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Has reading books ever seemed more essential than in these fraught times? Whether you’re looking for compelling and informative nonfiction or the sweet escape of a fictional beach read, summertime beckons with the enticing thought of diving into something special.
How to find them …
It’s never a bad idea to support your local independent bookstore. Here are some tools for deciding the best way to buy:
NewPages Guide: List of Colorado independent bookstores
Bookshop.org: Searchable database of bookstores nationwide
Once again, The Colorado Sun — and by extension our ongoing, weekly SunLit feature — called on some of Colorado’s award-winning writers to offer their recommendations for worthy titles in their genre of expertise. And as always, they responded with thoughtful selections bolstered by their knowledgeable commentary on why you might find them interesting or entertaining. Or both.
Come to find out, this is no small thing. So let us note that these suggestions were written by real people for actual books, which — sad to say — isn’t always the case in these days of artificial intelligence shortcuts.
We gave our authors wide berth in defining their genres — Romantasy, anyone? — which we hope will lend an even broader perspective that enhances the possibilities for summer reads. In addition to the suggestions, you’ll find links to buy these books in case you just can’t wait to get them into your hands.
We also provided links to some of the recommending authors’ own books, which often include excerpts that appeared in SunLit so you can sample a taste of their work and see why they were considered for statewide awards.
This long weekend marks the spiritual start of summer. So we hope you’ll pore over the list and find something that speaks to you, so you can continue your literary journey — whether in your favorite indoor nook or the warm and breezy comfort of the great outdoors.
Romantasy
Amalie Howard has explored genres from historical fiction featuring characters inspired by real people of color from the Victorian era, to young adult novels to the latest genre to capture her interest — a combination of romance and fantasy, exemplified by her latest release “The Starlight Heir.” Here are a couple of her romantasy picks.
“Goldfinch”
By Raven Kennedy (2024)This is the last book in the series, which came out last fall, but I do recommend the whole series if you love steamy, dark fantasy romance with great worldbuilding and passionate storytelling. It starts out as a unique origin story of King Midas and his ability to turn things into gold — hint, a captive fae — but then it becomes so much more than that. It’s really the story of how a gold-touched prisoner frees herself from an evil king’s tyranny to take back her agency and become the powerful leader she was always meant to be, with the right (and very swoon-worthy) king at her side. The characters are so compellingly written, and I was deeply invested in their entire journey. The series is addictive and unputdownable, and the romance is top tier.
“Warrior, Princess, Assassin”
By Brigid Kemmerer (2025)The 20th anniversary edition of this refreshingly imagined trail narrative adds new insight into the ways Suzanne Roberts renews the tradition of outdoor adventure writing. Focused on three young women who set out to hike the John Muir trail through the High Sierra, Roberts writes a book that pushes against many of the tired tropes of nature writing while opening space for new ways of considering how different people might go into the forest to find not just their souls but also their hearts and their sense of themselves.
Biography/Memoir
Stephanie Kane, a Denver lawyer and award-winning author of seven crime novels and the true crime memoir “True Crime Redux,” has zeroed in on a couple of books that are memoirs driven, like her own, by the author’s personal connection to a case.
“The Best Minds”
By Jonathan Rosen (2024)This book is about his boyhood friend, Michael Laudor, a celebrated Yale Law grad who murdered his pregnant fiancée in a schizophrenic frenzy. The narrative is heavy on the history of Yale University, community mental health initiatives, and the insanity plea, but what fascinates is Rosen’s continuing relationship — dare I say rivalry? — with Laudor. Beneath Laudor’s mental illness, when and to what extent did their interior lives truly diverge?
“I’ll Be Gone In the Dark”
By Michelle McNamara (2019)This book shows how obsession can come at a price. Drawn to cold cases by the unsolved murder of a neighbor when McNamara herself was a teen, she is credited with keeping the public focused on the man she named The Golden State Killer. McNamara has a great eye for detail, and her sharp but compassionate observations make her book a standout. Sadly, she did not live to see her quarry unmasked. As she wrote, the monsters receded but never vanished, and she died of an accidental overdose of prescription drugs before The Golden State Killer was brought to justice through genetic genealogy.
Thriller
Carter Wilson is the five-time Colorado Book Award winner and author of 10 critically acclaimed, standalone psychological thrillers, including his most recent release, “Tell Me What You Did,” which you can find excerpted in SunLit. Here are his picks for two other thrillers that might grab you.
“No Lie Lasts Forever”
By Mark Stevens (2025)This powerful thriller has all the right ingredients for an emotional, suspenseful read. It has a beautifully fleshed-out and flawed protagonist in Flynn Martin, whose professional curiosity and personal need-to-help often lead to her dark and dangerous places. It has bodies—both old and fresh—with questions around the connections between them. It has lots of cops, and Stevens is very careful in making the reader uncertain which ones to trust. And, to the reader’s delight, it has Harry Kugel, a serial killer who prides himself on having “gotten better” without help, this declaration one of many wonderful examples of Kugel’s sociopathic narcissism. In Harry, Stevens has crafted a bad guy for the ages, and the chapters from the killer’s viewpoint will have you checking the locks on your door. This is a brilliant, compelling read, which is exactly what we’ve come to expect from Mark Stevens.
