by BEB Bookette Anne Greenwood Brown

I’m not much of a beach person.  I pretty much burn at the mere mention of the sun. 

But I do like the smell of coconut-scented sunscreen, and I do enjoy a good “beach read” so I partake of both, just on a shady front porch.

Looking back on past summers, I’ve sunk into many an adirondack chair with familiar titles such as Sparks’s Notebook and Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series.  There was the summer I devoured my daughter’s Twilight books, and most recently Emily Giffin’s Love the One You’re With.  All in all, a diverse group of genres: Romance, Suspense, Paranormal, Women’s Fiction.  The pages of two of those books are warped by tears, and the series are food stained because I couldn’t tear myself away from the action to eat dinner at the table.

At closer look, however, my most memorable beach reads do have one thing in common: They all have an intoxicating, suck-you-in factor that allows one to read at break-neck speed, sometimes in a single sitting.  Which brings me to another book that fits that category and, therefore, qualifies as a “good beach read.”  It is, Jennifer Johnson is Sick of Being Single by Heather McElhatton.  It has Evanovich’s slap-stick comedy, Meyer’s drool-worthy Alpha male, and Giffin’s snarky wit, all in a Notebook-tidy length.  But the ending . . . ah, the ending . . . let’s just say you’ll need a margarita and some Noxema to cool you down because the ending will leave you as raw as a Fourth-of-July sunburn.

Get the book here.
We’d love to hear what’s in your beach bag this summer! Remember, one commenter this week will win a copy of SWEET MISFORTUNE on Friday.