STEPHANIE EDWARDS-GASS: I was like, “Nothing in my life is going to top this.” Like, oh my gosh. I was so starstruck. My friend on the side got the most amazing pictures from it. But I have been a devoted reader of hers for a very long time. I have just always loved everything that she’s written, even her short stories. I could read her grocery list and still be in love with it.

ANNE BOGEL: 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 today we are loading up one reader’s summer stacks with lots and lots of new-to-her literary options.

[00:01:01] One of our favorite places to connect with our fellow readers is in our Patreon community. So many of you have joined us over there lately. Thank you so much for that. We appreciate all of your support, and we could not make this show without you.

If you recently joined us over in our What Should I Read Next? Patreon so that you could enjoy this year’s Summer Reading Guide, I hope you’ve been loving everything else we offer over in Patreon, like our weekly bonus episodes, peeks behind the scenes, and more.

If you haven’t joined us yet, it’s an easy way to show your support for our show and financially support the work we’re doing. When you sign up, you get immediate access to the 2025 Summer Reading Guide, our unboxing video, and bonus episodes like the books I read and really loved but didn’t include in the summer reading guide, plus the great stuff we’re putting out this summer, historic seasonal guides and previews, lots of good stuff. To sign up and get started, go to patreon.com/whatshouldireadnext.

[00:01:58] Readers, we often talk about auto-buy authors and completist authors around here. While identifying a favorite author isn’t a metric or a goal for every reader, today’s guest is definitely on a mission. She wants to find her new favorite summer author.

Stephanie Edwards-Gass is a seventh-grade English teacher and an Elin Hilderbrand completist. For years, she’s turned to Hilderbrand’s large library for summer reading satisfaction, reading and then rereading everything in the author’s catalog.

But now that there aren’t any new Nantucket books to look forward to, Stephanie’s been on the hunt for a new go-to summer author that scratches the same itch, telling stories with complex characters, a strong sense of place, lots of juicy details, and often salacious scandals.

Stephanie’s already done a lot of legwork here and has a really good idea of what has and hasn’t worked for her so far. And she’s tried a lot of authors who write summery, beachy books, but they’re not hitting the way she’d hoped.

[00:02:57] But Stephanie’s not ready to give up on her quest yet, and that’s what brings her my way today. Can I help her discover her new favorite summer author with, even better, a large backlist of books she can binge? I told Stephanie when I invited her on, “Look, I’m not sure we can really do this exactly, but I’m certain we can identify new paths for literary exploration and that we’re going to have a good time along the way.”

Let’s get to it.

Stephanie, welcome to the show.

STEPHANIE: Thank you for having me. I’m so excited to be here today.

ANNE: Oh, the pleasure is mine. We got your submission in our team inbox and went, “Well, this sounds like fun for right now in the middle of summer.” So thanks. Thanks for thinking of us and bringing your, I don’t know, dilemma, quest?

STEPHANIE: I’m going to say more of a quest because I have been looking, but I have not been very successful in my search so far. So yeah, I’m on a quest for sure.

[00:03:52] ANNE: Readers, we will get to all that shortly. First, Stephanie, tell us a little bit about yourself. We want to give the readers a glimpse of who you are, where you are in the world, and what you’re doing when you’re not podcasting on Tuesday morning.

STEPHANIE: I am a seventh grade English teacher in North Georgia. It’s actually really funny to me because I am from a very small town that’s very close to where I teach. When I say small town, I mean like we got a Burger King 10 years ago, and that’s our most recent development.

I was very adamant growing up. I was not going to be anywhere near here. I wanted to move to Boston. And then when I turned 22, I moved to Madrid, Spain, completely by myself. I did not know anybody there, and I realized in that year, I did want to be closer to my dad when I came back stateside. I didn’t want to have to get on a plane to see him. So when I met my husband, after I moved back, he also had a lot of family in the area. And that kind of solidified this is where we’re going to be.

[00:04:51] I am a very proud dog mom. I actually have two dogs. Now. I just got the second dog within the last week or two. It’s my in-laws’ dog that we are taking in. And also hilarious because I did not want to pet by any means. But Nate was actually my husband’s dog before we started dating. So I kind of had to suck it up and just deal with it. And I can still remember so vividly the first time that that flip switched for me. And I fell in love with Nate about a month after we got married.

So now my kids have actually voted me as most likely teacher to talk about their pet as if it’s their child for the last two years.

ANNE: Oh, what an honor.

STEPHANIE: It is such an honor. I literally thought another teacher was going to get it this year. And I was so scared. I was like, “No, this is my award.” I was talking to my other friend who teaches math, she was like, “All my kids when they voted kept saying Miss Edwards. I’m pretty sure that you’re gonna get it.” And I was so happy when I got it again.

[00:05:48] Then I am recently on a new business venture as of May. So I’m still figuring it all out. But as of May, I launched an online business called Chapters of Care. My goal with this, I kind of have a two-part goal. I want to help teachers back away from burnout because I not only teach full-time, but I tutor a lot and I’m going to grad school full-time.

I feel like I really set up myself in a way where I’m not getting burnt out. And I feel like even without that much on your plate, it’s still easy to be burnt out as a teacher. So I really want to help teachers not feel as burnt out.

And then I also want to help them turn their reluctant readers into regular readers, because I also feel like I have a really good sense of what kids enjoy reading. I kind of feel like you, but for middle schoolers. It’s my favorite thing when my kids are like… I had one of my favorite students ever tell me two years ago, “I don’t know how you did it, Miss Edwards, but you made me like reading.” And I was like, “That’s the goal.”

[00:06:46] My school does really prioritize independent reading. So I feel very fortunate because of that, because we do get to do like book clubs and stuff in class without it having to be an extracurricular that nobody shows up to. So that’s kind of something that I have recently started doing.

And then because it’s a bookish podcast, I have to tell you that my husband actually proposed in an independent bookstore. And he proposed with a Gilmore Girls quote, which is from my favorite show. So that is me in a nutshell.

ANNE: Oh, I love it. That says a lot about what’s important to you.

STEPHANIE: Yes.

ANNE: Oh, I’m so curious about if the methods and principles for transforming reluctant readers into regular readers are different for seventh graders than they are for those several decades older. But we have a lot to talk about today. But what do you think?

