Welcome to this week’s edition of Friday Book Round-Up. The first day of Summer was yesterday and that means it’s officially Summer. I love this time of year because there are so many books out and beach reads are everywhere. So, I thought it might be fun to share some of the beach reads I’ve read or are reading. I’d love to know your thoughts so be sure to share in the comments below:
Island Refuge (Wildflower B&B Romance Book 1) by Kimberly Rose Johnson
Five-Star-Chef Zoe Griffin walked away from her dream job. Did she make a mistake?
Her engagement off, Zoe Griffin retreats to tiny Wildflower Island in the Puget Sound. Hiding out as a cook and maid at a shabby bed-and-breakfast seems crazy for a chef who’s used to running her own five-star kitchen. And just as she starts to feel at home, her klutzy mishaps make Zoe fear her handsome new boss will fire her.
Dr. Nick Jackson is done with medicine, and owning a B&B is as far from doctoring as he can get. He needs help, but his only employee’s mistakes give him doubts. As Zoe lets her defenses down, Nick begins to see a competent and caring woman. One whose wounds are as deep as his own. But as they fall for each other, Nick and Zoe must learn the hardest lesson of all—to forgive. Only then can they heal the past and embrace the future . . . together.
Come Sundown by Nora Roberts
Come Sundown named as one of Whoopi Goldberg's "Favorite Summer Reads" on ABC's The View and one of NY Post's biggest blockbuster "Whizbang Books" of the summer.
A novel of suspense, family ties, and twisted passions from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Obsession...
The Bodine ranch and resort in western Montana is a family business, an idyllic spot for vacationers. A little over thirty thousand acres and home to four generations, it’s kept running by Bodine Longbow with the help of a large staff, including new hire Callen Skinner. There was another member of the family once: Bodine’s aunt, Alice, who ran off before Bodine was born. She never returned, and the Longbows don’t talk about her much. The younger ones, who never met her, quietly presume she’s dead. But she isn’t. She is not far away, part of a new family, one she never chose―and her mind has been shattered…
When a bartender leaves the resort late one night, and Bo and Cal discover her battered body in the snow, it’s the first sign that danger lurks in the mountains that surround them. The police suspect Cal, but Bo finds herself trusting him―and turning to him as another woman is murdered and the Longbows are stunned by Alice’s sudden reappearance. The twisted story she has to tell about the past―and the threat that follows in her wake―will test the bonds of this strong family, and thrust Bodine into a darkness she could never have imagined.
Same Beach, Next Year: A Novel by Dorothea Benton Frank
New York Times bestselling author Dorothea Benton Frank returns to her magical Lowcountry of South Carolina in this bewitching story of marriage, love, family, and friendship that is infused with her warm and engaging earthy humor and generous heart.
One enchanted summer, two couples begin a friendship that will last more than twenty years and transform their lives.
A chance meeting on the Isle of Palms, one of Charleston’s most stunning barrier islands, brings former sweethearts, Adam Stanley and Eve Landers together again. Their respective spouses, Eliza and Carl, fight sparks of jealousy flaring from their imagined rekindling of old flames. As Adam and Eve get caught up on their lives, their partners strike up a deep friendship—and flirt with an unexpected attraction—of their own.
Year after year, Adam, Eliza, Eve, and Carl eagerly await their reunion at Wild Dunes, a condominium complex at the island’s tip end, where they grow closer with each passing day, building a friendship that will withstand financial catastrophe, family tragedy, and devastating heartbreak. The devotion and love they share will help them weather the vagaries of time and enrich their lives as circumstances change, their children grow up and leave home, and their twilight years approach.
Bursting with the intoxicating richness of Dorothea Benton Frank’s beloved Lowcountry—the sultry sunshine, cool ocean breezes, icy cocktails, and starry velvet skies—Same Beach, Next Year is a dazzling celebration of the infrangible power of friendship, the enduring promise of summer, and the indelible bonds of love.
The Summer House: A gorgeous feel good romance that will have you hooked by Jenny Hale
Some summers will stay with you forever...
Callie Weaver and best friend Olivia Dixon have finally done it: put their life savings into the beach house they admired through childhood summers, on the dazzling white sand of North Carolina’s Outer Banks. They’re going to buff the salt from its windows, paint its sun-bleached sidings, and open it as a bed and breakfast.
Callie’s too busy to think about her love life, but when she catches the attention of local heartthrob Luke Sullivan, his blue eyes and easy smile make it hard to say no. He’s heir to his father’s property empire, and the papers say he’s just another playboy, but as they laugh in the ocean waves, Callie realizes there’s more to this man than money and good looks.
