When you're headed to the beach in the summer, your beach bag always has the essentials: sunscreen and sunglasses to protect you from the rays, a cute swimsuit to look stylish lying out and in the waves, and a good book. When relaxing in the sun, sometimes there's nothing better than pouring through a great page-turner.
While you could bring any number of books with you on vacation, "the beach read" tends to mean a novel that's easy to get lost in as you soak up the sun. Typically, engrossing thrillers or easy-breezy romance novels make for great reading material. This summer season, there's a handful of options that fit the bill, including some of the best books of the year so far, heartwarming new romance novels, and, as always, series worth getting into, modern genre classics you may have missed, and more. Below, find the best summer beach reads of 2024 worth picking up, whether you're headed out on holiday or to the shore or pool in your city.
There's a charm to reading books set in seaside towns in the summertime, but there's even more of a delight to reading books about something dramatic that shakes up a picture-perfect community. In Emma Rosenblum's debut, the town of Salcombe on Fire Island, a vacation hotspot outside of New York City, becomes absorbed in a mysterious murder when a body is found on the boardwalk. Centered around socialite types Jen and Lauren, their frenemy husbands, and visiting single friend Rachel, copious secrets and tensions beneath their have-it-all exteriors come to light surrounding the case.
Have you hopped on the Emily Henry train yet? She published several YA novels, and then was officially crowned an expert romance writer with the 2020 release of Beach Read. The charming book sees polar opposite writers January, a romance novelist, and August, a literary fiction author, as they get to know each other and work on their latest projects together when they find themselves in neighboring vacation homes.
If you're one to blow through books during the summer, it might be worth starting a series. Sarah J. Maas' A Court of Thorns and Roses will sweep you away to a completely different world, as it's set in the faerie realm of Prythian and follows the adventures and romantic rendezvous of Feyre Archeron, who is swept away to the fantastical world. The books have become a phenomenon on #BookTok and IRL, and are considered one of the best erotic novels; and now's never a better time to get on the trend, as a series adaptation is in the works.
There's a quintessential, nostalgic quality to summer camp—and the classic horror trope. Liz Moore's highly anticipated 2024 book The God of the Woods leans into the latter to eerie effects. Set in 1975 at a camp in the Adirondacks, turmoil follows and a dark history is unleashed when the 13-year-old daughter of the camp owner and local family dynasty goes missing from her bunk.
Elle Kennedy's Avalon Bay series is as sweet of a treat as soft serve. The first entry into the trilogy is Good Girl Complex, about orderly, people pleaser and trust fund kid Mackenzie "Mac" Cabot, who begrudgingly spends her college's break at the beachside town her parents move to. Feeling alien from her family and others in the wealthy community, she finds an opposites-attract connection in local bad boy Cooper Hartley, and a summer to remember ensues.
Emma Cline's 2016 debut, bestselling novel The Girls made her a literary sensation, and she followed it up with another beguiling hit with 2023's The Guest. A week out in the Hamptons has never been so chaotic as it is here. After a young woman is thrown out of her older sugar daddy's home, she traipses around Long Island, pretending she is someone she is not, until tension blows over and she can make an appearance at her beau's Labor Day party.
This August will finally see the release of the first-ever adaptation of one of bestselling writer Colleen Hoover's popular novels. It Ends With Us is getting the on-screen treatment, with Blake Lively in the starring role, but before you head to the cinema, you should pick up the book. The emotional story follows recent college graduate Lily Bloom who moves to Boston and enters a whirlwind relationship with a neuroscientist Ryle, which quickly turns abusive. Chronicling their relationship, she finds her own strength, and solace in someone from her past.
When down-on-his-luck Justin takes to Reddit to share that he believes he's been cursed because every woman he dates meets his soulmate after they break up, Emma surprises him by sliding into his DMs and saying the same. To break the curse, the two hatch a plan to have a fling for the summer—in a private island lake house, no less—to break the curse. Written from both of their perspectives, you'll be giddy seeing into each of their psyches as they realize their feelings for each other.
One of the most highly anticipated novels of summer 2024 is acclaimed writer Taffy Brodesser-Akner's follow-up to Fleishman Is in Trouble. It'll be the talk of the book world, so best to add it to your to-read stack ASAP. It's centered around the wealthy Fletcher family, whose father was kidnapped and held for ransom for one week in the '80s. While they were quick to move on from the ordeal at the time, as the three children are now well into their adulthood, they realize the entire family never reckoned with what happened in a gripping novel about the commitment and death of the American dream.
