2023 Summer Beach Reads, Part 1

Dying To Ask: Road to Paris

Read anything good lately? Your answer will be YES after checking out our annual summer beach reads episodes.

We have so many book pics this year that we're breaking it up into two episodes. Part 1 will cover adult titles. Part 2 will cover kid picks from preschool to young adult (YA).

Our literary guide is Tina Ferguson, owner of Face in a Book bookstore.

This summer, Tina says romance is still hot, so to speak — but she's also seeing a trend in "feel good" books.

"I think that feel-good books are trending because we just need some uplifting in our day. And so that's been a really nice thing to see as well. And then I see a lot of like speculative fiction, a little bit of sci-fi coming back, too," Tina said.

Tina's picks:

"When Women Were Dragons"/Kelly Barnhill

"Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club"/J. Ryan Stradal

"Yellowface"/R. F. Kuang

"The Midnight Library"/Matt Haig

"You Could Make This Place Beautiful"/Maggie Smith

"Happy Place"/Emily Henry

"The Covenant of Water"/Abraham Verghese

"The Wager"/David Grann

Finley Donovan Series/Elle Cosimano

"Trust"/Hernan Diaz

On this 'Dying to Ask':

• The book trends emerging for the summer of 2023.
• How to fit more reading into your life.
• Tina's top 10 books to bring to the beach this summer.