STEPHANIE: I think that, first of all, a lot of my students haven’t had the choice of what they want to read when they come into my class. My school is actually the only school in the district for sixth and seventh graders. So we are a very, very large school.

[00:07:52] They, a lot of times, come to us from elementary school like nobody’s really taught them how to find the books that they like. Like my kids, I watch them and they just are hanging out with their friends in the library. And then I’m like, “Okay, guys, we’re checking out in two minutes,” and then they just grab a random book. And I’m like, “No, no, no, no, no.”

So I learned very quickly we have to talk about… like we do genre tasting quizzes to kind of figure out what genres they might like in class before we go to the library. And I show them like, this is where you find the summary of the book, and this is how you know if the book is right for you. Because they haven’t had that choice and nobody’s taught them to actually read the back of the book.

ANNE: Hands on. I love it.

STEPHANIE: Yes. Very hands-on when it comes to reading.

ANNE: And then you got to figure out what that description means, etc.

STEPHANIE: Yes.

ANNE: Okay, well, this fits directly into your journey.

STEPHANIE: Yeah, for sure.

ANNE: Where do we find you right now in your reading life, Stephanie?

STEPHANIE: So I am, I think, starting to feel a little bit more like myself with my reading life in 2025. With my master’s program, I’m also doing a pathway that lets me get my media specialist license. So that does require reading a lot of children’s and middle grade and young adult.

[00:09:05] One of my classes this year, like you had to read so many books from so many categories. And so I spent a lot of 2025 reading multiple books at a time, which has never really been something that I can do. I think, one, I got really burned out on middle grade and young adult because I was like, “I’m not reading anything I got from the book fair this summer. I am not doing any middle grade or young adult for the summer. I’m just reading what I want to read and keep working on my unread shelf.”

And two, I just did not like feeling like I didn’t have that momentum because I was in the middle of so many books because I am somebody that needs to feel like I’m finishing my books kind of quickly in order to keep going. And so having summer break now has been a really good reset for me because I am finishing a book like every day or two.

I typically read about 75 to 100 books a year.

ANNE: Okay. Stephanie, you have come to us with your word “quest”.

STEPHANIE: Yes.

ANNE: Would you tell us about it?

[00:10:05] STEPHANIE: Elin Hilderbrand has been my favorite author since I discovered her in 2019, which is also, again, hilarious because I actually found her through her Christmas books. She is very well known as the queen of beach reads, and I did not find her through a beach read. I found her through her Christmas books from one of my friends on Bookstagram.

So I have read and reread all of her novels. I go to Nantucket every year with a group of girlfriends because of her books, because we all love her so much. She recently retired. Now she said that she’s going to keep writing, just not at the pace that she was in the past. And she’s definitely gone on social media and different things like this saying like, “Well, I do have two ideas for more Nantucket novels.” And I’m like, “Give me them now. I want it right now.”

So I have just always been a huge fan. I have to share this because it was like the highlight of my life. I told my husband that our wedding didn’t even compare to this.

[00:11:04] So the first time I went, I had only been married for two weeks. Like I found out… so she does these bucket list weekends in Nantucket, which is how I started going to Nantucket because I signed up and I was like, “She’s my favorite author. I want to go.”

So I went two weeks after I got married and everybody was kind of impressed with that. And I was like, “Oh yeah, you know, I lived in Spain by myself and all these things. I’m totally a solo traveler.” And I realized when I got there, everybody here is old enough to be my mom and I am all alone as the only person in their 20s and maybe even like under the age of 40.

But I really hit it off with a group of women. I’ve always been one of those people that like I befriend older people. I was the kid that really enjoyed sitting next to the teacher at lunch. And now that I’m a teacher, I’m like, “Why did you not give that poor lady her lunch break? What was wrong with you then?”

[00:11:59] So we go back to Nantucket every single year because of her. And so last year she just had the show The Perfect Couple come out last summer and we were learning the dance to the intro that they do on the show. And of course, I did not want to be bad at it so I was practicing the dance beforehand and everything. And one of the coordinators for the event… like at this point they know us because this is going to be in November, our fifth trip. So the hotel staff know our group at this point and Elin kind of knows us.

So they were like, “We want you to be in the front. You know the dance really well.” So I go in the front and I’m in this pink sparkly dress because it was a very fancy-dress night. And we’re kind of taking a break in between shoots because they’ve got these media recorders and everybody coming in. And Elin looks over at me and she moves my hair to the side and she gives me a hug and she says, “Stephanie, you just look so beautiful tonight.” And I was like, “Nothing in my life is going to top this.” Oh my gosh. I was so starstruck. My friend on the side got the most amazing pictures from it.

[00:13:01] But I have been a devoted reader of hers for a very long time. I have just always loved everything that she’s written, even her short stories. I could read her grocery list and still be in love with it. I love everything to do with Elin and with Nantucket.

And now that I have read and reread all of her books, I am kind of looking for who is going to be my next Elin Hilderbrand that I can turn to in the summer months. And I just don’t feel like I’ve been very successful with that so far.

ANNE: Stephanie, I know from your submission that you have tried a lot of books that I think haven’t been bad. They’re not scratching the edge here.

STEPHANIE: Yes.

ANNE: But you’ve really reflected on this a lot. Would you share with our listeners, and I’d love to hear in your own voice, what stands out to you about Elin’s books that you’re having a hard time finding in others?

[00:13:53] STEPHANIE: I would say the first thing that stands out immediately hearing that question is the fact that she was the first author that I ever found and was like, “I want to read everything by her.” Because I knew she had a lot of books out when I read her Winter Street series.

The first to be treated by her that I read was The Rumor, and so I knew she had a lot of other books. She was the first person that I was ever like, “I want to read everything that she’s written. The biggest thing, and even my group of girlfriends and I, we talked about this all the time with her books, is that she just has the most amazing character development because even when the characters are doing horrible, horrible, illegal things, you’re still like, “Oh my gosh, but I understand why they’re doing this, and I really love them still. I want to see a good outcome for them.”

[00:14:45] I have yet to find really any of her characters that I don’t resonate with that I don’t feel something for. And I think a lot of that is because of her writing style, because she does tell it from multiple points of view. And so you are getting to hear snippets of what everybody’s thinking and what everybody’s doing. And so I think that plays a big role in it.

