It’s not officially summer until you’re on the beach or by the pool soaking up your next great read. Here are 10 of the buzziest, best and brilliant books to try this season, no matter your mood.
The book-club crowd
“Yesteryear,” Caro Claire Burke
This talk-of-the-town novel is one of the year’s biggest debuts and is already in development to become an Anne Hathaway film. It centers on a tradwife influencer whose public persona doesn’t quite match her private life — and when she seemingly wakes up nearly 200 years in the past, a wild, page-turning tale ensues.
“Lady Tremaine,” Rachel Hochhauser
A “Cinderella” retelling from the evil stepmother’s point of view, this novel is a beautiful, tightly told reimagining that asks not only what it means to be a woman in a man’s world, but what it means to mother other women and prepare them to face it, too.
“The Correspondent,” Virginia Evans
Written as a series of letters, this epistolary novel is a crowd pleaser that every reader across ages has loved. Author Evans recently took home The Women’s Prize for Fiction for this tender story about a retired lawyer coming to terms with her mistakes and regrets.
The page turners
“Good People,” Patmeena Sabit
In this kaleidoscopic novel that The New York Times called “gorgeous and powerful,” a family from Afghanistan contends with whether the life they’ve built in America is truly the life they want when their daughter Zorah dies.
“Best Offer Wins,” Marisa Kashino
This delightfully unhinged novel from a former Washington Post reporter follows a woman on an increasingly desperate house hunt through the greater D.C. area — and questions the lengths people will go to in order to get the life they feel they deserve.
The romantics
“Score,” Kennedy Ryan
Ryan’s “Score” explores the power of second chances in romance when a musician and screenwriter come together a decade after their devastating breakup to work together on a film. “Score” is the second in Ryan’s beloved “Hollywood Renaissance” series, and more of her best-selling books are coming soon to screens, thanks to a first-look adaptation deal with Universal Studio Group.
“Our Perfect Storm,” Carley Fortune
Every Fortune novel is an immersive love letter to place, and this romance follows the beloved friends-to-lovers trope to Tofino on Vancouver Island when heroine Frankie’s wedding is called off and she embarks on her honeymoon with her best friend George instead.
The modern classics
“Persepolis,” Marjane Satrapi
Initially published in 2003, this graphic novel details the Iranian revolution through the eyes of young Marji, whose family bristles under the growing restrictions and persecution, and was made into an Oscar-nominated 2007 film. Author Satrapi passed away in early June of this year, but her powerful book continues to illuminate the lives of ordinary citizens caught in the tightening grip of a government regime and global forces.
“The Soldier’s House,” Helen Benedict
The third novel in a connected trilogy written over more than a decade, “The Soldier’s House” follows an American veteran of the war in Iraq and his interpreter’s widow and child, whom he brings home with him to the United States. Booklist called Benedict’s immersive novel, which follows “Sand Queen and Wolf Season,” a “rich portrait of displaced lives reshaped by conflict and its enduring consequences.”
“Angel Down,” Daniel Kraus
The winner of the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, this breathtaking, critically acclaimed novel — told entirely in one sentence — tells the story of five soldiers caught in the brutal bloodshed of World War I, and a fallen angel who could perhaps end it all.
