The Shampoo Effect by Jenny Jackson

July 2026

I loved Jenny Jackson's debut, PINEAPPLE STREET, so I was excited to read her new novel, THE SHAMPOO EFFECT. This time the setting is seaside Massachusetts in a town called Greenhead, which is inspired by Ipswich, where Jenny grew up. Caroline is there for a writing fellowship and plans to get a long work of fiction done. Her mother is a bestselling thriller author, and Caroline has worked at a publishing house. But now she wants to be on the other side of it, as an author in her own right.

On the ferry ride over, Caroline encounters a young man, Van Whittaker, who she later learns has lived in Greenhead his entire life. Their whole “meet-cute” scene leads to another casual meeting and then some dates. Van has a close-knit group of friends who also are lifers in town. Through him, she comes to know them and is treated like an outsider right from the very start.

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When You Loved Me by Beatriz Williams

July 2026

I love the Winthrop Island books by Beatriz Williams. With WHEN YOU LOVED ME, she shares a multilayered story that combines historical fiction, mystery, romance and family drama. This series has allowed Beatriz to build a rich, interconnected world where characters evolve across multiple books.

Here we meet Lucy Cooper, whose father, Bud, has died recently. He had lived his whole life on Winthrop Island. For years, he sought to find a legendary pirate treasure, which was rumored to have been buried somewhere on the island more than a century ago. In doing so, he had mortgaged the house and his savings. So Lucy has come home with her precocious young daughter, Elise, to settle his estate, and she finds a huge pile of debt.

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Chanel Cleeton, author of An Infinite Love Story

It’s 1968, and the country waits with anticipation and excitement as America sets its sights on the Moon. And then comes the knock at the door. Joe Mitchell’s spacecraft has lost contact. He and his fellow astronauts onboard are feared to be dead. In her quiet moments, Joe’s wife, Vivian, relives their memorable story. As the investigation surrounding the lost spacecraft intensifies and the mishap is written off as an operator error, Vivian is determined to clear her husband’s name and uncover the mystery of what happened in space. When someone starts sending Vivian messages --- messages she believes only Joe could send --- she begins to wonder if their love is stronger than space and time, and she’ll do whatever it takes to bring her husband back to her.

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Jessica Knoll, author of Helpless

It's been 12 years since Faye Heron broke Henry Spalding's heart. Henry was her college boyfriend, her first love, but Faye was in danger of being subsumed by him and the intensity of their connection. Now, Faye is one-half of a power-producing duo with her Hollywood husband. Henry is a married father running the family business. On the surface, both of their lives have essentially gone to plan. When a former and beloved college professor suddenly passes away, Faye and Henry find themselves back on campus for the funeral, circling something old and dangerous. But Henry is one of a kind. The kind who delivers a hypnotic apology for the way things ended. The kind who suggests they go back to the hotel for a drink. The kind who drugs and kidnaps her.

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Rachel Beanland, author of The Half Life

When 23-year-old Eileen O'Malley meets charismatic naval officer Paul Archer in a Charleston department store, she doesn’t expect to fall so hard, so fast. But soon she has a ring on her finger and is following him to La Maddalena. Eileen joins a makeshift community of navy wives who are hell-bent on making the island feel a little more like home. But for Eileen, whose brother died in Vietnam, home is a loaded word, and she begins to love the place for all the ways it is not like where she comes from. Still, it doesn’t take long for her to be confronted with the complexities of being an American abroad. Soon, Eileen’s marriage falters and her loyalties begin to shift as she is drawn into a web of secrets --- and to a local journalist who forces her to imagine a life beyond the one she’s been handed.

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Daniel Mason, author of Country People

Miles Krzelewski is a devoted husband, a doting father beloved for his outlandish bedtime stories, and the proud owner of a truffle-hunting dog in a land with no truffles. He is also a bit lost, 12 years late with his PhD on Russian folktales and increasingly haunted by a sense that he’s become a disappointment to his family. So when his wife, Kate, accepts a visiting professorship at a prestigious college in the faraway forests of Vermont, he decides that this will be the year to finally move forward with his life. But Miles is a man of many enthusiasms. No sooner does he arrive than he finds himself entangled with a cast of characters as colorful as those of any of his folktales. Then Miles stumbles upon a bizarre --- perhaps ridiculous --- local legend, which might not be just a legend after all.

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Ben Reeves, author of Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt

Travis is Death in the modern world. He lives with his cat in a small, gray town. His job is to offer people comfort in their final hours of life, which he does without complaint or judgment. He’s stoic, gentle and a little naive, despite who he is, but he never tries to change anyone’s fate. He is responsible for maintaining the balance of nature, and every life eventually must end. Then Travis meets Dalia, a midwife, and her boisterous eight-year-old daughter, Layla, who live across the hall. Despite his best attempts to keep his distance, he finds himself wholeheartedly embraced by other people for the first time. So it is with this seemingly unremarkable family that Travis begins to understand what it means to be truly alive --- and what might be irrevocably lost in death.

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