I also like that she has several characters show up in other books. Like that’s always just a fun Easter egg with any author to me.

Her description of Nantucket and food really stands out to me because especially with fantasy books, sometimes I get really bogged down with all of the details of the setting. But I feel like hers are just so rich, but so clear. Like I can picture it in a way that I don’t feel like I always can with others.

Then a lot of her books also have some good scandal and some good mystery. And I am very much someone who wants to read about rich people problems, rich people behaving badly, like there’s been a murder on the island kind of thing in the summer.

[00:15:48] So I always love that there is always kind of like this scandal going on in all of her books, whether it is as big as like a murder, like in the perfect couple, or it’s just a simple like, oh, this couple is having an affair.

ANNE: Yeah, they’re really gossipy.

STEPHANIE: Yes.

ANNE: Okay. And that’s fun.

STEPHANIE: And that is everything I’m looking for in a summer read.

ANNE: Character development, strong sense of place. And talk to me about a mystery component.

STEPHANIE: So I really have found through both her and other authors like Katherine St. John and Emma Rosenblum, I think is how you pronounce her last name. I really love seeing that there is something going on that nobody else really knows about in the book yet, whether that is more like a murder, or it is just like these people are having an affair and being very gossipy.

[00:16:41] I think about Meg Mitchell-Moore’s books too, when she has… her book that just came out, Mansion Beach, I think the cover of it said something about rich people behaving badly or something along those lines in it. I already like Meg Mitchell-Moore, so I already pre-ordered the book. But I was like, “This is everything I want.”

I really like that kind of like salacious scandal kind of side to it. I think about too like The Lion’s Den by Katherine St. John. Like you can tell the whole time that they’re on this yacht something is off and something’s kind of creepy, but you don’t know what. But it’s not creepy in a scary way. It’s like “what’s really going on here?” kind of way.

ANNE: Okay, I like that for you. Salacious scandal. That is a phrase.

STEPHANIE: Yes.

ANNE: We’re going to pin that to our board. I’m noticing that while some readers get intimidated when they come to an author for the first time and they see, oh, they have 25 books, like, Whoa, you know, like deep breaths. That feels like a lot. That feels overwhelming. It sounds like that feels really inviting to you.

[00:17:48] STEPHANIE: Yes. Because if I end up liking them, I’m like, “I have so much more by them that I can read.” Now, sometimes it is a little bit like… I’m thinking Sarah J Maas. I didn’t really know where to start with her. And so I kind of just took to Bookstagram and was like, “Okay guys, where do I start?” And so I normally will just take feedback from that. But yeah, no, I love it when they have an extensive backlist because I’m like, “I just have more to read.”

ANNE: Okay. And it sounds like you really enjoy the next one’s already queued up. Plenty to turn to. Don’t have to overthink it. Okay. I’m going to tell the listeners what I told you. I don’t know that we can do this, but we’re going to have fun trying and we are going to get you some good avenues for exploration.

STEPHANIE: Yes.

ANNE: Okay. And we’re going to start by hearing about your favorite Elin Hilderbrand books and also what you’ve been reading lately, and also the one that didn’t hit the same.

Stephanie, how did you choose your favorite Elin Hilderbrand books, like the best of the best? How did you do this?

[00:18:46] STEPHANIE: So these were kind of the ones that I feel like stood out the most for me just in terms of like… Like 28 Summers, which I’ll talk about in a second, that was the one… one, I think it was the first book by her that I ever pre-ordered, but also it was the first book by her that I had read and been like, “Whoa.” Like that immediately… It was a favorite book for me.

Then the other ones I kind of got into them because of what other people had said. So like the second book I’ll mention was what all of my girlfriends said was their favorite book, but I hadn’t read it yet at the time. And so that one, I think also just holds that special memory.

And then the third one, it had that mystery element that is not always present in her books, but that I do feel like kind of shows that I am looking for a little bit of mystery and scandal.

ANNE: Okay. I love that. What is the first Elin Hilderbrand book you love?

[00:19:46] STEPHANIE: So the first one that I chose is 28 summers. Like I said, I’m pretty sure this is the first book of hers that I ever pre-ordered. And what I love about this one, she has told us on these weekends, this is based on the movie Same Time Next Year. And I loved that in the book.

So you have Jake and Mallory and they both meet on Nantucket every Labor Day weekend every year, but they have their own lives outside of that. Jake is actually married to somebody else. Mallory is living her own life and doing her own thing. So she lives year-round on Nantucket and Jake is coming over with her every single Labor Day.

It was just a love story that I really loved, but also had an incredibly gut-wrenching ending. I don’t really cry at books, but if a book was going to make me cry, I think it was this one. This was the first time I ever like got to the ending of a book and I was just like, “Oh my gosh, how is this book over? How is that the end? What about the characters? I need more of this right now,” because I wanted to know how it was going to continue.

[00:20:54] But she did go on and write The Sixth Wedding, I believe is her short story that connects with this in her Endless Summer book. But yeah, I just loved the love story in it. I loved that even though you know Jake is like going away, and his wife knows that that’s what he’s doing whenever he goes to Nantucket every year, they had such a beautiful love story that I was like, “How do you get beyond this?”

You know, I do love a love story that is very gut-wrenching at the same time. I’m not quite like everybody has to end up together. But yeah, that one stood out to me because of that. Then The Blue Bistro is the one that all of my girlfriends had read and said it was their favorite, but I hadn’t read it yet at the time. And when I did-

ANNE: That was my first Elin Hilderbrand book.

STEPHANIE: It was?

ANNE: Because a friend said, “What do you mean you haven’t read her yet?” and “what’s wrong with you? This is the place to start.” Yeah.

[00:21:52] STEPHANIE: Oh, I love it. And that one I think does have a little bit of the mystery element because you are trying to figure out like what’s up with the chef that everybody’s being so secretive about that you don’t really know.

But in this book, a girl named Adrienne comes to Nantucket for the first time. She’s looking for a job. She has no restaurant experience, but they hire her to be like the maitre d’ at this very, very well-known restaurant that is actually in its last closing season.

