I loved the samples in this showcase of stories written in 2016. I appreciate to be able to read a couple of chapters of a novel before committing to read the whole story. It gives the reader a chance to decide if the writing and plot is to their liking. I've always hated to fall in love with a book synopsis later to find out I don't like the writing once I've purchased the book. I'll be sure to look for more samples like these in the future.

I loved the samples in this showcase of stories written in 2016. I appreciate to be able to read a couple of chapters of a novel before committing to read the whole story. It gives the reader a chance to decide if the writing and plot is to their liking. I've always hated to fall in love with a book synopsis later to find out I don't like the writing once I've purchased the book. I'll be sure to look for more samples like these in the future.

I loved the samples in this showcase of stories written in 2016. I appreciate to be able to read a couple of chapters of a novel before committing to read the whole story. It gives the reader a chance to decide if the writing and plot is to their liking. I've always hated to fall in love with a book synopsis later to find out I don't like the writing once I've purchased the book. I'll be sure to look for more samples like these in the future.

I loved the samples in this showcase of stories written in 2016. I appreciate to be able to read a couple of chapters of a novel before committing to read the whole story. It gives the reader a chance to decide if the writing and plot is to their liking. I've always hated to fall in love with a book synopsis later to find out I don't like the writing once I've purchased the book. I'll be sure to look for more samples like these in the future.

An exciting teaser tray of recent releases, from contemporary family dramas to thrilling mystery series. Followers of Sarah Jessica Parker's book club will relish the opportunity to preview Fatima Farheen Mirza's "A Place for Us: A Novel". Mirza weaves a nuanced, deeply-felt story of an Indian-American family. "Ghosted" by Rosie Walsh explores the depths of emotional connections and creates a sense of doubt about how well people really know each other or themselves. John Staley's first Cecil Younger novel in 17 years pairs criminal defense investigator with unlikely allies when he finds himself on the wrong end of the law. "The High Season" is a great vacation selection for readers looking for an affirming, engaging story. Ruthie Beamish discovers a new lease on life through connections made at her last refuge, the family beach house in Long Island. "The Glitch" from Elisabeth Cohen humorously derails business dynamo Shelley Stone when confronted with a possible "glitch in the matrix" (so to speak), in the form of her doppelganger.

An exciting teaser tray of recent releases, from contemporary family dramas to thrilling mystery series. Followers of Sarah Jessica Parker's book club will relish the opportunity to preview Fatima Farheen Mirza's "A Place for Us: A Novel". Mirza weaves a nuanced, deeply-felt story of an Indian-American family. "Ghosted" by Rosie Walsh explores the depths of emotional connections and creates a sense of doubt about how well people really know each other or themselves. John Staley's first Cecil Younger novel in 17 years pairs criminal defense investigator with unlikely allies when he finds himself on the wrong end of the law. "The High Season" is a great vacation selection for readers looking for an affirming, engaging story. Ruthie Beamish discovers a new lease on life through connections made at her last refuge, the family beach house in Long Island. "The Glitch" from Elisabeth Cohen humorously derails business dynamo Shelley Stone when confronted with a possible "glitch in the matrix" (so to speak), in the form of her doppelganger.

I loved the samples in this showcase of stories written in 2016. I appreciate to be able to read a couple of chapters of a novel before committing to read the whole story. It gives the reader a chance to decide if the writing and plot is to their liking. I've always hated to fall in love with a book synopsis later to find out I don't like the writing once I've purchased the book. I'll be sure to look for more samples like these in the future.

Even though this sampler was put out in 2018, I had never read or even heard of most of these books. I love these samplers because I can read little bits of a lot of books and decide which ones I want to add to my TBR list.

I really enjoyed the excerpts from these 2018 releases! I was really caught by The Glitch, I definitely want to add this to my TBR. I liked the writing style and was instantly drawn in by the plot, and I’m not sure where it’s going to go. Thank you for these excerpts, I enjoyed reading them!

This is a GREAT way to get insight to future releases and a fabulous way to build your TBR! I hope to see one of these for 2024!

Refreshing Reads Summer Excerpt Sampler contains extracts from The High Season by Judy Blundell, The Glitch by Elizabeth Cohen, A Place for Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza, Ghosted by Rosie Walsh and Baby's First Felony by John Straley. This sampler was a great way to discover stories from authors I hadn't heard of before.

The High Season is a contemporary fiction which follows the lives of the people living in a beach town in Long Island. This book isn't the sort of thing I would usually gravitate towards and unfortunately I found the extract of this book to be quite slow and I didn't find that I connected to the characters. Therefore I wouldn't be interested in reading the rest of this book.

The Glitch is a contemporary, women's fiction novel which explores the pressures of motherhood, work and marriage. The premise of this sounded really interesting and unique so I was excited to read the extract. However I found I wasn't really able to get into the writing style so won't be reading on.

