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Whether your toes are buried in the sand or you’re looking for a story to transport you to sunny climes, these lighthearted novels of family secrets and life-changing summers are the best beach reads of the season.

Summer in New England means blue skies and charming villages dotted along an endless coastline. Jamie Brenner’s The Forever Summer takes readers to Provincetown, Massachusetts, for an exceptionally expansive, warmhearted take on familiar beach-read tropes: a long-awaited family reunion and surprising revelations about parentage.

Nick Cabral fathered not one, but two daughters before his untimely death, a secret that isn’t uncovered until half-­sisters Rachel and Marin are adults. The Forever Summer’s secret weapon is the older generation of women: Nick’s mother, Amelia; Amelia’s wife, Kelly; and Marin’s mother, Blythe. A former ballerina who gave up her artistic dreams when she married a powerful lawyer, Blythe is haunted by her own demons but utterly devoted to her daughter’s well-being. And Amelia and Kelly’s idyllic marriage is overshadowed by the sacrifices they’ve made to be with one another. Brenner provides a poignant look at the gay community of Provincetown by fleshing out Amelia and Kelly’s circle of friends—many of whom are in their twilight years, endeavoring to spend their last days experiencing all the happiness they were robbed of by oppression and disease.

Brenner’s willingness to engage with grief and loss and her ability to braid them with the hesitant joy of a new family coming together make The Forever Summer a satisfying read.

ISLANDS APART
Elin Hilderbrand is one of the queens of beach reads, and she continues her reign with The ­Identicals. Identical twins Tabitha and Harper Frost are separated by the 11 miles of water between Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard. When circumstances require them to switch islands and take over each other’s responsibilities, the twins, who haven’t spoken in more than a decade, find themselves embroiled in romantic entanglements and long-delayed confrontations.

The setup is a bit contrived, and a narration from the voice of the islands’ collective population can be distracting. But it’s impossible to resist Hilderbrand’s gift for characterization and building satisfying drama. Tabitha’s daughter, Ainsley, who originally seems like an exaggerated nightmare of a teenage girl, is a standout character. Tenderly portrayed, she’s privileged and lonely—old enough to act out, but still young enough to crave her mother’s affection.

Hilderbrand deftly lays the groundwork for the reveal of what drove the twins apart. She paces the novel’s revelations just right, balancing them against careful character development so that when all is revealed, the reader may not agree with Tabitha’s and Harper’s decisions, but they can’t help but deeply empathize.

CHILDREN OF CELEBRITY
Another set of estranged sisters take tentative steps toward each other in Jane Green’s The Sunshine Sisters, set in Westport, Connecticut. The three daughters of Hollywood starlet Ronni Sunshine have all adapted to their mother’s cruel behavior in different ways, growing away from each other as a result. But when Ronni announces that she has a terminal illness, the daughters must return home to her, and to each other.

The novel opens with scenes from the sisters’ childhoods, giving the reader each character’s perspective and making the clashes between the sisters much more affecting. All three are impressively well drawn, and Green isn’t afraid to give them some ugly traits. Lizzy’s single-minded pursuit of her own ambitions could have been monstrous if Green didn’t make her such an effervescent presence. And while her sister Nell’s aloof nature has given her admirable restraint when dealing with their mother, Green also shows how Nell’s withdrawal from life has robbed her sisters of a protector—and may stand in the way of a suprising, affecting romance.

TREADING WATER
Maeve Donnelly’s life revolves around sharks, and her frequent trips to study her beloved predators have allowed long-simmering conflicts to fall by the wayside. In Ann Kidd Taylor’s The Shark Club, those conflicts come to a head when Maeve visits her grandmother’s beachside hotel in Palermo, Florida.

While there’s no shortage of interesting characters in Maeve’s orbit, Taylor zeroes in on Maeve’s development almost exclusively. It’s a decision that enriches the book to a great extent: With Maeve as the clear protagonist, the beachside locale isn’t glamorous window dressing but a constant reminder of the core purpose of Maeve’s life. Ultimately, all of Maeve’s choices relate back to the sea and her history with it, from her complicated relationships with two love interests to her reaction to her brother’s novel.

The Shark Club stays true to the logical, calm nature of its protagonist, but still evokes the subtle pain and thrill of being unmoored.

GIRL GONE WILD
We’re off to Taormina, Italy, for an utterly deranged mélange of The Bling Ring and The Parent Trap. Chloé Esposito’s debut, Mad, is escapist fare that not only leaves behind the boundaries of the United States but also any semblance of morality. It’s awash in gorgeous Italian men and designer clothes, and both get more than a little bloodstained.

Esposito’s protagonist, the recently unemployed Alvina Knightly, accepts an invitation from her twin sister, Beth, to visit her Sicilian beachside mansion. Enraptured with and jealous of Beth’s lavish lifestyle, not to mention her extremely handsome husband, Alvina allows herself to be talked into impersonating her sister for one afternoon, kicking off a wild ride of murder and mayhem. Alvina runs headlong into her sister’s shadowy and dangerous world, getting increasingly in over her head as her outrageously misplaced self-confidence grows.