And something that Elin has said in the past, she had written, I believe, a book about a hotel. It was not the Hotel Nantucket. I think they were referring to her first book, The Beach Club, whenever somebody said this to her. But somebody said something to the effect of like, “Oh, well, you could never write about a restaurant because it’s just too salacious.” And she was like, “I’m going to write about a restaurant because it’s going to be salacious. That is how she came to the Blue Bistro.

[00:22:41] She always has very rich descriptions of food. But then to read about this in a restaurant setting, I was like, “I want to go to that restaurant. I want to be there.”

You get to follow them over the summer in their final season at this restaurant. And everybody in the restaurant really truly is a family. And so everybody is having mixed emotions about the restaurant closing, you discover a little bit of the mystery surrounding the chef. Some heartbreaking things happen throughout the book, of course, because that’s always going to happen in an Elin Hildebrand book. I just feel like it was a very quintessential ‘this is a summer on Nantucket’ kind of read.

ANNE: Okay, that captures a lot.

STEPHANIE: Yes.

ANNE: All right. That is super helpful. Stephanie, what is the third book you love?

STEPHANIE: So the last one I picked is The Perfect Couple. This one was also turned into a Netflix series last summer that actually did really well. She’s currently working on The Five Star Weekend, also being produced and turned into TV.

[00:23:44] She’s been sharing on Instagram the actors and actresses that have signed on to the show. And it’s been very fun to watch.

But what stood out to me about this one was, this was the first one I think by her that had like the murder aspect to it. And the wedding as well. I love anything about a good wedding, especially in the summer that’s going on, because there’s always going to be some drama with a wedding. Thankfully, there was none at mine. But you’re always going to have some drama with a wedding.

I loved that as I was reading this book, like… I felt like at this point in my life I was not reading thrillers and mysteries. And so anything that had to do with a murder, I was like staying very, very far away from.

This is the first book I think that showed me that I can handle kind of that mysterious element and it still be like a fun summer read. I think that’s why this one stands out to me because now, you know, it’s been a few years. I have gotten into mysteries and thrillers some more.

[00:24:44] But at the time, anything that had to do with a murder or anything like that, I was like, “Nope, that’s not for me.” And I just immediately wrote it off. But with this one, I feel like it showed me that it actually can be kind of a fun read.

ANNE: Stephanie, that’s super fun. And noted on the wedding drama. We actually have a blog post in the works on Modern Mrs. Darcy that’s airing in July about books set at weddings and built around weddings because there is so much dramatic potential. Although I’m really glad that you didn’t have it at your own. That’s the kind of thing you definitely want to read about in a book, not experience in your real life.

STEPHANIE: No, definitely not.

ANNE: Okay. Change of pace. Tell me about an Elin Hildebrand novel that… I’m curious about how you’d put this. Didn’t work for you? Isn’t one of your favorites? You threw across the room? Tell us all about it. Whatever it looks like.

STEPHANIE: So kind of how I ended up finishing all of her books was our group of girlfriends wanted to go through and read all of her books in order. So when we started this project of ours, I didn’t have that many that I hadn’t read yet. But this was one of the ones I hadn’t read yet. This is her second novel, Nantucket Nights.

[00:25:51] And something we said in the book club is we feel like she had had… well, she didn’t immediately have success with the Beach Club. I don’t think if I remember correctly. But this was her second novel. And so she was trying to kind of like do something different with it.

We felt something about this book. I’ve never felt this way about any other characters of hers, but I just could not root for these characters necessarily. And the rest of my group kind of felt the same way. Like something about them, like it was catty, but not in a fun way.

And it was especially when you get to the ending. The ending I felt like was just so unrealistic and almost mean that I was kind of like, “Who are these women? At no point did I want to root for you.” It’s definitely one I will keep going back to to reread because I do like seeing, as I reread books, how my opinion changes.

[00:26:50] I loved it overall, because it was an Elin Hilderbrand and I think I’m always going to love everything that she writes. But I didn’t find the characters… I don’t necessarily need to like all the characters, but I need to understand why they’re doing what they’re doing. And in this book, I don’t feel like I totally got that.

ANNE: Okay, that was… wow. So I’m realizing now the Blue Bistro was published in 2005. And I read it I’m thinking like 2012. Something like that. Then Summer People was next, Afternoon Nantucket Nights. She really is prolific.

You’ve probably heard this story, but just readers, I’m breaking my no-Google rule actively so I can see all her books in order. And it’s quite a list for someone whose debut came out in 2000.

But in 2015, I interviewed her for the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance. There was a reader event that year for the first time. And Elin Hildebrand came in her sequined dress and high heels to the little Hilton ballroom in Raleigh to talk about… I do not even remember what the new book would have been at the time.

[00:27:54] But she was telling the story of how she came to the Winter series. No, or maybe it was a series set in the Caribbean.

STEPHANIE: The Winter in Paradise.

ANNE: But here’s the thing. They said, “We had an author on contract for this. They’re not going to be able to finish it. We want you to do it, but you only have six weeks.” And she was like, “I’m going to make this happen.” I can’t believe how quickly she is able to write these stories.

STEPHANIE: She is an incredibly dedicated, organized… just getting to know her at these bucket list weekend events and hearing Tim talks books on Instagram, he is basically her work husband and hearing the way that he talks about her and describes her schedule and then seeing her on Instagram and seeing her at these weekends, it’s like she is like one of those people that runs like a machine.

[00:28:46] She is like, “Okay, at nine o’clock, I have this thing going on. And then by 10 o’clock, I need to be here. And then at 11 o’clock I’m going to shower and then I’m going to drive to this place and it’s going to take me 17 minutes to get to this place.” She’s that kind of person.

Because I’ve also been very like, “How do you also have kids and live on Nantucket?” And like, “How do you actually get any work done instead of just spending all your time at the beach? Because that’s all I want to do.

ANNE: Well, I also remember her saying, this was a long time ago, I don’t know if this is still the case, but how she liked to write longhand on legal pads at the pool.

STEPHANIE: Yeah. And she uses a Uniball pen.

ANNE: Oh, you know, I do remember one of my takeaways from, I think it was the hotel in Nantucket, was I tried a new pen.

STEPHANIE: Yes. I also ordered that pen.

ANNE: There’s a blog post about that. We’ll find it. Okay. Okay. Okay. Let me get back to my notes and not my long list of Elin Hilderbrand novels. Nantucket night’s not for you. Okay.

