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Beach Reads: Foodies, Sports, Music & More Delish Combos

 







The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin

Speculative

Orbit, March 2020  

Octavia Butler, Kafka, Men in Black, Inception… It’s as if this author has consumed and absorbed every significant SciFi/fantasy/speculative innovation and synthesized them with musical refrains and sociopolitical riffs on otherness and identity. There’s humor and biting satire, irony and sarcasm. Dangerous existential and physical battles. Brilliant writing. Glorious reading. 

A few memorable lines:

What good does it do to be valuable, if nobody values you? [Prologue, pg. 9]

“Not helping your case with the mansplaining, guy.” [Chapter 1, pg. 37]

“… So, lesson one of New York: what people think about us isn’t what we really are.”

 

Ron-Coms

Hana Khan Carries On by Uzma Jalaluddin

Contemporary romance

Berkley, April 2021

Examining the layers of Canada’s Golden Crescent: Hana broadcasts her thoughts, jockeys for position, contemplates romance, and unravels family entanglements with the help of a multifaceted 21st-century South Asian Auntie Mame-ish character.


Rosalind Palmer Takes the Cake (Winner Bakes All #1) by Alexis Hall

Contemporary romance

Forever, May 2021

It’s a frothy, angsty mélange of Great British Baking Show, Hell’s Kitchen, Big Brother, The Bachelorette, and Survivor.  

 

Not Like the Movies by Kerry Winfrey

Contemporary romance

Berkley, July 2020

Trope-spinners paradise

 

When Stars Collide (Chicago Stars) by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Contemporary romance

William Morrow, June 2021

A new Chicago Stars story about the next generation is the perfect beach read. It’s a mix of hostility-at-first-sight, slapstick mayhem, multiple misunderstandings, some silliness, lots of drama, fashion, and cameos of favorite characters from previous installments in the series. Plus, incitement of a bar brawl (a bonus in the tradition of Linda Howard’s Open Season). Fingers crossed that the next Chicago Stars story will feature Clint Garrett.

 

Women’s fiction

The Venice Sketchbook by Rhys Bowen

Contemporary (current & 20th-c.) fiction

Lake Union Publishing, April 2021

Cross-generational intrigues

 

Catching Air by Sarah Pekkanen

Contemporary fiction

Washington Square Press, 2014

Leaping into the unknown and navigating unchartered territories create assorted challenges. 

 

Awesome Anthology

Blackout by Dhonielle Clayton, Tiffany D. Jackson, Nic Stone, Angie Thomas, Ashley Woodfolk, Nicola Yoon  

Quill Tree Books, June 2021 

Too much greatness to summarize. Buy it from a local bookstore or borrow it from a local library branch.

 

Historical romance

Breathless (Old West #2) by Beverly Jenkins

Avon, 2017

Portia overcomes childhood trauma and pursues her professional ambitions. Kent learns from his youthful indiscretions, makes amends, and pursues his heart’s desires. Regan asserts her autonomy. Eddy and Rhine make pivotal cameos.

 

Undercover Duke (Duke Dynasty #4) by Sabrina Jeffries

Zebra, May 2021

Misdirection, danger, and questions answered

 

Contemporary Action Thriller

All Out War (Eric Steele #2) by Sean Parnell

William Morrow, 2019

The title is 100% truth in advertising.

 

Real-Life Inspiration

Believe It, How to Go from Underestimated to Unstoppable by Jamie Kern Lima

Non-fiction memoir, business  

Gallery Books, February 2021

Redefining one’s greatest vulnerabilities into sources of strength requires faith and stamina.  


[above photos taken by Blerdy Binge Reader: morning at a private boat dock, 3 consecutive days of beach reading, tater tots smothered in cheese and bacon from Hammerheads Dockside Indian River Inlet, and sunset view of the bridge from Big Chill Surf Cantina]  

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 


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