no. 72. extremely specific summer reading recommendations, vol. 2

Consider it speed dating for your library holds list.

I’ll keep the introduction here short and sweet: I usually read between 35 and 55 books a year, and one of my favorite activities is meticulously researching new books to add to my elaborate library holds system so that I have at least one book available at *all times*.

Add in the fact that I *live* for the perfect recommendation (exhibit A, exhibit B, and exhibit C) y’all it’s time for the annual *extremely specific summer reading list*. We re going for books that suit extremely specific moods, situations and vibes with a TLDR description to keep things simple and streamlined to make finding your next page turner as easy and fun as possible.

I will warn you: extremely specific means extremely specific (things that I want to read) – so you won’t catch me calling rom-coms the beach read of the summer. There are lots of lists for that – this is not one of them. I firmly believe any book is a perfect beach read, so prepare for a list full of literary fiction, complex female characters, and complicated family dynamics.

Without further ado – can’t wait to hear what you’re reading first!

That’s it, love you!

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Links included in this issue are from Bookshop, a site that supports local book stores. All proceeds from Bookshop affiliate links in 2025 will be donated to Reach out And Read, a Washington state nonprofit focused on providing education about reading at pediatric checkups to drive early literacy and language development.

If you’re new here: this category is a constant. There’s crime, there are long hidden secrets, there is occasional weirdness. Feels like the natural next step for the girls that moved on from true crime but still enjoy planned, contained discomfort and the perspective it provides.

• Death Takes Me by Cristina Rivera Garza (Translated by Robin Myers and Sarah Booker). A literature professor out jogging finds the body of a man next to lines of poetry that have been her life’s work to study. When new victims appear all over the city, she is enlisted to catch the murderer before he finds her.

• Parallel Lines by Edward St. Aubyn. Over the course of a year, four individuals collide as they navigate a mental breakdown, family estrangement, catastrophic natural (and interpersonal) disasters, grave diagnoses and impossible missions. Out June 3, 2025.

• All These Beautiful Strangers by Elizabeth Klehfoth. A young woman whose mother went missing when she was seven attempts to outrun her family’s dark legacy by immersing herself into life at a prestigious prep school. She is tapped into the school’s secret society and embarks on a hazing ritual that jeopardizes her friendships and reputation while threatening to uncover the terrible truth about her family’s secrets.

• Voice Like a Hyacinth by Mallory Pearson. Five young women obsessed with finding artistic success will do anything to keep their inspiration alive. They soon learn the price of the wrongs they have done, and have to make it right before there is no turning back. Like Mona Awad’s “Bunny”, but make it art school.

• A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G. Summers. A food critic with insatiable appetites hides a dark secret - mainly that she lures men into her home, kills them and elaborately cooks them.

• Don’t Let Him In by Lisa Jewell. Three women are pulled into the orbit of one man who seems too good to be true – and the shocking truth is far darker than any of them could have imagined. Out June 24,2025.

• One Yellow Eye by Leigh Radford. A British scientist works fervently to find a cure for her husband who was infected in a viral zombie apocalypse. Her attempts to save him spirals into obsession as she races against the clock to save him before he’s discovered (or causes another outbreak). Out July 15, 2025.

• Not Quite Dead Yet, by Holly Jackson. A twisty thriller about a woman who is attacked by an unknown intruder. Doctors are convinced that the catastrophic head injury will kill her in a matter of days. As her condition deteriorates, she attempts to solve her own murder before it happens. Out July 22, 2025.

If there is one thing you should know about me, it’s that I love writing that thoughtfully (and critically) considers the world around us — especially when it comes to wellness, class, social media, and pop culture. I find these books enjoyable, and also that they broaden my perspective as I try to figure out how to operate in an increasingly complicated world.

• Where Are You, Echo Blue? By Haley Krischer. A famous child star disappears and her biggest fan becomes obsessed with finding her. As the ambitious young journalist digs into Echo’s complicated life, she questions her own complicity in her disappearance.

• Social Engagement by Avery Carpenter Forey. Seven hours into an imploded marriage, a woman scrolls through the past year of her life attempting to pinpoint where it all went wrong, and the distance between the people around her and the selves they present online.

• The Talent by Daniel D’Addario: A group of actresses on the awards show circuit during an especially fraught season must confront their rivalries, anxieties and insecurities in pursuit of hollywoods biggest honor.

• Audition by Katie Kitamura: An accomplished theatre actor and a troubled man young enough to be her son meet for lunch. The competing narratives that follow leave you wondering what is real and what is performance.

• Among Friends by Hal Ebbot; A celebration between two deeply intertwined families takes a turn when shocking betrayal brings envy, resentment and rage to the surface. Out June 24,2025.

• The Girls Who Grew Big by Leila Mottley. A small group of teen moms in a small town on the Florida panhandle fight to find their way, looking for love and friendship as they navigate motherhood while still emerging from girlhood. Out June 24, 2025.

