Standout audiobooks for the summer

Where the Rhythm Takes You

by Sarah Dass

A sweet and chaste tropical YA romance inspired by Jane Austen’s Persuasion. Reyna and Aiden grew up and fell in love on the island of Tobago, where her family owns a beautiful seaside resort. When Aiden’s band hit it big, he left to pursue his dreams and Reyna got left behind. It’s been tough: she’s still grieving her mother’s death and starting to feel trapped by the hotel she once loved. After a two year absence, Aiden returns to the hotel with his bandmates as VIP guests. Though Reyna resolves to keep her distance, the two are thrown together when his friends insist she take charge of their schedule—and she can’t help but remember why she once thought they’d be together forever. Readers will appreciate the way Dass keeps the beats of Austen’s original while making the story her own with its winning characters, vivid tropical setting, and fun musical vibe. For fans of Ibi Zoboi’s Pride and Tahereh Mafi’s A Very Large Expanse of Sea.

Mary Jane

by Jessica Anya Blau

I've heard good things about this one since it came out in spring 2021, but didn't feel the urge to pick it up until several Modern Mrs Darcy Book Club members cited it as a favorite "feel-good" novel in a recent discussion. (Funny thing: last year I had this book in my house when it released in the spring but I gave it away to clear space—but that was easily fixed as my library had several copies and short waitlists.) This 1970s coming of age story features 14-year-old Mary Jane, a sheltered girl from a respectable Baltimore family whose life changes the summer she nannies for a local doctor ... whose best client is about to become a live-in rock star in rehab. Mary Jane can't tell a soul what she sees in that house: the rock star's presence is a tightly-kept secret, plus her prim parents would make her quit if they grasped just how much their family sensibilities differ from those of her employers. She's left on her own to process her introduction to the baffling adult world of sex, drugs, friendship, and rivalry, as well as her burgeoning friendship with the rock star's wife, an actress she's long admired. I appreciated the strong setting and found myself googling numerous Baltimore landmarks, and Blau's light touch with heavy topics lent the book an easy-reading and entertaining, if not wholly memorable, quality.

Instructions for a Heatwave

by Maggie O'Farrell

I picked this up after reading—and loving—O'Farrell's novel, This Must Be the Place (a 2018 MMD winter Book Club selection!). During a record-setting heatwave, the patriarch of an Irish family clears out his bank account and disappears, leaving his family to puzzle out where he went, and why. Reminiscent of The Dry for its oppressive, atmospheric heat, and Ann Patchett's Commonwealth for its fraught sibling relationships.

The Idea of You

by Robinne Lee

I picked this up after Claire raved about it on this episode of What Should I Read Next: it sounded like perfect travel reading, so I packed it for my trip to NYC. Kismet: because so much of the book is set in New York, I found myself walking by locations for key scenes, and even read about a dramatic event on 57th Street while I was reading in bed at a hotel on that same street! To her great surprise, 39-year-old gallery owner Solène falls madly in love with a 20-year-old member of the boy band August Moon, embarking on an initially secret and then all-too-public relationship that unfolds in glamorous (read: seriously fun to read about) settings all over the world. The premise feels a little bit squidgy, but Lee really sells it, believably showing their clandestine affair evolve into a serious and loving relationship. This novel is packed with BIG FEELINGS, lavish descriptions of luxe locales, and interesting details on the business of contemporary art. This is also very much a story about an "aging" woman reclaiming her sexuality: heads up for some seriously racy scenes.

The Mothers

by Brit Bennett

I loved this book, an MMD Book Club flight pick and a book recommended on today's episode of WSIRN. Not an easy read, but so good, and one that I still think about even though I read it many moons ago. In this coming-of-age story, debut author Bennett shows us how grief predictably consumes a 17-year old girl growing up in a tight-knit community in Southern California, and how two friends get pulled into the tangled aftermath. Bennett tells the story through the eyes of the community's mothers—the community pillars who show up with casseroles when somebody's sick—but in this story, the mothers' vicious gossip causes nothing but trouble.

The Hotel Nantucket

by Elin Hilderbrand

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. Hilderbrand’s beach reads are always enjoyable but this one is notable for introducing me to a new favorite pen.

Loveboat, Taipei

by Abigail Hing Wen

In this fast-paced YA debut, a girl travels halfway around the world to find herself, and maybe find love, too. Ever Wong is an eighteen-year-old Asian American girl in Ohio, a talented dancer who, unknown to her parents, harbors dreams of pursuing professional dance. When her parents find out she's considering dance instead of med school, they send her to Taiwan to spend the rest of the summer at Chien Tan—an immersive high school program devoted to language and culture. When Ever arrives she's surprised to discover that far from the scholarly summer she expected, the students themselves call the program "Loveboat," because it’s tons of fun and so many long-term relationships begin here. I enjoyed the audiobook version, narrated by Emily Woo Zeller.

