The Sunday Salon and Packing a Bag of Books for Vacation...

                                         
Welcome summer! Welcome to The Sunday Salon!  And Welcome Back to Chick with Books! It's been a few months since I've peeked my head out of the pages of the books I've been reading, but my winter hibernation is over! This week I am going on vacation... destination is Myrtle Beach and I have a bag of books coming with me! What's in my bag?... Beach Reads! Let's take a look at three...

Here's the first book that caught my eye and wound up in the book bag... Isn't summer the perfect time for a little romance?

The Map That Leads to You by J.P. Monniger's... 

Two strangers take the road less traveled...

Heather Mulgrew’s world is already mapped out: she is going to travel abroad with her friends after college, come back to a great career in September, and head into a life where not much is left to chance. But that was before an encounter on an overnight train introduces her to Jack, a passionate adventurer who changes the course of her journey and her life.

Throwing Heather's careful itinerary to the wind, they follow Jack's grandfather's journal through post-World War II era Europe: Vienna, Budapest, Turkey―exotic places that serve only to heighten their feelings. As September looms, Jack urges Heather to stay with him, to keep traveling, to give in to the romance of their experience; Heather convinces him to return to the United States.

Jack has a secret that could change everything. And Heather’s world is about to be shaken to the core.

***************************************

Next book to make it in the book bag is one of those "Chick" books. And I just love where the story takes place (Cape Cod) in and I like the family dynamics involved (Sisters)... this actually is more of what I think of as a beach read...

The Identicals by Elin Hilderbrand... 

Identical twin sisters who couldn't look more alike...or live more differently.

Harper Frost is laid-back, easygoing. She doesn't care what anyone thinks of her. She likes a beer and a shot and wouldn't be caught dead wearing anything fashionable. She's inherited her father's rundown house on Martha's Vineyard, but she can't hold down a job, and her latest romantic disaster has the entire island talking. 

Two beautiful islands only eleven miles apart.

Tabitha Frost is dignified, refined. She prefers a fine wine and has inherited the impeccable taste of her mother, the iconic fashion designer Eleanor Roxie-Frost. She's also inherited her mother's questionable parenting skills--Tabitha's teenage daughter, Ainsley, is in full rebellion mode--and a flailing fashion boutique on Nantucket in desperate need of a cash infusion. 

One unforgettable summer that will change their lives forever.


After more than a decade apart, Harper and Tabitha switch islands--and lives--to save what's left of their splintered family. But the twins quickly discover that the secrets, lies, and gossip they thought they'd outrun can travel between islands just as easily as they can. Will Harper and Tabitha be able to bury the hatchet and end their sibling rivalry once and for all? Before the last beach picnic of the season, there will be enough old resentments, new loves, and cases of mistaken identity to make this the most talked-about summer that Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket have experienced in ages.

*****************************

Here's another book where the place is special... South Carolina's low country ( a place I love to visit).  The last book that made it into the bag for this trip is...

Same Beach, Next Year: A Novel by Dorothea Benton Frank... 

One enchanted summer, two couples begin a friendship that will last more than twenty years and transform their lives.

A chance meeting on the Isle of Palms, one of Charleston’s most stunning barrier islands, brings former sweethearts, Adam Stanley and Eve Landers together again. Their respective spouses, Eliza and Carl, fight sparks of jealousy flaring from their imagined rekindling of old flames. As Adam and Eve get caught up on their lives, their partners strike up a deep friendship—and flirt with an unexpected attraction—of their own.

Year after year, Adam, Eliza, Eve, and Carl eagerly await their reunion at Wild Dunes, a condominium complex at the island’s tip end, where they grow closer with each passing day, building a friendship that will withstand financial catastrophe, family tragedy, and devastating heartbreak. The devotion and love they share will help them weather the vagaries of time and enrich their lives as circumstances change, their children grow up and leave home, and their twilight years approach.


Bursting with the intoxicating richness of Dorothea Benton Frank’s beloved Lowcountry—the sultry sunshine, cool ocean breezes, icy cocktails, and starry velvet skies—Same Beach, Next Year is a dazzling celebration of the infrangible power of friendship, the enduring promise of summer, and the indelible bonds of love.

************************

One other book made it into my eReader... 

Beach House for Rent by Mary Alice Monroe... When Cara Rutledge rents out her quaint beach house on Isle of Palms to Heather Wyatt for the entire summer, it’s a win-win by any standard: Cara’s generating income necessary to keep husband Brett’s ecotourism boat business afloat, and anxiety-prone Heather, an young artist who’s been given a commission to paint birds on postage stamps, has a quiet space in which to work and tend to her pet canaries uninterrupted.

It isn’t long, however, before both women’s idyllic summers are altered irrevocably: the alluring shorebirds—and the man who rescues them—begin to draw Heather out of the shell she’s cultivated toward a world of adventure, and maybe even love; at the same time, Cara’s life reels with sudden tragedy, and she wishes only to return to the beach house that had once been her port amidst life’s storms. When Heather refuses to budge from her newfound sanctuary, so begins the unlikeliest of rooming situations. While they start out as strangers, as everything around the women falls apart they learn that the only thing they can really rely on is each other.

And, like the migrating shorebirds that come to the island for the summer, these two women of different generations must rediscover their unique strengths so by summer’s end they, too, can take flight in ways they never imagined possible.

Of course the setting is still South Carolina, there's the beach and it's sprinkled with birding!

********************************

Summer vacation reads, to me, need to be light and romantic at heart. I don't want to read about police investigations, murders or kidnappings. I save those genre's for the rest of the year. Do you read differently on vacation? Do you change your reading habits in the summer?

What kinds of books do you like to read in the summer? 

It's nice to be back and to talk about books! And there are so many great books to talk about now too!  Share your summer plans and summer reading! I'll be heading for some relaxation on a beach in South Carolina with books in hand. I'll also be keeping my eye out for any great book stores on the way and there! I'll be gone for two weeks, but back to Chick with Books on Sunday, July 16th! Come back then and say hello and see what other great books I've found to share! 

Happy reading... Suzanne