Is there anything better than a day in the sand or by the pool with a good book? We sure don't think so. And this summer, we fully intend to spend plenty of time waterside working through our reading list. (And reapplying SPF in dermatologist-recommended intervals, of course. Sunscreen is officially one of our closest BFFs.)
So, what makes a perfect beachy read? A good book is in the eye of the beholder, but we like a little bit of a mix: intrigue, romance, generational dramas, all manner of coming-of-age hilarity, and of course, a moving memoir or two. We've pulled together a list of titles that definitely deserve a spot in your tote bag, next to your towel and a chic wide-brimmed hat. Happy reading! See you at book club.
The Assistants
By Camille Perri
Out now
Tina Fontana is a 30-year-old assistant barely scraping by while working for the CEO of a multinational media organisation. And she's always played by the rules, until now. When the opportunity to wipe out her student debt presents itself, Tina takes it.
But just when she thinks her secret is safe, another assistant finds out, pulling Tina into a major embezzlement scheme that could land her in a world of major pain. This delightfully wry debut from former Esquire and Cosmo books editor Camille Perri is equal parts satire and modern-day Robin Hood tale. And if you’ve ever worked too hard for too little while the people above you are rolling in bank...well this is a book you’re going to adore.
Read our interview with the author.
Photo: G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS.
I Take You
By Eliza Kennedy
Out May 24
Lily and Will are engaged — and madly in love. But the closer they get to their wedding date, the more it becomes clear to them both that there's another side to Lily — one that might make getting married a huge mistake. Sexy, sassy, and wonderfully unapologetic, I Take You really goes there, in the most bawdy and brilliant way.
Photo: Broadway Books.
Last Ride to Graceland
By Kim Wright
Out May 24
Cory Ainsworth is a blues musician who has never known the identity of her father — but it's within the realm of possibility that her dear old dad could have been Elvis Presley himself. When Cory finds a piece of rock-'n'-roll history belonging to the King in a family storage shed, she decides to turn it over to his estate, taking a road trip down to Memphis. But what she finds along the way isn't just her parentage. On the ride to Graceland, Cory discovers herself.
Photo: Gallery Books.
It's Okay to Laugh (Crying Is Cool, Too)
By Nora McInerny Purmort
Out May 24
Nora McInerny Purmort had been through the dating ringer and wasn't sure if she would ever find The One — until she met Aaron. They fell hard and fast in love, but not long afterward, Aaron was diagnosed with a rare, terminal brain cancer. Together, they had to decide how they would spend his remaining months.
This gorgeous and insightful memoir holds up the lens to mortality and leaves us with a reminder to make every moment count and value what is truly precious: time — and laughter.
Photo: Dey Street Books.
Modern Lovers
By Emma Straub
Out June 30
Elizabeth and Zoe became best friends in college — and have stayed close ever since. After Oberlin, they moved to Brooklyn’s not-yet-gentrified Ditmas Park and stayed put while life (and the neighborhood) sprung up around them. They got married, started their own families and businesses, and worked their way through middle age.
But the past is always present, and things get complicated — especially when a producer approaches both women, along with Elizabeth’s husband Andrew, about being part of a film project that would reveal some unseemly moments from their youth. Modern Lovers, by the best-selling writer behind The Vacationers, is a treat, as well as a fabulous coming-of-age novel about women entering into a new era of their lives.
Photo: Riverhead Books.
This Is Not My Beautiful Life
By Victoria Fedden
Out July 13
Picture it: You're 36, pregnant, and living with your parents in Florida, when one morning the DEA knocks on the door to take your mom and stepdad down. Turns out, they've been masterminding a pump-and-dump scheme, and the only place their grandkid is going to see them for a while is behind bars.
So, what's a new mother to do when her family is in barely functioning order and she's got a new human on her hands? Work her way through it — and this laugh-out-loud memoir tells us how she did it.
Photo: Picador.
Homegoing
By Yaa Gyasi
Out June 7
At the beginning of Gyasi's epic debut novel, two half-sisters, Effia and Esi, are born in different villages in Ghana: One is married off to an English slave-trader, while the other is imprisoned and sent to America to become a slave herself. The stories of their families unfurl from those fates, and each chapter in this gorgeous and often heartbreaking book picks up with a new generation of the sisters' descendants, until the novel arrives in the modern moment.
