Seven Summer Books We Can’t Stop Talking About

When casting agent Sasha Cruz meets an intriguing mystery man on a flight to Paris, she’s intrigued. And when they part without exchanging numbers, she’s bummed enough to email a friend about it… except she accidentally sends the message to her entire company. Worldwide. Will Sasha find her handsome seatmate? Another romantic winner from the best-selling author of Seven Days in June.

Newly divorced and dragged aboard a ’90s boy band cruise by her sister, Annie expects to feel like an outsider among thousands of devoted superfans. And she does, until she doesn’t. What starts as ironic participation becomes something unexpectedly real—and really fun to read.

This smart, taut novel is also a queer coming-of-age story that acknowledges the ongoing messiness of personal growth. It’s the early 2000s and teenage Susan is enamored with two things: music and Eliza. Years later, as Susan’s built her career in music, she and Eliza reconnect—only to find that their mutual attraction is more complicated than either of them knew. Come for the nostalgia, stay for the hard-won emotional truths.

The final installment in Colson Whitehead’s Harlem Trilogy is set in 1980s NYC, where furniture dealer Ray Carney’s side hustle—flipping stolen furniture—leads him to partner with one of the city’s legendary criminals. Another stunner from one of the nation’s greatest living storytellers.

When her mother’s lover dies, Stevie is pulled back into Moon’s chaotic orbit — trading her escape plans for a cramped pool house and mounting bills. Moon navigates grief, addiction, and reinvention, and Stevie fights for autonomy she’s never had, the arrival of Moon’s former TV son complicates everything. Choi is as sharp as ever.

After losing her mother at seventeen, Ruth finds refuge on Block Island — and spends the next decade unable to leave it behind. When tragedy strikes again, she turns to Charlie, her long-held first love, just as a mysterious box left by her late mentor reframes everything she thought she knew.

Still recovering from breast cancer and a husband’s betrayal, Alice escapes to France with her two daughters, hoping the trip will reset everything. What begins as liberation slowly becomes its own kind of unraveling. The Gulf of Lions is a rich, sensory novel about survival, sexuality, and what holds a family together. Have some Kleenex at hand.