What is this guide?

These are the books I’m most excited for this summer. I have mostly not read them yet so I can’t vouch for quality or if they hide secret depressing things. I suggest checking Goodreads for reviews and Storygraph for content warnings if you’re wanting more information.

You can find all of these books at my Bookshop and if you buy them there, I’ll get a small affiliate amount.

Happy reading and hope you are having a great summer!

MYSTERY

The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels by Janice Hallett, The Astrology House by Carinn Jade, Missing White Woman by Kellye Garrett, The God of the Woods by Liz Moore.

The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels by Janice Hallett - I read this one back in January and LOVED it. It’s a found footage mystery; you the reader are reading through abandoned book research files from a true crime reporter’s storage locker. The picture that forms is either the story of a cult or of an actual demon on earth, and it genuinely surprised me how uncertain I was throughout the book as to which it was. Super fun and twisty and the framing device of the often unlikeable, sometimes unreliable reporter’s perspective added a lot as you unraveled the mystery.

The Astrology House by Carinn Jade - murder at a rich person’s astrological retreat! Goodreads reviews call it soapy and one person dings it for its turn into “unpredictable lunacy” which goes to show one man’s trash is another man’s etc. I love a locked room mystery.

Missing White Woman by Kellye Garrett - A Black woman wakes up the morning after a romantic date with her boyfriend to find the missing white woman who’s become a national obsession dead in her foyer and her boyfriend vanished. A truly great setup that looks to examine the racial dimensions of our country’s obsession with true crime while also being a thriller in its own right; I can’t wait to see how the author navigates it.

The God of the Woods by Liz Moore - This is THE buzzy mystery of the summer. Moore’s last book Long Bright River was about a determined female cop whose personal life is too close to her work as she navigates the opioid crisis in Pennsylvania. It’s a very heavy topic taken heartbreakingly seriously. If you liked Mare of Easttown, it’s your book. This one is about a 1970s teenager who goes missing at her family’s summer camp, 14 years after her brother did. Between the stellar reviews, the summer-perfect setting, and Moore’s track record, this is one of my most anticipated reads of the summer.

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The Next Mrs Parrish by Liv Constantine - This is a surprise sequel to The Last Mrs. Parrish, a book about a con artist worming her way into a society woman’s life in order to steal her husband. The original Mrs. Parrish was refreshingly nasty, genuinely unexpected, and yet I have been so disappointed by every subsequent book of the author’s that I resolved to quit reading her altogether. Of course the very next book announced was this sequel! Hopefully, they can recapture the magic.

The Rich People Have Gone Away by Regina Porter - I wouldn’t normally pick up a novel set during the first days of COVID lockdown but I think it could add a great dimension to a mystery. It’s a missing person story set in New York, and the setting sounds like an important part of the book, exploring the different experiences of New Yorkers of different backgrounds and privilege as they try to uncover what happened to one of their neighbors, who disappeared after a fight with her husband while quarantining upstate.

The Return of Ellie Black by Emiko Jean - A cop is thrilled when a missing teen whose case she worked turns up alive two years later, only to find the girl won’t speak about what happened, even as other girls are still at risk. This sounds like a psychological slow burn. I know the author from her romances and am excited to see her take on a new genre.

It’s Elementary by Elise Bryant - Besides The Good, the Bad, and the Aunties and Mia P. Manansala’s books, I’m not a big cozy mystery reader but this one sounds good. A Black elementary school mom who’s just been talked into heading the PTA’s DEI committee witnesses the PTA president in suspicious circumstances the night before the principal goes missing. A “quick-witted, escapist romp” with a romantic element, I’m sure parents especially will find something in this one.

SPECULATIVE FICTION

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Five Broken Blades by Mai Corland - I am but a simple woman. Give me a fantasy book with a heist and I am happy. If we also have to assemble a team? Let’s fucking go! Here, the heist is killing the God King and the team is a bunch of assassins, but the rule still applies.

