Even though the season is slowly coming to an end, there is still time to sneak in some incredible summer reads! As always, the Write for Harlequin team have been burning through the TBR stacks and have compiled a list of books that we’ve loved over the last few months. Hopefully you will find something to read in the last few weeks of summer sun!
Deirdre McCluskey is reading…
I love physical books for summer vacation reading. Paperbacks are lightweight, survive being dropped in the lake, and can be used to kill mosquitoes. There’s nothing like the nostalgic fragrance of newsprint, ink and sunscreen, and you don’t get any popup alerts in the middle of the page. So my vacation prep always includes a trip to the bookstore. Here are a couple of reads I picked up this summer.
The first was Slow Horses by Mick Herron. The Slow Horses book series is a few years old now, but I only became aware of it recently after watching the Apple TV series starring Gary Oldman. He plays Jackson Lamb, a jaded British spy in charge of Slough House, where MI5 sends disgraced agents, they don’t want to outright fire to live out the rest of their careers in a purgatory of boring tasks and unimportant assignments. Newly joining this uninspired team is River Cartwright, a passionate young agent who appears to actually know how to do spy things and wants to do them. Before Lamb can rein him in, there’s a newsworthy national terrorism incident and the slow horses are off to the races. Herron draws you in with his fast-paced spy thriller, but you’re soon fascinated by the misfit crew of Slough House and the morally grey office politics of MI5. I tore through the first half squirreled away in a tent on a rainy afternoon and finished it the next day.
My second read was The Wallflower Wager by Tessa Dare. The Wallflower Wager is book 3 of Dare’s Girl Meets Duke series and upon finishing it, I immediately picked up book 1, The Duchess Deal and will be reading book 2, The Governess Game, as soon as I get my hands on it. A pub date for book 4, The Bride Bet, has yet to be announced, much to the frustration of Tessa Dare fans. In The Wallflower Wager, Lady Penelope Campion must come out in society or leave her London home where she lives with an assortment of rescued stray animals and return to her family in the country. Her neighbour, Gabriel Duke, wants to sell the house he’s renovating, but he can only do so if well-born Penny continues to live next door – without her menagerie. It’s historical romance, but you don’t get a lot of history. What you do get is a funny and warm grumpy/sunshine romance with a sexy, glowering hero, an adorably soft-hearted but strong-willed heroine, and a bunch of misfit animals, including a hedgehog, a two-legged dog, a goat and a rude parrot. It’s the perfect read for the dock, the beach or just the couch in your tiny apartment. Grab some cookies and your favourite beverage and enjoy!
Emma Cole is reading…
Stay on the Line by Clay McLeod Chapman: A beautiful little story about grief and loss and love, and what people would do to keep their loved ones alive for just a bit longer. Clay builds worlds that feel so lived in and authentic, and I love reading his work. Trevor’s illustrations here enhance the story perfectly. It’s so short, I don’t want to give anything away because you should just go read it. But Clay packs a giant punch in this very tiny story, giving you fully realized character and setting. It’s a little creepy and unsettling, and very poignant.
Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay: A propulsive read. Took me a minute to get into it but once the story gets going, it sprints to the finish. Some very unsettling scenes and ultimately a melancholy, inevitable sort of dread settles over the whole thing. I really enjoyed it. There are a few moments that I found incredibly gruesome but it’s not about that, not really. An exploration of horror and what scares people, and how it can transform and shape people, burrowing under their skin and making something new. Will be thinking about this one for a while.
Jenny Macey is reading…
I’m a bit late to the party with this one, but I recently read Yellowface by the fantastic R.F. Kuang and absolutely devoured it. The satirical prose was instantly captivating and the fast-paced plot kept me hooked from start to finish. After her writer friend dies in front of her – choking on a pandan pancake! – our jealousy fueled protagonist, June, pilfers the unpublished manuscript of her late (more successful) friend and passes it off as her own work. Her calculatedness, clear disregard for cultural appropriation, and shocking ability to manipulate a situation to fit her own narrative makes June an incredibly unreliable – and more often than not unlikeable – narrator. Yet that’s the brilliance of this book. Getting into June’s mind and seeing the ways she excuses her own wrongdoing, the way she explains away any suspicion or accusations until she almost believes the lies herself, was utterly fascinating. And as someone who works in publishing, I couldn’t help but be drawn in by the bold and incisive critique of the literary world, and the way the author confronts the importance of authenticity and racial diversity. This is a nuanced, witty and darkly thrilling novel – I highly recommend you pick it up!
Rebecca Garnett is reading…
Over the past few months, I have been patiently waiting for the release of Liz Moore’s newest book, The God of the Woods, and when Bookstagram deemed it ‘The Book of the Summer’, I knew I had to get my hands on it ASAP. The book opens in August of 1975 after Barbara Van Laar has gone missing from her summer camp in the Adirondacks, but she’s not just any camper, she is the daughter of the wealthy camp owners. And this isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has gone missing in these woods…
The God of the Woods is a real slow-burn of a novel. It comes in at around 500 pages, but the story is so propulsive, it didn’t feel near that long. In fact, I finished it feeling like I wanted to know more about the characters! The timeline jumps around, and multiple POVs are introduced throughout, but it never feels hard to follow. It tells a really gripping story of both the dynasty of the Van Laars and the blue-collar community that surrounds them on this nature preserve. If you’re looking for the perfect summer mystery, I would highly recommend!
We hope that you’ve found a recommendation or two and that you are as excited for your upcoming reads as we are!
