28 of the latest beach reads, mysteries, story collections and more from down South.
Out Now
Beach House Rules by Kristy Woodson Harvey
When Charlotte Sitterly’s husband is arrested for a white-collar crime, she and her daughter Iris are locked out of their house by the FBI and—what’s potentially even worse—thrust into the spotlight of @JuniperShoresSocialite, the town’s snarky anonymous Instagram account. Cut off from her bank accounts and feeling desperate, Charlotte takes up an acquaintance’s offer to stay at a beachfront former bed-and-breakfast that’s home to a community of single mothers and draws plenty of gossip in the small coastal North Carolina town.
Charlotte and Iris find solace and are surprised by how much fun they’re having with the other families despite their circumstances. But when the women discover a secret link between them, it changes everything they thought they knew about the unconventional family they’ve created and leaves them wondering whether their coming together was a coincidence at all. Will the skeletons in the mommune closets help Charlotte and Iris reclaim their place in the Juniper Shores community—or shatter the sisterhood forever?
The Book Club for Troublesome Women by Marie Bostwick
By 1960s standards, Margaret Ryan is living the American woman’s dream. She has a husband, three children, a station wagon and a home in Concordia—one of Northern Virginia’s most exclusive and picturesque suburbs. She has a standing invitation to the neighborhood coffee klatch, and now, thanks to her husband, a new subscription to A Woman’s Place—a magazine that tells housewives like Margaret exactly who to be and what to buy. On paper, she has it all. So why doesn’t that feel like enough?
Margaret is thrown for a loop when she first meets Charlotte Gustafson, Concordia’s newest and most intriguing resident. As an excuse to be in the mysterious Charlotte’s orbit, Margaret concocts a book club get-together and invites two other neighborhood women—Bitsy and Viv—to the inaugural meeting. As the women share secrets, cocktails and their honest reactions to the controversial bestseller The Feminine Mystique, they begin to discover that the American dream they’d been sold isn’t all roses and sunshine. Nicknaming themselves the Bettys, after Betty Friedan, these four friends have no idea their impromptu club and the books they read together will become the glue that helps them hold fast through tears, triumphs, angst and arguments.
The Fabulous Ordinary by Georgann Eubanks
Georgann Eubanks offers readers a tour of the seasonal joys of ecosystems in the Southeast. The ordinary destinations and events she explores are scattered across seven states and include such wonders as a half-million purple martins roosting on an island in a South Carolina lake, the bloom of thirty acres of dimpled trout lilies in a remote Georgia forest, gnat larvae that glow like stars on the rock walls of an obscure Alabama canyon and the overnight accumulation of elaborately patterned moths on the side of a North Carolina mountain cabin.
These phenomena and others reveal how plants, mammals, amphibians and insects are managing to persevere despite pressures from human invasion, habitat destruction and climate change. Their stories also shine a light on the efforts of dedicated scientists, volunteers and aspiring young naturalists who are working to reverse losses and preserve the fabulous ordinary that’s still alive in the fields, forests, rivers and coastal estuaries of this essential and biodiverse region.
Fever Beach by Carl Hiaasen
Figgo is the only hate-monger ever to be kicked out of the Proud Boys for being too dumb and incompetent. On January 6, 2021, he thought he was defacing a statue of Ulysses S. Grant, but he wound up spreading feces all over a statue of James Zacharia George, a Civil War Confederate leader. Figgo’s already messy life is about to get more complicated, thanks to two formidable adversaries. Viva Morales is a newly transplanted Floridian, a clever woman recently taken to the cleaners by her ex-husband, now working at the Mink Foundation, a supposedly philanthropic organization, and renting a room in Figgo’s apartment because there’s no place else she can afford. Twilly Spree has an anger management problem, especially when it comes to those who deface the environment, and way too many inherited millions of dollars. He’s living alone a year after his dog died, two years after he sank a city councilman’s party barge and three years after his divorce.
Viva and Twilly are plunged into a mystery—involving dark money and darker motives—they are determined to solve, and become entangled in a world populated by some of Hiaasen’s most outrageous characters: Claude and Electra Mink—billionaire philanthropists with way too much plastic surgery and a secret right-wing agenda—and Congressman Clure Boyette—who dreams of being Florida’s (and maybe America’s) most important politician.
