 The arrival of summer is reason enough to celebrate, but this year the season kicks off with two big parties: America’s 250th birthday and the World Cup. From mid-June to mid-July, I’ll be glued to a screen (have you seen those ticket prices?), hoping the U.S. can make a deep run. After that, I’ll need some peace, quiet, and a good book—or five. Luckily, our experts have a slate of surefire picks for my reading list and yours. —David Adams, reviews director |
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The Case of the Pilfered Pearls
Margi Preus, illus. by Junyi Wu (Amulet)
In Preus’s sparkling chapter book series opener, which channels such animal investigator classics as The Great Mouse Detective, a pygmy shrew sleuth—sporting spectacles and a deerstalker hat—travels from her woodland abode to a human house when a case of vanished belongings jeopardizes the mice that live there. Wu’s occasional graphite illustrations, sprinkled with clues, impart gentle humor and invite readers to join the detective as she interviews acrobatic squirrels and evades domestic perils.
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Broken Truths
Alessandro Robecchi, trans. from the Italian by Gregory Conti (Other Press)
This one’s for the armchair travelers. Robecchi’s trenchant whodunit focuses on an aging Italian film legend who’s preparing to make his first movie in 30 years: a true story about the unsolved murder of an anti-fascist crime novelist. Then the director’s neighbor is killed, pulling him into a secondary investigation. The resulting tale is witty, politically pointed, and dusted with Italian glamor.
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Burnout Summer
Jenna Ramirez (Saturday)
Sun-soaked days in an idyllic Rhode Island beach town are the cure for a quarter-life crisis in this breezy friends-to-lovers contemporary. After high achiever Cam Luna’s best-laid plans go awry, supportive slacker Danny Brennan offers her a place to regroup and a shoulder to cry on. Ramirez makes Cam’s struggles sympathetic and injects the slow-burning central relationship with sizzling romantic tension.
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Dead Weight
Hildur Knútsdóttir, trans. from the Icelandic by Mary Robinette Kowal (Nightfire)
This nail-biter of a horror novel generates an impressive amount of suspense through chronicling the subtle shifts in the developing relationship between two Icelandic women, one of whom is trapped in a toxic relationship. Knútsdóttir crafts skillful psychological portraits of her heroines on the way to a gory and cathartic finale. It’s a sleek little volume, but it packs a powerful punch.
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Hold
Randy Ribay, illus. by Zeke Peña (Kokila)
Carrying an overflowing armload becomes a full-fledged activity in Ribay and Peña’s relatable family portrait. Asked to hold a drinking cup while heading out the door, a child realizes that they want to haul everything solo, including the family cat, an airborne plane, and a passerby’s infant. But when toting a teetering pile makes it impossible to do much else, it leads to another form of holding—hugging Daddy—all portrayed with an indie comics sense of style.
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Change of Plans
Sarah Dessen (Simon & Schuster)
In Dessen’s bighearted, delightfully layered romance, a recent high school graduate’s summer is upended when last-minute changes see her spending two weeks at her emotionally distant mother’s lakeside vacation home. Seeking distraction following a breakup and a cellphone mishap, the teen immerses herself in the rural town’s laid-back, vividly realized atmosphere, finding new love along the way. The result is a fortifying portrayal of a vulnerable protagonist reckoning with her skewed self-perception.
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Call Me by Your Name: The Graphic Novel
André Aciman and Sarah Maxwell (Faber & Faber)
Perfect for Heated Rivalry fans, Maxwell’s swoony graphic adaptation of Aciman’s seminal novel of risky summer romance is done in a sheeny, throwback art style. Oliver and Elio look like they sauntered over poolside straight off a pair of well-thumbed classic Harlequin covers. All the tension and heartache of the original is sustained, with the consummation now rendered in explicit, glossy full-color.
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Alan Opts Out
Courtney Maum (Little, Brown)
Readers in search of a zeitgeisty social satire will find just the thing in Maum’s story of late middle-age anxieties, set in an exclusive corner of the already exclusive Greenwich, Conn. It centers on a disenchanted ad exec whose sudden back-to-the-land impulse takes him to the backyard, while his wife strives to gain acceptance into a neighborhood clique. More than a character study, the novel tackles the diminishing returns of consumerism, real estate, and status.
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1873: The Rothschilds, the First Great Depression, and the Making of the Modern World
Liaquat Ahamed (Penguin Press)
Getting antsy that the next big bubble’s about to burst? Ahamed offers some sharp insight into the matter in this follow-up to his 2010 Pulitzer winner Lords of Finance, in which he explores an 1873 market crash—the first to actually be called a “great depression”—that not only played out much as future crashes would but also, like future crashes, provoked reactionary backlash movements around the world.
