A Summer of Books

When it gets hot outside curl up with one of these summer books. Compiled by the subscribers of the Fiction_L mailing list.

	Elizabeth Adler. Summer in Tuscany Gemma Jericho is an overworked New York doctor with a handful of a teenaged daughter and a mother who worries that Gemma has no life. So when her mother receives a mysterious letter telling her about an even more mysterious inheritance in Tuscany, Gemma sees her chance: the three of them throw caution and convention to the wind and leave for Italy. Gemma hopes that a change of scenery will bring back the closeness she used to share with her daughter. And perhaps the challenges of living in a foreign country will give her mother something to worry about beyond Gemma's social life.
	Maeve Binchy. Firefly Summer It was a summer of warmth.... Kate Ryan and her husband, John, have a rollicking pub in the Irish village of Mountfern... lovely twelve-year-old twins... and such wonderful dreams.... It was a summer of innocence... but all that is about to change this fateful summer of 1962 when American millionaire Patrick O'Neill comes to town with his irresistible charm and a pocketful of money... when love and hate vie for a town's quiet heart and old traditions begin to crumble away.... It was a summer of love that would never come again.
	Judy Blume. Summer Sisters A novel only Judy Blume could write, sweeping in scope and filled with memorable characters every reader will recognize, this unforgettable exploration of kinship, class, and family, of friendship, love, and ultimate fulfillment tells of the fundamental choices that everyone must make in the passage from innocence to knowledge.
	Ann Brashares. Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants & The Second Summer of Sisterhood After trying on a pair of jeans that fit each girl perfectly, the four girls decide to form a sisterhood for the summer.
	Mark Childress. Crazy in Alabama In Alabama during the racially restless summer of 1965, an orphan boy comes of age, and his aunt escapes from an unhappy marriage.
	Jennifer Crusie. Welcome to Temptation Sophie Dempsey wants to help her sister film a video and then get out of Temptation, Ohio. Mayor Phin Tucker wants to play pool with the police chief and keep things peaceful. But when Sophie and Phin meet, they both get more than they want.
	Jill Churchill. Anything Goes The crash of 1929 has ended the party for high-living New Yorkers Lily Brewster and her brother, Robert. But their recently deceased great-uncle Horatio has left them a Grace and Favor "Cottage"--really a great mansion--to live in. They move to the quiet Hudson River community, but when a corpse appears in their kitchen, they begin snooping to clear their names, unaware that they may be the killer's next targets.
	Frank Deford. An American Summer Set in the nostalgic year of 1955, this touching novel reveals a unique kind of love between kindred spirits. It is told through the voice of 14-year-old Christy Banister, a sweet, slightly naïve young boy in need of guidance as he makes his way through adolescence. He has moved to Baltimore with his father where he befriends the once beautiful 23-year-old Kathryn Slade.
	Loraine Despres. The Scandalous Summer of Sissy LeBlanc It's a steamy June afternoon in Louisiana, circa 1956, and Sissy LeBlanc is sitting on her front porch, wondering -- half seriously -- if she could kill herself with aspirins and Coca-Cola. She's been living in stifling old Gentry since the day she was born and trapped in a sham of a marriage to PeeWee LeBlanc since she was only seventeen. In short, she's fed up, restless, and ready for an adventure.
	Pat Cunningham Devoto. My Last Days as Roy Rogers A new novelist makes a stunning debut with this exceptional tale of a young woman coming of age in Alabama during the last days of the 1950s polio epidemic.
	F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Great Gatsby Gatsby embodies the naive American notion that it is possible to invent oneself and persuade the world to accept that definition. Gatsby 's youthful neighbor, Nick Carraway, fascinated by both the display of enormous wealth and the essential integrity that he perceives in Gatsby 's vision, becomes his confidante and accomplice in his plan to recapture the heart of Daisy Buchanan.
