Summer is here, and whether you’re heading up to the cottage, relaxing along Lake Huron, poolside or in the park, there’s no better time to escape into a great book.
We asked the experts at The Book Keeper — Sarnia’s independent book store — to recommend some great summer reads, and they sent us a few of their favourites, and why.
Check out their top summer reads for 2024:
JULIE’S PICKS
This Summer Will Be Different - by Carley Fortune
Carley Fortune shot to bestseller status with her first two novels set in Muskoka — Every Summer After & Meet Me at the Lake. They were instant bestsellers for weeks and Meet Me at the Lake was featured this year on Canada Reads.
This Summer Will Be Different IS different. It takes place between P.E.I. and Toronto. You will want it to stay in P.E.I. because that is where the hunk is. This book has gloriously beautiful descriptive writing that has you tasting the salty air, feeling the wind in your hair, hearing that squeak in the sofa bed and seeing the P.E.I. sand and shoreline.
Why is this the perfect summer read? It has a sexy guy with locks of hair constantly falling over his forehead. A woman, appropriately dressed in red and white gingham for her first visit to the island. Lots of sexual tension and lots of ‘release’. Oyster Shucking - lots of it, with lots of muscles straining a white t-shirt while it's happening. Championship oyster shucking. The classic romance with two people trying hard not to fall into lust (too late) or love with each other.
A Game of Lies - by Clare Mackintosh
A Game of Lies by Clare Mackintosh is a great follow-up to The Last Party in the DC Morgan series. Detective Ffion Morgan is back investigating a case involving a group of people filming a reality show on the Welsh mountain called Pen y Ddraig. Clare, a former police officer writes a great female protagonist – feisty, take no-crap and a local through and through with a teenage reputation.
This book involves a group of people in a reality show under false premises. A box full of secrets that could ruin someone’s life. Someone goes missing from the ‘set’. Two people working together again after a sexually tense working relationship 18 months before. Lots of characters like a dog named Dave, a Youtuber parked outside the fence in a tent looking for fame and many of the stubborn characters we loved from The Last Party, the first book in the DC Morgan series.
A Game of Lies is very timely with the influence of social media and the quick spread of knowledge being a theme throughout. While this is the second in a series, it can also be read as a standalone.
Honourable Mentions – The Weekend Retreat by Tara Laskowski and Bad Tourists by Caro Carver.
ANN’S PICKS
Wolfsong by T J Klune
Have you read The House on the Cerulean Sea by this author?
No? It’s good. You should read it before the sequel comes out in September.
Yes? Well, the book I would recommend by the same author, Wolfsong, the first book in the Green Creek series, is NOT The House on the Cerulean Sea. At all.
There are Werewolves, magic, found family, silly, silly boys being very silly and making you laugh out loud, battles and so much tenderness your heart will burst. You won’t believe it after finishing this first book in the four book (and three side stories) series, but the next one is just as perfect and so is the third! Just waiting on the fourth to come out in paperback at the end of July!
In a funny sort of way, it reminds me of S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders. Unruly puppy boys feeling all the things and experiencing all the love and loss and friendship and family. Epic and awesome.
P.S. One steamy/spicy scene per book takes this series out of the YA category.
Your Absence is Darkness by Jon Kalman Stefansson
This is way more charming, endearing, beautiful and hopeful than the title, the cover and the themes of grief make it sound
It’s the perfect summer read if you love a cast of funny, endearing characters who roll over each other’s stories in a way that clarifies the meaning of community.
I took my time reading it once I realized how in love with the story and the characters I was.
The main character arrives in a church with no context for himself. He does not know his name or anything else about himself except that he has arrived in this church. As he meets the people in the community he grew up in anew he is revealed to himself and is delighted to get the gift of these people back in his life.
There is more. So much more but I hope that is enough of a start for you to try out this book despite its title and cover!!
PS. There is a fantastic playlist that goes along with this title!
SARAH’S PICK
Sandwich by Catherine Newman
Sandwich is a pitch-perfect midlife tale that felt so resonant. Told over the course of one nostalgic, glorious week, Rocky, her husband, children, her son’s girlfriend, and Rocky’s aging parents cram into a ramshackle Cape Cod beach house they’ve been visiting for years for what could possibly be their last vacation all together. Rocky, sentimental at the best of times, and melodramatic with the onset of menopause, relives past summers at the Cape with tenderness while simultaneously relishing this week with her grown children and increasingly fragile parents. This book had me both laughing out loud and wistful about the simpler days when my own children were tiny. I loved Newman’s multifaceted portrayals of her characters—both as themselves and as they were in a relationship with each other. At only 240 pages, Sandwich might just be the perfect beachside binge.
For fans of: Mary Laura Philpott and Elin Hilderbrand.
JENN’S PICKS
Anita De Monte Laughs Last by Xochitl Gonzalez
Written by New York Times Bestselling author, Xochitl Gonzalez, this book has lots for everyone. Cryptically based on the life of Cuban artist Ana Mendieta and her relationship with the sculptor Carl Andre, it has all the power to bring you into the art world of New York City in some of the coolest years and make you hope for justice.
Read also Gonzalez’s novel Olga Dies Dreaming (2022)
How to Read a book by Monica Wood
An Ex-Con, a Retired English Teacher and a Widower, walk into a bookshop. The connections they already have will transform into deeper connections when they all meet that morning in Portland, Maine. This is a lovely story about kindness, forgiveness and connections in a community, held together by, of course, their local bookstore. This is a really nice read for summer.
Other Recommendations:
Elise - I Cheerfully Refuse by Leif Enger
Robin – Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
Kendra – Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
Holly – How to Age Disgracefully by Clare Pooley and The Love of my Afterlife by Kirsty Greenwood
Laura – My Darling Dreadful Thing by Johanna Van Veen
Justin – The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi
Susan – Wolf at the Table by Adam Rapp