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Canon
Paige Lewis (Viking)
Classical allusions and snarky asides come rapid-fire in this epic tale of two heroes: Yara, best left alone with their embroidery and OCD, and Adrena, a prophet determined to win back the favor of God—who’s kind of peevish, if we’re being honest. They set out separately to kill Dominic, cutthroat leader of the Bad Guys, encountering a cast of characters that includes sinister mall kiosk workers and an enthusiastic whale. It’s bonkers and beautiful. —Carolyn Juris, features editor
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Cool Machine
Colson Whitehead (Doubleday)
Last month, I took four books with me for a weeklong beach trip, and I only read this one—slowly. I’m a big fan of Whitehead’s Harlem Trilogy, and I think this closing volume is the best of the bunch. As I effused to my colleagues upon my return to the office, it contains some of my favorite writing on the pull of New York City and the ways it shapes the people who call it home. —David Varno, reviews editor
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The Children
Melissa Albert (Morrow)
In this smart and beguiling mix of gothic horror and literary fantasy, the adult children of late YA author Edith Sharpe try to make their way in the shadow of her enduring fame. Guin and Ennis have been estranged since the fire that killed Edith when Guin, the younger of the two, was 11, and the dynamic story builds toward their climactic reunion at Ennis's art exhibition.
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American Rambler: Walking the Trail of Johnny Appleseed
Isaac Fitzgerald (Knopf)
With contemporary disconnection on his mind and a love of American folk hero Johnny Appleseed in his heart, Fitzgerald recounts a yearlong journey he took from Massachusetts to Indiana as his mother’s health began to decline. His eminently charming reflections braid together thoughtful assessments of national amnesia and folksy encounters with a string of memorable people he meets along the way.
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Fishbone Cinderella
Elizabeth Lim (Del Rey)
Toggling between 1940s Hong Kong and 1980s San Francisco, YA author Lim’s lovely adult fantasy debut tracks a bizarre curse through two generations of the Ha family. The prose is stunning, the subtle magic is brilliantly conceived, and it’s easy to get invested in the deliciously complex mother-daughter relationship at the book’s heart.
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Midsummer Sisters
Niki Smith (Graphix)
Smith’s expertly crafted and emotionally perceptive graphic novel sees two stepsisters confront hard realities about their parents’ deteriorating relationship against a backdrop of sand dunes and roaming wild horses on North Carolina’s Outer Banks. The arrival of a summer storm underscores the siblings’ emotional turbulence, while graceful linework captures both the grandeur of the windswept coastline and the intimacy of strained glances and interrupted conversations, resulting in an insightful exploration of change and connection.
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I Am the Mountain
Steven Weinberg (Holiday House/Porter)
Tracing physical sensations across the four seasons, Weinberg’s arresting picture book offers a full-bodied education in encountering the natural world. A mountain that perceives but doesn’t see visitors invites readers to follow suit, exploring its rhythms without utilizing sight. Sumptuous watercolors, meanwhile, offer plenty to savor visually across changing landscapes, resulting in a work that urges readers to slow down, attend with every sense, and appreciate the ways a terrain’s riches reveal themselves.
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Medicine Wheels
Byron Graves (Heartdrum)
After his mother is arrested, a teenager moves in with his grandparents on the Wolf Creek reservation, where he helps organize against a pipeline, prepares for a skateboarding competition, and navigates first love, events conveyed via organic dialogue and fully fleshed out characters. Skateboarding sequences carry electric energy, and the well-wrought activism plotline underscores challenges faced by Indigenous communities, adding depth to Graves’s memorable and heartfelt portrait of finding balance on and off the board.
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The Last Lady B
Eloisa James (Gallery)
The doyenne of historical romance riffs on gothic tropes—including a decadent manor, a potentially sinister widower, and a bevy of ghosts—in this addictive Regency. The quirky cast, led by plucky Evie Hughes, reluctant bride to the decades older Lord Burnsby, heads to the Scottish Highlands, where James keeps the shocking twists coming as scandals surface and Evie forms a sensual connection with a man who is decidedly not her husband.
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Lovers of the Empire
Yudori (Takumigraphics)
In 1920s Korea, the world is changing fast—and two young people from divergent class backgrounds get caught up in an unexpected romance. Yudori’s gorgeous manhwa love story plays out across intimate scenes between the scion of a noble family fallen on hard times and the daughter of a nouveau riche department store owner, set against the sweep of history as the country faces the rush of modernity while under the thumb of Japanese colonial rule.
