Time for sun, sand and surf ... and your favorite beach read. Whether you want a celebrity confessional, summer romance novel, a murder mystery or a spy thriller, Amazon's book editors have a summer beach read for you. Here are their 20 picks for your summer beach reading pleasure.
"The Rumor." Everything about Elin Hilderbrand's latest novel whispers "delicious summer read." And why wouldn't it? Hilderbrand is known as Queen of the Summer Beach Reads. "The Rumor" features Nantucket writer Madeline King, a best friend with a crisis and a rugged landscape architect. What could be better? Her latest book releases on June 15, just in time for your summer vacation.
"Summer Sisters." Who knew that renowned children's author Judy Blume adored summer? "Summer is my season, the season I wait for the rest of the year," she wrote on her website. "You can live a lifetime in a summer, especially when you're young." Fans of her adult literature can experience her love through "Summer Sisters," her 2003 novel following the friendship of two young women from ages 12 to 30 through their summers together.
"The Girl on the Train." Need more of a thriller to relax on that sandy beach? Paula Hawkins' 2015 hit, called "more fun with unreliable narration than any chiller since 'Gone Girl' " by The New York Times, may be the right book for you. Rachel sees the same people outside the window of her commuter train every morning and thinks she somehow knows them. Until she sees something so terrible that she feels she has to call the police. What happens next makes her worry she hasn't done the right thing.
"Pines." If you're enjoying the suspense of Fox Television's "Wayward Pines" series, check out the first book in writer Blake Crouch's "Wayward Pines" trilogy. "Pines" introduces Secret Service agent Ethan Burke, who comes to Wayward Pines, Idaho, to track down two federal agents who disappeared in this town one month earlier. Shortly after his arrival, Burke is involved in an accident and ends up at the hospital without his phone or identification. Why don't his calls to his family go through? And why is the town surrounded by electrified fences? Will he ever get out?
"Memory Man." With more than 100 million books in print, David Baldacci surely knows how to tell a thrilling story. With "Memory Man" publishing in May, Baldacci introduces a character with a perfect memory. And when his family is murdered, this police detective's ability to remember everything becomes a curse. And yet this power may be essential to solving the crime.
"Wild." A young woman reeling from the death of her mother and the breakup of her marriage decides to hike over 1,000 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail through California, Oregon and Washington state. With no training. By now, many people have heard of Cheryl Strayed's memoir, the first pick of Oprah's Book Club 2.0 and a major motion picture staring Reese Witherspoon and Laura Dern. "This isn't Cinderella in hiking boots," writes the Seattle Times. "It's a woman coming out of heartbreak, darkness and bad decisions with a clear view of where she has been."
"Circling the Sun." Author of the bestselling historical novel "The Paris Wife," Paula McLain returns in late summer with a fictional tale of the real-life aviator Beryl Markham, who became first woman to fly solo from east to west across the Atlantic Ocean. A remarkable woman of her time (or any time), the British-born, Kenyan-raised horse trainer and aviator provides McLain with the inspiration for "Circling the Sun." The novel focuses mostly on Markham's life in 1920s colonial Kenya, where as an adult she was engaged in a love affair with Denys Finch Hatton, who was also the lover of "Out of Africa" author Karen Blixen. (Blixen wrote her story under her pen name, Isak Dinesen.)
"The Marriage of Opposites." The woman who gave birth to Impressionist painter Camille Pissarro is the inspiration for Alice Hoffman's latest novel, "The Marriage of Opposites." Growing up in St. Thomas' Jewish community in the early 1800s, Rachel tries to rebel against the rules of the time but is forced to marry a widower with children. When he dies and his nephew comes from France to deal with her husband's estate, the impact on the world of art will be forever altered.
"Beautiful Ruins." A tale of Hollywood, love and loss and the passage of time, Jess Walter's "Beautiful Ruins" is more than an entertaining read (not that there's anything wrong with that). Calling Walter "a talented and original writer," The New York Times assures us that "any reservations the reader might have about another book about Hollywood, about selling one's soul (or someone else's, and pocketing the change) will probably be swept aside by this high-wire feat of bravura storytelling."
