Every month we try to share the new releases headed to our shelves, and July’s newest books include some perfect beach reads. If you’re looking to really dive into Summer, these titles have seaside settings, summer romance, and two are set in swampy Florida! To place holds and see additional new releases, check out our July Booklist.
Summer Vibes
An incredibly nuanced and resonant look at the winding paths we can take to places we never imagined
The Wedding People by Alison Espach
It’s a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn wearing a green dress and gold heels, not a bag in sight, alone. She’s immediately mistaken by everyone in the lobby for one of the wedding people, but she’s actually the only guest at the Cornwall who isn’t here for the big event. Phoebe is here because she’s dreamed of coming for years—she hoped to shuck oysters and take sunset sails with her husband, only now she’s here without him, at rock bottom, and determined to have one last decadent splurge on herself.
Sullivan weaves a narrative that’s fascinating and thought-provoking. I literally could not put this book down.—Ann Napolitano, best-selling author of Hello Beautiful
The Cliffs by J. Courtney Sullivan
On a secluded bluff overlooking the ocean sits a Victorian house, lavender with gingerbread trim, a home that contains a century’s worth of secrets. By the time Jane Flanagan discovers the house as a teenager, it has long been abandoned. The place is an irresistible mystery to Jane. There are still clothes in the closets, marbles rolling across the floors, and dishes in the cupboards, even though no one has set foot there in decades. The house becomes a hideaway for Jane, a place to escape her volatile mother. Twenty years later, now a Harvard archivist, she returns home to Maine with her career and her marriage in crisis, to find the Victorian is now barely recognizable.
With a rich setting and secrets shimmering at the core of the narrative, Jenny Lecoat offers up everything we seek in historical fiction
Beyond Summerland by Jenny Lecoat
The German occupation is over. The Channel Islands, the only captured territory within the British Isles, are finally liberated. But the people are left as scarred as the landscape. No longer a “summerland” holiday paradise, the island now boils with tension as locals seek revenge on anyone suspected of collaborating with the enemy during the war. Nineteen-year-old Jean Parris, still adjusting to this fractious peace, is shocked to learn that Hazel, a teacher, may be responsible for her father’s wartime arrest, and sets out to find the truth.
An uplifting and emotionally resonant novel set in a Delaware beach town about a local restaurant owner at a turning point
The Same Bright Stars by Ethan Joella
Three generations of Schmidts have run their family’s beachfront restaurant and Jack has been at the helm since the death of his father. Jack puts the demands of the restaurant above all else, with a string of failed relationships, no hobbies, and no days off as proof of his commitment to the place. He can’t remember the last time he sat on the beach, or even enjoyed a moment to himself. Meanwhile, the DelDine group has been gradually snapping up beloved eateries along this stretch of coast and are pursuing Jack with a very generous offer.
For fans of Sally Rooney, a stunning debut that follows a vibrant multi-generational cast of characters through a London heatwave
Evenings & Weekends by Oisin McKenna
Summer in London stops for no one…It’s June 2019, and everyone has converged on the city’s parks, beer gardens, and street corners to revel in the collective joys of being alive. Everyone but Maggie. She’s 30, pregnant, and broke. Boyfriend, Ed, meanwhile, is trying to run from his past with Maggie’s best friend Phil and harboring secret dreams of his own. Phil hates his office job and is living for the weekend, while falling for his housemate, Keith. Then there’s Rosaleen, Phil’s mother, who’s tired of feeling like a side character in her own life. As Saturday night approaches, all their lives are set to change forever.Temperatures are soaring and the weekend is about to begin…
An Apple Best Book of July, Most Anticipated Book by TIME, Oprah Daily, Esquire, the Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, ELLE, Bustle, and Lit Hub
State of Paradise by Laura Van den Berg
It’s another summer in a small Florida town. After an illness that vanishes as mysteriously as it arrived, everything appears to be getting back to normal: soul-crushing heat, torrential downpours, sinkholes swallowing the earth, ominous cats, a world-bending virtual reality device being handed out by a company called ELECTRA, and an increasing number of posters dotting the streets with the faces of missing citizens. Living in her mother’s home, a ghostwriter for a famous thriller author tracks the eerie changes. On top of everything else, she’s contending with family secrets…
Murder, a love triangle, and small-town secrets in Tallahassee, Florida…an unputdownable read. —The New York Times
Guilty Creatures by Mikita Brottman
Mike & Denise Williams had a tight knit, seemingly unbreakable bond with childhood friends, Brian & Kathy Winchester. The two couples were devout, hardworking Baptists who lived perfect, quintessentially Southern lives. Their friendship seemed ironclad. That is, until December 16, 2000, when Denise’s husband Mike disappeared while duck hunting on Lake Seminole. After no body was found, everyone assumed Mike had drowned in a tragic accident, his body eaten by alligators. But things took an unexpected turn when Brian Winchester divorced his wife & married Denise. It took another 12 years for the truth to come out—and when it did, it was unimaginable.
In the wake of tragedy, a group of friends makes a pact that will cause them to reunite a decade later and embark upon a life-changing adventure together—from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Meant to Be
The Summer Pact by Emily Giffin
Four freshmen arrive at college from completely different worlds: Lainey, a California party girl with a flair for drama; Tyson, a brilliant scholar and aspiring lawyer from Washington, D.C.; Summer, an ambitious, recruited athlete from the Midwest; and Hannah, a mild-mannered southerner who is content to quietly round out the circle of big personalities. Ten years later the group reunites to take a time out from lives headed in wrong directions, and embark on a journey of self-discovery, forgiveness, and acceptance.
