Rest, relaxation and reading: summer brings a slew of absorbing new books —and a chance to actually read them. From zesty debuts to zeitgeisty thrillers, these are the hottest beach reads 2022 has to offer.
This debut novel is so stuffed with charm, wit and warmth that you can’t help cracking spontaneous smiles while reading, then forcing the finished copy upon a friend. Lessons in Chemistry is a vibrant revenge comedy set in 50s and 60s America. Heroine Elizabeth Zott is a research chemist who is well-versed on the transformative force of chemistry - romantic or otherwise. At 30 she’s a single mother who’s found fame but not fulfilment as the unlikely star of a cookery show.The narrative shifts back to reveal an academic career stifled by misogyny, and momentum builds around Elizabeth’s empowering advice to her housewife fans, culminating in a triumphant tale that sucks you in and sticks with you.
This coming-of-age story has the kind of epic, all-consuming plot that is best savoured over long days on the sunlounger. With her precision pacing and delicious depth of detail, debut novelist Joanna Quinn emerges as an immediate favourite for fans of I Capture the Castle and The Cazalet Chronicles. The Whalebone Theatre is an escapist yet not at all fluffy family chronicle that plays out in a sprawling country house in the interwar period. It follows spirited Christabel and her gloriously dysfunctional family through parties, plays, heartache and espionage. Our only grievance is that it’s just one book; we want a whole series of sagas about the Seagrove family.
Professor Don Lamb leads a sheltered life lecturing at Cambridge and writing about Venetian master Tiepolo, until he meets an anarchic young artist and discovers debaucheries and delights of Soho and the YBAs of 1990s London. This erudite debut from art critic and academic James Cahill takes you on a journey from old masters to young disruptors, giving one man’s downfall tragic gravity and the throat-tightening intensity of a thriller.
Thanks to its eerily prescient themes, Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation became the most buzzed about book of the pandemic. Her latest novel Lapvona is disorientatingly different and more divisive, but unfurls with the same blunt and unflinching prose. Set in a fictional Medieval fifefom, Lapvona explores the depravities of extreme weath and poverty. Motherless young Marek is devoted to a blind midwife with supernatural senses, but the forces of famine and faith bring savagary and danger. Rich in symbolism, graphic violence and trigger warnings, this is no uplifting, easy read. But fans of Moshfegh would expect nothing of the sort. Brace yourself for a daring, dizzying fable about corruption.
Imagine the complex layers of rivalry and devotion that shape Elena Ferrante’s Neaopliatan novels - then shift it to 1990s Leicestershire, add lashings of droll laughter and you have One Day I Shall Astonish the World. As a natural heir to the likes of Alan Bennett and Sue Townsend, Nina Stibbe is all about celebrating humor and humanity in suburban familiarity. We follow Susan and Norma from teens to middle ages. United by an interest in literature, one becomes an academic while the other becomes a reluctant housewife. This is not a story about glamour or greatness, instead it’s a comforting account of the many trivial ways life gets in the way and little satisfactions of learning to stand up for oneself.
The House of Fortune is a sequel to 2015 bestseller The Miniaturist, picking up 18 years after the thriller ended. It offers a welcome opportunity to return to gilded 18th century Amsterdam - or the uninitiated can discover read both books back to back. Once again revolving around the Brandt family, this is a mystery that unfurls in Burton’s characteristically evocative and atmospheric prose. Baby Thea is all grown up, a headstrong 18-year-old with a forbidden crush. Meanwhile her aunt Nella is in financial dire straits and relying on securing Thea a wealthy husband. An exclusive ball offers glittering opportunities, but new acquaintances threaten to unsettle old secrets. And then a strange package appears on the doorstep.
As it’s not published until 30 August, Carrie Soto is Back isn’t quite in time for summer - yet it’s the ultimate beach book, so pre-order now to eke out the holiday feels. Author of Daisy Jones and The Six and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Taylor Jenkins-Reid is queen of smart, sparkling page-turners. Her latest story centres on world champion tennis player Carrie Soto who is coming out of retirement at the age of 37 to re-set her own world record. Taut with the tension and high stakes of professional sport, this is a tale of determination and talent, along with vulnerability and romance.
The story of Sam and Sadie, who bond in a hospital as children, bump into each in a train station as students and become an overnight sensation together by their mid-twenties, sounds sacharin on the surface. But there are depths, complexities and eccentricities that make Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow a particularly memorable and compelling kind of love story. With gen X protagonists drawn together through a shared passion for video games, Gabrielle Zevin makes the youthful, online zeitgeist feel accessible. Gaming runs deep through the book, contextualising the themes of possibility and hope. But it’s the nuanced depiction of human connection over 30 years that will have you blinking back tears behind your sunglasses.
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