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.

Beach Read

by Emily Henry

Don’t be fooled by the cheery cover; I loved this book, but it’s no rom-com. January is a 29-year-old romance writer who no longer believes in happily-ever-after. Demoralized and broke, she moves into the beach house she inherited when her father died, hoping to lick her wounds and finish her current manuscript. But then, in a cruel twist of fate, she discovers her neighbor is the beloved literary fiction writer Augustus Everett, her college rival (and crush), whom she was hoping to never see again. It turns out Gus has troubles of his own, and so the two make a bet to get their writing back on track: January will try her hand at the “bleak literary fiction” that Gus writes, and Gus will write a romance novel. A warm and delightfully meta take on love, writing, and second chances.

The Lincoln Highway

by Amor Towles

From the publisher: "The bestselling author of A Gentleman in Moscow and Rules of Civility and master of absorbing, sophisticated fiction returns with a stylish and propulsive novel set in 1950s America. In June, 1954, eighteen-year-old Emmett Watson is driven home to Nebraska by the warden of the juvenile work farm where he has just served fifteen months for involuntary manslaughter. His mother long gone, his father recently deceased, and the family farm foreclosed upon by the bank, Emmett's intention is to pick up his eight-year-old brother, Billy, and head to California where they can start their lives anew. But when the warden drives away, Emmett discovers that two friends from the work farm have hidden themselves in the trunk of the warden's car. Together, they have hatched an altogether different plan for Emmett's future, one that will take them all on a fateful journey in the opposite direction—to the City of New York. Spanning just ten days and told from multiple points of view, Towles's third novel will satisfy fans of his multi-layered literary styling while providing them an array of new and richly imagined settings, characters, and themes."

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.

Who is Maud Dixon?: A Novel

by Alexandra Andrews

Aspiring writer Florence is determined to get her stories published—no matter what it takes. But after her initial underhanded efforts to get a book deal result in getting fired from her low-level publishing job, she receives a fortuitously-timed offer to play assistant to a blockbuster novelist whose identity is a closely-guarded secret. Soon she’s privy to the secrets of “Maud Dixon,” who hit the bestseller charts with her debut about a sinister Southern murder, but whose sophomore novel is long overdue to the publisher. When the prickly writer invites Florence to accompany her on a research trip to Morocco, Florence can’t say yes fast enough … and that’s when the book takes a suspenseful turn I never saw coming.

Sex and Vanity

by Kevin Kwan

Jake cited this "champagne cocktail in book form" as a favorite in WSIRN Episode 277: Books that feel like a vacation for your brain. When I read it last year, I didn't realize it was a retelling of A Room with a View until I thought "hmm, the name Lucy Church seems familiar," and started picking up more connections. But you do not need to be familiar with E.M. Forster's classic to enjoy this glittery, glamorous, and gossipy novel that opens on an island holiday in Capri—and then jumps forward seven years later to a decadent summer vacation in East Hampton.

The Narrowboat Summer

by Anne Youngson

From the publisher: "Eve expected Sally to come festooned with suitcases and overnight bags packed with everything she owned, but she was wrong. She arrived on foot, with a rucksack and a carrier bag. 'I just walked away,' she said, climbing on to the boat. Eve knew what she meant. Meet Eve, who has left her thirty-year career to become a Free Spirit; Sally, who has waved goodbye to her indifferent husband and two grown-up children; and Anastasia, a defiantly independent narrowboat-dweller, who is suddenly landlocked and vulnerable. Before they quite know what they’ve done, Sally and Eve agree to drive Anastasia’s narrowboat on a journey through the canals of England, as she awaits a life-saving operation. As they glide gently – and not so gently – through the countryside, the eccentricities and challenges of narrowboat life draw them inexorably together, and a tender and unforgettable story unfolds. At summer’s end, all three women must decide whether to return to the lives they left behind, or forge a new path forward."

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.

Standout audiobooks for the summer

Where the Rhythm Takes You

Mary Jane

Instructions for a Heatwave

The Idea of You

The Mothers

The Hotel Nantucket

Loveboat, Taipei

The Shore

Beach Read

The Lincoln Highway

The Summer I Turned Pretty

Who is Maud Dixon?: A Novel

Sex and Vanity

The Narrowboat Summer

One Italian Summer

Find your next read with:

100 Book recommendations
for every mood

Standout audiobooks for the summer

Find your next read with:

100 Book recommendations for every mood

100 Book recommendations
for every mood