Summer is the perfect time for hanging by the pool, putting your feet in the sand, and catching up on your reading. These sizzling summer reads are all winners and will pair nicely with just about anything you have planned.

1. A Window Opens  by Elisabeth Egan

On the surface this book is nothing special, a familiar story about a SAHM who suddenly has to work full time. But “Danger, Will Robinson”, it’s the quiet ones that will get you. With its light, breezy touch, infinitely likable characters, and easily recognizable tensions, this book will sink its stealthy hooks into you and then spit you out an afternoon later. Erin adored Alice, her kids, and her very believable relationship with her husband. This may not be ground-breaking fiction, but it is a wholly satisfying, utterly delicious piece of literary pie.

2. My Name Is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout

‘Tis the season for a baseball reference, so here goes: this book knocks it out of the park. The story is simple and unassuming on the surface: Lucy is recovering in a hospital bed when her estranged mom comes to visit. However, Lucy is no ordinary protagonist and Strout is a gifted writer so the results are literary fireworks. Small but mighty, this slim novel packs a lot of extraordinary into a tight, narrative thread. We both loved Strout’s other gem Olive Kitteridge, so we weren’t surprised by how wonderful this read was so much as profoundly grateful for another reason to worship at the altar of the inimitable Strout.

3. Modern Lovers by Emma Straub

Erin always considers it a good thing when she wants to throttle and hug the characters in equal measure. Straub’s story offers up characters that deliver on this front. College bandmates now mellowing in middle age, Elizabeth and Andrew who are married live down the street from old bandmate Zoe and her wife Jane. The band’s fourth member Lydia achieved some success on her own. When a film about Lydia’s life requires them all to touch the past, their present unravels a little at the seams. Straub’s deft hand controls the realistic tensions, steers the careful and realistic examination of midlife, and delivers characters that resonate. A satisfying, well-paced read by a gifted writer.

4. The Nest by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney

If you can judge a family by its flaws, the Plumbs are a perfect hot mess of a crew. They also couldn’t be more charming. The novel kicks off with the family inheritance in jeopardy after one of the siblings gets himself into hot water. As the four siblings wrestle with the mess left behind, it would be tempting to dismiss them as shallow or lacking substance. However, Sweeney gives each character multiple dimensions. She exposes their humanity and moves the story along. In doing so, their tale of personal woes, family ties, and thwarted ambitions is reminiscent of challenges we all face. A thoroughly entertaining read.

5. Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill

Marriage isn’t a straight narrative so much as a thousand shimmering moments—beautiful, terrible, and strange—and Offill lays them all out for us in this gripping, lovely book about what it means to take this particular trip. With her unique gift for plucking the extraordinary from the everyday, Offill doesn’t just offer up moments from a marriage but gives us glimpses of the diamonds hidden in the rough patches as well. Offill’s structuring of the story can be the reader’s hard work. Through her careful curation of snippets from the marriage at the heart of this novel, Offill leaves the reader asking on every page—how do these pieces fit together? what does this mean here? Yet it’s these tenuous but important questions that serve the story she is trying to tell and give the reader a satisfying and wonderful read.

6. The Admissions by Meg Mitchell Moore

Nothing quite captures the emotional pressure cooker of the admissions process quite like this utterly delectable piece of fiction. The Hawthornes are a family so familiar you feel from the first page like you might be reading about your next door neighbors. As their oldest gets put through the wringer applying to Harvard, dad’s alma mater, so do the rest of them. Things unravel, secrets surface, and everyone responds to the demands of the process in different ways. In real life, this would be heart-breaking and soul-crushing. In a book, all the elements jive beautifully for an immensely enjoyable read for you that will make you grateful for your own process in comparison.

7. The Lake House  by Kate Morton

Summer is a great time to dive in to a juicy mystery. After a lovely party at the lake house, the Edevane family’s 11 month old son Theo goes missing. Morton’s page turner takes this pivotal moment in a family’s history and creates something special and utterly unputdownable. Told from two vantage points–2003 London and 1930s Cornwall–this book will have you ignoring kids just to figure out what is happening and where this story will go. As always, Morton’s gift for managing complicated story lines while simultaneously creating well-developed characters will make you grateful for all that extra time you have to read by the pool.

8. Me Before You by Jojo Moyes

Before this one was a movie, it was a delicious book club read of ours. In a nutshell, a young woman loses her job and then goes to work for a young quadriplegic, but that’s just on the book jacket. There is so much meat to this tale. The relationship that develops between Louisa and Will doesn’t just touch the reader, it makes you reevaluate the line between ordinary and extraordinary and the paths we take to get where we need to go. It also launched a great book club discussion which is, of course, the very best endorsement.

9. The Widow by Fiona Barton

Don’t read the dust jacket: this book is neither Gone Girl nor The Girl on the Train, both books we really, really liked even with their creepy, psychological suspense. It IS a great read though. In fact, it reminded us more of Leanne Moriarty’s The Husband’s Secret with the marital secrets and the mystery at the heart of it. Sometimes, multiple points of view can be distracting, but in this case, the structure of the novel contributes to some of the magic. Be forewarned: you could easily lose an afternoon falling down this delightful rabbit hole, but the pay-off is worth it!

10. East of Eden by John Steinbeck

We know what you are thinking: “Um, ladies, this is actually literature. Not chick lit. Not a beach read. This will not go well with my margarita and chillaxing.” We beg to disagree. We’ll concede that this IS literature at its finest. Steinbeck did win the Nobel Prize for Literature after this one after all, but this powerful epic narrative of two families as they rise and fall and love and lose is exactly what you need to get your heart racing. Sexy as hell, East of Eden is dangerous too. Sure, people like to chalk it up to a modern retelling of Adam and Eve, but that simplification doesn’t do this story justice. Steinbeck picks at our fundamental desire to find love and be found and  joins us in our search for the answer to the question “who am I really?” He gets that humanity is flawed perfection itself and he has given us a novel that wraps this all up in one deliciously enticing tale. Take the apple, friends. You will be rewarded.

Need a good book to read? Here are 10 that should do the trick!

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I Just Want to Be Perfect?

With 37 hilarious and relatable essays that showcase the foibles of ordinary women trying to be perfect, it is just as great whether you are hanging our poolside, by the beach, or even just the doctor’s office.

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