If you’re anything like me, you’re currently experiencing a Happy Place hangover and impatiently waiting for the next episode of the second season of The Summer I Turned Pretty to give you those much-needed summer vibes. To hold me over, I’ve been re-reading every summer-themed romance I can find and desperately searching for the summertime bliss that these authors so graciously give readers in their work.
Grab a cold drink and lay out under the sun, because we’ve got a full lineup of new romance books published in summer 2023 that are sure to go viral on BookTok.
- Meet Me At The Lake by Carley Fortune
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Carley Fortune’s newest novel came just in time for summer and is on just about every bookshelf in-store and at home, waiting to give readers that summer romance feeling. Meet Me At The Lake follows Will and Fern during a 24-hour run in which they shared everything from secrets to dreams, and vowed to meet up one year later. When Fern showed up and Will didn’t, everything changed.
Fast forward to nine years later, when Fern’s life is anything but what she imagined and Will shows up too late to offer a helping hand. Although Fern needs a lifeline, Will isn’t the man she remembers and his salvation comes with a secret she’s not sure she wants to know.
- Happy Place by Emily Henry
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Emily Henry is the author of the summer right now with her latest book, Happy Place, trending on social media and sending readers into an emotional frenzy. The book follows Harriet and Wyn after their eight-year-long relationship slowly comes to an end, but rekindles five months later when they find themselves on one last summer vacation with their best friends in what Harriet deems her “Happy Place.”
Henry covers everything from friendships to mental health, marriage, the loss of loved ones, second-chance love, and so much more. It’s the kind of book I expect to see readers with this summer in quaint beach town coffee shops with their besties.
- Summer Reading by Jenn McKinlay
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Samantha plans to spend her summer at her family’s cottage on Martha’s Vineyard to rekindle her career as a chef gets turned upside down when she’s asked to chaperone her half-brother, Tyler, at her least favorite place—the library. With Sam being dyslexic, she’d rather do anything but read or spend time in a place dedicated to it. She soon realizes that the library’s interim director happens to be the hot bookworm, Ben, that she met on the ferry ride over and whose book she accidentally destroyed.
When Ben inspires Sam to write the cookbook she’s always dreamt of and Sam offers to help Ben find his father, a desirable connection has the two spend a great deal of time together and they quickly realize that their summer fling may have become much more than they anticipated.
- The Referral Program by Shamara Ray
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Shamara Ray gives us a relatable novel about Dylan and her three best friends embarking on a journey to find Mr. Right. This group of women are in their mid-30s, have never been married, and never expected to be in a place in their lives with no prospects for lifelong partners. In order to change that, they decide to set up the Referral Program, where they create a plan for each friend to refer a man for them to date.
Throughout the process, their relationships are tested and each woman discovers things about themselves and each other that they never knew existed, and determines whether or not their future will include husbands or friends.
- Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood
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Theoretical physicist Elsie Hannaway leads a life wearing many hats that all seem to be working in her favor until they aren’t. Half of the time she’s an adjunct professor in thermodynamics working for tenure, and the other half is spent creating new versions of herself for her clients as a fake girlfriend.
Things quickly take a turn when the broody and infuriatingly handsome experimental theorist, Jack Smith, shows up. Oh, he also happens to be the older brother of her favorite clients. Not only has his coldhearted behavior threatened the reputation of theorists, but he ends up being on the hiring committee at MIT and is now standing between her and her dream job.
Summer doesn’t last forever, so I’m reading anything and everything that will put me in the mood and create summer vibes all around. Cue “Cruel Summer” by Taylor Swift.