Books
Books With Summer In The Title
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From Romance to Mystery: Books with 'Summer' in the Title You Need to Read
Here in Rome it's currently crazy hot as we've reached the heatwave part of the summer. As summer is in full swing I've used it as inspiration and put together a list of books featuring Summer in the title.
Whilst there are a huge number of books with Summer in the title available, especially within the romance genre, I wanted to give you a list of books from a variety of genres so hopefully there will be something for everyone.
I haven't read any of the books listed here yet but each one caught my eye and is now on my TBR list.
One Italian Summer by Rebecca Serle
In this “magical trip worth taking” (Associated Press), the New York Times bestselling author of In Five Years returns with a powerful novel about the transformational love between mothers and daughters set on the breathtaking Amalfi Coast.
When Katy’s mother dies, she is left reeling. Carol wasn’t just Katy’s mom, but her best friend and first phone call. She had all the answers and now, when Katy needs her the most, she is gone. To make matters worse, their planned mother-daughter trip of a lifetime looms: to Positano, the magical town where Carol spent the summer right before she met Katy’s father. Katy has been waiting years for Carol to take her, and now she is faced with embarking on the adventure alone.
But as soon as she steps foot on the Amalfi Coast, Katy begins to feel her mother’s spirit. Buoyed by the stunning waters, beautiful cliffsides, delightful residents, and, of course, delectable food, Katy feels herself coming back to life.
And then Carol appears—in the flesh, healthy, sun-tanned, and thirty years old. Katy doesn’t understand what is happening, or how—all she can focus on is that she has somehow, impossibly, gotten her mother back. Over the course of one Italian summer, Katy gets to know Carol, not as her mother, but as the young woman before her. She is not exactly who Katy imagined she might be, however, and soon Katy must reconcile the mother who knew everything with the young woman who does not yet have a clue.
“Rebecca Serle is known for her powerful stories that tug at the heartstrings—and her latest is just as unforgettable” (Woman’s World) as it effortlessly shows us how to move on after loss, and how the people we love never truly leave us.
The Summer Pact by Emily Giffin
Amazon - Goodreads
In the wake of tragedy, a group of friends makes a pact that will cause them to reunite a decade later and embark upon a life-changing adventure together—from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Meant to Be.
Four freshmen arrive at college from completely different worlds: Lainey, a California party girl with a flair for drama; Tyson, a brilliant scholar and aspiring lawyer from Washington, D.C.; Summer, an ambitious, recruited athlete from the Midwest; and Hannah, a mild-mannered southerner who is content to quietly round out the circle of big personalities. Soon after arriving on campus, they strike up a conversation in their shared dorm, and the seeds of friendship are planted.
As their college years fly by, their bond intensifies and the four become inseparable. But as graduation nears, their lives are forever changed after a desperate act leads to tragic consequences. Stunned and heartbroken, they make a pact, promising to always be there for one another, no matter how separated they may become by circumstances or distance.
Ten years later, Hannah is anticipating what should be one of the happiest moments of her life when everything is suddenly turned upside down. Calling on her closest friends, it soon becomes clear that they are all facing their own crossroads. True to their promise, they agree to take a time out from lives headed in wrong directions and embark on a shared journey of self-discovery, forgiveness, and acceptance.
In this tender portrayal of grief, love, and hope, Emily Giffin asks: When things fall apart, who will be at our sides, helping us pick up the pieces?
The Summer of Broken Rules by K. L. Walther
Amazon - Goodreads
A romance novel inspired by the songs of Taylor Swift!
*NOW A USA TODAY BESTSELLER*
This BookTok sensation is perfect for fans of Jenny Han's The Summer I Turned Pretty and Sarah Dessen's Along for the Ride.
Meredith's family's annual game of assassin at Martha's Vineyard during a summer wedding is the perfect chance to honor her sister's legacy, and finally join the world again. But when she forms an alliance with a cute groomsman, she's at risk of losing both the game ... and her heart.
When Meredith Fox lost her sister, Claire, eighteen months ago, she shut everyone out. But this summer she's determined to join the world again.
The annual family vacation to Martha's Vineyard seems like the perfect place to reconnect. Her entire extended family is gathering for a big summer wedding, and although Meredith is dateless after being unexpectedly dumped, she's excited to participate in the traditional Fox family game of assassin that will take place during the week of wedding festivities. Claire always loved the game, and Meredith is determined to honor her legacy.
But when Meredith forms an assassin alliance with a cute groomsman, she finds herself getting distracted. Meredith tries to focus on the game and win it for her sister, but she can't help falling for him. And as the week progresses, she realizes she's not only at risk of losing the game, but also her heart.
Bad Summer People by Emma Rosenblum
Amazon - Goodreads
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * Emma Rosenblum's Bad Summer People is a whip-smart, propulsive debut about infidelity, backstabbing, and murderous intrigue, set against an exclusive summer haven on Fire Island.
"This roiling beach community satire serves up wicked, clever fun that is White Lotus sharp." —Kevin Kwan, New York Times bestselling author of Crazy Rich Asians and Sex and Vanity
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF SUMMER 2023: Bustle, ELLE, Cosmopolitan, PopSugar, Bloomberg, Vogue, and more!
None of them would claim to be a particularly good person. But who among them is actually capable of murder?
Jen Weinstein and Lauren Parker rule the town of Salcombe, Fire Island every summer. They hold sway on the beach and the tennis court, and are adept at manipulating people to get what they want. Their husbands, Sam and Jason, have summered together on the island since childhood, despite lifelong grudges and numerous secrets. Their one single friend, Rachel Woolf, is looking to meet her match, whether he’s the tennis pro—or someone else’s husband. But even with plenty to gossip about, this season starts out as quietly as any other.
Until a body is discovered, face down, off the side of the boardwalk.
Stylish, subversive, and darkly comedic, this is a story of what's lurking under the surface of picture-perfect lives in a place where everyone has something to hide.
Summer Rental by Rektok Ross
Amazon - Goodreads
Mean Girls meets Scream in this heart-pounding psychological thriller about a group of friends stranded on an island with a serial killer on the loose. Bestselling author Rektok Ross returns with this “clever” locked-room thriller (Publishers Weekly) that is “impossible to put down” (Collider).
Riley March and her friends are headed to ritzy, remote Palm Key Island for one last blow-out party weekend before college. It’s the vacation of a lifetime: beautiful beaches, epic nightlife, and hot guys like Riley’s crush—superstar soccer player Sebastian Ramos. There’s just one catch. Everyone on this trip is hiding something. Riley is hiding her past in order to fit in. Sebastian is hiding his feelings for Riley. And someone is hiding what really happened to Jordyn Chang, a classmate that mysteriously died last summer.
Things take a dark turn after one of their friends goes missing, and a hurricane cuts the group off from civilization. Trapped inside their rental house, a killer stalks them one by one. No one is safe. Everyone’s a suspect. As the body count rises, Riley and her friends will have to confront the secrets they’ve been keeping if they want to stay alive…
Liliana's Invincible Summer: A Sister's Search for Justice by Cristina Rivera Garza
Amazon - Goodreads
PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • “A searing account of grief and the quest to bring her sister’s murderer to justice years after the fact” (The Boston Globe), from “one of Mexico’s greatest living writers” (Jonathan Lethem).
“Part memoir, part true-crime story, Garza’s chronicle is both personal and political.”—The Washington Post
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, NPR, The Washington Post, Time, Chicago Public Library, She Reads, Electric Lit
October 18, 2019. Cristina Rivera Garza travels from her home in Texas to Mexico City, in search of an old, unresolved criminal file. “My name is Cristina Rivera Garza,” she writes in her request to the attorney general, “and I am writing to you as a relative of Liliana Rivera Garza, who was murdered on July 16, 1990.” It’s been twenty-nine years. Twenty-nine years, three months, and two days since Liliana was murdered by an abusive ex-boyfriend. Inspired by feminist movements across the world and enraged by the global epidemic of femicide and intimate partner violence, Cristina embarks on a path toward justice. Liliana’s Invincible Summer is the account—and the outcome—of that quest .
In luminous, poetic prose, Rivera Garza tells a singular yet universally resonant story: Liliana is a spirited, wondrously hopeful young woman who tried to survive in a world of increasingly normalized gendered violence. Rivera Garza traces her sister’s history, depicting everything from Liliana’s early romance with a handsome but possessive and short-tempered man to that exhilarating final summer of 1990 when she loved, thought, and traveled more widely and freely than she ever had before.
Using her skills as an acclaimed scholar, novelist, and poet, Rivera Garza collected and curated evidence—handwritten letters, police reports, school notebooks, interviews with Liliana’s loved ones—to document her sister’s life. Through this remarkable and genre-defying memoir, she confronts the trauma of losing her sister and examines how this tragedy continues to shape who she is—and what she fights for—today.
The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han
Amazon - Goodreads
Now an Original Series on Prime Video!
Belly has an unforgettable summer in this stunning start to the Summer I Turned Pretty series from the New York Times bestselling author of To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, Jenny Han.
Some summers are just destined to be pretty.
Belly measures her life in summers. Everything good, everything magical happens between the months of June and August. Winters are simply a time to count the weeks until the next summer, a place away from the beach house, away from Susannah, and most importantly, away from Jeremiah and Conrad. They are the boys that Belly has known since her very first summer—they have been her brother figures, her crushes, and everything in between. But one summer, one wonderful and terrible summer, the more everything changes, the more it all ends up just the way it should have been all along.
All the Summers In Between by Brooke Lea Foster
Amazon - Goodreads
“If you’re looking to dive into historical fiction this summer, look no further than” (Town & Country) the acclaimed author of Summer Darlings and On Gin Laneand her latest page-turning novel about two estranged friends whose unexpected reconnection in the Hamptons forces them to finally confront the terrible event that drove them apart.
When wealthy, impulsive summer girl Margot meets hardworking and steady local girl Thea in the summer of 1967, the unlikely pair become fast friends, working alongside one another in a record store and spending every spare moment together. But after an unspeakable incident on one devastating August night, they don’t see one another for ten years…until Margot suddenly reappears in Thea’s life, begging for help and harboring more than one dangerous secret. Thea can’t bring herself to refuse her beloved friend—but she also knows she can’t fully trust her either.
Unfulfilled as a housewife, Thea enjoys the dazzling sense of adventure Margot brings to her life, but will the truth of what happened to them that fateful summer ruin everything? Testing the boundaries of how far she’ll go for a friend, Thea is forced to reckon with her uncertain future while trying to decide if some friends are meant to remain in the past.
Set in the dual timelines of 1967 and 1977, All the Summers In Between is at once a mesmerizing portrait of a complex friendship, a delicious glimpse into a bygone Hamptons, and a powerful coming-of-age for two young women during a transformative era.
An Island Summer by Jenny Hale
Amazon - Goodreads
“WOW!!… My absolute new fave book… Captivated me right from the start, pulled hard on my heart strings, put an everlasting smile on my face. I loved it and couldn’t get enough… Has bestseller written all over it! It is a must-read… I LOVED this book.” Heidi Lynn’s Book Reviews, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
In the summer, everything feels possible… A heartwarming small-town romance about new beginnings, old secrets and how home is truly where the heart is. Fans of Susan Mallery, Pamela Kelley, and Mary Alice Monroe will fall head over heels for this romantic page-turner.
All that Meghan Gray has left of her beloved Pappy is his cottage on the edge of the shimmering Atlantic Ocean. Longing to feel close to her grandfather, she returns to the golden sands of Hatteras Island in the Outer Banks for the summer, clutching the manilla envelope he gifted her tightly in her hand.
On her first night on the sun-drenched island, she meets brooding Toby Meyers, a local businessman. She might feel lost without Pappy, but looking into Toby’s sparkling blue eyes feels like coming home.
The beach house where she spent her childhood is just how she remembers: a shingled bungalow with two rocking chairs on the porch and shutters on the windows. As Meghan strolls along the sand with Toby, breathing in the salty air, she realizes she is making new memories…
When Meghan opens the envelope, she finds a black-and-white photograph of someone she doesn’t recognize. If she can find out its meaning, and why Pappy gave it to her, she’ll unlock a secret that has been hidden for decades. The truth has the power to change everything Meghan and Toby thought they knew about their lives—and it will either bring them together, or break their hearts…
When the Summer Was Ours by Roxanne Veletzos
Amazon - Goodreads
“This compulsively readable tale of loss and love during and after the Second World War is a masterpiece.” —Kristin Harmel, New York Times bestselling author
“A gorgeously written, impeccably researched historical novel, spanning decades and continents, and filled with a richly drawn cast of characters.” —Jillian Cantor, USA TODAY bestselling author
This epic World War II tale of star-crossed lovers separated by class, circumstance, and tragedy—from the international bestselling author of the “gripping…filled with passion and hope” (Kate Quinn, New York Timesbestselling author) The Girl They Left Behind—explores the impact of war on civilian life and the indestructible resilience of first love.
Hungary, 1943: As war encroaches on the country’s borders, willful young Eva CĂ©sar arrives in the idyllic town of Sopron to spend her last summer as a single woman on her aristocratic family’s estate. Longing for freedom from her domineering father, she counts the days to her upcoming nuptials to a kind and dedicated Red Cross doctor whom she greatly admires.
But Eva’s life changes when she meets Aleandro, a charming and passionate Romani fiddler and artist. With time and profound class differences against them, Eva and Aleandro still fall deeply in love—only to be separated by a brutal act of hatred.
As each are swept into the tides of war, they try to forget their romance. Yet, the haunting memory of that summer will reshape their destinies and lead to decisions which are felt through generations.
From the horrors of the Second World War to the tensions of the 1956 Hungarian uprising and beyond, When the Summer Was Ours is a sweeping story about the toll of secrets, the blurred lines between sacrifice and obsession, and the endurance of the human spirit.
Have you read any of these books? Know of great book with Summer in the title?
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