Books like The Comeback Summer — picked by fans

This book is an irresistible thriller about Grace Evans, an overworked New Yorker who rents an Airbnb on a ranch in the middle of Wyoming for some rest and relaxation and stumbles upon an intriguing rancher and townsfolk with secrets to keep.

The sexual attraction between Grace and Calvin Wells, the handsome rancher, kept me turning the pages. I never saw the shocking twist coming at the end. It made me think twice about booking a vacation rental in a remote area without cell service!

I devoured this novel in a few days, making it a good choice for a quick beach read.   

Louise’s kids think their 84-year-old mother needs a caretaker. They don’t know Louise has a secret past, and what she really needs is to skip town, fast.

Louise convinces her reluctant 21-year-old caregiver, Tanner, to drive her to California. Their comic road trip is both full of fun and heartwarming as the outrageous octogenarian on-the-lam shows the rule-following youngster how to live.

This title is a must-read pick for the beach with the bright sun in the sky and toes in the sand.

A heartwarming beach read, it’s the story of Lauren Sutton, an event planner who tragically loses her fiancé and retreats to an old inn in Rodanthe, North Carolina, for the summer, leaving behind her successful event-planning business. Her life gets complicated when she stumbles upon local fisherman Brody Harrison, igniting a flame inside.

The small-town feel and sense of community drew me in, especially how Lauren’s new friends try to help her overcome grief and open her heart to the hope of something new.        

My proximity to DC attracts me to political and psychological suspense, like the latest release by this bestselling sister writing team.

An insider’s look into the lives of the power players in the nation’s capital, this story grabs your attention with the family drama and medical mystery. D.C. philanthropist Sloane Chase undergoes surgery and wakes up thinking her home health aide is trying to steal her new husband, ruin her reputation, and claim her social standing.

The story culminates with a political twist ripped from modern-day headlines, which makes for the ultimate beach read this summer.    

In all honesty, what I liked most about this book is out of all the books I’ve read about mental illness, this one comes closest to my own book.  

It looks at the ramifications of mental illness through the gaze of a person that loves the main character. In the case of this book, it is two Asian American sisters: Lucia and Miranda.  

Lucia, like many people with a mental health diagnosis, like the character Bowie in my novel, suffers from anosognosia - a lack of insight about having a mental illness; making her oppositional to any treatment that would help level off her symptoms. Mira T. Lee compellingly describes the arrogance of ‘experts’ who know nothing about Lucia, ignoring the well-informed input from Miranda, prescribing meds that Miranda already knows from experience will have adverse effects. 

The book also examines how people with severe mental illness endure shifting diagnoses:… show more.

As the daughter of a wartime internee, I was particularly affected by this novel. It is 1938, and socialite Phyllis Forrester is unaware that her family life is soon to be destroyed by circumstance. A privileged wife and mother, Phyllis is politically naïve. There are subtle hints of the darkness to come as she, along with her kin, becomes increasingly involved with Oswald Mosley’s political party. When war breaks out and Phyllis is interned, she endures her downfall and imprisonment with equanimity. The book carries a quiet, sad sense of regret as she tries and fails to pick up the post-war threads of her former life. There is no going back.

As one of my sisters once said, "Family life is messy."

This is a book about four sisters. In my family, we are three. And our parents are from an entirely different generation. Isn’t that always the case?

Family life is messy, but wonderful—because where there is love, there is always the possibility of redemption.

Can sibling rivalry persist even after the death of your sibling? Absolutely, according to Sánchez, who has written a searing novel fraught with impossible expectations, crippling depression, and first love.

After Julia’s sister’s unexpected death, her mother insists that Julia be exactly like her older sister. But how can Julia be this perfect Mexican daughter when she is nothing like her sister? 

As Julia unmasks her sister’s darker hidden life, the impossibility of this question nearly destroys her. Julia spends the novel trying to untangle her sister’s secrets and finds herself in the process.

This is a novella that starts off the Drake Sisters series. Each book in the series follows a different sister, giving each their romantic HEA (happily ever after). The sisters are known in their small coastal town for their supernatural powers.

They all have vastly different careers and different supernatural abilities. Each story is a page-turner, and the series' final book is the best of the bunch! I’ve read and reread it countless times.

I turn to this series when I’m in a reading slump, and it always turns it around for me. The romantic suspense with supernatural elements makes it a win for me.

I love stories set in modern times, with the fae living—secretly—in the local woods. It reminds me of the uncanny in real life, and the possibility of adventure.

The pleasure of this rendition of the fae-next-door is that the human realm is brought fully to life and slowly entwines with the fantastical. Also: It gradually dawned on me that the human thread of the story is a fairy tale in its own right. That really twisted my expectations.