Summer Books & Beach Reads For the Perfect Bookish Vacation

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Now that we’re officially in Summer, it’s time to talk about my favorite beach reads, but also the books I am really excited to pick up during my Summer reading.

Being in Florida, you would think that I don’t necessarily live for Summers. However, as much as Fall is my favorite season, I am in love with Summer.

Summer is the time of year when I try to break out of my shell and do a bunch of things that bring me joy. My biggest plans for this year are that there’s an Emo Nite party hosted in my area, which I am way too excited to go to.

I have also been wanting to take up paddleboarding, so I was very lucky to find two inflatable paddleboards on Facebook Marketplace that I am going to be taking out and officially testing out this weekend as of writing this!

I have been using this Summer to spend a lot more time with my friends, I’ve taken up going to yoga every week, and I even joined a book club! I am hopeful that this will be my best Summer yet.

One thing is for sure: even with all these fun activities, I am a mood reader at heart. So, you know, I had to grab some Summer beach reads and I had to share a few for you to add to your TBR list.

Problematic Summer Romance by Ali Hazelwood

A Peek in the Pages:

• Age Gap
• Intimate wedding in Italy
• Brother’s best friend

Conor Harkness is a 38-year-old biotech millionaire, while Maya Killgore is 23 and just graduated from college, in the throes of making the decision of continuing in academia or joining a start-up that sounds promising.

While the two cannot help but orbit each other, Conor holds himself back, worried about their age gap. That becomes a bit more of a problem when they end up at a secluded villa for Maya’s brother’s wedding

I actually read this book for my book club, and I had such a great time with it. I would personally throw it on your summer reading list immediately. I’ve also been very much in my romance novel era recently, so I can’t say no to these beauties.

I have become a huge fan of Ali Hazelwood ever since I read Bride (side note: I am SO EXCITED for Mate).

Beach Read by Emily Henry

A Peek in the Pages:

• Opposites attract
• Rom com

Augustus writes literary fiction that’s overly serious and ends with no survivors, while January writes romance novels that always end in a happily ever after. Both authors end up next door to each other at their beach houses while they’re trying to fight through their horrible writer’s block.

Both of them decide the only way to get out of this rut is by trying something new, so they decide they’re going to try to write each other’s genres to see if that will help. Of course, this also includes having to go on field trips for research purposes…

Now, a true sign of a perfect beach read is when the book itself takes place on a beach, or more accurately, in a beach house. I personally love the idea of a beach house. If I won the lottery, I wouldn’t say anything, but there would be signs… (cute beach house, totally no neighbors somehow).

I am also such a rom-com lover, too, and Emily Henry never disappoints.

Deep End by Ali Hazelwood

A Peek in the Pages:

• Steamy college romance
• Veryyyy spicy
• Sports romance (more specifically, they’re student-athletes)

Scarlett Vandermeer is a student-athlete in competitive diving, and most people would consider her essentially a protégée, but she suffered what could have been a career-ending injury. While she’s technically fully healed, she cannot seem to get past the dive that injured her. When she’s not in the pool, she’s fully in her studies and trying to get into med school.

Lukas Blomqvist is the swim captain and a world champion, who is known for always being cool, calm, and collected. To the rest of the world, you would think they have nothing in common, yet one secret changes everything.

I am such a fan of Ali Hazelwood (as previously mentioned), and I have been reading everything of hers that I can get my hands on recently. I also feel like my standard for making something a beach read is that somehow, the book involves water in any way. I actually don’t think in this one they even ever make it to a beach… but the vibe is there so I am adding it anyway.

Pack this spicy book in your beach vacation anyway. You know, for the vibes.

Fable by Adrienne Young

A Peek in the Pages:

• Young Adult
• Pirate vibes
• Family secrets

Seventeen-year-old Fable lost her mother four years ago when she drowned during a horrible storm. Her father, who abandoned her after her Mother’s death, is one of the most powerful traders in the Narrows. Fable enlists the help of West, a young trader, to get off the island and to get back to where her father is.

