7 Salty, Sweaty and Striking New Releases To Read This Summer
A genre-spanning mix of new fiction for your summer reading list.
There should be studies on why summer reading hits so much harder. (There probably are – cue greater leisure, less responsibility, more time in the day.) It’s such a special season. Sunshine makes us feel like there’s so much opportunity to love and lust and get lost in nature.
So! Whether you’re basking in the thick of it and looking for some fresh recs, packing for your shared beach house, or simply yearning to escape on paper, here are seven new release novels – spanning crime, sci-fi, queer lit, and litfic – bound to sweep you off your feet.
1. Until Alison by Kate Russo
Complicated. Crime-y. Small town.
Rachel’s relationship with Alison has always been messy. Think: childhood rivals. One-upping each other. So when Alison’s body is discovered at Pleasant Pond – the exact same place the two girls said ‘goodbye’ in eighth grade – the rumor mill within the small town of Waterbury, Maine, is set alight. Especially when we learn Rachel saw Alison the night of her alleged murder. A journalistic investigation starts to stir up the past and a web of incidents surrounding class, gender, and violence start to collide.
Pick this up if you have a penchant for true crime, or need to invest in some (fictional) drama outside your own life.
2. Sweet Nothings by Madison Griffiths
Desire. Power. Social critique.
Follow four young women (Rose, Blaine, Cara, and Elsie) whose stories are interwoven by their prickly history; all of them once students who embarked on romantic relationships with their university professors. Adults who whispered sweet nothings into their ears, only to make sweet nothings out of them in return. Scars are reopened with poetic prose and a cunning examination of desire, power, and ego bred inside the classroom.
Pick this up if you devoured Diana Reid’s Love & Virtue, or avidly follow Chanel Contos on Instagram.
3. Culpability by Bruce Holsinger
Coastal. Family. Soft dystopia.
The Cassidy-Shaw’s routine summer road-trip is derailed when their autonomous minivan collides with an oncoming car. Finding respite in Chesapeake Bay, the family of five start to confront moral dilemmas triggered by the crash, and how each of them – not just their Mom, a world leader in artificial intelligence – harbors a secret that could implicate them in the ‘accident’. Add another mysterious tech mogul to the mix, plus a teenage crush, and you’ve got a very thought provoking read about the impact of nonhuman forces.
Pick this up if you can get around chatbots, autonomous cars, and drones, but are a little disarmed by their potential, or you can just relate to a very messy family holiday.
4. Fun and Games by John Patrick McHugh
Queer. Comic. Coming of age.
John Masterson, in some ways, is like every other seventeen-year-old: anxiously waiting for his exam results, working mind-numbing shifts at the local hotel, unsure what to do once summer is through. And in other ways, he most certainly is not your average teen: an explicit photo of his mother was leaked to the whole town, he's getting scrappy at parties, and striking up a love interest with his older co-worker named Amber. A debut novel that is darkly comic in its exploration of platonic, familial, and self love.
Pick this up ‘cause Sally Rooney said Patrick McHugh is “one of the most exciting writers working in Ireland today”, or you’re chasing that high of the first summer out of high school.
5. Sunstruck by William Rayfet Hunter
Dazzling. Literary. French backdrop.
Ever dreamt of the possibility to belong to a family that is entirely out of reach; somewhere you don’t belong? So has Felix. Except his hypothetical hunger is turning into a sun-drenched reality while he vacations with the Blakes at their luxurious mansion in the South of France, meeting The Man. The haze of days spent lounging by the pool very quickly dissipates when both parties return to London. Will trauma, race, and status get in the way of their relationship, or is it a forever fling?
Pick this up if you’re dying to rewatch Saltburn, or you never found another novel to scratch the same (or, a very similar) itch as Andre Acimen’s Call Me By Your Name.
6. Dream State by Eric Puchner
Warm. Generational. Americana.
The events of this one summer have long-lasting repercussions. Not just for the three adults (soon-to-wed Cece and Charlie, plus Charlie’s best mate Garrett) playing with desire, but for their children too. Spanning five decades, with a backdrop set against a rapidly warming Montana, Dream State examines the chaos of inherited mistakes. Cece has/had to decide between the life she dreamed of and one she never imagined, while Charlie and Garret’s friendship is truly put to the test.
Pick this up if you feel like you need to knock skyscrapers out of your view and really touch grass, or are doing all you can to manifest a Yellowstone-esque cowboy into your life.
7. Stinkbug by Sinead Stubbins
Unhinged. Gothic. Retreat.
An ode to killing the corporate retreat. Because, inevitably, weird stuff starts to happen. When a group of advertising execs are sent to a remote mountain retreat, Edith views it as an opportunity to impress her bosses who have been hinting at the threat of mass redundancies and team restructuring. Phones are confiscated and team building activities are scheduled, but the usual starts to become unusual. Edith picks up on some suspicious happenings and can’t decide whether to speak out or shut up and see how it ends...
Pick this up if you live for inter-department chats by the company water cooler, or need to convince yourself there are wackier places to work than where you currently do.
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