27 best books to read this summer, from historical fiction to romance novels

Andrew O’Hagan (author of the beloved book Mayflies) is back with his latest novel: Caledonian Road. A vast state-of-the-nation novel that jumps between characters and social worlds, the book’s near-700 pages contain Dukes and Duchesses, drill groups, refugees, journalists, students and more – painting a vivid picture of our post-pandemic, post-Brexit times.

Campbell Flynn is a well-known art historian who now mixes with the upper echelons, despite his Scottish tenement upbringing. As both his material and mental state become increasingly fragile, O’Hagan pays just as much attention to the wider cast of characters, from Milo, a young computer hacker, to Flynn’s publically disgraced old university friend and bitter sitting tenant (the book even comes with a cast list so you don’t lose track). A novel that’s just as much about the city of London and the fall of a man as it is a biting satire on modern society, class and politics, Caledonian Road is a masterful feat of storytelling.

Read the eBook now:

• Kindle: £9.99, Amazon.co.uk

Listen to the audiobook now:

• Audible: £24.87, Amazon.co.uk

Paul Murray’s The Bee Sting is a tour de force of fiction. The Barnes, a once-well-off Irish family, are in the midst of emotional and financial strain. Set during turbulent months in their claustrophobic town (think floods, droughts and the aftermath of recession), Murray expertly gives us each family member’s perspective of the same events – with flashbacks unravelling an intricate story of betrayal, crime and lust.

Profound on the human condition, utterly gripping and peppered with comedy, Murray’s novel is a must-read this year.

Read the eBook now:

• Apple Books: £9.99, Apple.com
• Kindle: £9.99, Amazon.co.uk

Listen to the audiobook now:

• Apple Books: £9.99, Apple.com
• Audible: £14.87, Amazon.co.uk

Some writers suffer from second-novel syndrome, but not Dolly Alderton. The author and columinist’s second book Good Material is a cliché-avoiding break-up novel, in the vein of Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity.

Told through the eyes of recently dumped Andy, we follow him as he grapples with single life after his girlfriend realised she wanted to be alone. This in itself is a powerful narrative, with Alderton making a case for the happy and single 30-something woman.

Genuinely laugh-out-loud funny – with characters straight out of a Richard Curtis film (the elderly lodger who’s prepping for doomsday is a highlight) – whipsmart dialogue and relatable millennial themes (Alderton’s forte) mean there’s never a dull moment. Despite it being a pleasingly easy read (we tore through it in a single day), Good Material still manages to be thought-provoking and wise.

Read the eBook now:

• Apple Books: £9.99, Apple.com
• Kindle: £9.99, Amazon.co.uk

Listen to the audiobook now:

• Apple Books: £9.99, Apple.com
• Audible: £11.37, Amazon.co.uk

A satire of the publishing industry and brazen exploration of cancel culture, Rebecca F Kuang’s literary heist Yellowface is one the most gripping books of the year. It begins with the freak accident death of young, famed writer Athena Liu (she chokes on pancake mixture, setting the preposterous tone for the rest of the book), witnessed by her sometimes-friend and aspiring (currently failing) novelist June Hayward.

After June steals Athena’s unfinished manuscript and publishes it under her own name to acclaim, she is thrown into the fame, money and relevance she’s always desired. But when her secret threatens to become known, June must decide how far she will go to maintain her reputation. Addictive and uncomfortable, with plenty of savagely funny moments, Kuang’s novel is a must-read.

Read the eBook now:

• Apple Books: £4.99, Apple.com
• Kindle: £7.99, Amazon.co.uk

Listen to the audiobook now:

• Apple Books: £9.99, Apple.com
• Audible: £11.38, Amazon.co.uk

There’s nothing new about an affair novel – but, testament to Madeleine Grey’s writing, Green Dot is fresh and modern. Hera, a 24-year-old, has just started an admin job at a newspaper, where she meets Arthur. Older, more senior and attractive, Hera distracts herself from the boredom of her day-to-day life by crashing headfirst into a workplace romance.

When she discovers he’s married, the illicit affair consumes her life. Part Bridget Jones, part Fleabag, Green Dot is funny, fast-paced and witty, with plenty of relatable millennial and Gen Z references (and not to mention a painfully relatable lockdown passage). We tore through it.

