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How is everyone doing this Wednesday?  I hope your week is going well.  I could really use tools to escape everything that’s happening right now, and the best way I can do that is to bury my head in a book.

For me books are a great way to take your mind to other places, see the world, learn some history or get caught up in a trashy love story for the Summer.  Well … there are no trash novels on my Goods Reads Summer list but I’ve curated a list that’s part Fiction, Historical, YA, and Thrillers.

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Good Reads for Summer 2020

Thriller

The Shadows, A Novel ~ Alex North
SYNOPSIS: You knew a teenager like Charlie Crabtree. A dark imagination, a sinister smile–always on the outside of the group. Some part of you suspected he might be capable of doing something awful. Twenty-five years ago, Crabtree did just that, committing murder so shocking that it’s attracted that strange kind of infamy that only exists on the darkest corners of the internet–and inspired more than one copycat.

Paul Adams remembers the case all too well: Crabtree–and his victim–were Paul’s friends. Paul has slowly put his life back together. But now his mother, old and senile, has taken a turn for the worse. Though every inch of him resists, it is time to come home.

Fiction

Deacon King Kong, A Novel ~ James McBride
SYNOPSIS: In September 1969, a fumbling, cranky old church deacon known as Sportcoat shuffles into the courtyard of the Cause Houses housing project in south Brooklyn, pulls a .38 from his pocket, and in front of everybody shoots the project’s drug dealer at point-blank range.

In Deacon King Kong, McBride brings to vivid life the people affected by the shooting: the victim, the African-American and Latin X residents who witnessed it, the white neighbors, the local cops assigned to investigate, the members of the Five Ends Baptist Church where Sportcoat was a deacon, the neighborhood’s Italian mobsters, and Sportcoat himself.

YA Science Fiction

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes ~ Suzanne Collins
SYNOPSIS: It is the morning of the reaping that will kick off the tenth annual Hunger Games. In the Capitol, eighteen-year-old Coriolanus Snow is preparing for his one shot at glory as a mentor in the Games. The once-mighty house of Snow has fallen on hard times, its fate hanging on the slender chance that Coriolanus will be able to out-charm, outwit, and outmaneuver his fellow students to mentor the winning tribute.

The odds are against him. He’s been given the humiliating assignment of mentoring the female tribute from District 12, the lowest of the low. Their fates are now completely intertwined—every choice Coriolanus makes could lead to favor or failure, triumph, or ruin. Inside the arena, it will be a fight to the death. Outside the arena, Coriolanus starts to feel for his doomed tribute . . . and must weigh his need to follow the rules against his desire to survive no matter what it takes.

Historical Fiction + Horror

Mexican Gothic  ~ Silvia Moreno-Garcia
SYNOPSIS: After receiving a frantic letter from her newlywed cousin begging for someone to save her from a mysterious doom, Noemí Taboada heads to High Place, a distant house in the Mexican countryside. She’s not sure what she will find—her cousin’s husband, a handsome Englishman, is a stranger, and Noemí knows little about the region.

Noemí is also an unlikely rescuer: She’s a glamorous debutante, and her chic gowns and perfect red lipstick are more suited for cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing. But she’s also tough and smart, with an indomitable will, and she is not afraid: Not of her cousin’s new husband, who is both menacing and alluring; not of his father, the ancient patriarch who seems to be fascinated by Noemí; and not even of the house itself, which begins to invade Noemi’s dreams with visions of blood and doom.

Fiction

Red at the Bone ~ Jacqueline Woodson
SYNOPSIS: Moving forward and backward in time, Jacqueline Woodson’s taut and powerful new novel uncovers the role that history and community have played in the experiences, decisions, and relationships of these families, and in the life of the new child.

As the book opens in 2001, it is the evening of sixteen-year-old Melody’s coming of age ceremony in her grandparents’ Brooklyn brownstone. Watched lovingly by her relatives and friends, making her entrance to the music of Prince, she wears a special custom-made dress. But the event is not without poignancy. Sixteen years earlier, that very dress was measured and sewn for a different wearer: Melody’s mother, for her own ceremony– a celebration that ultimately never took place.

Horror

The Return ~ Rachel Harrison
SYNOPSIS: An edgy and haunting debut novel about a group of friends who reunite after one of them has returned from a mysterious two-year disappearance.

Julie is missing, and the missing don’t often return. But Elise knows Julie better than anyone, and she feels in her bones that her best friend is out there and that one day she’ll come back. She’s right. Two years to the day that Julie went missing, she reappears with no memory of where she’s been or what happened to her.

What are some of your favorite books to read for Summer?  Do you prefer love stories, mysteries, and thrillers, or historical fiction?  Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

Thanks so much for visiting my blog today.  Don’t forget to “like”, “leave a comment”, or “subscribe”.  Happy reading! — Peace —

My Other Reading List

Reading for Black History Month
Modern Farmhouse Book List
Organize Your Life Book List
Complete Summer Good Reads List for 2020

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Book Source … Good Reads