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The Fine Art of Lying
Alexandra Andrews (Harper)
Andrews proves her delicious debut, Who Is Maud Dixon?, was no fluke with this serpentine sophomore thriller about a New York City art historian accused of killing the man she’s having an affair with. Come for the chic uptown atmosphere, stay for the jaw-dropping plot twists. It’s a rare instance in which judging a book by its cover is perfectly appropriate: this has all the sting and style of an ice-cold martini.
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The Danger to Be Sane: Creativity and the Eccentric Mind
Rosa Montero, trans. from the Spanish by Lindsey Ford (Europa)
This wholly original exploration of the creative impulse had me gripped from start to finish. Montero unpacks the psychological forces that drive writers to write, analyzing the lives of literary icons like Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, and Joseph Conrad. She punctuates her intriguing theories with a thrilling narrative of an imposter who posed as her for many years when she was a young journalist in Madrid. —Marisa Charpentier, reviews editor
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Checkmate: Genius, Lies, Ambition, and the Biggest Scandal in Chess
Ben Mezrich (Grand Central)
This riveting breakdown of a major chess scandal from bestseller Mezrich traces how the money, power, and hubris flowing through, of all things, Chess.com was enough to wreak havoc on the relatively staid sport. It’s a gripping tale of lurid accusations, outsize egos, and unsolvable mysteries.
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Coyoteland
Vanessa Hua (Flatiron)
Fans of Little Fires Everywhere are sure to dig this explosive suburban drama set in a coveted Berkeley Hills community. The plot is triggered by a clash between newcomers who plan to flip their house and neighbors who are building a new development, a showdown that precipitates a cascading series of conflicts between them and their teen children. Added to the mix are a coyote attack, an out-of-control house party, and a wildfire.
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The Housewives Underground: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the JFK Assassination Our Most Enduring Mystery
Kaitlyn Tiffany (Crown)
Atlantic staff writer Tiffany offers up a superb history of the trio of women who, skeptical of the Warren Commission, doggedly investigated the JFK assassination for decades, surfacing evidence and conducting interviews of enduring significance. Seventies housewives driving around Dallas in the 1970s searching for people to talk to about the assassination or combing through all 18,000 pages of the Warren Commission Report in search of inconsistencies will make for pleasantly surreal summer reading.
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Daughters of the Sun and Moon
Lisa See (Scribner)
I’ve been a huge fan of See ever since I ripped through Snow Flower and the Secret Fan 20 years ago. She brilliantly mashes up history and fiction into character-driven page-turners that bring to life ordinary women doing extraordinary things to survive in a harsh and oppressive world that underestimates them. I’m intrigued that this novel about three Chinese women who are immigrants to late-19th-century Los Angeles is based on See’s own family lore. —Claire Kirch, Midwest and bookselling correspondent
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Dooneen
Keith Ridgway (New Directions)
A writer named Mew is out for a stroll in London when he magically crosses over into Dublin. Mew misses his lover, a man named Mootie, and finds himself caught up in a mysterious leftist revolt. Like the author’s previous novels about porous boundaries, this one is deeply seductive, a formal experiment that’s far from forbidding.
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Rebellious: The Story of Keith Haring in 12 Pictures
Michael G. Long (Norton)
Across this exuberant and uplifting biography, Long chronicles the journey of activist and artist Keith Haring from rural Pennsylvania unknown to international star. Scans of Haring’s works shape the narrative, which introduces him as an unrepentant creative who crafted vibrant pieces addressing social injustice for “hundreds of millions of everyday people.” This lively nonfiction work encourages teens to more closely observe and engage with their surroundings as a means to spark creativity and connection.
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Indie Darling
Lauren Nossett (Flatiron)
A Nashville PI who only takes on female clients gets more than she bargained for when she agrees to help a famous singer-songwriter fend off a stalker. The already sensitive case becomes an emergency when the musician is shot onstage during a concert and disappears en route to the hospital. Propulsive, empowering, and bursting with pop music ephemera, Nossett’s winding ride through Music City plays all the right notes.
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Open: Every Seed Has Its Moment
Robert Agis, illus. by Sarah Jacoby (Candlewick)
A sprouting seed receives tender support in Agis and Jacoby’s radiant meditation on the act of becoming. Soft-focused artwork begins trained on the seed before splitting into a series of cutaways that reveal goings-on above and below the soil’s surface. Concise text unfurls gently, modeling attunement (“I see you”) and the sprout’s early discoveries (“The SUN!”). When the plant bursts ecstatically into bloom, its contribution makes for a joyful crescendo.
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Rialto
Kate Milford (Clarion)
A family trip to an abandoned theme park and a fascinating list of bequests send a trio of kids on a magic-fueled investigation in Milford’s winking, whirlwind standalone mystery. Sturdy in-world lore combines with a sprawling, organically rendered cast to deliver an entrancing adventure that’s jam-packed with elegantly limned costumes, props, and settings, and serves as both welcoming entrée to and continuation of the author’s carefully engineered oeuvre.
