Summer Reads and Other Things: Summer 2016 Edition

Last year, I complied a list of summer beach reads and thought I would do something similar for 2016. Below I have included several upcoming summer 2016 releases that I think sound really good! Enjoy, and let me know what you are looking forward to! ♥

Affiliate Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links you can use to purchase the book. If you buy the book using that link, I will receive a small commission from the sale. Thank you! ♥

Summer 2016 Releases that Should Be on Your Radar:

The Sudden Appearance of Hope by Claire North
Psychological Thriller

What if every person you met forgets you after they meet you? That’s what happens to sixteen-year-old Hope.

“My name is Hope Arden, and you won’t know who I am. But we’ve met before-a thousand times.”

How would would that affect a person? For Hope, she says, “That makes my life difficult. It also makes me dangerous…”

The whole premise sounds really intriguing. I’ve read some early reviews and many seem to be enjoying it so far!

Available Now
Amazon: US • UK • CAN | iBooks | Read the Synopsis

Flight Patterns by Karen White
Women’s Fiction

Karen White is a popular writer of fiction for women. I have actually never read one of her books before, but I saw this one recently and thought it looked really great! Read about it here!

Georgia left her family’s home in coastal Florida 13 years ago but her work forces her to come back and face her past. She discovers that not much has changed since she left.

“To embrace her own life—mistakes and all—she will have to find the courage to confront the ghosts of her past and the secrets she was forced to keep…”

Available Now
Amazon: US • UK • CAN | iBooks | Read the Synopsis

White-Hot Hack by Tracey Garvis Graves
Contemporary Romance

I recently read Heart-Shaped Hack and really enjoyed Kate and Ian’s emotional love story. Their story concludes in White-Hot Hack.

For those of you that have read, Heart-Shaped Hack, you know that there was quite a little twist in that book that left readers in an emotional mess.

I’m looking forward to seeing Kate and Ian continue to recover from that as well as work through the dangers of Ian’s profession and its effect on their relationship. And of course, I’m looking forward to seeing more sweet and funny moments between the two of them, too!

Heart-Shaped Hack (Kate & Ian #1)
Amazon: US • UK • CAN | iBooks | Read the Synopsis

White-Hot Hack (Kate & Ian #2)
Amazon: US • UK • CAN | iBooks | Read the Synopsis

All the Missing Girls by Megan Miranda
Suspenseful Thriller // Read My Review

The synopsis of All the Missing Girls says it’s “a nail-biting, breathtaking story about the disappearances of two young women—a decade apart—told in reverse.”

Are you intrigued yet? I sure was!

Publisher’s Weekly says All The Missing Girls is a “fiendishly plotted” thriller with a “haunted setting.” Yes, please!

Available Now
Amazon: US • UK • CAN | iBooks | Read the Synopsis

Watching Edie by Camilla Way
Psychological Thriller

This book sounds like it could be super unsettling. The protagonist’s name is Edie. She’s a waitress and a new mother who’s completely overwhelmed with everything. Then an old friend shows up out of the blue at the precise moment Edie desperately needs help.

Coincidence? I don’t think so. The synopsis makes it sound like this friend has been watching Edie and waiting for the right time to swoop in and save the day. Why you so obsessed with me? Crazy much?

The synopsis describes this as a “work of psychological suspense that weaves together the past and present of two women’s twisted friendship.”

Available Now
Amazon: US • UK • CAN | iBooks | Read the Synopsis

One True Loves by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Women’s Fiction/Romance // Read my Review

I’ve read all of this author’s books. After I Do is one of my all-time favorites and I’ve enjoyed her other two novels as well. I’ve seen One True Loves described as Helen Hunt’s side of the story in the movie Castaway. Emma married her high school sweetheart. A year later, the helicopter Jesse is on goes missing and he’s presumed dead.

She moves on after mourning the loss and gets engaged to someone else. Then her husband is found and he’s very much alive.

Interesting predicament, no?

My Taylor Jenkins Reid Reviews: After I Do | Forever, Interrupted | Maybe in Another Life | One True Loves

Available Now
Amazon: US • UK • CAN | iBooks | Read the Synopsis

Monsters: A Love Story by Liz Kay
Women’s Fiction // Read My Review

This novel caught my eye admittedly because of the title. Stacy is a mother and a writer, both of which she hasn’t done well since her husband passed away. Tommy is a hollywood actor who loves to read, especially Stacy’s novels. The two meet and start seeing each other, their love that “sets their lives on a collision course.”

