I like good historical fiction, but while in mindless escape mode as I lie on a hammock,  I want stories that engage my attention but don’t require much thought on my part. My recent reading choices lean towards mysteries that don’t dwell too much on crime details. And if there’s a dash of romance involved, so much the better. These three books fit my escapist requirements, and might do the same for you. 

Winter Cottage by Mary Ellen Taylor

Mary Ellen Taylor is reliable. When you pick up one of her books, you know that the story is probably set in Virginia, that the female protagonist will be trying to “find herself,” [coming-of-age in key word categories]. There’s also an historical aspect to the story.

In Winter Cottage the “cottage” in Cape Hudson, Virginia begins its life as the summer home of a wealthy New York family, complete with staff. Over time, the property falls into mild neglect as it passes through various heirs.

Protagonist Lucy Kincaid is beyond down on her luck when she arrives from Nashville to collect her inheritance. The Winter Cottage, which she never heard of before, belongs to her . . . if she stays there for a year. There are, of course, obstacles to overcome and relationships to untangle.

Taylor’s novel intriguingly contains a time-travel aspect about Catherine Buchanan’s life and love. Catherine is key to the story, because she made the inheritance stipulations that brought Lucy to the cottage. I enjoyed the entire novel, but this aspect with its peek of life in the early twentieth century, was the most interesting.

The Perfect Marriage by Adam Mitzner

It’s interesting how many lawyers turn to writing crime novels or thrillers. It’s like a sort of busman’s holiday. The Perfect Marriage is Mitzner’s ninth novel. The title intrigued me, because there is no such thing as a perfect marriage. Happy, yes. Companionable, definately. But perfect? The title suggests Mitzner’s plot will pull back the curtain to reveal two people whose marriage may have been perfect in some ways, but had its challenges in others. Like what? I wondered. My eye was also drawn to the cover which invites readers to peer through the windows to discover . . . what?

The book opens with James & Jessica Sommers’ first anniversary party. They are a devoted couple, but there are a few flies in the marital ointment. Each has an ex-partner; one more than a little bitter, the other barely holding life together. Jessica also has an unsettled teen-age son undergoing cancer treatment

Nevertheless, their lives continue on a predictable path until James Sommers winds up dead. Slowly, clues to the crime unfold around James’ life as a husband, father, and career as an art dealer. Unknowns become known, and though the Sommers marriage may not have been perfect, it wasn’t more imperfect than many others. 

Say You’re Sorry by Melinda Leigh

Morgan Dane returns to her home town to rebuild her life. Newly widowed with small children, she’s back in her father’s house and has just been offered a position in the town prosecutor’s office. Then Morgan’s babysitter is murdered, and Nick, a young man Morgan has known all her life, is accused of the murder. For the first time, Morgan will be at the defense table, but to win, she has to find out what actually happened. The quest is filled with twists as secrets reveal themselves, and, as in many good mysteries, the protagonist learns about herself while uncovering clues about the crime’s perpetrator.

The post Mystery Reads first appeared on Sandra Wagner-Wright.

It’s the middle of August. It’s hot and often humid. A time when a hammock looks pretty good. This portrait of a woman doing her correspondence while sitting in a hammock under the trees is a cooling view. Perhaps there’s a breeze.

What if, instead of dutifully looking through her letters, the woman reclined with a book? Fast forward to 2018. I suggest pleasant hammock reading on a summer’s day can be found in a genre called Women’s Fiction. No thinking required. The stories are somewhat formulaic. The endings are positive. And the challenge for the female protagonist is no more than she can bear.

Today’s featured author is Carolyn Brown, the author of eighty-five books in the genres of Contemporary Romance, Historical Romance, Cowboy Romance, and Women’s Fiction. It’s clear from the categories that her books are a far cry from the literary and historical fiction I usually read, but sometimes a bit of fluff is welcome.

THE STRAWBERRY HEARTS DINER is a fun read. You can tell just by looking at the cover that the book is mostly cheerful. The story is about the women who own and run the Strawberry Hearts Diner, its name a play on words. The diner offers all manner of good food, the most delectable being strawberry tarts, preferably consumed on the premises. No one for any reason can take more than two tarts out of the diner. The recipe, of course, is a closely guarded secret known only to Nettie, co-owner of the diner.

The diner is located in a small Texas town called Pick, because another small town had already snagged the name Strawberry. Primary characters besides Nettie include Vicky Rawlins, and her daughter Emily. The male characters take a secondary place. And then there’s the bad guy, developer Carlton Wolfe who wants to buy all the property in town for a real estate development.

It may seem like I told you the story, but I didn’t. There’s another character, Jancy Wilson, who finds her place in Pick in a process of redemption.

THE LADIES’ ROOM

If The Strawberry Hearts Diner is heartwarming, The Ladies’ Room adds a dollop of humor to the mix. Once again the setting is a small town. This time it’s Tishomingo, Oklahoma, an actual place. In the book Tishomingo is a town where everyone knows everyone and goes to church on Sunday.

When the story opens, Gertrude Martin is dead, yet her voice is heard as a driving force throughout the story. She is/was a person who didn’t suffer fools and pretty much did as she pleased.

The story opens at her funeral. Trudy, the primary character, finds herself in a stall of the church ladies’ room when her two gossipy cousins stroll in. Not only does Trudy find out what they really think of her, she discovers her husband is having an affair with a woman half his age. Both while she remains undiscovered in her stall.

After the funeral, everyone goes to the reading of the will. Great-Aunt Gertrude left everything to Trudy. As the book unfolds, “everything” turns out to be more than Gertrude’s crumbling house and large bank account.

Will forty-two year old Trudy leave her husband and get a life? Will she find love? Did I mention that Women’s Fiction generally has a happy ending?

Illustrations:

Correspondence by Theodore Robinson. Public Domain.

Strawberry Tart / Cakes of France by Kamel15. Creative Common Attribution.

Carolyn Brown.

The post SUMMER READS: Women’s Fiction by Carolyn Brown first appeared on Sandra Wagner-Wright.