all, she's called “Mom” by two small children. Always responsible, Sarah traded her MFA for a steady job, which allows her husband, Nathan, to write fiction. But Sarah is happy and she believes Nathan is too, until a truth is revealed: Nathan's upcoming novel, Infidelity, is based in fact.

Wise, funny, and sharply drawn, Leah Stewart's Husband and Wife probes our deepest relationships, the promises we make and break, and the consequences they hold for our lives, revealing that it's never too late to step back and start over.

What's your "waiting on" pick this week?

Want to participate? Grab the logo, post your own WoW entry on your blog, and leave a link in the comments section!

"Waiting On" Wednesday: The Nobodies Album

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted here, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

This week's pre-publication "can't-wait-to-read" selection is:

The Nobodies Album

By Carolyn Parkhurst

Publication Date: June 15

From Amazon:

Bestselling novelist Octavia Frost has just completed her latest book—a revolutionary novel in which she has rewritten the last chapters of all her previous books, removing clues about her personal life concealed within, especially a horrific tragedy that befell her family years ago. On her way to deliver the manuscript to her editor, Octavia reads a news crawl in Times Square and learns that her rock-star son, Milo, has been arrested for murder. Though she and Milo haven’t spoken in years—an estrangement stemming from that tragic day—she drops everything to go to him. The “last chapters” of Octavia’s novel are layered throughout The Nobodies Album—the scattered puzzle pieces to her and Milo’s dark and troubled past.

What's your "waiting on" pick this week?

Want to participate? Grab the logo, post your own WoW entry on your blog, and leave a link in the comments section!

"Waiting On" Wednesday: The Last Time I Saw You

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted here, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

This week's pre-publication "can't-wait-to-read" selection is:

The Last Time I Saw You

By Elizabeth Berg

Publication Date: April 6

From Amazon:

From the beloved bestselling author of Home Safe and The Year of Pleasures, comes a wonderful new novel about women and men reconnecting with one another—and themselves—at their fortieth high school reunion.

To each of the men and women, this reunion means something different—a last opportunity to say something long left unsaid, an escape from the bleaker realities of everyday life, a means to save a marriage on the rocks, or an opportunity to bond with a slightly estranged daughter, if only over what her mother should wear. As the onetime classmates meet up over the course of a weekend, they discover things that will irrevocably affect the rest of their lives.

In this beautiful novel, Elizabeth Berg deftly weaves together stories of roads taken and not taken, choices made and opportunities missed, and the possibilities of second chances.

What's your "waiting on" pick this week?

Want to participate? Grab the logo, post your own WoW entry on your blog, and leave a link in the comments section!

Giveaway Reminder: The Murderer's Daughters

Have you entered my giveaway yet for a copy of The Murderer's Daughters??

You have until midnight CST on Sunday, February 7.

Click here to register!