Spring Beach Reads with Harper Collins
This post is sponsored by HTP Books, but as always all opinions are my own!
Hello from Hawaii! I’ve been looking forward to this trip since December because it has been so long since I have gotten to just sit by the beach and enjoy a good book (or 4) and I ALWAYS get the most reading done when I’m on vacation, so when I was given the opportunity to read and review some new Harper Collins 2021 releases, the timing could NOT have been better! Between flights and beach days, I have had SO much time to read, it has honestly been amazing. I’ve read 3.5 out of the 4 books so far, and they’ve all been really great reads. Page turners from the start, all with unexpected twists at the end that leave me both emotionally exhausted (in a good way) and sad that it’s over. Like I said, I’m only halfway through the 4th but I can already tell you that I’ve been hooked since page 1. I can tell it’s going to be a GOOD one, especially since after the first three were so good, I am highly trusting that the fourth selection will be just as great, and I cannot wait to spend the next couple of days getting lost in the storyline by the pool!
Summertime Guests
I started this book when I was back in NYC, and the sunny setting really got me in the mood for warmer weather ASAP! Set at a the Seafarer, an upscale hotel in Boston, Wendy Francis’s Summertime Guests follows 3 couples who are all unexpectedly intertwined in an unfortunate incident at the hotel where a woman has fallen (or was she pushed?) to her death from one of the hotel’s balconies. I loved following each of their individual storylines to the end and watching them unfold and connect along the way. As I was reading, I was pretty convinced that I knew where the author was going with the ending, and I was completely wrong. This was such an easy and quick read— I think I finished it in about two days because I couldn’t put it down.
Where to Buy
Just My Luck
What would you do if you won the lottery? Would you pay off major bills and debts and save the rest? Would you donate it? Would you blow it on fun, showy things? Adele Parks’s Just My Luck follows a couple who, after years of playing the lottery every week with a group of friends, have just won the jackpot of 17 million— the week after said friends have decided they no longer wish to play. The friends who missed out are understandably angry and feel like they deserve their share, whatever it takes to get it. One of my biggest takeaways from this book is that a lot of times, when large sums of money become involved, people quickly show their true colors. And that money is NOT the solution for everything. In fact, sometimes an excess can cause more harm than good! I absolutely loved this book and have already recommended it to multiple friends.
Where to Buy:
The Bookstore on The Beach
This is the one I was most excited to start reading because the description sounded right up my alley, and let me just say it did NOT disappoint. I finished it this morning, and you know that feeling when you finish a good book and you’re excited to have finished it and to finally have answers to the questions that have been burning in your mind for days, but you’re sad because it’s over and you miss your “friends”? That’s how I’m feeling right now. Brenda Novak’s The Bookstore on the Beach was SO good, and had me anxiously turning pages until the very end. Eighteen months after her husband goes missing, Autumn takes herself and her two high school age kids to the beach town where she grew up. While there, she unintentionally connects with an old high school flame. She has zero intentions of getting into any kind of relationship, because she still has hope that her husband is alive and will find his way home— but things aren’t looking good and even the experts she has hired to find him have lost almost all hope. How soon is too soon to move on? Add in some dark family secrets, and some coming of age conflicts for her two children, and you have three gripping storylines that the author somehow manages to tie together perfectly, giving a satisfying ending and leaving no questions unanswered. I honestly wish I could un-read this book so I could start it again for the first time. I’ve passed it on to my mom so that she can read it while we’re here, too!
Where to buy:
The Path to Sunshine Cove
RayAnne Thayne’s The Path to Sunshine Cove is the book I am currently in the middle of, and while I don’t know how it ends yet, I can tell you that I’ve been hooked since page one! I’ve been reading it all afternoon and the author does a really great job of drawing you in and making you feel connected to the two sisters from the very start. I’m excited to see where she takes us, and how the strained relationship the sisters currently have grows and develops as I go along, as well as whether or not Jess will end up with the cute son of her widowed client— I’m crossing my fingers for that to be a yes! I’ll be sure to update you guys on how I like it once I finish it, but I feel pretty comfortable predicting that it’s going to be a good one!
Where to Buy:
I am so thankful for the opportunity to have done this book review post because I truly had SO much fun with it! I love any excuse to sit there and just read for hours, and these books were all just so darn good! The settings make them all great spring books, and I think that any one of them would make amazing Mother’s Day gifts, if your mom is a reader like mine!
I loved working on this post so much that I think I may actually make book reviews a more regular thing over here on the blog! Any suggestions on what I should read next?