Whether you’re planning to spend this summer jet-setting (or even “set-jetting”) or just planning to stay put, chill out with a good read. The most anticipated books of the summer include R.F. Kuang’s eagerly awaited return to her fantasy roots, an intergalactic romance from Taylor Jenkins Reid, and Gary Shteyngart’s first novel since 2021’s Our Country Friends.
There are several noteworthy releases set to drop between Memorial Day and Labor Day, from memoirs to queer romances to historical fiction. V.E. Schwab’s latest is a century-spanning vampire fantasy about three women hungry for something more than life can offer. Xenobe Purvis’s Shirley Jackson-esque debut centers around five sisters who are accused of being able to turn into dogs in 1700s England. The new novel from Trust Exercise author Susan Choi traces the disappearance of a father through his young daughter’s distorted memory. And three years after her 2022 debut, Nightcrawling, Leila Mottley returns with a coming-of-age story about a group of young mothers in Florida.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]From Girlhood author Melissa Febos’ newest memoir to S.A. Cosby’s latest crime thriller, these are the 16 books you’ll want to add to your summer reading list.
Atmosphere, Taylor Jenkins Reid (June 3)
Set in the early 1980s, Taylor Jenkins Reid’s Atmosphere follows physics professor Joan Goodwin as she attempts to become one of the first women to join NASA’s space shuttle program. Amid her training, she navigates casual sexism, tries (and sometimes fails) to make friends with her fellow female recruits, and falls in love with a kind-hearted pilot named Hank Redmond. When an alarming incident on mission STS-LR9 puts the lives of her crew on the line, Joan must find a way to bring them all home safely.
Buy Now: Atmosphere on Bookshop | Amazon | Barnes & Noble
The Catch, Yrsa Daley-Ward (June 3)
After their mother vanished in the River Thames when they were only infants, twin sisters Clara and Dempsey were adopted by different families and barely saw each other growing up. Decades later, Clara, now a famous author with a drinking problem, spots a woman on the streets of London who looks exactly like her mother on the day she disappeared. The sighting prompts Clara to reconnect with her estranged sibling—and uncover what really happened to their mom all those years ago.
Buy Now: The Catch on Bookshop | Amazon | Barnes & Noble
The Dry Season, Melissa Febos (June 3)
Melissa Febos’ fifth memoir is a thought-provoking account of her year without sex. Around 2016, after a particularly painful breakup, the Body Work author decided to do something radical: give up on dating and give celibacy a try. Mixing feminist history and personal essay, The Dry Season explores what Febos, a serial monogamous dater since her teens, learned about sex, love, and art by finally putting herself first.
Buy Now: The Dry Season on Bookshop | Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Flashlight, Susan Choi (June 3)
Inspired by Susan Choi’s 2020 short story of the same name, Flashlight is a portrait of a fractured family in crisis. When Louisa was 10, she went to the beach with her dad in Japan, only to wake up on the shore half-dead and alone. In the years since, she keeps replaying the events of that day, looking for clues that could help find her father, whose body was never found. Told from multiple perspectives including Louisa’s mom, who is struggling with a mysterious illness, the novel reveals each family member’s complicated connection to the tragedy that has unraveled all of their lives.
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Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil, V. E. Schwab (June 10)
V. E. Schwab’s sapphic vampire romance begins in 16th century Spain with Maria, a tough young bride, looking to escape her wealthy husband. With help from a strange widow, she finds a way out that comes with a price: her mortality. Flash forward to 2019, a lonely Harvard University student named Alice wakes up from a one-night stand with fangs, an aversion to sunlight, and a thirst for blood. In this intertwining tale about lust, rage, and abandonment, Alice must find her mysterious hook-up in order to save her humanity.
Buy Now: Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil on Bookshop | Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Great Black Hope, Rob Franklin (June 10)
Poet Rob Franklin’s debut, Great Black Hope, is a coming-of-age whodunit about race, class, and addiction. After his friend mysteriously dies, Smith, a queer, Black Stanford graduate, is arrested for cocaine possession in the Hamptons and forced to go into mandatory drug treatment. Early on in the book, he uses his prestigious background to his advantage, but he soon realizes that there are limits to his privilege. In navigating the broken U.S. criminal justice system, Smith searches for justice for his friend and redemption for himself.
Buy Now: Great Black Hope on Bookshop | Amazon | Barnes & Noble
King of Ashes, S.A. Cosby (June 10)
After his father is severely injured in a car crash, which may or may not have been an accident, Roman Carruthers, the protagonist of S.A. Cosby’s King of Ashes, is pulled back into the family crematorium business. The money manager soon discovers that his younger brother is in debt to dangerous drug dealers who are prepared to do whatever it takes to get their money back. Roman’s only option to protect his brother is to work for the bad guys—but he won’t do their dirty work. In this mob thriller about penance, punishment and absolution, Roman must face the demons that have long plagued him in order to save those he loves most.
Buy Now: King of Ashes on Bookshop | Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Ordinary Love, Marie Rutkoski (June 10)
Best-selling YA author Marie Rutkoski’s follow-up to her 2022 adult debut, Real Easy, looks at a woman who is willing to risk it all for a second chance at true love. When Ordinary Love begins, Emily seems to have the perfect life: a ritzy townhouse on the Upper East Side, two beautiful children, and a wealthy hedge fund husband. But there are plenty of cracks beneath her put-together surface and some are threatening to upend life as she knows it. Among the most concerning is that her marriage, already on the brink of collapse, has turned dangerous. When Emily unexpectedly reunites with the one who got away—her high school girlfriend, now an Olympic track star—she reconsiders the choices that led her to this moment. Most notably, she wonders if she can rewrite the past in order to take control of her future.