Mirrored Heavens by Rebecca Roanhorse - see series section!

All This & More by Peng Shepherd - A 45 year old is selected to star in a reality show that lets you change your past and thus your present life. This is also, somehow, an adult choose your own adventure book?? Shepherd’s previous book The Cartographers was a big hit in the vein of a scifi Da Vinci Code. (see also: The Memo, which has a similar “fix your fucked up life through magic” premise)

Road to Ruin by Hana Lee - A female biker in a setting that seems to be Mad-Max:-Fury-Road-but-with-magic must rescue a princess and it looks like there’s some type of queer love triangle or polyamorous relationship as well? so I will be reading.

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The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley - I didn’t read the description deeply past time travel spy thriller romance! Because that sounds really good! but it’s on everyone’s list this summer, and being compared to Graham Greene novels. This seems like such a niche microgenre but there must be a real thirst for it because didn’t we do this a few years ago with This is How You Lose the Time War?

The Stardust Grail by Yume Kitasei - a SPACE HEIST, what did I say about heists in fantasy because it’s the same for space

Night for Day by Rosellle Lim - Roselle Lim has written some beautifully romantic magical realist books, each one better than the last. I’m a little confused by the plot description on this one (two exes find out they’re working the same job but opposite shifts and decide to try to make it work, only to get stuck in some type of game between the gods where they can only see each other for a few minutes a day) and the reviews are a bit more lukewarm than I’d like but she’s making a departure into more overt fantasy and I’m going to follow her into it.

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The Mars House by Natasha Pulley - I read “London ballerina becomes Mars refugee” and I stopped reading because I’m already putting it on my holds list.

Spitting Gold by Carmella Lowkis - Billed as a Gothic mystery about con artist sisters who reunite in 1800s Paris to trick a noble family haunted by a family member killed in the French Revolution. Hell yeah

Escape Velocity by Victor Manibo - Space mystery is in my top five genres, and this is set at a luxury space resort during a reunion for a fancy university so it also has rich person shenanigans.

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Humorous fantasy/scifi is one of my favorite things in the world when the author pulls it off (think Hitchhiker’s Guide) but it’s so hard to do that I rarely come across new releases that fit the bill. I can’t believe there are several in this category this summer! Honorable mention to Peter S. Beagle, who is 85 years old and still publishing, 56 years after The Last Unicorn! His new book I’m Afraid You’ve Got Dragons, starring a dragon exterminator in a world where dragons are vermin, also looks good, but here are my top three, which share a similar premise.

Dreadful by Caitlin Rozakis - comedic fantasy about a guy who wakes up to find he’s somehow the main evil wizard villain (the Dread Lord!). With no memory of how he ended up that way or what his plans are, he has to figure it out.

How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying by Django Wexler - comedic fantasy about a heroine who’s been unsuccessfully fighting evil in a time loop for so long that she finally gives up and decides to become dark lord herself.

Long Live Evil by Sarah Rees Brennan - That thing I said about humorous fantasy being hard? Brennan absolutely killed it in one of my favorite books of all time, In Other Lands, which is a spoof of magic school/portal fantasy books. One of the few instances in my life where I closed a book and immediately flipped back to the first page to reread it. If you’re a longtime reader of fantasy, if you’ve enjoyed a Harry Potter or Narnia in your life, it has my strongest recommendation. Since then, I’ve periodically checked in on what she has coming out, but it’s mostly been IP (Chilling Adventures of Sabrina novelizations). WELL! This summer she has her adult fantasy debut! Long Live Evil is about a dying woman who makes a deal to enter the world of her favorite fantasy book only to find she’s there as the villain and the enemy of her favorite character. FIRST IN A SERIES. I can’t believe I have to wait until the end of August for this.

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HORROR

The horror genre is funny in that it can really run the gamut from “never sleep again” to “they probably could have shelved this in fantasy.” For instance, my first selection seems to just have vampires, while the one right after it sounds like gore city. Keep an open mind and be sure to check reviews.

