First Batch of Summer Beach Reads: Funny Story, This Summer will be Different, Happy Medium, Paradise Problem & One Last Summer

Ok we are starting with the time of great summer reads , so we start with 5 great Summer books that just came out! I reviewed quite a bit of great summer reads that just came out or are coming out soon through some advance reading, so I am giving you my ranking of Summer books so far right now. for the ones I have ranked before, click the link to see the full review, the ones without a link, keep reading the post!!

Funny Story by Emily Henry

Goodreads blurb: Daphne always loved the way her fiancé Peter told their story. How they met (on a blustery day), fell in love (over an errant hat), and moved back to his lakeside hometown to begin their life together. He really was good at telling it…right up until the moment he realized he was actually in love with his childhood best friend Petra. Which is how Daphne begins her new story: Stranded in beautiful Waning Bay, Michigan, without friends or family but with a dream job as a children’s librarian (that barely pays the bills), and proposing to be roommates with the only person who could possibly understand her predicament: Petra’s ex, Miles Nowak. Scruffy and chaotic—with a penchant for taking solace in the sounds of heart break love ballads—Miles is exactly the opposite of practical, buttoned up Daphne, whose coworkers know so little about her they have a running bet that she’s either FBI or in witness protection. The roommates mainly avoid one another, until one day, while drowning their sorrows, they form a tenuous friendship and a plan. If said plan also involves posting deliberately misleading photos of their summer adventures together, well, who could blame them? But it’s all just for show, of course, because there’s no way Daphne would actually start her new chapter by falling in love with her ex-fiancé’s new fiancée’s ex…right?

My take: 4.5 out of 5 Emily Henry can do no wrong in my book. Its not my favorite of her but I still got absolutely lost in it. I love the banter. Daphne might be the blandest of her characters and she treats Ashleigh very shitty, who by the way is a great side character, loving her!

I went to the launch event of this book at book and books and one of the most controversial topics was ranking her books. With some calm and time passed, I am going to attempt to do that and revisit my ranking of her books. This is done in retrospect because the rankings I have on this blog for them say nothing as I think for some I Was grading harshly and for some too generously, i go through moments, but thinking about it this is where I stand What Are yours?

  1. Book Lovers (there will never be a debate as to which is number one, this book is precious)
  2. People we meet in vacation
  3. Funny Story
  4. Beach read
  5. Happy Place

Happy Medium by Sarah Adler

Goodreads blurb: A clever con woman must convince a skeptical, sexy farmer of his property’s resident real-life ghost if she’s to save them all from a fate worse than death, in this delightful new novel from the author of Mrs. Nash’s Ashes . Fake spirit medium Gretchen Acorn is happy to help when her best ( wealthiest) client hires her to investigate the unexplained phenomena preventing the sale of her bridge partner’s struggling goat farm. Gretchen may be a fraud, but she’d like to think she’s a beneficent one. So if “cleansing” the property will help a nice old man finally retire and put some much-needed cash in her pockets at the same time, who’s she to say no? Of course, it turns out said bridge partner isn’t the kindly AARP member Gretchen imagined—Charlie Waybill is young, hot as hell, and extremely unconvinced that Gretchen can communicate with the dead. (Which, fair.) Except, to her surprise, Gretchen finds herself face-to-face with the very real, very chatty ghost that’s been wreaking havoc during every open house. And he wants her to help ensure Charlie avoids the same family curse that’s had Everett haunting Gilded Creek since the 1920s. Now, Gretchen has one month to convince Charlie he can’t sell the property. Unfortunately, hard work and honesty seem to be the way to win over the stubborn farmer—not exactly Gretchen’s strengths. But trust isn’t the only thing growing between them, and the risk of losing Charlie to the spirit realm looms over Gretchen almost as annoyingly as Everett himself. To save the goat farm, its friendly phantom, and the man she’s beginning to love, Gretchen will need to pull off the greatest con of her being fully, genuinely herself.

My take: 3.75 out of 5. This is a cute proximity story, I enjoyed it but not as much as her first book, Mrs Nashes Ashes. I was a fan of all the tv references, as the ghost is a full Tv fan. I have to say after seeing so many goats in books, what is it with goats? why would people want to do goat yoga? I might be a hater here but I Really dont get it.

This Summer Will Be Different by Carley Fortune

Goodreads blurb: This summer they’ll keep their promise. This summer they won’t give into temptation. This summer will be different. Lucy is the tourist vacationing at a beach house on Prince Edward Island. Felix is the local who shows her a very good time. The only problem: Lucy doesn’t know he’s her best friend’s younger brother. Lucy and Felix’s chemistry is unreal, but the list of reasons why they need to stay away from each other is long, and they vow to never repeat that electric night again. It’s easier said than done. Each year, Lucy escapes to PEI for a big breath of coastal air, fresh oysters and crisp vinho verde with her best friend, Bridget. Every visit begins with a long walk on the beach, beneath soaring red cliffs and a golden sun. And every visit, Lucy promises herself she won’t wind up in Felix’s bed. Again. If Lucy can’t help being drawn to Felix, at least she’s always kept her heart out of it. When Bridget suddenly flees Toronto a week before her wedding, Lucy drops everything to follow her to the island. Her mission is to help Bridget through her crisis and resist the one man she’s never been able to. But Felix’s sparkling eyes and flirty quips have been replaced with something new, and Lucy’s beginning to wonder just how safe her heart truly is.

