Summer Books that Will Take You Away

Is a getaway vacation not in the cards for you this summer? Well, Carole Barrowman has some summer book picks that will help you escape right in your own backyard! For more information on Carole and her own books, visit BarrowmanBooks.com. And check out her reviews: Visit Southern Italy with Helene Stapinski’s "MURDER IN MATERA: A TRUE STORY OF PASSION, FAMILY AND FORGIVENESS". Why would you not want to read this? It has everything! The author travels in search of her family’s history in Italy and discovers "one shotgun blast and five dead bodies, most of them belonging to my family." This is non-fiction, but reads with the pace and engagement of a good Italian meal, rich and robust. Escape to the past and a small Italian village via Philadelphia right after WWII in "KISS CARLO" by Adriana Trigiani (Harper). Bestselling author Trigiani’s family chronicle is perfect, full of Shakespearean dram, romance, love and loss (and orphaned nephew who must choose the family business vs. his lover). Plus if you haven’t discovered this author yet, you’ll be gone until fall catching up with her backlist. Despite another “girl” titled book (publishers, please stop this trend), travel to the golden age of Hollywood with Amada Quick in "The Girl Who Knew Too Much". A charming historical romance and a pacey page-turner about a reporter trying to get gossip on a famous star and instead gets involved in solving her murder. Lots of suspense and twists. If you are travelling this summer, this is a perfect plane ride novel. My final novel, Don Winslow’s "THE FORCE" doesn’t really fit my theme, but this has become one of the book’s to read this summer, especially, if, like me, you like gritty and with complex themes about race, violence and greed. THE FORCE is being compared to the epic nature of the GODFATHER in its style and scope. It takes you inside the world of the New York City police department’s elite drug and gang squad. No doubt this will be a film (or a mini series) soon.