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We Love the Nightlife by Rachel Koller Croft - an exploration of complicated female friendship through the lens of two vampires whose relationship has fallen apart after 50 years together and who decide to open a nightclub in an attempt to recapture the atmosphere where they first became friends??? Do you know how toxic a female friendship can get even without the added stressor of knowing your friend literally made you and will probably unmake you if you try to stop being friends?? The London disco setting and the title and my fond memories of the season of What We Do in the Shadows where everyone tells Nadja that everyone wants to open a vampire nightclub but it never works out make this top of my list!

The Eyes are the Best Part by Monika Kim - this is “darkly funny psychological horror” about a Korean-American college student at war with her mother’s boyfriend. The eye reference of the title is probably your warning that we’re getting into body horror here so your mileage may vary based on if you can put in a contact or if the very thought of touching your own eye makes you want to throw up.

The Blonde Dies First by Joelle Wellington - one of two horrors on my list that is a twist on slasher films. This YA is about a group of teens trying to outwit a demon determined to kill them in stereotypical horror movie order. Sounds part Scream, part Cabin in the Woods. Reviews say it’s a very diverse group of friends and the tropes get upended.

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Now, Conjurers by Freddie Kölsch - A closeted high school football player in ‘90s small town New England is found dead and his close group of (queer!) friends tries to find out what happened. There is a Satanic panic aspect that is both era-appropriate and possibly warranted and every sentence of the description starts with the letter N for some reason that is revealed in the book. I’m very curious!

Do What Godmother Says by L. S. Stratton - A dual timeline Gothic thriller about a woman who finds a painting by a Harlem Renaissance artist in her grandmother’s attic and is drawn into the story of the painter’s disappearance after the murder of her patron. One of those stories where someone gets obsessed with something and it creeps into their own life in ways that might be real or imagined.

Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil by Ananda Lima - Short stories by a Brazilian author, I can’t sell it better than the blurb. “At a Halloween party in 1999, a writer slept with the devil. She sees him again and again throughout her life and writes stories for him about things both impossible and true.”

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I Was a Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones - This is a fictional memoir by a teenage serial killer in ‘80s Texas but the reviews all say that in addition to being a takeoff on Texas Chainsaw Massacre, it’s very heartfelt and unexpected. Stephen Graham Jones is a top name in horror right now; I skipped his Indian Lake trilogy because the first book of his I read was a little graphic and sad for me but I’m ready to try again.

Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle - Chuck Tingle’s last traditionally published book about a demonic conversion camp was really good. The description of this one is opaque but intriguing - an Oscar-nominated screenwriter is pressured to kill a gay character and faces some sort of consequences.

A Step Past Darkness by Vera Kurian - I have evangelized Kurian’s debut Never Saw Me Coming, about a group of psychopath college students who find themselves being murdered one by one, everywhere. Her followup has Stephen King vibes, bouncing between teens uncovering a great evil in the ‘90s and adults who have to come back to the place they swore they’d never return to to finally put that evil to rest. (see also: Cuckoo, set at a conversion camp that harbors supernatural evil in addition to the human evil, also It vibes)

ROMANCE

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Summer Fridays by Suzanne Rindell - COULD NOT BE more excited that someone wrote a romance set in the days of AOL instant messenger. Goodreads is categorizing this ’99-set romance as a contemporary, which is VERY generous of them. Reviews have compared it to You’ve Got Mail, both for the early internet setting and the love letter to NY aspect (the main characters spend their Friday afternoons exploring the city).

Four Weekends and a Funeral by Ellie Palmer - This is a very challenging premise! The heroine shows up to her ex’s funeral to find no one even knows he dumped her, so she ends up pretending to still be his girlfriend (no I don’t know why) while falling for his best friend. Sounds like a more depressing While You Were Sleeping; interested to see how she pulls it off without the charm of Sandra Bullock weighting the scales.

