I read both of these books Memorial Day weekend but also managed to finish one book per day across Sunday and Monday. Finally brought me current on my reading challenge!
This Summer Will Be Different by Carley Fortune Genres: Adult, Contemporary
Published by Penguin on May 7, 2024
Also by this author: Every Summer After, Meet Me at the Lake
Format: Paperback (368 pages) • Source: Purchased
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THE INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!
A glorious and tantalizing new escape from #1 New York Times bestselling author Carley Fortune.
This summer they’ll keep their promise. This summer they won't give into temptation. This summer will be different.
Lucy is the tourist vacationing at a beach house on Prince Edward Island. Felix is the local who shows her a very good time. The only problem: Lucy doesn’t know he’s her best friend’s younger brother. Lucy and Felix’s chemistry is unreal, but the list of reasons why they need to stay away from each other is long, and they vow to never repeat that electric night again.
It’s easier said than done.
Each year, Lucy escapes to PEI for a big breath of coastal air, fresh oysters and crisp vinho verde with her best friend, Bridget. Every visit begins with a long walk on the beach, beneath soaring red cliffs and a golden sun. And every visit, Lucy promises herself she won’t wind up in Felix’s bed. Again.
If Lucy can’t help being drawn to Felix, at least she’s always kept her heart out of it.
When Bridget suddenly flees Toronto a week before her wedding, Lucy drops everything to follow her to the island. Her mission is to help Bridget through her crisis and resist the one man she’s never been able to. But Felix’s sparkling eyes and flirty quips have been replaced with something new, and Lucy’s beginning to wonder just how safe her heart truly is.
Carley Fortune has been an interesting author for me (and many other readers, as far as I can tell!). Many of us fell in love with EVERY SUMMER AFTER and all of its messiness. MEET ME AT THE LAKE didn’t quite have the same charm or affect on its audience but, to me, was still a worthwhile read. I was looking forward to checking out whatever she did next… and boy did she knock THIS SUMMER WILL BE DIFFERENT out of the park.
One summer, Lucy heads to PEI to visit with her best friend and hooks up with a hot restaurant worker named Felix. The next morning, they quickly realize that Felix is actually Wolf and Lucy is Bee – she just hooked up with her best friend’s brother and she’s already landed at their summer home. The two of them end up hooking up on and off throughout the years and it’s just an occasional secret fling… or is it?
I loved that this was sort of quiet and slow-moving throughout the romance/plot, despite the initial hot start between the characters. Lucy and Felix really needed to find themselves and it didn’t feel rushed at all, even though every reader probably knew exactly where it was heading.
While I do think this is her actual best book, it’s still a half-star less than her debut (for me!). I absolutely loved the characters and Prince Edward Island setting. It was definitely less messy than ESA but still had some good pining and flashback chapters. Carley Fortune does a really great job with this format!
I think it was the absolute perfect summery story to read during Memorial Day Weekend and gave me pretty much the exact same experience as EVERY SUMMER AFTER did – I couldn’t put it down and read the entire thing on my patio.
Falling by T.J. Newman Genres: Adult, Mystery/Thriller
Published by Simon and Schuster on July 6, 2021
Also by this author: Drowning, Worst Case Scenario
Format: Audio/Physical (304 pages) • Source: Everand, Purchased
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#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER * INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
“T. J. Newman has written the perfect thriller! A must-read.” —Gillian Flynn
“Stunning and relentless. This is Jaws at 35,000 feet.” —Don Winslow
“Falling is the best kind of thriller…Nonstop, totally authentic suspense.” —James Patterson
“Amazing...Intense suspense, shocks, and scares...Chilling.” —Lee ChildYou just boarded a flight to New York.
There are one hundred and forty-three other passengers onboard.
What you don’t know is that thirty minutes before the flight your pilot’s family was kidnapped.
For his family to live, everyone on your plane must die.
The only way the family will survive is if the pilot follows his orders and crashes the plane.
Enjoy the flight.
I read DROWNING very quickly and loved the author’s writing style. I wasn’t sure how a “locked room thriller” with an airplane sinking into the ocean could keep me entertained. Yes, the concept seems gripping, but how could you write a full book about it?! Newman did a great job with that one and I knew I wanted to read her debut novel soon. I decided to prioritize it when I was in the mood to mood read (lol) and I’m so glad I did.
FALLING is more of a “traditional” thriller I would think of when it comes to an airplane. Newman was a flight attendant and clearly used all of her knowledge to write these books. This book centers around a hijacking where the pilot is forced to decide between crashing a plan with 150 people on it or letting a terrorist kill his family. Similar to DROWNING, there were a number of POVs that kept the story intriguing and gave backstory on the major players.
I don’t want to spoil the events of this one but it was a bit more centered on the people involved and what was happening in the current timeline, while DROWNING did more back-and-forth between other timelines to keep the story moving and interesting for 300+ pages.
Needless to say, I couldn’t put it down – I read it in a day. I think it was a little less addicting in a general sense for some reason compared to her debut but still… who can beat reading a book in basically one sitting?
I cannot wait to see how her third book goes because it sounds similarly crazy (I think a plane crashing into a nuclear power plant??). I wonder if this schtick will ever get tiring but I really don’t think it will!
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