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25th Jun 2019

11 brilliant books we can’t wait to curl up with this summer

Keeley Ryan

Summer is finally here.

And while we’re already building up our must-read pile for the next few months, we have a feeling it’s going to be getting even larger.

Especially with some of the new releases coming out.

From mysteries to rom-coms and everything in between, there’s been a number of incredible books hitting the shelves this season.

Whether you’re looking for a book to curl up on the couch with or are looking for a novel to bring along on vacation, here are 11 books to check out this summer.

Come A Little Closer by Karen Perry

Out June 27, 2019.

Leah is in love – and it should be the happiest summer of her life. However, with Jake’s attention divided between her, his ex-wife and his young son, she can’t help but feel lonely.

As insomnia sets in, the walls of their new basement flat feel as if they’re closing in around her. Until she meets her upstairs neighbour, Anton, who has recently moved back in after a long absence from the street. He’s a sympathetic ear when Jake can’t be, and even though others on the street seem strangely hostile towards him, Leah soon comes to rely on Anton and their secret conversations in the night.

Leah has no idea that nineteen years before, Anton was convicted of killing his wife. A wife who looked a little bit like Leah. He has always said he didn’t do it. Is Leah his redemption? Or is she befriending a killer intent on luring her closer and closer?

How Could She by Lauren Mechling

Out June 25, 2019.

After splitting from her fiancé, Geraldine is left struggling to get her life back on track – and it doesn’t help that her two old friends, Sunny and Rachel, left ages ago for New York.

They’ve landed good good jobs, handsome husbands, and unfairly glamorous lives (or at least so it appears to Geraldine). Sick of watching from the sidelines, Geraldine decides to force the universe to give her the big break she knows she deserves, and moves to the Big Apple.

As she zigzags her way through the downtown art scene and rooftop party circuit, she discovers how hard it is to find her footing in a world of influencers and media darlings – and she realises things may not be quite as they seem with her old friends…

The First Time Lauren Pailing Died by Alyson Rudd 

Out July 11, 2019.

Lauren Pailing is a teenager in the eighties, becomes a Londoner in the nineties. And each time she dies, new lives begin for the people who loved her – while Lauren enters a brand new life, too.

But in each of Lauren’s lives, a man called Peter Stanning disappears. And, in each of her lives, Lauren sets out to find him.

And so it is that every ending is also a beginning. And so it is that, with each new beginning, Peter Stanning inches closer to finally being found…

Someone We Know by Shari Lapena

Out July 25, 2019.

In a tranquil, leafy suburb of ordinary streets – one where everyone is polite and friendly – an anonymous note has been left at some of the houses: “I’m so sorry. My son has been getting into people’s houses. He’s broken into yours.”

Who is this boy, and what might he have uncovered? As whispers start to circulate around the tight-knit neighbourhood, suspicion mounts.

And when a missing local woman is found murdered, the tension reaches breaking point. Who killed her? Who knows more than they’re telling? And how far will all these very nice people go to protect their secrets?

The Warehouse by Rob Hart

Out August 13, 2019.

Gun violence, climate change and unemployment have ravaged the United States beyond recognition.But amid all the wreckage, an online retail giant named Cloud reigns supreme. It brands itself not just as an online storefront, but as a global saviour. Yet, beneath the sunny exterior, lurks something far more sinister.

Paxton never thought he’d be working Security for the company that ruined his life, much less that he’d be moving into one of their sprawling live-work facilities. But compared to what’s left outside, perhaps Cloud isn’t so bad. Better still, through his work he meets Zinnia, who fills him with hope for their shared future.

Except that Zinnia is not what she seems. And Paxton, with his all-access security credentials, might just be her meal ticket. As Paxton and Zinnia’s agendas place them on a collision course, they’re about to learn just how far the Cloud will go to make the world a better place.

The Van Apfel Girls Are Gone by Felicity McLean 

Out June 6, 2019.

Tikka Molloy was eleven and one-sixth years old during the long hot summer of 1992, growing up in an isolated suburb in Australia surrounded by encroaching bushland.

That summer, the hottest on record, was when the Van Apfel sisters – Hannah, the beautiful Cordelia and Ruth – mysteriously disappeared during the school’s Showstopper concert, held at the outdoor amphitheatre by the river.  Did they run away? Were they taken?  While the search for the sisters unites the small community, the mystery of their disappearance has never been solved.

Now, years later, Tikka has returned home and is beginning to make sense of that strange moment in time. The summer that shaped her.  The girls that she never forgot.

Never Have I Ever by Joshilyn Jackson

Out August 8, 2019.

It all starts so simply – a game at a book group one night. Never Have I Ever done something I shouldn’t have. But for Amy Whey, it’s much more than that. She has done something that she shouldn’t have – and Roux, the newcomer to the suburban neighbourhood, knows her secret.

She promises her that she and her son – who is growing closer and closer to Amy’s teen stepdaughter – will go away. Provided Amy plays by her rules, that is.

But Amy isn’t prepared to lose everything she’s built. She’s going to fight back, and in this escalating game of cat and mouse, there can be only one winner.

Bunny by Mona Awad

Out June 13, 2019.

Samantha Heather Mackey couldn’t be more of an outsider in her small, highly selective MFA program at New England’s Warren University.

A scholarship student who prefers the company of her dark imagination to that of most people, she is utterly repelled by the rest of her fiction writing cohort – a clique of unbearably twee rich girls who call each other ‘Bunny’, and are often found entangled in a group hug so tight they become one.

But everything changes when Samantha receives an invitation to the Bunnies’ fabled ‘Smut Salon’, and finds herself inexplicably drawn to their front door. As Samantha plunges deeper and deeper into the sinister yet saccharine world of the Bunnies, the boundary between fiction and reality begins to blur.

The Wedding Party by Jasmine Guillory

Out July 16, 2019.

Maddie and Theo have two things in common: their best friend, Alexa, and the fact that they totally hate each other.

However, after a one night stand, neither of them can stop thinking each other. And with Alexa’s wedding fast approaching, the pair soon find themselves sharing bridal party responsibilities that require more interaction with each other than they’re comfortable with.

And while they’ve agreed to an expiration date for their fling – Alexa’s wedding – the sparks continue to fly as the wedding date nears…

Expectation by Anna Hope

Out July 11, 2019.

Hannah, Cate and Lissa are young, vibrant and inseparable. Living on the edge of a common in East London, their shared world is ablaze with art and activism, romance and revelry – and the promise of everything to come. They are electric. They are the best of friends.

Ten years on, they are not where they hoped to be. Amidst flailing careers and faltering marriages, each hungers for what the others have.

And each wrestles with the same question: what does it take to lead a meaningful life?

Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane 

Out August 8, 2019.

Gillam, upstate New York, is a town of ordinary, big-lawned suburban houses. The Gleesons have recently moved there and soon welcome the Stanhopes as their new neighbours.

Lonely Lena Gleeson wants a friend but Anne Stanhope – cold, elegant, unstable – wants to be left alone. It’s up to their children – Lena’s youngest, Kate, and Anne’s only child, Peter – to find their way to one another.

They form a friendship whose resilience and love will be almost broken by the fault line dividing both families, and by the terrible tragedy that will engulf them all. A tragedy whose true origins only become clear many years later . . .

A good book can do just about anything; from taking you on a wild and fantastical adventure to making you feel like an all-knowing super sleuth (if you figure out the killer twist).

Every week at #Bookmarked, we will be taking you through some of our all-time favourite books – as well as the newest novels hitting shelves in Ireland.