A Gardin Wedding by Rosey Lee
Martha Gardin is a mess, and no one knows this better than the women in her family. Good-hearted but often misguided by distrust and insecurity, Martha is known for stirring up drama. That’s why Ruth, Naomi and Mary are pleasantly surprised when Martha mellows out after she begins dating one of the most eligible bachelors in town.
Handsome, well-connected Oji Greenwald is everything Martha hoped to find in a man, and it’s only a matter of time before he pops the question. Rarely caught off guard, Martha is accustomed to getting her way. But when it appears she’s finally about to have the life she’s always wanted, a crisis in Oji’s family brings out Martha’s tendency to try to save the day her way, and the divide deepens between her and Oji’s already indifferent mother, Eve. Confronted with these unforeseen challenges to her plans, Martha finds herself on a journey that forces her to fully acknowledge her previous mistakes and reconcile her past. But will it be enough to deliver her the future—and the love—her heart desires?
Girls With Long Shadows by Tennessee Hill
Identical triplets Baby A, Baby B and Baby C Binderup were welcomed into the world as their mother was ushered out of it, leaving them nameless and in the care of their Gram, Isadora. Nineteen years later, the triplets work at their Gram’s crumbling golf course in Longshadow, Texas, where the ever-watchful eyes of the town observe them serving up glasses of ice-cold lemonade to golfers, swimming in the murky waters of the neighboring bayou or slipping t-shirts off their sunburnt shoulders in hopes of attracting the kind of attention they are only beginning to understand.
Cautious Baby B watches as lustful Baby A and introverted Baby C find matches among the town boys. Even Baby B has noticed that the town’s golden boy seems to be intrigued by her, only her. Just as each girl’s desire to be seen for herself is becoming fulfilled, a seemingly trivial kiss is bestowed on the wrong sister, leading to a moment of unspeakable violence that will upend the triplets’ world forever.
Party of Liars by Kelsey Cox
Today is Sophie Matthews’s 16th birthday party, an exclusive black-tie bash in the heart of the Texas Hill Country, where secrets are as deep-rooted as the sprawling live oaks. Sophie’s dad has spared no expense, and his renovated cliffside mansion—once thought haunted and shuttered for years from outsiders—is now hosting the event of the season. Then, just before the candles on the three-tiered red velvet cake are blown out, a body falls from the balcony onto the starlit dancefloor below.
As for the guest list, there’s Dani, Sophie’s new stepmother who’s been plagued by self-doubt ever since the birth of her own baby girl; Orlaith, the superstitious Irish nanny who senses a looming danger in this cavernous house; Mikayla, the birthday girl’s best friend who is not nearly as meek as the popular kids assume; and Kim, the cunning ex-wife who has a grudge she can’t let go of. Everyone is invited in, but not everyone will get out alive.
The Star of Camp Greene by Joy Callaway
In 1918 Charlotte, North Carolina, Broadway darling Calla Connolly had it all: a rising career on the stage and a loving fiancé, a fellow stage actor. But after his tragic death early in the war, Calla is touring the American training camps, hoping to convince General Pershing to let her tour the French front to cheer the men and honor her fiancé’s memory. But her hopes are dashed when she contracts Spanish flu while performing at Camp Greene.
While convalescing, Calla inadvertently overhears a sensitive Army secret and is ordered to remain at Camp Greene for the duration of the war while her former mentor and rival steals her tour out from under her. She becomes the resident performer and forms attachments to several musician soldiers. When she falls in love with the man responsible for trapping her at camp, the mission she’s sworn to keep secret threatens the men she’s come to care for.
Where The Rivers Merge by Mary Alice Monroe
1908: The Lowcountry of South Carolina is at the cusp of change. Mayfield, the grand estate held for generations by the Rivers family, is the treasured home of young Eliza. A free spirit, she refuses to be confined by societal norms and spends her days exploring the vast property, observing wildlife and riding horses. But the Great War, coastal storms and family turmoil bring unexpected challenges to Eliza, putting her on a collision course with the patriarchal traditions of a bygone era.
