Summer ‘24 Beach Reads
Do you feel it in the air this week? The hint of humidity. The gleam of green leaves vibrant against the piercing blue sky. A pinkish sunset sky that makes your heart feel weightless. Car windows rolled down with music floating through the street. The symphony of summer. She’s coming!
I have come to love spring. Weirdly, I never loved spring growing up even though my birthday is in the spring. It always felt like a letdown. Gray and rainy, with some spots of warmer days, yet the threat of a snowstorm still lingering. I’ve grown to love it as an adult. But summer, she’s always been my jam.
The 10-hour beach days. The freckles that emerge from hibernation. The 8 pm sunsets. Long bike rides. Beach reads. Surfing even though I’m not good and faceplant into the ocean… a lot. Driving with the windows down on a clear night. Buying 4 new bikinis because I have a problem.
It’s probably got something to do with summer break growing up. I had a fabulous time at day camp as a child. Or my summer teen memories. Being a teeny bopper at the mall when $20 could get you a Hollister shirt and Taco Bell.
For my 15th birthday, I decided not to do a quince or sweet 16 and asked my mom if we could take three girlfriends to LBI in the summer for the week. It was the summer of 2007. My mom, siblings, and grandma came. Four girls stuffed in a room with two double bunks for one week. We made tea on the beach from the sun’s heat, visited every mom-and-pop ice cream shop the island had to offer, swam in the ocean for hours, and practiced handstands on the beach. Late nights spent watching the stars and laughing until your stomach cramps. My pink iPod mini played our nightly lullabies each night: “Mary’s Song” or “Tim McGraw”. Btw, that whole album leaves Tortured Poets in the dust. I had four Facebook photo albums of the trip. I love aging myself here! This isn’t sarcasm. LBI became such a special place to me, and so did that time. It still is. I met my boyfriend down there 12 years later and we had a summer romance that still takes my breath away to think about sometimes.
You get it, I love summer. And I have so many happy summer memories. But one thing I love more than anything is summer reading. I know, this was the dreaded topic during school years for many. However, not me. I would lug a 700-page Harry Potter book to the beach with me with joy in my heart and a spring in my step. I would lose time and my sense of reality in the pages, while my mom planted an umbrella over me to keep the sunburn at bay. I’d lay in my grandparents’ backyard lost in the words of Nicholas Sparks. I would fly through my assigned reading, then get to the good stuff that I got to pick out.
That said, here are some of the new releases I’m looking forward to this summer. They’re a bit girly, rom-com, and very summer-oriented. Why? Because I have been in my fantasy era lately, but normally I love reading books to set the vibe. She loves a theme! So, I hunted “summery” books with hints of romance because that’s what I like.
I’ve done the painstaking scouring of the internet to select these. It’s not as easy as you might think to get a consolidated list of all the books being published in the next few months. But I did the work and pulled a few so you don’t have to. I pulled these based on authors I enjoy reading, authors I’ve wanted to read, and based on the cover. Because I am a girl who judges books by their cover, regardless of what they tell you. (I’ll still give it a chance, but it is an influence).
I haven’t read any of these, and only two have actually been released. But here’s the list with a few highlights on what each book is about. My Tommy Bahama beach chair is waiting patiently for me and one of these to plop on the sand.
Please drop your summer recco’s in the comments. I’ve got a few long flights booked and I’m always looking for a little inspiration from the Literate Women community.
All these books are linked on our bookshop.org site and when you buy from them not only do you support local businesses, you support us. Double win 🙂🫶🏼.
Funny Story by Emily Henry
Available now (Released 4/23/2024)
Newly dumped, finds love in an unexpected place
Opposites attract love-story
Not necessarily a true summer release – released 4/24 but it’s giving summer
Emily Henry is a rom-com skinny legend
This Summer Will Be Different by Carley Fortune
Available now (Released 5/7/2024)
Set in Prince Edward Island
Forbidden romance (rhymes with eating)
Friendship story
The Summer Pact by Emily Giffin
Releases: July 9, 2024
Reunited friends
Set in Capri, Italy
Pick up the pieces story
It’s giving Sex and the City movie but deeper (the one where they go to Dubai)
Oye by Melissa Mogollon
Releases: May 14, 2024
Colombian American family
Coming of age story
It’s giving telenovela and I’m here for it
The Paradise Problem by Christina Lauren
Release date: May 14, 2024
Relationship of convenience
Tropical setting
It’s giving “Just Go with It” vibes (Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston)
Dual POV and Christina Lauren are two people which to me is the coolest thing ever!
Thank you for reading! ☀️
XO,
B.
I mean… how cute would these look in a beach bag?!
