Like most students, I count down the days until summer vacation. I crave vacations, beach days, concerts, swimming, and hiking as much as the next person, but deep down, I love summer because I love reading. As a pre-law student, my school year is jam-packed with readings. My hours are spent meticulously poring over legal theory, Supreme Court cases, and law reviews. Now, don’t get me wrong, I still try to read for pleasure, aiming for two to three books a month. But in the summer, I can fully indulge my love of reading, spending entire days curled up outside with a novel. Whether you’re an avid reader or someone looking to read a book or two while on vacation this summer, my want-to-read list is a great place to start!
Our Perfect Storm by Carley Fortune
It’s not summer unless I have a Carley Fortune novel on my want-to-read list. I have read one of her books every single summer since 2022, and that trend is continuing into 2026 for good reason. Her newest release, Our Perfect Storm, follows best friends Frankie and George. After Frankie is dumped by her fiancé on their wedding weekend, George makes it his mission to heal his best friend’s heart. Together, they go on Frankie’s once-planned honeymoon, spending a week in paradise confronting decade-long feelings and secrets. Described as a slow-burning friends-to-lovers romance, I am dying to finally get my hands on this book. The cover also screams summer, with a purple sunset and surfers holding yellow boards, so what’s not to love!
Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
As someone who recently started listening to the Diabolical Lies podcast (10/10 recommend, BTW), I was ecstatic to discover one of the co-hosts was releasing a novel. I was even more elated to learn that it was a satirical thriller, a social commentary, and that Anne Hathaway had already bought the film rights. I pre-ordered the book immediately. The debut novel follows a tradwife influencer (hello Ballerina Farms…) who wakes up in the 1800s. Forced to actually live the life she once treated as an aesthetic online, Natalie has to confront reality and explore a new side to womanhood. Unlike any book I’ve ever read before, I’m excited to start my summer reading with something new, witty, and thought-provoking.
Heart the Lover by Lily King
I think the universe wanted me to wait to read Lily King’s newest release until summer finally arrived. The last three times I visited Barnes & Noble while hunting for new releases, Heart the Lover has been sold out each time. I’ve made it a mission to finally get my hands on it this summer to see what made it such a sell-out. Loosely tied to King’s other novel, Writers & Lovers, the story follows Jordan, a senior in college, in a complex love triangle with her classmates Sam and Yash. Spanning from adolescence to adulthood, the characters have to confront the choices they made in their youth. The synopsis is vague enough to keep me wanting more, and I need to know what life-altering choices these characters made and the consequences that follow them as they age.
Into the Blue by Emma Brodie
After its recent April release, Into the Blue has seemingly been on every book influencer’s recent favorites list. Like all the best romance novels, in my opinion, the book spans decades, following AJ and Noah from teenagers in Massachusetts to famous actors in New York City. After being cast alongside each other in a new sci-fi TV show, they have to reconcile their past. It explores love, grief, and time, and seems to have everyone and their mother crying by the end. If the friends-to-lovers trope wasn’t enough to pull me in, the Hollywood co-stars sure made this book a must-read for my summer break!
Phoebe Berman’s Gonna Lose It by Brooke Averick
As an avid listener and long-time follower of Brooke Averick and her podcast, Brooke and Connor Make a Podcast, I have been on the edge of my seat ever since she announced her debut novel. A contemporary coming-of-age romance really doesn’t get more summer than that. The story follows Phoebe Berman, a hopeless romantic reader and a 29-year-old virgin. She makes it her mission to lose her virginity before her 30th birthday, setting her off to juggle not just one, but three romantic prospects. I adore Averick already; she’s insanely funny, relatable, and heartfelt. As a die-hard fangirl myself, she’s always made me feel seen. I can’t wait to see how she brings Phoebe’s character to life!
The Bright Years by Sarah Damoff
If you keep up with book discourse on platforms like TikTok or Substack, chances are you’ve come across The Bright Years. I sure have, and summer feels like just the right time to finally pick up this highly acclaimed novel. The book follows the Bright family—dad Ryan, mom Lillian, and daughter Georgette—as they navigate trauma and mistakes. Told across four generations, the story explores how parents’ choices, whether hopeful, messy, or painful, inevitably affect their children’s lives. For some reason, any story exploring a complicated family dynamic screams summer to me. Needless to say, my expectations are high!
Sunburn by Chloe Michelle Howarth
The title alone was enough reason for me to wait until summer to finally open this book. Sunburn is an intersection of so many of my favorite tropes, settings, and prose. In it, we follow Lucy and Susannah, teenagers navigating their sexuality and relationship in 1990s rural Ireland. The reviews praising the exploration of female adolescence, first love, and family expectations made it a must-read for me. Moreover, it’s been compared to the likes of Call Me By Your Name and Normal People, both five-star reads. If your reading taste is anything like mine, Sunburn might be your next five-star read.
The Hotel Nantucket by Elin Hilderbrand
It feels right to end this list with a novel from the “queen of beach reads,” Elin Hilderbrand. As such an avid reader, it seems sacrilegious that I haven’t read a single Hilderbrand novel. So, it’s my mission this summer to finally read at least one of her dozens of novels set on picturesque Nantucket. The sheer number of Hilderbrand novels on the TBR left me overwhelmed. I don’t know if The Hotel Nantucket is technically the right place to start, but it intrigued me nonetheless. It follows a Nantucket local, Lizbet Keaton, who takes over as manager of the newly renovated hotel. Keaton navigates a recent breakup, an inexperienced staff, and the ghost of a chambermaid who died in the hotel’s infamous 1922 fire. With multiple points of view and historical fiction, I hope this is the summer drama that I always crave.
With just a couple of weeks left of school, I am itching to get my hands on these books and finally dive into these worlds. For those of you lucky enough to be on summer vacation, I hope that at least one of these stories caught your attention. Whether you’re spending summer traveling or relaxing at home, there’s no better time to fall into a really good book!