I’m heading out to our family beach house for a week of fun in the sun and toes in the sand. Life has been crazy stressful over the past few months and I’m really looking forward to getting away. Working from home has a number of benefits but one of the downsides is that you never really turn off your job. I’m constantly plugged in and it’s beginning to grate on me. In fact, at my physical earlier this summer, my doctor told me that I need a vacation. He literally wrote it on his prescription pad and handed it to me with direct orders to take some time off. I am ready to follow his orders! Part of my vacation will include some much needed reading for pure enjoyment. Not for research or to keep up with trends. Nope. Nope. Nope. Part of my escape this week will involve slipping inside some well written worlds. Here are the the 5 books that are going in my beach bag. THE RIDGE by Michael Koryta: This looks like a scary suspenseful read with a hint of romance thrown into the mix. I’ve never read one his books before but the blurb…

Top five things Griff loves the most besides Amy (in no order): Evenings by the fire in the fall. He’s just beginning to get sleepy for his semi-hibernation, and he loves just sitting in the cabin in the warm glow of a fire, preferably with Amy at his side. Griff loves Italian food, especially takeout from the Italian restaurant in Oakwood. Amy isn’t the best cook, but she’s learning and can make spaghetti now without all the noodles clumped together in a sticky mess. His Jeep. Not only is it his mode of transportation when he isn’t running as a bear, but he can take off the roof panels and feel the forest air around him. It’s almost as freeing as being a bear. Griff drinks a lot of it and he doesn’t care what brand as long as it isn’t Hazelnut or some weird flavor. He likes it hot with honey and sometimes a touch of cream. His clan. He loves his surrogate father, Elijah, and his clan-mates. Derek is as close as a brother to him. Derek even loves Powell, who can be pretty annoying at times. WAKING THE BEAR by Kerry Adrienne Shifter Wars #1 Sexy shifter…

In 1820, author Washington Irving published a short story called “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” which is still an American classic to this very day. If you do the math, you’ll see that this story is almost two hundred years old. So, why do some stories continue to be popular generation after generation? Well, aside from Irving being one of the first authors to make it BIG in 19th Century America, so big, in fact, he paved the way for other famous writers, such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and even beloved goth man, Edgar Allan Poe, Irving’s story tells some universal, timeless themes, and here they are in no particular order: GHOST STORIES WILL ALWAYS BE COOL – As long as humans have lived on Earth, ghost stories have been around to scare off our knickers. Our fascination with death and what lies beyond is bred from our fear of the unknown, so stories of darkness, things that go bump in the night, and wispy wraiths moaning about unfinished business will always be popular. In “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” the old wives of the town insist that the valley is filled with seen and unseen things, and trust…