Read the eBook now:

• Apple Books: £9.99, Apple.com
• Kindle: £9.99, Amazon.co.uk

Listen to the audiobook now:

• Apple Books: £9.99, Apple.com
• Audible: £7.99, Amazon.co.uk

Kiley Reid’s debut Such a Fun Age was a runaway success in 2020. Now she’s back with Come and Get It, a page-turning take on money and power dynamics. Desperate to get on the property ladder, graduate and land a good job, Millie is working as a student advisor and living in dorms. Meanwhile, visiting professor and writer Agatha is doing research for a new book and wants to interview some of the students in Millie’s dorm.

Jumping at the chance to increase her income, Millie agrees, and the two women become embroiled in a world of student angst, pranks, and theatrics. Despite the story rarely leaving campus grounds, the novel has a gripping wide scope that explores society’s obsession with money, desire, and consumption.

Read the eBook now:

• Apple Books: £10.99, Apple.com
• Kindle: £7.97, Amazon.co.uk

Listen to the audiobook now:

• Audible: £7.99, Amazon.co.uk
• Apple Books: £8.99, Apple.com

Beginning in a private boarding school for boys, before taking us to the horror of the trenches during World War One, Alice Winn’s blistering debut is an unforgettable read. We’re first introduced to the book’s central figures – Gaunt and Ellwood – in 1914, when both schoolboys are secretly in love with each other. When half-German Gaunt is pressured by his mother to enlist in the British army, he is relieved to run away from his forbidden feelings for his best friend. But when the true terror of the war is revealed to him, he is soon devastated when Ellwood and other classmates follow him to the Western Front.

A love story set against the tragedies of war, Winn’s rousing writing transports you to the trenches, where an entire generation of lost men are brought to vivid life – the characters will stick with you, long after the final page.

Read the eBook now:

• Apple Books: £9.99, Apple.com
• Kindle: £9.99, Amazon.co.uk

Listen to the audiobook now:

• Apple Books: £7.99, Apple.com
• Audible: £11.37, Amazon.co.uk

Zadie Smith’s first foray into historical fiction, The Fraud is based on true events and juxtaposes a portrait of Victorian life and slavery in the Caribbean. The titular fraud in question is the Tichborne Claimant – a butcher who claimed to be an aristocratic heir in an 1873 trial that gripped the country. Real-life cousin and housekeeper to the largely forgotten novelist William Ainsworth, Smith reimagines Eliza Touchet’s mostly unknown life and her fascination with the case and its prime witness, an ageing Black man named Andrew Bogle.

The author’s version of Bogle’s backstory provides most of the second half of the book, beginning with his father’s abduction in the 1770s to the Hope Plantation in Jamaica. Affecting and devastating, it’s in stark contrast to the humdrum domestic middle-class Victorian life also explored. In typical Zadie style, the narrative structure and decade leaping require you to pay attention – but you’re heavily rewarded with the sheer breadth of the novel and its vividly painted characters.

Read the eBook now:

• Apple Books: £9.99, Apple.com
• Kindle: £9.99, Amazon.co.uk

Listen to the audiobook now:

• Apple Books: £9.99, Apple.com
• Audible: £11.37, Amazon.co.uk

The book that everyone was talking about last year, Slay In Your Lane writerYomi Adegoke’s debut novel is so buzzy that an HBO TV adaptation is already in the works. Podcaster Michael and journalist Ola are a young couple on the cusp of marriage when their world is blown apart by allegations of abuse made against Michael online in “The List”.

Having made a career of exposing such men, Ola is torn between believing Michael’s innocence or supporting the women who anonymously submitted their stories to the list. Thought-provoking and topical in its exploration of life both online and offline, and the fallout of cancel culture, it’s written with sharp insight and is impossible to put down. The hype is real.