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The Roots of My Hair
Lou Lubie, trans. from the French by Makedah Hughes (Helvetiq)
Identity politics interweave with pop science and sociology factoids in this quippy coming-of-age tale about a biracial girl named Rose, who grows up on France’s Réunion Island. Her voluminous hair makes her the target of racist bullying in school—culminating in a crisis where she cuts off her curls. But a move to Paris brings with it the embrace of the city’s salon culture, where her experiments in style—drawn with glorious flourish—lead to self-acceptance.
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Ignore All Previous Instructions
Ada Hoffmann (Tachyon)
Hoffmann sets this far-future romp on a colonized Jupiter under the control of the AI megacorporation Inspiration. Against this dystopian backdrop, autistic heroine Kelli reluctantly joins a dangerous heist with her trans outlaw ex, Rowan, a smuggler of human-told stories. The fun, fast-paced plot pairs seamlessly with a timely critique of artificial intelligence and an impassioned paean to creativity.
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Puck
Samantha Allen (Zando)
This playful contemporary retelling of A Midsummer Night’s Dream finds nonbinary reality TV show producer Puck unable to resist meddling in the romantic relationships of their college friends during a chaotic wedding week. Allen’s affection for the original is on clear display as the madcap romantic hijinks unfold. The result is a hilarious, joyful whirlwind.
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Electric Shamans at the Festival of the Sun
Mónica Ojeda, trans. from the Spanish by Sarah Booker (Coffee House)
Summer is music festival season. For those who have aged out of the crowds, noise, and unrelenting sun but harbor fond memories of outdoor bashes gone by, here’s a vivid portrait of a festival that attracts the most dedicated species of concertgoer. The weeklong noise fest takes place at the base of an active volcano in Ecuador, where mask-wearing attendees recruit others to join their “anarcho-primitivist” cult. It’s packed with vicarious thrills and spiritual depth.
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The End of the Arab of the Future: A Youth in the Middle East, 1992-94
Riad Sattouf, trans. from the French by Sam Taylor (Fantagraphics)
When Sattouf’s Arab of the Future series lost its original American publisher, I despaired—how quickly could I relearn (but better this time) the French I’d given up after high school? So I’m grateful that Fantagraphics picked up this two-volume conclusion, which opens with Riad entering his teen years in Paris against the backdrop of his mother’s increasingly frantic attempts to reclaim his brother, who’s been abducted by Riad’s father back to Syria. Riad discovers alt-comics, grunge music, and girls, all while tortured with fears for his brother and the weight of his mother’s grief. —Meg Lemke, reviews editor
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How to Watch Soccer Like a Genius: What Architects, Stuntwomen, Paleoanthropologists, and Computer Scientists Reveal About the World’s Game
Nick Greene (Abrams)
Readers gearing up to watch the World Cup this summer will want to delve into this rollicking appraisal of the world’s most popular sport. Journalist Greene traces the history of soccer—including its violent origin in medieval England—and interviews scientists, doctors, and even an Anglican priest to reveal the complexity behind a seemingly simple game. Witty and entertaining, it’s a delight for sports fans.
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Names Have Been Changed
Yu-Mei Balasingamchow (Tiny Reparations)
A queer woman leaves her native Singapore after committing a petty crime in this addition to the growing shelf of podcast-focused fiction. Ten years later, she’s gotten into more trouble, and now tells her story to subscribers of her podcast from an undisclosed location in the U.S. The addictive and twisty novel also has a great deal of heart, especially in sections where the narrator grapples with how her sexuality has contributed to her rootlessness.
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Etna
Paul Yoon (Scribner)
Quirky, cozy novels featuring cats may be mega-popular, but I have a deeper appreciation for books told through the consciousness of dogs. They strike me as more, well, human, and have—be it Garth Stein’s The Art of Racing in the Rain or André Alexis’s Fifteen Dogs—also offered engaging philosophical and social commentary. I expect Yoon’s novel, about a military dog finding its way home in the aftermath of a war, to be much the same. He’s a talented author and I’m eager to explore the world through his canine’s eyes. —Ed Nawotka, senior news and international editor
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In Defense of Sunlight: The Surprising Science of Sun Exposure
Rowan Jacobsen (Scribner)
Science journalist Jacobsen lobbies for the health benefits of sun exposure in this enlightening investigation. Messaging about the dangers of the sun’s rays has swung too far from reality, he contends, citing recent studies that show soaking up ample amounts of sunshine leads to longer, healthier lives, while deprivation is linked to a slew of harmful conditions. Readers will be inspired to follow his straightforward advice: “Go outside.”
