Our Guide to the Hottest Summer Fiction Books
Find the perfect poolside books right here!
If you’re the “li squad” we think you are, you want to find the perfect seasonal books. Books that are not just giving summer but giving trendy, diverse, inclusion, romance, and more. There’s nothing wrong with wanting it all! From anthology short stories to summer romance, pop open one of these books alongside the pool. These summer fiction books are filling that void you didn’t even know you had yet! You seasonal desires start here. Grab a towel, sunscreen and a new book now!
Top Poolside Reads of 2026
We’ll start with some light-hearted beach reads, including themes like romance and friendship, before moving into fantasy, suspense and dark comedy. Take a look, and you’re sure to find a book that matches your mood.
1. Our Perfect Storm
AN INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ∙ Best friends have one week in paradise to fix their friendship or fall apart in this heart-stopping, utterly romantic new novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Every Summer After and One Golden Summer. As featured in The New York Times ∙ USA Today ∙ People ∙ The Wall Street Journal ∙ Cosmopolitan ∙ Marie Claire ∙ TODAY ∙ Good Morning America ∙ The New York Post ∙ Parade ∙ Country Living ∙ Town & Country ∙ and more!
Frankie and George have been best friends since they were eight years old. Both passionate, impulsive, and headstrong–they’ve always clashed . . . and come back together. Until now. It’s the eve of Frankie’s wedding weekend, and she doesn’t know where they stand or even if George will show up as her best man. Then, at the start of the festivities, in walks George. For one glorious evening, surrounded by her loved ones, Frankie’s life is finally perfect. But it all comes crashing down when her fiancé dumps her the next morning, leaving only a note as an explanation. Crushed and confused, Frankie returns to her family’s home to wallow. But George has a different idea and a plan for healing Frankie’s broken heart. He wants her to go on her honeymoon. With him. For one week, to the lush rainforests and misty beaches of Tofino. Frankie agrees, seeing the trip for what it really is: one last chance to repair their friendship. Even if it means unearthing secrets and long buried feelings neither knows how to handle. Even if it means falling apart for good.
2. Fever Dream
A charming contemporary Western romance centered on a bull rider and his forbidden love
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Elsie Silver comes a small-town, forbidden, rivals-to-lovers romance, the first book in the brand-new Western romance series Emerald Lake.
Professional bull rider Emmett Bush is not looking for love. He’s looking for a paycheck to save his family’s farm from bankruptcy. So, when he agrees to be the leading man on a hot new reality dating show, Romance Ranch, he’s already decided it’s all one big performance.
Until Julia Silva walks onto his property. Smart, snarky, beautiful, and off-limits in more ways than one. As the location consultant on set and the little sister of his most bitter professional rival, she’s the last woman who should pique his interest.
Julia has been warned about Emmett. She knows better than to fall for his cocky swagger, broad shoulders, and smoldering good looks. Plus, she’s sworn off relationships.
But as Julia and Emmett work together, mutual distaste grows into an unexpected connection and then … something more.
Soon, they find themselves searching for excuses to spend time together and out of reach of the cameras. Knowing glances. Stolen kisses. Secret rendezvous.
Still, Emmett signed up to play the role of an eligible bachelor searching for the one. His family’s land and legacy depend on him completing the show.
The problem is, he’s already fallen in love.
Just not with a contestant.
3. The Night We Met
The instant #1 New York Times bestseller! From the queen of beach reads comes a novel about laughter, friendship and life’s messy choices, whether you make them or they’re made for you.
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Say You’ll Remember Me comes a beautiful, compelling novel that revels in laughter, friendship, and the messy choices life can throw our way.
In everyone’s life, there’s a split-second decision that can change everything …
For Larissa, it came when choosing who to ride home with after a concert. That night, she had no idea she’d met the perfect man. She and Chris are great friends, co-parenting a slightly unhinged rescue Yorkie, sharing their favorite books, and judging bread (pumpernickel for the win!). For the first time amid all her side hustles to scrape by, things finally feel easy.
But she didn’t choose Chris to drive her home all those months ago–she went with his best friend, and he became her boyfriend. All Chris wants is for Larissa to be happy. Standing by on the sidelines is slowly killing him, but making a move would destroy someone else. How can something that feels so right be absolutely impossible?
