The Only Books You'll Want in Your Beach Bag—Sharp, Sexy Stories With Substance and a Side of Scandal

When a young, working-class British Jamaican accepts an invitation to holiday in the south of France at the summer home of Lily, a friend from university, the experience proves to be lifechanging – not only is he introduced to a previously unimaginable level of privilege, he falls fast into a deep passionate relationship with Lily’s charismatic brother Felix. But can the intoxication of their summer romance survive a move to London and the next step into their adult lives? William Rayfet Hunter’s tale of class, race, ambition and power is richly evoked and quietly furious, building from its Saltburn-like beginnings into a roar about the state of modern Britain that never loses sight of the questions around family, friendship and belonging at its emotional core.

The ghost of Ishiguro’s dystopian classic Never Let Me Go hangs heavy over New Zealand author Chidgey’s latest novel. It’s 1979 in rural southern England and in a rundown house at the edge of the New Forest, things are not quite as they seem. The building is home to identical triplets Vincent, Lawrence and William, who are tended to by three ‘mothers’ with their every move and dream noted and recorded. They are the last remaining residents of the state-funded experimental Sycamore Homes, the functions of which become gradually, creepily clear. While the boys do their best to beat ‘the bug’ that endless rounds of medicine never quite seem to quash and dream of being well enough to be sent to ‘the big house’ in Margate, we move beyond their village to meet single-child Nancy, whose loving parents keep her prisoner in her home and the member of Her Majesty’s government who has been tasked with bringing Sycamore Homes to a close. If anything, there’s almost too much going on, but Chidgey keeps control of the many strands of her narrative to weave an unsettling and affecting read.

Trinidadian author Adam’s follow up to her acclaimed debut Golden Child tells the story of a woman’s search for the daughter she gave up for adoption decades before. After becoming pregnant as a teenager, Dawn was smuggled from her Caribbean home to Venezuela to birth in secret in a bid to avoid bringing shame to her family, after which she established a new life for herself in England. Now divorced with two grown-up sons, she lives a quiet and, in many ways, contented life, but remains haunted by what might have become of her lost daughter. When she’s informed of a potential match by one of the adoption websites she uses in the hope of tracing her way back to her first child, Dawn is once again drawn into her past and the memories and regrets that have shaped her. A slow, quiet, affecting look at mistakes made, and what family – in all its forms – means.

Mother-of-two Emily has just separated from her volatile, emotionally abusive husband and is struggling to establish a new life for herself when she runs into Olympic athlete Gen – her one-time school friend and first love – at a party. The pair reconnect, but will they be able to move beyond their troubled history together and get a second chance at love? Rutkoski paints a vivid picture of both past and present in a sweeping, decades-spanning tale of queer desire and thwarted ambition as we plot each woman’s respective paths to their current situation. Beautifully rendered and touchingly told, this is one for romance fans everywhere.

Vuong’s lyrical and much lauded debut, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, turned the Vietnamese-American poet into an international literary sensation. This, it’s follow-up, is a bigger story in every sense. A sprawling tale of immigration, addiction, ill health and the impact of the failing US health system on working class Middle America, we meet college dropout and prescription pill popper Hai – a Vietnamese refugee recently returned to the rundown Connecticut town of East Gladness where he grew up – as he’s stopped from taking a fatal dive from a bridge. His rescuer? Octogenarian widow Grazina, a Lithuanian immigrant falling prey to dementia. The pair set up house together with Hai taking a job in a fast-casual food restaurant that opens us to another broad sweep of quirky, yet salt-of-the-earth characters to create a funny, moving tableau of America’s contemporary working class.

A three-time winner of The Welsh Book of the Year Award, Lewis’s latest release is an assured, sensitively told tale of three women – estranged sisters Hannah and Sadie and an unknown younger woman – brought together by the secrets revealed in the wake of the death of Hannah’s husband, an academic and beekeeper. The novel is part-narrated through a series of letters left for Hannah that give structure to the novel and do much to inform its backstory using the ‘language’ of bees and nature’s cycle to help explain her husband’s actions to his grieving wife. The real power of the story, however, is not in the cause, but its effect as, having finally been freed in their various ways from the constraints of traditional family models and expectations, all three women develop the strength and knowledge to shape their own desires and destinies.

While trigger warnings have become a regular feature in book publishing, the disclaimer at the top of South Korean author Ryujin’s debut novel that this book ‘is not intended as financial or investment advice’, is a first for us. Then again, this modern-day fairy tale is centred on a very modern-day premise: the rollercoaster world of cryptocurrency. It tells the story of three very different friends and co-workers who work in low-level jobs at a confectionary company and yearn for financial independence. The financial risk-taker of the group, Eun-Sang, urges narrator Dahae (who is desperate to move to a bigger apartment) to throw all her savings into crypto, even while the third member of their group, Jisong, holds out. As the pair chase their way through the rises and falls of this most volatile of markets, Jisong finally joins them, only for the market to crash. The trio hold on for dear life – will they be able to take it to the moon as they dream of doing or is a sudden – and lethal – fall to earth set to be their fate?

Australian author Jessica Stanley’s first novel to be published in the UK marries heart and head in a decade-spanning novel that parallels the ups and downs of one couple’s relationship against the ups and downs of British politics. London-based Aussie Coralie has only recently moved to London when she meets – and swiftly falls for – Adam, an ambitious political journalist and divorced single father of one, in 2013. And yes, it is as tender, funny, serious – and at times frustratingly ‘real’ (Brexit, Boris and the pandemic all get their moment on the page) – as all that suggests. Yet Stanley keeps the couple – and Coralie’s feelings – front and centre throughout in a funny, moving romantic saga for the modern age.

Another South Korean writer with an acclaimed pedigree, Hur was awarded the prestigious Korean Literature and Society New Writer Award and this, her first collection of short stories is rightly described as ‘genre defying’. From missed meetings and opportunities to surreal, almost dreamlike tales, she weaves a fascinating narrative web. And while not every one’s a winner, there’s more than enough to intrigue and delight to keep you coming back for more.