Seeking light but not fluffy summer reads for a good escape

[00:00:01] ANNE BOGEL: Are we just looking hotel books or is that one example of what's working for you?

KAYLA CRUM: That's one example. It's sort of a stand-in and a favorite, but I'm happy to have a summering book, people who summer in a different location, a boat book.

ANNE: No, I'm sorry. Why am I laughing? I think I'm laughing because it sounds so delightful.

Hey readers, I'm Anne Bogel, and this is What Should I Read Next?. Welcome to the show that's dedicated to answering the question that plagues every reader, what should I read next? We don't get bossy on this show. What we will do here is give you the information you need to choose your next read. Every week we'll talk all things books and reading and do a little literary matchmaking with one guest.

[00:00:50] Readers, early summer is our busy season around here, and we know that's the case for many of you as well. We like to build in intentional breaks to keep up with our TBR piles and everything else in our lives. So we are taking next week off to give our team an early summer breather. We will be back in your podcast players the following week, and in the meantime, we hope you enjoy exploring our archives of over 500 episodes. Visit us at modernmrsdarcy.com/podcast to explore both recent and backlist episodes.

Readers, today's guest is looking forward to a summer of books with heart that won't be too emotionally draining during a season of grief. I'm sure she's not the only one navigating a tough season, and I love this focus on what she calls light but not fluffy reads.

Today, I'm excited to welcome Kayla Crum to the show. Kayla's an RN and freelance writer living in Grand Haven, Michigan, where she enjoys making the most of her Lake Michigan proximity by spending time outside with her family and reading on the beach when she can fit it into her schedule. That sounds like the dream.

[00:01:54] Lately, Kayla's been navigating the grief of losing a loved one, and she's turned to favorite authors and stories to help her through. Kayla would like to add more books like these to her summer reading list, but she's not exactly sure what will scratch that itch.

She knows she's identified a specific type of story that is really working well for her, as you will hear today. Okay, I'll tell you now. Those are hotel books. And Kayla is hoping I can help her understand why this specific setting is working so well because she'd really like to discover more books that satisfy in the same way.

Let's get to it.

Kayla, welcome to the show.

KAYLA: Thank you, Anne. I'm delighted to be here.

ANNE: Oh, the pleasure's mine. Thanks so much for coming on today. Thanks for sending in your submission with an enticing topic.

KAYLA: Yes, I've sent several over the years. I think I've listened for almost 10 years, so it was so exciting to get the email that I got to come on.

ANNE: I often know this in advance, but I didn't realize that you'd sent in several times. Do you know when your first one was? Because I just searched my inbox and I can tell you.

[00:02:57] KAYLA: I don't know. Would it be like five years ago?

ANNE: Longer. Ooh. It was Sunday, November 17th, 2019.

KAYLA: Oh, wow.

ANNE: At 9:31 PM.

KAYLA: They tend to happen late at night, I think.

ANNE: Any idea what you may have loved and hated?

KAYLA: Oh, gosh. I mean, I think I used to always throw Anne of Green Gables out there as my lifetime favorite.

ANNE: You did.

KAYLA: Yeah.

ANNE: You did.

KAYLA: Yeah, but I don't know the others.

ANNE: They were Chris Cleave's Little Bee.

KAYLA: Oh, yes.

ANNE: And Lori Frankel's This Is How It Always Is.

KAYLA: Mm, good reminders of good books.

ANNE: And the book you wanted to love but just couldn't was...

KAYLA: I have no idea.

ANNE: It was Madeline Miller's The Song of Achilles. You did not like Patroclus.

KAYLA: I just didn't even finish it, which is... I wanted to. I've never tried again since then.

ANNE: Well, Kayla, I'm glad we're finally having this conversation on the show and not in the submissions inbox.

KAYLA: Me too.

[00:03:53] ANNE: Thanks for persisting. Readers, if you want to be on What Should I Read Next? in Kayla's seat, timing is everything. So if you've filled out that submission form before, there is no harm in doing it again. We're always looking for the right themes at the right time and books that we haven't talked about lately or haven't talked about at all, and would love to feature. I mean, would love to by virtue of the fact you're bringing them up mostly, but we're always looking for a wide array.

But Kayla, thanks for coming today. Would you tell us more about yourself than you've listened for a long time and submitted before? We always like to give our listeners a glimpse of who our guests are.

KAYLA: Yes. I'm a lifelong voracious reader. I make my home, born and raised, in Grand Haven, Michigan, which is a little beach town on Lake Michigan. I was a nurse by trade, and I'm still licensed, but left that several years ago to be a freelance writer, communicator, podcaster. I sort of help others communicate their stories, which has been very fulfilling for me. I love reading on the beach or anywhere, eating ice cream. I'm a summer girly, summer birthday. Love to play with my husband, my two-year-old, and our dog. So that's sort of me in a nutshell.

ANNE: Favorite ice cream flavor?

[00:05:10] KAYLA: I mean, I can't argue with a good just plain chocolate, especially if it's homemade by the ice cream shop. But grocery store ice cream, Ben & Jerry's The Tonight Dough is my go-to.

ANNE: That's a Bogel family favorite as well.

KAYLA: So reading-wise, I loved The Chronicles of Narnia as a child, were my home base for reading. I think I read all seven books seven times, and I was very proud of that. I feel like The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was my entrance into reading. It was a read-aloud at school, and then that kind of kickstarted everything for me. I've always been a bit of an opportunistic reader, so anything that's readily available, you know, if it's lying around, my parents had it, my grandparents had it, whatever, Reader's Digest is there, I'm going to read it, even though I was like eight years old.