The first in a trilogy, Mad is deliciously over-the-top, with a protagonist you’ll never forget and an ending that promises more chaos to come.

This article was originally published in the June 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

If you’re seeking edge-of-your seat thrills and psychological suspense to keep you turning pages long into the humid summer nights, then look no further. From exotic locales like the Greek islands to the seamy underbelly of New York City, these books have the right ingredients for an entertaining escape.

Years and miles apart will change people. So will wealth—or a lack of it. Ian Bledsoe discovers this the hard way in Christopher Bollen’s engrossing new novel, The Destroyers. Set on the Greek island paradise of Patmos, the novel reunites Ian with his childhood friend and college pal, Charlie Konstantinou, who may be Ian’s best chance of getting out of a precarious situation. Ian is on the outs with his affluent New York family after stealing $9,000, and he’s currently on the run following a failed business venture in Panama (rumored to involve drugs). Charlie, who hails from a wealthy family of his own, readily offers Ian a job with his tourist-centric yacht company. Ian is further surprised to be reunited with his former college girlfriend, Louise Wheeler, who has also found a refuge of sorts amid Charlie’s eccentric circle of friends and extended family. But before Ian gets a chance to repay Charlie for his generosity, Charlie vanishes after a business trip, leaving his friends and family to fend for themselves. Bollen takes his time unraveling the seeds of deceit, obsession and secrets, building suspense with each page.

MAP QUEST
Obsession takes many forms. In Colin Harrison’s new novel, You Belong to Me, the consequences of various obsessions are often messy and deadly. Successful immigration lawyer Paul Reeves is obsessed with his hobby of collecting rare archival maps. His neighbor, Jennifer Mehraz, is obsessed with her long-lost lover, former Army Ranger Bill Wilkerson. Jennifer’s husband, Iranian-American entrepreneur Ahmed Mehraz, is obsessed with her. Paul, being the good neighbor and friend that he is, soon becomes entangled in Jennifer, Bill and Ahmed’s complex love triangle, even as he tries to focus on acquiring an elusive, rare archival map of New York City. Events quickly careen out of control as neither Paul’s nor Ahmed’s wealth can easily buy the two out of the situations they’re in, forcing the men to resort to other, less reliable alternatives to get what they want. Harrison, who is the editor-in-chief at Scribner and the author of eight previous novels, explores how far each of these characters will go to conquer their obsession and attain the unattainable. You Belong to Me is an intriguing, moody tale of love, lust and avarice—and great summer reading.

ALL IN THE FAMILY
You’ll want to buckle up and hold on tight for Jordan Harper’s debut novel, She Rides Shotgun, a fast-paced, energetic noir about an ex-convict and his 11-year-old daughter. Nate McClusky isn’t your typical protagonist—he’s done a lot of bad things in his lifetime, both beyond and behind bars. But his compassion for his daughter, Polly, drives everything, making their quest for survival one readers can embrace. Nate makes the drastic mistake of killing a member of the Aryan Steel gang in jail, resulting in a bounty being put on his head and on the heads of his wife and child. Nate is too late to save his wife, but he manages to get to Polly, setting off a cat-and-mouse chase. Along the way, Nate becomes the dad he never was to his child, a spunky and smart girl whose infatuation with her long-missing dad grows the longer they are together. Polly, in turn, grows up much too fast as Nate begins training her to fend for herself. By turns heartwarming and shocking, this book entertains on numerous levels. Harper is also a talented screenwriter, and it’s easy to envision this electric story unfolding on the silver screen. Get in and go along for the ride.

PREDATOR AND PREY
Author Gin Phillips thrusts Joan and her 4-year-old son, Lincoln, into the middle of a life-and-death scenario in one of the summer’s most action-packed and emotionally harrowing thrillers, Fierce Kingdom. The pair are just about to wrap up a visit to their local zoo when the sounds of gunshots shatter the otherwise tranquil environment. Joan’s motherly, protective instinct immediately kicks in as the pair hide from the shooters amid the zoo’s exhibition spaces. Their only connection to the outside world is through Joan’s text message exchanges with her husband, who is unable to reach them. Joan must rely on her own wits and courage to see them through this frightening situation in one piece, but with a young child in tow who sees everything as a game, doing so proves easier said than done. Fierce Kingdom unfolds at a rapid-fire pace with each chapter upping the tension and danger.

LAST WOMAN STANDING
Stephen King recently praised Final Girls by Riley Sager as “the first great thriller of 2017,” an assessment we’ll second. This suspense-packed novel—written by an established author under the Sager pseudonym—follows the life of Quincy Carpenter, the lone survivor of a horror movie-like massacre of five college friends that happened 10 years ago during their vacation at Pine Cottage. Somehow Quincy eluded the assailant long enough to reach a nearby cop for help, but the memories of that harrowing ordeal—or more precisely the trauma-triggered absence of those memories—never let go. When the lone female survivor of a similar ordeal dies and a third “Final Girl” of another incident winds up on her doorstep, Quincy is immediately thrust into yet another do-or-die scenario. To survive this time, Quincy will have to solve the mystery of her past. Sager quickly ratchets up the mystery and the psychological suspense in classic slasher-movie fashion. Unlike those movies, however, Sager takes time to delve into the head of the main character, creating an emotionally charged experience readers won’t soon forget.