Here for the Wrong Reasons by Annabel Paulsen & Lydia Wang - the one I’m most looking forward to! Two women competing on The Bachelor fall for each other instead of for the bachelor.

The Friend Zone Experiment by Zen Cho - Zen Cho is one of my favorite fantasy writers and so funny so of course I’m going to follow her into the world of romance

Triple Sec by TJ Alexander - My loved one accuses me of thinking the solution to every book or movie plotline is a throuple, and he’s right! So I’m primed for a romance that agrees with me! A bartender gets involved with someone in an open relationship and then also with the OTHER person in the open relationship. I liked Alexander’s previous series set in the world of celebrity food and bake offs.

Just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez - A guy gets internet famous for being the person women date right before finding their soulmate. A woman with the same problem proposes they date each other and then break up, canceling out their curses and leading to their own true loves. Jimenez is an auto-read author for me at this point but her cute premises usually have a serious plot turn hidden in there so be on the lookout.

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Everyone I Kissed Since You Got Famous by Mae Marvel - Ruthie Knox was a favorite 2000s romance novelist for me and I was sad when she quit writing to focus on other pursuits but not only she is back, she’s now co-writing queer romance under a pen name with her wife! Huge news all around.

A Little Kissing Between Friends by Chenci C. Higgins - A music producer falls for her exotic dancer best friend.

Second Night Stand by Karelia and Fay Stetz-Waters - Karelia Stetz-Waters writes romance about people who are not in their twenties, which is something I really appreciate. This is the first book she’s co-written with her wife (if we find a third, it’s a trend!), about a ballet dancer and a burlesque performer competing on the same reality show.

In A Not So Perfect World by Neely Tubati Alexander - I know Booktok would have you believe the way to judge a romance is by trope, but I maintain it’s by how interesting the heroine’s job is, a belief formed in bedrock when elementary school me read her first favorite romance, which starred PROFESSIONAL MAGICIANS (by Nora Roberts, of course, queen of heroines in niche work, who’s been doing this for so long that she ran out of professions and wrote a book that was so blatantly based on Adriene from Yoga by Adriene that she didn’t even bother to change her first name). This one has a female video game designer and fine, if you care about tropes, it’s fake dating PLUS a Turks and Caicos resort setting

Second Tide’s the Charm by Chandra Blumberg - this is a second chance romance featuring a marine biologist stuck on a boat researching sharks with her wildlife photographer ex-boyfriend, a perfect setup for a Jaws lover.

Jewel Me Twice by Charish Reid - a second chance romance about jewel thieves!!

Baseball romance (and one Olympics romance)

I had a couple of these on my main romance list but there ended up being so many baseball romances this year that I thought they deserved their own section for ~*~* summer vibes ~*~*~*. (For a different summer vibe, you could also check out the small crop of adult summer camp romances - One Last Summer, Until Next Summer, last year’s That Summer Feeling.) PLUS! An Olympics romance just in time for Paris!

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Playing for Keeps by Jennifer Dugan - From a favorite YA author, a f/f romance between a baseball player and referee who meet when the ref tosses the pitcher from the game.

The Prospects by KT Hoffman - m/m romance between two minor leaguers (one of whom is the first openly trans pro baseball player) who used to be rivals and find themselves playing on the same team.

The Art of Catching Feelings by Alicia Thompson - A pro baseball player falls for his heckler online without knowing it’s her. Thompson is a social media mutual of mine and we have a real life mutual as well, which does not bias me but does make me nervous I’ve incorrectly described her book and she might see it.

Dominating the Diamond series by Cat Giraldo - The most recent in this series is a queer poly romance between a player recovering from an injury, his trainer, and the new team statistician and can be read as a standalone, but I’m more interested in the first book, which is a romance between a female major league pitcher and her aging catcher, which happens to be the exact plot of the late and dearly missed TV show Pitch.

Welcome Home, Caroline Kline by Courtney Preiss - A woman moves back to Jersey to help her aging father after a fall but the only help he wants is for her to take his place in his all-male softball league. I read this one and it was satisfyingly summery! Lots of actual sports scenes, and because the protagonist is jobless, back in her hometown with lots of time to see her childhood friends, it has a real nostalgic feel, like coming home from college for the summer.

You Should Be So Lucky, Cat Sebastian - A m/m romance set in the ‘60s between a star player struggling through a slump and the arts reporter sent to cover his season. Sebastian is always reliable.

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Let the Games Begin by Rufaro Faith Mazarura - This is not a baseball romance! It’s set at a fictional 2024 Athens summer Olympics and the hero is a star runner for team Great Britain. I love the Olympics setting and that it comes out just in time for Paris.

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SERIES

Summer is a good time to get into a series! Read only one thing all summer instead of the 100 things I’ve listed here. Some possibilities:

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Mirrored Heavens (book 3 of 3 in the Between Earth and Sky series, beginning with Black Sun), Rebecca Roanhorse - the final book is out, completing Roanhorse’s trilogy of pre-Columbian epic fantasy. I did not read the second book because, in true fantasy fashion, by the time it was out, I had forgotten too much about the first. I did remember that I loved it! It felt truly epic in a way fantasy often doesn’t and I loved the inspiration being indigenous American cultures. Now that the final book is out, I’m going to reread and catch up.

The Good, the Bad, and the Aunties (book 3 of 3 in the Aunties series, beginning with Dial A for Aunties), Jesse Q. Sutanto - this is book three in a cozy mystery series that I consider a perfect summer read and while I suspect you could start with it, it would be a lot more fun to start at the first one Dial A for Aunties. It’s a Weekend at Bernie’s - style romp about a woman who accidentally kills her awful date and then has to hide his dead body with the help of her interfering Chinese-Malaysian aunties. It’s a farce with a lot of personality; the aunties accidentally bring the body with them to the wedding they’re working at a luxury resort on a secluded island, which the heroine’s college sweetheart is also attending. It’s the highest of high concepts that is much easier to read than to describe, lighthearted despite the macabre plot. Pure fun and I laughed out loud many times.

City in Ruins (book 3 of 3 in Danny Ryan series, beginning with City on Fire), Don Winslow

Earlier this year, I had jury duty and was looking for a read in the genre of airport fiction.1 I settled on the first book in this trilogy because Stephen King recommended it and I’d heard it’s being made into a movie starring Austin Butler. Book one is set during an Irish-Italian mob war in 1980s Rhode Island and is exactly what I was looking for, a plot-over-prose page turner with a high body count where we all have a good cry and move on with our day. If you’ve seen a mob movie in your life, you get it.

The plot seemed to wrap up pretty neatly, so I looked up book two to see where the series was going. Turns out I was correct in my feeling that the RI mob war stuff was mostly packed up because book two throws it in to send its young hero to Hollywood.

I originally had a four paragraph tangent here about my excitement at this choice, how the mob story is the inverse of the superior bonkbuster genre, and how the movie Forrest Gump factors in to it all, but I’m embarrassed enough at how long this whole thing is so that will have to be provided only upon request. Suffice to say, I will be reading as our protagonist hits Hollywood and then Vegas (book three) but as he claws his way to the highest echelons of society, I will be wishing he was doing it in a fabulous dress in service of his high-end luxury retail store because the bonkbuster is due a comeback.

LITERATURE

You scrolled right down here, didn’t you? But look how checked out my descriptions in this section are compared to every other section!

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The Book of Love by Kelly Link - I don’t need the description! Kelly Link, master of weird but very human short stories, finally wrote a novel! I also can’t really summarize the description; this book has been tagged mystery, magical realism, fantasy, scifi, and thriller. It also comes in at over 600 pages, because I guess there are only two modes and if the story isn’t short, it’s going to be LONG.