[00:06:04] ANNE: That sounds so much more inviting and complimentary than compulsive reader, which is what I've always used to describe myself, and others who will read like the back of the cereal box if that's the only reading material nearby.

KAYLA: Yes, like reading the shampoo bottles in the shower. Yes, if words are around, I will probably be reading them.

ANNE: Okay. Opportunistic.

KAYLA: Yes, opportunistic. Definitely, in high school, got into some of the popular fantasy series. Hunger Games was coming out at the time, Harry Potter, the movies were finishing up while I was in high school. So fantasy was big for me as a teenager. And then in college, I was pretty busy with college reading and nursing school things, but my roommates would make fun of me because I'd always have a fiction read going just while I brushed my teeth. So I had to have something going, and I had no time to read it, but I would read about one book per semester just by brushing my teeth and reading. So that was my little escape every day into fiction world, and probably got my teeth cleaner too.

[00:07:07] ANNE: I think so. Kayla, what's your reading like these days?

KAYLA: I became a mom two years ago, and I've shifted more towards audio. I had a big reading renaissance a couple years ago, probably in part due to the pandemic, and then had my daughter in 2024, shifted half and half pretty much to audio and physical or Kindle. I always have something going on audio, something going with my eyes.

I have recently been in a season of grief. My sister lost her husband to cancer in February, and have been reading as an escape. So leaning hard on Elin Hilderbrand, other beach-type reads, but also just really moving character-driven novels with heart that kind of meet me where I'm at emotionally, but don't devastate me. I feel like that's sometimes a tricky line to walk. But yeah, reading is definitely an escape for me from various things.

[00:08:12] I specifically saw your post recently about hotel books, and I love a hotel book. Many of my favorites are set in a hotel. I think way back to Eloise at the Plaza as a child, and this has been a favorite setting for me over the years. And so I wanted to talk to you about that today.

ANNE: Ooh, we can definitely do that. And we will explore more... or maybe we can do this now. First, I'm so sorry for your loss.

KAYLA: Aw, thank you.

ANNE: I know many readers, including myself, resonate with the idea of turning to books to escape into another world. But also I hear... so character driven novels with heart. I don't know, I think what's standing out to me is escape, but not avoidance.

KAYLA: I like that characterization, yes. And maybe something about a hotel book is even that hotels by nature are temporary, right? With few exceptions. It's like a temporary break from real life, and that's what I'm looking for in a book, too. I'm not looking to move to Alaska or you know, wherever.

[00:09:26] ANNE: Oh, so maybe hotel books are a nice place to escape to.

KAYLA: Yes, and in a temporary way, and then you know that they're going back to their real lives and I'm going back to my real life.

ANNE: But what if they're not, because the book is set in a hotel, but it's more about the staff than the guests? How do we feel about that?

KAYLA: I do like those, too. I recently read The Hotel Nantucket by Elin Hildebrand, and I felt like that focused mostly on the staff. I do love when the staff and the guests are characters, and you kind of get a peek into both.

ANNE: I'm trying to articulate, like envisioning my mental cobbled-together vision of The Hotel Nantucket lobby. But I'm imagining how even though the staff is somewhat, you know, it's semi-permanent, the hotel is still built around the idea of people coming and going, like of impermanence.

KAYLA: Mm-hmm.

ANNE: Okay. So it's a holding place?

[00:10:28] KAYLA: Yeah. I'm trying to scratch out what it is I like about hotel books because a setting, I guess, is what it would be, because hotel books can spread genres, mysteries, and otherwise. But I do like when the hotel... I want to picture it in my head. I've read a few where you think you're getting a hotel book, but it's really more of just background. And I really do like when I feel like I could walk in in my head and picture everything, and it's almost a character in itself. I like the idea of nooks and crannies, and all the secrets of all the people that have stayed there. You know, it's just kind of whimsical and magical to me.

ANNE: You mentioned something about the idea of a book being set in Alaska.

KAYLA: Mm, yeah.

ANNE: How do you feel about a book being set in Alaska versus a book being set in a hotel? I'm just thinking there's the vastness of the one place and the minuteness, relatively speaking, of the other.

[00:11:26] KAYLA: I think Alaska appeals because of its remoteness and uniqueness. I've found that I also am drawn to island books, English manor houses, or on a boat. Like these closed sets, so to speak, to use a movie term. Like a locked-room mystery. I like something about there's like a container holding all of these various people in some way. And a hotel is just my favorite form of that. But I also like, you know, you're not getting to Alaska by accident. Does that make sense?

ANNE: It does, I think. Well, sometimes the truth emerges in contrast, thus bringing Alaska into it, but we'll set Alaska aside for now. That's a different conversation for a different episode. I wonder if there's something about the way a hotel setting is like the world made small.

[00:12:23] KAYLA: That sounds right to me. I like how people rub shoulders with people they might not meet on the street back home, right? Like it brings in various versions of people. I think I like the idea of play-acting a little bit. It's fun even if, like, I were to go on vacation, you're like, "I could be anyone. I could have made 1,000 different life choices." And just to kind of imagine a different life, or what if I lived here? And yeah, just seeing the possibilities, like you said, writ small within a hotel. It does feel like a world within the world.

ANNE: I'm playing with an idea of like you already have the solution, you have everything you need. Everything and everyone that is needed for the story is there or will come to you. I wonder if that's pinging anything for you.