"The Vacationers." Emma Straub's tale of a family's two-week trip to Mallorca with their extended family and friends not going according to plan is a delightful, satisfying summer read. Yet because of Straub's storytelling, People magazine's four-star review says it's "made substantial by the exceptional wit, insight, intelligence and talents of its author."
"Beach Town." Mary Kay Andrews' latest book pits a down-on-her-luck movie location scout looking for the perfect beach town location against the environmentally aware mayor of a small "undiscovered" Florida beach town. The main characters in "Beach Town" have polar opposite agendas, except for one issue: They find each other incredibly attractive. (Make your own daiquiris for this one.)
"The Cuckoo's Calling." Writing as Robert Galbraith, J.K. Rowling dives into the world of crime fiction with her first novel featuring Detective Cormoran Strike, a barely-making-it private investigator who lost his leg to a land mine in Afghanistan. A client wanting to investigate his model sister's supposed suicide opens the door to designers, rock stars and other icons of our time.
"The Son." A finalist for the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, Philip Meyer's second novel, "The Son," starts out as a story of captivity among the Comanches and becomes a sweeping saga about the rise of a Texas oil baron family unafraid to use their wits and violence to dominate in the American West.
"Yes Please." There's no doubt that actor and comedian Amy Poehler is funny. She's the star of "Saturday Night Live" and "Parks and Recreation," so we know she can act, direct, produce and do standup. And now we know, she can write. Dang. We're sure she's developing another show while we're reading "Yes Please" at the beach, but hey, it's funny, too.
"Seveneves." If the world were ending, what would human beings do next? Inspired by the very real problem of space junk crowding our skies, best-selling author Neal Stephenson explores the future of humanity in "Seveneves." With the destruction of the moon and the subsequent ruin of life on Earth, pioneers are heading into outer space on a "Cloud Ark." Thousands of years later, the descendants of those surviving pioneers turn their attention back to an unrecognizable planet: Earth.
"An Ember in the Ashes." Set in an empire inspired by ancient Rome, "An Ember in the Ashes" tells the story of two characters who live in a brutal world where defiance is met by death. A journalist-turned-young-adult novelist, Sabaa Tahir grew up in her family's 18-room motel in California's Mojave Desert and wrote her debut novel while working as a newspaper editor. Since its publication in April, it's gotten rave reviews. " 'An Ember in the Ashes' could launch Sabaa Tahir into J.K. Rowling territory," says Public Radio International.
"The Wright Brothers." For those requiring a more weighty and historical (true) story, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner David McCullough provides the right stuff with his tale of those ingenious brothers who thought that people could fly, with the right equipment. "Concise, exciting, and fact-packed ... Mr. McCullough presents all this with dignified panache, and with detail so granular you may wonder how it was all collected," writes The New York Times.
"Funny Girl." Nick Hornby may be well-known for "Fever Pitch," "High Fidelity" and "About a Boy" and the movies that were based on them. But his latest book, "Funny Girl," is a delight as well. "Funny and fast moving, perceptive and sharp," says the Los Angeles Times, which recommends the novel about a 1960s ingenue in London transformed into a television starlet. Along the way, readers will appreciate the characters gathered around her.
"All the Old Knives." A master of the spy novel, Olen Steinhauer had chronicled the Cold War and the post-9/11 world, his characters traveling all over the world. Not so in "All the Old Knives," where two former CIA colleagues and former lovers meet over a meal in the elegant California town of Carmel-by-the-Sea to discuss old times. One question remaining for the former staffers at the CIA's Vienna station: Who -- if anyone -- sold them out during a hostage crisis six years earlier? The Washington Post calls it "a splendid tour de force."
"Love Is Red." Sophie Jaff's thriller is her first in her Nightsong Trilogy. A serial killer is on the loose this summer in New York, and Katherine Emerson doesn't know she was destined to be placed in the killer's path. Emerson is also dating two men at the same time. Talk about complications.