4. The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 2
Written in a diary-style format, this summer read is perfect for fans of Jane Austen, Oscar Wilde or P.G. Wodehouse.
“I was sitting at my desk reading, with a cup of tea, my windows flung open, when I heard The Tenant enter his garret, just on the other side of the wall from myself.”
THE YEAR IS 1883 and Emma M. Lion has returned to her London neighborhood of St. Crispian’s. But Emma’s plans for a charmed and studious life are sabotaged by her eccentric Cousin Archibald, her formidable Aunt Eugenia, and the slightly odd denizens of St. Crispian’s.
Emma M. Lion offers up her Unselected Journals, however self-incriminating they may be, which comprise a series of volumes. Armed with wit and a sideways amusement, Emma documents the curious realities of her life at Lapis Lazuli House.
5. The Lion Women of Tehran
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER: A sprawling book club read spanning three decades and multiple generations as a group of friends fight for freedom, ideal if you enjoy historical fiction, activism and international fiction like The Kite Runner.
From nationally bestselling author Marjan Kamali, this perfect book club read is “evocative … and a powerful portrait of friendship, feminism, and political activism” (People) set against three transformative decades in Tehran, Iran.
In 1950s Tehran, seven-year-old Ellie lives in grand comfort until the untimely death of her father, forcing Ellie and her mother to move to a tiny home downtown. Lonely and bearing the brunt of her mother’s endless grievances, Ellie dreams for a friend to alleviate her isolation.
Luckily, on the first day of school, she meets Homa, a kind girl with a brave and irrepressible spirit. Together, the two girls play games, learn to cook in the stone kitchen of Homa’s warm home, wander through the colorful stalls of the Grand Bazaar, and share their ambitions of becoming “lion women.”
But their happiness is disrupted when Ellie and her mother are afforded the opportunity to return to their previous bourgeois life. Now a popular student at the best girls’ high school in Iran, Ellie’s memories of Homa begin to fade. Years later, however, her sudden reappearance in Ellie’s privileged world alters the course of both of their lives.
Together, the two young women come of age and pursue their own goals for meaningful futures. But as the political turmoil in Iran builds to a breaking point, one earth-shattering betrayal will have enormous consequences.
“Reminiscent of The Kite Runner and My Brilliant Friend, The Lion Women of Tehran is a mesmerizing tale” (BookPage) of love and courage, and a sweeping exploration of how profoundly we are shaped by those we meet when we are young.
6. Remarkably Bright Creatures
A feel-good poolside read about friendship, magical realism and our beloved animal companions
A New York Times Bestseller * A Read With Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick … Now a Netflix Film starring Sally Field!
“Remarkably Bright Creatures [is] an ultimately feel-good but deceptively sensitive debut. … Memorable and tender.” — Washington Post
A charming, witty and compulsively readable exploration of friendship, reckoning, and hope that traces a widow’s unlikely connection with a giant Pacific octopus
After Tova Sullivan’s husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she’s been doing since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget Sound over thirty years ago.
Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine but wouldn’t dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors–until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova.
Ever the detective, Marcellus deduces what happened the night Tova’s son disappeared. And now Marcellus must use every trick his old invertebrate body can muster to unearth the truth for her before it’s too late.
Shelby Van Pelt’s debut novel is a gentle reminder that sometimes taking a hard look at the past can help uncover a future that once felt impossible.
7. My Friends
A fast-paced story about four teenagers and friendships spanning more than 25 years
#1 New York Times bestseller, more than 1 million copies sold! Winner of the 2025 Goodreads Choice Award for Best Fiction * A Fallon Book Club Pick * USA TODAY Best Books of the Year * NPR Best Books of the Year * Marie Claire 25 Best Novels of the Year * BookPage Best Fiction of the Year * Real Simple Best Books of the Year * Libby Audiobook of the YearThe #1 New York Times bestselling author of Anxious People returns with an unforgettably funny, deeply moving tale of four teenagers whose friendship creates a bond so powerful that it changes a complete stranger’s life 25 years later.
Most people don’t even notice them — three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. Most people think it’s just a depiction of the sea. But Louisa, an aspiring artist herself, knows otherwise, and she is determined to find out the story of these three enigmatic figures.