[00:13:16] KAYLA: Yeah, like almost the opposite of a vast wilderness. Like the opposite of Frodo's journey in The Lord of the Rings where you have to trek forever and find everything. It's like everything's here and contained, and we almost just have to look among us or within us. I did like living in an apartment back in the day. I felt cozy, like nestled among the other families and lives. I think that's part of it, too, the communal living aspect.

ANNE: Or in another genre we might call that forced proximity and the interesting things that may happen as a result.

KAYLA: Right, like how the hotel brings together characters that you might not find side by side in another scenario.

ANNE: Yeah. Okay. And then in the blog post you're referring to that was written by our team member Ginger, she said that, sure, she's intrigued by what is sometimes a glamorous setting or sometimes the cozy one if we're talking about a little inn. But also there's the question of, like, what are the characters doing? Are they with a group? Are they alone? Are they a couple? Are they running to something? Are they running away from something?

[00:14:27] Hotels are where people go on purpose to make memories or to disappear or to get a needed escape or at times of transition. There's a lot of potential for drama there. But drama is actually not what I'm hearing draws you.

KAYLA: I do like the appeal of the glamour a little bit, and sometimes drama, but it doesn't have to have drama. I think I like to sprinkle more drama, glamour, rich people behaving badly. I do enjoy a book like that, but I need to mix it up with more inner heart-driven stories as well. And you can find both with hotel settings, it's just trickier sometimes.

ANNE: You can. All right, so it sounds of these, the idea that you've got a whole world that you can hold between your hands is a big part of the appeal.

KAYLA: I think so.

ANNE: And it gives your brain like someplace very concrete to visit.

[00:15:29] KAYLA: Yes. I mentioned reading Narnia as a child, and obviously that's a vast land, but I think that's similar. Or Anne of Green Gables is another childhood favorite. She lived on Prince Edward Island. Like, you go to these places, or with Ellen Hilderbrand, it's Nantucket, it's like, now I'm transporting to this specific place that's going to hold the whole story. I like that.

ANNE: Well, there's some great hotel scenes in the Anne of Green Gables books. I'm thinking of her and Diane wanting to eat chicken salad at the White Sands Hotel.

KAYLA: Oh, so true.

ANNE: Or they go eat dinner with Aunt... Is it Josephine?

KAYLA: Josephine.

ANNE: It might be tea in Charlottetown.

KAYLA: Yes. Yes. And it's such luxury to the little girls who are used to country life.

ANNE: It's a whole different life. All right. Well, we'll see where we can take you away to in the pages. Are we just looking hotel books, or is that one example of what's working for you?

KAYLA: That's one example. It's sort of a stand-in and a favorite, but I'm happy to have a summering book, people who summer in a different location, a boat book.

[00:16:28] ANNE: No, I'm sorry. Why am I laughing? I think I'm laughing because it sounds so delightful. Summer as a verb always makes me giggle a little bit.

KAYLA: That also feels like something wealthier folks do, like, "I'm going to go summer on the coast." I like a book like that, or really any sort of, yeah, I'm traveling to X location type of book.

ANNE: Okay. Now, some of these books are very warm, and some are snarky, and some are murdery, but I guess you already told us, character-driven novels with heart.

KAYLA: Yeah. Any of those things are welcome, but I do need character development as a primary tenet of the book.

ANNE: Okay, Kayla, what kind of genres do you find do and don't work for you? Or maybe it's more helpful to say they feel hospitable to you right now.

KAYLA: It's funny I grew up loving fantasy, but have not found any five-star fantasies for myself as an adult. So I'm not completely opposed, but that's just not typically what I read anymore. I love family dramas, historical fiction, classics, book club picks. That's kind of my usual.

[00:17:41] I do like murder mystery, think like Louise Penny or The Thursday Murder Club, so not gruesome, but not... I hesitate to use the word "cozy". I think cozy mystery has a bit of a nebulous definition.

ANNE: You said in your submission you were fantasy-curious. Does that apply today when we're talking?

KAYLA: Yes, although with the hotel theme, I'm not sure that that is an overlap we could find, but if anyone could do it, you could, so we'll see.

ANNE: Oh, were that only true, but I may have an idea or two. Kayla, this is important information about your reading life. Can we pile on more by talking about the books you love and don't?

KAYLA: Yes.

ANNE: You know how this works. You've brought three books you love, one you don't, and what you've been reading lately to the show, and I'd love to hear how they connect to what's working for you and what you're looking for right now. How did you choose these?

[00:18:40] KAYLA: I'd been thinking about books that, like I mentioned, were character-driven, had heart, and were sort of cathartic or moving, but didn't bring me low during this season of grief. And that's a tricky path to walk, maybe even bringing me to tears, but not in a devastating way. So these three books, and after I chose them, I realized they all have a female protagonist who could be considered somewhat unlikable, but you really peel back who she is at her core and why she ended up the way she is. That's sort of a theme I didn't even realize until I put them all down here. But they all-

ANNE: Wow. Okay, I love that.

KAYLA: They all scratch that itch of the character developing over time and feeling the emotions without being left in a desolate place, if that makes sense.

[00:19:41] ANNE: Yes. Okay, if I asked you to put me together a list like that, I think that would be impossible to do. But look, you did it accidentally.

KAYLA: I did.

ANNE: All right. Well, what do you have? What's book one that you love, if not already strongly implied?

KAYLA: The first book I loved was The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street by Susan Jane Gilman. First of all, any long title like that is going to draw me in, especially if you reference a street, like The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street as a middle-grade novel, or even just a name like The Penderwicks, just thinking back to my childhood. So the name alone caught my eye in the used bookstore, The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street.

