“The Housekeepers” by Alex Hay irresistibly combines “Downton Abbey” with “Ocean’s 8.”
Graydon House/TNS
So, what is a beach read, exactly? I’ve never been entirely sure; it doesn’t really make sense to read on a beach (all that glare!). But here are a handful of new books that caught my eye recently as being potentially good summertime reading; any of them might make a nice accompaniment to a lawn chair and an iced tea.
“The Housekeepers”
A rollicking heist plot seems perfectly suited to this lightest of seasons (if you miss a few details of the ticktock due to dozing off in the sun, it doesn’t much matter), and this summer brings two delightful ones. “The Housekeepers” by British author Alex Hay (Graydon House, $30) irresistibly combines “Downton Abbey” with “Ocean’s 8” — and if you think that particular combination isn’t catnip for me, clearly we have not met.
Taking place in 1905 London, “The Housekeepers” has at its center Mrs. King (she’s not married; “Downton” watchers know that cooks and housekeepers are always Mrs.), who’s gotten herself dismissed from her position at a grand home in Park Lane. Revenge is on her mind, and thus she organizes a motley crew of domestic workers, fallen women, dreamers and scammers to rob the house during a costume ball. Things go on a bit longer than they should, and not every detail feels plausible — but this gang of thieves is great fun to spend time with, particularly an enigmatic linchpin with the perfect name of Mrs. Bone. “You’d overlook her altogether if you didn’t know any better,” the narration tells us. “Which was just the way she liked it.”
“To Have and to Heist”
Also good fun: the gang from Sara Desai’s rom-comy “To Have and to Heist” (Berkley, $17 paperback original), in which Simi Chopra — whose life, in the manner of all good rom-com heroines, is caught in an amusing downward spiral — must mastermind a jewel heist in order to exonerate her ride-or-die best friend Chloe. As one does.
What’s particularly charming here is how Simi takes all of this in stride, instantly reinventing herself as a wedding planner (the better to get to those jewels). Just like that, Simi rounds up a team involving a driver, a hacker, a key master, a muscle, a gadget guy and an 80-year-old grease woman. (Yes, she’s clearly also seen the “Ocean’s” movies.) Desai, whose previous books have been in the romance genre, fills the pages with wry observations (Simi notes offhandedly that “Time goes slowly when you’re tied in a warehouse”) and allows her heroine some steamy romance with a thief who’s “gorgeous but in a devilish way.” You can practically start casting the movie already.
“Farrell Covington and the Limits of Style”
Paul Rudnick, in the acknowledgments to his new novel “Farrell Covington and the Limits of Style” (Atria, $28.99), wrote that the book had been written “after I’d lived a good long time, and wanted to at least begin to make sense of things.” I’ve been reading Rudnick for a good long time, starting back in the ’90s when he wrote a hilarious movie review column for Premiere magazine under the name of Libby Gelman-Waxner, and reading this funny, warmhearted book feels wonderfully like coming full circle. It’s a gay romance, encompassing nearly half a century and beginning when Nate, a middle-class kid from New Jersey (like Rudnick himself) who dreams of becoming an actor or playwright or “simply someone who’d call other people ‘darling,’” meets the patrician, carelessly handsome Farrell in 1973, during their first days at Yale.
Lightning strikes, and Nate and Farrell embark on a lifelong adventure, not always together, but perpetually connected. Along the way, Rudnick provides us a vivid history of gay life in America. (Nate, settling in Manhattan’s West Village after college, is dazzled to find his first gay gym, filled with “muscular men heaving and grunting and arguing venomously about opera.”) The AIDS epidemic affects them, as does a changing world of marriage equality, evolving language and a dream career for Nate writing for theater and film — but, always, writing for Farrell, dazzled by his “insistence on making the world gleam.” And Rudnick’s trademark wit sparkles on every page. At one point, in the aftermath of a breakup, Nate is horrified to realize that “without even thinking about it, I’d bought an Indian-print bedspread, the Ikea bookcase of the seventies.” This book is charm — and heart — personified.
“Did You Hear About Kitty Karr?”
On its surface, Crystal Smith Paul’s “Did You Hear About Kitty Karr?” (Henry Holt & Co., $27.99) seems like just the thing for light summer reading. It’s a stylish-looking family saga involving Hollywood royalty, extreme wealth and, in its opening pages, a mystery: Why would white screen icon Kitty Karr leave her vast fortune to a trio of Black (and already thoroughly wealthy) show-business sisters?
But Paul, in her debut novel, has something deeper in mind, and “Did You Hear About Kitty Karr?” quickly becomes a gripping, suspenseful dual narrative, in which we go into Kitty’s past and discover some painful truths, and examine the toll of a life spent pretending — both on and off the screen. “That’s the thing about lies,” says a character near the end. “You have to keep them alive.” I haven’t heard anything about a movie or TV deal for this book, but surely one’s coming; this cinematic tale jumps from the page.
“Welcome to Beach Town”
And finally, it seemed appropriate to take up a novel that literally takes place on a beach. Susan Wiggs — whose work is new to me, but who is a Washington state-based author of multiple national bestsellers — sets “Welcome to Beach Town” (William Morrow, $30) in California’s fictional Alara Cove, where surfer’s daughter Nikki Graziola leaves town after letting loose with some truths in her high-school valedictory speech. Years later, she returns after a tragedy, and must make peace with her past.
Though the plotting felt like it could be tighter, Wiggs finds a nice sense of place in her portrayal of the quiet seaside town where Nikki grew up in her father’s Airstream trailer park, dreaming of escape to somewhere more exciting. It’s a story of second chances, of letting the surf take you out and carry you back again; you can almost feel the summer breezes.