Visceral and haunting, Homegoing traces three centuries of history, beginning in Africa and wending its way to modern-day San Francisco. If you're going to read one book the entire summer, let this be the one: Not only will it stimulate your literary sensibilities, it is an important and timely reminder of the legacy of Black existence in America.
Photo: Knopf.
The Girls
By Emma Cline
Out June 16
This is not the story of the Summer of Evil. But you don't have to read too closely to see the tale of the Manson family emerge. Debut author Emma Cline crafts a thrilling coming-of-age novel imbued with an anxious urgency. As the drama builds and your eyes widen, it becomes ever more impossible to find a stopping point in this beautifully written book. For that reason: Plan to pick it up on a day when you have literally nothing else to do.
Photo: Random House.
Monsters: A Love Story
By Liz Kay
Out June 7
Stacey has been a mess since her husband passed away eight months ago — unable to write, constantly feeling like she's failing her kids — and something has got to give.
But when Tommy — an A-list actor who wants to turn Stacey's feminist rewrite of Frankenstein into a movie — arrives on the scene, things get even messier. Tommy and Stacey fall for each other, but their budding relationship is anything but smooth sailing. Monsters tells the story of two people who are made for one another, but can't quite see that themselves because of all the baggage between them.
Photo: G.P. Putnam's Sons.
Rich and Pretty
By Rumaan Alam
Out June 7
Female friendships are a complex and beautiful thing. But what happens when your best friend — who has been like a sister to you for nearly 20 years — suddenly becomes someone you're not sure you even like very much anymore?
This delightful debut explores the longtime relationship between Sarah and Lauren, besties who have grown up and apart but still can't deny the tether that binds them. A charming and insightful meditation on what it means to mature and adapt to adult life while still holding on to our shared histories, Rich and Pretty is a perfect pick for book clubs and BFFs — and, of course, for a day at the beach with the most important lady friend in your life.
Photo: Ecco.
Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty
By Ramona Ausubel
Out June 14
On Labour Day of 1976, Fern and Edgar — a married couple enjoying all the boons of being solidly upper class — happen upon their worst nightmare: becoming suddenly poor. After finding out that their fortune has disappeared, they both begin to unravel, which in turn leaves their three children left to fend for themselves, often for days at a time.
Nine-year-old Cricket becomes the de facto leader of the little trio, creating a sort of Neverland for his siblings on Martha's Vineyard in the wake of their parents' misfortune. Full of wisdom and wonderfully meditative insights on wealth and class in America, Sons and Daughters is both highly imaginative and philosophical in scope.
Photo: Riverhead Books.
The Whale: A Love Story
By Mark Beauregard
Out June 14
It's the summer of 1850, and Herman Melville is in a sad state of affairs. Hounded by debt-collectors and critics, he is afraid his writing career might have come to an end — until a fateful picnic in the Berkshires and a chance meeting changes the course of his life and the literary legacy he'll leave behind.
The Whale is the story of that meeting between Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne and the connection that formed between these two brilliant men. Full of nuance and passion and an incredible amount of objective research, The Whale swirls around the relationship between Melville and Hawthorne, without losing its factual footing or sacrificing any storied intrigue.
Photo: Viking.
Hot Milk
By Deborah Levy
Out now
Sofia has spent most of her life trying to solve the mystery of her mother's mercurial illness. But despite how frustrating that endeavor has been, she's more than happy to hit pause on her own life to accompany her mom to southern Spain over the summer for an experimental treatment.
But once they arrive, it becomes clear that the doctor's methods are more than a little unusual — and Sofia's mother's symptoms become even more confusing. But as the true source of the pain begins to bubble to the surface, Sofia discovers how her mother's suffering connects to her own struggles. Dazzling and, at times, deeply disturbing, Hot Milk is a mystery meets introspective coming-of-age novel. It's unnerving — and that's a good thing.
Photo: Bloomsbury USA.
Invincible Summer
By Alice Adams
Out June 28
The summer after college, Eva, Benedict, Sylvie, and Lucien all break away from their comfortable routines and try and reinvent themselves as adults on the cusp of the new millennium. But a toxic romance between two of the friends, combined with their expanding geographic divides, make staying in touch a true struggle. Once they reconvene, they realise how much they all really need one another and that they have to reconnect. A testament to the power of friendship and love, this is a beautiful coming-of-age story about the intimacy of long-term relationships against the changing landscape of time.
