Our five favourite summer reads

Seeing Other People, By Diana Reid

This is Diana Reid’s second book, and if you liked her first (Love and Virtue), you’ll have no doubt been waiting for this one to drop. It’s Australian, it’s set in summer, and it’s very now, set in the post-lockdown world we’re all currently navigating. Seeing Other People is a darkly funny story following two 20-something sisters who couldn’t be more different. It’s a great follow-up to her award-winning first book, and well worth a summer read.

Sea of Tranquility, By Emily St. John Mandel

If you like sci-fi and fantasy books, or find the idea of time travel fascinating, then Sea of Tranquility is for you. This book takes the reader on a journey across centuries and into space beginning in Canada in 1912, and travelling through to the moon 500 years later. Despite the tyranny of time and distance, these characters are intertwined in each other’s lives across the centuries. Immerse yourself in this New York Times bestseller!

A World of Curiosities, By Louise Penny

We dare you not to devour this book in one gulp! This is the 18th book by Louise Penny starring Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, and while you could read them all in order, each book works beautifully as a stand-alone story. This one centres on a 160-year-old letter telling a harrowing story about a bricked-up attic room in a house in the village, but once the villagers decide to open up the attic they find more questions than answers.

The Marriage Portrait, By Maggie O’Farrell

The Marriage Portrait is a novel inspired by a poem, based on a portrait of a young woman who actually lived. Open this book and you’ll find yourself stepping into the finery of the 16th century Italian court, where young women such as Lucrezia are expected to produce an heir to further their family’s fortunes, and if they don’t…well you’ll have to read it to find out…

Remarkably Bright Creatures, By Shelby Van Pelt

If you’re looking for something uplifting this summer, then what better than a book about a friendship between an octopus and a lonely widower? Remarkably Bright Creatures explores this unlikely connection as these two friends and a detective, work together to solve the mystery of the widower’s son’s disappearance 30 years earlier. It’s a beautiful, creative and quirky story.