Stephanie, to give us a taste of what you are drawn to that’s not Elin Hilderbrand, what have you been reading lately?

[00:29:48] STEPHANIE: So I just read my first Kristy Woodson Harvey. It is her new release, Beach House Rules. I really enjoyed that. She is definitely an author that I’m going to be checking more out from.

I am currently in the middle of reading a non-fiction about the women writers who shaped Jane Austen. I’ve actually been reading that one for a couple of months now because I’ve just had so many other books, like I said earlier, like with my grad school class that I’ve been trying to get through.

Now that I’m on summer break, I am flying through books like nobody’s business. I just finished the last book in the Windy City series by Liz Tomforde. That one I was very excited about because it just came out in May and it follows my favorite character from the series. So that was Rewind It Back.

And yeah, I’m looking into some Abby Jimenez for the summer and just making a dent in my unread shelf.

[00:30:42] ANNE: Stephanie, now that we’ve heard about your favorite Elin Hilderbrand books, Nantucket Nights that didn’t really work for you because… it sounds like you enjoyed it on the whole, but you really do enjoy rooting for the characters. That is a key part of your love of this series. Is that tracking?

STEPHANIE: Yes.

ANNE: Okay. And you painted a big picture. You love the character development, the strong sense of place. You love a good mystery in your beach reads if that can be wrapped into the package. What would be your dream author discovery here?

STEPHANIE: Oh boy.

ANNE: Before I tell you “I don’t think we can do that”. What’s the dream?

STEPHANIE: You know, as somebody who does a lot of reflecting and journaling, I didn’t think this far. We are going to the beach in about a month for my 29th birthday. And so I am looking for books that I can get there because I always go to the bookstore for my birthday because like, that’s all I want is more books.

So I was excited that with this episode being scheduled, that I could take some of those recommendations and get them for my birthday and read them on the beach.

[00:31:44] I think that I am definitely looking for that scandal gossipy salaciousness. It would be great if this author does have an extensive backlist, but I’m not necessarily going to be upset if they don’t. Just because now that I do have Kristy Woodson Harvey, I’m like, that does give me some room to get through somebody’s books. If they do have an extensive backlist, that would be great. But if they don’t like, I’m going to be perfectly fine.

ANNE: Scandal. Salacious. Gossipiness. So you want the dirt?

STEPHANIE: Yes. I want all the tea.

ANNE: All the tea. So Elin Hilderbrand is plotty and she’s fast paced. I’m not quite sure how important that is. I’m getting the sense that you’d have the patience to wait for a really juicy scandal to develop.

STEPHANIE: Yes. If I know that there’s going to be a scandal, I can wait for it.

ANNE: Okay. But you love the food details and like all the texture. This is so embarrassing, but I read Swan Song with the 2024 Summer Reading Guide in mind, like 18 months ago. I read it in January, 2024. And I can’t bear to close my tabs because they remind me… I have them open on my phone. Don’t tell my 15-year-old. He’s the tab police around here. Like, “Mom, that’s not good for you. That’s not good for your laptop. Close them. Close them.” But they’re on my phone. I never see them.

[00:33:10] But I Googled all the recipes and the clothing and the location and the special kind of apples and the special kind of lemon and this $180,000 car. There’s so much richness and texture and details. I think you really like that.

STEPHANIE: I do. And I would love if she would one day write a cookbook. Oh my gosh, the way that I… and I’m not even somebody who cooks. My husband does the cooking. But I would preorder that so fast just because of all the food in her books.

ANNE: I have some recipes open in my tabs.

STEPHANIE: Yeah.

ANNE: Something about a peach crisp or cobbler. There’s some like snacky dip also. And in the acknowledgement, she’s like, Hey, thanks to these bloggers. These are totally the recipes I had in mind.

STEPHANIE: Oh, I need to go back to the acknowledgements then.

ANNE: Oh, we’ll exchange emails. But she also builds this whole world that you feel like when you’re picking up an Elin Hilderbrand book, you’re walking into the world.

STEPHANIE: Yes. I know exactly what I’m going to enjoy it.

[00:34:06] ANNE: Okay. I think what we want to do is share a bunch of books that I think will appeal to things you’ve enjoyed as a reader, but they’re not going to be the same because the triumph and devastation of finding an author’s work that you love is like books, I mean, really still are most of the time, and I think should be, written by people who have unique experiences and write in a certain way. And nobody writes just like another. And the reason that something is good is because it’s unique.

I’m wondering what unique discoveries you can make, both of actual books and also about yourself as a reader. Like, “Oh, I didn’t know I’d be so interested” and fill in the blank. But to do that, you need some books that you can bring your reading experience to and see how they land. So that’s kind of how I’m thinking about this. How does that sound? What am I missing? What do you think?

[00:35:02] STEPHANIE: I think that sounds great because I am always down for discovering new things about myself as a reader.

ANNE: I think some of the places we’re going to go are obvious and they’re going to be ones that maybe you’ve already tried. But I think some of the ones they don’t have the light blue covers you may be looking for at the bookstore. I really liked that moment in one of our books. It might’ve been the five-star weekend when she takes her characters in the Nantucket to go shopping and somebody’s like at the bookstore and they see a book with a light blue cover and the bookstore is like, “Oh, she lives here. They sell really well.” That kind of winky thing was fun.

Before we jump in, Stephanie, why don’t you tell us what you’ve tried already and how those attempts have felt?

STEPHANIE: I did try Mary Kay Andrews. I tried the high tide club by her. And that one I was excited about because I was like, “Oh, it’s going to have that mystery in it.” I did not care about this book at all. I don’t know if it’s because it was like… I normally don’t mind a book that jumps timelines. I don’t know if I was really into like one timeline and not into the other with that book, but I was like, okay… so I thought she was a big B-treat author. She did not necessarily hit for me.

[00:36:18] I have done one book so far by Dorothea Benton Frank, and I did like it. I don’t know that it stood out enough to me at the time to want to read more of her backlist, but I’m definitely open to trying it.

Like I said earlier, I did my first Kristy Woodson Harvey recently. So I’m very excited for that.