This book was a super quick read for me, and I also ended up chatting about it pretty in-depth over on the YA Bookchat podcast. Also, it has one of those unwritten time periods where it’s obviously in the past but not really fully declared. I kind of love that rather than being stuck to a specific timeframe and having to be as accurate to that time as possible.

I personally think this would be a fun one for a book club with its historical fiction vibes. Also, it was included in Reese’s Book Club, so you know it’s good then.

Sunburned by Katherine Wood

A Peek in the Pages:

• Murder mystery
• Billionaire ex and everyone has a reason to want him gone

Who doesn’t love a vacation thriller?

Audrey Collet’s ex Tyson, calls her and threatens to bring all of her skeletons out of her closet unless she helps him discover who is actively blackmailing him. The problem? They haven’t been together in ten years, and someone’s foot washed up in the Everglades, that foot belonging to someone they both have a connection to.

I love a murder mystery thriller moment, so obviously I had to share this one. Also, living in Florida, I have a healthy fear of the Everglades. There are weird things in there. If you told me that a dinosaur survived in there, I would believe you.

Other People’s Summers by Sarah Morgan

A Peek in the Pages:

• Rekindling friendships
• Adulthood and what it means to reconnect

When Milly Beckett and Nicole Raven were in school, they were best friends, but as they grew older, they fully grew apart and no longer speak.

When a scandal leaks, Nicole comes running back home to Milly, who is actively going through a divorce. Milly isn’t sure how she feels about Nicole anymore, who really wasn’t there throughout her divorce process.

I am always such a fan of books about reconnecting. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I’ve recently started reconnecting with a lot of my old friends.

As someone who’s recently found themselves single after an over twelve year relationship, I cannot tell you just how much I value my friends now more than ever. Of course, I have always appreciated them, but now more than ever they’ve really been my rock. I hope that you have friends like this in your life that you can lean on when things seem hard.

The Summer Swap by Sarah Morgan

A Peek in the Pages:

• Unlikely friendships
• Beach cottage in Cape Cod
• Two women starting over

This beach read takes place in Cape Cod, when Cecilia Lapthorne leaves her seventy-fifth birthday to escape back to the cottage that holds a mixed bag of memories. Lily is a med school dropout who has spent her Summer cleaning houses when she decides to take Cecilia up on her offer to stay with her.

While their unlikely friendship starts to form, Cecilia’s grandson Todd appears, and Lily has a horrible crush on him. Lily is trying to figure out if she’ll finally find the courage to go after the life she wants or if she’ll stay stuck in this life she’s living.

I really love the idea of a book like this with people at two completely different stages in life finding a kinship in the situations they find themselves in. I also am a big fan of the idea of the universe finding the weirdest way for two people to connect and be in love.

Beach Vibes by Susan Mallery

A Peek in the Pages:

• Found family
• Sometimes your family sucks, and you’re allowed to realize that they suck and stop enabling them

Beth owns a sandwich shop in Malibu that she’s incredibly proud of. Her brother, Rick, is a surgeon and is dating a wonderful woman named Jana, who has become Beth’s best friend. Beth also starts dating Jana’s brother.

Things take a turn for the worse when Beth catches Rick cheating on Jana, and she isn’t sure what to do about it.

Here’s something about me: I’ve been dying to explore California, so this book is as close as I can get right now. I have made it as far as Arizona, but I haven’t quite made it out there yet. Very specifically, I really want to go to Joshua Tree, but Malibu would also be absolutely amazing.

Also, I love the idea of owning a cute little beach shop in a quaint beach town. Something about it just sounds so perfect to me. It’s like the dream of owning a little bookstore with a coffee shop that every person in the book community has turned around a time or two in their heads.