Read the eBook now:

• Apple Books: £4.99, Apple.com
• Kindle: £4.99, Amazon.co.uk

Listen to the audiobook now:

• Apple Books: £11.99, Apple.com
• Audible: £11.38, Amazon.co.uk

A sex comedy with darkness at its centre, Jen Beagin’s latest novel is narrated by Greta, a 45-year-old who lives in a decrepit Dutch farmhouse and transcribes for a sex therapist. Knowing everyone’s secrets in the small town of Hudson is no problem when you’re a relative recluse – that is until she bumps into Flavia, aka Big Swiss, her nickname for the 28-year-old married Swiss woman who suffered a terrible beating that she regularly transcribes (and is infatuated with).

Their dog park meeting leads to a passionate relationship with both women trying to escape their own traumas. Greta’s mother committed suicide when she was 13 years old while Flavia’s attacker has just been released from prison. An off-kilter romance with lashings of psychological thriller, darker moments are balanced with Beagin’s witty writing, idiosyncratic characters and laugh-out-loud passages. Naturally, there’s already an HBO adaptation starring Jodie Comer in the works.

Read the eBook now:

• Apple Books: £8.99, Apple.com
• Kindle: £7.99, Amazon.co.uk

Listen to the audiobook now:

• Apple Books: £4.99, Apple.com
• Audible: £11.37, Amazon.co.uk

A subversive love story set against the political polarisation of America, Cecilia Rabess’s Everything’s Fine is a funny and punchy debut. Jess – Black and liberal – immediately dislikes her Ivy League college classmate Josh – white and conservative – but when they find themselves working in the same company after graduating, a cantankerous friendship turns into a passionate relationship.

Set against the backdrop of Trump’s presidential campaign, the novel explores if ideological opposites can be together – with its most heated moments taking place over arguments about Maga hats, wealth inequality and wokeism. Commenting perceptively on politics and economics, Rabess’s writing is just as enthralling on lust and sex. Concluding on the eve of the 2016 election, the novel questions whether love really can conquer all. We tore through it in two sittings.

Read the eBook now:

• Apple Books: £0.99, Apple.com
• Kindle: £4.99, Amazon.co.uk

Listen to the audiobook now:

• Apple Books: £9.99, Apple.com
• Audible: £11.37, Amazon.co.uk

Sadly, Katherine Min’s darkly comic novel The Fetishist was published posthumously following her death from cancer in 2019. The partially finished manuscript was edited and finished by her daughter, which adds to the poignancy of the novel. A riff on Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, the story is told from three perspectives: Daniel, an ageing violinist who fetishizes Asian woman; Alma, a prodigal cellist with a terminal diagnosis and the love of Daniel’s life; and Kyoko, a mid-Twenties punk singer who is seeking revenge on Daniel for driving her mother to her death through suicide.

Part revenge fantasy and part decade-spanning love story, it gives narrative control to the wronged women (unlike Lolita) with the story seeing Daniel forced to reckon with his fetishisation. Exploring race and sexual politics, forgiveness and desire, the book is hilariously funny and often sexy, all while being deeply thought-provoking.

Buy the eBook now:

• Kindle: £9.99, Amazon.co.uk

Listen to the audiobook now:

• Audible: 99p, Amazon.co.uk

Two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Colson Whitehead is back with the second instalment to his New York crime trilogy. First introduced in 2021’s Harlem Shuffle, furniture salesman and ex-fence Ray Carney returns to the criminal underbelly of the city in Crook Manifesto, in a bid to secure Jackson 5 tickets (which were like gold dust in 1971) for his daughter.

Jumping through the years up to 1976, Whitehead casts a satirical eye on New York during the tumultuous decade, touching on everything from police corruption and the Black Liberation Army to Blaxploitation. Blending family drama with history and culture, the sequel has the feel of a Quentin Tarantino movie and we were hooked.

Read the eBook now:

• Apple Books: £9.99, Apple.com
• Kindle: £9.99, Amazon.co.uk

Listen to the audiobook now:

• Apple Books: £9.99, Apple.com
• Audible: £11.37, Amazon.co.uk

Fresh from the success of Netflix’s One Day adaptation, David Nicholls is back with a comforting romance novel that serves as the perfect sun lounger companion. Marnie, a divorcee who works alone at the computer in her London flat, feels like life is passing her by, while Michael, recently seperated and increasingly misanthropic, has taken up long, solitary walks across the moors as his own form of therapy.