And this is a book about a young immigrant girl who moves to America with her family in the early 1900s, ends up taken in by another family when hers passes away, and rises to be this super powerful ice cream magnate. And it sort of has a Forrest Gump feel in that you get to walk through the essential points of American history through the 1900s, but with the lens of this woman's life.

[00:20:48] We flash back and forth from modern day when she's elderly and undergoing a difficult lawsuit for her ice cream company, and then kind of going back to like, "Well, here's how I got here and here's why, you know, I shouldn't be sued for this." It's an interesting setup, and it's long. These days with my toddler, I don't know that I would've picked up a 500-page book, but I really enjoyed it a couple years ago. And it's primarily set in New York City, which is also a fun place I like to read.

ANNE: And in 1913, I think, which is a good ways back, how big a role does historical fiction play in your reading life these days? I'm just curious about, as far as places to escape go, how do you feel about the past?

KAYLA: I do love history. I was a big American Girl doll reader and enjoyer. I'm not opposed to it. I don't think I've been leaning on it much lately because, like beach reads, at least the ones I've been exposed to, and with the splashy beach covers that I've been reaching for, don't seem to have as much historical fiction among them as, you know, modern. But I'm not opposed to it.

[00:22:02] ANNE: Good to know. Kayla, what's the second book you love?

KAYLA: Same As It Ever Was by Claire Lombardo. This is really cheating because I could have put either of Claire Lombardo's books here. They're just so stunning. The way she writes about human relationships and emotions is just unparalleled. She really makes you feel for each character's position, particularly in this case the protagonist, Julia, who we kind of flash back and forth between her difficult season as a young mother when she's questioning her marriage, questioning every choice she's made to get her where she is now, and then we flash forward.

And so it's not a spoiler to say, like, you know she's still with her husband, she's still with her family, she's got this job. So you're like, "Okay, she was so unsure here, and yet she's settled here." So the book kind of draws you in that gap, helps you move from that difficult season of young motherhood to when she's sending her young adults off into the world.

[00:23:10] I just think Claire Lombardo is a master of peeling back the layers of why we do certain things, and why sometimes the people we're closest to are also strangers to us, and we might feel more comfortable divulging things to others. The knots we tie ourselves in as families and friends, she untangles all that so masterfully.

ANNE: I see what you mean. And what I'm really thinking about is where the space is for you between tears that feel cathartic and ones that feel devastating.

KAYLA: So, Claire's other novel, I think it's called The Most Fun We Ever Had, is actually about a group of sisters, one of whom lost a husband to cancer. So that's very relevant to me. I really liked actually how she wrote into that tension of, like, there's a sister with a normal life and happy children, and then a sister with this loss who's a widow. I thought she did a very real raw, but gentle at the same time, examination of the tensions in that relationship.

[00:24:23] So weirdly, even if it's right on the nose for me with that, I think I'd be okay with that. When I say "not devastating", I've noticed since I had my daughter, I don't want to hear about children being kidnapped or abused. Child abuse, not for me. I did love Florence Knapp's The Names, but I read that a while ago. I don't think right now I could handle those descriptions of domestic abuse. Does that help delineate it a little bit?

ANNE: Yes. Hard things happen in this world is okay.

KAYLA: Mm-hmm.

ANNE: The world is a terrible, hard place, and then it gets harder, and then we die, not okay.

KAYLA: Right. And specifically if there's, I think, a perpetrator, I don't know why this is coming to me right now, but I'm thinking of Florence's book, and yeah, like someone in your life who's just ruining everything and it just goes on and on. Yeah, not really here for that right now.

ANNE: When the person is the object of fear in like that very clear, purposeful way?

[00:25:28] KAYLA: I think I like to believe the best of everyone. And talking about these character-driven books, I like to see, you know, we all have our flaws, and yet we have this deep-rooted goodness. So when there's a character who's just not that at all, I struggle with that.

ANNE: Okay, so a book in which the author's worldview incorporates the idea that there is good in people and not we're all destined to devastate each other willfully because we hurt each other despite our best intentions, not because of our worst.

KAYLA: Yes, that's a good way to put it.

ANNE: Okay. We're gathering so much info. Kayla, what is your third favorite book?

KAYLA: The third book I brought is The Correspondent by Virginia Evans, so me and half the world. I saw this book everywhere. My mom read it in her book club and passed it along to me. I just think the biggest praise I can give it is that I was supposed to leave on a trip to Florida, and I had a little bit left in the book, and I was like, "I'll just sit at the kitchen counter and have a quick snack." It's like 10:00 at night and I haven't packed, and I just sat there and finished the whole book and was weeping, but in the best way.

[00:26:44] I just found Sybil, the protagonist, so... Endearing feels like too sweet of a word, but again, it's like a slightly unlikable or complex main character. But we get to peel back the layers of her relationships with various people in her life and the choices she's made along the way, and kind of see the why behind it. I thought that book scratched at how bad things can happen to any of us, and sometimes we are partly or mostly at fault, and that that is just life and how... It really examined the idea of holding yourself tenderly and trying for forgiveness and holding others the same way.

And it was, for anyone who doesn't know, written in an epistolary format with letters back and forth, which I do enjoy. And I think that too was just a fresh take and helped us take a look at Sybil in a new way. Like, we could kind of gather different clues from who she was talking to about different aspects of her character in a way that just like a first-person narrative or even a third-person narrative couldn't jump around and do.

