We’ve been in a bit of a heat wave. For Texas, this would have been moderate summer weather but would have been excessive for May. For here, having high temperatures in the mid-90s in May is extreme. At least it gets cool at night. As soon as the sun goes down, the temperature drops a lot, and it stays pretty cool until mid-morning. I’ve had to turn my air conditioner on, but it doesn’t kick in until late afternoon. Supposedly, a front will come through tonight and it will be a lot cooler tomorrow.

But this early taste of summer has had me thinking about summer reading. I tend to read by mood and by season. Fantasy is my fall and winter reading. Those big, fat fantasy books about magical worlds are perfect for long nights and the kind of weather that has you snuggling under a blanket with a warm beverage. I don’t tend to think of fantasy for beach reads. Not that I spend a lot of time on beaches, as I am not really a fan of sun or sand. But you can still get the beach read vibe from sitting on the deck under the patio umbrella or under a tree in the back yard (if I can manage to get rid of the poison ivy growing in the best shady part of the yard). It seems harder to immerse myself in another world and keep track of all the factions and characters of an epic story when I’m immersed in my own world instead of shutting it out.

In the past, I’ve tended to switch over to romantic comedy/chick lit and science fiction for summer reading. But with the rise of romantasy and fantasy rom coms, it looks like I may be able to keep reading fantasy for my summer reading.

It seems I was decades ahead of the curve with the Enchanted, Inc. books. They were fantasy “beach reads” published when nothing like that really existed. Fantasy publishers were violently opposed to anything that remotely looked like romance. In fact, when my agent submitted Rebel Mechanics to fantasy publishers, they suggested I send it to romance publishers. Never mind that there wasn’t even a kiss between the romantic leads. Enchanted, Inc. got published as “chick lit.” Now there are books along the same lines and with even more romance getting published by the fantasy publishers who used to reject anything that hinted at romance.

That means that I can finally find the kinds of books I was looking for to read when I first came up with the idea for Enchanted, Inc. more as something I wanted to find to read than as something I wanted to write. I had to write it because it didn’t exist then.

I’ve got a book from the library along those lines and there’s one in the stack of books I picked up in that box of books I walked past a few months ago, so I’m ready for some deck time this holiday weekend.