“What Remains of Teague House”
By Stacy Johns (2025)This book shows how obsession can come at a price. Drawn to cold cases by the unsolved murder of a neighbor when McNamara herself was a teen, she is credited with keeping the public focused on the man she named The Golden State Killer. McNamara has a great eye for detail, and her sharp but compassionate observations make her book a standout. Sadly, she did not live to see her quarry unmasked. As she wrote, the monsters receded but never vanished, and she died of an accidental overdose of prescription drugs before The Golden State Killer was brought to justice through genetic genealogy.
Mystery
Margaret Mizushima writes the award-winning Timber Creek K-9 Mysteries. The eighth book in her series, “Standing Dead,” was a finalist for the 2024 Colorado Book Award and the SPUR Award by Western Writers of America. Her ninth book is titled “Gathering Mist,” and book 10, “Dying Cry,” will release in October. She offers two recommendations in the mystery genre for you to consider.
“Shadow of the Solstice”
By Anne Hillerman (2025)This is 28th in the Leaphorn, Chee, and Manuelito mystery series originated by Anne’s father, Tony Hillerman. Anne has written the last 10 novels in this series, and she keeps the original characters alive while enhancing the role of Bernadette Manuelito, my favorite in the series. In “Shadow of the Solstice,” the detectives must sort out a save-the-planet meditation group connected to a mysterious death and a nefarious scheme targeting vulnerable Indigenous people living with addiction. The plot is twisty and tangled, delivering gripping action mingled with touching family life.
“Killer Secrets”
By Kathleen Donnelly (2024)If you want to read an authentic story involving an officer and her K-9 partner, try this one by a retired drug dog handler. Donnelly packs plenty of details into her stories, which feature National Forest Service Officer Maya Thompson and her K-9 partner Juniper. In “Killer Secrets,” an avalanche rips down a mountainside, exposing a serial killer’s dumping grounds, and Maya and Juniper must catch the murderer before they become the next targets. This is the third thriller in Donnelly’s National Forest K-9 series, and while it’s a standalone read, you might want to start with book one, “Chasing Justice,” to give yourself an even bigger treat.
Creative Nonfiction
Greg Glasgow and Kathryn Mayer are longtime Colorado journalists whose work has appeared in numerous publications. They collaborated on their first book, “Disneyland on the Mountain,” which examines ill-fated development plans and the nascent environmental movement. Greg offers the first recommendation, Kathryn the second.
“The Absinthe Forger”
By Evan Rail (2025)This intriguing mix of history and mystery finds journalist Evan Rail on the trail of a mysterious collector who claims to have uncovered a stash of pre-ban absinthe—the infamous green liqueur alleged to cause hallucinations and other psychoactive effects. Along the way, Rail shares an engrossing history of absinthe, including its prohibition and its popularity among early 20th-century artists such as Arthur Rimbaud and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and shines a light on the nerdy absinthe subculture that has sprung up online in recent years.
“The Queens of Animation”
By Nathalia Holt (2020)As authors of a nonfiction Disney book, we love a good true tale about the history behind the entertainment behemoth. This one fits the bill and so much more. In her compelling, story-driven book, author Nathalia Holt relates the untold story of the many women who contributed to Disney’s legacy and its impressive canon—females who shook up the company’s boys’ club and paved the way in the decades to come. The stories and lessons are sure to surprise.
Sci-fi/Fantasy
Theodore McCombs is a writer of science fiction and fantasy and an alum of the Clarion Writers Workshop and Lighthouse Writers Workshop in Denver. His first book, “Uranians,” a collection of queer-themed speculative short stories about misfits and outsiders, won a Colorado Book Award. Below, he shares some favorite recent misfits from the science fiction and fantasy genres.
“Notes from a Regicide”
By Isaac R. Fellman (2025)The pleasures of a science-fiction revolution story lie in the fabrication of a political world that resembles our own enough to be relevant, but is different enough to excite us in its upheaval. Fellman gives us both a far-future New York and the much stranger Stephensport, a fairy-tale city-state governed by living corpses. But the heart of this book is a set of deeper upheavals, the story of a trans man discovering himself and his adoptive parents — revolutionary artists long past their barricades — anew. A wonderfully original, exciting, and moving novel of change and possibility.
“The Bog Wife”
By Kay Chronister (2024)Who needs a beach read when you have a cranberry bog? Not to mention the grotesque quintet of siblings caged in an ancient magical compact with it. This slow-burn Appalachian Gothic story skillfully surprises at each turn. For all its lugubrious atmospherics, the novel’s real horror lies in the claustrophobia of family bonds—not least, the bond with the bog that produces a vegetable wife for each new patriarch as the old one sinks into the mire—and the decay of affections that once gave those bonds integrity.
Historical Fiction
Diane Byington wrote the novel “Louise and Vincent” that won the Colorado Authors League award for historical fiction last year. Her bestselling work is “Who She Is,” about a young girl who wants to run the Boston Marathon — but it’s 1968 and women aren’t allowed. Here are two suggestions from the genre in which she excels.