Twenty-five years earlier, in a distant seaside town, a group of teenagers find refuge from their bruising home lives by spending long summer days on an abandoned pier, telling silly jokes, sharing secrets, and committing small acts of rebellion. These lost souls find in each other a reason to get up each morning, a reason to dream, a reason to love.
Out of that summer emerges a transcendent work of art, a painting that will unexpectedly be placed into 18-year-old Louisa’s care. She embarks on a surprise-filled cross-country journey to learn how the painting came to be and to decide what to do with it. The closer she gets to the painting’s birthplace, the more nervous she becomes about what she’ll find. Louisa is proof that happy endings don’t always take the form we expect in this stunning testament to the transformative, timeless power of friendship and art.
8. Dawn on the Coast: A Graphic Novel (the Baby-Sitters Club #19)
If you grew up reading The Baby-Sitters Club, this pick will be a blast from the past! Enjoy a classic story illustrated by New York Times bestselling cartoonist Arley Nopra!
Dawn can’t wait for her trip to California. Aside from all the sun and fun, it’s her first visit since her brother, Jeff, moved back to live with their dad. California is better than Dawn ever remembered it. The beaches are beautiful, the local theme park is a blast, and Dawn is enjoying all her favorite foods. Plus, Dawn’s best friend, Sunny, has even started her own baby-sitting club! Things are going so well that Dawn begins to wonder if she might want to stay in California with her dad and Jeff.
Dawn is a California girl at heart, but could she really leave Stoneybrook — and her mom and The Baby-Sitters Club — for good?
9. Rites of the Starling: A Slow-Burn Epic Romantic Fantasy
A slow-burn epic romantasy, perfect for fans of Sarah J. Maas and Rebecca Yarros.
AN INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER, RITES OF THE STARLING is the epic, heart-pounding sequel to Devney Perry’s #1 New York Times bestselling SHIELD OF SPARROWS. A princess journeys across a cursed realm to find the truth about her family, only to discover her quest intertwines with the fate of a lost warrior. Love, danger, and magic collide in a captivating romantasy.
For too long, I’ve feared the monsters we make.
The Shield of Sparrows trilogy is an epic slow-burn romantasy best enjoyed in order.
- Book 1: Shield of Sparrows
- Book 2: Rites of the Starling
- Book 3: Coming Soon
10. The Ritual
From the New York Times bestselling author of Chaotic, here comes a campus romance with a dark side. Discover a a secret academic society that requires payment in blood and the only way out may be death.
THE CHOSEN ONE
Barrington University is home of the Lords, a secret society that requires their blood in payment. They are above all-the most powerful men in the world. They devote their lives to violence in exchange for power. And during their senior year, they are offered a chosen one.
I VOW. YOU VOW. WE VOW.
People think growing up with money is freeing, but I promise you, it’s not. My entire life has been planned out for me. I never got the chance to do what I wanted until Ryat Alexander Archer came along and gave me an option for a better life. He offered me what no one else ever had-freedom.
I chose to be his. He made me believe that anyway, but it was just another lie. A way that the Lords manipulate you into doing what they want.
After being sucked into the dark, twisted world of the Lords, I embraced my new role and allowed Ryat to parade me around like the trophy I was to him. But like all things, what started out as a game soon became a fight for survival. And the only way out was death.
11. Voracious (The Edge of Darkness: Book 2)
Looking for something dark and spicy? Try this erotic suspense from The Edge of Darkness trilogy.
HE’LL NEVER FORGET HER, BUT HE’LL NEVER FORGIVE HER EITHER
Stacey returns home with the security of Kade’s team, only to be dragged further into her own living hell by her deranged abuser Chris – until the opportunity finally comes to fight back.
Kade has never been so deep in the pits of hell itself. Seeing Stacey once nearly knocked him off his axis; seeing her twice – ready to submit to his dominance – is a disaster waiting to happen.
Yet despite his hatred for her, she’s his anchor, the flashes of what they used to be the only thing keeping him sane and stopping the darkness from claiming him completely. But what happens when the truth about their past finally unravels, and both he and Stacey learn what really happened the night that tore them apart?
12. The Ballad of Falling Dragons
An Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller! An epic fantasy with elements of romance, folklore and mythology.
The Ballad of Falling Dragons is the much-anticipated sequel to the New York Times bestselling phenomenon When the Moon Hatched, featuring an immersive, vibrant world with mysterious creatures, a unique magic system, and a love that blazes through the ages.