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The Yves Saint Laurent Revolution: The Story of ‘Le Smoking’
Loo Hui Phang and Benjamin Bachelier, trans. from the French by Jill Phythian (Thames & Hudson)
Yves Saint Laurent and his chic cohort stroll and gossip through scenic New York City streets in this story of Le Smoking, the trendsetting sleek black women’s suit he designed in 1966 that scandalized and thrilled the fashion world. Set in cafés and ateliers and drawn with vibrant colors and the gestural flair of fashion illustrations, the narrative tags along as YSL opines on his inspirations and philosophy of style, while his muse and bestie Betty Catroux looks properly glam in her black pants.
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Killer Vibes
Jack Friday (Minotaur)
This breezy series launch follows a bisexual Texas PI who inherits a property from an uncle he hardly knew, opening the door to a slew of family secrets. Though the mystery is airtight, the hangout atmosphere is the real draw here: Friday’s characters are endearingly messy and colorful, making them well worth taking on a trip to the beach or the pool.
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The Secret World of Briar Rose
Cindy Pham (Kokila)
A cynical teen stumbles through a portal that transports her into a fabled princess’s psyche in this cathartic debut, a queer fantasy riff on “Sleeping Beauty.” Not all is as it seems in the princess’s sunny subconscious, which YouTuber Pham relays via evocative prose that intercuts present-day events with chapters chronicling the legend of the slumbering royal. Psychologically complex characters navigate a hope-fueled, twist-riddled plot, coalescing in an empathetic story of identity, forgiveness, and mental health.
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Sublimation
Isabel J. Kim (Tor)
Kim’s un-put-downable debut imagines a world where migration literally splits immigrants in two, leaving one self in their country of origin while the other moves to their new home. When the Soyoung Rose Kang who has lived in the U.S. since age 10 returns to Korea for her grandfather’s funeral, she comes face-to-face with the iteration of herself who stayed behind. This fresh and fascinating conceit gives rise to a taut plot and an incisive exploration of identity and assimilation.
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RV There Yet?
Suzanne Nelson (Knopf)
In Nelson’s raucous vacation comedy, two newlyweds pile their five children and very large dog into an ancient motor home bound for Yellowstone National Park on an outing that will “fuse us with some great forever glue.” Alternating third-person narration relayed via lush prose depicts the trip’s chaos alongside wonders of the natural world as the recently blended brood attempt to come together across a frenetic and laugh-out-loud summertime romp that brims with heart.
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Spendin’ Time
Gary R. Gray Jr., illus. by Rahele Jomepour Bell (HarperCollins)
In this sweetly sensate work by Gray Jr. and Jomepour Bell, a grocery run unfurls into a brimful, golden day for a child “spendin’ time” with their grandfather. The errand leads to detours including berry picking, fishing in a secret trout stream, and a stop for ice cream. Golds, pinks, and reds permeate acrylic and soft pastel landscapes, lending a feeling of warmth to this fully rendered tribute to the treasure of unhurried time with loved ones.
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Romantic Hero
Kirsty Greenwood (Berkley)
Novelist Gertie Bickerstaff is shocked when River Oakley, the cocky villain of her western romance series, magically appears in her living room—and even more so when she realizes he’s not the bad guy she’s written him as. He’s even nice enough to agree to fake date her to make her ex jealous. Greenwood has a lot of fun with this clever meta setup as the pair’s pretend relationship endearingly gives way to real feelings.
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Nymph
Sofia Montrone (Avid Reader)
In this lush coming-of-age tale, a girl named Leo spends her summers at her family’s agriturismo in northern Italy, a picturesque destination for travelers seeking a taste of what it’s like to work the land. At 18, she’s besotted by a young American woman named Dolores who arrives looking for seasonal work. What follows is an enticing story of first love and self-discovery, complete with beautiful scenery and allusions to ancient myths.
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Inspiration Porn: Essays
Ryan O’Connell (St. Martin’s)
In this hilarious and poignant collection, O’Connell, creator and star of the Netflix series Special, relays his experience navigating Hollywood as a person with cerebral palsy, overcoming addiction to drugs and alcohol, and embracing his sexuality in his 30s by opening up his relationship with his long-term boyfriend. Highlights include a nostalgic account of his time working for the website Thought Catalog during the 2010s personal essay boom, as well as moving reflections on body image and self-belief.
