Summer reads, makes me feel fine

I know that time has lost all meaning lately, what with everyone trying hard and just really doing their best — but I feel like my brain can just TELL it’s summertime now. Not just because it’s starting to get warmer out (and the air conditioning in our car, once again, has crapped the bed, making long drives a very sweaty endeavor), but because summer is always the season I associate with reading.

Well, that’s partly true. I really associate every season with reading, but summer’s the time of year that always calls me back to memories of going to the library and checking out a stack of books almost as tall as I am, to which the librarian would turn to my mom and ask me if I REALLY would be able to read all of them. (My mother, to her credit, would readily come to my defense and promise that yes, all of those would be read by the time we all came back to the library the following weekend.) And who doesn’t remember summer reading lists?!

So yeah, I’ve been in more of a reading groove, but this season more than anything, because there are SO MANY GOOD BOOKS coming out and it’s just a really great time to be a reader. I’m honestly having trouble keeping up with all of it — but here are a handful of the titles I’ve been enjoying lately.

Note: If you like any of my recs and feel inclined to buy it through my Kissing Books-specific link below, I’ll receive a little kickback in return. No pressure, of course, but it’s never a bad time to support your local indie bookstore anyway.

All Things Burn by Jodie Slaughter

(contemporary romance; content warnings for stalking and on-page murder)

There are some authors that just come into your life as a reader where you know they’re going to change the landscape of romance, one book at a time. I’d read some of Slaughter’s titles before (including White Whiskey Bargain, which boasts a marriage of convenience plot against the backdrop of two warring moonshine distilling families and a lot of steamy hot scenes to boot), but I’d never gotten around to reading her debut, and it turns out this one is even more intense. If you want dark romance (and I mean DARK, as in a book that doesn’t pull its punches in any sense of the word), then you need to check out All Things Burn. Halle Temple has been using her law degree to work at a women’s crisis center, but she herself is being stalked by a man who doesn’t seem to want to take no for an answer. When his threats turn towards her family, Halle makes a last-ditch effort to take him out of her life for good. Enter Callum Byrne, a hitman who has made his career out of taking care of people’s problems — but as soon as he sees Halle, he knows he’s not going to be able to maintain professional boundaries when it comes to her, but he will help her take down the man who’s been making her life hell.

A Good Duke is Hard to Find by Christina Britton

(historical romance)

I always love a good Regency that mostly takes place outside the traditional London setting, and this fun seaside locale (the Isle of Synne) proved to be a really fun switch-up from the norm. The heroine, Lenora Hartley has had several unsuccessful engagements — her last one culminates in her literally being jilted on her wedding day — and the hero, Peter Ashford, is deadset on never marrying as a way of partly sticking it to his relatives — until he meets Lenora, of course. I'm a big fan of the grumpy, grumbly hero who ends up being soft for the woman he's head-over-heels for at first sight, and this was a pitch-perfect example of that trope. Lenora’s also an artist, which is a big part of her character, and a portion of her arc involves her trying to rediscover a love of painting while she’s retreating from the scandal of her failed engagement. This was my first Christina Britton, and it definitely won’t be my last.

Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall

(contemporary romance)

Have you ever read a book where the prose was just so snappy and witty that practically every sentence sparkled? That's this book, which was technically my introduction to Hall as an author but it definitely won't be the last. The disgraced son of a famous rocker and a quirky French singer decides to start a fake relationship with a buttoned-up barrister (aka lawyer) in order to salvage his reputation at his job. Of course, every time you try to start a fake relationship in romance, it never stays fake for long. I was enamored with this book from start to finish. It’s perfect for fans of Red, White, and Royal Blue if you want something that brings the humor as well as the feels and the delightful opposites attract tension that eventually manifests in a very satisfying way. (Plus if you're a fan of characters in romance who yell at their love interest's terrible families, this delivers on that BIG TIME.)

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