• The Cleaner by Mary Watson. A cleaner for an exclusive gated community in Ireland fades in and out of the background. Unseen by her employers, she sets out on a quest for revenge that entangles her with the people she came to destroy. Out July 29, 2025.

• It’s Not the End of the World by Jonathan Parks-Ramage. In the face of relentless wildfires and violent right-wing militias, a couple in 2044 refuses to cancel an exorbitant baby shower. Mounting chaos threatens everything, but surely it’s not the end of the world? Out June 3, 2025.

• Everyone is Lying to You by

  Jo Piazza
  : A tradwife influencer is missing and her husband is found brutally murdered. Her ex-best friend is plunged into the dark side of social media as she attempts to unravel the mystery. Out July 15, 2025.

• Women, Seated by Zhang Yueran, Translated by Jeremy Tiang. A nanny for an elite Chinese couple harbors secrets of her own. When the family comes under investigation, she must decide how far she’ll go to claim what she deserves in a tale of power, privilege, crimes, secrets and the pursuit of personal freedom. Out August 12, 2025

• This is How You Remember It by Catherine Prasifka. A story of a life lived online, and finding another way when that is all you have ever known. Out September 9,2025.

Consider this category part of overlapping venn diagrams between “dark weird and thought provoking” and “hot people, bad decisions” - we support women’s rights (and wrongs) here at earlybird!

• Woo Woo by Ella Baxter. A conceptual artist on the verge of a pivotal exhibition navigates her neuroses, need for validation, devoted tiktok followers, a potentially violent stalker, and strange alter egos.

• Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid. Set in the 1980s, a woman attempts to be the first woman to join the NASA space shuttle program while falling for another recruit during training. When an incident occurs on mission, she must find a way to bring them all home safely. Out June 3,2025.

• Goddess Complex by Sanjana Satyananda; A woman leaves her struggling actor husband after a disagreement about whether or not to have children. When he suddenly goes missing, she embarks on a journey that forces her to confront her decisions about pregnancy, procreating and parenting.

• El Dorado Drive by Megan Abbot: In the face of the declining auto-industry, three privileged women are pulled into pulled into a pyramid scheme with the premises of money and independence. Their addiction to the success drives them to take greater and greater risks- threatening to bring everything down around then.

• Fake by Erika Katz. An art forger specializing in 19th century paintings is approached by an oligarch art collector. Enticed by the opportunity (and they money) she’s pulled deeper and deeper into the darkness lurking beneath the gilded exterior.

• Margo’s Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe. A woman has an affair with her English professor, gets pregnant, and drops out of college to have the baby. She decides to start an OnlyFans to make ends meet, and is helped by her estranged father (a former TV wrestler) to make it a success.

Sometimes you just need a book about a family more complicated than your own – love, resentment, obligation, and all the weird stuff in between. Whether it’s Big Feelings about motherhood, relationship dynamics between siblings or long held family secrets, no one knows how to push your buttons more than the people who installed them.

• Three Days in June by Anne Tyler: Over the course of her daughter's three day wedding, a woman grapples with her own divorce, it’s repercussions, and a shocking secret about her daughter’s intended groom that threatens to upend the entire weekend.

• Crush by Ada Calhoun: In a marriage on the verge of collapse, a previously contented middle-aged wife and mother finds herself in an emotional affair with a friend from college when her husband suggests they open their relationship.

• The Original Daughter by Jemimah Wei. Unexpected sisters form and navigate the value of family bonds in a story of achievement and ambition in a rapidly modernizing world.

• Sleep by Honor Jones: A newly divorced young mother reckons with the echoes between past and present when she brings her daughters back to where she was raised.

• Tilt by Emma Pattee: A massive earthquake leaves a 9 month pregnant woman stranded at an Ikea in Portland. Over 24 hours she makes her way back to her home on the other side of the disaster-zone, an experience that leaves her determined to change her own life.

• We Don’t Talk About Carol by Kristen L. Berry. A journalist uncovers a decades old family secret and connects it to a string of missing girls. Her obsession with finding out the truth at all costs leads her down a tenuous path. Out June 3,2025.

• The Greatest Possible Good by Ben Brooks. After a life-altering experience (with LSD and a book on Effective Altruism), a wealthy man decides to give away his massive fortune and devote his life to the most statistically proven worthy causes. The change shocks his family and sets off a string of unintended consequences. Out July 15, 2025.

• Darling Beasts by Michelle Gable. Heirs to a media fortune are thrust into the spotlight of their scandal-ridden father’s political campaign as he demands they join the campaign – or risk being cut off. Out July 8,2025.

• When the Cranes Fly South by Lisa Ridzen: An elderly man struggles to maintain autonomy over his own life as he reflects on love, friendship, fatherhood and atonement. Out August 5, 2025.

