Are you looking for something to read this summer? This list is a mix of old and new books that I can happily recommend. Not only do they all exist1, but I have read them. They’re not all explicitly summer-themed, but I think they would be good for reading in the summer.
This list includes Adult, YA, and Children’s(middle grade) books, but I wrote these recommendations with adult readers in mind. If you have a child or teen in your life that would also enjoy the YA or kid lit suggestions, that’s a bonus. Maybe you can read them together!
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Summer Reading Suggestions List 2025
- My Salty Mary by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows
- The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty
- The Ornithologist’s Field Guide to Love by India Holton
- The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery
- The Dividing Sky by Jill Tew
- Tom Lake by Ann Patchett
- A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers
- Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry
- A Novel Love Story by Ashley Poston
- The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst
- A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin
- Good Dirt by Charmaine Wilkerson
- Holes by Louis Sachar
- Secrets of the Nile duology (What the River Knows and Where the Library Hides) by Isabel Ibañez
- This Night is Ours by Ronni Davis
- The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club by Helen Simonson
Bonus Picks:
Series: Percy Jackson and the Olympians
Percy Jackson books are perfect to read or re-read in the summer because most of the books take place in the summer. This is a middle-grade book series that’s enjoyable for a wide range of ages. There’s also a recent adaptation of the first book on Disney+ with season two premiering December 2025. Here’s my suggested reading order for Percy Jackson books.
Non-fiction: On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder
My Salty Mary
My Salty Mary by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows
Travel Location: the Caribbean
Historical Time: 1719
Genres: YA, Historical, Fantasy, Funny, Romance
422 pages • 🎧 Great audiobook
My Salty Mary might be the perfect beach read. It has pirates and mermaids, humor, romance, some “improved” history, and disruption of hierarchical systems. What’s not to love?
My Salty Mary by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows is a Young Adult alt-historical fantasy written in a comedic style.
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The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi
The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty
Travel Location: Indian Ocean
Historical Time: 12th Century
Genres: Historical, Fantasy, Adventure
483 pages
More pirates! The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty is a great historical fantasy adventure.
Amina Al-Sirafi is a middle-aged piratey sea captain who is persuaded out of retirement and away from her daughter. What she thinks will be a fact finding and rescue mission to recover the daughter of a former crewman turns into a full scale supernatural adventure.
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The Ornithologist’s Field Guide to Love
The Ornithologist’s Field Guide to Love by India Holton
Travel Location: England, Paris
Historical Time: Victorian Era (but fantasy)
Spice: Open door with more euphemistic language (mainly one scene)
Genres: Romance, Fantasy, Light Academia, Funny, Cozy, Historical
384 pages
The Ornithologist’s Field Guide to Love is a truly delightful book, with a perfect blend of magic, humor, romance, and a “historical” setting. It takes place in the summer, despite being a Light Academia book.
Summary
When a competition to become Birder of the Year is announced, rival professors Beth Pickering and Devon Lockley are forced to team up to have any chance of winning. They simply can’t trust anyone, including each other - for while all may be fair in love and war, this is ornithology!
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The Blue Castle
The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery
Travel Location: Deerwood, Ontario, Canada (the Muskoka region of Ontario, where Montgomery and her family vacationed for a few weeks during the summer of 1922)
Historical Time: 1920’s
First Published: 1926
Genres: Literary, Romance, Social Commentary
250 pages • short chapters
The Blue Castle has social commentary, humor, tears, romance, and a wonderfully written cast of characters. Plus cats! I think this is as good a classic romance as a Jane Austen book, though it takes place about a hundred years later.
I’ve always been a fan of the Anne of Green Gables books, but I hadn’t read many of the author’s other books. The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery was published in 1926 and is one of her few adult novels. The protagonist is 29 years old.
When I finished reading The Blue Castle for the first time, I felt that I had been altered. I immediately loaned it to my best friend to read. Now I’m telling strangers on the sidewalk(in front of book stores) about it.
The Blue Castle is in the public domain, so you can get a free ebook at Project Gutenberg or Standard Ebooks.
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The Dividing Sky
The Dividing Sky by Jill Tew
Time: Future (2460)
Location: Boston, Massachusetts and New Hampshire
Genres: Dystopian, Romance, YA, Sci-Fi
346 pages • 🎧 Good audiobook
The Dividing Sky sang. It’s a dystopian sci-fi adventure, but also had cozy vibe moments, somehow. I’m still thinking about this book, months after reading it.
Summary
A cunning teen memory merchant falls for the handsome rookie officer on her tail in this swoony dystopian romance.
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Tom Lake
Tom Lake by Ann Patchett
Time: 2020 and 1980’s
Location: Michigan and New Hampshire
Genres: Literary, Dual Timeline, Contemporary, Historical
346 pages • 🎧 Amazing audiobook
Tom Lake is a gorgeous summertime literary fiction. I loved the themes of theatre and family. During the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns in 2020, a mother tells her three daughters about her past as an actress while they pick cherries in their family orchard. Most of the stories are about a summer production of Our Town in the 1980’s, at a theatre company called Tom Lake. And there is a lake!
The audiobook is narrated exquisitely by Meryl Streep.
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A Psalm for the Wild-Built
A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers
Genres: Cozy, Sci-Fi, Solarpunk, Novella
151 pages
Cozy Sci-Fi! Serving tea on some moon! An unexpected wild-built robot!
A Psalm for the Wild-Built is gently paced. Leisurely, but doesn’t feel slow. It’s a novella, so it’s quite short and a great choice if you don’t feel like you can commit to a long book.
