snapshot 7.9

currently reading: It’s been a nice, mostly calm weekend, so it made for some excellent reading time. I am reading several really good books right now, so I have some great titles to talk about this week. I am reading recent release Going Bicoastal, and I am loving it. It’s a YA novel with some fun and some romance, as Natalya spends her summer with her parents. But it’s not that easy, as her parents are divorced and living on two different sides of the country. So in a Sliding Doors type story, the novel goes back and forth between Nat’s summer in New York City with her dad and her friends, and her summer in L.A. with her mother and new acquaintances. Nat is a generous woman with a big personality, so she attracts good people to her wherever she goes, but watching her develop into these two fascinating people is so much fun. I’m not sure I want it to end!

I’m also reading Katherine Center’s latest, Hello Stranger, out Tuesday. Sadie is a portrait artist whose sudden seizure reveals a small brain bleed. She’s torn between the brain surgery she needs and the major competition she’s a finalist for. She has six weeks to create the best portrait of her life, to win the competition and a much needed $10,000. But will she be able to do that, with the brain bleed? There is so much more of this story to come, and I can’t wait to read more.

Also, out Tuesday, is Thicker Than Water by Megan Collins. I loved her last book, The Family Plot, and I am loving this one so far too. In the middle is Jason, who is married to Sienna and brother to Julia. Julia and Sienna became best friends since they met, and now they are not only best friends and sisters-in-law, they’re also business partners. But things have changed. They have started keeping secrets from each other. And Jason’s boss was brutally murdered. The police have named him as a suspect, but they can’t interrogate him, because he’s in the hospital. He had driven his car into a tree, and he’s in a medically induced coma. Julia and Sienna have to work together to try to clear him as he lays helpless, but they’re not on the same page anymore. Can they figure out what is happening at that company before it tears the family apart, or is it already too late?

And I’ve started reading The Centre, about a translator who gets caught up in a mysterious language center. I’ve not had a chance to dip in far with it yet, but the writing is gorgeous. It’s out Tuesday, the first book from Gillian Flynn’s imprint, and I can already see some of what Flynn saw in this novel. You’ll definitely want to keep an eye out for it.

Amy Engel’s new thriller, I Did it for You, is out the 25th, and Dutton was kind enough to send me an early copy. I can’t wait to dig in! I mean, is this cover gorgeous or what?! Thanks for the bookmail! Next weekend is booked!