“Moonbeam. A moonfall is coming.”
Raeve’s thirst for vengeance continues to burn, as does her love for Kaan Vaegor–a staunch beacon from a past she’s yet to face. With Rekk’s blood still fresh on her hands, she learns the world will face its most devastating moonfall yet, forcing her to pick a path:
Chase death.
Or life.
Desperate to save his kingdom from ruin, Kaan’s crown has never felt so heavy. His many larks to scattered friends and family remain unanswered, and time is running out.
As allies merge and enemies surge with bloodlusting agendas of their own, secrets brew hot enough to burn, but none so mighty as the truth nesting within the icy depths of Raeve’s long forgotten past.
Something … Other.
Something with the knowledge to change it all.
13. A Short Stay in Hell
An existential fantasy written by a philosopher and ecologist. Explore what might awaits for us in the after-life in this haunting novella.
An ordinary family man, geologist, and Mormon, Soren Johansson has always believed he’ll be reunited with his loved ones in an eternal hereafter. Then, he dies.
Soren wakes to find himself cast by a God he has never heard of into a Hell whose dimensions he can barely grasp: a vast library he can only escape from by finding the book that contains the story of his life.
In this haunting existential novella, author, philosopher, and ecologist Steven L. Peck explores a subversive vision of eternity, taking the reader on a journey through the afterlife of a world where everything everyone believed in turns out to be wrong.
14. Mad Mabel
Once Australia’s youngest convicted murder, Mad Mabel Waller is now Elsie Fitzpatrick, living the normal suburban life of an 81-year-old. When her neighbor turns up dead, it’s up to Mabel to prove them wrong. Perfect for fans of dark humor and suspense.
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER – From New York Times bestselling author Sally Hepworth comes a twisty tale of justice, redemption, and one irrepressible woman who’s not done breaking the rules just yet.
Meet Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick: eighty-one years old, gloriously grumpy, fiercely independent, and never without a hot cup of tea–or a cutting remark. She minds her own business in her quiet Melbourne suburb, until a neighbor turns up dead and the whispers start flying.
Because Elsie hasn’t always been Elsie. Once upon a headline, she was Mad Mabel Waller — Australia’s youngest convicted murderer. But was she really mad, or just misunderstood? Either way, she’s kept her secret buried for decades.
Enter seven-year-old Persephone, a relentless little chatterbox who has just moved in across the road (armed with stickers, questions, and no sense of personal boundaries); Joan, who appears to have it in for Elsie; and a healthy dose of public interest–the cops are sniffing around, and the media is circling like seagulls at a picnic.
So Mabel does what she’s always done best by taking matters into her own hands. Is she a cantankerous old lady with a shady past? A cold-blooded killer with arthritis? Or just someone who’s finally ready to tell her side of the story?
Sharp, surprising and wickedly funny, this is the unforgettable story of a woman who’s spent a lifetime being underestimated — and is about to prove everyone wrong. Again.
15. It Could Have Been Her
Two women’s lives converge when Jane Trevally accidentally discovers the connection between her house and a missing teen.
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Then She Was Gone Lisa Jewell, two women’s lives converge in a house containing devastating secrets that refuse to stay buried in this “deliciously dark, devilishly addictive” (Alice Feeney, bestselling author of My Husband’s Wife) novel.
Jane Trevally is walking her dogs on her country estate when a small white terrier appears, alone and with no sign of the teenaged girl he’d been staying with nearby. When the teenager is reported missing, Jane offers to return the dog to his registered owner, hours away in London. Arriving at a run-down house called Thornwood in the deepest backwaters of Hampstead, she is immediately on alert because Jane has a dark history with this house.
The man who answers the door is not the man that Jane remembers from her past. He is cagey, and claims to know nothing about the missing teenage girl. Then, through the window of the house, Jane catches a glimpse of a haunted-looking woman.
Conjuring her memories from twenty-five years ago, Jane knows this unsettling house holds the key–to the missing teenager, to her own traumatic story, and to the dark secrets of the past.
16. The God of the Woods
A slow-burn psychological thriller about a camp counselor chasing down a missing girl and finding complex family secrets.