From the synopsis: “About desire, love, grief, parenthood, sexual politics, and gender, Monsters: A Love Story is a witty portrait of a relationship gone off the rails, and two people that are made for each other—even if they’re not so sure they see it that way.”

Available Now
Amazon: US • UK • CAN | iBooks | Read the Synopsis

I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid
Psychological Thriller – ❤️ // Read my Review

YOU GUYS! I read this book super early because I just couldn’t wait any longer. Fair warning though, this book won’t be for everyone. If you don’t like being in the head of someone potentially unstable and the writing that comes along with that, this won’t be for you. But if you like mind-bendy books and a lot of the “what in the heck is going on’s”, you should check this one out. I could NOT put it down.

From the Synopsis:
I’m thinking of ending things. Once this thought arrives, it stays. It sticks. It lingers. It’s always there. Always.

Jake once said, “Sometimes a thought is closer to truth, to reality, than an action. You can say anything, you can do anything, but you can’t fake a thought.”

And here’s what I’m thinking: I don’t want to be here.

Jake and someone only referred to as “the girlfriend” are on their way to meet Jake’s parents. But the girlfriend is already having doubts about their relationship after only dating for six weeks. What follows is a philosophical psychological thriller that I couldn’t put down.

You’re going to want to have someone to talk to when reading one. It’s utterly creepy and unsettling.

Available Now
Amazon: US • UK • CAN | iBooks | Read the Synopsis

If I Forget You by Thomas Christopher Greene
Literary Fiction w/ Romantic Elements

I love books about rekindled romances. This one is about a couple who broke up several years ago—he’s a poet and she’s the daughter in a prominent family. They randomly reconnect on the streets of Manhattan.

The synopsis says that it is a “a great love story, a novel of marriage, manners, and family, a meditation on the nature of art, a moving elegy to what it means to love and to lose, and how the choices we make can change our lives forever.”

I can’t wait to read it!

ETA 8/12/2016: I couldn’t get into this book. The writing style wasn’t something I could connect to and ultimately, I couldn’t connect with the characters like I’d hoped.

Available Now
Amazon: US • UK • CAN | iBooks | Read the Synopsis

Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty
Fiction/Family Life

Attention all Liane Moriarty fans! She has a new book coming out this summer. I haven’t had the chance to read her other books—I’ve heard their really fantastic—but I thought this one looks great!

About the book:

Six responsible adults. Three cute kids. One small dog. It’s just a normal weekend. What could possibly go wrong?

In Truly Madly Guilty, Liane Moriarty turns her unique, razor-sharp eye towards three seemingly happy families.

Sam and Clementine have a wonderful, albeit, busy life: they have two little girls, Sam has just started a new dream job, and Clementine, a cellist, is busy preparing for the audition of a lifetime. If there’s anything they can count on, it’s each other.

Clementine and Erika are each other’s oldest friends. A single look between them can convey an entire conversation. But theirs is a complicated relationship, so when Erika mentions a last minute invitation to a barbecue with her neighbors, Tiffany and Vid, Clementine and Sam don’t hesitate. Having Tiffany and Vid’s larger than life personalities there will be a welcome respite.

Two months later, it won’t stop raining, and Clementine and Sam can’t stop asking themselves the question: What if we hadn’t gone?

In Truly Madly Guilty, Liane Moriarty takes on the foundations of our lives: marriage, sex, parenthood, and friendship. She shows how guilt can expose the fault lines in the most seemingly strong relationships, how what we don’t say can be more powerful than what we do, and how sometimes it is the most innocent of moments that can do the greatest harm.

Available Now
Amazon: US • UK • CAN | iBooks | Goodreads

The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena
Psychological Thriller

This one doesn’t come out until towards the end of summer, but I included here anyway.

How well do you know the couple next door? Or your husband? Or even—yourself?
People are capable of almost anything. . .

From the synopsis:
Anne and Marco Conti seem to have it all—a loving relationship, a wonderful home, and their beautiful baby, Cora. But one night when they are at a dinner party next door, a terrible crime is committed. Suspicion immediately focuses on the parents. But the truth is a much more complicated story.

