I would be perfectly happy for you not to recap at all. Having said that...
Bakker puts in a short section at the beginning of each new book which basically gives a page or two account of what happened to each major character in the previous book. This acts as an optional read for people who want a refresher, but it is entirely skippable, and for those that have just finished the previous book, it's useful to not have to trudge through recap during the text itself.
As far as I am aware, Steven Erikson puts in no recaps whatsoever. It's possible he does it so subtly that I'm not aware of it, but I don't think so. He has books that start on different continents or with completely new characters, but even when he gets to existing/familiar characters, he's still pretty much starting afresh with no recaps. I think.
I'm not sure off the top of my head how other writers do it, but as long as you do it well, I'm sure most people won't mind a bit of recap. If it's seeming forced, then maybe you should rethink, because bad recap has to be worse than no recap
Personally, I'd rather you didn't put recap in at all. If important stuff has happened since the last book, could it not just be mentioned naturally somewhere? If the recap involves stuff from the second book and I had forgotten everything from it, I would blame my own memory, not your story