- A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER and ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES’S NOTABLE BOOKS OF THE YEARA NEW YORK TIMES “BEST THRILLER” and “BEST CRIME NOVEL” OF THE YEAR
- PEOPLE MAGAZINE’S #1 BOOK OF THE YEAR
- “Extraordinary … Reminds me of Donna Tartt’s 1992 debut, The Secret History … I was so thoroughly submerged in a rich fictional world, that for hours I barely came up for air.” — Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air, NPR
- “This expertly paced thriller … has the kineticism of a well-crafted miniseries.” — The New Yorker
When a teenager vanishes from her Adirondack summer camp, two worlds collide
Early morning, August 1975: a camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. Barbara isn’t just any thirteen-year-old: she’s the daughter of the family that owns the summer camp and employs most of the region’s residents. And this isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared. Barbara’s older brother similarly vanished fourteen years ago, never to be found.
As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow, Moore’s multi-threaded story invites readers into a rich and gripping dynasty of secrets and second chances. It is Liz Moore’s most ambitious and wide-reaching novel yet.
17. The Keeper
The third and final book in the trilogy finds retired Chicago PD detective Cal Hooper he searching a remote Irish village for a missing girl. Small-town power struggles and generations-old grudges make the job difficult.
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER & A New York Times Best Book of the Year (So Far) – A People Best Book of March
From the iconic crime writer who “inspires cultic devotion in readers” (The New Yorker) and has been called “incandescent” by Stephen King, comes the third and final book in the million-copy-bestselling Cal Hooper trilogy.
On a cold night in the remote Irish village of Ardnakelty, a girl goes missing. Sweet, loving Rachel Holohan was about to be engaged to the son of the local big shot. Instead, she’s dead in the river.
In a close-knit small town, a death like this isn’t simple. It comes wrapped in generations-old grudges and power struggles, and it splits the townland in two. Retired Chicago detective Cal Hooper has friends here now, and he owes them loyalty, but his fiancée Lena wants nothing to do with Ardnakelty’s tangles. As the feud becomes more vicious, their settled peace starts to crack apart. And when they uncover a scheme that casts a new light on Rachel’s death and threatens the whole village, they find themselves in the firing line.
“One of the greatest crime novelists writing today” (Vox) crafts a masterwork of atmospheric suspense that brings the story of one of her most beloved characters to a spellbinding conclusion.
18. My Husband’s Wife
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES bestselling psychological thriller: an artist moves to an old house and discovers her doppelganger is married to her husband
Discover the brand new #1 bestselling book everyone is talking about from the author of His & Hers, now a #1 Netflix show!
- “Nonstop thrills! The best Feeney book yet!” — FREIDA MCFADDEN
- “Propulsive, compulsive, addictive.” — LISA JEWELL
- “I loved My Husband’s Wife.”– CHRIS WHITAKER
- “A funny, sexy, thoroughly satisfying read.” — Washington Post
Eden Fox, an artist on the brink of her big break, sets off for a run before her first exhibition. When she returns to the home she recently moved into, Spyglass, an enchanting old house in Hope Falls, nothing is as it should be. Her key doesn’t fit. A woman, eerily similar to her, answers the door. And her husband insists that the stranger is his wife.
One house. One husband. Two women. Someone is lying.
Six months earlier, a reclusive Londoner called Birdy, reeling from a life-changing diagnosis, inherits Spyglass. This unexpected gift from a long-lost grandmother brings her to the pretty seaside village of Hope Falls. But then Birdy stumbles upon a shadowy London clinic that claims to be able to predict a person’s date of death, including her own. Secrets start to unravel, and as the line between truth and lies blurs, Birdy feels compelled to right some old wrongs.
My Husband’s Wife is a tangled web of deception, obsession, and mystery that will keep you guessing until the last page. Prepare yourself for the ultimate mind-bending marriage thriller and step inside Spyglass – if you dare – to experience a story where nothing is as it seems.
Top Poolside Reads 2024-2025
Let the Games Begin
(Sponsored)
by Rufaro Faith Mazarura
Set against a sizzling-hot Greek summer filled with sunshine and souvlaki, Rufaro Faith Mazarura’s Let the Games Begin is a page-turning debut rom-com about two strangers at the top of their game.
