By Olivia Humphrey
If you’re anything like me, you never feel like you have enough time to read (and I work in publishing, so that’s saying something). But, summer always feels like the perfect time to find the excuse to curl up with a great read and a big old glass of wine – gotta treat yourself, right? Whether you’re reading on a beach, a garden, a long train journey, or simply enjoying a quiet evening with the windows open, there’s something about summer that invites us to slow down and immerse ourselves in another world.
So here is my gift to you – a selection of family sagas, literary love stories, thought-provoking historical fiction, nature writing, and unforgettable coming-of-age novels. Some will make you laugh, others may leave you in tears, but each offers a compelling story and characters that linger long after the final page.
If you’re looking for books that will stay with you long after summer ends, these are the ones I’d recommend adding to your reading list. Time to pour yourself a glass (go on, don’t be stingy), and indulge.
The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak
Two teenagers in Cyprus fall in forbidden love as a fig tree witnesses their secret meetings and the outbreak of war that tears them apart. Years later, a fig tree in a London garden connects Ada Kazantzakis to the island she has never seen, leading her to uncover family secrets and understand her identity.
I never imagined I could fall in love with a fig tree, yet this novel made it seem inevitable. Elif Shafak is a sublime author, writing with originality, imagination and passion.
This story is dedicated to “to immigrants and exiles everywhere, the uprooted, the re-rooted, the rootless, and to the trees we left behind, rooted in our memories,” and beautifully captures themes of displacement, belonging, and identity.
Through lyrical prose and touches of magical realism, Shafak tells a moving story set between Cyprus and London, exploring the island’s troubled history, divided communities, love, loss, migration, and families searching for loved ones lost to war.
The Colletta Cassettes by Bruno Noble
In 1978 Italy, British journalist Peter Kentish secretly interviews former CIA agent Robert Bravo, whose revelations expose links between the CIA and the Italian mafia during the fight against communism. Meanwhile, Peter’s teenage son Sebastian becomes entangled in first love and growing suspicions of a mysterious figure. As the interviews uncover increasingly dangerous secrets, the family finds itself under threat from those determined to keep the truth hidden.
The Colletta Cassettes is a captivating blend of political intrigue and coming-of-age drama, set against the sun-drenched beauty of a remote Ligurian village in 1978.
At its heart is Sebastian’s unforgettable holiday romance, with all the intensity, exhilaration, and heartbreak of first love, while darker secrets from Italy’s turbulent past slowly emerge. Rich in atmosphere and authenticity, the novel beautifully captures the magic of summer and a bittersweet transition from innocence to experience.
The Bright Years by Sarah Damoff
Spanning four generations, The Bright Years follows a Texas family bound by love, secrets, and loss. As Georgette grows up amid her parents’ hidden struggles – her mother’s secret son and her father’s alcoholism – a tragedy tears the family apart. Years later, the search for her long-lost half-brother forces Georgette to confront her family’s past and discover whether healing, forgiveness, and love are still possible.
This book had me WEEPING.
Sarah Damoff’s debut novel is told through the voices of a mother, father, and daughter – a powerful and deeply emotional family saga about love, loss, addiction, secrets, and redemption. It’s simultaneously heartbreaking and hopeful, and captures the pain of broken relationships, the weight of past mistakes, and the enduring bonds that pull families back together.
I went into this book blind and recommend doing the same. It will break your heart more than once, but there is a powerful message – that even in the face of loss, hope can endure. As the novel beautifully reminds us, “Loss keeps a tight grip when there’s hope left.”
Night Train to Lisbon by Paul Mercier
Raimund Gregorius, a Swiss classics teacher trapped in routine, has his life transformed by a chance encounter and a mysterious book by Amadeu de Prado. Drawn by Prado’s words and his resistance to Portugal’s dictatorship, Gregorius travels to Lisbon to uncover the story of the man behind the pages, embarking on a journey of self-discovery and intrigue.
If you find philosophy tiresome, then you might find this book frustrating or agitating. I read this book years ago as a conceited teenager, in love with her own cleverness – needless to say, I absolutely loved it.
It revolves around the question, “Given that we can live only a small part of what there is in us – what happens to the rest?” and follows a character who steps outside his own life to explore other possible versions of it through words, memories, and imagined paths. It’s a moving reflection on all the lives we don’t live, and the quiet longing to somehow hold them all at once.