	Julia Glass. Three Junes "Three Junes" is a vividly textured symphonic novel set on both sides of the Atlantic during three fateful summers in the lives of a Scottish family. Paul McLeod, the recently widowed patriarch, becomes infatuated with a young American artist while traveling through Greece and is compelled to relive the secret sorrows of his marriage.
	John Grisham. A Painted House A story inspired by Grisham's own childhood in rural Arkansas, "A Painted House" tells the moving tale of one farm boy's journey from innocence to experience, as he picks cotton on the farm his family leases.
	Kristin Hannah. Distant Shores Grieving after the sudden death of her father, Elizabeth Shore retreats to an isolated beach house to pack away the last remnants of her parents' lives. There, the pieces of a past she never knew unfold to reveal a steadfast commitment missing from her own marriage. Faced with her own disillusionment, she makes a terrifying decision, risking everything she has for a second chance at happiness.
	Kristin Hannah. Summer Island Years ago, Nora Bridge walked out on her marriage and left her daughters behind. Now she is a radio talkshow host and nationally syndicated newspaper columnist. Her daughter, Ruby, is a struggling comedienne who uses her famous mother as fuel for her bitter, cynical humor. The two haven't spoken in more than a decade. Ruby is offered  a fortune to write a tell-all about her monther and returns to Summer Island, the small Washington state island where she grew up. But coming home is never simple.
	Ernest Hemingway. The Sun Also Rises The story of a group of Americans and English on a sojourn from Paris to Paloma, evokes in poignant detail, life among the expatriates on Paris's Left Bank during the 1920s and conveys in brutally realistic descriptions the power and danger of bullfighting in Spain.
	Elin Hilderbrand. Summer People and others The beauty of a summer retreat hides an ominous and complex family secret in this powerful novel.
	Eva Ibbotson. Song for Summer In a fragile world on the brink of World War II, lovely young Englishwoman Ellen Carr takes a job as a housemother at an unorthodox boarding school in Vienna that specializes in music, drama, and dance. Ellen simply wants to cook beautiful food in the homeland of her surrogate grandmother, who had enchanted her with stories of growing up in the countryside of Austria. What she finds when she reaches the Hallendorf School in Vienna is a world that is magically unconventional.
	Robert Inman. Dairy Queen Days In the grand tradition of Southern storytelling, Robert Inman weaves a rich and evocative tale of a teenage boy's struggle to forge his own identity beneath the searing Georgia summer sun. The year is 1979, and the stable moorings of sixteen-year-old Trout Moseley's life have torn loose. Moving back to the small Southern town that bears his family name, Trout is caught between powerful ancestral traditions and the need to create an identity of his own.
	Garrison Keillor. Lake Wobegon Summer 1956 The summer of 1956 in Lake Wobegon is full of the innocent delights of baseball and the agonizing rites of passage for 14-year-old Gary, an unforgettable young protagonist created by an American master. With his brilliant humor and trademark style, Keillor gives readers a glimpse of the making of a writer who comes of age in classic Wobegon style.
	Marian Keyes. Angels Margaret Walsh, the "good girl" sister to Rachel and Claire Walsh, has a good career and solid marriage. As her perfectly organized world unravels, she runs away. When her plane touches down in Los Angeles--the city of Angels--nothing will ever be the same.
	Barbara Kingsolver. Prodigal Summer In a beautiful hymn to wildness, Kingsolver celebrates the prodigal spirit of human nature and of nature itself. Over the course of one humid summer, as the urge to procreate takes over the countryside, the novel's characters find their connections to one another in the forested mountains of southern Appalachia.
	Jayne Ann Krentz. Summer In Eclipse Bay The final installment of Krentz's trilogy about a little town on the Oregon coast with secrets as treacherous as the rugged landscape. The next generation of the Hartes and Madisons continue their families' feud. However, it will take only one Harte and one Madison to abandon the feud and discover they don't hate each other after all. Follows Eclipse Bay and Dawn in Eclipse Bay.
