On the Shelf: Wrapping up great summer reads

By Courtney Warren

It pains me to say that this is the last summer reading on the shelf of the year. How is it that the school year goes by in microwave minutes, but the summer season lasts two seconds? Nevertheless, here are my two five-star beach reads of the summer. 

Every Summer After by Carley Fortune is an adult romance and was written beautifully and kept me firmly planted in my beach chair. From the publisher: “They say you can never go home again, and, for Persephone Fraser, ever since she made the biggest mistake of her life a decade ago, that has felt too true. Instead of glittering summers on the lakeshore of her childhood, she spends them in a stylish apartment in the city, going out with friends, and keeping everyone a safe distance from her heart.”

“Until she receives the call that sends her racing back to Barry’s Bay and into the orbit of Sam Florek—the man she never thought she’d have to live without.”

“For six summers, through hazy afternoons on the water and warm summer nights working in his family’s restaurant and curling up together with books—medical textbooks for him and work-in-progress horror short stories for her—Percy and Sam had been inseparable. Eventually that friendship turned into something breathtakingly more, before it fell spectacularly apart.”

“When Percy returns to the lake for Sam’s mother’s funeral, their connection is as undeniable as it had always been. But until Percy can confront the decisions she made and the years she’s spent punishing herself for them, they’ll never know whether their love might be bigger than the biggest mistakes of their past.” 

“Told over the course of six years and one weekend, Every Summer After is a big, sweeping nostalgic story of love and the people and choices that mark us forever.”

I had the opportunity to read an advanced reader’s copy of Lying in the Deep, a young adult thriller by Diana Urban. It has since been released and was one that will keep you guessing until the very last page.

From the publisher: “A juicy mystery of jealousy, love, and betrayal set on a Semester at Sea-inspired cruise ship, with a diverse cast of delightfully suspicious characters who’ll leave you guessing with every jaw-dropping twist.”

“After being jilted by her ex-boyfriend and best friend, Jade couldn’t be more ready to embark on the adventure of a lifetime— eleven countries in four months, all from the luxurious Campus on Board ship—and to wedge an entire globe between her and the people who broke her heart.”

“But when Jade discovers the backstabbing couple are also setting sail, her obsession with them grows and festers, leading to a shocking murder. And as their friends begin to drop like flies, Jade and her new crush must race to clear her name and find the killer they’re trapped at sea with....before anyone else winds up in body bags.”