[00:27:59] ANNE: Okay, so those are the books you loved. What didn't work for you? And please do tell us why.

KAYLA: I read Havoc by Christopher Bollen. That was a hotel book, which was why I picked it up. I will say I loved the hotel setting, the staff, our characters, the main character, who I am forgetting her name, but she... Another elderly woman, just like The Correspondent and The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street. So this is becoming a theme.

She's a guest at the hotel. You sense early on that she's perhaps an unreliable narrator, and I'm not opposed to that, but I won't say it's my favorite. So that was maybe the first red flag that it wasn't for me. The ending is what really ruined this book for me, and I don't want to ruin it for the listeners. But when you get to the end, and I had the feeling of like, it was all for nothing. I don't know. I don't need a happy ending, but I need an ending with some heart and hope, and this one did not have that. So it did not work for me.

[00:29:06] But it was a hotel in Egypt, and there was a fun little boy character, and this main elderly woman, and I wanted to like it so much, but the ending just... I couldn't.

ANNE: Kayla, what have you been reading lately?

KAYLA: I recently read The Hotel Nantucket by Elin Hilderbrand. I've been leaning on Hilderbrand books right now as an escape. So loved the setting of Nantucket and the hotel itself. This one is unique in the Hilderbrand canon because it has a ghost. I don't mind some light, friendly ghost. I'm not here for the scary things, but a little magical realism or like, oh, there's something a little supernatural in addition to the main plot is good with me. And loved how we were rooting for this new hotel to make it another year, and that the staff and the guests were sort of working together on that.

Also like half the world have been listening to The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion. So that's been a fun escape as well this summer. The narration is just so great.

[00:30:09] I'm almost done with Heartwood by Amity Gaige, which is thrilling for sure. It's a woman lost in the Maine woods, and you rotate between three different women's perspectives. I actually was loaned it by a friend back in the immediacy of my family member dying, and I was like, "Oh, I can't read this right now." Like, somebody lost in the woods and possibly dying is not for me.

But again, we're the opportunistic reader. Here it was laying around when I finished my last book, and so I picked it up, and it has been fun to have a book that has me like, "I have to keep reading," and I'm like staying up past my bedtime reading. So I'm almost done with that one. And that's been an escape of a different kind, you know, kind of keeping me turning the pages.

ANNE: Okay. So let's recap, if that's okay.

KAYLA: Yeah.

[00:31:04] ANNE: All right. Kayla, you loved The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street by Susan Jane Gilman, Same As It Ever Was by Claire Lombardo, and The Correspondent by Virginia Evans. The book that wasn't for you was Havoc by Christopher Bollen because you need an ending with heart and hope, and that wasn't it. Lately, you've been reading Elin Hilderbrand's The Hotel Nantucket, Amity Gaige's Heartwood, and Beth Brower's The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion. And there are a whole bunch of volumes of those that could keep you busy. How do you feel about having a series on deck like that?

KAYLA: That's been fun because it takes the work out of what you're going to read next, right? So just been queuing them up on my Hoopla app, and that's been a nice accompaniment to my chores.

ANNE: Okay. Glad to hear it. Kayla, is there anything else you want to put on the table as we think about what you may enjoy reading next?

KAYLA: I don't think so. We covered a lot of ground.

[00:32:01] ANNE: Kayla, I have ideas, and I definitely have emotional tone in mind, but my goal here is to give you the information you need to decide: is that a reading experience I want and that I'm ready for right now?

KAYLA: Mm-hmm.

ANNE: Okay, let's start with a fantasy book set at a little inn that I feel like I've talked about all the time on What Should I Read Next?. So maybe you've read it or maybe you've already decided it's not for you. But I'm thinking of Sangu Mandanna's A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping that came out last summer. Is this a book you know?

KAYLA: Now that you say the title, I think I've heard you mention it, but I don't remember anything about it.

ANNE: This is a fantasy novel that has a strong romance element. It's very grounded fantasy that features a found family. It does have that romance. It has strong platonic relationships, and it just has lots of cozy vibes.

[00:32:57] This book is about a witch named Sarah, who many years ago lost her magic because she cast a forbidden spell. And she has no regrets because she cast the spell to save the life of a cherished family member. She would do it again in a heartbeat, but it still stinks. And something I thought was so fun and charming about this story is it stinks for very practical reasons. Her great aunt that she saved runs this adorable welcoming inn that has serious Three Pines vibes.

KAYLA: Love that.

ANNE: There's a spell cast on the inn, and people who find the inn need the inn. And if you don't need the inn, you will not be able to find your way to it. And that sounds a lot like Louise Penny, which I enjoyed. But they're running this old inn together, and this inn has seen better days.

[00:33:55] And if Sarah could just use her magic to fix the boiler, it would relieve all the money stress they've been feeling. Because you could wallpaper that room, or you could just wave your wand. And it's much easier to wave your wand, but that option is not available to her right now.

So the inn is just super charming because I think in my head like it's just beautifully, charmingly, imperfectly, perfectly decorated. And you just want to cozy up in the corner of every room you're seeing in your mind's eye with a book. But there's also an enchantment that's been placed on it long ago.

Sarah cast a spell before she lost her magic. And the spell is whimsical and mischievous. Like, if there are empty teacups sitting around, then wildflowers are going to be blooming in them. Doors open and close, not in a menacing way, but just like, "Oh, hi, hello," kinda way.

