You are, on vacation and would like to sit in the sun at the beach and read an interesting book. But there are so many choices, so many decisions to make.... what to pick?

Of course we do always encourage everyone to read about our area, about its rich history or some local mysteries. Click here for some of our featured local titles.

Here are some interesting reads we think you'll enjoy.

On Folley Beach
A Novel by
Karen White

Synopsis

The latest Southern novel from the acclaimed bestselling and award- winning author of The Memory of Water. To most people, Folly Beach, South Carolina, is simply the last barrier island before the Atlantic. To some, it's a sanctuary, which is why Janie Hamilton's mother encourages her to buy the local book store, Folly's Finds, hoping it will distract Janie from the loss of her husband in Afghanistan. Janie is at first resistant, but intrigued after finding love letters and an image of a beautiful bottle tree in a box of used books from Folly's Finds, and decides to take the plunge. The store's seller insists on one condition: Janie must allow Lulu, the late owner's elderly sister, to continue selling her bottle trees from its back yard. Historically, bottle trees were brought by African slaves to the American South, and Janie had grown up with one in her backyard, and it has always been a symbol of refuge to her. Janie generally ignores Lulu as she sifts through the love letters, wanting to learn more. But the more she discovers of the letters' authors, the closer she feels to Lulu. As details of a possible murder and a mysterious disappearance during World War II are revealed, the two women discover that circumstances beyond their control, sixty years apart, have brought them together, here on Folly Beach. And it is here that their war-ravaged hearts can find hope for a second chance...

Fall of Giants
A Novel by
Ken Follett

Synopsis

Fall of Giants is his magnificent new historical epic. The first novel in The Century Trilogy, it follows the fates of five interrelated families-American, German, Russian, English, and Welsh-as they move through the world-shaking dramas of the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the struggle for women's suffrage.

Thirteen-year-old Billy Williams enters a man's world in the Welsh mining pits...Gus Dewar, an American law student rejected in love, finds a surprising new career in Woodrow Wilson's White House...two orphaned Russian brothers, Grigori and Lev Peshkov, embark on radically different paths half a world apart when their plan to emigrate to America falls afoul of war, conscription, and revolution...Billy's sister, Ethel, a housekeeper for the aristocratic Fitzherberts, takes a fateful step above her station, while Lady Maud Fitzherbert herself crosses deep into forbidden territory when she falls in love with Walter von Ulrich, a spy at the German embassy in London...

These characters and many others find their lives inextricably entangled as, in a saga of unfolding drama and intriguing complexity, Fall of Giants moves seamlessly from Washington to St. Petersburg, from the dirt and danger of a coal mine to the glittering chandeliers of a palace, from the corridors of power to the bedrooms of the mighty. As always with Ken Follett, the historical background is brilliantly researched and rendered, the action fast-moving, the characters rich in nuance and emotion. It is destined to be a new classic.

Safe Haven
A Novel by
Nicholas Sparks

Synopsis

A young woman appears in a small NC town. She makes one friend, a woman who lives nearby, but other than that, she keeps to herself. Soon, however, a series of events pulls her into the circle of a local merchant, a widower with two children, and against her better judgment, she finds herself drawn to him and letting down her carefully constructed guard.

For this women has a secret, a secret that has forced her to hide her identity, run as far away as she can from home, and escape a past that still haunts and terrifies her.

It is inevitable that her past will catch up with her-in the form of an abusive husband who refuses to let her go. But what remains unknown is whether she will allow herself to love and trust again, and to what extent her husband will go to ensure that she'll have a future...but only if it includes him...