Summer’s Best Reads
With summer officially here June 20th, I’ve already been feeling summery. I’m walking daily, and when I look up, I see sunny skies above a canopy of green leaves populating the tall trees that line the street I live on and breathe a sigh.
I live in the Midwest, so summer means the days are less scheduled, less complicated, and typically involve water and beaches. That may all sound a lot more idyllic than my life really is, but the summer feeling seems special anywhere I go.
Even in summer, though, my life is busy, but I still carve out time to read. While I’ve loved writing my own summer stories, the Love in Dunes Bay books, I have some absolute loves that are timeless for me. My list is short, only three, but in truth endless. This is just a list to inspire you. And the books I’m going to mention here are well known, but I want to emphasize that I love indie books and we all should add those books to our list that are written by hard-working indie authors.
You’ve probably seen the movie, but have you read the book, Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home in Italy, by Frances Mayes? It’s a delight. I love the glimpse at the author’s experience of moving to Italy. There’s something cathartic about getting completely out of your comfort zone and surviving. I once had to cross a huge bridge to get to an interview I needed for an article about nanotechnology. I had a phobia of bridges, and I honestly was worried I’d drive off the bridge. I made it over and breathed in big breaths of relief. Then I realized I’d have to drive back over it to get home. After I made it across on the way home, I was driving through a rural setting waving at farmers in the field and rejoicing I was alive. It was no move to Italy but I was invigorated.
Oh my giddy heart, I love Persuasion, by Jane Austen. I recommend it all the time because it emptied my heart and filled it up again. I was introduced to this book when I watched the movie, The Lakehouse, in which one of my all-time favorite book quotes was written in a letter to the Keanu Reeves character by the Sandra Bullock character in describing their doomed relationship. “…there could have been no two hearts so open, no tastes so similar, no feelings so in unison, no countenances so beloved. Now they were as strangers; nay, worse than strangers, for they could never become acquainted. It was a perpetual estrangement.” If you haven’t read Persuasion, do, yourself a favor this summer and read it in your favorite reading spot. If you already have, read it again.
While summer is a wonderful season, about mid-July I start longing for autumn, maybe even winter. If you’re like me, cool off from the summer heat and at the same time heat up by reading Snowfall at Willow Lake, by Susan Wiggs. Sophie, the main character, moves to a lake community after a terrible tragedy to escape the grief she suffers and to undo mistakes she regrets. I’m not going to give away the story, but she meets an extraordinary man who seems to be able to contain all that she rejects about herself. Here’s a brief excerpt. “…she couldn’t stop the emotions from welling up when he touched her with such tenderness. Here was something she had been missing in her life and until Noah, she had not known precisely what it was. Now she did. There was a special grace and power in holding someone and being held, a feeling of both strength and vulnerability, a sense of safety. Sophie felt it now, unexpectedly and unmistakably, with Noah.”
I’m presently working on a long project, the second book in my Dark Sides series, Hear Me. I’m looking forward to winding it up this year and sending it out into the world.
Leave a comment and let me know your favorite summer reads.
Happy Summer! Be aware. Stay open. Lightning could strike.
Hugs,
Lynn
More Books To Check Out…
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