[00:34:46] In one of the guest bedrooms, it rains apple blossom tea for an hour every Sunday, and then it stops, and nothing is a mess. But then several things happen at once. Sarah, for reasons, decides she has to get her magic back. And then also at the same time, the inn's spell draws in this gruff and also extremely good-looking magical historian to the inn, along with his little sister, who happens to be autistic, and she takes to the place immediately and never wants to leave. And the gruff, magical historian who's very, very good-looking is going to feature prominently in the plot.

This little group of strangers becomes extremely tight and they decide, "You know what? Together we can take on the big, bad, mean, magical dudes and cast this impossible spell and get your magic back." I don't know. How's that sounding?

[00:35:44] KAYLA: That sounds delightful, very cozy. I don't have time to learn an entire world, but I can learn an inn. You know what I mean? Like the world-building. So that sounds lovely.

ANNE: That sounds good. Okay, it's not a ghost story, but I'm just thinking about the way that characters' past pains and traumas surface in the plot. And it does have a little bit of a ghostly element, but people have been through hard stuff in this book, and that does definitely surface on the page. Based on what you've said, I think the pervasive tone is "this is hard, but your friends have you. Like, your loved ones have you, and this house has your back." I think that could be really important for you to know as you think about if this is a right book at the right time for you.

KAYLA: Yeah, that's a good note to know.

ANNE: Okay, I'm glad to hear it. Can we talk about a book that I don't know at all is perfect for you, but I still really want you to know about?

KAYLA: Yes.

[00:36:45] ANNE: This is a hotel book that's set on a thinly veiled version of Mackinac Island.

KAYLA: Ooh.

ANNE: And listeners, Kayla was kind enough to give me some Michigan recommendations before we got started, so at least maybe I can give you a Michigan book in exchange.

KAYLA: Yes, I would love that.

ANNE: Okay. This is new. It comes out in July 2026, so not quite yet, but very, very soon, and it's a debut family drama by Ryan Effgen called Make Nice. The tone is light, whimsical, but I'm wondering if this is right for you, because it's a little edgier than I think some readers are going to expect based on what this book sounds like.

[00:37:32] So at its heart, this is a story of three siblings who have been called back to... It's not actually Mackinac Island, but it's so thinly veiled that it was only in going back after I read it and reading the author's description again as I thought about Summer Reading Guide potential coverage. It's not in there, by the way, but I thought really hard about it, that I realized, wait, it's not actually Mackinac Island. It just sounds exactly like everything I've ever heard and read about Mackinac Island. And I'm definitely picturing the Grand Hotel that is one of the iconic images. There's no cars on the island. There's buggies. There's ice cream stands galore, gorgeous seaside, nostalgic parades, that kind of thing.

So in this book, Make Nice, it's about three adult siblings who reconvene at their father's request at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island for one last time. They have come to this place together their entire lives, usually with their mom, but their mom recently died. And Kayla, I do not remember how. That is backstory, not present tense in the plot.

[00:38:40] But each sibling wants to impress the others and show them how they are doing so great, everything is working, they're living their best life, but they do have these old rivalries and sore spots as siblings often do, and they end up upsetting each other and really getting into it, their history and their present together on the island.

The siblings are really fun to read about. There's three of them, two men and one woman. Corey is the family ne'er-do-well who has stolen a five pound block of cocaine that he has brought with him by Greyhound bus to Michigan, and he's thinking, "I'm going to sell this and make a bunch of money and solve my problems."

Then we have daughter Viv, who is dealing with a marital breakdown, but doesn't really want her siblings to know it because she's afraid they'll be like, "Hello, we told you so. We've been telling you for years."

And then we have Pete, who is a super nerdy snail scientist who has never quite fit in in his life. He works at a university. He's obsessed with these snails. But Pete's story made the novel for me, and I still have open tabs on my phone about Carthusian snails and Carrera marble in the Michigan shoreline thanks to his story, which I just loved. He really is living his best life on this Michigan island.

[00:40:10] There's a teenager who belongs to Viv, who's also in the mix and also the patriarch of the family. But this family has a lot of history, and it all comes to the surface in these intervening plots at the Grand Hotel. And I wonder if this is a book that is a little fun for the hijinks, but I wonder if the setting could make this especially interesting to you. I don't know. Are you interested in this at all?

KAYLA: This sounds right up my alley. I love the Michigan piece, but I also love a sibling story. I remember reading The Nest by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney kind of about siblings going at it a little bit. Also, as to the snarkiness or dark humor, I really enjoyed The Wedding People at that hotel on the East Coast. So I feel like what you're describing sounds just right.

[00:41:05] ANNE: I think lovable mess applies to so many of these characters. And if you enjoyed The Nest, this one is a little bit gentler. I was worried this might be a little too bristly for you. But if you enjoyed The Nest, I think you're okay. I mean, this really is a book... A sibling story is a plus, but this is location, location, location.

KAYLA: Love that.

ANNE: All right. Well, that is Make Nice by Ryan Effgen. And then if you haven't read any Kevin Kwan, you get a whole bunch of hotels in your 320 pages or whatever it is. Have you read Lies and Weddings?

KAYLA: No. He wrote Crazy Rich Asians, right?

ANNE: He did. Another good hotel story.

KAYLA: Yeah, I read that one, but not Lies and Weddings.

ANNE: Okay. This came out a couple summers ago. It was in the Summer Reading Guide then. And Lies and Weddings is a comedy of manners that is actually, I was surprised to discover, a retelling of Anthony Trollope's Dr. Thorne. But you can forget I told you that. And you don't have to know a thing about Dr. Thorne. I mean, I think some readers will be like, "I miss my English literature seminar days. I'm going to read them both side by side." But you don't need to know a thing about Trollope.