This article was originally published in the July 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

The many collections of short stories that are arriving in time for summer reading are an indication that the genre is not just alive and well, it's thriving. And for readers who long ago tired of the kind of postmodern, ironic stories that usurped the pages of literary quarterlies in the 1980s and '90s, the good news is that the old-fashioned art of storytelling seems to be making a strong comeback. Some new collections by familiar writers and a couple of noteworthy debuts are among the best of a shelf full of possibilities.

Antonya Nelson was selected by The New Yorker as one of 20 best writers for the 21st century, which is a nearly impossible accolade for any writer to live up to. Hyperbole aside, though, Nelson is a masterful writer, and Female Trouble, her fourth collection of stories, is filled with compelling, sometimes funny tales of love and loss and, well, trouble. Nelson's characters are so well-defined and her plots so well-delineated that it often seems as if she manages to cram a whole novel's worth of treasures into the 20 pages of a story. That's the case here with stories like Incognito, in which a woman re-encounters a brash, outrageous and decidedly fictional alter ego she and her high school friends created when they wanted to do the things good girls didn't do, or "The Other Daughter," about the less-than-perfect sister of a beautiful, if tragic, prom queen type. In the aptly named title story, a befuddled man gets involved with three very different women, two of whom just happen to be patients at the local psychiatric hospital. But he is unable to commit, it seems, even to the committed. As a writer, Nelson makes no false moves. She understands and empathizes with all of her characters from the inside out and, thanks to her assured talents, so do we.

Anyone who enjoyed Mark Winegardner's sprawling urban novel Crooked River Burning might be surprised, and pleased, to discover that he can also write polished little gems in the short story form. As with the novel, many of the stories in That's True of Everybody are set in or around the author's native Cleveland. Others are set in unassuming Midwestern and Southern locations, where ordinary people go about the unadorned business of getting through life. Some, like the bowling alley owner who has lost the essential connection with his two grown daughters in "Thirty-Year-Old Women Do Not Always Come Home," manage it with an iota of sangfroid. Others, like the teenage bride faced with an impotent groom in "Song for a Certain Girl," or the college dropout shacking up with a pool hall pick-up in Travelers Advisory, take their lumps and move on. After all, what else can they do? That is the underlying question in many of the stories by Winegardner an author who sympathizes with, but never patronizes, his characters. Less sympathetic, though, are three wickedly acerbic, nominally interconnected stories grouped as Tales of Academic Lunacy: 1991-2001, in which he skewers the insular groves of academia. There is The Visiting Poet and his serial conquests, The Untenured Lecturer whose sorry writing career leads him astray and Keegan's Load, in which an aging, ineffectual professor frustrates the rest of the faculty's aims and ambitions. Since Winegardner himself is a creative writing professor at Florida State, we need not doubt the accuracy of these unforgiving and entertaining tales.

Adam Haslett takes his characters from the fringes of society the repressed, the mentally ill, the orphaned, the grieving and the dying. But do not be deterred by this dark fact, for his You Are Not a Stranger Here is a very impressive debut. Haslett is an expert storyteller, who draws the reader in with his compassion, then methodically unravels unexpected truths. In his stories we meet a young man shutting out the world as he succumbs to AIDS, a boy so thrown by his mother's death that he can find solace only in brutally submissive sex with a hateful classmate, a callow doctor marooned in a rural practice whose own perceived suffering pales against the mental anguish of a depressed farm wife. In many of the stories, there is a connection made between two unlikely souls, a connection that, if it does not provide salvation, at least provides some measure of comfort. In "The Storyteller," a man adrift in Scotland meets an odd woman whose dying son supplies a purpose to go on. A high school boy forges an unusual relationship with an old woman battling the demons of memory in The Volunteer. Haslett's perceptive stories are far-flung in setting London, New England, Scotland, California but his themes are grounded in one place: the troubled human mind.

Madeline Thien is a talented young Canadian writer, whose first collection Simple Recipes arrives on this side of the border heralded by none other than that author of glorious short stories, Alice Munro. Though she is the daughter of Malaysian-Chinese immigrants, Thien doesn't much use this uncommon cultural upbringing in her stories, which is bit disappointing. Only the title story and the lengthy "A Map of the City" contain direct references to her Asian-Canadian background. Instead, Thien's wistful stories are more universal explorations of family and yearning. A number of them feature an ailing, absent or emotionally unavailable mother and/or an outwardly gentle father with a malicious streak. Her writing is spare, her observations direct and perceptive. At times she experiments with form, as in Dispatch, which is told in the second person. The strength of Thien's stories lies in the way she captures the distorted perspective of childhood and the confusion that accompanies the coming of age. By broadening her concerns beyond small domestic tragedies, Madeline Thien should continue to be a writer who has something to say and her own way of saying it.

A frequent contributor to BookPage, Robert Weibezahl lives in Southern California.