Whether it’s “The White Lotus” or bad reality TV, summer is a perfect time to immerse yourselves in other people’s mess; Beautiful people making catastrophic decisions in stunning locales. Affairs and angst. Complex interpersonal relationships, unreliable narrators and questionable plot devices. We’re lying, we’re cheating, we’re fighting, we’re figuring out who we are and how we relate to each other. Bonus points for extreme wealth and loudly hissing “dont’ do it” while you read. A particularly satisfying summer category because mess and literature are not mutually exclusive.

• The Winner by Teddy Wayne. A private tennis instructor working on Cape Cod for the summer gets sucked into affairs, lies, and decit.

• The Boys Club by Erica Katz: A high achieving new grad is hired at a prestigious NYC law firm and is quickly seduced by money and power in the male-dominated, hard drinking, high-pressure world of M&A.

• No Ordinary Love, by Myah Ariel. As a popstar struggles through divorce proceedings with her renowned music producer ex, she attempts to turn a tabloid scandal with MLB’s most eligible player into a mutually beneficial PR performance. Complications (and feelings) ensue.

• Fox by Joyce Carol Oates - Dark secrets surface after the shocking disappearance of a charismatic English teacher at an elite boarding school. Out June 17, 2025.

• The Compound by Aisling Rawle: Twenty contestants compete in an increasingly dangerous reality show where the line between playing the game and surviving begins to blur. Out June 24,2025.

• Bitter Sweet by Hattie Williams. A young publicist meets her literary idol, and they embark on an all-consuming affair that threatens to unravel everything. Out July 8th, 2025.

Here me out- I already told you we don’t do a ton of traditional summery rom-com romance novels over here at earlybird HQ. it’s just not my vibe! But this category is equal parts yearning and emotional damage – more slow burns, soul ties and karmic debts, than meet-cutes. Romance is part of the plot, but it’s not the *only* plot.

• Silver Elite by Dani Francis: A woman hiding her psychic abilities in a dystopian uprising is thrust into her enemies elite training unit. She aims to strike from the inside without being discovered - or falling for her commanding officer.

• Notes on Infinity by Austin Taylor. Two Harvard students may have discovered the cure for aging. As they pursue investors, and receive national attention for their work, they face a startling accusation that could undo everything. Out June 3, 2025.

• Ordinary Love by Marie Rutkoski: A woman with a picture-perfect life risks everything for a second chance at her first love. Out June 10, 2025.

• The Irresistible Urge to Fall for Your Enemy by Brigette Knightley: An assassin and a healer are forced to work together to cure a fatal disease while resisting the urge to kill each other – or fall in love. This may or may not be revised from a highly popular dramaione fanfiction - out July 8, 2025.

• If You Love It, Let It Kill You by Hannah Pittard. A women spirals into a mid-life crisis upon learning her ex’s debut novel is about her. Out July 15,2025.

• The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai: Two young people navigating the forces that shape their lives find their fates intersect and diverge across continents and years. Out September 23,2025.

I have become a huge fan of speculative fiction over the past few years, a genre that explores possibilities and impossibilities of the world around us. Many of these books are “Soft Apocolypse” adjacent – quiet ruin, creeping climate collapse, and perhaps some existential musing about AI while the world burns. These books often incorporate elements of science fiction or futurism, alternate history, horror and social commentary. I simply love them.

• The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami, Set in a near future where everything, including dreams, is under surveillance. A museum curator is detained for crimes she will commit in the future – based on data from her dreams. She must prove her dreams are not reality in order to escape.

• Immaculate Conception by Ling Ling Huang: A cutting edge technology enables users to inhabit another’s mind, access their memories and link them forever – but at what cost? Told through the lens of a close, almost obsessive art school friendship that walks a fine line between love and possession.

• Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. In an alternate timeline where the technological innovations of the atomic age were instead driven into biology, students raised in isolation at an elite boarding school in the British countryside come to realize the unsettling reality of their existence. I cannot say more without giving it away – go in sight unseen, I promise!

• UnWorld by Jayson Green. Four intertwined lives collide after a mysterious tragedy in a near-future world where boundaries between humans and machines are blurred. Out June 17, 2025.

• Coded Justice by Stacey Abrams (yes, that Stacey Abrams!). An emerging tech company aims to use integrated AI to revolutionize the medical industry. A slew of anomalies (and a mysterious death) prompts an investigation into the capabilities of AI, and the moral boundaries that must govern it. Out July 15, 2025.

• Artificial Wisdom by Thomas R. Weaver. A journalist in a climate ravaged 2050 investigates the murder of the creator of the first AI to hold political office. As a global election for a leader to steer the world through the climate apocalypse looms closer, the journalist begins unravelling a plot that with either upend the world or save it. Out August 12, 2025.