A Place for Us is a literary fiction novel about a wedding in an Indian-American family which explores themes of identity, love and belonging. The premise of this sounded really interesting and I ended up loving the writing style in the extract as it was beautifully written and very emotional. I definitely will be picking this up in the future.

Ghosted is a romance novel about Sarah and Eddie who are happily in love until Eddie gets on a plane and doesn't phone her when he lands like he promises to. I found the extract a bit slow and slightly cliched so I'm not convinced I would ever pick this book up to read the rest of it.

Baby's First Felony is a detective novel in Straley's Cecil Younger series. Having not read the rest of the series I was slightly hesitant going into the extract. I loved the setting but feel I would've got more out of it if I had read the rest of the series which I may get round to doing some day.

This excerpt featured five different books. The only author that I recognized was Rosie Walsh because I had read her book ‘The Love of My Life’ this summer, This books seemed most intriguing to me because I enjoy romance books. I would like to read more of this book.

For the other books in the excerpt, The High Season is one that I can relate to because my parents have a house at the beach and it is the source of wonderful memories for my family, I can’t imagine having to rent it out for the whole summer and missing all of that time at the beach house,

The Glitch excerpt that I read was about a couple vacationing in France and while the mother is distracted with a work phone call, her daughter goes missing, I have three children, and this is a nightmare scenario, if I read this entire book, I would be in the edge of my seat!

A Place For Us seems like a book about family, and it takes place at a family wedding where siblings and family members are estranged from one another, This book seems intriguing to me because I like books about families and weddings and secrets.

The last excerpt was for Baby’s First Felony. The book takes place in Alaska, and I have always wanted to visit Alaska. I think this makes for an interesting settling for a book and I would like to read more of this book.

Great sampler to get you introduced to multiple summer reads so you can pick the perfect book. Thank you so much for this!

Greatly intriguing samplers to help you decide which one of these books, or if multiple, would suit your reading tastes. I really appreciate this since thrillers are not my go-to genre and I often have difficulty deciding which I should look for.

The excerpts provided in this sampler intrigue me as a reader. I'll be checking out the full novels and adding them to my TBR.

Even though this sampler was put out in 2018, I had never read or even heard of most of these books. I love these samplers because I can read little bits of a lot of books and decide which ones I want to add to my TBR list.

This excerpt is so perfect. It left me at a satisfying thirst to buy the book and finish it as soon as possible.

Thank you NetGalley and Penguin Random House for the chance to read these excerpts!

I love the idea of a collection of lighter reads for the summer -- my experience in reading various sampler collections has been that many of them are either too self-serious and literary, or too dark and terrifying.

Our first sample, THE HIGH SEASON by Judy Blundell, seems very much like a classic beach read. The protagonist family literally owns a house on the beach, and rents it out to wealthy people over the summer in order to afford living in it the rest of the year. This arrangement makes sense to me but creates resentment in the heroine Ruthie's daughter Jem and ex-husband Mike. I'm not exactly sure how this book will play out but I'm sure there will be soul searching about what family means and how to live a meaningful life and whether it's better to live in a fancy house for 9 months each year or a moderate house all year round.

THE GLITCH by Elisabeth Cohen got on my nerves, as the opening scene is two Very Busy and Important People (a stockbroker and a Silicon Valley executive, I think) being very busy and important on phone calls, and losing their 4-year-old daughter. This sounds like it will be a satire of unpleasant people, and my preferred approach is just to not read about unpleasant people.

A PLACE FOR US by Fatima Farheen Mirza was the book I'm most excited about, though I was a little irritated at the tagline at the beginning which was basically like, "for fans of these other nonwhite authors who don't write about the US!" [Now that I've looked at the cover copy and seen that this is set in California I'm even more annoyed at the tagline "for fans of authors who bring the faraway close."] The sketches of the family dynamics at this big wedding are intriguing, and the little details sprinkled in--a navy sari, a table with glasses of mango juice--conjure up a lavish event.

I'm leery of GHOSTED by Rosie Walsh simply because it starts out with this perfect, sudden, overwhelming love which can only mean that separation will ensue (the title provides a hint, too). I much prefer a structure of the classic genre romance, where the relationship between two people IS the main conflict rather than the inciting incident.

BABY'S FIRST FELONY by John Straley is quirky but intriguing. The criminal defense side of the justice system is an interesting one, relevant to many social justice conversations today, and I will read this with a cautious eye toward whether the tone toward convicted people is sympathetic or judgmental.

Ultimately I can see where each of these are considered "lighter" reads than typical literary fare, even if not all of them worked for me. I look forward to checking out A PLACE FOR US and BABY'S FIRST FELONY, though!

Oh how I love these sampler collections! They always leave me impatiently awaiting the release dates for the multiple new additions to my TBR!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me a free digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

5 stars.

This sampler collection is the perfect mix of all things summer. Seeing as the warmer months are right around the corner, I will definitely be picking up the books featured in this collection.