#5OnMyTBR is a bookish meme hosted by E. @ Local Bee Hunter’s Nook. Learn more about it here.
Beach Vibes
I love any opportunity to feature more books and found this meme an interesting way to take a look at my TBR. I hope to also get some feedback from you. Should I keep these books on my TBR? Should I push them up the list? Since I cannot escape the summer heat, I thought I would feature books with covers that give off beach vibes.
I Can't Even by Jenn McKinlay
Julia Blumer is called home to Gull’s Harbor, California, a hilly seaside community just north of San Diego, by her two sisters, Sophie and Emily, when it is clear that their domineering mother Babs Blumer is critically ill. Julia catches the first plane out of New York City, hoping to mend the rift between her and Babs that has existed since Julia left home after the fight to end all fights ten years ago. Much to her chagrin, Babs is not happy to see her and it's not the reunion she hoped for.
Julia moves back into her old bedroom, the one that overlooks the neighbor’s house. While unpacking her few possessions and setting up a place to work at her the desk, she is shocked to see her old boyfriend, literally the boy next door, Liam Murphy in his old bedroom. She hides, hitting the floor and creeping back up to the windowsill to watch him as he works out in his room. The years have been good to Liam, very good, and Julia is alarmed by the attraction she still feels for the buff surfer boy, whose heart she smashed to bits when she ran away a decade ago.
While Babs's condition deteriorates, family secrets are revealed and the past comes roaring back into the present. As the clock winds down on her time in Gull's Harbor, Julia frantically tries to help her sisters, make peace with her mother, and win back the first love she has never gotten over.
In a Not So Perfect World by Neely Tubati Alexander
A delightful Caribbean-set romp about an ambitious designer of apocalyptic video games with a strategy for (almost) everything who discovers what happens when her best-laid plans go off course . . .
Sloane Cooper is up for her dream job as a designer for a top video game company. During the interview, though, she somehow promises the all-male panel that she’ll remain single and fully dedicated to the work. It’s actually fine—after her last boyfriend cheated on her, she vowed to focus on her career anyway.
Enter Charlie, aka Hot Neighbor Guy, a near-stranger who shocks her with the offer of an all-inclusive trip to a Turks and Caicos resort. The catch? Charlie originally planned the trip with his ex, and asks Sloane to pose as his new girlfriend to make his old flame come running back. Against her better judgment, Sloane says yes; she can use the time away to develop a game design that will dazzle the Catapult team and get her a job offer.
Despite sparks flying in paradise, the trip can’t lead to more. As their connection deepens, Sloane is reminded that she can’t fall for Charlie and get knocked off her professional path. Besides, he’s trying to win back his true love.
Can Sloane figure out a way to move past heartbreak, land the job of her dreams, and avoid catching feelings? The zombie apocalypse would be easier to solve—at least she’s prepared for that.
Never Been Better by Leanne Toshiko Simpson
A hilariously offbeat and tender comedy about one bipolar woman’s messy search for love at a seaside wedding where no one can stay afloat.
Is she falling in love, or falling apart?
Dee, Misa, and Matt were the "three musketeers" of the psych ward. A year after discharge, Dee is eager to convince everyone that she’s finally turning things around. But Matt and Misa are tying the knot in Turks and Caicos, surrounded by guests who have no idea where they met, and the secrecy isn’t sitting well with Dee, who has been hopelessly in love with Matt since before she got kicked out of the hospital.
So, when Dee arrives at the swanky resort with her high-voltage sister, Tilley, it’s now or never to confess how she feels. But disrupting her best friends’ nuptials would jeopardize the entire support system that holds the trio together. When it comes to happily ever afters, how is a girl supposed to choose between love and recovery?
Introducing a sparkling new voice in commercial fiction, Never Been Better revels in the heartache and hilarity of falling in love when you haven’t quite figured out how to live with yourself.
Spectacular Things by Beck Dorey-Stein
Two sisters examine what they owe each other and what they are willing to sacrifice to make their family dreams come true.
What would you give up for the person you love most? What would you expect in return?
Mia and Cricket have always been close. The gifted daughters of a young single mother, the “Lowe girls” are well-known in the small Maine town they call home. Each sister has a role to fill: The responsible and academically minded Mia assumes the position of caregiver far too young, while Cricket, a bouncing ball of energy and talent, seems born for soccer stardom. But the cost of achieving athletic greatness comes at a steep price.
As Mia and Cricket grow up, they must grapple with the legacy of their mother’s secret past while navigating their own precarious future. Can Mia allow herself to fall in love at the risk of repeating a terrible history? Will Cricket’s relentless chase of a lifelong goal drive her sister away? When does loyalty become self-sabotage?
A sharply observed and tender portrait of sisters, love, and ambition, Spectacular Things is a sweeping story about the impossible choices we’re forced to make in pursuit of our dreams.
The Wedding People by Alison Espach
A propulsive and uncommonly wise novel about one unexpected wedding guest and the surprising people who help her start anew.
It’s a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn wearing a green dress and gold heels, not a bag in sight, alone. She's immediately mistaken by everyone in the lobby for one of the wedding people, but she’s actually the only guest at the Cornwall who isn’t here for the big event. Phoebe is here because she’s dreamed of coming for years—she hoped to shuck oysters and take sunset sails with her husband, only now she’s here without him, at rock bottom, and determined to have one last decadent splurge on herself. Meanwhile, the bride has accounted for every detail and every possible disaster the weekend might yield except for, well, Phoebe and Phoebe's plan—which makes it that much more surprising when the two women can’t stop confiding in each other.
In turns absurdly funny and devastatingly tender, Alison Espach’s The Wedding People is ultimately an incredibly nuanced and resonant look at the winding paths we can take to places we never imagined—and the chance encounters it sometimes takes to reroute us.
What beachy books are on your TBR?
Let us know in the comments!
Let us know in the comments!
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