Beneath the Book Club: It’s beach-reading season and time to choose our July book!

By SARA VANDEN BERGE

Summer is here and it’s time to escape into a great book!

It’s also time to choose Beneath the Book Club’s July read.

I have chosen two new releases, and for the first time, a book based on the behind-the-scenes story of the Kennedys.

I took a recent trip with friends to the British Virgin Islands where I enjoyed 10 days of rest and relaxation.

My girlfriend Robyn read Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed while we were on vacation and couldn’t stop raving about it.

I’ve already got it downloaded to my Kindle even if it’s not this month’s pick.

1. Happy Hour by Elissa Bass

4.3 on Goodreads

WHAT GOODREADS SAYS: “KK Rhinehart finds an unfamiliar iPhone in her husband’s car, and what she discovers on it ends her 25-year marriage.

“At the age of 55, and already feeling wrecked physically and mentally by menopause, she’s ready to give up. Desperate to hide, she retreats to her family’s Cape Cod summer beach house in the off-season.

“But KK’s two siblings and her two closest friends refuse to let her waste away on the couch. Their over-the-top support ranges from makeovers to hot yoga.

“Then, she meets bartender Jay. With beautiful eyes and big hands, KK calls the much younger man 'Surfer Guy' and can barely string a sentence together around him, but what she thinks is a one-sided, silly crush turns into intense interest from Jay.

“KK might be able to find her joy again, but before that happens, she must navigate viral TikTok videos, a national debate on reverse age-gap dating, heartbreaking loss, and a whole lot of kitchen dancing.

“In this hilarious, inspirational take on love with a younger man, mid-life changes have never been this much fun.”

2. Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed by Maureen Callahan

4.1 on Goodreads, Editor’s pick best book of the year 2025, Instant New York Times bestseller, #1 Sunday Times (UK) bestseller, one of Town & Country’s must-read books of summer 2024

WHAT GOODREADS SAYS: “The Kennedy name has long been synonymous with wealth, power, glamor, and—above all else—integrity.

“But this carefully constructed veneer hides a dark truth: the pattern of Kennedy men physically and psychologically abusing women and girls, leaving a trail of ruin and death in each generation’s wake.

“Through decades of scandal after scandal—from sexual assaults to reputational slander, suicides to manslaughter—the family and their defenders have kept the Kennedy brand intact.

“Now, in Ask Not, bestselling author and journalist Maureen Callahan reveals the Kennedys’ hidden history of violence and exploitation, laying bare their unrepentant sexism and rampant depravity while also restoring these women and girls to their rightful place at the center of the dynasty’s story: from Jacqueline Onassis and Marilyn Monroe to Carolyn Bessette, Martha Moxley, Mary Jo Kopechne, Rosemary Kennedy, and many others whose names aren’t nearly as well known but should be.

“Drawing on years of explosive reportage and written in electric prose, Ask Not is a long-overdue reckoning with this fabled family and a consequential part of American history that is still very much with us.

“At long last, Callahan redirects the spotlight to the women in the Kennedys’ orbit, paying homage to those who freed themselves and giving voice to those who, through no fault of their own, could not.”

Someone Knows by Vi Keeland

4.1 on Goodreads

WHAT GOODREADS SAYS: “An English professor’s deadly past comes back to haunt her in this chilling and sexy thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Vi Keeland.

“As a college English professor, Elizabeth looks forward to the start of each new semester teaching her creative writing seminar. At least until she reads chapter one of The Reckoning, a tale about a high school senior who has an affair with her teacher.

“To anyone else it would be the beginning of a great page-turner, but to Elizabeth it is the beginning of the end.“She knows this story. It’s all familiar because she lived it. The girl in the story was her best friend Jocelyn, and Elizabeth knows exactly how the story will end—with the professor dead.

“Because she was the one who killed him.

“Someone knows what Elizabeth did twenty years ago and her secret is about to be exposed, but who is the mystery student submitting the chapters?

“In an effort to find out, Elizabeth returns to her Louisiana hometown where it soon becomes clear that no matter how many years have gone by, she can’t escape her past.”

Ok, Beneath the Book Clubbers, which one will it be?

Vote for your pick in the comments section in the corresponding link on Beneath the Surface News’ Facebook page.