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Honey
Imani Thompson (Random House)
What’s sweeter than a summer revenge novel? Thompson’s debut traces the undoing of Cambridge PhD student Yrsa, who has grown disillusioned with the life she imagined for herself. But when she witnesses a man who recently wronged a friend die in a sudden accident and she doesn’t intervene to help, Yrsa gains a new lease on life. What follows is a revenge killing spree of problematic men by an unraveling woman that’s impossible not to enjoy (and maybe even root for). —Iyana Jones, assistant editor, children’s books
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The Summer Boy
Philippe Besson, trans. from the French by Sam Taylor (Scribner)
Philippe, the 50-something narrator of this autobiographical novel, reflects on the summer he spent with his family on an island off France’s northern coast. He remembers the feeling of his childhood evaporating as he faced adulthood, and the fateful bonds he made with a group of teens there, which culminated in romance with another boy and the disappearance of a third, which he feels responsible for. It’s an evocative tale of the past’s enduring grip.
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How to Not Know: The Value of Uncertainty in a World That Demands Answers
Simone Stolzoff (Norton)
As the world becomes weirder and more unpredictable, humans have grown increasingly obsessed with knowing all the answers—a pursuit that stunts growth and robs life of much of its texture, Stolzoff shows in this energetic study. At a moment when reading the news sometimes feels like playing Russian roulette, this makes for a fascinating, surprisingly uplifting look at the biases that make us want to predict the future and the unexpected benefits of surrendering control. —Miriam Grossman, reviews editor
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Mighty Real: A History of LGBTQ Music, 1969–2000
Barry Walters (Viking)
Music journalist Walters surveys the history of modern queer music in this exuberant love letter to some of the 20th century’s most acclaimed stars that doubles as a perceptive analysis of how art can serve as a vehicle for challenging social norms. Even music buffs who think they know all there is to know about Bowie, Prince, and Queen will be enlightened.
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We Dance upon Demons
Vaishnavi Patel (Saga)
Combining entertaining elements of classic urban fantasy with blistering cultural criticism, bestseller Patel’s riveting latest follows burned-out abortion clinic volunteer Nisha as she navigates newfound powers given to her by a Hindi demon. Patel expertly balances real world and supernatural threats, and it’s immensely satisfying to witness Nisha come into her own.
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Shim Jung Takes the Dive
Julia Riew (Quill Tree)
When a tween’s refusal to participate in an island tradition leads to her inadvertent arrival in a magical underwater kingdom, she teams up with a rebellious prince to stop the realm’s vengeful queen from destroying the mortal world. Making her middle grade debut, Riew draws inspiration from Korean figures and folklore to deliver a heartening and expansive tale that artfully intertwines unique renderings of mystical underwater adventure and grounded depictions of bravery.
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Score
Kennedy Ryan (Forever)
With this emotional contemporary, bestseller Ryan takes readers behind the scenes of a Hollywood movie set, reuniting Verity Hill, the screenwriter of a biopic about a forgotten Harlem Renaissance artist, with composer Wright “Monk” Bellamy, the man whose heart she broke 10 years earlier. It’s a poignant and layered second-chance romance that doubles as a moving love letter to Black history and creativity.
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To Dance the Moon and Stars
Tasia MS and Barbara Perez Marquez (Joy Revolution)
A high priestess-in-training living in a kingdom where dancing is forbidden struggles to reconcile her responsibility to her family’s legacy as servants to the gods with her passion for dance. Readers will be transfixed by the lush botanicals, glowing lanterns, and shimmering stars of Perez Marquez and debut creator MS’s dazzling graphic novel romantasy, whose visuals are influenced by Indian dance forms.
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My Name Was Gerry Sass
Tiffany Hanssen (Atlantic Crime)
Country music and crises of faith collide in WNYC host Hanssen’s delightfully audacious debut. Gerry Sass is a genteel hit man who launders money through his Iowa radio station. When he’s killed, it ignites a moral dilemma for his Catholic priest friend and makes his adult daughter thirsty for revenge. All that, and it’s funny! Hanssen proves remarkably adept at blending influences, from the Coen brothers to A Prairie Home Companion.
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Watermelon Pool
Bonsoir Lune, trans. from the Korean by Frances Cha (Dial)
Two halves of a watermelon offer the perfect spot for a community to take a dip in Lune’s frolicsome picture book. Beneath a “blazing summer sun,” a ripening melon splits (“CRACK”), ushering in “opening day at the watermelon pool,” and children sporting swimwear and inner tubes rush to dive in. Dynamic action unfolds near wordlessly across carefully shaded comics-like panels, revealing a charming and playful take on refreshing summertime treats.
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The Things We Never Say
Elizabeth Strout (Random House)
Strout’s ability to voice the unsayable is on full display in this story that starts somber and turns uplifting. It’s about an aging man who’s lost his tether to the world and considers ending his life, until he survives a boating accident near his Massachusetts home. The restorative novel packs a lot into its 200 pages, from a complex father-son relationship to a secret in a marriage, and the well-drawn seaside setting features exciting sailing scenes.