Just when true happiness seems within reach, Callie and Olivia find a diary full of secrets... secrets that stretch across the island, and have the power to turn lives upside down. As Callie reads, she unravels a mystery that makes her heart drop through the floor.
Will Callie and Luke be pulled apart by the storm it unleashes, or can true love save them?
The Summer House is an absolutely gorgeous, heart-warming summer romance, about the importance of family, not keeping secrets, and learning how to open your heart.
Lies That Bind Us by Andrew Hart
From a prize-winning and New York Times bestselling author comes a chilling novel of deception under the sun…
Jan needs this. She’s flying to Crete to reunite with friends she met there five years ago and relive an idyllic vacation. Basking in the warmth of the sun, the azure sea, and the aura of antiquity, she can once again pretend—for a little while—that she belongs. Her ex-boyfriend Marcus will be among them, but even he doesn’t know the secrets she keeps hidden behind a veil of lies. None of them really know her, and that’s only part of the problem.
Then again, how well does she know them?
When Jan awakens in utter darkness, chained to a wall, a manacle around her wrist, her echoing screams only give her a sense of how small her cell is. As she desperately tries to reconstruct what happened and determine who is holding her prisoner, dread covers despair like a hand clamped over her mouth. Because, like the Minotaur in the labyrinth in Greek myth, her captor will be coming back for her, and all the lies will catch up to her…
The Summer of Good Intentions: A Novel Kindle by Wendy Francis
Cape Cod summers are supposed to remain reassuringly the same, but everything falls apart when three sisters and their families come together for their annual summer vacation—and they are carrying more secrets than suitcases.
Maggie is the oldest. She feels responsible for managing the summer house and making sure everything is as it always has been. But she’s hurt that her parents’ recent divorce has destroyed the family’s comfortable summer routines, and her own kids seem to be growing up at high speed. Is it too late to have another baby?
Jess is the middle sister. She loves her job but isn’t as passionate about her marriage. She’s not sure she can find the courage to tell Maggie what she’s done—much less talk to her husband about it.
Virgie is the youngest, her dad’s favorite. She’s always been the career girl, but now there’s a man in her life. Her television job on the west coast is beyond stressful, and it’s taking its toll on her—emotionally and physically. She’s counting on this vacation to erase the symptoms she’s not talking about.
The Herington girls are together again, with their husbands and kids, for another summer in the family’s old Cape Cod house. When their mother, Gloria, announces she’s coming for an unscheduled visit—with her new boyfriend—no one is more surprised than their father, Arthur, who has not quite gotten over his divorce. Still, everyone manages to navigate the challenges of living grown-up lives in close quarters, until an accident reveals a new secret that brings everyone together in heartbreak…and then healing.
Poignant, compelling, and so real that you could shake the sand out of the pages, The Summer of Good Intentions is by a rising star who aims her fiction square at the heart of readers who love Elin Hilderbrand, Dorothea Benton Frank, and Mary Kay Andrews.
The Inheritance: An Inlet Beach Novel by Heidi Hostetter
If you like the Gilmore Girls' Stars Hollow, you'll love Inlet Beach.
When three sisters arrive to claim the oldest house in town for themselves, you can bet the residents of this tiny beach community will have something to say about it.
For the sisters, it started with a letter stating they've inherited an equal share of a dilapidated beach house from a relative they don't remember. Complications arise when each sister wants something different from their unexpected gain. But before they can do anything, they have to spend the summer together, repairing the house.
The Inheritance is filled with the quirkiness of a small town, the craziness of an imperfect family, and the hope of a second chance.
Pacific Northwest Writers Association 2015 Literary Contest Finalist
Paradise Cove - 4 Book Set: Paradise Cove series by Patrice Wilton
**New York Times Bestselling author PATRICE WILTON, is delighted to offer you a FOUR book boxset at a discount price!
PARADISE COVE
Cardiac surgeon Sean Flannigan lost his daughter to a rare form of leukemia, he can mend broken hearts, but his is beyond repair. Kayla Holmes, along with her sisters, inherited guest cottages in the Keys after their stepfather died. Their high spirits and positive energy are a beacon of light that directs Sean's sailboat into Paradise Cove.
Can Kayla's compassion find a crack in Sean's armor? Sometimes love isn't enough to heal a wounded heart.
