When the weather turns hot and the days are blissfully long, there’s nothing better than lounging outdoors with a good book and a cold beverage. But let’s be real: This isn’t the time for intellectually taxing reading material—you can reserve Roberto Bolaño’s 2666 for the dark, depressing days of winter. An ideal summer book is one with a propulsive plot and engaging characters, something that will sweep you up and keep you turning the pages—with deep thoughts strictly optional.
Our fifth annual Summer Reads Issue is dedicated to highlighting exactly this kind of book.
One I’m especially looking forward to is The Listeners by Maggie Stiefvater (Viking, June 3). The novel opens in January 1942: The United States has just entered World War II, and the State Department has enlisted a high-end West Virginia hotel to detain Axis diplomats but still offer them all the amenities it would usually afford its wealthy paying guests. General manager June Hudon, who grew up an Appalachian orphan, must delicately conduct this ensemble operation involving hotel staff, well-to-do owners, FBI agents, and polyglot German, Italian, and Japanese delegations. In a starred review, our critic says the novel “will remind readers of why they fell in love with reading in the first place.”
The Listeners is a work of literary historical fiction, but Stiefvater is better known for her wildly popular young adult novels, including the Raven Cycle and the Shiver series. In fact, this is Stiefvater’s adult debut, and she’s part of a growing legion of YA authors successfully making the leap into adult fiction, among them Nicola Yoon, Holly Black, and Nina LaCour. These authors bring some of the most irresistible aspects of YA literature to their work—above all, a directness and energy that will hook readers of any age. Ipso facto, their books make for perfect summer reads.
One of the most successful genre jumpers of recent years is Emily Henry, who wrote fantasy-inflected novels for teens before setting the romance world on fire with mega-bestsellers like Beach Read and People We Meet on Vacation. Her latest, Great Big Beautiful Life (Berkley, April 22), lands just in time for summer reading. GBBL is the story of two journalists—she writes for a pop-culture website, he’s a Pulitzer Prize winner—competing to write the biography of a reclusive tabloid heiress while at the same time falling for one another. Our reviewer calls it a “steamy romance and a moving look at the sacrifices people make for love.”
One book that’s sure to check all the summer reading boxes this year is Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil (Tor, June 10), the latest from the phenomenally successful author of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. Like Stiefvater and Henry, V.E. Schwab got her start writing for young adults (her most recent teen offering, Gallant, was released in 2022). Bury Our Bones follows, as our starred review describes it, three “queer women searching for love, recognition, and wholeness, growing fangs and defying mortality in a world that would deny them their very existence.” They sound like they’ll be good company indeed this summer.
Tom Beer is the editor-in-chief.