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The Plunge: Maverick Swimmers, an Unlikely Quest, and the Transformative Power of Cold Water
Chris Ballard (Simon & Schuster)
This exploration of the rising popularity of cold water swimming takes sports journalist Ballard across the globe and into the path of a colorful host of Olympic athletes, eccentric thrill seekers, and scientists studying the practice’s surprising medical benefits. Ambitious in scope and thrumming with energy, it’s a deep dive readers will be glad to take.
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Kingdoms Trembling
M. Stern (DMR Books)
Brisk, bloody, and powered by wild ideas, Stern’s first two stories of Ulx, an exiled prince and swordmaster, thrilled sword-and-sorcery fans in DMR Books’ Die by the Sword anthologies. Now with this debut collection, Stern—author of smart, surprising, and pointedly weird pulp SF, horror, and fantasy—digs deeper into the alien-ravaged kingdoms of those vigorous tales. Stern exemplifies the S&S revival by matching love for the subgenre’s traditions with a refusal to be limited by them. —Alan Scherstuhl, BookLife reviews editor
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Under the Falls
Richard Russo (Knopf)
In the fine-tuned prologue of this literary thriller, Russo takes readers beyond the idyllic summer retreats of the rustic western Adirondacks to the down-at-heel Stone Mountain, “a place that doesn’t yield many good outcomes.” Returning to town is Tyler Sinclair, now a rock star, whose presence stirs up the bitterness held by those he left behind. Russo evoke a strong sense of place amid the disastrous confrontations and twisty revelations that drive the propulsive plot.
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Lovers XXX
Allie Rowbottom (Soho Press)
Rowbottom’s debut novel, 2022’s Aesthetica, took a shrewd look at plastic surgery with a heroine who decides to undergo a risky operation to get rid of her past work. That hilarious, heartbreaking, and utterly deranged story makes Rowbottom’s sophomore novel one of my most anticipated beachside reads. Jude is looking for her best friend Winnie, who has reinvented herself at a Sunset Strip club amid the porn world of 1980s Los Angeles, where the friends try to make it and build a home while facing many obstacles. Rowbottom’s singular viewpoint promises to give a brand-new take on the porn industry and its complicated intricacies of agency, power, consent, and women’s sexuality within a male power structure. —Kerensa Cadenas, news director
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What I Made for Dinner: A Memoir
Krys Malcolm Belc (Catapult)
During the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, Belc became obsessed with food influencers as he prepared meals for his wife and three young children. Here, he uses that obsession as a jumping-off point to meditate on parenthood, fertility, and his gender transition, all with good humor (and delicious-sounding dishes).
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The Wise Pickle
Sarah Howden, illus. by Sabina Hahn (Tundra)
With a briny wit, Howden and Hahn offer up a sly parable suggesting that radical acceptance can be goofy, profound, and green. After a googly-eyed pickle drops from the sky onto a sidewalk, it begins offering existential observations to attentive local wildlife. Minimalist vignettes give the world a humorous calm as smart plotting lands the ending somewhere between ridiculousness and enlightenment. Full of tangy absurdity, it’s a tale fit to be relished.
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Young World
Soman Chainani (Random House)
A teen’s attempt to impress his crush kicks off a series of events that result in his being voted into the White House in Chainani’s exhilarating YA debut, throughout which characters sling profane humor and jockey for power by leveraging popular-kid or mean-girl energy. A cloak-and-dagger climax turns this campy thought experiment into a madcap thriller and a searing, uncanny reflection on what can happen when one confronts the status quo.
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Night Objects
Eli Raphael (Grand Central)
Summer may mean school’s out, but it’s always the right season for a good campus mystery. This one revolves around a working-class teen who gets into a patrician private school in the Pacific Northwest. Years later, as an adult, she reflects on all that went wrong there, including the death of a classmate. It’s moody and immersive in all the right ways.
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Stream
Aida Salazar (Scholastic Press)
Two 13-year-olds obsessed with online validation learn to unplug during a technology-free summer spent with family in Mexico. As one teen revels in practicing the rhythms of herbal remedies, the other finds purpose in reinforcing a riverbank to prevent flooding, journeys that Salazar relays via brisk pacing and thought-provoking verse. Shifting intergenerational dynamics and heartwarming portrayals of teens engaging in cultural self-discovery make for a timely and empathetic reflection on authenticity in the digital age.