Inside the curtained house, an unsettling account of what actually happened unfolds. Detective Rasbach knows that the panicked couple is hiding something. Both Anne and Marco soon discover that the other is keeping secrets, secrets they’ve kept for years.

What follows is the nerve-racking unraveling of a family—a chilling tale of deception, duplicity, and unfaithfulness that will keep you breathless until the final shocking twist.

***

Okay book, you have my attention. How good does this sound?!

Out August 23rd
Amazon: US • UK • CAN | iBooks | Read the Synopsis

The Last One by Alexandra Oliva
Psychological Thriller

This book caught my attention when it was compared to Station Eleven—yes, totally falling for the marketing here. I loved Station Eleven so much!

This book centers around a new reality show where the contestants’ endurance is tested to the limits. While the show is in production, something catastrophic happens in the outside world, causing widespread destruction. But the contestants are completely cut off from what happens outside the show.

The contestants see the devastation and think it’s part of the game. “The Last One is a novel that forces us to confront the role that media plays in our perception of what is real: how readily we cast our judgments, how easily we are manipulated.”

ETA 8/12/2016: I couldn’t get into this one either but have seen some of my book friends enjoy it!

Available Now
Amazon: US • UK • CAN | iBooks | Read the Synopsis

What We Become by Arturo Pérez-Reverte
Historical Fiction with Romantic Elements

I read the synopsis of this one and was immediately intrigued by the promise of a forbidden love affair spanning decades! Max meets Mecha on board a transatlantic cruise ships and teaches her and her husband how to tango, starting a passionate love affair lasting for several years.

Out June 7th
Amazon: US • UK • CAN | iBooks | Read the Synopsis

The Bird and the Sword by Amy Harmon
Fantasy Romance

The cover and synopsis was released last week and I think it sounds so unique! Early readers are loving it already.

Here is the synopsis:

Swallow, Daughter, pull them in, those words that sit upon your lips. Lock them deep inside your soul, hide them ‘til they’ve time to grow. Close your mouth upon the power, curse not, cure not, ‘til the hour. You won’t speak and you won’t tell, you won’t call on heav’n or hell. You will learn and you will thrive. Silence, Daughter. Stay alive.

The day my mother was killed, she told my father I wouldn’t speak again, and she told him if I died, he would die too. Then she predicted the king would trade his soul and lose his son to the sky.

My father has a claim to the throne, and he is waiting in the shadows for all of my mother’s words to come to pass. He wants desperately to be king, and I just want to be free.

But freedom will require escape, and I’m a prisoner of my mother’s curse and my father’s greed. I can’t speak or make a sound, and I can’t wield a sword or beguile a king. In a land purged of enchantment, love might be the only magic left, and who could ever love . . . a bird?

Available now!
Amazon: US • UK • CAN | GR

The Angels’ Share by J.R. Ward
Contemporary Romance // Currently Listening to

This is the follow-up to last year’s The Bourbon Kings and I am very excited to see what happens next.

The Bourbon King was a modern day Southern soap opera filled with tons of family drama. The series focuses on a very prominent and wealth family who reign over a Bourbon dynasty. But their power and control starts to come shift when financial issues arise and a prominent member of the family is found murdered.

I’m really looking forward to reading this installment!

Available Now
Amazon: US • UK • CAN | iBooks | Read the Synopsis

Results May Vary: A Novel by Bethany Chase
Women’s Fiction // Currently Reading

I read Bethany Chases debut, The One That Got Away, early last year and enjoyed it. I’m looking forward to reading her second novel. It’s about a woman whose marriage is unravelling. Caroline and her husband were high school sweethearts. Ten years later, she discovers he’s having an affair with another man.

The book takes you through their marriage from beginning to end. Her marriage’s demise forces Caroline to do some soul-searching. “Caroline always thought she knew her own love story, but as her husband’s other secrets emerge, she must decide whether that story’s ending will mean forgiving the man she’s loved for half her life, or facing her future without him.”

Available Now
Amazon: US • UK • CAN | iBooks | Read the Synopsis

Can I See You Again by Allison Morgan
Women’s Fiction // Review to come! (SO CUTE!!)

I mentioned this book on social media a couple of times just because of how freaking adorable it sounds.