1988: At 88, Eliza is the scion of the Rivers/DeLancey family. She’s fought a lifetime to save her beloved Mayfield and is too independent and committed to quietly retire and leave the fate of the estate to her greedy son. She must make decisions that will assure the future of the land and her family—or watch them both be split apart.
Zeal by Morgan Jerkins
Harlem, 2019: Ardelia and Oliver are hosting their engagement party. As the guests get ready to leave, he hands her a love letter on a yellowing, crumbling piece of paper …
Natchez, 1865: Discharged from the Union Army as a free man after the war’s end, Harrison returns to Mississippi to reunite with the woman he loves, Tirzah. Upon his arrival at the Freedmen’s Bureau, though, he catches the eye of a woman working there, who’s determined to thwart his efforts to find his beloved. After tragedy strikes, Harrison resigns himself to a life with her. Meanwhile in Louisiana, the newly free Tirzah is teaching at a freedmen’s school and discovers an advertisement in the local paper looking for her. Though she knows Harrison must have placed it and longs to find him, the risks of fleeing are too great, and Tirzah chooses the life of seeming security right in front of her.
June
The Summer We Ran by Audrey Ingram (June 3)
In the summer of 1996, teenage Tess Murphy’s mom gave her two rules to abide by: keep quiet and stay out of trouble. Her mother landed a new job as a cook at an affluent Virginia estate and didn’t want anything to risk the opportunity, least of all her outspoken daughter. What no one saw coming was Tess falling deeply in love with the boy next door, high-society Grant Alexander.
Over a few wondrous and heat-filled months, Tess and Grant’s love blooms so ferociously it feels utterly impossible that anything can keep them apart, until tragedy strikes and the teenagers find themselves pained by betrayal with little hope to repair the damage that’s been done. Now, two decades after their epic teenage romance abruptly ended in heartbreak, Tess and Grant are both running for governor of Virginia, where secrets from that summer threaten to shatter their families, futures and the love they once shared.
Tell Me Something Good by Court Stevens (June 3)
Over 20 years ago, a young hunting guide in rural Kentucky was driving his boat in the early morning mist when his peaceful cruise was cut short by a scene so disturbing, he packed up and moved away. Nine women died early that morning, but it was linked to a similar crime in Texas, so the locals quickly wrote it off as having nothing to do with them.
Now, all these years later, when everyone has nearly forgotten about that grisly part of their past, one man’s accidental death will bring everything back up to the surface. The locals who knew better can no longer claim it had nothing to do with them, and one woman, desperate to do whatever it takes to save her mother’s life, will learn that nearly everyone in her life has been lying to her.
In Court Stevens’s adult debut, she delves deep into the heart of a community, where some will learn that we don’t always live to see the ripples we make, but we must make them all the same.
We Don’t Talk About Carol by Kristen L. Berry (June 3)
In the wake of her grandmother’s passing, Sydney Singleton finds a hidden photograph of a little girl who looks more like Sydney than her own sister or mother. She soon discovers the mystery girl in the photograph is her aunt, Carol, who was one of six North Carolina Black girls to go missing in the 1960s. For the last several decades, not a soul has talked about Carol or what really happened to her. But now, with her grandmother gone and Sydney looking to start a family of her own, she is determined to unravel the truth behind her long-lost aunt’s disappearance and the sinister silence that surrounds her.
Unfortunately, this is familiar territory for Sydney: Years earlier, while she worked the crime beat as a journalist, her obsession with the case of another missing girl led to a psychotic break. And now, in the suffocating grip of fertility treatments and a marriage that’s beginning to crumble, Sydney’s relentless pursuit for answers might just lead her down the same path of self-destruction. As she delves deeper into Carol’s fate, her own troubled past reemerges, clawing its way to the surface with a vengeance. The web of secrets and lies entangling her family leaves Sydney questioning everything—her fixation on the missing girls, her future as a mom and her trust in those she knows and loves.
