Beach Reads – Updated January-February 2007

Andrews, Mary Kay. Savannah Blues
Eloise "Weezie" Foley has started up a new antique business after bitterly divorcing her husband. There’s one big drawback -- she's living in the carriage house in his backyard, and he's living with his beautiful new girlfriend, Caroline. Their feuding ends when Weezie discovers Caroline’s body in an abandoned plantation house. She soon becomes the prime suspect in her death.

Brasheres, Ann. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.
Four fifteen year old girls separate for the summer promising to share a thrift store pair of pants which miraculously fit each of their different body types perfectly.

Camilleri, Andrea. Rounding the Mark
Set in Sicily, with Inspector Montalbano as the Colin Dexter Inspector Morse-type hero, this mystery deals with the detective’s disillusionment both with police corruption and his own life. While trying to unwind with a relaxing swim, Montalbano discovers a corpse. His pursuit of the cause of death intersects with another case dealing with human trafficking. A smart, entertaining read.

Carofiglio, Gianrico. Involuntary Witness
A bestseller and winner of multiple awards in Italy, Carofiglio's debut should please fans of American-style courtroom thrillers. A murder case presents Guido Guerrieri, the archetypal burned-out defense lawyer, with a chance at redemption. A Senegalese peddler, Abdou Thiam, is arrested for killing a nine-year-old boy. Guerrieri becomes convinced that his new client is the victim of racism and is being used as a scapegoat. A District Attorney in the southern Italian city of Bari, Carofiglio’s stories are slated for a Law and Order-type TV series, Italian-style.

DeMille, Nelson. Nightfall
DeMille based this story on an actual event, the controversial crash of flight TWA 800 in which he includes the videotaping of the event which could debunk or prove whether the plane was a terrorist target or the crash was a tragic accident.

Evanovich, Janet. Plum Lovin’
Stephanie Plum, a Jersey bond enforcement agent, reconnects with an old flame, Diesel. He offers Stephanie a deal: if he lets her find Annie Hart, a relationship coach who's become a big-ticket bond on Stephanie's Most Wanted List, then Stephanie can do Annie a big favor by playing Cupid for a number of Annie's lovelorn clients.

Gayle, Mike. Turning 30
Gayle tackles a milestone birthday for Matt Beckford who has a good job in New York and lives with his beautiful girlfriend, Elaine. But when Elaine breaks up with him, Matt finds himself on a new course, requesting a transfer and moving back home to Birmingham to live with his parents. Matt is none too thrilled by the prospect of turning 30 while living in his childhood home, but he finds himself revisiting his youth with two old friends to find direction and love at 30.

Gregory, Philippa. The Other Boleyn Girl
Anne’s sister Mary, who only appears in the footnotes of history during the reign of Henry the eighth, narrates the tale of Henry’s loves, his politics and the machiavelian ambition of the Boleyn family as they jockey for power.

Hornby, Nick. A Long Way Down
Four different people find themselves on the same roof on New Year's Eve, but they have one thing in common–they're all there to jump to their deaths. A scandal-plagued talk-show host, a single mom of a disabled young man, a troubled teen, and an aging American musician each takes a turn telling their story in a distinctive voice. Darkly humorous.

Hosseini, Khaled. The Kite Runner
This story set in Afghanistan immediately prior to the Soviet invasion, reads like an autobiography of the main character Amir, son of a wealthy businessman, as he grapples with his relationship with his father and his best friend and servant, Hassan.

Ishiguro, Kazuo. Never Let Me Go
Hailsham is not what it seems, an English boarding school that keeps its students curiously isolated from the influences of the outside world. When Kathy and her classmates, Tommy and Ruth, leave the grounds they discover the disturbing true nature of their school; a provocative examination of the meaning of humanity.

Kidd, Sue Monk. The Secret Life of Bees
Lily begins her search for her mother and takes us on a beautiful and at times hilarious journey of love lost and reclaimed.

Larsen, Erik. The Devil in the White City
Based on a true crime the history of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair is chillingly shadowed by a mad serial killer.

Lehane, Dennis. Mystic River
Childhood pals, Jimmy, Sean, and Dave meet again a quarter-century later, when Sean is a Boston police officer, Jimmy is an ex-con, and Dave is hiding lots of things especially about something that happened a long time ago. When Jimmy's daughter is murdered, the three former friends are thrown together again, but this time at least one of them apparently is bound for self-destruction.

McMurtry, Larry. Telegraph Days
A Pulitzer Prize winner for Lonesome Dove, McMurtry has written an entertaining spoof about the Wild West that brings alive the romance of outlaws, gunfighters and shootouts. McMurtry puts aside the true history of greed and conquest to recreate the West of the dime novels and Wild West shows, the land of bigger-than-life characters. This is a romantic tale of the West -- proof that an old-fashioned western can be as much fun to read as a literary work.

Martel, Yann. Life of Pi
A magical coming of age tale of the life of zookeeper’s son, Pi Patel whose father decides to move his family from India to Canada by freighter, animals in tow. A shipwreck leaves Pi on a lifeboat with a zebra, hyena, orangutan and a 500 pound Bengal tiger.

Paolini, Christopher. Eragon
A bildungsroman set in the magical world of Alagaesia has it all, a boy and his dragon, love, adventure and an epic battle of good versus evil. All that and a host of magical creatures make this an irresistible page turning adventure.

Parkhurst, Carolyn. Lost and Found
Parkhurst goes behind the scenes of a fictional reality show, Lost and Found, and imagines what TV reality show participants are really like. An Amazing Race-type competition sends two-person teams on a journey from Egypt to Japan to Scandinavia. Along the way, the carefully constructed personae of these TV competitors slowly unravel. Just wait until you hear what Parkhurst imagines they’re really thinking and saying off-camera.

Patterson, James. 1st to Die
Homicide detective Lindsay Boxer is assigned to investigate a rash of gruesome murders of newlyweds and joins forces with three other talented women to form a formidable investigative team.

Picoult, Jodi. My Sister’s Keeper
When Anna discovers the dark secret of her conception she attempts to legally emancipate herself from her parents; a heartbreaking and riveting read.

Smith, Scott. The Ruins
Smith gives us a story so scary you may never want to go on vacation, or dig in your garden, again. Four American friends on vacation in Cancún, Mexico, meet a German tourist who persuades them to join his hunt for his younger brother, last seen headed off with a new girlfriend toward some ruins. The eerie atmosphere and compelling plot should appeal to fans of ABC's hit TV series Lost.

See, Lisa. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
Set in 19th Century China the women of a remote Hunan county develop a secret code for communication to lessen the isolation forced upon them in this patriarchal society in which women were kept foot-bound and isolated.

Zigman, Laura. Piece of Work
When Julia Einstein's husband loses his job, she is forced to return to her career as a celebrity publicist, a position she happily walked away from in order to become a full-time mom. Julia’s first assignment at a third-rate publicity firm is to promote the launch of a perfume created to engineer the comeback of a 73-year-old former screen legend. As Julia confronts the hard choices of her unwanted job she will discover that happiness--at home and at work--can be found in the unlikeliest places.

Updated for Reader’s Advisory Committee - RASD by Peg McCarthy and Grace O’Connor, February 2007, June 13,2007