If you've read Taylor Jenkins Reid mega-hits like Daisy Jones & the Six and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, you should dive into her 2021 book Malibu Rising. It certainly is one of the most beach-read novels of hers. Inspired by the 1983 Malibu fires and California surf culture, it takes place over one night in which Nina Riva, a famous model and surfer, is hosting her annual end-of-summer party. Her home becomes engulfed in flames by the end of the night, but before then, tension among her equally talented and renowned family members lights a tense fire of its own.
For those seeking chaos this summer, Margo's Got Money Troubles has more than enough for your fix, and you'll laugh out loud, too. 20-year-old, single mother Margo is struggling to get by when her estranged, former wrestling star father comes back into her life, asking to move in with her. Inspired by his performative personality, she decides to launch her own OnlyFans, making for a smart, whitty look at money, internet fame, and power.
Popular thriller author Lucy Foley's latest uncovers the secrets of a mysterious, alluring estate known as The Manor. Owner Francesca Woodland opens its doors with an meticulously planned summer solstice party, and the night poses stress for many of the space's employees and Woodland herself when an old friend shows up. But the real melodrama unfolds after the affair, when it turns out that The Manor burnt down and someone died.
If your summer is typically spent tuning into reality shows like Bachelor in Paradise and Love Island, you're going to want to read One Perfect Couple. Bestselling thriller author Ruth Ware's new book pulls inspiration from hit competition and dating series, as it's set on a desolate, tropical island where five couples are partaking in a new reality show. While it seems as though they're at first in paradise, a major storm makes the experience a nightmare—especially when it turns out a killer is on the island with them, making their fight for survival all the more terrifying.
Once you get into Emily Henry, you won't be able to stop, and her popular book People We Meet on Vacation is another peak beach-read kind of book. It sees the reunion of best friends Alex and Poppy, who couldn't be more different but immensely close and take a yearly trip together until they drift apart. Two years after they stopped taking their vacations, Poppy invites Alex on another, and he agrees, leading to an opportunity for reconciliation (and maybe something more).
Gillian Flynn's 2006 debut is a certified classic thriller that any fan of the genre needs to read. It makes for the perfect day trip read, too, considering how short it is. It also exudes the dizzying feeling that comes with heat exhaustion, as it unfolds in a small Southern town where reporter Camille returns to investigate a string of girls' murders. Once you start reading, you won't be able to put it down (and then you can get lost in the perfect binge watch of its perfect 2018 miniseries adaptation).
Let State of Paradise into your life and its sticky, humid setting and twisty mystery will consume you even more than the dew point outside. The page-turner follows a thriller ghostwriter living out of her mother's Florida home in a town where an odd company called ELECTRA seems to have moved in, taken over, and infiltrated its residences by passing out strange VR devices. When her sister disappears, the writer goes in search of her, and finds more than one conspiracy to dig into.
This one's a true rom-com for the bookworms. When Samantha spends summer at Martha's Vineyard and is tasked with watching over her bookish half-brother who only wants to spend his days at the library, she connects with a charming temporary librarian named Bennett. Sparks fly as they grow closer while Samantha helps Bennett on his quest to research the identity of his father who he's never met, and he helps her write her dream cook book.
All of your summer fling fantasies come alive in this heartwarming book. After two tough years in which hardship has turned professional organizer Ali's life into a mess, she serendipitously meets a man named Ethan who puts her path back on course.
Prepare to get heart palpitations on the beach reading romance novelist Carley Fortune's recent release. Set in Canada's Prince Edward Island, tourist Lucy experiences a whirlwind fling with local Felix—who she at first doesn't realize is her best friend Bridget's brother. Every summer, she falls into same old patterns and sees Felix again, despite their feelings that they should let old flames die. That's especially put to the test when she drops everything to console Bridget for the summer after she calls off her wedding.
The Summer of Perfect Mistakes is a romance that sizzles. Old high school classmates reconnect when former all American perfectionist Lark takes a leave from medical school after experiencing mental health issues and she signs up for an art class that just so happens to be taught by a creative boy she grew up with.