When a mutual friend organises a group hike through the Lake District, Nicholls not only beautifully evokes quintessential British landscapes, but also maps a will-they-or-won’t-they love story between the two midlifers (fans will be reminded of One Day’s Dexter and Emma). The chapters alternate between Michael and Marnie’s narrative, with comic moments found in the pair’s bumbling, burgeoning romance. Rest assured, you’ll be very invested in a happy ending.

Read the eBook now:

• Apple Books: £11.99, Apple.com
• Kindle: £11.49, Amazon.co.uk

Listen to the audiobook now:

• Apple Books: £7.99, Apple.com
• Audible: £13.99, Amazon.co.uk

Megan Nolan’s Acts of Desperation was one of our favourite reads last year and we loved the writer’s second novel just as much. A unique take on the crime genre, Ordinary Human Failings marks a dramatic departure from the tone and plot in Nolan’s debut. Set in the 1990s in London, tabloid journalist Tom Hargreaves believes he’s stumbled upon a career-making scoop when a child is murdered on a housing estate.

As fingers start pointing towards a family of Irish immigrants, the Greens family, Tom hunkers down with them to drive into their history. At the centre of the family is Carmel, a beautiful yet mysterious young mother, who is forced to reckon with how her 10-year-old daughter is implicated in a murder investigation. Tom’s probing soon reveals the regrets, secrets and silences that have trapped the Greens for decades. Intriguing and vast in scope, it’s an old-fashioned page-turner.

Read the eBook now:

• Apple Books: £8.99, Apple.com
• Kindle: £8.99, Amazon.co.uk

Listen to the audiobook now:

• Apple Books: £7.99, Apple.com
• Audible: £11.37, Amazon.co.uk

Naoise Dolan’s follow-up to 2020’s Exciting Times, this book is infused with the same biting social commentary and humour. A satirical spin on the marriage genre, it follows late-20-somethings Luke and Celine – both of whom think the other is out of love with them – on the cusp of their wedding day. Whether they’ll make it to the end of the aisle or not forms the tension of the novel.

Switching perspectives between their nearest and dearest, from best man Archie (Luke’s ex and sometimes-lover) to Celine’s sister (suspicious of Luke’s frequent disappearances), Dolan explores the anxieties of modern love. A wedding novel permeated by emotional turmoil rather than romance, its self-aware characters and comedic-timing cement Dolan as one of the sharpest writers around.

Read the eBook now:

• Apple Books: £7.99, Apple.com
• Kindle: £7.99, Amazon.co.uk

Listen to the audiobook now:

• Apple Books: £9.99, Apple.com
• Audible: £11.38, Amazon.co.uk

After the runaway success of Coco Mellor’s Cleopatra and Frankenstein in 2022, the author’s follow-up Blue Sisters has a lot of hype surrounding it. Mostly, it delivers. Swapping hedonistic lovers in her first novel for grieving siblings in her second, the book follows three sisters grappling with the loss of their fourth sister in an accidental overdose.

Not only are they grieving, but both are fighting personal battles. The youngest, Lucky, is a 26-year-old model in Paris who relies on drugs and alcohol to escape the noise of her mind; the middle child, Bonnie, has given up a successful career in boxing to be a bouncer in the LA bar; and Avery, the eldest, is having an affair with a man while her wife pines for them to have a child. If you can get over the cliché and slightly cringey characters, the sister’s stories are gripping enough to sink your teeth into.

A fictional story told in the manner of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, Eliza Clark’s Penance delves into the grisly torture and murder of 16-year-old Joan Wilson on the eve of the Brexit referendum in the seaside town of Crow. Three years after the murder, obsession with true crime is at an all-time high and an American podcast draws awareness to the case.

Ex-tabloid hack Alec Z Carelli sets out to write the “definitive account” of the murder – which was committed by three school girls – through eyewitness accounts, interviews and correspondence. Living in the town, exploring its history and its people, Carelli recounts the lives of the teenage murderers and the sinister world of online true-crime fandoms. As well as questioning Carelli’s morality in exploiting a horrific murder for his own career, Clark questions society’s preoccupation with gruesome true crime. Unnerving, superbly written and engrossing, the ending is pitch perfect.

