5 New Summer Reads for Holidays in the Sun (Or the Back Garden!)

As the wise man Frank Zappa said: "So many books, so little time!" Summer is the best time to squeeze in a bit of reading around chiselling dried Weetabix off the high chair (seriously, we could just retire cement as a building material and use concrete instead) and prising the toddler of our face. So here are some brilliant new reads to get stuck into whether you're on the hols or in the back garden (or hiding from your family in the loo). The Privileged by Emily Hourican

In an exclusive all girls' secondary school, they become friends. They choose the same university, and through smoke-filled nights, lectures, sexual encounters and first loves, their bond deepens: a friendship which seems like it will last for evermore. But then, at an end-of-year party, something happens which changes everything ...

A thoroughly engrossing tale of the downside of 'having it all' that'll hook you on the first page. Buy it here. The Mandibles by Lionel Shriver

With dry wit and psychological acuity, this near-future novel explores the aftershocks of an economically devastating U.S. sovereign debt default on four generations of a once-prosperous American family. Down-to-earth and perfectly realistic in scale, this is not an over-the-top Blade Runner tale. It is not science fiction.

Lionel Shriver author of We Need to Talk about Kevin is back with an imagined future that is looking pretty bleak – after the collapse of the US dollar, the Mandibles must navigate a new reality. Buy it here. Making It up As I Go Along by Marian Keyes

Welcome to the magnificent Making It Up as I Go Along - aka the World According to Marian Keyes - A bold, brilliant book bursting with Marian's hilarious and heartfelt observations on modern life, love and much, much else besides.

Our fave, Marian Keyes is back with more brilliantly relatable and funny observations on life, from breaking up with your hairdresser to fake tan blunders. Perfect summer reading. Buy it here. Beautiful Pictures of the Lost Homeland by Mia Gallagher

The past crosses and weaves by the present; generations are bound together and cleaved apart; future selves remember and forget who they once were. Forgiveness is sought, offered, and withheld - and as they unspool, the fragmented lives of four people become a haunting whole, where time is unknowable.

The second novel by Mia Gallagher, author of Hellfire is an engrossing tapestry of human existence. She weaves together the stories of Georgia Madden (who used to be Georgie) who flees her Dublin home to embark on a road trip; the Madden family who is beginning to disintegrate; an elderly German woman recounting her war story to a film crew; and us, "the visitors" in a parallel reality as we are led through an unsettling Museum of Curiosities. Truly original. Buy it here. The Nest by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney

Every family has its problems. But even among the most troubled, the Plumb family stands out as spectacularly dysfunctional. Years of simmering tensions finally reach a breaking point on an unseasonably cold afternoon in New York City as Melody, Beatrice, and Jack Plumb gather to confront their charismatic and reckless older brother, Leo, freshly released from rehab.

What you'll love is the seemingly sophisticated back drop of New York, where a struggling writer tries to get published, an internet millionaires grapple with success and failure, a cop grieves in the aftermath of 9/11 and relatable women with motherhood and mother issues banter in brilliantly written dialogue. Buy it here. What are YOUR recommendations for summer reads? Let us know in the comments, we're always looking for a good book.