Season of the Book

Summertime, and the reading is easy.

Or it should be.

Now, I’m going off the beaten path here—in other words, I’m not recommending the “best summer reads” hot off the presses.

Instead, these three books are a great way to celebrate the season because they are specifically about summertime: of places we’ve gone—and why; of people we meet and the impressions they make on us; and of the sights (undulating waves), smells (suntan oil), and tastes (mojito, anyone?) that makes this time of year so memorable.

Oh, the places you’ll go! — picnics, beaches, mountains, small towns and large, on planes, trains, automobiles—Oh, the people you’ll meet—definitely a memorable character or two.

And of course, every summer includes a road trip. Hence, I’ve included here the ultimate road trip book.

Enjoy!

The Rest of the Story – Sarah Dessen

Emma Saylor doesn’t remember a lot about her mother, who died when she was ten. But she does remember the stories her mom told her about the big lake that went on forever, with cold, clear water and mossy trees at the edges.

Now it’s just Emma and her dad, and life is good, if a little predictable…until Emma is unexpectedly sent to spend the summer with her mother’s family—her grandmother and cousins she hasn’t seen since she was a little girl.

When Emma arrives at North Lake, she realizes there are actually two very different communities there. Her mother grew up in working-class North Lake, while her dad spent summers in the wealthier Lake North resort. The more time Emma spends there, the more it starts to feel like she is divided into two people as well. To her father, she is Emma. But to her new family, she is Saylor, the name her mother always called her.

Then there’s Roo, the boy who was her very best friend when she was little. Roo holds the key to her family’s history, and slowly, he helps her put the pieces together about her past. It’s hard not to get caught up in the magic of North Lake—and Saylor finds herself falling under Roo’s spell as well.

For Saylor, it’s like a whole new world is opening up to her. But when it’s time to go back home, which side of her will win out?

The Last Song – Nicholas Sparks

Seventeen-year-old Veronica ‘Ronnie’ Miller’s life was turned upside-down when her parents divorced and her father moved from New York City to Wilmington, North Carolina. Three years later, she remains angry and alienated from her parents, especially her father . . . until her mother decides it would be in everyone’s best interest if she spent the summer in Wilmington with him. Ronnie’s father, a former concert pianist and teacher, is living a quiet life in the beach town, immersed in creating a work of art that will become the centerpiece of a local church.

The tale that unfolds is an unforgettable story about love in its myriad forms – first love, the love between parents and children – that demonstrates, as only a Nicholas Sparks novel can, the many ways that deeply felt relationships can break our hearts . . . and heal them.

Boop and Eve’s Road Trip – Mary Helen Sheriff

Eve Prince is done with college, with her mom, with guys, and with her dream of fashion design. But when her best friend goes MIA, Eve must gather the broken threads of her life to search for her.

Desperate to visit her sister, Boop, a retiree dripping with Southern charm, hijacks her granddaughter Eve’s road trip.

Along the way, Boop hopes to alleviate Eve’s growing depression—which, she knows from experience, will require more than flirting lessons and a Garlic Festival makeover. Nevertheless, she is frustrated when her feeble efforts yield the same failures that the sulfur-laced sip from the Fountain of Youth wrought on her age.

The one thing that might help is a secret that’s haunted Boop for sixty years. But in revealing it, Boop would risk losing her family and her own hard-won happiness.

Their journey through the heart of Dixie is an unforgettable love story between a grandmother and her granddaughter.