posted on May 3, 2016 by Jeanne Devlin

It’s May—Time to Start Gathering Your Beach Reads

Writerspace - Let's Talk Books icon.inddFor some of us, summer promises the time to read what we never have the time to read the rest of the year. Think: Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, James Clavell’s Shogun, or Elizabeth Kostova’s The Historian.

Wonderful reads all. Each completely different from the other, save for the time they demand of the reader and the fact that they are best read in long, solitary, uninterrupted, air-conditioned sittings, with good light.

Sizzling Florida HeatBut summer may well be better known for its infamous “beach reads.”

TODAY Books contributor Kim Rollins describes this special species of book as one that is “easily digestible, designed to be guzzled down from a cramped airline seat or reclining poolside chair. Comforting, happy endings are assured; every couple who ought to end up walking into the sunset together does . . . They’re not novels you proudly display on your shelves so that guests may marvel at your intellectual prowess, but frankly, it’s too hot for Tolstoy.”

In 2009 NPR polled some 16,000 readers for their favorite beach read, and 136,000 votes later found books the likes of Bridget Jones’s Diary and the Harry Potter Series in the Top 5 of its Best Beach Books Ever Poll.

If that poll proved anything, it was something that every beach reader already knew: What makes the best beach read is, well, what you like to read in the sand, the heat, and by the swimming pool.  For some, a beach read is synonymous with chick lit. For others, it’s an Rock-A-Bye Bonesinternational caper or serious sci-fi.  And for still others, it’s a cozy mystery or the next paranormal critter.  Fairies, anyone?

Whatever beach read philosophy you adhere to—or whatever genre you prefer, chances are that May is your trigger to start eagerly filling that beach bag.

Summer can’t come soon enough. And the good news is that May has some welcome new additions for that book bag: Sizzling Florida Heat, a boxed set of 11 tropical romances by Cyn Hadyn, with Desiree Holt, Maxie Cooper, Olivia Jaymes, Ali Whippe and six more authors. Rock-A-Bye Bones, Book 16 in USA Today Bestselling Author Carolyn Haines’s Sarah Booth Delaney Mystery Series. Fiancé for Keeps, Book 3 in Gail Chianese’s West Side Romance Series. The Trouble with Temptation by Shiloh Walker, and To Catch a Treat, Book 2 of Linda O. Johnston’s Barkery & Biscuits Mystery Series.

Memorial Day is just around the corner—what will you be reading this summer?

—Jeanne Devlin

Jeanne Devlin

Jeanne Devlin

Jeanne Devlin is editor of The RoadRunner Press, an award-winning traditional publishing house based in the American West. An editor of newspapers, magazines, and books for more than thirty years, she has also worked on national marketing and publicity campaigns with such publishers as Simon and Schuster and St. Martin's and for a number of New York Times bestselling authors, including Robyn Carr, Sabrina Jeffries, Debbie Macomber, Linda Lael Miller, and Wendy Corsi Staub. A graduate of the Stanford University Publishing Course, Jeanne is a member of the Children's Book Council, the National Book Critics Circle, and the Oklahoma Center for the Book of the Library of Congress. She also consults with boutique publishers.

http://www.theroadrunnerpress.com

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