Listen, if summer isn’t for affairs and angst, then it’s absolutely for escaping with an exotic getaway – real or imagined. I love books that can mentally transport you to another location through vivid descriptions of time and place that are central to the writing and the plot. These stories are perfect for a mental vacation, even if you’re not jetting off anywhere this summer!

• North Woods by Daniel Mason: Over hundreds of years, a single cabin in the woods of New England witnesses the lives of the inhabitants that come, go, and live on even after they are gone.

• Orbital by Samantha Harvey. One day in the life of the last space station astronauts before the program is dismantled, through multiple sunrises and sunsets, communications with families, and connection to each other and our planet.

• I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness by Clare Vaye Watkins. A woman struggling with postpartum depression returns home to the Mojave Desert to confront the ghosts of her past at every turn from her first love to her famous-cult member father. Alone in the wilderness, she works to find herself and a way forward.

• The Hypocrite by Jo Hamya. A young playwright waits for her famous father to see her new show. As the production begins, he realizes the play centers around a vacation he took two to Italy years earlier, using them to critique the men of his generation.

• What Kind of Paradise by Janelle Brown. A teenage girl raised in an isolated homestead in Montana finds that she has been an unwitting accomplice to a horrific crime. She breaks free from her father’s world of isolation and has to reckon with everything she thought was true. Out June 3, 2025.

• Our Last Resort by Clémence Michallon. Siblings who escaped a notorious cult become embroiled in a murder investigation at a luxe resort in the desert. Out July 8, 2025.

Same, same, but different. Speaking of being transported to a different world — I love immersive historical fiction these novels are a journey not only to another place, but also another time entirely.

• Anatomy: A Love Story by Dana Schwartz. An aspiring surgeon in 1900s Edinburgh falls for a grave robber who steals bodies for her to practice on to continue her medical career.. Their unexpected partnership leads them to uncover secrets about a deadly fever and unexplained disappearances.

• My Name is Emilia del Valle by Isabel Allende. An aspiring young writer journeys to South America to cover a brewing civil war in Chile. Once there, she uncovers the truth about her estranged father and herself.

• Isola by Allegra Goodman: After being unexpectedly orphaned, a 16th century French Noblewoman and her lover are stranded on a small island. Far from the luxury and privilege she is used to, they must find a way to survive the winter with next to nothing.

• The Expert of Subtle Revisions by Kristen Menger-Anderson. How is history affected by how it is told, and who does the telling? A young woman living off the grid, editing wikipedia entries and searching for her father (who may or may not be a time traveler) considers the rise of fascism in the 1930s.

• The Archive of Alternate Endings by Lindsey Drager. Tracking the evolution of the story of Hansel and Gretel at 75 year intervals, the story ranges from 1378 to 2365 as siblings reimagine, reinvent and recycle the narrative to articulate personal, regional and cosmic experience of tragedy.

• Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead. Dual timelines follow a woman attempting to be the first to circumnavigate the globe and the Hollywood starlet playing her in a movie 100 years later.

• The Great Mann by Kyra Davis Lurie. Set in the 1940s among Los Angeles’ black elite, a young man explores world full of new opportunities and romance. Dazzled by the extravagant parties, wealth and power of a new connection, the man is sucked into rising racial tensions that threaten it all. Echos of Gatsby in a history you didn’t know. Out June 10, 2025.

What can I say except that there is absolutely no reason that the supernatural, spooky, and otherwise unsettling should be confined to October? Get scared while the sun still shines.

• The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones. A long-hidden diary transcribed by a priest in 1912 chronicles the massacres, battles, and endless violence of a vampire haunting the Blackfeet reservation looking for justice.

• Victorian Psycho by Virgina Feito. A woman pretends to be the perfect governess for a terrible family while struggling against the violent compulsions of her past and her rising desire for justice.

• Bury our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E. Schwab. The stories of three women across the centuries whose afterlives are not quite what they expected. It’s an unexpected vampire story about love, hunger, rage and immortality. Out June 10, 2025.

• The Ghosts of Gwendolyn Montgomery by Clarence A. Haynes. A powerful publicist must confront her mystical past when she meets a psychic who warns her that the barrier between humans and spirits is weakening. Out June 17, 2025.

• The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia: Three women in three different eras encounter danger and witchcraft in an eerie multigenerational horror. Out July 15, 2025.

• The Possesion of Alba Diaz by Isabel Cañas. When a demonic presence awakens in a Mexican silvermine, a young woman begins suffering strange hallucinations, sleepwalking and convulsions. As she fights for her life, she turns to a man she definitely shouldn’t trust. Out August 19, 2025.

• Katabasis by R.F. Kaung. Graduate students set aside a rivalry to (attempt) to save their professor’s soul from hell. Out August 26,2025.

that’s all for now. I’m (clearly) all set on the library reservations for at least the next few months, but would love to hear what you’re reading this summer!