my take: 4.75 out of 5. This was such a good beach read, definitely a must for this summer, I completely fell absorbed by it. The meet cute is everything, I Was obsessed at how their relationship came about. I love when friendships and relationships both are so important and so well written in books, friendships are relationships! Also I’m a sucker for an extended timeline, and this going back to different summers at PEI was so well written. And can we talk about the fashion, so good! But what is going on with her craziness at the 90% mark? Just when you think everything is going to be great and then you realize there is 10% left, you are just waiting for the bad decisions, and they came, oh yest they came. But still I absolutely loved this book, got totally transported by it and now I need to find myself planning a vacation to PEI because it will go on my list of locations that books have made me want to discover (in this list we have Nantucket and Newport right now, as I already ticked off Asheville)

The Paradise Problem by Christina Lauren

Goodreads blurb: Christina Lauren, returns with a delicious new romance between the buttoned-up heir of a grocery chain and his free-spirited artist ex as they fake their relationship in order to receive a massive inheritance. Anna Green thought she was marrying Liam “West” Weston for access to subsidized family housing while at UCLA. She also thought she’d signed divorce papers when the graduation caps were tossed, and they both went on their merry ways. Three years later, Anna is a starving artist living paycheck to paycheck while West is a Stanford professor. He may be one of four heirs to the Weston Foods conglomerate, but he has little interest in working for the heartless corporation his family built from the ground up. He is interested, however, in his one-hundred-million-dollar inheritance. There’s just one catch. Due to an antiquated clause in his grandfather’s will, Liam won’t see a penny until he’s been happily married for five years. Just when Liam thinks he’s in the home stretch, pressure mounts from his family to see this mysterious spouse, and he has no choice but to turn to the one person he’s afraid to introduce to his one-percenter parents—his unpolished, not-so-ex-wife. But in the presence of his family, Liam’s fears quickly shift from whether the feisty, foul-mouthed, paint-splattered Anna can play the part to whether the toxic world of wealth will corrupt someone as pure of heart as his surprisingly grounded and loyal wife. Liam will have to ask himself if the price tag on his flimsy cover story is worth losing true love that sprouted from a lie.

My take: 4 out of 5. Fake romance meets Crazy Rich Asians meets Succession in this quite addictive summer read. There were a lot of tropes in this books, and plenty of cliches, but that did not take away from my enjoyment. It is a total sexy romp through a tropical island and there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. Add couture to this and I am 100% in. As much as it could have been jsut a light cute read, it did have some depth that I appreciate it and I was quite engaged in the family dynamics and office politics Also of it all. However, can we stop making female leads in romances so ditzy? Can we please have more well put together career women? asking for a friend. I did this in audiobook and I have to give credit to Patti Murin who reads it, I love her!

One Last Summer by Kate Spencer

Goodreads blurb: From the cohost of the award-winning Forever35 podcast comes a dreamy, laugh-out-loud summer romance that asks: What do you do when the life you’ve planned isn’t what you’ve dreamed? Clara Millen’s life is spiraling out of control: her dream job is a nightmare, she’s resoundingly single, and it’s been years since she’s taken some time off. Thankfully, the last problem she can fix—this year she’ll join her friends on their annual summer vacation to their beloved childhood sleepover camp for a much-needed escape. But when Clara arrives at Pine Lake Camp, she faces yet another unwelcome change: the owners are retiring and selling the property. The news turns her plans for revelry into a night of reminiscing . . . and prompts a surprise heart-to-heart between Clara and Mack, her old camp nemesis and constant competitor, who’s still just as annoying (and annoyingly handsome). Soon the campfires aren’t all that’s throwing off sparks. And when one wildly passionate night turns into two (then too many to count!), Clara begins to wonder if she and Mack could have a future together. But when Clara’s boss finally offers her everything she’s worked so hard for, Clara will need to decide if the life she’s always wanted is the life that makes her feel truly alive

This is an ARC review thanks to a gift from the publisher.

My take: 3 out of 5. This is a great romance for those with camp nostalgia, and wanting to relive their summers in the wilderness. For my part not only did I never do Summer camp, I think I’ve only camped once in my life, period. The great outdoors in cabins are not the nostalgia moment it seems to them, give me hotels and restaurants any day! so might this be why I didnt relate to it as much? It is really cute that they still meet in their summer camp 20 years later, and that the friendships have gone on for so long. Also Thank you for supplying my career woman in the romance with this one (I Have been requesting it as you can see above), even though i did question a lot of her choices. I might need to be more clear as to my requests next time – balanced career women is what I want. I have to say, even though I did not go to camp, I could totally relate to the Type A competitiveness, and Yes I would have still been upset about a tie for the medal 20 years ago. On a side note, I did not understand how chapters were organized here. They stopped at the most awkward of times like right in the middle of a scene!

So here we are, my summer ranking so far (reviews not in this post linked her) :

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