A summer movie blockbuster ‘s worth of reading from BOMC

 

Having skipped last month’s offerings from Book of the Month Club, I was extra eager to dive into the selections for June.

Ironically enough, all of my picks happened to be from the prior month. Listed as a members favorite, Mai Corland’s Five Broken Blades is a fantasy novel that feels like an awesome summer movie waiting to be made.

In order to take down the seemingly unstoppable King Joon, a team of unlikely allies is formed by a royal spy master determined to place his own candidate upon the throne. The plan is set to take place at a championship game but just getting there is a perilous journey with numerous foes to fight along the way.

With risky alliances and a potential traitor in their midst, can this rough yet ready crew pull this ultimate assignment off or become casualties of a never ending political battle?

So happy to have this book on hand and my elevator pitch for this would be “The Suicide Squad meets Game of Thrones“(no dragons here but still…):

As a double feature, I went with One Perfect Couple by Ruth Ware.

The couple in question is Lyla and Nico, who having been dating for a few years but their relationship is starting to fade fast.

To strengthen their ties, Lyla agrees to go with Nico to a remote island for a romance themed reality show that could boost his flagging acting career. Things begin well enough for an experience like this but the tide turns in a very dangerous direction.

When a storm hits the island, the power source is damaged along with most of the supplies. In addition to that, a body is discovered and that demise doesn’t appear to be an act of nature. Faced with some serious reality issues, Lyla forms some new alliances to stay alive until a rescue arrives but hopefully to find the killer hiding among them in plain sight.

I’ve only finished one Ruth Ware novel(The Woman in Cabin 10) and would really like to complete another but my success in that goal hasn’t been achieved just yet. Since this story has a bit of Knives Out energy to it, my chances are considerably better towards that literary end:

For something a bit more chill, Christina Lauren’s The Paradise Problem is that cool drink of romcom punch just right for the season.

When Anna got into a marriage of convenience (for student housing in college), she never thought that her temporary husband Liam would be around after graduation.

A few years later, Liam shows to tell that a) they’re still married and b) he needs Anna to join him on a destination wedding trip with his family in order to claim an inheritance. He does offer to pay her and since she’s recently unemployed with her father’s medical bills as part of her financial responsibilities, Anna says yes to the deal.

Having not taken the time to know him beforehand, Anna is pleasantly surprised to learn that Liam is a good guy,despite his lengthy deception scheme with his rather obnoxious family. Liam starts feeling the same but in making this sham marriage too risky for all concerned?

Christina Lauren is a real charmer when it comes to making these familiar genre moves weave themselves into a fresh new pattern of romantic comedy style. I’ve already started this book and it’s an entertaining proposal thus far:

Well, my summer reading in general is going well as I finished the first book in my Sci-Fi Summer readathon and had a most unexpected book haul of major proportions (more on that one next time!)there.

With the warm weather fast approaching, seeking shade with a few cinematic worthy reads is a sensible solution indeed. After all, the remaining season of Bridgerton has only four new episodes newly dropped and as lovely as those are, it won’t be enough to fully sustain us gentle readers for the rest of the summer!: