Readers’ Picks: Books That Feel Like Summer

Alice lives behind a lens. As a photographer, she’s most comfortable letting other people shine. Lately though, she’s been itching for something more, and returns to the lake where she spent a magical summer when she was 17. Then she runs into Charlie Florek. Sun-slanted days and warm nights out on the lake with Charlie are a balm for Alice’s soul, but when she looks up and sees his piercing green gaze directly on her, she begins to worry for her heart.

A romance writer who no longer believes in love and a literary writer stuck in a rut engage in a summer-long challenge that may just upend everything they believe about happily ever afters.

A lottery ticket + donuts = love in this steamy new fake dating romance from beloved author Denise Williams. Even with hundreds of millions of dollars on the line, finding each other might end up being the sweetest bit of luck for both of them.

Taking place nearly a century before the events of A Game of Thrones, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms compiles the first three official prequel novellas to George R. R. Martin’s ongoing masterwork, A Song of Ice and Fire.

Young, handsome, and fabulously rich, Jay Gatsby seems to have everything. But at his mansion east of New York City, where the party never seems to end, one thing will always be out of reach: The married Daisy Buchanan, whose house is visible from Gatsby’s just across the bay. A brilliant evocation of the Roaring Twenties and a satire of a postwar America obsessed with wealth and status, The Great Gatsby is a novel whose power remains undiminished after a century.

Juliet Milagros Palante is a self-proclaimed closeted Puerto Rican baby dyke from the Bronx. Only, she’s not so closeted anymore. Not after coming out to her family the night before flying to Portland, Oregon, to intern with her favorite feminist writer — what’s sure to be a life-changing experience. In a summer bursting with queer brown dance parties, a sexy fling with a motorcycling librarian, and intense explorations of race and identity, Juliet learns what it means to come out — to the world, to her family, to herself.

Four famous siblings throw an epic party to celebrate the end of the summer. By midnight the party will be completely out of control. By morning, the mansion will have gone up in flames. But before that first spark in the early hours before dawn, the alcohol will flow, the music will play, and the loves and secrets that shaped this family’s generations will all come rising to the surface and the family drama that ensues will change their lives forever.

Lia Juma thought she’d buried the dreams of her heart long ago. But when she’s forced to return to her family’s summer cottage on Pike Bay, the life she’s carefully crafted begins to unravel. Back at the bay, Lia stumbles upon memories she thought were long forgotten and, at the center of it all, is Wesley Forest — the boy she left behind. As the two confront the choices and secrets that divided them as teenagers, Lia must decide if she can heal from the past and finally embrace the life and love she’s always craved.

She’s the one that got away. He’s the one that never let her go … From the bestselling author of Done and Dusted and Swift and Saddled, the next book in the Rebel Blue Ranch series, a small-town romance in which past lovers get a second chance to rediscover what they lost.

The sparkling Elizabeth Bennet, the taciturn Fitzwilliam Darcy, and an array of characters that range from irrepressible to almost irredeemable, move through this comedy of manners about the danger of first impressions. Set in a provincial world away from London, Austen’s novel pokes fun at the machinations of courtship rituals while celebrating the importance of friendship and sisterhood.

Frank Herbert’s classic masterpiece — a triumph of the imagination and one of the bestselling science fiction novels of all time. Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of Paul Atreides — who would become known as Maud’Dib — and of a great family’s ambition to bring to fruition humankind’s most ancient and unattainable dream.

From the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys: A hilarious and supremely original novel set in the Hamptons in the 1980s, “a tenderhearted coming-of-age story fused with a sharp look at the intersections of race and class” (The New York Times).

On the eve of their college graduation, best friends Javier Báez and Marisol Campos swore never to date someone the other doesn’t approve of. Now, almost a decade later, Javi has a problem. Mari, the woman he’s secretly pined for since sophomore year, is engaged … With his life and career finally on track, Javi’s ready to confess his feelings. Except Mari’s changed the script and moved on without him. Javi has just six weeks to convince Mari this marriage is a flop. If that means he needs to ruffle some feathers to help her avert disaster, well, he’s up for the challenge. After all, isn’t that what best friends are for?