The Next Best Thing by Deidre Berry

No drama, no problems—that's Tori Carter's idea of the good life. Her tendency to plan everything to the max has made her the most successful event coordinator in the business—and the number one problem solver for her family and friends. But when her perfect fiancé runs off with another woman, he leaves Tori without a Plan B-through-Z...or any idea what to do next. And now she's dealing with one surprise after another.

Her well-meaning friends are delivering a rogue's gallery of bad-news dates. Her demanding boss expects Tori to work miracles with ever-more-impossible clients. And Tori's handsome neighbor Nelson is a chef who turns up the heat in ways she never imagined. Now Tori has to improvise, let loose—and get wise—if she's going to figure out who she is and what kind of happiness she really wants...

Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead

The year is 1985. Benji Cooper is one of the only black students at an elite prep school in Manhattan. He spends his falls and winters going to roller-disco bar mitzvahs, playing too much Dungeons and Dragons, and trying to catch glimpses of nudity on late-night cable TV. After a tragic mishap on his first day of high school—when Benji reveals his deep enthusiasm for the horror movie magazine Fangoria—his social doom is sealed for the next four years.

But every summer, Benji escapes to the Hamptons, to Sag Harbor, where a small community of African American professionals have built a world of their own. Because their parents come out only on weekends, he and his friends are left to their own devices for three glorious months. And although he’s just as confused about this all-black refuge as he is about the white world he negotiates the rest of the year, he thinks that maybe this summer things will be different. If all goes according to plan, that is.

There will be trials and tribulations, of course. There will be complicated new handshakes to fumble through, and state-of-the-art profanity to master. He will be tested by contests big and small, by his misshapen haircut (which seems to have a will of its own), by the New Coke Tragedy of ’85, and by his secret Lite FM addiction. But maybe, with a little luck, things will turn out differently this summer.