Read Through New England: An Exclusive Guest Post From Jenn McKinlay, Author of Summer Reading

Summer is coming!!! While reading is an all-season activity for me, there is a special place in my heart for summer reading (pun intended) because the summer after I turned 9, I sat under the dogwood tree in my yard in Connecticut and read the entire 100 volume set of Nancy Drew. It was the first summer where I was in charge of my time, and other than the usual chores and boating with my brother on the lake where we lived or swimming at the nearby beach with our friends, my time was spent with my nose in a book. It was glorious! Summer will always be a fave reading season for me. 

Because my parents were hardcore New Englanders, most of our vacations were local, from camping in Rhode Island and Maine to staying at picturesque bed and breakfasts on Block Island and Martha’s Vineyard. These were some of my favorite trips as a kid (no chores!) and I loved the bicycle riding, tennis playing, ocean kayaking adventures that we went on as well as the sitting on the porch reading time I was able to do every single day!  

When I wrote Summer Reading about a Portuguese chef named Samantha Gale, who finds herself in between jobs and chaperoning her younger half-brother for the summer, I knew that she needed to be on Martha’s Vineyard in the cottage her family had owned for generations. When her character fully developed and I discovered she had dyslexia, well, the hero naturally became hot guy librarian Bennett Reynolds, the interim director of the Oak Bluffs Public Library, a place I absolutely love and urge you to visit if ever you find yourself on island. 

Sam and Ben’s meet cute might be my favorite of all the ones I’ve written, taking place on the ferry to Vineyard Haven from Woods Hole. It’s only a forty-five-minute ride, but their chance meeting, with witty banter and an instant soul connection, changes the trajectory of their lives completely.  

Looking for more beachy New England reads? Here are some of my faves: