Favorite backlist books that feel like summer

Sag Harbor

by Colson Whitehead

From the publisher: "Benji Cooper is one of the few Black students at an elite prep school in Manhattan. But every summer, Benji escapes to the Hamptons, to Sag Harbor, where a small community of Black professionals have built a world of their own. The summer of '85 won't be without its usual trials and tribulations, of course. But maybe, just maybe, this summer might be one for the ages."

One Italian Summer

by Rebecca Serle

My favorite Rebecca Serle to date! When twenty-something Katy loses her mother to cancer, she loses her best friend in the world, and she has no idea what to do next. She makes the difficult decision to travel to the Amalfi Coast—painful, because she and her mother had planned to take this trip together. At a charming hotel in Positano, Katy imagines what her own mother's visit must have been like many years before, when she first visited the hotel in which Katy is finding solace. But then—Katy's mother appears, in the flesh, though she isn't yet Katy's mother, because she's just thirty years old. This was touching and tender and I inhaled it in a day. Audiophiles take note: Lauren Graham narrates this one.

Every Summer After

by Carley Fortune

A second chance romance that alternates between present day and the six summers when Persephone and Sam first meet at the lakeshore cabin, fall in love, and fall apart due to betrayal. Percy punishes herself by keeping everyone at a distance and she never plans on going home again. But when Sam’s mom dies, there’s no way she can stay away from Barry’s Bay. Their connection is as strong as ever but they’ll have to decide whether they’re ready to take a risk and confront the past.

A Room with a View

by E.M. Forster

You just can’t beat a book that turns on a stolen kiss in the Italian countryside. It’s widely believed that the movie is better than the book, but that’s no excuse not to read this slim novel about the awakening of sheltered Englishwoman Lucy Honeychurch (who is definitely in the running for Most Adorable Name in Literature) at the hands of an Englishman with little regard for convention. (It's worth saying: the movie version is fabulous.)

Call Me by Your Name

by André Aciman

Elio reflects many years later about the summer he fell in love with Oliver in the Italian Riviera. It’s a sun-drenched story of obsession, lust, and heartbreak.

Prodigal Summer

by Barbara Kingsolver

In this evocative follow-up to the masterful The Poisonwood Bible, Kingsolver returns to her native southern Appalachia. She follows three stories of human love as they unfold over the course of one life-changing summer: a wildlife biologist who returns to her home county to work, a widowed farmer’s wife at odds with her husband’s family, and a pair of feuding neighbors. Her emphasis on the natural world will feel familiar to lovers of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Verdant, lush, and vivid: this novel oozes sensuality.

The Greengage Summer

by Rumer Godden

This classic coming of age tale from the author of In This House of Brede was first published in 1958. When 13 year old Cecil’s mother gets sick while the family is vacationing in France, she and her four siblings are sent to stay with an entertaining Englishman at a second-rate hotel in the Champagne region, where they wander and explore the countryside as the summer idles by. The book is written from Cecil's point of view, as she recounts the adventures of that unusual and memorable summer.

Atonement

by Ian McEwan

I can't do better than The New York Times, which wrote, "Ian McEwan's remarkable novel Atonement is a love story, a war story and a story about the destructive powers of the imagination." The story hinges on a horrible, life-altering lie told by a 13-year-old girl and its devastating ripple effects. I can't say too much about how the writing process plays into this story without spoiling it. But in a novel that's all about the dangerous power of the imagination, the characters' revealed imaginings for their own futures are breathtaking.

The Hotel Nantucket

by Elin Hilderbrand

Hilderbrand’s beach reads are always enjoyable but this one is notable for introducing me to a new favorite pen. The titular hotel’s Gilded Age glory days are long gone: it’s a real dump (and in a fun plot twist—haunted!) when London billionaire Xavier Darling buys it sight unseen. The new owner hires local restaurateur Lizbet Keaton to make his hotel the best property on the island, if not the whole Eastern seaboard. And that means The Hotel Nantucket has to wow Shelly Carpenter, the influencer who’s become a national obsession for her blog Hotel Confidential. The influential critic regularly reviews hotels for her eighteen million followers and awards each property anywhere from one to five keys. The staff is energized by this audacious goal, because no hotel has ever earned five keys from Shelly Carpenter. To earn the coveted fifth key, they’ll have to do everything right. Super fun, and I especially enjoyed the ghost story element!

Instructions for a Heatwave

by Maggie O'Farrell

This 2013 novel is set during the record-setting 1976 London heatwave during which the patriarch of an Irish family clears out his bank account and disappears, leaving his family to puzzle out where he went, and why. In the aftermath, the three adult children respond to their mother's plea for help and descend on their parents' home for the first time in ages. Soon the three are working (and squabbling) together as they try to determine what might have happened to their father. As the search progresses, secrets from the parents' marriage and the adult children's struggles and insecurities are revealed. The story takes us from London to Ireland and New York City as we wait to see what happened to the father, and what will happen next in each character's life. The audiobook is particularly lovely as voiced by John Lee, with his lilting Irish accent.

The Shore

by Katie Runde

Brian and Margot live a dream life with their teen daughters Liz and Evy on the Jersey Shore. Then Brian is diagnosed with a rare brain tumor, changing everything. While Margot tries to keep their bustling real estate business afloat, the girls adjust to caretaking for their father and trying on new summer jobs and personas. A moving, heart wrenching story of family and grief in a tourist town.

One Crazy Summer

by Rita Williams-Garcia

In the summer of 1968, Delphine and her younger sisters journey to Oakland, California. They plan to spend the summer vacation with their mother, who abandoned their family years earlier. When the girls arrive, they find a mother who is radically different from the one they've imagined. Seemingly annoyed by their presence, Delphine's mother wants to send them off to a Black Panthers summer camp. From School Library Journal: "Emotionally challenging and beautifully written, this book immerses readers in a time and place and raises difficult questions of cultural and ethnic identity and personal responsibility. With memorable characters (all three girls have engaging, strong voices) and a powerful story, this is a book well worth reading and rereading."

Chances Are…

by Richard Russo

My husband says this is the best thing he read last year. I thought it was fine—maybe even good—but definitely didn't LOVE it. In this short novel, three college friends come back together for the first time in years, reunited at the very place where they spent a life-changing weekend together nearly forty years before. That was the weekend that one of their friends—a friend they were all at least a little bit in love with—disappeared, and they've been thinking about her ever since. A story of male friendship, family tragedy, and how the past is never really past.

The Summer I Turned Pretty

by Jenny Han

Isabel "Belly" Conklin lives for summers at the beach with her family—and her mother's best friend and her two sons: Jeremiah and Conrad. They've always been her summer companions, extra brothers to annoy her from June through August. But this summer, everything changes as Belly experiences a love triangle plot reminiscent of Sabrina. Jenny Han writes such delightful YA romances novels: humorous and charming, totally swoon worthy. This is the first in a trilogy you can easily finish in one week at the beach.

Haven Point

by Virginia Hume

A sweeping family saga about three generations of women and the summer home that divides and unites them. In the book’s opening pages a hurricane barrels towards the coast of Maine, but that’s not so unusual to the denizens of Haven Point, the snug community tucked into the rocky shoreline where three generations of Demarest women have found joy and suffered tragedy. Grandmother Maren has come to love the tight-knit community she married into, while her daughter and granddaughter found it to be snobbish and suffocating. The story unfolds in three timelines, set in 1944, 1970, and 2008, each closely following one generation of women, and illuminating the devastating secret that must be revealed before the hurricane makes landfall. Taking readers from the wartime corridors of Walter Reed hospital to the contemporary summer singalongs in the rec hall, this wistful debut is perfect for those who want to follow characters through their lifetimes, examine complex family relationships, or enjoy a good redemption story.

Favorite backlist books that feel like summer

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summer reading starts May 16th