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Great Big Beautiful Life
Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry
Travel Location: Seaside island in Georgia
Historical Time: Contemporary, with flashbacks
418 pages • 🎧 Great audiobook
Summary
Two writers compete for the chance to tell the larger-than-life story of a woman with more than a couple of plot twists up her sleeve in this dazzling and sweeping new novel from Emily Henry.
Great Big Beautiful Life is a great book to read in the summer. It has nice seaside vibes and the romance with the two writers has a great rivals-style tension to it. The stories told by the old woman make it like a dual timeline book with lots of scenes from the past. I enjoyed the character-based mysteries.
Great Big Beautiful Life is Emily Henry’s new book for 2025. If you’ve read her other contemporary romances, I think you’ll like this one too. If you haven’t read any, they’re all standalone books so it’s fine to start with the newest. If you want to read one of Emily Henry’s older books, I suggest Book Lovers.
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A Novel Love Story
A Novel Love Story by Ashley Poston
Travel Location: The cozy small town in your favorite book series.
Genres: Romance, Magical Realism
378 pages
A professor of literature finds herself caught up in a work of fiction… literally.
A Novel Love Story is Sweet, cozy, and magical. A book lover’s dream. Imagine getting lost in your favorite book’s cozy small town.
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The Spellshop
The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst
Travel Location: A cozy seaside town on a magical island
Genres: Fantasy, Romance, Cozy, Cottagecore
376 pages
The Spellshop is a delightful cottagecore cozy fantasy. A librarian is hiding spellbooks with her talking plant companion. She makes and sells jam(and spells) on a small island with winged cats. Friendly townsfolk include a baker and a handsome man who takes care of merhorses. There is a romance, but I thought the friendship and found family aspects were more prominent.
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A Wizard of Earthsea
A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin
First Published: 1968
Genres: Fantasy, Classic
183 pages
A Wizard of Earthsea is a fantasy classic first published in 1968. Short but impactful, this book is credited with being the first book with a “wizard school” in it.
I loved the themes of loving people in non-romantic ways like friendship and mentorship. We might call that “found family” now. This book also resists violence and militaristic solutions to problems.
Summary
Ged, the greatest sorcerer in all Earthsea, was called Sparrowhawk in his reckless youth.
Hungry for power and knowledge, Sparrowhawk tampered with long-held secrets and loosed a terrible shadow upon the world. This is the tale of his testing, how he mastered the mighty words of power, tamed an ancient dragon, and crossed death’s threshold to restore the balance.
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Good Dirt
Good Dirt by Charmaine Wilkerson
Travel Location: South Carolina, Massachusetts, France
Historical Time: 2019, flashbacks to 1800’s and 1900’s
Genres: Literary, Contemporary, Historical, Multiple Timelines
352 pages • Short Chapters • 🎧 Great Audiobook
Good Dirt deals with serious topics, but is hopeful and easy to read. The “good dirt” was in relation to literally the land where you live, but also clay for making pottery. I enjoyed the stories of each ancestor, as well as the contemporary storyline which was a story about figuring out who you are as an adult. The chapters were short, making it easy to read “just one more chapter”.
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Holes
Holes by Louis Sachar
233 pages
Holes is a really wonderful book. It touches on so many important themes in really accessible ways. It’s easy to read, but still compelling. I love the way everything works together in each character’s backstory for a really satisfying connection.
This book has dual timelines, mystery, humor, found family, and even a historical romance in it. It’s a good pick for summer reading, because it’s about camp!
Is this technically a children’s book? Yes. I read it for the first time when my sixth grade daughter had it assigned for class. I remembered liking the movie, but had never read the book, so I decided to read it with her. This is a great book whether you’re a kid or an adult. (If you do have kids you want to read it with, I’d recommend it for about age 10 and up.)
Summary
Stanley Yelnats is under a curse. A curse that began with his no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather and has since followed generations of Yelnats. Now Stanley has been unjustly sent to a boys’ detention center, Camp Green Lake, where the warden makes the boys “build character” by spending all day, every day, digging five feet wide and five feet deep. It doesn’t take long for Stanley to realize there’s more than character improvement going on at Camp Green Lake. The boys are digging holes because the warden is looking for something. Stanley tries to dig up the truth in this inventive and darkly humorous tale of crime and punishment—and redemption.
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Secrets of the Nile duology
What the River Knows and Where the Library Hides by Isabel Ibañez
Travel Location: Egypt
Historical Time: late 1800’s
Genres: Historical, Fantasy, Romance, Adventure, Young Adult
The Secrets of the Nile duology is a good blend of fantasy and historical fiction with romance and Indiana Jones vibes.
Isabel Ibañez’s lush, immersive historical fantasy is set in Egypt and filled with adventure, a rivals-to-lovers romance, and a dangerous race.
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This Night is Ours
This Night is Ours by Ronni Davis
Time: June 20
Genres: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance
336 pages
This Night is Ours is a wonderful book about understanding yourself with friendship, some romance, and art. The characters and relationships feel very authentic. The book takes place all in 24 hours, on the Summer Solstice. It has teens chasing their dreams, and a summer carnival.
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The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club
The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club by Helen Simonson
Travel Location: English Seaside
Historical Time: 1919
Genres: Historical, Romance, British
423 pages • 🎧 Good audiobook
The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club takes place at an English seaside hotel during the summer after World War I. This book deals with societal change caused by the war and its end, but also has wonderful moments of fun, friendship, and romance.
Summary
A young woman’s life is forever changed in the summer after World War I when she befriends a group of independent, motorcycle riding women in a seaside town on the English coast
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