Welcome to What to Read next podcast, the podcast, the topples your TBR, with bite-size recommendations every single day. In today's episode, I wanna talk about smart beat reads. So one of the things I do is I get, I provide personalized recommendations. If you're looking for some of them, just shoot me an email. We can give it a try. Give me what the books you're looking for and what your needs are, and then I'll curate a list for you. Or if I don't know those books, I. Welcome to the What your next podcast. The podcast is top of your TBR one book list at a time. In this episode, we're gonna talk about smart beach recommendations. So I would like one, I wanna share a little bit about how this book, this episode came about. I actually reach out to a friend, welcome to the What's Your Next podcast? The podcast that tops your TBR with bite-sized recommendations every single day. In this episode, we're gonna talk about smart beach reads. Okay? Gotta tell you a little bitt on how this episode came about, because that's what's important. So, a few weeks ago I reached out to a content creator who I follow, who I'm part of the community. I love gossip. I love gossip. It is my favorite thing. chisme I don't have any negative connotation. I come from Puerto Rico and if our number one TV show for about 40 years has been a puppet that tells gossip about the what's happening in Puerto Rico and it's at six o'clock everyone stops their TV and watches LA go. My. At one point it was La Essa, but LA my has been around since the nineties, like every, and she has moved every single channel from Puerto Rico because Puerto Rico has the OG Telemundo, the original, which actually it's far superior than American Telemundo. And then we have kind of curo and then we have, so we love the gossip. We have all the gossip. That's actually our national. Pastime. Our national hobby is to know like what do you, what is a tea? What is the latest thing? Tell us a little about it. So I love gossip. So one of the things I've done is I do, I'm part of the Bravo Cocktails community, which is a membership only community where you get hot piping tea about Bravo and other celebrities. So I knew Scandal, if you're No Bravo, I knew Scandal like three hours before it broke, before the news broke. That tells you how good this tea is. So, Bravo Cocktails is a great community. It's a, I think the membership fee is seven 50. They have an exclusive podcast. They do actually share they share special tea. They remove ads and they do all the other stuff. They have a great community on Discord. They do monthly zooms. It's just such a lovely community. And so I actually emailed one of the hosts of the community. 'cause I had a technical question that had nothing to do with the community, but I was like, I love your community. I actually have a technical question 'cause I'm a content creator. And I was like, I'm just looking. And she's like, oh my gosh, I'm going on vacation and I need some recommendations and I'm gonna look at your website. And I was like, let me just do you a favor. Send me what kind of books you read and I'll give you some recommendations for your vacation. And I love this task. If you have those questions, you have those ideas, you're like, I'm going on vacation or something, shoot me an email. I'll post 'em on Substack and I'll send it over to you. I'll send you recommendations. So her take on was she likes blue fiction, she wants smart beat treats like Evelyn Hugo, and just like, books like that. Similar books to that kind of like beach read. So I was like, well, I may not be the full person. I know Smart Beach reads 'cause I do enjoy that. But if you know my brand, I tend to write, I tend to talk about what's considered guilty pleasures. So a lot of romance, a lot of popcorn thrillers, cozy mysteries, what people consider trash. That's what I love. But I asked my friend Victoria from Bibliolifestyle, who has been. A guest in the show, she likes liter of fiction. She likes classic. So I was like, Victoria help me with the liter of fiction. I'll get the smart beat reads 'cause I do enjoy them. So these are four books that I have read and Joy loved. And I have recommended to my friends who do not read same genres that I do. And they're like, I like some recommendations. I like, I wanna read like, what's New York Times Like, what are the books? What celebrity books to celebrity book clubs are talking about. So these are the recommendations I tend to give to the most, to my non. Bookish reader, bookish listener. So these are smart B tweets. They're popular books. They're actually, she, they're not as backlist. So I'll try to do an updated with Backlist episode with backlist titles in the next couple weeks before we get to the summer. But in this one, these are actually four books that are recently released. But they're just as good. That doesn't really matter. So you should definitely add them for a pre-order. Or you might just get them from the, you might get them like, order them. They're not for pre-order. You can order them. You can put a hold in the library. The whole library holds might be pretty long, but just order them. They're actually worth it. So the first one is actually one that came out last year, but I got to listen to it and the audiobook is excellent. It's Margot Got Money Trouble by Rufi Thorpe so Margo is 19 years old and she got pregnant by her professor and so. She's like 19. She's a teen mom, essentially. I know teen mom made me think about like 17, 16, but like 19, you're your forefront of lo is not duh. Done. And so she's trying to figure out how to have a baby, like, 'cause she's gonna keep the baby and how to manage the whole thing. So she's 19. She lives with roommate. She goes to college, she. Barely has anything described by, and so she's trying to be resourceful. Her dad is a former WWE wrestler, but he's become a coach in her personality. But here, her mom and her dad are she's from the other family. So there's like a weird, dysfunctional relationship. So Neil is to say she's trying to have like create, like try to figure out what to do and she discovers that she can make money on OnlyFans, and so it's like her journey for OnlyFans and being a content creator, which is. Fascinating. As someone who does create content for a living, it's just a fascinating way to like look at it areas, a collaboration and like content and what drives it and everything between. So that content creation, that part is fascinating. But also the di the connotation of like you're doing on defense or her mom is marry someone who's a preacher who may not, who's conservative, who's like not happy about having Margo being, having a baby out of Welock. And then you have also the issue with the. Baby daddy, who is a professor, who's Mary and the baby, daddy's mom is very involved and like. Trying to shut Margo down