Favorite Reads | North Carolina lifestyle

I’ve always found a bit more time for reading during the summer, and especially during quarantine, it’s been nice to knock some books off my reading list. I recently shared my anti-racist reading list which I’ve been working my way through this year. I like to mix in lighter reads while reading my way through heavier topics. Today, I’m sharing 6 recent favorite reads and my review of them. I’d love to hear what you’re reading in the comments below!

6 Recent Favorite Reads

Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter

The #1 New York Times bestseller, now available in paperback—Jess Walter’s “absolute masterpiece” (Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize-winning author): the story of an almost-love affair that begins on the Italian coast in 1962 and resurfaces fifty years later in contemporary Hollywood. The acclaimed, award-winning author of the national bestseller The Financial Lives of the Poets returns with his funniest, most romantic, and most purely enjoyable novel yet. Hailed by critics and loved by readers of literary and historical fiction, Beautiful Ruins is the story of an almost-love affair that begins on the Italian coast in 1962…and is rekindled in Hollywood fifty years later.

Review: This book contains lots of plot twists, light humor, and a sweet love story that keeps you turning the pages. I really like the exploration of the characters, the connection to actual events of the time period, and the ending was heartwarming.
Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars ⭐️

Party of Two by Jasmine Guillory

A chance meeting with a handsome stranger turns into a whirlwind affair that gets everyone talking in this New York Times bestseller.Dating is the last thing on Olivia Monroe’s mind when she moves to LA to start her own law firm. But when she meets a gorgeous man at a hotel bar and they spend the entire night flirting, she discovers too late that he is none other than hotshot junior senator Max Powell. Olivia has zero interest in dating a politician, but when a cake arrives at her office with the cutest message, she can’t resist—it is chocolate cake, after all. Olivia is surprised to find that Max is sweet, funny, and noble—not just some privileged white politician, as she assumed him to be. Because of Max’s high-profile job, they start seeing each other secretly, which leads to clandestine dates and silly disguises. But when they finally go public, the intense media scrutiny means people are now digging up her rocky past and criticizing her job, even her suitability as a trophy girlfriend. Olivia knows what she has with Max is something special, but is it strong enough to survive the heat of the spotlight?

Review: This book was *so* good–I couldn’t put it down! I really appreciate the connection to current events happening right now and Olivia’s strong female presence coupled with her internal dialogue as a successful lawyer with a famous, powerful boyfriend are fascinating to me. I highly recommend this book and will definitely be picking up more books by Jasmine Guillory moving forward.
Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars ⭐️

Feels like Falling by Kristy Woodson Harvey

From “the next major voice in Southern fiction” (Elin Hilderbrand) and the bestselling author of the Peachtree Bluff series comes an odd-couple tale of friendship that asks just how much our past choices define our happiness. It’s summertime on the North Carolina coast and the livin’ is easy. Unless, that is, you’ve just lost your mother to cancer, your sister to her extremist husband, and your husband to his executive assistant. Meet Gray Howard. Right when Gray could use a serious infusion of good karma in her life, she inadvertently gets a stranger, Diana Harrington, fired from her job at the local pharmacy. Diana Harrington’s summer isn’t off to the greatest start either: Hours before losing her job, she broke up with her boyfriend and moved out of their shared house with only a worn-out Impala for a bed. Lucky for her, Gray has an empty guest house and a very guilty conscience. With Gray’s kindness, Diana’s tide begins to turn. But when her first love returns, every secret from her past seems to resurface all at once. And, as Gray begins to blaze a new trail, she discovers, with Diana’s help, that what she envisioned as her perfect life may not be what she wants at all.
In her warmest, wisest novel yet, Kristy Woodson Harvey delivers a discerning portrait of modern womanhood through two vastly different lenses. Feels Like Falling is a beach bag essential for Harvey fans—and for a new generation of readers.

