Back away from Fifty Shades of Grey. Sure, it’s appropriately steamy reading for a hot summer day, but there are plenty of other books out there perfect for wiling away the hours at the beach.

Just ask Jennifer Weiner, best-selling author of The Next Best Thing. She writes for CBS News that chick lit is alive and well and offers up the following five books to end the season in style.

These Girls, by Sarah Pekkanen: “Three young women come to New York City,” Weiner writes. “Two of them are chasing magazine careers, one of them’s running from demons back home. In Pekkanen’s vividly detailed story, the ladies bond, struggle with secrets, nasty Internet comments, and happy endings that may or may not involve Mr. Right.”

Off the Menu, by Stacey Ballis: “Alana Osterman will do anything for her charismatic superstar celebrity chef employer—to the detriment of her personal life,” Weiner writes.

I Couldn’t Love You More, by Jillian Medoff: “Eliot Gordon has what Alana wants: a loving partner, a daughter she adores, stepdaughters, sisters, a busy and fulfilling life,” Weiner writes. “Then an old flame shows up . . . and when the kids are in the water, Eliot faces an unthinkable choice.”

Blame, by Michelle Huneven: Weiner calls this book, about a woman who kills a mother and child in a drunk-driving incident, “one of the most thought-provoking books I’ve read in years. What if the worst thing you’ve ever done turns out to be the thing that saves you?”

Freeman, by Leonard Pitts Jr.: Weiner says the first novel from the Pulitzer Prize–winning newspaper columnist is “gorgeously” written. “Fans of Cold Mountain and Cormac McCarthy will love this story of a former slave making his way across a shattered nation to find the woman he loves,” she writes.

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