Photo: Little, Brown and Company.
Losing It
By Emma Rathbone
Out July 19
Julia Greenfield is 26 and uncomfortable with the fact that she hasn't lost her virginity. With sex in mind, she travels to spend the summer with her aunt Vivienne in North Carolina. As it turns out, 58-year-old Vivienne also still has her V-card, a discovery that makes Julia even more fearful that she's never going to meet the right guy — or, even some guy to simply have sex with.
A slightly neurotic and wholly hilarious meditation on the difference between love and lust, The One and close enough, Losing It is about so much more than a quest for sex: It's a confrontational narrative about all the other stuff that goes along with it, and the intimate decisions we make that shape our lives for better — and worse.
Photo: Riverhead Books.
The Hopefuls
By Jennifer Close
Out July 19
A young woman named Beth follows her husband Matt to DC, where he plans to pursue his political dreams. But when she gets there, she realises that she is out of her social element. Soon enough, Beth and Matt become pals with a White House staffer named Jimmy and his wife, Ashley, developing a couples quad that helps the transplants find their footing in the capital city.
But as Jimmy's career begins to take off, the easy friendship begins to shift shape, and everything begins to unravel — including Beth's marriage. A fascinating drama about relationships, loyalty, the price of aspirations and success, The Hopefuls will surely ensnare you into this world from page one — and hold you there, tightly, until the final word.
Photo: Knopf.
Kitchens of the Great Midwest
By J. Ryan Stradal
Out August 6
When Lars Thorvald's wife leaves him for a sommelier, he is left to raise their daughter, Eva, all on his own. Determined that his daughter develop a great of love food, Lars begins cultivating her culinary tastes early on, priming Eva to eventually become a star chef herself.
Food, identity, self-preservation, and the kitchen arts are all ingredients in this sumptuous novel, but at its heart, this story is about the bond between a parent and child. Fair warning: It will make you hungry. (Very, very hungry.) As such, this book is best enjoyed with a bar of chocolate and a box of tissues.
Photo: Pamela Dorman Books.
A Wife of Noble Character
By Yvonne Georgina Puig
Out August 2
Vivienne Cally is a beloved Houston socialite — but unlike her peers, she doesn't actually have the wealth to back up her status. For that reason, 30-year-old Vivienne needs to marry rich and marry quick. Fortunately, she has ample access to the city's most eligible bachelors.
But when she begins to fall for her childhood friend, Preston Duffin, a man who doesn't share her social-climbing aspirations, Vivienne begins to question what she wants out of life — and where she really belongs. Inspired by Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth, A Wife of Noble Character is equal parts wry social commentary and heart-fluttering romance — an insightful journey for both the head and the heart.
Photo: Henry Holt and Co.
When Watched
By Leopoldine Core
Out August 9
This outstanding story collection from Whiting Award winner Leopoldine Core explores life on the margins, while digging into the vulnerability of longing and sadness. Full of dazzling insight and empathy, each of the 20 stories in this debut will force you to consider how personal identity is impossible to pin down: We are all chameleons, shifting parts of ourselves to make the best of new circumstances.
While there is an undeniable headiness to Core's collection, her writing is never heavy-handed: It's refreshing — even bright — and full of heart. This new voice fills a void that, until finishing the final pages, we didn't know was sorely missing. But now that When Watched has surfaced, we can't wait for more from Core.
Photo: Penguin Books.
The City Baker's Guide to Country Living
By Louise Miller
Out August 9
Olivia Rawlings didn't intend to relocate her life — and career as a prized pastry chef in a Boston dinner club — to the tucked away town of Guthrie, VT. But when the opportunity to take over the kitchen at a charming inn presented itself, Olivia leapt — and got more than she bargained for.
Once she's made the move, Olivia realises that she's not just there to make decadent desserts: She's going to have to win a blue ribbon at the upcoming county fair for her apple pies. In the midst of reworking recipes and handling the cantankerous innkeeper, Olivia also discovers the scent of love in the air. All is going well and Olivia finally feels like she's found her home, until another game-changer shows up in her life — and Olivia has to decide where she truly belongs.
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