Help Wanted by Adelle Waldman - Waldman’s first book The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P made a big splash, and her followup more than ten years in the making looks nothing like it. This satire of capitalism (retail employees in a “darkly comic workplace caper”) seems much more up my alley.

Housemates by Emma Copley Eisenberg - Roommates embark on a road trip across America in a queer coming of age story.

Colored Television by Danzy Senna - A biracial academic having trouble finishing her next serious novel turns to a television producer who wants her to create “diverse content” for a streaming network and things spiral from there. This sounds so funny and ready to skewer academia, Hollywood, the concept of selling out, what the blurb calls the “racial-identity industrial complex”…I’m on board.

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Real Americans by Rachel Khong - Multi generation epic that starts on Y2K. Loved the author’s first novel Goodbye, Vitamin.

Perfume and Pain by Anna Dorn - “an homage to the lesbian pulp of yore.” I love a prickly heroine, which reviews suggest this has.

The Sisters K by Maureen Sun - A contemporary retelling of The Brothers Karamazov but with Korean sisters. Looks incredible

The Witches of Bellinas by J. Nicole Jones - A woman’s account of being drawn into a high-end cult in California. Multiple reviews call it Midsommar meet Stepford Wives.

All Fours by Miranda July - I’ve never read a Miranda July novel but everyone is talking about this one, about a woman who tells her family she’s going on a road trip across country and then checks into a hotel 20 minutes from home. I don’t totally understand what it’s about but I’ve heard it’s an exploration of art and being a woman of a certain age and possibly a love affair. Another one where I’m going off buzz.

Literature but maybe it’s fun

I can’t say for sure these are light reads but the descriptions are reading lighter to me. Sorry if one of them accidentally traumatizes you. Check for trigger warnings!

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The Husbands by Holly Gramazio - I read this a month or two ago and in my opinion it’s the perfect summer read (that I can actually vouch for! Because I’ve read it! Unlike most of these other books!) Lauren comes home from a night out to find her husband waiting for her - only she doesn’t have a husband. Once you get aboard with the completely wacky premise (Lauren’s attic produces husbands - every time one goes up, a different one comes down), you’ll find a surprisingly sharp allegory for modern dating where a new partner and a new life are just a swipe away. Each guy brings with him a slightly different life - different job, different consequences to her other relationships - and Lauren has to decide whether at some point she’s happy with the life she has. This is really funny at times and the premise plays out to a completely satisfying ending. I was so impressed with this. It feels substantial but never heavy, a truly enjoyable read.

Catalina by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio - The fiction debut of the author of The Undocumented Americans, the description reminds me a little of Elif Batuman’s The Idiot, which I loved. It follows an undocumented Harvard student in her senior year as she tries to figure out what’s next. Sounds like it might be kind of funny.

Allow Me to Introduce Myself by Onyi Nwabineli - One of a few books I’ve seen recently written from the perspective of the kids of mommy bloggers/other influencers who make their money off of their children before their children can consent. This one is about a woman who has separated from her family but has to re-engage to try to save her sister from the life she had growing up, one where her stepmother “chronicled and monetized” her childhood.

Tehrangeles by Porochista Khakpour - I’ve been waiting for this one for a long time! Vogue called this “the Kardashians meet Little Women and Crazy Rich Asians.” A rich Iranian-American family are deciding whether to do their own reality TV show. Also: look at this cover!!

The Memo by Rachel Dodes and Lauren Mechling - A woman dreading her college reunion because she hasn’t achieved the success of her classmates finds out she literally missed the (magical) memo handed out at graduation that tells you what to do for success. Now at 35, she has a second chance. See also All This and More

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Margo’s Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe - a twenty year old new mother struggling to make ends meet starts an OnlyFans. This is supposed to be very funny and has her getting advice on how to make a crowd-pleasing persona from her ex-pro wrestler dad who’s just moved in with her.