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Rasputin Swims the Potomac
Ben Fountain (Flatiron)
If you, like me, remember busting a gut and cringing in horror (sometimes within the span of the same sentence) while reading Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, Fountain’s astute satire of George W. Bush–era jingoism, then you’ll know how ready I am for his latest, in which a truth-averse U.S. president seeks a third term with the help of a mystical pro wrestler named Rasputin. If anyone can capture the stupefying stupidity of today’s politics, Fountain can. —David Adams, reviews director
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Villa Coco
Andrew Sean Greer (Doubleday)
The magic of living abroad and the romance of the old world animate Greer’s evocative novel of a young American in Tuscany. Ostensibly there to serve as the archivist for a nonagenarian baronessa, Geoffrey is put to work on all manner of odd jobs and drawn deep into her colorful social life. He also instigates some drama of his own when he begins sleeping with a married man. Readers will find it a lively and transportive tale.
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Spawning Season: An Experiment in Queer Parenthood
Joseph Osmundson (Bloomsbury)
As a queer man who dreams of having a family, I was immediately drawn to Spawning Season’s premise. But it was Osmundson’s spellbinding prose that truly captured my interests. Poetic musings blend an emotional journey with science, using the mating rituals of salmon as a metaphor for human experience. It’s an unexpected mash-up that proves to be a captivating way to explore questions of parenting anxiety and building nontraditional family units. —TreVaughn Malik Roach-Carter, digital editorial coordinator
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Whistler
Ann Patchett (Harper)
When Daphne, a 50-something New Yorker, unexpectedly runs into her former stepfather at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the encounter unleashes a flood of childhood memories and a desire to learn the reason for his divorce from her mother. In Patchett’s sublime novel, the truths on offer go beyond what Daphne discovers about her family to include deep insights into the nature of love and its painful limits.
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The One Day You Were My Husband
Rosie Walsh (Viking/Dorman)
Sometimes the best way to avoid being reckless on vacation is to read about other people who’ve been just that. This simmering romantic thriller follows a woman who blows up her life after running into an old flame overseas. And not just any old flame—the man she married a decade earlier, before Thai authorities hauled him away on the day of their wedding. Spoiler alert: little is as it seems.
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A Sudden Flicker of Light: A Revisionist History of Movies
David Thomson (S&S)
I’m a lifelong film lover who loves film criticism at least as much, so I’m extremely intrigued by this forthcoming dispatch from the great critic Thomson—a social history of the movies that argues they might have been detrimental to our collective well-being. —Conner Reed, reviews editor
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The Tuxedo Society
Paul Rudnick (Atria)
As a gay man of a certain age, I’ve long delighted in Rudnick’s humor, from his plays to his “Shouts and Murmurs” essays in the New Yorker. So I anticipate any new book from him like a box of chocolates. Though his latest delivers little on its high-concept plot, hysterical bons mots and cultural critiques abound—which works fine for poolside reading. Plus there’s a cameo by Libby Gelman-Waxner, so who can resist? —Carl Pritzkat, COO
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We Will See You Bleed
Ron Currie (Putnam)
Fans of Currie’s 2025 crime epic The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne will be thrilled to know that this prequel is every bit as brutal and satisfying as its predecessor. Centered on a labor strike in 1980s Maine, it explains how Babs became the bloodthirsty French American mafiosa Currie introduced in the previous book.
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The Unicorn Hunters
Katherine Arden (Del Rey)
I recently read Arden’s 2024 novel The Warm Hands of Ghosts and was captivated by how the supernatural story elements were combined with the apocalyptic World War I setting. I’m now excited to see Arden bring that same immersive magic to another era with The Unicorn Hunters. The novel centers on a young duchess in France and promises court politics, secret alliances, mystical creatures, and an enchanted forest.—Monica Manzo, digital advertising assistant
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We Hexed the Moon
Mollyhall Seeley (Saga)
The wonderfully weird premise of this quirky speculative coming-of-age tale—in which a group of high school seniors do indeed hex the moon, which then leaves the night sky to crash their sleepover—had me instantly intrigued. Add in delightfully idiosyncratic prose, a cast of beautifully flawed teen girls, and a moving exploration of female friendship, and I was hooked. —Phoebe Cramer, reviews editor
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The Yahoo Boys: Love, Deception, and the Real Lives of Nigeria’s Romance Scammers
Carlos Barragán (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
This down-the-rabbit-hole deep dive into the world of Nigerian scammers who use fake profiles and online seduction to get Western men and women to send them gifts and money is an eye-popping window onto the strange new connections blossoming in our fully globalized, too-online world. The story begins with the author’s own mother getting romance-scammed and his journey to Nigeria to locate and interview the scammer, and it only gets wilder from there. —Dana Snitzky, reviews editor