And then the other two kind of like scandally, summery reads that I’m in the process of completing are Meg Mitchell Moore and Katherine St. John. I’ve already read a few books by both of those authors and they don’t have as extensive of a backlist as Elin did. So I’m kind of like, if I just keep reading at the pace I’m reading over the summer break right now, where I’m finishing a book every day or two, then I’m going to get through their backlist before school starts again in August.

ANNE: That is helpful. We’re not going to do three. We’re going to talk about a whole bunch of authors that could maybe, maybe work for you. And I’m interested in hearing what you think.

STEPHANIE: Okay.

ANNE: And I wonder if we want to do like reactions author by author. I think so probably?

STEPHANIE: Okay.

[00:37:22] ANNE: Okay. Let’s start with the more obvious ones. I think we need to talk about Taylor Jenkins Reid. Have you read anything by her?

STEPHANIE: Oh yes. I am also a completist of hers.

ANNE: Okay. Excellent. What I like about… can we call her Taylor for you?

STEPHANIE: Yes.

ANNE: …is she writes contemporary novels, also some historical, that are focused on relationships. They have a sharpness to them, like a frankness, the way that people’s actions and thoughts are talked about that I think feels akin to Elin. I think that’s going to be important to you.

Some of the novels you’ve tried and a lot of books with pale blue covers out there feel very soft and gentle. And it’s not that you don’t want warm, but I think you want a directness that feels fun.

You mentioned Abby Jimenez. What’s your experience so far?

STEPHANIE: I was actually about to start her Friend Sone series on my Kindle because I read her other series… I know the most recent book was just for the summer. A Part of Your World, maybe, was the series?

ANNE: You know, her books just are all clustered for me.

STEPHANIE: They are.

[00:38:33] ANNE: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And she has seven of them so far, but she’s not as hard on her characters as Elin Hilderbrand can be sometimes, but she’s very frank and direct and funny. She has a sense of humor that I think you need that dial turned up on the emotion. We want the volume kind of loud.

But she has really likable characters you want to root for who are finding new relationships and trying new things in life and making big career moves and working things out, but also are dealing with trauma in their past or mental health issues. And we see how those affect relationships. And so they’ve got grounding to them, but also they’re kind of sparkly, really thoughtful, uplifting, but have heavier issues as well.

And she has lots… I mean, it’s not the beach, it’s Minnesota. But she loves to put actual places and locations and businesses. And she loves interesting settings. Like in her latest book, her protagonist is a nurse and she and her friend travel around and they take temporary assignments and they always have to find someplace really cool to live. And they have this cool house on a lake. Those are the kinds of details I think you will enjoy.

STEPHANIE: Yes.

[00:39:41] ANNE: Seven books, not 20, not 40, but enough to keep you busy for a little while.

STEPHANIE: Mm-hmm.

ANNE: And you had already identified her for yourself.

STEPHANIE: Yes. I would say I’m about halfway through her book so far because I have one series completed and then I need to do the Friend Zone series and then her most recent book, Say You’ll Remember Me, which of course-

ANNE: Oh, you’re already reading them.

STEPHANIE: Yes. That is a huge nod to Taylor Swift, which I love. So I was very excited for that one.

ANNE: Oh, I almost forgot. And something else about her books is you do see characters from her books pop up all over the place, which is those fun little Easter eggs we talked about. Okay.

Have you read any Sally Hepworth?

STEPHANIE: I have not. I’ve seen her, but I haven’t picked anything up by her.

ANNE: Okay. She also writes complex, likable characters. Her books are character-driven. They’re witty. They’re thoughtful. Some are sharper than others, but I think… yeah, it feels like a good fit for you.

[00:40:41] So she writes family novels that often have an element of psychological suspense and sometimes they deal with medical issues. Her characters are likable. They’re sympathetic. I think you’re going to be rooting for them. She just plunks them in the middle of tough situations like marital trouble, serious losses, serious health issues. They’re often secrets in her book and I think you’ll find that a lot of fun.

The one I started with, you can start where you want, but the one I started with was The Mother-In-Law. And it’s about a woman named Lucy. She’s known her mother-in-law of the title for 10 years, and she’s never felt like her mother-in-law liked her, which has been extra disappointing because she really wanted her mother-in-law to be the mom she never had. But she is still distraught at the loss when the police show up to announce that her mother-in-law has died. And it’s an apparent suicide.

[00:41:37] And then we get into the details of it and find out that the evidence points to possible murder. And then we get to know the family members and we discover each of them had a motive to harm the mother-in-law and stood to benefit from her death. And we go back and forth in viewpoints. We hear from Lucy, but we also hear from the mother-in-law and get to understand what’s going on in everyone’s minds. I think the family dirt that gets spilled here is going to be a lot of fun for you. I thought it was really satisfying.

STEPHANIE: I actually just checked my Goodreads because I thought that sounded familiar. I did read The Mother-in-Law.

ANNE: Oh my gosh. Okay. Well, how was it for you?

STEPHANIE: I do remember loving the secrets and that everybody had a motive. I do remember that part because I was like, “So then who did it? Everybody kind of had a hand in doing it. So who did it?”

I am looking at it now. I don’t know why I rated it three stars because I feel like I remember liking it more than that, but I also read it three years ago and that was around the time that I was first starting to branch out into thrillers and mysteries. So it could just be like, I don’t know, maybe something in it was a little too scary for me or I don’t know.

[00:42:40] ANNE: Interesting. Well, beginning in 2021 with The Good Sister, her work took a… I don’t know, it took like a tonal shift where it got a little more suspenseful. And I would be very curious about what you think about her most recent three books.

Sally Hepworth has written, I think eight or nine at this point. So not going to keep you busy maybe for a whole summer season, but like a nice healthy backlist.

STEPHANIE: Yeah, I like that.

ANNE: Okay. Have you read any Elissa Sussman?

STEPHANIE: No. I don’t know that I’ve ever heard of her actually.

ANNE: Well, I will tell you right now, I’m sorry to say she’s only written three novels for adults. She wrote her first book, Funny You Should Ask, in, oh gosh, I want to say 2020-ish, give or take a year. And it’s so fun.

Her novels are set in the world of like Hollywood, Broadway celebrity, and they are full of juicy gossip, especially the first one. It’s Funny You Should Ask. One of my author friends recommended it to me as a literary beach read.