Of Flesh and Blood by N.L. Lavin and Hunter Burke (June 9)
In 2008, a serial killer known as the Cajun Cannibal brutally murders and consumes the flesh of eight people in a small Louisiana parish. With law enforcement closing in on him, he takes his own life before he can face the inside of a courtroom.
Ten years later, when forensic psychiatrist Dr. Vincent Blackburn discovers he and the Cajun Cannibal are more closely connected than he realized, he begins a case study into the sociopathy behind the killer’s grisly deeds, only to find a torrent of small town politics, interracial family dynamics and whispers of the supernatural muddying once clear waters. When copycat killings start anew, Vincent is thrust into the center of it all, putting his life, his family and his own sanity at risk. As monsters—both figurative and literal—begin to manifest, Vincent discovers that untangling the truth from the lies is only the beginning of his nightmare.
Fulfillment by Lee Cole (June 17)
Fulfillment tells the story of two half brothers—Joel, a successful academic and author, whose marriage is in deep trouble, and his younger sibling, Emmett, paralyzed by indecision and working in a shipping warehouse—who find themselves at their family home in Kentucky and upend each other’s lives in devastating ways.
Between them is Alice, Joel’s wife, a wry, passionate young woman whose dream of a small farm feels unattainable and whose longing for a more authentic life collides with Emmett’s hunger for connection and desire to escape a sense of burgeoning failure. As the chemistry between them escalates, the family is plunged into a violent crucible, each character brought to the precipice of immutable catastrophe.
Incisive and poignant, Lee Cole’s haunting novel about class, privilege, brotherhood and the American South asks whether people can chang—and at what cost.
Junah at the End of the World by Dan Leach (June 17)
When 12-year-old Junah Simmons walks into his middle school classroom in September 1999, the chalkboard reads “the end of the world is here.” In the months leading up to Y2K, Junah’s eccentric teacher tasks each of her students to make a time capsule in a shoebox to document their experiences in South Carolina at the end of the world.
Junah is an outsider at school, the kid in sunglasses with a speech impediment. Through the time capsule project, he sifts through the tough stuff: his parents’ divorce, Rusty, the school bully, Sadie, his punk crush who doesn’t know he exists, his mother’s pressure on him to turn to Jesus, his worry and loneliness. Rendered in vignettes and scraps, this kaleidoscopic novel follows Junah as he confronts the catastrophes of youth while wrestling with the notion that the world itself could end in December.
The Girls Who Grew Big by Leila Mottley (June 24)
Adela Woods is 16 years old and pregnant. Her parents banish her from her comfortable upbringing in Indiana to her grandmother’s home in the small town of Padua Beach, Florida. When she arrives, Adela meets Emory, who brings her newborn to high school, determined to graduate despite the odds; Simone, mother of four-year-old twins, who weighs her options when she finds herself pregnant again; and the rest of the Girls, a group of outcast young moms who raise their growing brood in the back of Simone’s red truck.
The town thinks the Girls have lost their way, but really they are finding it: looking for love, making and breaking friendships and navigating the miracle of motherhood and the paradox of girlhood.
Misbehaving at the Crossroads by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
Honorée Fanonne Jeffers is at a crossroads. Traditional African/Black American cultures present the crossroads as a place of simultaneous difficulty and possibility. In contemporary times, Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the phrase “intersectionality” to explain the unique position of Black women in America. In many ways, they are at a third crossroads: attempting to fit into notions of femininity and respectability primarily assigned to White women, while inventing improvisational strategies to combat oppression.
Jeffers explores the emotional and historical tensions in Black women’s public lives and her own private life. She charts voyages of Black girlhood to womanhood and the currents buffeting these journeys, including the difficulties of racially gendered oppression; the challenges of documenting Black women’s ancestry; the adultification of Black girls; the irony of Black female respectability politics; the origins of Womanism/Black feminism; and resistance to White supremacy and patriarchy. As Jeffers shows with empathy and wisdom, naming difficult historical truths represents both Blues and transcendence, a crossroads that speaks.
