Add these new releases to your summer reading list …
The novel that everyone is getting excited about this summer is NOTES ON INFINITY (Michael Joseph, €16.99), the debut from Austin Taylor. Described as Normal People (Sally Rooney) meets Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow (Gabrielle Zevin), this is a love story about two brilliant Harvard students who enter the world of Silicon Valley and venture capitalism with their anti-ageing start-up idea. Taylor herself is a recent Harvard graduate and has plans to study law at Stanford. With Notes On Infinity, she has written an utterly contemporary novel about class, loosely inspired by the Elizabeth Holmes Theranos biotech scandal. Taylor not only examines women in STEM and the pitfalls of being a high achiever in a pressurised, competitive environment, but she also looks at universal themes of what it is to be human, and mortal. The novel has plenty of drama in its love story, which asks what happens to love when ambition, money and betrayal enter the equation.
You’ve probably also been hearing a lot about PARK AVENUE (Bedford Square Publishers, €14.99) by Renée Ahdieh. Ahdieh is already a New York Times bestselling YA author but this is her debut novel for adults and is being described as Crazy Rich Asians meets Succession – I would add a dash of Legally Blonde to that description. The story follows Jia Song, a junior partner in a Manhattan law firm. Jia was raised by Korean parents who ran a corner shop and she has climbed the legal ladder through grit and ambition. When she is asked to sit in on a complicated meeting regarding a billionaire Korean family, her success at the firm hangs on figuring out how to sort out the family’s problems. Definitely one to pack for the beach.
I loved Hattie Williams’ BITTER SWEET (Orion, €16.99), a love story about a young publishing assistant and a much older famous author. Charlie is just 23, and after a traumatic early loss, she is finally finding her place in the world, working in a publishing house and making real friends for the first time. She is also working with her late mother’s favourite author, Richard Aveling. Aveling is in his 50s and married. We know from the first page that something disastrous has happened and Williams keeps you turning the pages to find out how and where it all goes wrong. The most beautiful part of the novel is how Williams conveys the relationship between Charlie and her late mother, and how Charlie’s grief and love for her mother is portrayed. Brilliant characters you will fall in love with.
SLANTING TOWARDS THE SEA by Lidija Hilje (Daunt Books, €10.99) is both a love story and a political examination of what it means to grow up in a rapidly changing young Croatia. Ivona is 38 and divorced from Vlaho, the love of her life. They met in college but the pressures of a newly democratic country and the discovery of something devastating led her to end their relationship. While she is now living with her elderly father and sleeping in her childhood bedroom, Vlaho has moved on, married and had two beautiful children. When Ivona reconnects with him and his welcoming wife, she finds a bright spot in her disappointed life, but a new man disrupts the delicate balance. I found this one unputdownable from the first page.
Esther Freud is probably best known for her 1992 autobiographical novel Hideous Kinky (and for being the daughter of artist Lucian and great-granddaughter of psychoanalyst Sigmund) but she has been writing quiet and thoughtful novels for nearly 30 years. Her latest, MY SISTER AND OTHER LOVERS (Bloomsbury, €15.39) tells the story of two sisters and the power of their love for each other. The sisters had an unusual childhood with an even more unusual mother. As they grow up, Freud examines how a complicated shared childhood can affect adult lives and relationships. This is a novel that inquires deeply into the tangled nature of family.
THE EXPANSION PROJECT by Ben Pester (Granta, €16.99) is a mysterious and surreal debut novel about work, time and family in the modern world. The book begins with Tom, who loses his daughter during a “bring your daughter to work day”. When he alerts his colleagues, it seems his daughter may never have been there. Tom works for Capmeadow, a dystopian business park that is expanding rapidly and in strange ways (it reminded me of Lumon from Severance). From the opening pages there are hints that nothing is really as it seems in this story.
DON’T LET HIM IN (Century, €16.99) is the latest thriller by bestselling author Lisa Jewell, who is quite simply one of the most addictive thriller writers out there. Don’t Let Him In is her 23rd novel and tells the chilling story of a man called Nick Radcliffe, who is too good to be true. When Nina’s husband dies, Nick gets in touch with his condolences, claiming to have known her husband. The pair develop a connection but Nina’s daughter Ash is unsettled by her mother’s rapidly developing relationship with Nick, so she starts investigating. Meanwhile, Martha runs a flower shop and her husband is acting suspiciously, spending entire weekends at work, while she is at home with their baby. As with all Lisa Jewell novels, this one has more twists than a Danish pastry.
I KNOW WHERE YOU BURIED YOUR HUSBAND (Bantam Press, €21.75) is the much talked-about debut from Marie O’Hare and is being compared to Bad Sisters as it tells the story of a group of lifelong female friends who all kept a secret about the death of one of their husbands. They swore never to speak of it again but when an anonymous blackmailer gets in touch years later, the group is drawn back together to get their stories straight.
TWO KINDS OF STRANGER (Headline, €16.99) is the latest Eddie Flynn novel from Belfast writer Steve Cavanagh. It follows Ellie Parker, a feelgood influencer who is famous for her random acts of kindness. Ellie’s life seems perfect until a not so random act of betrayal costs her everything. When she performs an act of kindness for the wrong person, she becomes the victim of a cruel game. Cavanagh’s serial character lawyer Eddie Flynn comes to the rescue.
Post-pandemic fiction meets The Last Of Us in Leigh Radford’s inventive love story ONE YELLOW EYE (Gallery Books, €21.99). Kesta is a scientist who is desperately searching for a cure for a virus which has ravaged London and seen the infected rounded up and disposed of. But Kesta is hiding a massive secret – her husband was one of the last people to be infected and she has kept him hidden and sedated, tied to a bed in her spare room as she frantically works to find an antidote. But time is running out as the pressure takes its toll and her husband’s condition begins to deteriorate.
In Daria Lavelle’s AFTERTASTE (Bloomsbury, €16.99), Kostya, who is working as a dish washer in a restaurant, discovers he has the incredible ability to summon spirits through the food that he cooks. He sets out for New York with a plan to open a restaurant that will offer people closure. The only problem is he has his own ghosts to contend with, as well as falling in love with a psychic. And his culinary activities are upsetting the fine balance of the afterlife.
BONUS BOOK
Michael Fewer is an architect and academic who has written 26 books. It was while researching his book Irish Long Distance Walks that he came across many fascinating and quirky objects around the country that told their own local histories. He collected these stories in his journals until, 30 years later, he decided to collate them into a book. The result is Ireland’s Curious Places: 100 Fascinating, Lesser-Known Treasures To Discover (Gill Books, €16.99). It’s a little like an Irish version of Accidentally Wes Anderson, with its selection of unusual and charming places and objects, for example, the Victorian postbox in New Ross, Co Wexford embossed with the insignia “VR” for Victoria Regina. (After the War of Independence and the Civil War, Ireland was too impoverished to replace these postboxes so we simply painted them green.) Then there is the Little Ark bathing hut in Loop Head, Co Clare which was used as a mobile church after Catholic emancipation in the 1800s. It now sits in the Star of the Sea Church in Kilbaha, Co Clare. This book is full of fascinating places and objects, each with its own geographical and OS coordinates, and would inspire delightful day trips over the summer months.
SEE MORE: The Best Books To Add To Your Beach Bag