The Wrong’Un by Catherine Evans
Meet the Newells, a gifted but troubled Northern family whose children rise from a working-class upbringing to lives in Oxford academia, London society, publishing, and New York finance – yet one son, Paddy, pulls them toward something far darker. Spanning 1960s Lincolnshire and modern-day London, the story follows Edie and her fractured family, shaped by loss, secrets, and difficult choices, and later her daughter Bea, whose life is upended by grief and shocking revelations. At its core, it is a gripping exploration of family bonds, betrayal, and the lasting consequences of the past.
The Wrong’un by Catherine Evans is a gripping family drama about how a single lie can unravel into a web of deceit, with devastating consequences for everyone involved. Set against a cast of deeply flawed characters, it asks whether a parent’s love should excuse the actions of a troubled child, and how far forgiveness can truly go.
Evans’ writing carries raw, unfiltered emotion that pulls you straight into the story, making it easy to connect with the characters and their struggles without ever feeling lost.
Heart the Lover by Lily King
Our narrator understands love stories, but finds that her own is far more complicated than the ones she has studied. In college, she’s drawn into an intense bond with two brilliant friends, Sam and Yash, and quickly becomes part of their close, electrifying world – only to find herself caught in a love triangle that will shape all three of their futures. Years later, living the life she once dreamed of, she is forced to confront the past when unexpected news pulls her back, reopening old choices, deceptions, and the enduring impact of first love and friendship.
Reading Lily King for the first time made me stop and question my own life choices in a way I didn’t expect. The story follows a young woman through college and into two later points in her life, and it instantly pulled me back into that same vulnerable stage – when everything revolved around friends, studies, love, and trying to figure out the future. It isn’t just a romance, even though love is central to it; it’s about how the decisions we make when we’re young quietly shape everything that comes after.
It unfolds in three parts, and I found myself completely absorbed, often reluctant to pause. At times it was tender and funny, at others frustrating and heartbreaking, but always deeply relatable. It captures both the thrill of youth – the freedom, ambition, and first love – and the harder sides too, like regret, loss, family strain, and the difficulty of forgiveness.
The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Hadlow
The Other Bennet Sister reimagines Mary Bennet from Pride and Prejudice as she steps out of the shadows of her more celebrated sisters to find her own path. Once the overlooked, bookish “ugly duckling,” Mary slowly begins to shed expectations and discover a life shaped by her own desires rather than others’ judgments.
If you’re anything like me, you’ll have been obsessed with the series adaptation of this beautifully thoughtful book. There have been countless reinterpretations of Pride & Prejudice, but many lean into its romance and warmth. Like Jo Baker’s Longbourn, this novel takes a more critical, thoughtful look at the beloved classic and its characters. Centering Mary – the often-dismissed Bennet sister – it reshapes the family dynamic, including Jane and Lizzy, while also making us reconsider how easily Mary has been sidelined.
However pious or plain she may seem, the novel reminds us how painful it is to feel unseen within one’s own family. Hadlow handles this with restraint, avoiding melodrama, and instead offers a fresh, illuminating perspective on familiar events.
Paradise Undone: A Novel of Jonestown by Annie Dawid
A fictionalised retelling of the Jonestown Massacre from the perspective of its victims. Through compelling storytelling, Annie Dawid reveals the people and inner workings behind one of the world’s deadliest cults – those who were poor, isolated, and disillusioned, drawn to a jungle commune in British Guyana by promises of equality and utopia. But this supposed Eden harbours a darker force at its centre, where devotion turns to control, and belief leads, inexorably, toward tragedy.
I went into Paradise Undone thinking I already knew the story of Jonestown, but what it reveals is how human everything was before it fell apart.
I often had to pause while reading, because its quiet moments are so affecting: the hope, belonging, and sense of purpose that slowly take root. Annie Dawid writes with such restraint and empathy that you feel as if you’re living alongside these people, not observing them from a distance. What lingered most was how understandable it all felt – the gradual compromises, the trust, and the way doubt arrives in whispers rather than warnings.
Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton
Raising Hare is a moving reflection on freedom, trust, loss, and our connection to the natural world, told through one woman’s extraordinary bond with a wild hare. During lockdown, Chloe Dalton rescues a leveret and, expecting only to help it recover, finds herself drawn into an unexpected relationship with a creature that refuses to be tamed. Over time, the hare comes and goes freely between fields and home, forming a fragile, remarkable companionship that challenges ideas of ownership, care, and liberty. Part nature writing, part personal memoir, it explores the beauty and uncertainty of loving something truly wild.