July
End of Empire by Marissa Davis (July 1)
A collection as remarkable for the force of its feeling as for the range of its vision, End of Empire weaves the myth of Persephone with rural Kentucky girlhood. Davis explores the tensions of Black and American identity within an ecological framework. Inspired by the language and landscape of the poet’s rural Kentucky hometown and the ways that inherited religious and political narratives shape our relationships with our surroundings and ourselves, these poems reckon with the ways the speaker, their body and their natural and ideological surroundings continuously remake each other.
Formally dynamic, emotionally resonant and rich with biblical, mythological and historical allusions, these are elegant, impeccably crafted pieces that evoke the fearsome power of nature and of the tangled, sensual self.
Fast Boys and Pretty Girls by Lo Patrick (July 8)
Following a semi-successful career as a teen model in New York City, Danielle Greer has moved back to the mountains of North Georgia and is living in her childhood home with her husband and four daughters. One stifling, lazy afternoon, the girls are exploring the ravine behind the house when they come across a body. Danielle knows the body doesn’t belong to Benji Law, a younger local misfit who Danielle had an illicit relationship with as a teenager. No, his body was found right away, after he was killed in a motorcycle accident on the road in front of her family’s house. Danielle has a good idea who the body might be, but she doesn’t know how it got there.
When local police officer Cady Benson is called in to investigate, Danielle’s world is turned upside down, and she’s thrust back into those dark, confusing days leading up to Benji’s death, battling the things she remembers with the things she can’t forget.
Make Your Way Home by Carrie R. Moore (July 15)
In 11 stories that span Florida marshes, North Carolina mountains and Southern metropolitan cities, Make Your Way Home follows Black men and women who grapple with the homes that have eluded them. A preteen pregnant alongside her mother refuses to let convention dictate who she names as the father of her child. Centuries after slavery separated his ancestors, a native Texan tries to win over the love of his life despite the grip of a family curse. A young deaconess who falls for a new church member wonders what it means when God stops speaking to her. And at the very end of the South as we know it, two sisters seek to escape North to freedom, to promises of a more stable climate.
Artfully and precisely drawn, and steeped in place and history as it explores themes of belonging, inheritance and deep intimacy, Carrie R. Moore’s debut collection announces an extraordinary new talent in American fiction, inviting us all to examine how the past shapes our present—and how our present choices will echo for years to come.
Love You To Death by Christina Dotson (July 22)
As the only Black women at an antebellum-themed wedding, Kayla and Zorie should’ve known this heist was doomed from the start. They should never have come, but when their financial situation became dire, they agreed to hit one last wedding.
Jaded and cynical Kayla has spent the last decade trying to fix her life since an angsty teen prank led to her arrest. Now, with her housekeeping job at a subpar hotel and her disappointing, Cinderella-esque relationship with her dad and obnoxious stepsister, she hates the life she’s built. Her only bright spots are her best friend, Zorie, and their favorite weekend pastime of crashing weddings to steal the money and pawn the gifts. But what started as a lark has evolved into a greedy obsession, making each wedding haul riskier than the last.
While trying to avoid the angry bride and groom, Kayla and Zorie’s getaway takes a gruesome turn and suddenly the “Wedding Crasher Killers” are national news. The best friends are forced to hit the road to dodge the authorities, but their escape plan leaves behind a bloody trail of destruction from Georgia all the way to the bayou.
Mayra by Nicky Gonzalez (July 22)
t’s been years since Ingrid has heard from her childhood best friend, Mayra, a fearless rebel who fled their hometown of Hialeah, a Cuban neighborhood just west of Miami, for college in the Northeast. But when Mayra calls out of the blue to invite Ingrid to a weekend getaway at a house in the Everglades, she impulsively accepts.
From the moment Ingrid sets out for the house, danger looms: The directions are difficult, she’s out of reach of cell service, and as she drives deeper into the Everglades, the wet maw of the swamp threatens to swallow her whole. But once Ingrid arrives, Mayra is, in many ways, just as she remembers—with her sharp tongue and effortless, seductive beauty, still thumbing her nose at the world. Before they can fully settle into the familiar intimacy of each other’s company, their reunion is spoiled by the reemergence of past disagreements and the unexpected presence of Mayra’s new boyfriend, Benji. Indoors and on the grounds, time itself seems to expand, and Ingrid begins to lose a sense of the outside world, and herself.
