Staff and supporters of Liberty Lake Municipal Library recently recommended a list of their favorite summer reads for adults. 

Light reading for summer tells of four women who head to a summer cottage on a remote island off the coast of New England for a month of R&R. Birdie, the mother, takes her sister and two daughters away from various situations that complicate their lives in an effort to resolve heartache and promote laughter and relationships. What starts as a peaceful getaway becomes much more!

This highly inventive, supernatural scare weaves English schoolgirl stories from the early 20th century and their reclusive authoress with a modern dysfunctional family and a mercurial old house with a history. Newman doesn't miss a psychological beat as he builds up the family's hopes for a new start and brings to bear the pressure the Hollows (the house) exerts for their individual disintegration. "An English Ghost Story" tells a good scare without gore or excess and includes a little bit of wisdom for families in the bargain.

There is nothing like escaping into a strange land of magic, courtly intrigue and medieval battle. But I don't want to be drawn into epic, multi-volume fantasy fiction that is overly blood thirsty and sexually explicit, so I often head to the young adult section. I recently read a YA series I enjoyed titled the Ascendance Trilogy by Jennifer Neilson. In book 1, "The False Prince," a nobleman collects stray and orphaned boys in order to find viable and controllable impersonators for the long-lost prince of a country of the verge of civil war; but perhaps he is better at finding would-be princes than he had planned…courtly intrigue indeed! 

This is a great choice because there is a movie and a miniseries based on it and it would be fun to compare the different presentations of the same story. The story is very scary and, unlike the characters in so many horror movies, you really care about them. It takes place in a hotel that is cut off from civilization by the winter weather, and this isolation escalates all the problems. The scariest thing to me was watching Jack Torrance slowly lose his mind. This book is a treasure and surely worth another look.

If you enjoy learning about local history, this book tells the story of the largest wildfire in American history that burned over three million acres in the Bitterroot Mountains of Idaho and Montana. The summer of 1910 was very dry-no rain in June or July-when strong winds began blowing on an August afternoon. The fire that had been holding in the surrounding mountains suddenly began approaching Wallace, Idaho. This book tells the story of how firefighters and local citizens saved the town. The lessons they learned from that fire still influence the way wildfires are fought today. Woven into this story is the history of the Forest Service and how this event helped drive President Theodore Roosevelt's stance on the conservation of public lands.

A fantasy novel for all ages, "Boys of Blur" brings a twist to the Old English poem "Beowulf" by setting it in the swamps and sugarcane fields of Florida. When the time comes to harvest the sugarcane and burn the fields, the boys of Taper, Fla., find sport by racing the flames to catch rabbits trying to escape the fire. But rabbits aren't the only things lurking in the sugarcane. Twelve-year-old Charlie Reynolds and his step-second cousin Cotton Mack must discover the secret evil hiding in the swamps and defeat it before the town of Taper becomes a city of the living dead. Wilson is a master storyteller, weaving fantasy and magic into everyday life. Through his writing, we come to understand more of the world we live in. 

If you enjoy murder mysteries that are not gruesome and jump out of the dark and scare you, you will enjoy this delightful mystery. Hannah Swenson owns a bakery in Minnesota, always seems to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and keeps finding bodies. She also gets involved with solving the crimes, usually by accident. She has to manage solving the mystery, all while baking the newest concoctions at the bakery and managing her two boyfriends. This fun read will have you guessing until the end! 

If you loved the HBO Mini Series, you will like this book. It delves into the life of Major Dick Winters and gives you much more insight into his life and that of Easy Company. 

The Le Cirque des Rêves is like no other circus you've ever seen. Magicians Prospero the Enchanter and the mysterious Mr. A.H. enter into their final competition. It's a game of magical prowess, where the contenders don't know the rules, and the lives of all around them are at risk. 

Both magicians have protégés raised to develop their gift for magic and enter into a fatal game exhibited at the Night Circus. Matters only become more complicated when the two competitors fall in love and must take the competition to its final conclusion.

Morgenstern has created an enchanting and dreamlike world with beautifully described characters, interwoven storylines, and just enough suspense to keep you reading to the end. I would highly suggest the audiobook, which is read by Jim Dale, the wonderful narrator of the Harry Potter audiobook series.