March is nearly at an end and I’m already dreaming of summer – being able to wear t-shirts without at least one jumper layered on top, and no tights or leggings sounds like absolute bliss right now! If you’re also longing for bright, sunny, warm weather, here are some of my most recent favourite escapist reads, all featuring sunny weather:
The Secret of Danger Point (Surfside Girls #1) by Kim Dwinell
This is a middle grade graphic novel I read last Sunday over breakfast! It was absolutely lovely. a delightful, beautifully illustrated story featuring best friends Sam and Jade, two surfer girls who stumble into a supernatural adventure! You don’t normally get surfing and ghosts together in the same book, so I was really surprised by how well the different elements came together as the girls try to solve a mystery and save the ghosts’ special spot from being developed into a new tourist resort. The art is adorable yet expressive, and I will definitely be looking into how I can read the sequel!
Buy: Amazon | Bookshop.org (affiliate links)
The Unexpected Everything by Morgan Matson
This is my favourite of Morgan Matson’s YA books that I’ve read so far! Andie’s summer – and life – is all going according to plan until her congressman father is involved in a political scandal. As a result, she loses her place at the summer school, and is stuck at home while her friends are off having their own adventures. To kill time, she gets a job as a dog walker, but then she starts walking a dog for a boy who seems to live all alone. He’s a mystery too intriguing to resist…
Buy: Amazon | Bookshop.org (affiliate links)
Rules of Summer, by Joanna Philbin
Note: I received a review copy from the publisher several years ago
Rory wants to get away from her mum for the summer, so she takes up a job offered by her aunt, housekeeper to the wealthy Rule family in the Hamptons. As she struggles to get to grips with being a servant, Isobel Rule, the youngest of the family, is starting to struggle with her own identity and the restrictions and rules she lives under. It’s a tense but entertaining YA novel, somehow both escapist and thoughtful at once.
Buy: Amazon | Bookshop.org (affiliate links)
The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim
Okay, this one isn’t set during summer, but during a beautiful, warm, Italian spring in the 1920s…which is just as good! Two bored, lonely, middle-class married women, fed up with their lives and their husbands, see an advert in the paper for a castle in the Italian Riviera, available to rent in April. They find the idea irresistible and hatch a plan to go, against all their usual inclinations. They are joined by a young, beautiful aristocrat who just wants to be left alone, and a grumpy older woman who instantly dislikes almost everything. But they all find that the beautiful castle and gorgeous location works a kind of magic on them, and life is never the same!
Download for free from Project Gutenberg
Buy: Bookshop.org (affiliate link)
Here’s a verrrrry old video in which I talk about some other summery YA books:
And here’s the accompanying blog post which includes links to full-length reviews of most of them: Bookish Brits Vlog 20: My Favourite and Future Summer Reads
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