Review: I adore Kristy’s novels, and this one was no exception! While I appreciated Gray’s character and her evolving relationships and struggles, Diana’s story is my favorite. It’s the perfect beach/pool/backyard sprinkler read and is a great little break from reality while reading. Plus, the fact that it’s set on the NC coast is a big bonus for me, especially since I’m missing time there this summer.
Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars ⭐️

Beach Read by Emily Henry

A romance writer who no longer believes in love and a literary writer stuck in a rut engage in a summer-long challenge that may just upend everything they believe about happily ever afters. Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast. They’re polar opposites. In fact, the only thing they have in common is that for the next three months, they’re living in neighboring beach houses, broke, and bogged down with writer’s block. Until, one hazy evening, one thing leads to another and they strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. She’ll take him on field trips worthy of any rom-com montage, and he’ll take her to interview surviving members of a backwoods death cult (obviously). Everyone will finish a book and no one will fall in love. Really.

Review: This read was recommended by a friend and I’m so happy I picked it up! I thought it was so endearing and had appropriate twists and questions. I read it quickly on the beach (ironic, huh?), and I really appreciated the messiness of Emily’s emotions and her learning to advocate for her feelings and needs with Gus.
Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars ⭐️

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it’s not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it’s everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Many years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen to the next generation, when their own daughters’ storylines intersect? Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person’s decisions, desires, and expectations, and explores some of the multiple reasons and realms in which people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins. As with her New York Times-bestselling debut The Mothers, Brit Bennett offers an engrossing page-turner about family and relationships that is immersive and provocative, compassionate and wise.

Review: I was absolutely blown away by this book, y’all. I feel like if you read any book listed here, this is the one I would most recommend. It was a page turner and I really enjoyed the woven histories together. Brit Bennett does great work here, and I will be reading more of Brit’s books in the future!
Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars ⭐️

The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larsen

On Winston Churchill’s first day as prime minister, Adolf Hitler invaded Holland and Belgium. Poland and Czechoslovakia had already fallen, and the Dunkirk evacuation was just two weeks away. For the next twelve months, Hitler would wage a relentless bombing campaign, killing 45,000 Britons. It was up to Churchill to hold his country together and persuade President Franklin Roosevelt that Britain was a worthy ally—and willing to fight to the end. In The Splendid and the Vile, Erik Larson shows, in cinematic detail, how Churchill taught the British people “the art of being fearless.” It is a story of political brinkmanship, but it’s also an intimate domestic drama, set against the backdrop of Churchill’s prime-ministerial country home, Chequers; his wartime retreat, Ditchley, where he and his entourage go when the moon is brightest and the bombing threat is highest; and of course 10 Downing Street in London. Drawing on diaries, original archival documents, and once-secret intelligence reports—some released only recently—Larson provides a new lens on London’s darkest year through the day-to-day experience of Churchill and his family: his wife, Clementine; their youngest daughter, Mary, who chafes against her parents’ wartime protectiveness; their son, Randolph, and his beautiful, unhappy wife, Pamela; Pamela’s illicit lover, a dashing American emissary; and the advisers in Churchill’s “Secret Circle,” to whom he turns in the hardest moments. The Splendid and the Vile takes readers out of today’s political dysfunction and back to a time of true leadership, when, in the face of unrelenting horror, Churchill’s eloquence, courage, and perseverance bound a country, and a family, together.

Review: You didn’t think that I share a list of books to read without including a historical work, did you? This book took a bit of time for me to get through because of the nuances and detail I wanted to pay attention to, but wow is it well written. Winston Churchill is one of those historical figures who I have been captivated by for a while (that’s who our sweet Winnie is named after). It was fascinating to learn more about his family dynamics and those around him during the war. I couldn’t help but think of the sacrifices that the British made during World War II and how opposite that feels during 2020 during a global pandemic. I highly recommend reading this book because it’s history written like a novel.
Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars ⭐️

Consider getting your books from one of these black-owned book stores that ships (so we can support the USPS, too)! If you’re local to Raleigh, I’m a huge fan of Quail Ridge Books–they ship for free or you can do curbside pickup.

What are your current favorite reads? Let me know in a comment below!