Our book club dump is here to complete your balmy summer TBR list. In this semester’s line up, we’ve got the ultimate beach read in Lizzy Dent’s latest feel-good rom com The Summer Job, Transcendent Kingdom – the ruminative second novel by Yaa Gyasi (prepare to be both speechless and ruined in the best possible way) and A Slow Burning Fire by Paula Hawkins, a scorching new thriller from the best-selling author of The Girl on the Train.
If book boners exist, then trust us when we say we’re going to be well and truly pitching a tent this summer. Here’s a look at the blurbs!
July – The Summer Job by Lizzy Dent
Part Bridesmaids, Fleabag and Bridget Jones, there’s no poolside pal with a sense of humour quite like Lizzy Dent’s The Summer Job.
Have you ever imagined running away from your life?
Well Birdy Finch didn’t just imagine it. She did it. Which might’ve been an error. And the life she’s run into? Her best friend, Heather’s.
The only problem is, she hasn’t told Heather. Actually there are a few other problems…
Can Birdy carry off a summer at a luxury Scottish hotel pretending to be her best friend (who incidentally is a world-class wine expert)?
And can she stop herself from falling for the first man she’s ever actually liked (but who thinks she’s someone else)
Purchase from Bookshop.org here!
August – Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
Yaa Gyasi’s searing follow up to her acclaimed best-seller Homegoing delivers a powerful and moving portrait of a family of Ghanaian immigrants, ravaged by depression, grief and addiction.
As a child Gifty would ask her parents to tell the story of their journey from Ghana to Alabama, seeking escape in myths of heroism and romance. When her father and brother succumb to the hard reality of immigrant life in the American South, their family of four becomes two – and the life Gifty dreamed of slips away.
Years later, desperate to understand the opioid addiction that destroyed her brother’s life, she turns to science for answers. But when her mother comes to stay, Gifty soon learns that the roots of their tangled traumas reach farther than she ever thought. Tracing her family’s story through continents and generations will take her deep into the dark heart of modern America.
Purchase from Bookshop.org here!
September – Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney
One of the most talked-about authors from the last year following the success of her novel to tv show Normal People – Sally Rooney is back with a brand new book based in Dublin following a quartet of young friends, their lives and their loves.
Alice, a novelist, meets Felix, who works in a distribution warehouse, and asks him if he’d like to travel to Rome with her. In Dublin, her best friend Eileen is getting over a break-up, and slips back into flirting with Simon, a man she has known since childhood.
Alice, Felix, Eileen and Simon are still young—but life is catching up with them. They desire each other, they delude each other, they get together, they break apart. They have sex, they worry about sex, they worry about their friendships and the world they live in. Are they standing in the last lighted room before the darkness, bearing witness to something? Will they find a way to believe in a beautiful world?
October – A Slow Burning Fire by Paula Hawkins
The author behind the global phenomenon The Girl on the Train is back with her highly anticipated new thriller. A Slow Burning Fire explores the way no tragedy happens in isolation. Expect a dark plot, intensely believable, human characters and explosive gasp out loud twists.
‘What is wrong with you?’
Laura has spent most of her life being judged. She’s seen as hot-tempered, troubled, a loner. Some even call her dangerous.
Miriam knows that just because Laura is witnessed leaving the scene of a horrific murder with blood on her clothes, that doesn’t mean she’s a killer. Bitter experience has taught her how easy it is to get caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Carla is reeling from the brutal murder of her nephew. She trusts no one: good people are capable of terrible deeds. But how far will she go to find peace?
Innocent or guilty, everyone is damaged. Some are damaged enough to kill.
Look what you started.
What book has got you truly hyped for a summer of good reads?
