End of Summer: September Book Club Recommendations 2023

Same Time Next Summer – Annabel Monaghan

Official Blurb

Beach Rules:
Do take long walks on the sand.
Do put an umbrella in every cocktail.
Do NOT run into your first love.

Sam’s life is on track. She has the perfect doctor fiancé, Jack (his strict routines are a good thing, really), a great job in Manhattan (unless they fire her), and is about to tour a wedding venue near her family’s Long Island beach house. Everything should go to plan, yet the minute she arrives, Sam senses something is off. Wyatt is here. Her Wyatt. But there’s no reason for a thirty-year-old engaged woman to feel panicked around the guy who broke her heart when she was seventeen. Right?

You Can Trust me – Wendy Heard

Official Blurb

Summer and Leo would do anything for each other. Inspired by the way each has had to carve her place in a hostile and unforgiving world, and united by the call of the open road, they travel around sunny California in Summer’s tricked-out Land Cruiser. It’s not a glamorous life, but it gives them the freedom they crave from the painful pasts they’ve left behind. But even free spirits have bills to pay. Luckily, Summer is a skilled pickpocket, a small-time thief, and a con artist–and Leo, determined to pay her own way, has learned a trick or two.

Eager for a big score, Leo catches in her crosshairs Michael Forrester, a self-made billionaire and philanthropist. When her charm wins him over, Leo is rewarded with an invitation to his private island off the California coastline for a night of fabulous excess…

The Many lives of Mama Love – Lara Love Hardin

I have so many thoughts on this memoir! Read my spoiler-free review here!

Official Blurb

No one expects the police to knock on the million-dollar, two-story home of the perfect cul-de-sac housewife. But soccer mom Lara Love Hardin has been hiding a shady secret: she is funding her heroin addiction by stealing her neighbors’ credit cards.

Lara is convicted of thirty-two felonies and becomes inmate S32179. She learns that jail is a class system with a power structure that is somewhere between an adolescent sleepover party and Lord of the Flies. Furniture is made from tampon boxes and Snickers bars are currency. But Lara quickly finds the rules and brings love and healing to her fellow inmates as she climbs the social ladder to become the “shot caller,” showing that jailhouse politics aren’t that different from the PTA meetings she used to attend.

Georgie, All Along – Kate Clayborn

Official Blurb

Longtime personal assistant Georgie Mulcahy has made a career out of putting others before herself. When an unexpected upheaval sends her away from her hectic job in L.A. and back to her hometown, Georgie must confront an uncomfortable truth: her own wants and needs have always been a disconcertingly blank page.  

But then Georgie comes across a forgotten artifact—a “friendfic” diary she wrote as a teenager, filled with possibilities she once imagined. To an overwhelmed Georgie, the diary’s simple, small-scale ideas are a lifeline—a guidebook for getting started on a new path.  

Don’t Let Her Stay – Nicola Sanders

Official Blurb

It seemed only five minutes ago that Richard went to the station to pick up Chloe, and now they were here. I was so excited. Finally, I would meet my stepdaughter for the first time, and Chloe would meet her baby sister Evie.

Richard was over the moon that his daughter wanted to come back into his life. ‘You’ll love her,’ he’d said, beaming. ‘She’s very sweet. She just had a wobble about me marrying again, but that’s over now.’

Well, she was going to find out she had nothing to worry about. I’d been fantasising non-stop about the two of us becoming close. I had visions of us baking together while Richard was at work, chatting about her boyfriends, her studies, what kind of job she’d like to do. I would be someone she could rely on, someone she could talk to when she would have spoken to her mum if she’d still been alive.

Whenever we’re alone, Chloe makes it clear that she hates me. But in front of her father, she’s a perfect little angel. Richard says I’m not giving her a chance, but he doesn’t see what I see. I don’t trust Chloe, and I certainly won’t leave her alone with Evie.

Because I know something isn’t right with Chloe, and I will do everything possible to protect my family.

Before it’s too late…