Athens, 2024. Olivia Nkomo has always been ambitious, smart, and an overall go-getter. Now that she’s graduated from university, she’s willing to do whatever it takes to land her dream job at the Summer Games. The first step? Securing her new internship, which will put her in the center of all the action, where she hopes to run into some of her favorite athletes.
Ezekiel “Zeke” Moyo, the heartthrob star runner of Team Great Britain, is more than ready to claim his title as the fastest man in the world, following in the footsteps of the greatest athletes of all time. His future to the finish line is looking bright–despite his recent breakup with celebrated gymnast Valentina Ross-Rodriguez constantly making headlines.
Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology
by Shane Hawk – Theodore C Van Alst
NATIONAL BESTSELLER – BRAM STOKER AWARD NOMINEE FOR SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN AN ANTHOLOGY
Many Indigenous people believe that one should never whistle at night. This belief takes many forms: for instance, Native Hawaiians believe it summons the Hukai’po, the spirits of ancient warriors, and Native Mexicans say it calls Lechuza, a witch that can transform into an owl. But what all these legends hold in common is the certainty that whistling at night can cause evil spirits to appear–and even follow you home.
The Glassmaker
by Tracy Chevalier
From the bestselling historical novelist, a rich, transporting story that follows a family of glassmakers from the height of Renaissance-era Italy to the present day.
It is 1486 and Venice is a wealthy, opulent center for trade. Orsola Rosso is the eldest daughter in a family of glassblowers on Murano, the island revered for the craft. As a woman, she is not meant to work with glass–but she has the hands for it, the heart, and a vision. When her father dies, she teaches herself to make glass beads in secret, and her work supports the Rosso family fortunes.
Tehrangeles
by Porochista Khakpour
A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK – MEET THE MILANIS. FAST-FOOD HEIRESSES, L.A. ROYALTY, AND YOUR NEWEST REALITY TV OBSESSION
“Delightfully twisted and heartfelt … Khakpour is a satirist extraordinaire…The antics and agonies of the Milani family had me googling pet psychics and turning the pages gleefully–at turns surprised and horrified, but always charmed and laughing so hard.” — Kevin Kwan, author of Crazy Rich Asians and Lies and Weddings
Iranian-American multimillionaires Ali and Homa Milani have it all–a McMansion in the hills of Los Angeles, a microwaveable snack empire, and four spirited daughters. There’s Violet, the big-hearted aspiring model; Roxanna, the chaotic influencer; Mina, the chronically-online overachiever; and the impressionable health fanatic Haylee. On the verge of landing their own reality TV show, the Milanis realize their deepest secrets are about to be dragged out into the open before the cameras even roll.
Enlightenment
by Sarah Perry
A dazzling new work of literary fiction from the author of The Essex Serpent, a story of love and astronomy told over the course of twenty years through the lives of two improbable best friends.
Thomas Hart and Grace Macaulay have lived all their lives in the small Essex town of Aldleigh. Though separated in age by three decades, the pair are kindred spirits–torn between their commitment to religion and their desire to explore the world beyond their small Baptist community.
It is two romantic relationships that will rend their friendship, and in the wake of this rupture, Thomas develops an obsession with a vanished nineteenth-century astronomer said to haunt a nearby manor, and Grace flees Aldleigh entirely for London. Over the course of twenty years, by coincidence and design, Thomas and Grace will find their lives brought back into orbit as the mystery of the vanished astronomer unfolds into a devastating tale of love and scientific pursuit.
Happier Life
by Kristy Woodson Harvey
With “her signature warmth and Southern charm” (E! Online), the New York Times bestselling author of The Summer of Songbirds and the Peachtree Bluff series presents a tender and touching novel about a young woman who discovers the family she has always longed for when she spends a life-changing summer in North Carolina.
Present Day: Keaton Smith is desperate for a fresh start. So when her mother needs someone to put her childhood home in Beaufort, North Carolina, on the market–the home that Keaton didn’t know existed until now–she jumps at the chance to head south. But the moment she steps foot inside the abandoned house, she’s confronted with secrets about grandparents who died in a car accident before she was born.
1976: After meeting her adoring husband Townsend, Rebecca “Becks” Saint James abandoned the life she knew and never looked back.
Slow Dance
by Rainbow Rowell
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Eleanor & Park and Attachments
Back in high school, everybody thought Shiloh and Cary would end up together . . . everybody but Shiloh and Cary.