I Hope This Finds You Well by Natalie Sue - Like many people, I enjoy the subgenre of popular fiction that’s about a curmudgeon being reluctantly drawn into the lives of the people around them and finding community. The blurb name checks Anxious People and Eleanor Oliphant, which seems exactly right. This one is about a woman who can’t stand her colleagues who accidentally ends up with access to everyone’s work emails and DMs. When she finds out layoffs are coming, she does what she has to to save her job but finds her plan forces her to get involved in her coworker’s lives.

The Wedding People by Alison Espach - Phoebe is the only person staying at her Newport hotel who’s not there for the big wedding. In fact, she’s there because she’s “at rock bottom and determined to have one last decadent splurge on herself.” But of course she can’t stay away from the people there for the event. I love to read about weddings, because I don’t have to actually put together an outfit to attend them. [Note that I belatedly saw some pretty heavy trigger warnings here for infertility/child loss.]

My Mother Cursed My Name by Anamely Salgado Reyes - Multigenerational fiction about a ten year old who can see the dead grandmother she’s never met, who’s trying to move on from the earthly realm by helping her daughter get her life in order. Mothers and daughters! I’m not totally sure of the vibe of this one from the description - it might be heavier than it looks - but it’s high on my list.

The Townsend Family Recipe for Disaster by Shauna Robinson - A woman tries to reunite her estranged family after the death of her grandmother, centered around the annual July 4th family barbecue in North Carolina and a missing mac and cheese recipe.

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Jackpot Summer by Elyssa Friedland - Siblings packing up their Jersey shore beach home win the lottery but the money complicates things further. I’ve almost read Friedland a bunch of times and this book might be the one to finally get me to do it.

Lies and Weddings by Kevin Kwan - The words “from the author of Crazy Rich Asians” should do the trick here. This takes place at a wedding in Hawaii.

Sandwich by Catherine Newman - I assume this book takes place in Sandwich, MA on the Cape because what a missed opportunity if not, but the title also refers to the heroine being in the sandwich generation, caring for teenage kids and worrying about aging parents. All of them are together for a week at a beach house.

One Last Word by Suzanne Park - Park writes great light reads that balance work and relationships. In this one, the heroine is creator of an app which sends letters to recipients of your choosing when you die. Unfortunately, the app malfunctions and her letters are sent, setting off a cascade of consequences.

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HISTORICAL FICTION

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In Tongues by Thomas Grattan - It’s frightening how many of these historical fiction picks take place in a past I think of as not too distant! This is 2001 about a young midwesterner coming to New York who finds himself in the middle of a married couple’s relationship. Or “a young gay man upends the lives of a powerful art-world couple in this steamy novel of self-discovery.”

James by Percival Everett - Percival Everett got wider recognition last year when Erasure was made into the Oscar-winning movie American Fiction. I am excited that his new novel James, which is a retelling of Huck Finn from Jim’s point of view, should have the wide appeal to capitalize off that new group of readers. Everett always writes the sharpest satire and I can’t imagine what he has in store for one of the most revered books in the American canon. One of my most anticipated books of the year.

The Great Divide by Cristina Henríquez - a multi-POV novel set during the building of the Panama Canal. I read this one and think it would be a good read for fans of Pachinko. It’s a little smaller in scope, covering just one generation, but has a similarly wide cast of characters and a similar level of writing.

The Bullet Swallower by Elizabeth Gonzalez James - A multigenerational story that shifts between a Mexican man on a train robbery gone wrong in 1800s Houston and his 1960s movie star grandson. The description also mentions a “cosmic debt” but I have no further explanation.

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The Wealth of Shadows by Graham Moore - If you don’t include a WW2 book in a historical fiction roundup, do they even let you hit publish? I usually glaze over at the popular fiction books set in this time period, which seem to all regurgitate the same setting and talking points, but this one does look a bit different. Supposedly “based on a true story,” it’s about the effort to take down the Nazis economically and the formation of the World Bank. I like process books and Moore wrote the Imitation Game, the Benedict Cumberbatch WW2 movie, so he has some familiarity with the setting.