“The Women: A Novel”
By Kristen Hannah (2024)I came of age during the Vietnam War and have read quite a bit about men’s experiences in that terrible war. But this book is about the women — mostly, the nurses who served with virtually no recognition. Frankie McGrath joins the Army Nurse Corps and goes to Vietnam so she can be closer to her brother, who has also enlisted and is fighting there. Staying alive during the war is hard enough, but when she comes home, she discovers that her country has changed and wants to do nothing more than forget Vietnam. This is a touching story with big doses of heroism and heart, and I send thanks to all the unheralded nurses who have served through wars.
“The Queens of Crime”
By Marie Benedict (2025)To completely change direction, you might enjoy this little novel about five women crime writers who join forces in 1930 to solve a mystery and convince their male counterparts that they are no longer willing to be considered second-class writers. It includes Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham, and Baroness Emma Orczy as the Queens of Crime, who band together to solve the mystery of a young woman’s death that had flummoxed the police. It’s a quick read that was inspired by a true story in Dorothy Sayers’ own life.
Literary Fiction
Kika Dorsey is an author with a doctorate in comparative literature and a lecturer at the University of Colorado. She has written several poetry collections, including “Occupied: Vienna is a Broken Man and Daughter of Hunger,” which won a Colorado Authors’ League award, and the novel “As Joan Approaches Infinity,” a CAL award finalist for literary fiction. She chose these two selections for summer reading.
“Demon Copperhead”
By Barbara Kingsolver (2024)This is a powerful read that addresses poverty in the South, stereotyping, drug addiction, and the trials of a young boy growing up as an orphan and caught up in the foster system. Its archetypal narrative is coming of age, and while devastating at times, the development of his character provides a redemptive quality that even makes the tough parts worth reading.
“Mothers, Tell Your Daughters”
By Bonnie Jo Campbell (2016)Campbell is a writer who speaks to my heart, maybe because she lives in the Midwest very close to where I grew up. Her book of short stories explores the challenges women faced in the 1970s and the rural environment where survival is paramount. Each story feels like reading a novel. The characters are sympathetic and flawed, the writing flawless.
General Nonfiction
Stephen Robert Miller is a journalist and former Ted Scripps Fellow in environmental journalism at the University of Colorado. His book, “Over the Seawall: Tsunamis, Cyclones, Drought, and the Delusion of Controlling Nature,” investigates the disastrous unintended consequences of shortsighted adaptation to climate change. Here are a couple of his nonfiction favorites.
“The Wide Wide Sea”
By Hampton Sides (2024)This book is a true escape — a fast-paced, high-seas adventure story that follows one of the world’s greatest explorers on his last, tragic journey. Readers who think they know James Cook might be surprised by the nuanced picture author Hampton Sides paints of the 18th-century British captain in his search for the elusive Northwest Passage. Watching from the deck of the HMS Resolution as it rocks in the Pacific, we find a disciplined adventurer with a prescient view of his own role in history and a conflicted sense of his country’s imperial goals, who spends years painstakingly avoiding just the end he meets.
“The Martians”
By David Baron (2025)This Boulder-based author has a knack for dredging rich characters from the annals of science. In this book, he shadows the astronomers who, at the dawn of 20th century, fell for and promoted a conspiracy theory so outlandish that it would be hard to believe by even today’s standards. But the book offers more than just an engrossing and often comical read; it trains a telescope on our own world, revealing a darker side of scientific ambition that can be both troubling and deeply inspiring.
History
Joan Jacobson is the author of “Dr. Martha Cannon of Utah: The Unexpected Victorian Life of America’s First Female State Senator,” which won the 2024 Women Writing the West WILLA Literary Award. In July she will release an expanded and updated 2nd Edition of the award-winning “Colorado Phantasmagorias: A mashup of biography, fantasy, and travel guide.” She offers two more looks at Colorado through a historical lens.
“Becoming Colorado: The Centennial State in 100 Objects”
By William Wei (2021)If the Colorado history you learned in school is a little rusty, or you grew up elsewhere and never learned it, William Wei’s book is an engaging journey through our past told in 100 bite-sized stories inspired by artifacts in the History Colorado collection. It starts with the Folsom spear used by Coloradans 12,000 years ago, followed by 99 other artifacts, including a buffalo-hide overcoat worn by the 19th-century cavalry, a beet topper used by a farmer on on the Eastern Plains, colorful crates for peaches grown on the Western Slope, to the custom water pipe created by cannabis entrepreneurs for the 2014 Denver County Fair Pot Pavilion. The illustrations are all in color.
“Gangbuster”
By Alan Prendergast (2023)Denver District Attorney Philip Van Cise’s campaign against corruption, crime and the Ku Klux Klan happened 100 years ago, but his story is remarkably relevant today. Inspired by the concept of equality before the law, fortified by personal integrity, and wielding sophisticated investigative tools, Van Cise crippled criminal enterprises in the city that others considered invincible.
This story first appeared in Colorado Sunday, a premium magazine newsletter for members.
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