One Golden Summer by Carley Fortune

A Peek in the Pages:

• We’re totally just going to be friends because we don’t want relationships right now – but where did all this chemistry come from?
• Interconnected standalone
• Slow burn

When Alice was seventeen, she spent a summer at the lake and took a photo of three teens in a speed boat. This photo then spiraled into her career as a photographer.

Now thirty-three, Alice’s grandmother breaks her hip, and she decides that they’ll go back to the lake house and relive the good times while she’s healing. Now, imagine Alice’s surprise when she arrives and sees the boy who was driving the speedboat in town as well… and he’s HOT now.

This book is kind of a sequel to Every Summer After, but you truly don’t have to read it first; it’ll just give you a tad bit more background. Funny enough, my grandparents actually lived in a lake house that I went to every Summer growing up. Weirdly, though, I seem to have had a very different lake house experience, but it is what it is. I still haven’t found a hot guy in a speed boat, but oh well I guess.

Till Summer Do Us Part by Meghan Quinn

A Peek in the Pages:

• Fake Dating
• Forced Proximity
• One Bed
• Grumpy x Sunshine

Scottie Price started a new job, and when she found out every man she’s working with is married, she makes up a fake husband. As lies tend to do, things quickly spiral out of control, and now she and her fake husband are in a complicated marriage, and she’s set up with her boss’s husband, who is a marriage counselor.

She calls her best friend in a panic, who sets her up with his brother, who’s not only a millionaire but is also obsessed with improv. Then, during marriage counseling, they get signed up for an eight-day retreat to improve their nonexistant marriage.

Now, I love the fake dating trope. You can get me to read almost anything if you present it to me with fake dating and one bed, I AM IN.

The whole reason I am considering this as a beach read is the summer camp vibes. Also, Teddy Hamilton is one of the narrators of the audiobook, and I am absolutely obsessed with him. It was a must-read on him narrating it alone. Teddy Hamilton could read me a shopping list and I would keep it on repeat.

My Friends by Fredrik Backman

A Peek in the Pages:

• Coping with a friend’s passing and finding comfort in strangers
• Flashbacks

There’s a piece of art that continuously features three teens on a pier, and Louisa is hunting to find out more about why these figures keep appearing and what the story is. 25 years earlier, three teens were on a pier over the summer telling stories and gossiping, now, after all this time, Louisa wants to get their story.

This book just recently came out and has gotten so much hype, seemingly rightfully so. I really love the idea that what we do today affects things years from now. Maybe the time I spend with my own friends has a positive impact on people around us that I don’t even know about it. There’s something so beautiful about that idea.

The Paradise Problem by Christina Lauren

A Peek in the Pages:

• Fake Marriage/Marriage of Convenience
• Pretty Woman vibes

The entire reason Anna married Liam was so that she could get subsidized family housing while at UCLA. Then, they graduated and she signed divorce papers and they went their separate ways.

Three years later, Liam is trying to collect his one-hundred-million-dollar inheritance, but there’s only one problem: you have to be married for five years before you can collect.

Now, Liam is asking Anna to keep this going, and he has to introduce her to his family…

You’re going to want to throw this in your beach bag immediately because this is about to be your perfect beach read. I’ve said it once, and I will say it again, I loveeeeee the fake marriage trope. I am always sold, and it never gets old to me.

People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry

A Peek in the Pages:

• Friends to lovers
• Opposites attract

Many years ago, Poppy hitched a ride with Alex to their small hometown when they were on break for college. Every since then, a small friendship formed and they started going on a yearly vacation. That all ended two years ago.

Now, Poppy lives in New York City and Alex lives in their small hometown still. They haven’t spoken in two years, but Poppy convinces Alex to go on one last vacation to lay everything on the table. Now, Poppy has one week to fix everything between them.

I am simply locked in. I have been in a very vacation-ish mood, so this one really is going to scratch that itch. I also love the idea of getting together and going on vacation with someone.

What is your favorite beach read? Let me know in the comments!