By Beth Goehring

Ah, the feel of sand between the toes. But at this point in the summer, we’re also feeling the sand running out. It’s less than a month ‘til Labor Day when it’s “Everyone, out of the pool!” and back to work. Enjoy these precious last dog-days of August with novels that will take you to places on the planet and of the heart like you’ve never seen them before.  They’ll take you into fall too.

Looking for Love in Paris and the Provinces

The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George brings you into the heart of a city that is not only a tourist destination but a lifelong home to men and women whose hearts are decidedly not on their elegant sleeves. It is Monsieur Perdu’s gift as the owner of a bookselling barge in the Seine he’s christened The Literary Apothecary to intuit their fears and pain and prescribe them books that will heal. Of course, he is wounded himself and this international bestseller takes us on a journey away from Paris through the canals of France that is more memorable and bittersweet than any Viking cruise could ever be. Available at Amazon.

Hope is a Thing With Feathers

Vanessa Diffenbaugh, whose debut The Language of Flowers is a go-to recommendation that never disappoints, is back with We Never Asked for Wings, a new story of lost souls and families forged from loneliness and necessity. When her mother returns to Mexico, Letty Espinosa has to come home to raise her two children, six-year-old Luna and fifteen-year-old Alex.  Their struggles and those of the people they welcome into their lives give new meaning to the word home. Available at Amazon.

More Zipless Fun

You’ll find Erica Jong’s Fear of Dying at your local bookstore the day after Labor Day, but it is certainly worth the wait. Can you believe we’ve been waiting forty years for Jong to revisit the joys and risks in her legendary Fear of Flying? Isadora Wing’s best friend Vanessa Wonderman misses the power she had over men. Jong paints a rich portrait of this woman of a certain age determined to regain and enhance that power as she navigates life in a different era, her own and New York City’s. Available at Amazon.

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Beth Goehring believes, with apologies to Lorelei Lee, that rather than diamonds books are a girl’s best friend…and a boy’s, a man’s and a woman’s. For more than twenty-five years, through Book-of-the-Month Club and its related clubs, she’s sold popular fiction, mysteries, romances, cookbooks, children’s books, play scripts, behind-the-scenes tales of the movies and theatre, and lifestyle books. She lives with her husband and corgi in Manhattan.