Book Review: Three Great Beach Reads!

By Annell Gerson

Best Beach Ever
Wendy Wax

Dreams of Falling
Karen White

High Tide Club
Mary Kay Andrews

Check out these Atlanta authors fresh crop of hot summer titles no beach bag should be without:

The High Tide Club is Mary Kay Andrews at her best. A bit of romance, an eccentric 99-nine-year-old heiress who owns a private island, shady real-estate deals, secrets spanning decades, a sisterhood of friends, and a long-unsolved murder. In 1912, Josephine Warrick Bettendorfs father and two cousins bought Talisa, a 12,000-acre barrier island off the coast of Georgia. Since 1978, when the cousins sold their share to the State of Georgia for a wildlife refuge, the State has relentlessly hounded Josephine to buy the remaining acreage. With terminal cancer marking off her days, Josephine refuses to die before protecting the future of the island and doing right by her long-ago friends.

Wendy Waxs witty, smart Ten Beach Road series continues with her new release, Best Beach Ever. Maddie, Nikki, and Avery first meet as Ponzi scheme victims; the only thing left of their portfolio is a shared interest in a run-down historic beachfront property called Bella Flora. Since that first renovation, readers have fallen in love with this trio of strong, resourceful, down-to-earth women who have forged an enviable friendship. Life offers few easy answers, short-cuts, or fairy tale endings, but these resilient women remind us that friendship, remembering to acknowledge all the one good things in our lives, and time spent appreciating the majesty of a beautiful sunset go a long way to navigate lifes tides.

With her usual riveting plot, heart-grabbing characters, and exact sense of place, Karen White weaves past and present in a seamless storyline in her newest novel Dreams of Falling. Though Ceecee, Margaret, and Bitty come from very different Southern backgrounds, they might as well be sisters. Its 1950, and to celebrate high school graduation, the three hit the road for a weekend that will change their lives forever. Fifty years later, Margarets granddaughter, Larkin Lanier, is called home because her mother is missing. The note she leaves behind begins a revelation of secrets that upend everything Larkin has ever known about her family.