As any voracious reader knows, there are so many books out there, it can be hard to choose just what to read next. So what could be better than a hand-picked recommendation from someone in the know? Every Wednesday the XOXOAD team likes to find out what some of its favorite authors are reading. To that end, we’ve asked New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Jennifer Probst, author of the upcoming Everywhere and Every Way, to tell us what she’s been burying her nose in this summer!
Ah, summer.
My all time favorite season where the sun heats my skin, shoes are kicked off, cocktail is in one hand, and in the other is a fab summer read.
I talk to many readers who say they do most of their reading in the summer. Something about the season just screams for a lounge chair and a book by the pool, beach, or lazing on your front porch.
Here are a few books I’m reading for my own summer pleasure!
1. First Star I See Tonight – by Susan Elizabeth Phillips – August 23rd
Phillips is my favorite author for contemporary romance, and when I heard the popular Chicago Stars series was continuing? Well, let’s just say I did a little cool dance in my kitchen where my boys made faces to show how uncool I was. I didn’t even care. This one is preordered and ready to hit my reading device in August!
He’s the former quarterback of the Chicago Stars football team.
She’s trying to make a success of her very own detective agency.
Her first job? Follow him.
Let’s just say it’s not going well.
Not well at all….
2. Cream of the Crop by Alice Clayton – July 12th
Ah, Alice. How I love her writing and characters, and the Hudson Valley series is truly stellar. This is the second book and I know I’m going to be laughing out loud and sighing at the end.
Manhattan’s It Girl, Natalie Grayson, has it all: she’s a hot exec at a leading advertising firm, known industry-wide for her challenging and edgy campaigns. She’s got a large circle of friends, a family that loves her dearly, and her dance card is always full with handsome eligible bachelors. What else could a modern gal-about-town wish for? The answer, of course, is…cheese.
Natalie’s favorite part of each week is spending Saturday morning at the Union Square Farmer’s Market, where she indulges her love of all things triple cream. Her favorite booth also indulges her love of all things handsome. Oscar Mendoza, owner of the Bailey Falls Creamery and purveyor of the finest artisanal cheeses the Hudson Valley has to offer, is tall, dark, mysterious, and a bit oblivious. Or so she thinks. But that doesn’t stop Natalie from fantasizing about the size of his, ahem, milk can.
Romance is churning, passion is burning, and something incredible is rising to the top. Could it be…love?
3. The Bourbon Thief by Tiffany Reisz – June 28th
I loved the Original Sinners series, and this book looks like an epic to delve into on a long, lazy afternoon. Her prose is quite beautiful, and she can weave a wonderful tight story.
When Cooper McQueen wakes up from a night with a beautiful stranger, it’s to discover he’s been robbed. The only item stolen—a million-dollar bottle of bourbon. The thief, a mysterious woman named Paris, claims the bottle is rightfully hers. After all, the label itself says it’s property of the Maddox family who owned and operated Red Thread Bourbon distillery since the last days of the Civil War until the company went out of business for reasons no one knows…. No one except Paris.
In the small hours of a Louisville morning, Paris unspools the lurid tale of Tamara Maddox, heiress to the distillery that became an empire. But the family tree is rooted in tainted soil and has borne rotten fruit. Theirs is a legacy of wealth and power, but also of lies, secrets and sins of omission. The Maddoxes have bourbon in their blood—and blood in their bourbon. Why Paris wants the bottle of Red Thread remains a secret until the truth of her identity is at last revealed, and the century-old vengeance Tamara vowed against her family can finally be completed.
4. End of Watch – Stephen King –
I love King. I loved Mr. Mercedes. And I couldn’t wait for this book as it was foreshadowed, so this is a must read for me to get a bit of a creepy chill out in the sun!
In Room 217 of the Lakes Region Traumatic Brain Injury Clinic, something has awakened. Something evil. Brady Hartsfield, perpetrator of the Mercedes Massacre, where eight people were killed and many more were badly injured, has been in the clinic for five years, in a vegetative state. According to his doctors, anything approaching a complete recovery is unlikely. But behind the drool and stare, Brady is awake, and in possession of deadly new powers that allow him to wreak unimaginable havoc without ever leaving his hospital room.
Retired police detective Bill Hodges, the unlikely hero of Mr. Mercedes and Finders Keepers, now runs an investigation agency with his partner, Holly Gibney—the woman who delivered the blow to Hartsfield’s head that put him on the brain injury ward. When Bill and Holly are called to a suicide scene with ties to the Mercedes Massacre, they find themselves pulled into their most dangerous case yet, one that will put their lives at risk, as well as those of Bill’s heroic young friend Jerome Robinson and his teenage sister, Barbara. Brady Hartsfield is back, and planning revenge not just on Hodges and his friends, but on an entire city.
Now, it’s time to tell me what YOU are reading! Let me know so I can add to my TBR list!
