Summer Reading

by Joan

As a writer, one of the laborious tasks (i.e. perks) of my job is reading. I love the feel of books (read: don't yet own an ereader, though I covet one badly). But I download books through Audible.com on my iPhone to listen while I'm at the gym or working around the house. Yesterday I started Amanda Hodgkinson's 22 Britannia Road and immediately became hooked.

As a contributor to this blog, I've been lucky enough to meet online other writers and readers who share the same tastes in books. Last night perk and luck came together when I posted a FB comment about my current reading obsession. Within moments, I had two more recommendations from Erika Robuck (who by the way will stop by in two weeks for a guest post. Hopefully she'll fill us in on the news about her upcoming novel, Hemingway's Girl, soon to be on everyone's list).

We began sharing novel titles with similar themes and Erika suggested these:

The Soldier's Wife, by Margaret Leroy

Letters From Home, by Kristina McMorris (see Kim's interview with Kristina here)

Scanning the book blurbs brought others to mind and I thought I'd share them here, for those like me who sometimes go a few years back for summer reading.

So, if you love novels with a backdrop of WWII and themes of love, loss, forgiveness and secrets, try these:

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

Sarah Blake's The Postmistress (WWW Q&A here)

Helen Simonson's Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

Elizabeth Berg's Dream When You're Feeling Blue

Joanna Trollope's The Brass Dolphin

Anyone else have others I've missed?