We’re in the dog days of summer, as they call it. What to read as we try to make it last as long as we possibly can? This month’s Book Report has some suggestions. Summer is a time for weddings, and Alison Espach’s novel "The Wedding People” is set at a fancy Newport, Rhode Island, resort.
Phoebe has checked into the Cornwall Inn not realizing that she is the only person there not attending the wedding of Lila and Gary, two people she doesn't know. Phoebe has come to the Cornwall Inn intending to end her life. Her husband left her for another woman after several unsuccessful attempts to have a baby, her career as a literature adjunct professor at a St.
Louis college is stalled, and her cat died. As Phoebe is preparing to end her life, Lila, the bride, bursts into her hotel room. Lila is a whirlwind, talking a mile a minute about her wedding problems, demanding to know why Phoebe is at the hotel.
When Phoebe explains her situation, Lila is furious that Phoebe’s plan would wreck Lila’s perfect wedding. Lila has planned each and every detail of the week-long wedding celebration. She is a bridezilla, yet she opens up to Phoebe and they form an interesting bond that ends up with Phoebe becoming the maid of honor.
We meet the members of the wedding party and the family, and Phoebe even has a flirtation with a handsome man in the hot tub. The characters in “The Wedding People” are so well-drawn, especially Lila, who in lesser hands could have been a one-dimensional character, but the author gives her such depth. The writing is filled with wit, and the subject of depression is dealt with sensitivity.
I enjoyed “The Wedding People” immensely. Read With Jenna chose it as her August read, and it was a Book of the Month option. Read With Jenna’s July pick was Chris Whitaker’s “All the Colors of the Dark.
" This one is a much darker story. Patch is a young boy with one eye, being raised by an alcoholic mom and picked on by bullies. When he sees the girl he has a crush on being attacked by a man, he rushes in to save her and the man takes Patch instead.
Patch’s best friend Saint, a young girl who is a bit of an outcast as well, is determined to find out what happened to her best friend no matter the cost. Saint hounds the local police, who are stymied in their investigation into this and other missing girls in the area. The local police chief is devastated by Patch’s disappearance.
“All The Colors of the Dark” continues through the next 20 years, combining a missing person mystery with a serial killer thriller with a friendship and love story. Serial killer stories are not a genre I enjoy reading, but “All the Colors of the Dark” captured me with the relationship between Patch and Saint, and the several twists and turns before the ultimate resolution. It was also a Book of the Month selection.
Diane LaRue If you can’t wait for the next installment of “Bridgerton” on Netflix, give Eloisa James’ new historical romance “Viscount in Love” a read. Dominic is a viscount engaged to a suitable young woman. When he finds himself guardian to his young niece and nephew after his brother and sister-in-law tragically die, his fiancée up and elopes with another man.
Dominic finds himself attracted to his ex-fiancée's sister Torie. Torie enjoys spending time with the children, but she fears that Dom wants a nanny and she is determined to marry someone who loves her. Torie is illiterate, seemingly incapable of learning how to read, but she can remember everything she has heard.
She is very intelligent and Dominic is impressed with her. Can he convince Torie that he loves her and that they should be together? James writes spicy, witty, literate romance novels, and even though you know how things will turn out, the fun is in getting there. If thrillers are your favorite, Chris Bohjalian’s “The Princess of Las Vegas” is a good one.
It tells the story of a Princess Diana impersonator in Las Vegas who finds herself in the middle of an organized crime conspiracy of murder involving cryptocurrency. When her estranged sister shows up with a new boyfriend and the teenage girl she adopted, things really get messy — and dangerous. You’ll race through this one, and Bohjalian manages to make each of his books unique, something you can’t say for many mystery/thriller writers.
Diane LaRue is a member of the National Book Critics Circle and blogs about books at http://bookchickdi.blogspot.com .
She is president of the Friends of Webster Library and manages the Book Cellar, a nonprofit used bookstore that benefits branch libraries of the New York Public Library in New York City. Receive the latest in local entertainment news in your inbox weekly!.