Buy Now: Ordinary Love on Bookshop | Amazon | Barnes & Noble
These Heathens, Mia McKenzie (June 17)
The third novel from writer, activist, and founder of Black Girl Dangerous Mia McKenzie is a tender tale of a disenfranchised young woman coming into her own amid the Civil Rights Movement. In 1960s Georgia, 17-year-old Doris Steele travels to Atlanta, at the suggestion of her favorite teacher Mrs. Lucas, to get an abortion. Once there, she discovers a Black utopia full of local luminaries, civil rights leaders, and queer artists that look like her, but whose views on the world make her rethink everything. Namely, that being born poor in the rural south doesn’t mean she can’t follow her dreams and become a writer. With the support of this new community, Doris begins to rebel against her strict faith and conservative family in hopes of leading a life less ordinary.
Buy Now: These Heathens on Bookshop | Amazon | Barnes & Noble
The Compound, Aisling Rawle (June 24)
Looking for an escape from the doldrums of her life, 20-something Lily chooses to compete on the titular Love Island-like reality TV show The Compound. Despite early apprehensions, Lily enjoys the camaraderie of her fellow contestants and is excited to see how much money she can win. But when the competition becomes more Squid Game than Survivor, she must decide what—or maybe who—she’s willing to sacrifice to win in this darkly funny look at when reality TV turns toxic.
Buy Now: The Compound on Bookshop | Amazon | Barnes & Noble
The Girls Who Grew Big, Leila Mottley (June 24)
Leila Mottley’s follow-up to her bestselling 2022 debut, Nightcrawling, focuses on a group of teen moms in the Florida panhandle. Sixteen and pregnant, Adela Woods is kicked out of her parents’ home in Indiana and sent to live with her grandmother in Padua Beach, Fla. There, she meets a sisterhood of young moms who are raising their kids in solidarity under the watchful eye of a judgmental community. With their help, Adela navigates the loneliness of being a new mom and the loss of her own innocence in this compassionate look at young motherhood.
Buy Now: The Girls Who Grew Big on Bookshop | Amazon | Barnes & Noble
I Want to Burn This Place Down, Maris Kreizman (July 1)
With her debut essay collection, critic Maris Kreizman finds power in disillusionment. Across 10 politically charged essays, she writes about losing faith in American institutions, the myth of the “good” Democrat, living in a capitalist society with Type 1 diabetes, and moving further to the political left in her 40s. Mixing memoir, pop culture critique, and social political theory, I Want to Burn This Place Down encourages readers to use their righteous anger toward rebuilding a fractured world.
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Vera, or Faith, Gary Shteyngart (July 8)
In Gary Shteyngart’s sixth novel, the unraveling of the Bradford-Shmulkin family is told through the eyes of their precocious 10-year-old daughter. Vera, or Faith’s titular protagonist is struggling to make friends at school and worried that her Russian immigrant dad and her WASP-y stepmom are hurtling towards divorce. She’s also looking to find her Korean birth mother, who she hopes will help her understand her role in her fraught blended family. What ensues is a sardonic tragicomedy about an anxiety-ridden little girl on a quest to uncover where she really came from.
Buy Now: Vera, or Faith on Bookshop | Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Maggie; or, A Man and a Woman Walk Into a Bar, Katie Yee (July 22)
The title of Katie Yee’s debut may sound like the set up to a joke, but the novel reads like a punch to the gut. Shortly after learning that her husband is leaving her for another woman, the unnamed protagonist discovers that she has cancer. She names the tumor Maggie, after his mistress, and begins talking to “her” about her ex-husband, going so far as to create a handy guide to dealing with him. These chats lead her to rethink her relationship to her kids and her Chinese American heritage. Maggie; or, a Man and a Woman Walk Into a Bar is a wry meditation on grief, healing, and reclaiming one’s identity.
Buy Now: Maggie: or, a Man and a Woman Walk Into a Bar on Bookshop | Amazon | Barnes & Noble
The Hounding, Xenobe Purvis (Aug. 5)
Xenobe Purvis’ debut The Hounding centers around five peculiar sisters who may or may not be able to transform into dogs. In a small 18th-century English village, locals hear ominous barking. When dead animals start showing up around town, a superstitious ferryman claims he’s seen the Mansfield girls shapeshift into feral hounds. Soon, they become the scapegoat for everything that is wrong with the village. In this eerie tale about fear, lust, and female empowerment, the real question becomes whether this is an act of witchcraft—or a witch hunt.
Buy Now: The Hounding on Bookshop | Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Katabasis, R.F. Kuang (Aug. 26)
R.F. Kuang’s follow-up to her 2023 satire, Yellowface, is a dark academia thriller that takes a page from Dante’s Inferno. Magician Alice Law worries she may have killed her heralded, but hated academic advisor. In order to save his soul, and earn a coveted job recommendation, she must journey through the Eight Courts of Hell. Unfortunately, she will not be headed there alone. For perhaps not so selfless reasons of his own, her rival, Peter Murdoch, is also making the descent. Now they will have to put their differences aside and find some common ground if they hope to survive the underworld.
Buy Now: Katabasis on Bookshop | Amazon | Barnes & Noble
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