[00:43:48] STEPHANIE: Wait, I think I do know this one. Have you read it? If it’s the cover I’m thinking of.

ANNE: It’s really distinctive.

STEPHANIE: Yes, I did read Funny You Should Ask. I feel like I’m kind of raining on your parade.

ANNE: Is it bad that it’s not memorable? Does that mean something?

STEPHANIE: So once you started talking about it, I was like, I think I know that cover. I think I do remember it. I have been interested in trying her other books, but just have not gotten around to it yet. Because there was one that I think had the same type of cover, but in blue.

ANNE: Yes, that’s called Once More With Feeling. And it came out summer of 2023. And that one is about musicians turned Broadway stars.

STEPHANIE: Oh.

ANNE: Or at least they’re trying. And then there’s a new one coming out this July that’s a follow-up to Funny You Should Ask. And you get a different perspective on the events that happened in that first book.

STEPHANIE: Oh, I love that.

[00:44:48] ANNE: Yeah, I thought you might. That’s called Totally and Completely Fine.

STEPHANIE: Okay.

ANNE: Lots of juicy Hollywood gossip.

STEPHANIE: I love the gossip. Give me it all.

ANNE: So you already mentioned you tried Meg Mitchell-Moore. Now I’m wondering if Kennedy Ryan would be a good fit for you.

STEPHANIE: You know, she has been mentioned on the podcast a couple times, but I’ve never picked up her books. And I’ve seen them on Bookstagram too. So where should I start with her?

ANNE: I’ve only read her Skyland series. She has a more extensive backlist than that. She has a new book coming out this summer. Actually, it came out in May. It was in the Summer Reading Guide that was the final installment in that little trilogy. But I found that to be a great place to start.

You’re a Georgia girl. The series is set in the Atlanta area. And she writes contemporary women’s fiction with a strong romance bent that have lots of big feelings, lots of salacious scandals, lots of female friendship. I started with Before I Let Go. It’s the first book in this interlinked series. I think you can… they stand alone. You could read them in any order.

[00:45:56] But this is about a couple who met and married young, deeply in love, but when life delivered terrible things to them, they plunged into grief and could not go forward and divorced in the aftermath. But now they’re co-parenting. They have this successful restaurant venture. They’re business partners. And for reasons involving proximity and realizing, “Okay, as we deal with our grief, what did I do? Why did I lose my person as well?” They start to wonder if maybe they should take another shot at it.

But this is set in Atlanta, which I imagine could be fun for you. There are so many restaurant details. And then you have this emotional promise of two people that you really want to end up happy by the end of the book, like find their second chance at true love.

[00:46:47] The female protagonist here has two best friends that she met kind of in a funny way. They are deeply in each other’s lives, very supportive of each other. And it’s fun to see them showing up for each other in the book. And you get a little peek into the kind of drama happening in their lives that are going to feature prominently in book two and book three, when each of those women get their own story. Maybe. What do you think?

STEPHANIE: When I see her book covers, I think I’ve just always written them off as being too romancy. And so to know that it does have that kind of emotional turmoil, I think definitely makes it appeal a little bit more.

ANNE: They should really put emotional turmoil on the cover. Then you know it was for you.

STEPHANIE: Yeah.

ANNE: I’m sympathetic. Curtis Sittenfeld feels really gossipy, like going back to her debut prep, which is about a teenager from small town Indiana who goes to this elite co-ed boarding school in Massachusetts. You mentioned wanting to move to Boston at one point in your life. At first, she’s an outsider and she’s like, “What is with all these rich kids? This is not the life I know. I got here on scholarship. Whoa.”

But then she becomes a participant in this life that seems so weird to her from the outside when she first arrived. All the way up to romantic comedy, which is a romance set in the world of Saturday Night Live and the early COVID pandemic.

So I don’t know if you’ve read her, but I think she has some of that sharpness, that wit, those details that you’ve really enjoyed in some of your books. She does not have the universe of stories that overlap and feed each other.

[00:48:50] STEPHANIE: I’ve always seen her books. And I think her most recent one was Show Don’t Tell.

ANNE: Yeah, a short story collection.

STEPHANIE: Oh, I didn’t even realize that was short stories. She’s always been one that I’ve kind of like eyed and I’ve never just picked up.

ANNE: She’s out there. She might be waiting for you. When you talked about wedding books, I thought about Xóchitl González, who writes literary fiction. And it’s moving and suspenseful, but it’s not as pacey as an Elin Hilderbrand, but she does write stories that are very atmospheric, so many details. They’re pleasantly complex. They’re really thought-provoking.

She wrote a book about a wedding planner called Olga Dies Dreaming. They came out a few years ago. And it is also set… I mean, Olga is a Puerto Rican Brooklynite who works just trying to get by as a wedding planner to the super, super wealthy who think nothing of seven figures on a wedding.

[00:49:48] And there are so many juicy wedding details, like totally salacious, make for fascinating reading, might have you wanting to Google. And Xóchitl González is writing what she knows. These stories are rooted in her real-life experience working this job. I think you’d find that really fun.

But the emotional heart of the story is not about the seven-figure weddings that these super rich people are splashing out on. It has to do with Olga’s family of origin. Her father was a revolutionary and a heroin addict who died years ago. Her mother abandoned the pair to go fight for Puerto Rican independence in Puerto Rico.

So Olga’s 40 and she feels like she’s at a crossroads and her brother she’s close to feels trapped for his own reasons. He’s a politician. And she has some stuff to figure out so she can move forward. So this would be different for you. This would be an exploration.

[00:50:43] STEPHANIE: Our media specialist has her own little free library for teachers where we can put books.

ANNE: Oh, I love that.

STEPHANIE: Yes, it’s so nice. And we definitely have it set off to the side because we’re like, the kids do not need to be looking at these books. But I think it was my instructional coach actually was the one who put Olga Dies Dreaming in there. And I’ve always eyed it and just never picked it up.

ANNE: Maybe that could be very promising. I believe she has her third book in the works. She has two published. The second is Anita de Monte Laughs Last. It’s set in the world of fine art maybe 40 years ago. I’m making this up, the 40 years ago, but it’s not terribly wrong.

