Dear Reader,
Happy summer! This is my favorite season because the days are longer, brighter, and full of life. The vitality of the summer makes me feel buoyant. I’ve lived most of my adult life in the Pacific northwest, where sunshine is precious. Maybe that’s why I feel so nostalgic during the summer months, because I’m reminded of my childhood in southern California.
Seattle is so beautiful in the summer! I mean, check out this incredible sunset. Picture this when you read the scene in For the Love of Summer when Erica and Killion circle Lake Union and Lake Washington on a luxury yacht.
While the sunshine warms your body, here are a few books to warm your heart:
A Happier Life by Kristy Woodson Harvey
A tender and touching cross-generational novel about a young woman who discovers the family she has always longed for when she spends a life-changing summer in North Carolina. I love Kristy’s storytelling, and I think you will, too. A Happier Life is brand-new this week. Keep reading this newsletter for a note from Kristy with the fascinating personal family history that inspired this book!
A Daughter of Fair Verona by Christina Dodd
Also new this week is Christina Dodd’s frothy, irreverent, witty new series with an irresistible premise—Romeo and Juliet’s daughter as a fiercely independent young woman in fair Verona. I was lucky enough to get my hands on an early copy of it, and I absolutely loved it. I sent Christina this quote: “A tour de force! Witty, charming, snarky and just plain fun. Shakespeare is going to wish he’d written this!”
Redeeming the Maverick by Christine Rimmer
The first book of the Montana Mavericks: the Trail to Tenacity mini-series, Redeeming the Maverick is the story of Hayes Parker’s homecoming, and his reunion with his first love.
For the Love of Summer by me
The slice-of-life, emotional story of an unlikely friendship between two women who married the same man (consecutively, not concurrently 😂 )
The Summer Book Club by me
Inspired by the feel-good romance novels they’re reading this summer, three friends go for main-character energy as they claim the happiness that has eluded them in the past.
A NOTE FROM KRISTY WOODSON HARVEY
Dear Susan Fans,
I am so thrilled to be here with all of you today–and so grateful to Susan for letting me share a little about my new novel A Happier Life!
Inspired by the unusual deaths of my great aunt and uncle in the 1970s (deaths that, in my mind, were never quite “solved”) and an abandoned house that I was one of the first people to enter after it had been closed up for fifty years, this novel is the culmination of two events that have occupied my imagination for decades.
Both my present-day protagonist, Keaton Saint James Smith, and her grandmother, Rebecca Saint James, embody the kind of poise, charm, grit, and fortitude that I know you all love in Susan’s books, especially her new The Summer Book Club. Also, like the plucky protagonists of that novel, these women will take big chances to move into the next chapter of their lives on their own terms–and, hopefully, find A Happier Life.
Maybe most of all, A Happier Life is a testament to the ways in which discovering where we came from is so often the next step on the path to finding where we were always meant to be. I hope this book makes you think just a little about where you are meant to be—and takes you on a well-deserved bookcation to my beloved Beaufort, NC in the process!
I would love to keep in touch with all of you, over on Instagram at @kristywharvey, on Facebook as Kristy Woodson Harvey or on my newsletter. You can sign up here if you’re interested!
Thank you again, Susan, and much love to all of you!
All best,
Kristy Woodson Harvey
FOR THE LOVE OF INDIE BOOKSTORES GIVEAWAY
Congratulations to the following ten readers, who each won a $25 gift card to her favorite independent bookstore!
- Day 1: Deborah M, Maplewood NJ — [words] bookstore, also in Maplewood
- Day 2: Suzanne P, Gilbertsville, PA — Reads & Co Bookshop, Phoenixville, PA
- Day 3: Nancy B, San Diego, CA — Warwicks, La Jolla, CA
- Day 4: Ashley U, Chattanooga, TN — Book and Cover, also in Chattanooga
- Day 5: Ann W, Willow Street, PA — Bookshop.org
- Day 6: Melissa K, Yardley, PA — Commonplace Reader, also in Yardley
- Day 7: Mary J, Vancouver, WA — White Oaks Books, also in Vancouver
- Day 8: Debbie J, Buford, GA — FoxTale Book Shoppe, Woodstock, GA
- Day 9: Rochelle M, Cedar Rapids, IA — Swamp Fox Bookstore, Marion, IA
- Day 10: Sheri W, Nipomo, CA — Monarch Books, Arroyo Grande, CA
Happy reading!
