All of us have fallen prey to the occasional reading slump, but the good news is that summer is the perfect time to get your nose back into a book or two. If you’re in the market for a good read to sink your teeth into, read on: from fresh releases from established voices to sharp debuts from up-and-coming writers, here’s our round-up of the best new books to dig into this summer.
Emma Jane Unsworth’s latest novel follows 42-year-old Sarah as she embarks on a whiskey-fuelled roadtrip around Scotland with her younger sister, Juliette. The narrative is shot through with flashbacks to Sarah’s life as a plucky, boy-obsessed teenager in the 1990s which offer revealing insights into her present-day psyche. On a micro level, Slags unpicks Sarah’s mounting ennui – approaching midlife, she’s bored and a touch bitter – but on a macro level, it’s a poignant exploration of sisterhood, friendship, and love. (SS)
Happiness and Love centres around an unnamed writer who, having fled the uppity New York art scene for London, finds herself back in the Lower East Side for a friend’s funeral. The following evening, she attends at a dinner party hosted by an artist-curator couple named Eugene and Nicole and is thrust back into the snobbish, snotty art world once more. As the guests mingle and chatter, the narrator watches on from a sofa – silently, mercilessly excoriating the awful people around her. A blistering satire on friendship, capitalism, class, and culture, Happiness and Love is a smart, acerbic debut. (SS)
Open, Heaven, the debut novel from poet and critic Seán Hewitt, follows James, a shy 16-year-old hailing from the northern English countryside, as he begins to reckon with his burgeoning sexuality after he meets the enigmatic, troubled Luke in the summer of 2002. With his father in prison and his mother in France with another man, Luke has been sent to live with his aunt and uncle at their farm. James quickly becomes obsessed with him and longs for some sign that his affections are reciprocated; meanwhile, Luke is grappling with a thicket of anxieties beneath his cocksure facade. Open, Heaven is a story about boyhood, yearning, and the striking power of first love to shape us into who we are as adults. (SS)
Sunstruck, the debut novel from Merky Prize-winning writer William Rayfet Hunter, follows a queer, mixed-race musician known as ‘WhiteBoy’ who becomes entangled with the uber-rich Blake family. In the novel, WhiteBoy (so called for his ignorance about Black pop culture) struggles to feel any sense of belonging among the moneyed circles he moves in – but soon develops an obsession with Felix, the charming and enigmatic son of the Blakes. A Saltburn-style romp, Sunstruck is a perfect summer 2025 beach read. (SS)
Abigail Bergstrom’s latest novel follows three sisters – Ines, Dylan, and Emma – as they find themselves back in the Welsh town where they grew up, each of them apparently at a crossroads in their lives. Ines, perpetually dissatisfied (despite always seeming to get her way), comes home on the verge of a breakdown, her long-term partner in tow. Dylan, the family’s lone wolf, is still reeling from a painful rejection. Emma, meanwhile, appears to be happily married – but in reality, she’s silently struggling to shake the feeling that she’s trapped. The three of them were once inseparable, but time has wrenched them apart; now, reunited for the first time in years, old wounds threaten to reopen. (SS)
In It’s Terrible The Things I Have to Do To Be Me, Philippa Snow dissects the brutal cost of female celebrity, exploring how fame reshapes women’s bodies, identities and narratives. Drawing on icons like Anna Nicole Smith, Lindsay Lohan and Amy Winehouse, Snow blends cultural criticism with essayistic flair to reveal the tension between person and persona. Rooted in the tabloid chaos of the 2000s, the book argues that fame is a form of self-mythology shaped by patriarchy and performance. The result is a vivid, often surreal portrait of celebrity womanhood – both tragic and transcendent – and its impact on all who watch. (Read our interview with Philippa here)
Michelle Tea’s Valencia is an electrifying chronicle of queer life in 1990s San Francisco. Originally released 25 years ago, the re-released novel (or memoir, technically) follows a 25-year-old Tea as she is swept up in a storm of sex, drugs, obsession and heartbreak. Written raw, as events unfolded, Valencia is a feverish, unforgettable coming-of-age story that helped define a generation – a cult classic that pulses with honesty, and the uncontainable desire to live and write freely. (Read Michelle’s interview on AnOther here) (DS)
I read this in a single sitting during a five-hour wait at a sexual health clinic (which is kind of like being at the beach?) and it really hit the spot. It’s partly a meta twist on classic detective fiction, partly a study of grief and the search for answers after a loved one’s death. It opens with a group of young people gathering at a country manor for a New Year’s Eve party and murder mystery game. When the protagonist’s brother Benjamin is found dead the next morning – an apparent suicide – the novel switches up: suddenly it’s the early 20th century and there are butlers, maids and a Poirot-esque detective undercovering all sorts of sordid secrets. Hegarty cuts back and forth between this knowingly silly, self-referential caper and the devastating impact which Benjamin’s death – a real-world mystery for which there are no neat answers or satisfying reveals – has on his sister. (JG)
I specifically bought this because I saw it described as a “summer party novel”, which is exactly what I was looking for during the heatwave. The novel is about Smith, a young queer Black man from a privileged background, whose life is thrown into disarray when he gets arrested for coke possession on a sweltering day in the Hamptons. The novel has a lot to say about race and class, but it’s also a wild ride through the New York nightlife scene, the upper echelons of Atlanta society and the people who populate them. It perfectly captures the heady atmosphere of a New York summer. (JG)
Jeremy Atherton Lin’s Deep House is an incisive blend of memoir and cultural history, tracing the evolution of his decades-long relationship with his British partner against the backdrop of queer legal progress. From navigating life as an undocumented couple in 90s San Francisco to finding legitimacy through UK civil partnerships, Lin interweaves personal experience with stories of activists, court cases and shifting societal norms. (Read Jeremy’s interview on AnOther here)
Limei is a sad girl in Shanghai, making latte art by day, blogging heartbreak by night, and waiting for something (or someone) to change everything. Could a sexy, powerful stranger be the answer? Olivia Kan-Sperling’s Little Pink Book is a horny, haunted anti-romance: part pop-culture fever dream, part cautionary tale about the horrors of being too online.