reading recommendations – Joyana Peters

Dive into the Best Summer Reads 2023

These books were worth their beach bag weight and made a splash this summer!

Summer is sadly coming to an end here. We just returned from the last of our summer travels and my kids return to school next week. How fast it all flew by! But I was fortunate enough to enjoy some fantastic books this summer. I read a lot this summer, so trust me when I say I had plenty to hold these up against. These were my true favorites- all five star ratings! So join me below to see my best summer reads 2023!

Don’t Forget to Write by Sara Goodman Confino

I technically got this early as part of my Amazon First Reads program. But, it’s available for Pre-Order and comes out Sept 1st.

What a fantastic read! I absolutely loved this book. Don’t Forget to Write, takes place in 1960 when twenty-something, Marilyn, gets caught kissing a boy during synagogue. Upon refusing to marry him, she gets sent to spend the summer with her strict, great-aunt, Ada. However, Ada is far from the punishment she expects and instead Marilyn ends up learning lessons about love and what she wants for herself that she’ll carry for a lifetime.

See the full description below:

In 1960, a young woman discovers a freedom she never knew existed in this exhilarating, funny, and emotional novel by the bestselling author of She’s Up to No Good.When Marilyn Kleinman is caught making out with the rabbi’s son in front of the whole congregation, her parents ship her off to her great-aunt Ada for the summer. If anyone can save their daughter’s reputation, it’s Philadelphia’s strict premier matchmaker. Either that or Marilyn can kiss college goodbye.To Marilyn’s surprise, Ada’s not the humorless septuagenarian her mother described. Not with that platinum-blonde hair, Hermès scarf, and Cadillac convertible. She’s sharp, straight-talking, takes her job very seriously, and abides by her own rules….mostly. As the summer unfolds, Ada and Marilyn head for the Jersey shore, where Marilyn helps Ada scope out eligible matches―for anyone but Marilyn, that is.Because if there’s one thing Marilyn’s learned from Ada, it’s that she doesn’t have to settle. With the school year quickly approaching and her father threatening to disinherit her, Marilyn must make her choice for her future: return to the comfortable life she knows or embrace a risky, unknown path on her own.

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Homecoming by Kate Morton

Ok, this is not a “light” read. I’m also going to lay out the trigger warning- there are child deaths in this book. And there is suspected filicide (mother killing self and children). I thought that would be a deal breaker for me, but Kate Morton’s writing is so magical and thoughtful, I needed to keep reading to discover what really happened. I’m so glad I did, because I loved, loved this book!

See below for full description.

Adelaide Hills, Christmas Eve, 1959: At the end of a scorching hot day, beside a creek on the grounds of a grand country house, a local man makes a terrible discovery. Police are called, and the small town of Tambilla becomes embroiled in one of the most baffling murder investigations in the history of South Australia.Many years later and thousands of miles away, Jess is a journalist in search of a story. Having lived and worked in London for two decades, she now finds herself unemployed and struggling to make ends meet. A phone call out of nowhere summons her back to Sydney, where her beloved grandmother Nora, who raised Jess when her mother could not, has suffered a fall and is seriously ill in the hospital.At Nora’s house, Jess discovers a true crime book chronicling a long-buried police case: the Turner Family Tragedy of 1959. It is only when Jess skims through its pages that she finds a shocking connection between her own family and this notorious event – a mystery that has never been satisfactorily resolved.An epic story that spans generations, Homecoming asks what we would do for those we love, how we protect the lies we tell, and what it means to come home. Above all, it is an intricate and spellbinding novel from one of the finest writers working today.

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The Spectacular by Fiona Davis

If you’ve seen me in person this summer, I’ve most likely already recommended this book to you. Because I really have been recommending it to everyone I see. I love, love Fiona Davis. She’s on my auto-buy list and I had pre-ordered this book long before it came out. I’m so glad I did, because it truly was- Spectacular!

See below for what makes this book so awesome!

New York City, 1956: Nineteen-year-old Marion is over the moon to have been selected to be one of the Rockettes, Radio City Music Hall’s glamorous precision-dancing troupe. It’s an honor to perform in the world’s most spectacular theater, an art deco masterpiece. But with four shows a day as well as grueling rehearsals, not to mention exacting standards of perfection to live up to, Marion quickly realizes that the life of a Rockette has both extraordinary highs and devastating lows.Then one night a bomb explodes in the theater. It’s only the latest in a string of explosions around the city orchestrated by a person the press has nicknamed the “Big Apple Bomber.” They have been terrorizing the citizens of New York for sixteen years by planting bombs in popular, crowded spaces. With the public in an uproar over the lack of any real leads after a years long manhunt, the police, at Marion’s urging, turn in desperation to a radical new technique: psychological profiling.As Marion finds herself pulled deeper into the investigation, she realizes that as much as she’s been training herself to blend in—performing in perfect unison with all the other identical Rockettes—if she hopes to catch the bomber, she’ll need to stand out and take a terrifying risk. But she may be forced to sacrifice everything she’s worked for, as well as the people she loves the most.

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I hope you enjoyed and feel inspired to pick up one of these great reads for yourself. Happy Reading!
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What Do Great Books & Road Trips Have in Common?

They both take you on incredible adventures, have unexpected twists and hopefully leave you wanting more!

