It’s June, and although it’s been a chilly summer so far, I’m in the mood for beach reads. So here’s what I’ve got going on:

Blood Island by Tim Waggoner

I admit the premise of this sounded ridiculous, but this is a fun, breezy read featuring a big sentient glob that eats people. To make this even better–and more meta–the backdrop to this monster story is a group of characters filming a low-budget horror movie called Devourer of the Deep.

Also. ALSO. When I flipped to the back of this book to see if the author had written anything else (kind of hoping Devourer of the Deep existed, to be honest), I discovered that Severed Press, the publishers, apparently have a whole bunch of deep sea thrillers. Awesome.

Those We Drown by Amy Goldsmith

Just look at this cover. LOOK AT IT. It’s lush and dreamy and filled with tentacles and seaweed just like my marriage, which is everything I want in a cover.

This is set on a cruise, which sounds relaxing, but there are tentacles, so don’t actually relax.

This was YA, so there was a little more relationship drama than I strictly need in my reading, but the plot was so compelling that I didn’t mind. It was nearly a flawless read as far as I was concerned.

Also, weirdly, I’m really in the mood to go on a cruise now. But let’s face it: it would inevitably be disappointing in comparison (although also safer, but still).

Solstice by Lorence Alison.

This one is a reread for me, but I just recently had to explain Fyre Fest to my children*, so I was feeling nostalgic.

This has all the chaos and ineptitude you’d want from a Fyre Festival-inspired book, but with a twist that makes it SO MUCH BETTER. Let’s just say that as much as the real life FyreFest people complained about what they were eating, at least they didn’t have to worry about what was eating them.

I mean, probably.

*I can’t even tell you how OLD it makes me feel to have something that to me feels relatively recent be discovered by my children, who naturally enough treat it as ANCIENT HISTORY and WEIRD LORE FROM TIMES PAST. Literally, I feel mummified by these discussions.