HOOKED ON YOU
This riveting romance is the second book in the Paradise Cove series set in the Florida Keys. Three high-spirited sisters inherit Paradise Cove Cottages, and each story is a stand alone. Taylor Holmes has a lot on her plate--running a family owned resort, planning a wedding for her sister, and now the added worry as she opens her dream cafe. Throw in a hurricane and a sexy boat captain who doesn't take no for an answer, and this book will keep you glued to your Kindle. Romance, passion, danger, and hot, hot nights guarantee reading pleasure.
PLAY RIGHT BY ME
Brittany Holmes, heartbroken and pregnant, leaves the touring dance troupe and the glamorous life she led in Miami for home in Paradise Cove. Her mother and sisters are like a beacon at the end of the road, and their unconditional love and support is what her bruised heart craves.
Ashley Jordon Chase, New York advertising exec, is in Paradise Cove to pursue his lifetime dream of being a playwright. Family circumstances thwarted his earlier writing ambitions and his lucrative career doesn’t satisfy him.
When Brittany loses her baby, Chase offers comfort. Having experienced the same tragedy in his first marriage he knows how devastating a miscarriage can be. Brittany hides her insecurities behind a wall, but Chase breaks past it to see her most vulnerable side. Their friendship becomes more, and she trusts that he won't let her down. Yet a family emergency pulls him away, leaving her alone. Again. Was she a fool to let him into her heart? Or can they turn their brief affair into a lifetime of love?
RIGHT MAN/WRONG GROOM
Nadine Thomas is in Paradise Cove to marry her golf pro fiancé, Michael Williams. Her first love, Jeremy is Michael's brother, who went off to war and returned a bitter, broken man. When she sees him again at the wedding he's now a firefighter and has got his life back in balance. Their attraction is still red hot. Putting a damper on the flames, Nadine is determined to go through with the wedding, to commit her love to Michael--until she learns his terrible secret. Can Jeremy win the love of the woman he once turned his back on, and will Nadine trust that their love is real?
McCallister's Paradise - Complete Series: Books 1 through 5 by Chantel Rhondeau
Fall in love with the strong men and smart women of McCallister's Paradise!
At their tropical island resort, the McCallister family works hard. Life in Paradise should be perfect. After all, the place is great for a romantic getaway. Unfortunately, the five McCallister siblings are still searching for their happily ever afters... and romance always seems just out of reach.
But determined hearts won't be denied. And when love is on the line, a McCallister doesn't fall halfway!
Happy Endings
Handsome, wealthy Quinn McCallister is the most eligible bachelor on McCallister’s Paradise. Making his family's island resort a success is all that matters to this workaholic. Everything changes when he meets the beautiful new massage therapist...
Diving Into Love
This playboy never gets burned, at least not by love, but the flames grow hot when he meets a fiery redhead at his paradise home.
For Love or Charity
A threatening message leads Sydney McCallister to Matt Coleson’s door. They never expected to find they had so much in common or that they would have so much to fight for.
Love’s Ride
Loving the island therapist from afar seems like the right thing to Brad McCallister. His meddling sister lands him a date, but there is only one thing Chelsea will agree to do. Survival takes on a whole new meaning on a hiking date gone wrong.
Cooking Up Love
A single mother gives everything to raise her daughter in a loving, safe environment—falling for a handsome playboy was not part of the plan.
The Sunshine Sisters by Jane Green
The New York Times bestselling author of Falling presents a warm, wise, and wonderfully vivid novel about a mother who asks her three estranged daughters to come home to help her end her life.
Ronni Sunshine left London for Hollywood to become a beautiful, charismatic star of the silver screen. But at home, she was a narcissistic, disinterested mother who alienated her three daughters.
As soon as possible, tomboy Nell fled her mother’s overbearing presence to work on a farm and find her own way in the world as a single mother. The target of her mother’s criticism, Meredith never felt good enough, thin enough, pretty enough. Her life took her to London—and into the arms of a man whom she may not even love. And Lizzy, the youngest, more like Ronni than any of them, seemed to have it easy, using her drive and ambition to build a culinary career to rival her mother’s fame, while her marriage crumbled around her.
But now the Sunshine sisters are together again, called home by Ronni, who has learned that she has a serious disease and needs her daughters to fulfill her final wishes. And though Nell, Meredith, and Lizzy have never been close, their mother’s illness draws them together to confront the old jealousies and secret fears that have threatened to tear these sisters apart. As they face the loss of their mother, they will discover if blood might be thicker than water after all...
Have a beachy book to recommend? Share in the comments below and don’t forget to share using the buttons below. See you next week!
MRS N, Book Addict