Rhody Reads: Six Summer 2023 Beach Reads by Local Writers

June marks the beginning of summer, which means it’s perfectly acceptable to sit back, relax, and enjoy a good book. We have six selections this month for every taste, ranging from romance to thriller to family drama. Whether you’re sprawled out on your beach blanket or curled up in your hammock, you’ll find something new that you can pick up at your local bookseller.

The Golden Spoon by Jamestown’s own Jessa Maxwell is a suspense-filled thriller for both mystery buffs and bakers. This debut novel about a culinary competition is set on a gorgeous estate in Vermont where anything could happen, and once the cake is out of the oven, everyone is a suspect. You won’t be able to put it down until you know whodunit and, perhaps even more importantly, to find out who wins the Bake
Week championship!

When a successful Hollywood actor returns to his Block Island home, sparks fly as his family struggles with fame, jealousy, and regret in Meg Mitchell Moore’s Summer Stage. As they work together to put on a play, their true feelings for one another, some hidden and buried for years, act themselves out in the small theater where they’re preparing their new production. Will the bonds of family be what brings them together – or what tears them apart?

From the award-winning Providence-based author and psychiatrist Peter D. Kramer comes a political satire for our times. Death of the Great Man tells the story of Henry Farber, a psychiatrist treating the nation’s narcissistic national leader who just happens to turn up dead on the consulting room couch. As Farber delves deeper into the mystery, he explores what it means to live in a society devolving into a culture of lies.

Wendy Grossman brings her imaginative vision to life in Dreamcycle: (my days and nights with John Leguizamo), her debut poetry chapbook. Through memoir and fantasy, the Providence writer weaves tales from a very special period in her life – adventures in NYC’s East Village in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Often on the outside looking in on a culture all its own, Grossman shares that dreams are not always what we expect when they become a reality. 

Rhode Island musician and author Thomas Lane enlightens readers with The Karma Factor, a thriller taking place in both the physical and metaphysical realms. NYPD detective James Early was ready to die but the universe had other plans for him, leading him on a journey to discover why he’s still standing. In unique and inventive ways, Lane takes crime fiction and turns it on its head to dig deeper into the very meaning of our existence.

Rosemary’s family thinks that her life is a disaster but in Courtney Denelle’s debut novel, It’s Not Nothing, she keeps on keeping on, and that counts for something. Recovering from addiction and having experienced homelessness, Rosemary is trying to bounce back but constantly wonders whether the people who tell her she doesn’t stand a chance may be right. Based on the Providence photographer/author’s own experiences, the book is a collection of moments, memories, and lessons in resilience.