It’s that time of summer where everyone’s cleared out of the DC area. Swim team’s over. School begins in a few weeks. Everyone is squeezing in their family vacations. We’re hitting the road ourselves for a NY beach trip and “glamping” with family. So, to get in the mood, I’ve put together a fun Road Trip Themed Book List. Enjoy!

In the Face of the Sun by Denny S. Bryce

This is an inspiring dual narrative, journey themed tale. Bryce weaves together two powerful stories as they unfold decades apart. See full description below.

1928, Los Angeles: The newly-built Hotel Somerville is the hotspot for the city’s glittering African-American elite. It embodies prosperity and dreams of equality for all—especially Daisy Washington. An up-and-coming journalist, Daisy anonymously chronicles fierce activism and behind-the-scenes Hollywood scandals in order to save her family from poverty. But power in the City of Angels is also fueled by racism, greed, and betrayal. And even the most determined young woman can play too many secrets too far . . .

1968, Chicago: For Frankie Saunders, fleeing across America is her only escape from an abusive husband. But her rescuer is her reckless, profane Aunt Daisy, still reeling from her own shattered past. Frankie doesn’t want to know what her aunt is up to so long as Daisy can get her to LA—and safety. But Frankie finds there’s no hiding from long-held secrets—or her own surprising strength.

Daisy will do whatever it takes to settle old scores and resolve the past—no matter the damage. And Frankie will come up against hard choices in the face of unexpected passion. Both must come to grips with what they need, what they’ve left behind—and all that lies ahead . .

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On the Road by Jack Kerouac

What road trip book list would be complete without including Jack Kerouac’s classic? On the Road has become a symbol of America’s beetnik culture and was one of the first adventure books about road trips and searching for meaning on the open road. If you haven’t yet read it, it’s definitely worth checking out! See full description below.
The classic novel of freedom and the search for authenticity that defined a generation.

On the Road chronicles Jack Kerouac’s years traveling the North American continent with his friend Neal Cassady, “a sideburned hero of the snowy West.” As “Sal Paradise” and “Dean Moriarty,” the two roam the country in a quest for self-knowledge and experience. Kerouac’s love of America, his compassion for humanity, and his sense of language as jazz combine to make On the Road an inspirational work of lasting importance. Kerouac’s classic novel of freedom and longing defined what it meant to be “Beat” and has inspired every generation since its initial publication more than fifty years ago.

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Travels with Charley in Search of America by John Steinbeck

Steinbeck, his dog and the open roads of America in the 1960s. This is another road trip classic that has inspired generations. This is an intimate look at Steinbeck himself as he takes off to explore America. What follows is a 10,000 mile trip where he shares his experiences and the good and bad he finds along the way. If you haven’t yet read it, it’s another one that’s definitely worth checking out! See full description below.

An intimate journey across America, as told by one of its most beloved writers. To hear the speech of the real America, to smell the grass and the trees, to see the colors and the light—these were John Steinbeck’s goals as he set out, at the age of fifty-eight, to rediscover the country he had been writing about for so many years.

With Charley, his French poodle, Steinbeck drives the interstates and the country roads, dines with truckers, encounters bears at Yellowstone and old friends in San Francisco. Along the way he reflects on the American character, racial hostility, the particular form of American loneliness he finds almost everywhere, and the unexpected kindness of strangers.

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Don’t Make Me Pull Over by Richard Ratay

A book for parents everywhere! What parent has not uttered these words at some point? This is a fun and unique read about both the history of American road trips and our interstate system while also offering intimate family narratives of road trip experiences. See full description below.

“A lighthearted, entertaining trip down Memory Lane” (Kirkus Reviews), Don’t Make Me Pull Over! offers a nostalgic look at the golden age of family road trips—before portable DVD players, smartphones, and Google Maps.

The birth of America’s first interstate highways in the 1950s hit the gas pedal on the road trip phenomenon and families were soon streaming—sans seatbelts!—to a range of sometimes stirring, sometimes wacky locations. In the days before cheap air travel, families didn’t so much take vacations as survive them. Between home and destination lay thousands of miles and dozens of annoyances, and with his family Richard Ratay experienced all of them—from being crowded into the backseat with noogie-happy older brothers, to picking out a souvenir only to find that a better one might have been had at the next attraction, to dealing with a dad who didn’t believe in bathroom breaks.

Now, decades later, Ratay offers “an amiable guide…fun and informative” (New York Newsday) that “goes down like a cold lemonade on a hot summer’s day” (The Wall Street Journal). In hundreds of amusing ways, he reminds us of what once made the Great American Family Road Trip so great, including twenty-foot “land yachts,” oasis-like Holiday Inn “Holidomes,” “Smokey”-spotting Fuzzbusters, twenty-eight glorious flavors of Howard Johnson’s ice cream, and the thrill of finding a “good buddy” on the CB radio.

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Jupiter’s Travels by Ted Simon

This last one is not US based. Based in the 1970s, Ted Simon set off from London and traveled the world by motorcycle for four years. See full description below.

Simon rode a motorcycle around the world in the seventies, when such a thing was unheard of. In four years he covered 78,000 miles through 45 countries, living with peasants and presidents, in prisons and palaces, through wars and revolutions.

An incredible journey in the days before cell phones and the internet, and all done solo with no support team or social media updates.

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I hope you enjoyed and feel inspired to explore the road yourself, whether it be physically or through a book’s pages. Happy travels!

If you enjoyed this book list, make sure you check out Joyana’s other Book Lists HERE.

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