And there’s a ghost. And it’s fun and juicy and gossipy. There are also whole mystery worlds you could explore, like a good mystery series will have lots of characters you follow for the long haul. Like a ton of French, like famously has her Dublin Murder Squad clustered novels. People of the Three Pines novels by Louise Penny for this reason. I’ve really enjoyed the Deborah Crombie series for a long time. She writes these books.

[00:51:55] There’s romance authors that do this really well, like the universe that you really get to know like Penny Reid, Sarah Adams. But I’m wondering if you may enjoy hearing about a couple like gossipy feeling memoirs. Is that something you’re interested in at all?

STEPHANIE: Yes.

ANNE: Okay. There are two that have been top of mind for me this summer for various reasons. The first is I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy. The reason I’ve been thinking about this one, which it didn’t come out that long ago, it’s only been a couple of years. But there’s a book in the Summer Reading Guide by Annabel Monaghan called It’s A Love Story. It’s about a child star who was the punchline, was the funny girl, was known for having barbecue sauce on her braces. And like she’s the one that everybody laughed at, not with, in the show she was famous for as a child.

In Annabel Monaghan’s book, she’s grown up. She’s trying to make it in Hollywood as a serious professional, I think screenwriter. And it’s hard because everybody knows her as this character. I was really surprised to get to the end of this book I really enjoyed and read the acknowledgements and see Annabel Monaghan say, “I was thoroughly inspired by I’m Glad My Mom Died, where Jennette McCurdy tells the story of what it was like to be a child star who was known for certain things in certain ways as her character.” And how hard that was behind the scenes on set, but also with her mom who basically coached her into an eating disorder.

[00:53:20] And she talks about that dysfunctional relationship as well as the ugliness of working on the show she worked on with the people she worked with in the studios she was in when she was a child. I mean, talk about scandalous. You said you wanted to read about all the tea.

There is a lot of hard stuff here, but it’s not written as a tell-all. It’s written as a, I know someone needs to hear this story. It’s really emotional. You read it differently knowing this is her real experience. How does that kind of thing sound to you?

STEPHANIE: It sounds good.

ANNE: Okay. Then I’m also wondering about the Summer Reading Guide memoir, How to Lose Your Mother by Molly Jong-Fast, which feels so packed with… I mean, she’s delivering… I’m reluctant to call her experience like gossip because it’s so heartfelt and feels so important.

[00:54:25] But Molly Jong-Fast is a political commentator, essayist, podcaster, journalist in her own right. But she’s also the daughter of Erica Jong, who wrote Fear of Flying 40-something years ago, was famous worldwide for a long, long time.

In this book, she talks about how fame changed her mother on a cellular level, how the human soul cannot bear that level of attention, and her mother certainly could not, and how she was an alcoholic. She was a neglectful parent. Molly talks about what that looked like growing up, how she found her way into recovery at age 19, and has been sober ever since.

She just really talks about her journey. And specifically, she’s writing about what she calls the worst year of her life. And I’ve seen some cheeky reviews say, Oh, this is the best book somebody could possibly have written about the worst year of their life.

[00:55:21] But her mother is dying. Her father-in-law is diagnosed with Parkinson’s, and her husband is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. And “she is overwhelmed” does not begin to cover it.

But what she’s doing here is very self-consciously saying, “Why am I even telling you this? Why am I writing this book? I think it could help you, but I think it can help me too. I need to write to figure this out.” And she’s just interrogating this very difficult, complex relationship.

But a lot of the characters are known to you because they’re public figures. And she’s sharing the side that we would not have seen, even if we were adults reading the news in Erica Jong’s heyday. How does that sound to you?

STEPHANIE: I like that.

ANNE: Okay. Oh, my gosh. And then my eyes just landed on a note I made. The Crazy Rich Asian series, absolutely. Or even his newer one, Sex and Vanity. I loved it. I thought it was so much fun. Weddings factor prominently there. They’re spicy. They’re sharp. But I don’t know, I still feel warm towards a lot of the characters the way he writes them.

[00:56:24] STEPHANIE: Yeah, I was saving… So, you know, I have my summer TBR and then I have my beach TBR. And so I was saving Lies and Weddings to go with me to the beach.

ANNE: Oh, yeah. I’m not sad about that. That sounds fun.

STEPHANIE: Good.

ANNE: Okay. We talked about a lot of options. I’d love to hear how you’re feeling in general about what happens next post the Nantucket novels of Elin Hilderbrand.

STEPHANIE: I do think I definitely have a lot of authors to try out. And I like that these are all books and covers and authors that have kind of been on my radar, but I just haven’t given the chance to because this was kind of like the push that I needed.

I think a lot of times because I am trying to focus on my unread shelf, I’m like, “Well, I need to wait because I need to read the books on my unread shelf.” And then, you know, of course that doesn’t happen because like book buying and book reading are two different hobbies.

But I’m definitely like, I feel like this has shown me the path of which authors I want to try as new authors instead of just feeling the guilt about my unread shelf. Because I did see something recently that was like your TBR is a menu, not a to-do list. And I was like, “Oh, I love that.”

ANNE: Love that.

STEPHANIE: Yeah, I think I definitely have a good way to spend my Barnes and Noble gift cards. I’m going to get for my birthday.

[00:57:38] ANNE: Well, I hope that really works out for you this summer.

STEPHANIE: Thank you.

ANNE: I’m wondering if I should ask you what you’re inclined to start with.

STEPHANIE: I think I’m going to start with Olga Dies Dreaming just because I’m in the library all the time at school and so I have passed that book a lot and always meant to grab it and check it out. But then I’ve always been like, “No, you have plenty of books to read.” So I think that might be the one that I start with.

ANNE: Okay. Not what I expected, but I’m delighted to hear it.

Stephanie, thanks so much for opening up about your reading life today. It’s been a pleasure.

STEPHANIE: Yes, thank you.

[00:58:17] ANNE: Hey, readers, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Stephanie, and I’d love to hear what you think she should read next. You can find Stephanie on Instagram, TikTok, and on her website. We have all of those links at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com in our episode notes. That’s also where we share every week the full list of titles we talk about in our episodes.

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Thanks to the people who make this show happen. What Should I Read Next? is created each week by Will Bogel, Holly Wielkoszewski, and Studio D Podcast Production. Readers, that is 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.