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Hello and happy Wednesday!

Where or where did July go? There’s nothing like having a bit of extra time to read in the summer…and in July, I read on vacation, at the pool, on my porch and more. What a luxury to have a little bit of downtime.

Today, I’m sharing the three books I read in July.

This month, I read two books and listened to one book:

{As always, book summaries are from Goodreads…}

Maine Characters:

Summary:

Every summer, Vivian Levy and Lucy Webster spend a month with their father at his lake house — separately. Raised in New York City, Vivian is an ambitious sommelier with a secret that could derail her future. Lucy grew up in a tiny Maine town, where she now teaches high school English while watching her marriage unravel. They’ve never met. While Lucy envied her half-sister from afar, their father kept Vivian in the dark.

When Vivian arrives at the lake to spread his ashes and sell his cabin, she’s shocked to find Lucy there, awaiting his return. In an ideal world, they’d help each other through their grief. Instead, forced to spend the summer together, they fight through a storm of suspicion and hostility to untangle the messy truth about their parents’ pasts. While Lucy is desperate to hold onto the house, Vivian is scrambling after a betrayal. After thirty years apart, is it too late for them to be a family?

Quick Thoughts:

The Parent Trap is one of my favorite movies (the OG Hayley Mills version….the Lohan version is cute too!), so I liked that element of the plot. Another summer book set at a lake…what’s not to love?! While the plot was somewhat predictable in that the sisters started out at odds with each other, their complicated past as well as the extended family and romance provided a well-rounded plot.

Overall, I thought this was a good read!

Rating:

Beach House Rules:

Summary:

When Charlotte Sitterly’s husband is arrested for a white-collar crime, she and her daughter Iris are locked out of their house by the FBI and—what’s potentially even worse—thrust into the spotlight of @JuniperShoresSocialite, the town’s snarky anonymous Instagram account. Cut off from her bank accounts and feeling desperate, Charlotte takes up an acquaintance’s offer to stay at a beachfront former bed-and-breakfast that’s home to a community of single mothers and draws plenty of gossip in the small coastal North Carolina town.

Charlotte and Iris find solace and are surprised by how much fun they’re having with the other families despite their circumstances. But when the women discover a secret link between them, it changes everything they thought they knew about the unconventional family they’ve created and leaves them wondering whether their coming together was a coincidence at all. Will the skeletons in the mommune closets help Charlotte and Iris reclaim their place in the Juniper Shores community—or shatter the sisterhood forever?

Quick Thoughts:

Is it even summer without a Kristy Woodson Harvey book? She’s one of my favorite authors. I thought the concept with the “mommune” was interesting. I will say I felt like the plot jumped from Charlotte and her daughter needing a place to stay to her moving into the beach house with the other ladies seemed to fall into place rather quickly! Also, some of the beach house rules (like no phones) just seemed a bit far fetched to have in place with no one questioning it. The Instagram account was a fun break in between chapters.

Rating:

While this wasn’t my favorite KWH book, I still give it four stars!

The Comeback Summer:

Summary:

Hannah and Libby need a miracle. The PR agency they inherited from their grandmother is losing clients left and right, and the sisters are devastated at the thought of closing. The situation seems hopeless—until in walks Lou, an eccentric self-help guru who is looking for a new PR agency. Her business could solve all their problems—but there’s a catch. Whoever works with Lou must complete a twelve-week challenge as part of her “Crush Your Comfort Zone” program.

Hannah, whose worst nightmare is making small talk with strangers, is challenged to go on twelve first dates. Libby, who once claimed to have period cramps for four weeks straight to get out of gym class, is challenged to compete in an obstacle course race. The challenges begin with Hannah helping Libby train and Libby managing the dating app on her sister’s behalf. They’re both making good progress—until Hannah’s first love rolls into town, and Libby accidentally falls for a guy she’s supposed to be setting up with her sister.

Things get even more complicated when secrets come to light, making the sisters question the one relationship they’ve always counted each other. With their company’s future on the line, they can’t afford to fail. But in trying to make a comeback to honor their grandmother, are they pushing themselves down the wrong path?

Quick Thoughts:

I enjoyed listening to this book as the plot was easy to follow. I liked the unique aspect of the plot and how the sisters are trying to save their company by completing the program…and of course that’s difficult for each of them to do. There was some R rated content in a few of the scenes! This book fell a little flat for me.

Rating:

Summer Reading Update:

Two months of summer reading and I’ve read six of the nine books on my list:

• Read: All the Summers in Between, One Golden Summer, Bad Summer People, Maine Characters, Beach House Rules, and The Comeback Summer.
• On my Kindle ready to read: Seven Summers, The Summer Book Club, and Summer Light on Nantucket

I had hoped to read more than three books this month, but it is what it is I guess. Realistically, with the busyness of back to school in August, I’m guessing I will be lucky to read two books, but we’ll see! The last three books on my list have been downloaded on my Kindle just in time. We’ll see what I can get to this month.