Read the eBook now:

• Apple Books: £0.99, Apple.com
• Kindle: £7.99, Amazon.co.uk

Listen to the audiobook now:

• Apple Books: £12.99, Apple.com
• Audible: £11.37, Amazon.co.uk

Roxy Dunn’s debut novel explores womanhood, relationships and what happens when your life takes an unexpected direction. Told from the point of view of 34-year-old Margot who has found herself single once again, each chapter tells the story of a man she’s dated.

From her first relationship at the end of school to the longer partners who have helped shape her, each one teaches her something new about herself and what it is to be a woman. Fertility is a theme that runs through the book, with Margot’s biological body clock a ticking time bomb in each relationship as she gets older. But there’s plenty for men to relate to too, with Dunn’s writing perfectly capturing the exciting beginnings and achingly sad ends of relationships. You won’t be able to put it down.

Read the eBook now:

• Kindle: £5.99, Amazon.co.uk

Listen to the audiobook now:

• Audible: £11.49, Amazon.co.uk

In 1929, three members of the Hope family were murdered in their clifftop mansion. Decades later, the book’s protagonist Kit McDeere takes on a job caring for Lenora Hope who has been in the house ever since and is the only remaining member of the Hope family. She also happens to be the one accused of carrying out the murders.

This book is breathtakingly twisty and while the mystery unravels, the claustrophobia becomes almost unbearable as the Hope’s End mansion itself begins succumbing to the sea and crumbling like the cliffs. We found ourselves literally gasping out loud as secrets were revealed. The Only One Left is a Gothic thriller, with horror elements and is perfect for cosying up with as autumn turns to winter.

Read the eBook now:

• Apple Books: £4.99, Apple.com
• Kindle: £4.99, Amazon.co.uk

Listen to the audiobook now:

• Apple Books: £9.99, Apple.com
• Audible: £11.37, Amazon.co.uk

Be warned, Catherine Newman’s debut book for adults,We All Want Impossible Things, is guaranteed to make you cry (lots). Edi and Ash have been best friends for more than 40 years, from travelling across Europe as Twenty-somethings to bringing up children and the breakdown of a marriage. So, when Edi is diagnosed with terminal cancer, Ash drops everything to care for her at a nearby hospice and make the most of every moment they have left together.

Yes, the premise is depressing – but it’s also life affirming and a homage to female friendships, as well as both platonic and romantic love. Full of warmth and hilarity (don’t worry, you’ll cry happy tears too), it’s testament to Newman’s writing that a book about death can be so joyous.

Read the eBook now:

• Kindle: 99p, Amazon.co.uk

Listen to the audiobook now:

• Apple Books: £7.99, Apple.com
• Audible: £7.99, Amazon.co.uk

Obsessed with her husband, the main character of this dark domestic drama spends her days over-analysing her husband’s words, agonising over perceived slights and fantasising about imagined scenarios that send her swirling into flights of jealousy and passion. Her deep obsession eclipses everything else in her life including her relationship with her children, her work and her friendships.

Her roller-coaster of emotions and unhinged antics are fascinating to follow and we found ourselves devouring this darkly humorous work in less than two days. This fresh and easy-to-read book is translated from French by Emma Ramadan.

Read the eBook now:

• Apple Books: £8.99, Apple.com
• Kindle: £8.99, Amazon.co.uk

Listen to the audiobook now:

• Apple Books: £7.99, Apple.com
• Audible: £11.37, Amazon.co.uk

A group of six friends living in a small Irish seaside town are inseparable until one day, Kala goes missing. Fifteen years later, three of the friends are back in Kinlough and human remains are found in the woods nearby, bringing the past screaming back.

Jumping between the time when the group was in secondary school and the present day, the mystery slowly unravels as we explore the heavy family traumas and broken friendships from the past. A complicated small-town community is the claustrophobic backdrop to the story which creates a refreshing mixture of family drama and crime thriller.

The story is told from the point of view of three of Kala’s friends who come back together and delve into the past to try and make sense of Kala’s death. There’s the loyal Mush who has always been in Kinlough, working in his mother’s cafe, hiding his mysterious facial scars from the world. Helen is the hard-headed former best friend of Kala who is now a journalist and is in town for her father’s impending wedding. And Joe, who is now a world-famous musician, has a hometown residency in a local bar, and is trying to reconnect to his old friends.

