The first days of summer was June 20. As we are all aware, summer is the hottest and brightest season of the year with more daylight hours than night. With the high temperatures this summer, enjoy a relaxing day in the cool indoors or in the shade outside with a talking book. Try any of the following books that largely take place during the summer as your next read.
DB 115285 The beach house by Jenny Hale
"When her gram passes away, Melanie Simpson feels utterly lost. But her grandmother's will gives her a purpose: an inheritance to buy a crumbling house in Rosemary Bay. They used to visit the village every summer, sit by the sparkling water on a beach the color of pearl, and daydream about turning the place on the corner into a bed and breakfast. On her first night in her new hometown, Melanie meets local contractor and landowner Josh Claiborne, whose eyes match the dazzling sea. Melanie plans to restore the beach house to its original glory, and Josh is the perfect person to help renovate the wrap-around porch weathered by the coastal breeze and the peeling white paint faded by the sun. But hiding in a closet is a yellowing stack of letters that could change everything. The looping handwriting reveals the mystery of the rickety house-a buried history that touches everyone in Rosemary Bay. Will its secrets bring Melanie and Josh together or tear them apart?" -- Provided by publisher. -- Some strong language.
DB 103564 Malibu rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid
In the summer of 1983, Nina Riva was hosting her annual celebrity-filled party, despite the impending end of her marriage. Nina and her three siblings, all connected to the world of surfing, might have survived their unconventional upbringing, but each is hiding secrets. Strong language and explicit descriptions of sex. Commercial audiobook. 2021.
DB 114309 Welcome to the circus of baseball: a story of the perfect summer at the perfect ballpark at the perfect time by Ryan McGee
"In the spring of 1994, Ryan McGee (new college graduate) bombed his coveted interview with ESPN-the only place he ever wanted to work. But he did receive one job offer: to work for $100 a week for the Asheville Tourists, a proud minor league baseball team in the heart of North Carolina's Blue Ridge Mountains. McCormick Field, home to the Tourists, had once been graced by Ty Cobb, Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, and Jackie Robinson. What could go wrong? Welcome to the Circus of Baseball is McGee's hilarious, charming memoir of his first summer working in the sporting world. He has since risen the ESPN ranks to national TV, radio, and Internet host, but his time in Asheville still looms large. Among the many jewels of his experience. . . McGee recounts one of the most entertaining on-field brawls you'll ever witness (between the fourteen league mascots who had assembled for the all-star game-an eight-foot-tall foam-costumed crustacean, a pudgy red fox, a giant skunk . . . and they were really fighting), as well as the nervous moment he oversaw the game-day entertainer known as "Captain Dynamite and His Exploding Coffin of Death." Most important, McGee details a magical summer of baseball, of learning the ropes, of the ins-and-outs of running a minor league team, and of coming to understand how the pulse of a community can beat gloriously through a minor league ball club." -- Provided by publisher. -- Unrated. Commercial audiobook.
DB 114407 The guest by Emma Cline
"Summer is coming to a close on the East End of Long Island, and Alex is no longer welcome. A misstep at a dinner party, and the older man she's been staying with dismisses her with a ride to the train station and a ticket back to the city. With few resources and a waterlogged phone, but gifted with an ability to navigate the desires of others, Alex stays on Long Island and drifts like a ghost through the hedged lanes, gated driveways, and sun-blasted dunes of a rarefied world that is, at first, closed to her. Propelled by desperation and a mutable sense of morality, she spends the week leading up to Labor Day moving from one place to the next, a cipher leaving destruction in her wake." -- Provided by publisher. -- Unrated. Commercial audiobook.
DB 116951 The whispers by Ashley Audrain
"On Harlow Street, the well-to-do neighborhood couples and their children gather for a catered barbecue as the summer winds down; drinks continue late into the night. Everything is fabulous until the picture-perfect hostess explodes in fury because her son disobeys her. Everyone at the party hears her exquisite veneer crack-loud and clear. Before long, that same young boy falls from his bedside window in the middle of the night. And then, his mother can only sit by her son's hospital bed, where she refuses to speak to anyone, and his life hangs in the balance. What happens next, over the course of a tense three days, as each of these women grapple with what led to that terrible night?" -- Provided by publisher. -- Unrated. Commercial audiobook.
DB 115175 A little ray of sunshine by Kristan Higgins
"A kid walks into your bookstore and... Guess what? He's your son. The one you put up for adoption eighteen years ago. The one you never told anyone about. Surprise! And a huge surprise it is. It's a huge surprise to his adoptive mother, Monica, who thought she had a close relationship with Matthew, her nearly adult son. But apparently, he felt the need to secretly arrange a vacation to Cape Cod for the summer so he could meet his birth mother...without a word to either her or his dad. It's also a surprise- to say the least-to Harlow, the woman who secretly placed her baby for adoption so many years ago. She's spent the years since then building a quiet life. She runs a bookstore with her grandfather, hangs out with her four younger siblings and is more or less happily single, though she can't help gravitating toward Grady Byrne, her old friend from high school. He's moved back to town, three-year-old daughter in tow, no wife in the picture. But she's always figured her life had to be child-free, so that complicates things. When Matthew walks into Harlow's store, she faints. Monica panics. And all their assumptions-about what being a parent really means-explode. This summer will be full of more surprises as both their families are redefined...and as both women learn that for them, there's no limit to a mother's love." -- Provided by publisher. -- Unrated. Commercial audiobook.
DB 109296 An island wedding by Jenny Colgan
"On the little Scottish island of Mure--halfway between Scotland and Norway--Flora MacKenzie and her fiance´ Joel are planning the smallest of "sweetheart weddings," a high summer celebration surrounded only by those very dearest to them. Not everyone on the island is happy about being excluded, though. The temperature rises even further when beautiful Olivia MacDonald--who left Mure ten years ago for bigger and brighter things--returns with a wedding planner in tow. Her fiance´ has oodles of family money, and Olivia is determined to throw the biggest, most extravagant, most Instagrammable wedding possible. And she wants to do it at Flora's hotel, the same weekend as Flora's carefully planned micro-wedding. As the summer solstice approaches, can Flora handle everyone else's Happy Every Afters--and still get her own?" -- Provided by publisher. -- Unrated. Commercial audiobook.
DB 95996 The overdue life of Amy Byler by Kelly Harms
School librarian Amy Byler is astounded when the husband who abandoned her three years ago shows up in her rural Pennsylvania town. She agrees to let him take care of their two kids while she takes a break in New York City. Some strong language and some descriptions of sex. 2019.
DB 103002 Heart bones by Colleen Hoover
When her mother dies of an overdose when Beyah is nineteen, she goes to Texas to live with the father she barely knows. Her new neighbor Samson is attractive, but he is hiding secrets. Strong language and some explicit descriptions of sex. 2020.
DB 95304 The summer wives by Beatriz Williams
Stories from the 1930s, 1950s, and 1960s unfold as secrets of the of Winthrop Island are laid bare. In 1951, Miranda Schuyler joins her mother and stepfamily on the island and falls in love with Joseph Vargas. Nearly twenty years later, she returns to right a wrong. Contains some violence, some strong language, and explicit descriptions of sex. Commercial audiobook. 2018.
DB 95362 Lake of the Ozarks: my summer in a vanishing America by William Geist
Emmy-award winning news correspondent and author of Way off the Road (DB 66185) and Good Talk, Dad (DB 79190) reminisces about working for his bombastic Uncle Ed as a teenager at a resort in Lake of the Ozarks. Describes the tourism industry and jobs he held. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. 2019.