KellyAnne’s Ultimate Beach Reads by KellyAnne Terry, Executive Director

Now that summer is upon us, I would like to offer up some tried and true beach reads that are favorites at the Library.  Of course we aren’t super close to an actual ocean beach but there are lots of lakes and creeks available these summer days so that a person can get their water fix.  These novels are all older publications by my favorite fiction mavens, but I guarantee you will enjoy the seaside air, cocktails at the country club and love and scandal they provide.  In Colony by Anne Rivers Siddons we have a generational shift of matriarchs in an old seaside community – with lots of family secrets, forbidden love and an extraordinary heroine.  This book was published in 1992 ( I first read it in high school!) and I feel that it is the best of all of Siddons’ work.

I was in a summery mood when I first picked up one of Elin Hilderbrand’s books, The Castaways, several years ago.  Based in Nantucket, this story of passion and suspense is a real page-turner with lots of interesting characters.  Within a group of couples, one couple disappears on their sailboat and their friends, family, and the sheriff must make sense of what this means for their lives and the community.  Hilderbrand always writes about Nantucket, where she lives, and she has many seaside reads here at the Library if you find you enjoy her storytelling.

The next book, A Hundred Summers by Beatriz Williams, is one I find myself recommending to patrons a lot. It is one of my all time favorites by a wonderful historical writer.  Memorial Day, 1938, has our heroine Lily Dane experiencing some conflicting emotions – the ultimate betrayal by her best friend, a distant and secretive mother, and the return of a handsome college pal.  Williams is able to put you right in the room (or on the beach) with these characters and as a hurricane comes up the coast we see all of their lives collide – for better and worse.

Two others that must be mentioned are Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan and Summer Sisters by Judy Blume.  Again, great characters one can relate to, family secrets and wonderful settings of sunshine and water.  So get out your lawn chair and sun block and lose yourself in a few oldies but goodies. And I would love to hear what you think!

 Colony by Anne Rivers Siddons

1. The Castaways by Elin Hilderbrand
2. A Hundred Summers by Beatriz Williams
3. Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan
4. Summer Sisters by Judy Blume

Programs and Events:

• June 30, 2016 hike to Overlook (Limekiln) with Dani and Kari. Meet up at the trail head at 9 a.m. to join in.
• Also on June 30^th, Bird Watching with Mike Lesnik! Join us here at 6 p.m. for tips on bird identification and then head over to the Frog Ponds, if you choose, to do some sighting for yourself.