[00:42:14] This is a plot-driven book. It's not so much about character development in that everyone is larger than life in their lifestyle and a little bit in their personality, but the two main characters are not without their struggles and subsequent growth. But this is about a not exactly a single man in want of a wife, but a single man whose mother very much wants him to find a wife.

He is the Viscount St. Ives, who is known internationally as Viscount St. Abs after a photo of him ironing shirtless went viral. And he is not at all concerned with his believed to be obscenely wealthy family's money problems, because he would prefer to happily live out his days surfing in Hawaii. But his mother doesn't want the well to dry up, so she needs him to marry. She needs him to marry up and quickly. And of course, that's not what he wants to do. He doesn't want to marry at all, and well, there are the seeds of an old-fashioned marriage plot in that little setup.

[00:43:22] But what's so fun about this book is you get to follow him and his cronies around the world. And I so enjoy googling all the... I mean, all the locations of these luxury hotels that you can look up on maps and browse through the pictures of the lobby. And Kevin Kwan describes them with all the details, and sets things like wedding receptions and cocktail parties, and just waiting for your pals in the lobby, and it's so much fun. And they do ridiculous and expensive things like go on group hot air balloon rides, and visit these jaw-droppingly beautiful botanical gardens in Morocco. That browser might still be open on my phone from two years ago. I probably shouldn't tell anybody that.

But the food, the clothes, the wines, that you could google and be like, "Oh, that's $600 a bottle, huh?" The specific glitzy intersections where things take place, the cars they collect, the watches, the handbags, the other luxury goods. In that sense, I think Kevin Kwan and Elin Hilderbrand are very similar in that they both add a lot of texture to their stories by letting a lot of the physical settings and material goods do a lot of the lift on characterization for their people.

[00:44:33] This has a vibe not unlike The Guncle Abroad, if we have any Steven Rowley fans listening, Kayla, if you're one of them. But this is just frothy and fizzy and escapist, but not without its substance. And it does have that classical anchor here. How does that sound?

KAYLA: That sounds fun. Yeah, I read The Guncle, but not The Guncle Abroad, so that's kind of a two-for-one. I should read both that and this one. This sounds like a fun escape.

ANNE: All right, I'm glad to hear it. Kayla, for our next book, I wonder how a Vermont inn sounds to you as a setting.

KAYLA: Yes, that sounds nice.

ANNE: Okay. Have you read any Elinor Lipman? I'm thinking about The Inn at Lake Devine.

KAYLA: The name Elinor Lipman is ringing a bell, but I can't think of what I might have read by her.

ANNE: Okay. She's been writing since the '90s, and is prolific, with a book coming out every couple of years.

KAYLA: Wow.

[00:45:23] ANNE: So this one is, oh gosh, late '90s, early 2000s. And this is a love story and a family story that's grounded very much in the real world. This is a first-person tale narrated by a woman named Natalie Marks. And this story talks about hard things, as it's a story about two couples who are of different religious faith backgrounds, whose parents are really unhappy when they get together. But the tone throughout is one of, "We're going to work it out. It is going to be okay." I feel like the reader feels really supported through the whole story.

But Natalie's family was in Massachusetts, and every year they summered, the verb, either by the lake or by the beach. And one summer they sought out this place called The Inn at Lake Devine in Vermont, and got a letter back from the proprietor that said, "We don't take people like you because our guests are all Gentiles." And this happened to Natalie's mom, not our narrator, Natalie. But when Natalie was young and she watched this happen, she was angry, but she was also very curious, and she had a contrarian streak in her, and she grew up thinking, "Well, wouldn't it be fun to infiltrate this place?"

[00:46:53] So in her teens, she figured out a way to spend a summer at the inn. And then when she grew up and trained to be a chef, she gets invited along to a wedding at the inn, to a society kind of wedding. So Natalie goes, and she cooks, and when she falls in love with someone there at the inn, neither of the parents are happy.

But this is a comic novel, and they are going to work it out. And I wonder if you may not enjoy just the story of people working through differences in a way that hopefully feels authentic but also safe. But also just the details that we see from all sides of life at the inn. But we get to see the perspective of her being a teenager, and then an adult, and then a special guest, as she's in a wedding party, and then she's a chef at the inn as well. And I wonder if all those perspectives will be a nice, well-rounded hotel story, and some for you.

[00:48:00] KAYLA: Yeah, I love the through-the-lifetime approach. That reminds me of The Ice Cream Queen that we talked about, and Same As It Ever Was. So, yeah, that sounds really fun.

ANNE: I'm glad to hear it. And I kind of want to give you a sad one that might be too sad, but it might also be really good. So are you comfortable with wielding the power of making the call, but hearing about a sad book?

KAYLA: Yeah, I can always tuck it away for later, too.

ANNE: Okay. Have you read any Mary Lawson?

KAYLA: No.

ANNE: Okay. She is a Canadian author who was shortlisted for the Booker for, let's see, maybe in the past five years. It's called A Town Called Solace. Her debut was Crow Lake, that Will Bogel has talked about a lot in these parts. And I know we've talked about Solace and Crow Lake on the podcast.

[00:48:52] Road Ends is coming to mind because it's a recent one I read, and I did not expect it to be a hotel book, but I loved that storyline so much. For readers who know Lawson or Crow Lake, this book is set in that same story world, and there's a slight overlap of characters, but you do not need to read one with the other.