	Allison Lurie. The Last Resort Like a loyal Victorian wife, Jenny has devoted her life to her much older husband, the famous writer and naturalist, Wilkie Walker. But this year, as winter approaches, Wilkie is increasingly depressed. At her wit's end, Jenny persuades him to visit Key West, the Last Resort.
	David MacFarlene. Summer Gone This haunting novel about love experienced and love remembered is also an unforgettable celebration and evocation of the brief beauty of a northern summer.
	Alice McDermott. Child of my Heart McDermott's haunting and enchanting new work of fiction--her first since the bestselling "Charming Billy, " winner of the 1998 National Book Award--is narrated by a woman who was born beautiful, but also a solitary soul with a complex understanding of human nature.
	Tim O'Brien. July, July O'Brien strikes at the emotional nerve center of readers lives with this ambitious novel that tells the remarkable story of the generation molded and defined by the 1960s.
	James Patterson. The Beach House Jack Mullen is in law school in New York City when the shocking news comes that his brother Peter has drowned in the ocean off East Hampton. As Jack tries to uncover the details of his brother's last night, he learns that Peter wasn't just parking cars at the summer parties of the wealthy--he was making serious money satisfying the sexual needs of the richest women and men in town.
	Elizabeth Peters. Summer of the Dragon Fledgling anthropologist D.J. Abbot accepts Hank Hunnicutt's offer of summer work on his Arizona ranch, despite his reputation as a certified oddball. When Hunnicutt suffers a mysterious accident and vanishes, D.J. suddenly learns things that may not be healthy for her to know.
	Van Reid. Cordelia Underwood, or, the Marvelous Beginnings of the Moosepath League A splendid summer yarn--gentle, colorful, comic, and touching--set in 1896 during an idyllic summer on the coast of Maine. When the lovely Cordelia Underwood happens upon the deed to a parcel of land--which may have something mysterious buried on it--she embarks on the adventure of a lifetime.
	Luanne Rice. Firefly Beach Three sisters gather at their childhood home, thinking they've put the past behind them. Caroline Renwick and Joe Connor were pen pals as children--until the teenaged Joe learned the truth of his father's death. After years of silence, Caroline still feels a connection, but she wonders if Joe holds the key to her family's healing--or it's destruction.
	Nora Roberts. Hidden Riches When antiques dealer Dora Conroy becomes the target of a ruthless smuggler after she purchases a few curiosities at an auction, she turns to her new neighbor, ex-cop Jed Skimmerhorn, for help.
	Anne Rivers Siddons. Colony Looking back on her ninety years of life while waiting for the arrival of her children and grandchildren to the family summer home, Maude Chambliss recalls a life of wealth, friendship, love, and loss.
	Lee Smith. The Last Girls Revered for her powerful female characters, Smith tells a brilliant story of how college pals who grew up in an era when they were still called "girls" have negotiated life as "women."
	LaVyrle Spencer. That Camden Summer In the summer of 1916, Roberta and her three daughters arrived in Camden, Maine. As Roberta tries to rebuild both her life and a ramshackle house overlooking the harbor, she endures violence, betrayal, and pain. But she also finds love, friendship and acceptance from the most unlikely source.
	Julia Spencer-Fleming. A Fountain Filled with Blood In a small Adirondack town, the violent attack on a doctor triggers a series of gay-bashing episodes. Episcopalian priest Clare Fergusson and Police Chief Russ Van Alstyne enter a reluctant partnership. As their investigation continues, closeness becomes inevitable.
	Edith Wharton. Summer Like Wharton's more famous novel Ethan Frome, Summer is set in the Berkshires. But the chilly hills that set the background for Ethan's tentative, ill-fated romance have been replaced by a landscape bathed in sun -- and the figure at the center of Summer is a vibrant and passionate young woman, Charity Royall.A New Englander of humble origins, Charity is swept into a torrid love affair with Lucien Harney, an artistically inclined young man from New York City.