Check out the synopsis:

Matchmaker Bree Caxton has a 98% success rate, a book about to hit the stands, and an amazing boyfriend. Until, that is, he gets cold feet about their future and runs from their relationship.

Afraid no one will buy a book on love from a woman whose love life is a mess, Bree begs her one matchmaking failure, Nixon Voss, to pose as her boyfriend. But when they become a hit with readers, they must carry on their charade just a little longer. Fortunately, they’re both having fun…

But then Bree’s ex decides he wants her back and a newspaper presents a challenge that could expose the truth about her rocky love life. Now she must find the courage to embrace what is, or risk losing something much bigger than her reputation: her heart…

How cute does that sound? This sounds like the perfect read for when you’re wanting something and fun. 🙂

Available Now
Amazon: US • UK • CAN | iBooks | Goodreads

MORE SUMMER 2016 RELEASES HERE

MAY 2016 | JUNE 2016 | JULY 2016 | AUGUST 2016

Summer Cocktails I Want to Make:

Does anyone want to come to my house so that I can have an excuse to make these?

Food You Need in Your Belly:

I signed up for Blue Apron last year and get shipments once every few months. They send everything you need to make the meals (minus salt, pepper and olive oil) and show you step-by-step how to make it! Every meal they’ve sent me has been really freaking good. And it’s all super healthy! They put tons of veggies and greens in almost every recipe.

You can sign up for a meal plan to fit your family. I get the plan that sends you 3 meals (each serves 2) and costs around $60. It’s a little pricey, but it’s also a fun way to treat yo’self and try some things you might not otherwise pick for yourself. Some of the meals were so big that I was able to get 3-4 servings.

Note: I’m not getting paid to say this, nor are any of these the Blue Apron links referral links. I benefit from this in no way. I just really like their meals. ❤️

You can read more about their plans and pricing here.

Some of the meals I’ve tried and loved:

Something not-so healthy:

I couldn’t help myself from including this. That background music, tho. Turn the lights down and make sure you’re alone. 😉

Summer Workout Gear I am LOVING:

You may have noticed that I went radio silent for chunks of time over the last year 18 months. Well, that’s because my job was pretty intense there for awhile. Work-related stress is no freaking joke and it’s not fun; I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. So, I’ve been trying to take care of myself by working out and making healthier eating choices. I went shopping a few weeks back for some new gear. Here’s some of what I picked up:

THIS razorback tank — These tanks are super loose and comfy. I’ve been running and lifting with them and they’re great. The best part of all is that they’re on SUPER SALE for $9.99. I got one in ever color they had at the store.
THESE colorful capris! — These are super comfortable!!
Tons of shiz at TJ freaking Maxx — This place always has the best activewear and on super sale. I got a ton of stuff for a fraction of the cost. Are you seeing a pattern here? I like sales.

Random All-Year-Around Stuff that I Love but Totally Use During Summer:

This Salad Spinner — This links to Amazon, but I got this salad spinner from TJ Maxx for $16.00 on clearance. I’ve already used it a few times and it’s awesome. It slices your veggies super thin and it’s super easy to clean and put away too.
These Essential Oils — I like to make my own room spray. I just put a few drops of whatever scent combination I am loving (like Lavender Peppermint or Rosemary Peppermint) along a couple teaspoons of vodka and some distilled water. I just store it in these little blue-tinted glass bottles. You’ll want to store them in some dark-colored glass bottle in a cool place because exposure to the ultra-violet light speed up the process of oxidation.
This freaking candle — Can you tell I love fresh scenes? This scent has been favorite for a long time! Perfect to have burning while you’re reading a good book. 🙂
Freaking Netflix — For when it’s too damn hot to go outside, Netflix it, baby! I didn’t get Netflix until late last year. Totally worth it! I watched all the streaming episodes of The Walking Dead, Making a Murderer, caught up on House, and and Grey’s Anatomy. Any TV show/Movie recommendations on Netflix for me?
This Sound Machine App – I play this in my office at work, and people totally made fun of me. I had this running for days while I was busy writing an appeal brief. But hey, it totally helped and was super relaxing. 🙂
This Face Cleanser — Random, I know but I love this cleanser. It smells freaking great and it makes my face feel super revitalized. It’s oil-free too.