Winner of the Wainwright prize for nature writing 2025
Chloe Dalton offers a close, revealing portrait of a rarely seen and elusive animal, observing the hare’s behaviour, growth, and the raising of its young with care and attention. Alongside this, the book reflects on the changing seasons, the rhythms of wildlife, and the impact of modern agriculture on the natural world.
Spanning three years, Raising Hare is a quietly moving account of an unusual bond, written with warmth and restraint rather than sentimentality. It highlights both the fragility of a declining species and the value of slowing down to reconnect with the natural world, offering a thoughtful meditation on how deeply human and nature are intertwined.
Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
Natalie Heller Mills has built an empire as a tradwife influencer, presenting millions of followers with a picture-perfect life: a charming farmhouse, a handsome husband, and six idyllic children. What they don’t see are the producers, nannies, and carefully curated illusions behind the scenes.
Then Natalie wakes up in 1855. Modern comforts have vanished, her husband is a real farmer, and the domestic life she once performed online has become a brutal reality. As she struggles to understand whether she’s trapped in a reality show, experiencing time travel, or facing some kind of divine test, Natalie becomes increasingly desperate to escape. But after a devastating injury, she realizes this new reality may be far more dangerous than she ever imagined.
Yesteryear was one of my most anticipated reads of 2026, and it exceeded every expectation. Nuanced, darkly funny, unsettling, and thought-provoking, it blends ‘weird girl fiction’ with psychological thriller elements.
Rich with commentary on religion, conservatism, and gender, the novel follows a deeply flawed yet fascinating protagonist. Is she truly as problematic as she seems, or a product of her upbringing and the pressures placed upon women? Burke leaves that question open, making Natalie all the more compelling.
At her core, Natalie wrestles with authenticity: in her beliefs, her marriage, her motherhood, and her carefully curated brand. The novel ultimately asks a powerful question: is it even possible to be truly authentic, online or otherwise?
Sunburn by Chloe Michelle Howard
In early 1990s Crossmore, Ireland, Lucy has always felt out of place, unconvinced by the expected path of marriage and motherhood—even with her devoted childhood friend Martin. During a long, restless summer, her relationship with her school friend Susannah deepens into an intense, all-consuming love, forcing Lucy into a secret double life in a conservative small town. As the end of school approaches, she must choose between two futures, two relationships, and two versions of herself—each equally frightening, but only one offering the chance of real happiness.
A STUNNING debut!
Sunburn captures the intensity of first love so intense it feels life-altering – an experience that reshapes Lucy’s world as she comes of age. In Chloe Michelle Howarth’s searing sapphic novel, Lucy’s awakening feelings for Susannah are as overwhelming as they are dangerous in a small, judgmental Irish community where love becomes something to hide rather than celebrate.
As desire deepens into secrecy, Lucy is pulled between expectation and truth, friendship and family, belonging and selfhood. Against a backdrop of gossip and repression, she must navigate the painful shift from adolescence to adulthood – where everything she knows begins to fracture. Written in luminous, poetic prose, Sunburn is a powerful coming-of-age story about love, shame, and the courage it takes to choose oneself.
Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson
Two young Black British artists meet in a South East London pub – he a photographer, she a dancer – both shaped by scholarships to private schools where they struggled to belong, now trying to carve out space in a city that both embraces and excludes them. They fall into a tender, tentative love, but even deep connection cannot fully shield them from fear and violence. Open Water is both a luminous love story and a powerful exploration of race, masculinity, and vulnerability. With poetic intensity, Caleb Azumah Nelson captures what it means to be seen only as a Black body, to seek softness in a world that demands strength, and to find love that feels like safety – until it doesn’t.
Caleb Azumah Nelson’s debut novella is a strikingly lyrical work that carries far greater emotional weight than its length suggests. It explores identity, masculinity, and the experience of being a young Black Londoner, alongside the exhaustion, trauma, and invisibility shaped by racism and police brutality.
At its centre are two Black artists who move from friendship into a deeply intimate relationship, navigating love while carrying their own histories, fears, and insecurities. When the relationship ends and she returns to Dublin, its emotional echoes continue to linger. It’s tender and painful, but hopeful still – this book weaves Black cultural references through a story of love and loss that feels both personal and urgently contemporary.