You Belong Here by Megan Miranda (July 29)
Beckett Bowery never thought she’d return to Wyatt Valley, a picturesque college town in the Virginia mountains steeped in tradition. Her roots there were strong: Beckett’s parents taught at the college, and she never even imagined studying anywhere else—until a tragedy her senior year ended with two local men dead, and her roommate on the run, never to be seen again.
For the last two decades, Beckett has done her best to keep her distance. Then her daughter, Delilah, secretly applies to Wyatt College and earns a full scholarship, and Beckett can only hope that her lingering fears are unfounded. But deep down she knows that Wyatt Valley has a long memory, and that the past isn’t the only dangerous thing in town.
August
Last Light over Galveston by Jennifer L. Wright (August 12)
Galveston, Texas. September 1900. Only months ago, Kathleen McDaniel returned from finishing school in Switzerland to her family home in New York’s Hudson Valley with a future of promise and privilege set before her. But one horrific event shattered her picturesque life. Now she has fled as far as the train line and a pocketful of money would take her, finding refuge at the St. Mary’s Orphan Asylum on Galveston Island, where she helps the nuns care for their young charges and prays her past will not find her.
Despite her tenuous standing at the orphanage—and the grief and betrayal that drove her from home—Kathleen slowly begins to make friends. There is Emily, the novice nun she rooms with; Maggie, the tempestuous young girl who only bonds with Kathleen; and Matthew, a kind, handsome man recently employed by Isaac Cline at Galveston’s office of the U.S. Weather Bureau. Then, in one fateful day, Kathleen’s fragile new life begins to crack as it becomes clear that she can’t run far enough to escape the reach of her former life.
Something to Look Forward To by Fannie Flagg (August 19)
Fannie Flagg once said that what the world needs now is a good laugh. And that is what she gives us in these warmhearted, always surprising stories about people who are finding clever ways to deal with the curveballs life sometimes throws at us.
Velma in Kansas, a loving great-grandmother, struggles to bridge generational gaps with her family. We cheer for Helen, in Ithaca, New York, who takes an audacious course of action when her husband leaves her for a younger woman. In Bent Fork, Wyoming; in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; in Tucson, Arizona; and in towns and cities all across America, people figure out inventive ways to overcome obstacles to happiness. And in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Special Agent Frawley is studying the mysteries of being human from an original perspective.
Forget Me Not by Stacy Willingham (August 26)
Twenty-two years ago, Claire Campbell’s older sister, Natalie, disappeared shortly after her 18th birthday. Days later, her blood was found in a car, a man was arrested, and the case was swiftly closed. In the decades since, Claire has attempted to forget her traumatic past by moving to the city and climbing the ranks as an investigative journalist … until an unexpected call from her father forces her to come back home and face it all anew.
With the entire summer now looming ahead—a summer spent with nothing to do in her childhood home with her estranged mother—Claire decides on a whim to accept a seasonal job at Galloway Farm, a muscadine vineyard in coastal South Carolina less than an hour away from where she grew up. At first glance, Galloway is an idyllic escape for Claire. A scenic retreat full of slow-paced nostalgia, as well as a place where her sister seemed truly happy in that last summer before she vanished, it feels like the perfect plan to pass the time. However, as soon as Claire starts to settle in, she stumbles across an old diary written by one of the vineyard’s owners, and what at first seems like a story of young rebellion and love turns into something much more sinister. As the days stretch on, Claire finds herself becoming more and more secluded as she starts to obsess over the diary’s contents, as well as the lingering feeling that her own sister’s disappearance may be somehow tied to it all.
Peace Like a River by Scott Gould (August 26)
Sixty-something Elwin McClennon returns to his hometown in Lowcountry South Carolina—and the dying father—he fled 15 years earlier. Accompanied by Thom, his odd and precocious 13-year-old son, Elwin embarks on a journey to reconcile with his father and their complicated pasts, along the banks of the syrup-slow Black River.
A captivating exploration of forgiveness, redemption and the enduring bonds of family, Peace Like a River invites readers into a world where love and loss intersect with the healing power of nature and introspection.