They were just friends. Best friends. Allies. They spent entire summers sitting on Shiloh’s porch steps, dreaming about the future. Both going to get out of north Omaha–Shiloh would go to go to college and become an actress, and Cary would join the Navy. They promised each other that their friendship would never change.
Well, Shiloh did go to college, and Cary did join the Navy. And yet, somehow, everything changed.
Little Rot
by Akwaeke Emezi
NAMED A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF THE YEAR BY HARPER’S BAZAAR, PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, BOOKPAGE AND MORE!
“Emezi unspools a web of erotic danger in their entertaining latest…readers in search of a decadent good time will find it here.”–Publishers Weekly
One weekend.
The elite underbelly of a Nigerian city.
A party that goes awry.
A tangled web of sex and lies and corruption that leaves no one unscathed.
Aima and Kalu are a longtime couple who have just split. When Kalu, reeling from the breakup, visits an exclusive sex party hosted by his best friend, Ahmed, he makes a decision that will plunge them all into chaos, brutally and suddenly upending their lives. Ola and Souraya, two Nigerian sex workers visiting from Kuala Lumpur, collide into the scene just as everything goes to hell. Sucked into the city’s corrupt and glittering underworld, they’re all looking for a way out, fueled by a desperate need to escape the dangerous threat that looms over them.
Margo’s Got Money Troubles
by Rufi Thorpe
A bold, laugh-out-loud funny, and heartwarming story about one young woman’s attempt to navigate adulthood, new motherhood, and her meager bank account in our increasingly online world–from the PEN/Faulkner finalist and critically acclaimed author of The Knockout Queen.
As the child of a Hooters waitress and an ex-pro wrestler, Margo Millet’s always known she’d have to make it on her own. So she enrolls at her local junior college, even though she can’t imagine how she’ll ever make a living. She’s still figuring things out and never planned to have an affair with her English professor–and while the affair is brief, it isn’t brief enough to keep her from getting pregnant. Despite everyone’s advice, she decides to keep the baby, mostly out of naiveté and a yearning for something bigger.
Now, at twenty, Margo is alone with an infant, unemployed, and on the verge of eviction. She needs a cash infusion–fast.
Honey
by Isabel Banta
A coming-of-age story that follows the meteoric rise of singer Amber Young as she navigates fame in the late-90s and early-2000s era of pop music superstardom
It is 1997, and Amber Young has received a life-changing call. It’s a chance thousands of girls would die for: the opportunity to join girl group Cloud9 in Los Angeles and escape her small town. She quickly finds herself in the orbits of fellow rising stars Gwen Morris, a driven singer-dancer, and Wes Kingston, a member of the biggest boy band in the world, ETA.
The Coin
by Yasmin Zaher
A bold and unabashed novel about a young Palestinian woman’s unraveling as she teaches at a New York City middle school, gets caught up in a scheme reselling Birkin bags, and strives to gain control over her body and mind
The Coin’s narrator is a wealthy Palestinian woman with impeccable style and meticulous hygiene. And yet the ideal self, the ideal life, remains just out of reach: her inheritance is inaccessible, her homeland exists only in her memory, and her attempt to thrive in America seems doomed from the start.
In New York, she strives to put down roots. She teaches at a school for underprivileged boys, where her eccentric methods cross boundaries. She befriends a homeless swindler, and the two participate in an intercontinental scheme reselling Birkin bags.
Youthjuice
by E K Sathue
American Psycho meets The Devil Wears Prada outrageous body horror for the goop generation
A 29-year-old copywriter realizes that beauty is possible–at a terrible cost–in this surreal, satirical send-up of NYC It-girl culture.
From Sophia Bannion’s first day on the Storytelling team at HEBE (hee-bee), a luxury skincare/wellness company based in New York’s trendy SoHo neighborhood and named after the Greek goddess of youth, it’s clear something is deeply amiss. But Sophia, pushing thirty, has plenty of skeletons in her closet next to the designer knockoffs and doesn’t care. Though she leads an outwardly charmed life, she aches for a deeper meaning to her flat existence–and a cure for her brutal nail-biting habit. She finds it all and more at HEBE, and with Tree Whitestone, HEBE’s charismatic founder and CEO.
Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies
by Maddie Mortimer
Named a Best Book by Time, The New Yorker, and The Wall Street Journal
Longlisted for the Booker Prize – Winner of the Desmond Elliott Prize
This lyrical debut novel is at once a passionate coming-of-age story, a meditation on illness and death, and a kaleidoscopic journey through one woman’s life–told in part by the malevolent voice of her disease.
Lia, her husband Harry, and their beloved daughter, Iris, are a precisely balanced family of three. With Iris struggling to navigate the social tightrope of early adolescence, their tender home is a much-needed refuge. But when a sudden diagnosis threatens to derail each of their lives, the secrets of Lia’s past come rushing into the present, and the world around them begins to transform.
On a Woman’s Madness
by Astrid Roemer – Lucy Scott
A FINALIST FOR THE 2023 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR TRANSLATED LITERATURE
On a Woman’s Madness tells the story of Noenka, a courageous Black woman trying to live a life of her own choosing. When her abusive husband of just nine days refuses her request for divorce, Noenka flees her hometown in Suriname, on South America’s tropical northeastern coast, for the capital city of Paramaribo. Unsettled and unsupported, her life in this new place is illuminated by romance and new freedoms, but also forever haunted by her past and society’s expectations.
They Dream in Gold
by Mai Sennaar
When Bonnie and Mansour meet in New York in 1968–his piercing gaze in a downtown jazz club threatening to carry her away–their connection is undeniable. Both from fractured homes, with childhoods spent crossing the Atlantic, they quickly find peace with each other. And as Mansour’s soaring Senegalese melodies continue to break new ground, keeping time with the sound of revolution and taking him and Bonnie from Paris to Rio and Switzerland, it seems as though happiness might finally be around the corner for them both.
Girls with Bad Reputations
by Xio Axelrod
“Hot chemistry, fantastic writing, realistic character flaws, triumphs, and family drama–Xio Axelrod never misses a beat!” —Rebecca Yarros, #1 New York Times Bestselling Author
All her life, Kayla heard the same refrain: Don’t be so loud. Don’t act so wild. Don’t take up so much space. Now she’s the beating heart of an up-and-coming rock band…and the whole world is going to know her name.
The pressure to be the perfect daughter nearly broke Kayla Whitman. Desperate to find an outlet away from her controlling mother, she picked up a pair of drumsticks, forever altering the rhythm of her life.
Guncle Abroad
by Steven Rowley
Patrick O’Hara is called to his guncle duties . . . This time for a big family wedding in Italy. Patrick O’Hara is back. It’s been five years since his summer as his niece Maisie and nephew Grant’s caretaker after their mother’s passing. The kids are back in Connecticut with their dad, and Patrick has relocated to New York to remain close by and relaunch his dormant acting career. After the run of his second successful sit-com comes to a close, Patrick feels on top of the world . . . professionally. But some things have had to take a back seat. Looking down both barrels at fifty, Patrick is single again after breaking things off with Emory. But at least he has a family to lean on. Until that family needs to again lean on him.
Love and Hot Chicken: A Delicious Southern Novel
by Mary Liza Hartong
The debut of a dynamite new voice from the South, Love and Hot Chicken is a spicy and hilarious Tennessee story about family, friendship, fried chicken, and two girls in love.
The Chickie Shak is something of a historical landmark. Red clapboard walls, thriving wasp population, yard-toilets resplendent with sunflowers. My best friend Lee Ray and I used to come after our softball games and snag a picnic table while our mammas ordered the home team special. Truth is, most people around here order the same thing until the day somebody throws their ashes off a roller coaster at Dollywood. The line snakes around the building as far as you can see, the grimiest bunch of Jessies, Pearls, and Scooters you ever did behold, hobnobbing in the parking lot from noon until night.
Curvy Girl Summer
by Danielle Allen
Bridget Jones’s Diary meets Survival of the Thickest, a smoking-hot, hilarious novel about the perils of online dating.
“It’s the summer fiction book must-read!”
After a one-night stand with her clingy ex, Aaliyah James has an epiphany: this ain’t it. She knows what she wants, and she’s ready to move past casual hookups, flings, and situationships.
If you are realizing these are not the summer fictional books for you. Then guess what? We have a poetry, memoir, and self-care summer books for your vibe right here!