The use of three distinct narrative voices is well executed with clues cleverly revealed via the three protagonists and concludes with a major twist that you won’t see coming.

Read the eBook now:

• Apple Books: £5.99, Apple.com
• Kindle: £4.68, Amazon.co.uk

Listen to the audiobook now:

• Apple Books: £5.99, Apple.com
• Audible: £15.74, Amazon.co.uk

A follow-up to the critically acclaimed The Girls, Emma Cline’s The Guest follows 22-year-old escort Alex as she drifts from pool to beach during a chaotic week in sun-drenched Long Island. Cast out by the older man she was staying with, instead of returning to the city, she stays on the island and adapts to survive – believing they can be romantically reunited five days later at his Labor Day party.

In each encounter with individuals, groups at parties or old acquaintances, she leaves disaster in her wake. Though the story is a simple premise, each page is loaded with tension and risk, thanks to Cline’s stylistic writing. The poetic form and metaphorical use of water (swimming is survival) adds to the novel’s hazy feel. The Guest is also a deft exploration of social mobility, as Alex navigates the class system of Long Island.

Read the eBook now:

• Apple Books: £7.99, Apple.com
• Kindle: £8.99, Amazon.co.uk

Listen to the audiobook now:

• Apple Books: £7.99, Apple.com
• Audible: £11.37, Amazon.co.uk

Lottie Hazell’s searing debut challenges the notion of domestic bliss. Kit and Piglet (a derisive nickname from childhood) are the picture perfect couple. They own a new build home, have seemingly sucessful careers and are planning their wedding that’s straight out of a brochure.

But 13 days before the wedding, Kit reveals a terrible secret that sends Piglet spiralling and their life to come crumbling down around then. The motif of food threads throughout the novel, from evocative passages about binging to Piglet’s own insatiable appetite for following the rules. Dark, witty and very well-written (the descriptions of food are reminscent of Nora Ephron’s Heartburn), Piglet is a satire that explores everything from class to body image.

Read the eBook now:

• Kindle: £7.99, Amazon.co.uk

Listen to the audiobook now:

• Apple Books: £7.99, Apple.com
• Audible: £11.37, Amazon.co.uk

Part mystery and part domestic noir, The Lagos Wife takes us to the heart of Lagos after the disappearence of Nicole Oruwari. Escaping London and a trouble family past, Nicole married a handsome Nigerian man, moved to a palatial house and became involved in a glamorous group of other wives.

After she vanishes without a trace after a boat trip, her aunt Claudine flies to Nigeria to take matters into her own hands. As she digs deeper into Nicole’s life, the cracks begin to show and Claudine’s own buried history threatens to be unconvered. Gripping and thought-provoking, Walter’s writes with nuance but in the page-turning style of a classic thriller.

Read the eBook now:

• Apple Books: £7.99, Apple.com
• Kindle: £5.99, Amazon.co.uk

Listen to the audiobook now:

• Apple Books: £7.99, Apple.com
• Audible: £7.99, Amazon.co.uk

An addictive sci-fi romantic comedy, Kaliane Bradley’s The Ministry of Time is set a couple of years in the future, when the British goverment have got their hands on a time travel portal. As part of an undisclosed mission, they’ve brought back five “expats” from history. Among the time travellers is Commander Gore, a 38-year-old Navy officer from the 19th Century who was part of Sir John Franklin’s doomed expedition to the Arctic. In real life he died in 1847, but in Bradley’s genre-bending tome he’s forced to acclimatise to the 21st Century, while our nameless narrator, a disaffected civil servant, is assigned as Gore’s “bridge” to help him settle in.

Grappling with everything from aeroplanes, dating apps, the British Empire and iPhones, what follows is a part girl-meets-boy (or Victorian-Arctic-explorer) love-story and part-thriller. Laugh-out-loud funny and a suprisingly powerful meditation on the climate crisis, it’s above all exciting, fun and a good old-fashioned page turner that you’ll recommend to all your friends.