What starts off a little slow, quickly picks up the pace after chapter one in a perfectly easy summer read. The Royal Coconut Beach Lunch Club by Diane Bergner follows protagonist Julia Wild through her transition from lawyer to fundraiser for a prestigious performing arts center in the heart of Royal Coconut Beach. Taking obvious inspiration from Palm Beach, Florida, […]

A fun, quirky read, Death by Chaos, by Renaii West, centers on four teens who meet as freshman year roommates and follow their journeys through their 20-year college reunion. The four roommates, each with their own self-proclaimed amazing qualities, deem themselves as the “goddesses” of the campus, each unique in her own right. The story follows their college trajectories, but […]

I’m obsessed with mystery, intrigue and conspiracies. So it makes perfect sense that I would love a new Sherlock Holmes book, right? A new collection of short mysteries, the Book of Extraordinary New Sherlock Holmes Stories is perfect for mystery and drama enthusiasts.  The anthology features 15 short stories from various mystery authors starring everyone’s favorite iconic, fictional detective, Sherlock […]

What starts out as a love story between two 60-something divorcées takes an interesting turn to science fiction in What Love Feels Like: The Dawn of Human 2.0, a novel that will likely tug on your heart strings. It certainly tugged on mine.  Luke, a writer, and Dawn, a high school counselor, met on Match.com and started chatting with one another online. […]

Jeffrey S. Stephens’ latest novel, Crimes and Passion, is a suburban whodunit that keeps you guessing ’till the very end. Stephens spins an intricate web of lies and lust, expertly crafting a suspect cast of characters and rapid moving plot that creates a unique atmosphere of suspense. When Elizabeth Knoebel is found dead in Darien, Connecticut, an affluent town in […]

Sandy Rosenthal is a New Orleans citizen investigator turned published author whose debut book Words Whispered in Water exposes the truth behind the flooding of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. This firsthand, well-researched account is a three-pronged story that reads as one part memoir, one part investigative journalism, and one part novel. From the beginning warnings of evacuation, all the […]

There are a dozen types of memoirs, but one of my absolute favorites is a memoir about food. They guide you through the writer’s past in the most unique way using cuisine. Nothing is more dynamic, complex or enthralling than food — where it comes from and how it can impact your life. FoodSutra: A Memoir of the Foods of […]

A book on plant neurobiology might not be on the top of your reading list, but that’s not reason enough to not pick up a copy of Stefano Mancuso’s The Incredible Journey of Plants. Mancuso, who is one of the world’s leading authorities in plant neurobiology, somehow manages to make this book fascinating, whether or not you’re into botany or […]

When you think about glamour and luxury, your first thought probably isn’t trains or railways, however there once was a time when traveling railways signified social class. In his book, Luxury Railway Travel: A Social and Business History, author Martyn Pring, delves into the rise and fall of opulence rail travel, particularly throughout Britain.  Descriptive and informative, Pring explores the […]

Set in 1959, in rural Early, western Virginia, The Boys Who Woke Up Early is a coming of age novel that reads more like a historical memoir. The story follows a young man named, Stony Shelor, who has a reputation for being a troublemaker. As he starts his junior year at Jubal Early High, he’s determined to lay low and […]