and, oh, and by the way, Margo's dad just got outta rehab, went to live with Margo, so he's living there with her and he's trying to just like help her out and trying to figure out, so, and she has a roommate. So it's just a, it is so good. It is gonna be, this book is gonna be recommended and listicle, but it's just so good that I would say, if you have a chance, pick it up, read it, enjoy it. It's. So good. And then you can go back to all the other Rufi Thorpe books, which I actually have friends who have done that, and they are just like, she's an excellent writer and just perfect for avenge. All right. This book just came out and I hate to bring it to you, but it's so good. And we have recommended this already in the minimalist sky minimalist spring reading episode, which is all the other Mothers Hate Me by Sarah Harmon. Okay. The way I pitched it to Amanda is Amanda from Bourbon Cocktails. Is this is Ladies of London, so I think Amer, if you haven't watched Ladies of London, oh, it's a N Show in, it's available in Peacock It Air in 20 12, 20 13. These are like, basically there's a mix of American. New money. Americans living in London and there's a couple old money British people, and then there's like new money, British people, and they're all talking together and it's class issues and it's just snarky and fun, but it's very snarky. We're sarcastic and very like, looked out. I like. New, rich and all these different things. So it's that vibe of ladies in London. So, it's like a murder mystery, like not a murder mystery, but like a mystery to deal with. So the, I'm still, I'm listening to this right now. I am loving it. I just don't, I'm savoring it. But the setting is, our heroine is a 31-year-old former party girl. She wasn't a girl then think identity cane. And she has a 10-year-old son who is her reason to live. And so her son may be involved in some another kid's disappearance, so that's pretty sad. But she's like an outsider coming in. And she decided to investigate the situation. And it's just like a fun situation. 'cause she doesn't have friends. And so she makes a friend, unlikely friend with Jenny, who is a lawyer or a barrister who lives in, who is another mother of a child. But they're unlikely duo. They didn't ask her is like, did you have friends when you got arrested? And she's like, no, you're my friend. So it's just unlikely, Jill, we're still trying to figure out, I'm still trying to figure out. What happened to Alfie? I think that's like, that's a kid's name, what happened to him? But it's just fun. It's kind of like an upgraded cozy, it's like a mystery. It's not a cozy mystery. I think it, like, if you like family Donovan, I think you'll like this one. And I believe there's sexy time if I don't think I have reached the sexy time, but it's a more spicier, more fun filling Donovan upgrade. So all other mothers hate me by Sarah Harmon. And I also love. Rich people became badly. I love rich people became badly, and PTA moms just like school pickup and all the drama. So this book is for me. Okay. This book, you probably have heard about it and you just, and there's nothing more I could say it's The Favorites by Layne Fargo. I heard early buzz about this book last year and I was like, I don't know. I don't know about this. But then I got to listen to the audio book and I was like, holy shit. All her books are great. Or audio, by the way. They're excellent. This one is excellent because. It's a full cast audio. It's a documentary, so if feel like Daisy Jones in the six, this book is likely to like for you because it's a documentary about two ice dancers who broke up, who had a falling out about 10 years ago, and they're coming back for, they had a shocking event and they're coming back for a documentary. So we hear the heroine's voice through it. It's a retelling Wuthering heights. It's actually not, don't look at it for moments, don't look at it for a love story. It is just, it's withering heights. It's. Daisy Jones in the six. It's just a fun, documentary. It's a, it's like a show that you want, you're listening in your ear. So if you like Istan, if you like the drama, this book is for you. So that's their favorite for Lean Fargo. Okay, the final book is a Reese's Pick, and I hate to say this, but Reese actually a pick good book. So that's The Three Lives of Cate Kay by Kate Fagan Again, another great book on audio. It's done by cast, full cast audio. They're actually intermingled, so the chapters are pretty much told by the main character. Who's Cate Kay and she actually is, that's not her real name. And so even alternates, different timelines and flashbacks for her early childhood, her teenage years, what happened for her to let go of her identity because something shocking happened and then coming back to. Being in secrecy and then coming back to her identity. It all intermingles. I listened to this overnight. I literally started listening to it at one, like at 10 o'clock at night, and it did not finish until the next morning at nine o'clock in the morning. I absolutely love this show, this episode that I actually love this book. It's so good. There's shocking events, but yo, there's plug and twists and turns, and there's like a love story that just expands to like to the horizon. Just Hollywood, just like. Oh, by the way, Cade is a famous actor, a famous author. She wrote the, like essentially the Harry Potter of the, of that time, of that era. And so she's coming to terms with that, like what's going on? She's been secrecy. She's been like under anonymous. 'cause she doesn't want people to know that she exists. And so it's just so. Good. We got Hollywood, romance we got secret identity. We got a villain that you're gonna be like, whoa, so bad. And then you got like friendships, you got blossoming friendship and a blossom relationship with yourself and coming back to yourself and coming back to your identity and owning your worth. So that's The Three Lives of Cate Kay by Kate Fagan, and you'll get to know why she's called Cate Kay. So those are the F four Smart Beach reads. If you would like backlist episodes, backlist titles, let me know in the comments. If you're watching this on YouTube, let me know in the comments. What four smart beach tweets do you enjoy? Which ones do you like from this list? If you have recommendations for others for us to pick up that are coming up this year or back list title, let us know. If you're listening on the podcast, just let us know the comments or you can just sign up for Substack. If you just go to whattoreadnextblog.com, just sign up as there, and if you like your own personalized recommendations, just shoot me an email, the they the emails and the show notes and I'll drop some recommendations and post them on Substack and I'll maybe do an episode. And feature recommendations. So thank you so much for listening. Have a great day.