BY AARON FRANCIS
Aaron is away this week so Pat Tomasic is filling in to present some great summer reads.
At times it seemed it would never arrive, but summer finally appears to be here. It’s time for escaping to the beach/park/backyard with a great read.
Thrillers are usually one of the most popular summertime genres. Are the mysterious river drownings in Paula Hawkins’ Into the Water suicide or something more malevolent? In J.P. Delaney’s The Girl Before, two strangers’ lives become sinisterly intertwined by the same rental unit.
In order to save the lives of his six-year-old twins, Judge Scott Sampson must rule a particular way for a drug case in Brad Parks’ Say Nothing. And Lincoln Rhyme is back in Jeffrey Deaver’s The Burial Hour.
We also have the latest titles in some of our most popular Mystery series, including The Chalk Pit (Ruth Galloway) by Elly Griffiths, M.C. Beaton’s Death of a Ghost (Hamish Macbeth), The Lost Woman (Louise Rick/Camilla Lind) by Sara Blaedel and Deborah Crombie’s Kincaid/James series The Garden of Lamentations.
If those are too morbid, how about relationship struggles of friends and families? The Mother’s Promise by Sally Hepworth demonstrates how a cancer diagnosis for a single mother affects not only her and her teen daughter, but ripples out to others. Or there’s the community which welcomes and supports an abandoned mother and child in a New England town in Melanie Wallace’s The Girl in the Garden.
If you are unable to take a physical vacation, try visiting another world. A popular “alternative histories” series by Genevieve Colgan may be just the ticket out of reality. The first three books (The Invisible Library, The Burning Page and The Lost City) combine time travelling, secret societies and librarians. Or go scarier with Nick Cutter’s Little Heaven, about a settlement in New Mexico where residents fight back against evil and madness.
If the heat inspires physical but not mental lethargy, you might enjoy Universal: A Guide to the Cosmos by Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw, about the period of time preceding the Big Bang when the world was still smaller than an atom. Douglas Preston, best known for his adventurous fiction, takes readers into the Lost City of the Monkey God, an area in Honduras protected by a curse which will cause illness and death to invaders.
Jancee Dunn’s How Not To Hate Your Husband After Kids is part advice, part humour on how to deal with the inevitable changes that enter a couple’s relationship when children are added to it. Finally, for the history buff, read Young and Damned and Fair by Gareth Russell, the biography of Catherine Howard, who in 1540 became the fifth wife of England’s King Henry VIII. The union lasted until her execution two years later while still in her teens.
And what would summer be without James Patterson? Well, you can fill your summer with him, as he has no less than 17 co-authored titles released this year. This includes the next installments of The Women’s Murder Club, as well as some stand alone titles. Almost as prolific, we are awaiting the arrival Danielle Steel’s latest releases Dangerous Games and Against All Odds, but it’s never too early to get your name on the reserve list.
If you’re reluctant to borrow a nice, shiny brand new book for fear of getting sand in it, introduce yourself to our Quick Picks turnstiles, which contain some of the latest in paperback releases and are great vacation and beach take-alongs.
So grab a gripping book and let that grass grow up around your garden furniture. It’s been a rough winter of shovelling, and you’ve earned some down time.
Pat Tomasic is the Team Leader at Creston Valley Public Library. She is currently reading The Woman Next Door by Yewande Omotoso.