So, like all of Lawson's novels, this is set in northern Ontario, and there's a little town called Struan that is far north and remote. And this story starts in that small community in the 1960s. This is a novel about a large family in a hard place. And we mostly hear from the two eldest children, who are like 21 and 23 when the novel begins. But to zoom out a little, their parents are married unhappily. They never meant to get married. At least the father never meant to marry the mother, but because of World War II, that's what happened.

[00:49:54] The mother keeps having babies because she loves and dotes on her infants. But once they exit infanthood... Is that a word, Kayla, infanthood?

KAYLA: Infancy.

ANNE: Once they exit infancy and move on, once they can walk and talk, she is uninterested. It's like they don't exist. She is mentally unwell, but none of the family members can quite put a name to it. And the firstborn daughter, secondborn child, Megan, has been keeping the wheels on the wagon for a long time. She has been parentified since about the age of six. She has been running the household.

And when the story opens, she is about done. And exacerbating her sense of doneness is that her elder brother, Tom, who could ostensibly help her, is dealing with his own crisis because his best friend died under circumstances that are still haunting him not that long before. And Tom had this promising career in naval aviation. He was going to go to Seattle and work for Boeing, but he is stuck, and he's okay with that for right now.

[00:50:59] And the family is at this crisis point. Like, somebody has to step in and do something, because the mother's having another baby, and they cannot keep this going the way things are. Oh, and the father's just absent. He's just denial and avoidance. But that's not the tone of the whole book. But that is the situation.

At the beginning of the story, Megan gets an opportunity to leave for London to visit a friend, and she's like I don't have to tell my parents how half-baked this plan really is. I just gotta get out of here. And she leaves, and what we see in the rest of the story is split narratives of Megan trying to make her way in London, and gosh, it is terrifying at first, because she does not have a plan when she leaves. And it's the '60s. It's not like she can call up her friend on the cell and be like, "Hey, where are you? Help me. Let me in out of the rain so I can start my British life." And then we're back in this small town, Ontario, where this family is struggling.

[00:51:57] And I think the things that are hardest in this story is they aren't just struggling emotionally, they are struggling physically, and there's a four-year-old child whose mother has forgotten about him because he's not a baby anymore. He can walk and talk, but he's being neglected, Like basic things. Like he's wetting the bed and nobody's cleaning it up. He doesn't have any clothes. He hasn't had a bath in weeks, like that kind of stuff. And it's hard.

But what I didn't expect about this story, because people having a hard time and Mary Lawson was not surprising to me. She often puts her characters through it, and I've read enough of her books now to trust she will bring me back to a place that feels redemptive, where maybe it's not great, but it is okay, and I can see it's getting better.

But Megan ends up through... Well, through a little bit of stick-to-it-iveness, but a lot of sheer luck. She ends up falling in with a couple who are passionate about renovating old homes into hotels, and they have taste and style and vision, and she throws herself into the work with them.

[00:53:05] And I wonder if that perspective of building a boutique British hotel from... Not building it, I mean, the building is there, but creating it out of shambles into a classy place with a swanky bar and lots of cachet and travelers from all over the world. I wonder if that would be an interesting and appealing angle to you.

More happens in this book, but the combo of family drama, serious character development over time and across vast spaces, and also that really interesting and unexpected hotel angle will add up to something special for you. How does that sound?

KAYLA: I'm liking the hotel angle, and I normally love a messy family story. The neglect piece is sort of hitting me a little wrong right now, but I'll definitely tuck this title away for maybe when I'm in a better place.

ANNE: That sounds like a good place to put it. All right, Kayla, we're going to stop there. How is all this sounding to you? How are you feeling about looking forward in your reading life?

[00:54:19] KAYLA: This is exciting. I knew you could do it, but I was afraid you would throw out hotel titles I'd already heard of, so I'm excited that there's so many out there, and I also feel you've helped me scratch at or broaden my net for finding these hotel-adjacent stories.

ANNE: Oh. Okay, I'm thrilled to hear it. Now, of the ones we talked about today, I'm so curious to hear what you may read next. We've got A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping by Sangu Mandanna, Make Nice by Ryan Effgen, not out yet, but very, very soon, Lies and Weddings by Kevin Kwan, The Inn at Lake Divine by Elinor Lipman, and that last one, Road Ends by Mary Lawson. Kayla, what do you think?

KAYLA: I feel most drawn to Make Nice, but since that won't come out till July, I think I'll start with, is it The Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping? Did I get the title right?

ANNE: Yes, you did.

KAYLA: That sounds cozy. I'm excited.

[00:55:21] ANNE: All right. I'm glad to hear it. Kayla, this has been a pleasure. Thanks so much for talking books with me.

KAYLA: Thank you.

ANNE: Hey, readers. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Kayla, and I'd love to hear what you think she should read next. Find Kayla on Substack. We have all her links, as well as the full list of titles we talked about today at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com.

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[00:56:16] Thanks to the people who make this show happen. What Should I Read Next? is created each week by executive producer Will Bogel, Media production specialist Holly Wielkoszewski, social media manager and editor Leigh Kramer, community coordinator Brigid Misselhorn, community manager Shannan Malone, and our whole team at What Should I Read Next? and Modern Mrs. Darcy HQ. Plus the audio whizzes at Studio D Podcast Production.

Readers, that's it for this episode. Thanks so much for listening. And as Rainer Maria Rilke said, "Ah, how good it is to be among people who are reading." Happy reading, everyone.