I’ll give almost any genre or author a try normally, but when I’m on vacation (beach or otherwise) I’m less adventurous in my reading. I think it’s because vacation time is so precious I don’t want to risk wasting it on something I won’t enjoy enough to finish. And since many of my vacations are outdoorsy, chances are there might not be a bookstore nearby to supply a more satisfying read.
So I usually stick to favorite authors.
For my next vacation, I’ll make an effort to catch up on Amanda’s and Diane’s backlists, though these ladies are so prolific it’s a challenge (albeit a worthy one!) to keep up. The pile will also include books by some of the following authors: Jo Beverley, Judith Ivory, Laura Kinsale, Mary Jo Putney, Jean Ross Ewing aka Julia Ross.
But I have a confession to make. While the pile (constrained only by luggage space) may have some weightier stories, there also have to be what I think of as quintessential beach reads: pageturners with plenty of humor.
That’s why I almost always vacation with something by Loretta Chase. In recent years, I’ve romped through a few of her two-in-one Regency reissues. Her long historicals are also fantastic, of course. But I guess most of you know that already!
Here are a few other books I’ve read recently that are great beach reads.
BET ME by Jennifer Crusie–great characters, dialogue and what the hero does with a chocolate Krispy Kreme is just…well, believe me when I say it’s good. Very good.
DISAPPEARING NIGHTLY by Laura Resnick. It’s not a romance though it has a romantic thread that ends in a kiss. Really, it’s Chick Lit meets Ghostbusters. Kooky stuff, but I devoured pages as if they were potato chips. If I were allowing myself to eat potato chips during swimsuit season, that is. Which I don’t. Mostly.
So anyway, here are just a few more authors and titles you might want to consider trying this summer. Along with, of course, anything by the Riskies. 
Elena
LADY DEARING’S MASQUERADE, RT Reviewers’ Choice for Best Regency of 2005
www.elenagreene.com
You know, there are a few themes that crop up frequently in Jennifer Crusie books. Or, well, perhaps they’re more motifs than themes. Or something.
Ahem. Anyway, I mean food! Dove bars, Chinese take-out (including pot stickers)…. Also dogs. Hmm… Now we just need a dog who cooks pot stickers.
Cara
(who just baked a chocolate cake and only burned it a little. Okay, she didn’t actually burn it at all, it was the OVEN that did that)
Food as a theme always works for me.
Sorry about what that wretched oven did to your nice cake, Cara. Hopefully a little whittling and frosting can hide the sins. I’m a big fan of fixing things with frosting. Or candy when necessary. Once when a cake didn’t come out of the pan neatly and had a crater in the middle, I stuffed that area with M&Ms and put the next layer over it. The only people that complained were those who got the edge pieces.
Elena
The M&Ms idea sounds great!
I did manage to fix it, with whittling and frosting! Sounds like you’ve been there before.
And actually, it turned out to be quite a tasty cake!
Cara
Just want to say that the cake was delicious! But things are always better with M&Ms. They are the perfect fruit.
Thanks for the reading recommendations, Elena! I read the Crusie and liked it, though (as I may have mentioned in the past) I was shocked by the amount of explicit food in the book; the bit where hero feeds the heroine Krispy Kreme donuts shook me to my puritanical core.
Todd-who-likes-chocolate-anyway