Anita de Monte Laughs Last by Xochitl Gonzalez - BEYOND excited to read this novel inspired by the life of artist Ana Mendieta, the Cuban-American painter. Mendieta’s husband was controversially acquitted of her murder. The book explores the racism and sexism she experienced, echoed in the racism and sexism of the student writing about her for her thesis ten years after her death.

Malas by Marcela Fuentes - a multigenerational story with POV bouncing between a ‘90s teen punk rocker on the Texas-Mexico border and her grandmother, who was cursed by a jealous woman in her youth in the 1950s.

The Sons of El Rey by Alexa Espinoza - Queer historical fiction about luchadores in 1960s Mexico City and 1980s LA

Bonus: Reality TV books

I’ve seen so many books set at reality dating shows this year that I thought they deserved their own section, and I came to that decision even before I lost weeks of my life this summer to Love Island USA. And not just in romance, though there are a lot of romances.

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Besides Here for the Wrong Reasons and Second Night Stand, there are romances like:2

The Villain Edit by Laurie DeVore - a washed-up romance novelist tries to revitalize her career by going on The Bachelor only to have things complicated when 1. She finds out the producer of the show is an ex who she’s still into and 2. The show is making her the villain

Hot Summer by Elle Everhart - a woman on Love Island to promote her company (a dating app) falls for a woman who’s there to find a genuine connection.

Not Here to Make Friends by Jodi McAlister - A second romance novel where the producer of The Bachelor is surprised to find his ex as the villain of the show. In this case, the heroine disappeared from his life for understandable reasons.

Attached at the Hip by Christina Riccio - In this one, the heroine thinks she’s applying for Survivor but it turns out the new season has a twist that it’s an “experimental romantic edition” and she finds her high school crush is also in the cast.

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In non-romance, there is also:

Cue the Sun! The Invention of Reality TV (nonfiction) by Emily Nussbaum - Pulitzer winner Emily Nussbaum takes on the history of reality TV. This was excerpted in The New Yorker. I’m sure the book is incredibly researched - I know it reaches back as far as the ‘70s and An American Family on PBS - but the excerpt is of course on the beginning of The Real World.

One Perfect Couple (thriller) by Ruth Ware - I didn’t realize Ruth Ware’s new book was set at a reality show the first seventeen times I saw it at the library but it appears to be a reality TV spin on Agatha Christie. Set on a tropical island where existing couples compete against each other for a cash prize, (if this is based on a real show, I need someone more familiar with reality TV to tell me what it is) things get serious when a storm cuts them off from the outside world and a killer gets loose.

Made For You by Jenna Satterthwaite (scifi/thriller) - This is set in the aftermath of The Bachelor in a future where a “synthetic woman” has competed and won. When her husband is killed a year after the show ends, she’s the prime suspect and has to solve the murder. I love scifi mysteries.

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SUMMER READING CHECKLIST

MYSTERY

SPECULATIVE FICTION

HORROR

ROMANCE

BASEBALL ROMANCE

SERIES

LITERATURE

LITERATURE (BUT FUN!)

HISTORICAL FICTION

REALITY TV BOOKS

*~*~*~*IF YOU LIKE THIS GUIDE, CONSIDER TELLING ME YOU LIKED IT, BECAUSE IT STRESSED ME OUT A LOT TO MAKE IT.~*~*~*

  1. Airport fiction! The sort of stuff you buy because you’re standing at a Hudson News and need something to page through during your flight. It has to be absorbing enough to distract you from the tedium of the next few hours of your life but not so important or gripping that you feel the experience is ruined when you’re interrupted by seatbelt announcements or the kid behind you kicking your seat 100 times a minute. Perfect for airplanes but also for oil changes, jury duty, picking up at the train station. A pageturner that you can still somehow easily put down. Airport fiction. ↩︎

  2. all of the books have fictionalized the reality shows but I’ve used the names they’re clearly going for ↩︎