Our Most Anticipated Books for Summer

The Guest List
Lucy Foley
If you loved The Hunting Party—a recent Mystery & Thriller Monthly Pick—as much as we did, Foley’s new atmospheric thriller is likely already on your radar. But if you haven’t yet read that brilliant Highlands whodunit, you’re in for a real treat. The Guest List delivers all the right twists with perfectly cast characters: the bride, the plus one, the best man, the wedding planner, the bridesmaid—and of course, the body. Lucy Foley knows how to build a bad guy, and you’ll have your suspicions about every last guest. We’re not the only ones raving:
“I didn’t think Lucy Foley could top The Hunting Party, but she did! I loved this book. It gave me the same waves of happiness I get from curling up with a classic Christie. A remote, atmospheric island, a wedding no one is particularly happy to be at, old secrets—and a murder. The alternating points of view keep you guessing and guessing wrong.” —Alex Michaelides, author of The Silent Patient

Sex and Vanity
Kevin Kwan
If you found yourself obsessed with Crazy Rich Asians, the bestselling novel centered around the unbelievable jet-setting lives of Asia’s super elite, Kevin Kwan’s latest is not to be missed. A modern-day retelling of E.M. Forster’s A Room with a View, this comedy of manners has all the decadent imagery and wit we’ve come to love and expect from Kwan. The New York Times describes Kwan as someone who “knows how to deliver guilty pleasures. He keeps the repartee nicely outrageous, the excess wretched and the details wickedly delectable.” So, get ready to plunge back into the delightfully soapy world of high privilege and haute couture. And grab a signed copy of Sex and Vanity here! (They won’t last long…)

Utopia Avenue
David Mitchell
We love making playlists for our favorite reads, and we’re already thinking about what we’ll be listening to as we read Utopia Avenue (think glittering front men and guitar legends from psychedelic, late 1960s London). Pulsing with the madness of a legendary pop culture moment, Utopia Avenue journeys through the highs and lows of fame and the music gone too soon. While Time has called David Mitchell “prodigiously daring and imaginative,” The Boston Globe goes even further, calling him “one of the most electric writers alive.” It’s no wonder legions of readers have so anticipated this new novel from the bestselling and award-winning author of Cloud Atlas and The Bone Clocks. Don’t wait: pick up your signed copy of Utopia Avenue here, before they’re gone.

Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir
Natasha Trethewey
This beautifully written, visceral memoir from former U.S. poet laureate Natasha Trethewey is haunting and urgent and will absolutely crush you. Mary Karr, bestselling author of The Liars’ Club, perfectly sums it up when she writes that “Natasha Trethewey has composed a riveting memoir that reads like a detective story about her mother’s murder by a malevolent ex-husband. It reads with all the poise and clarity of Trethewey’s unforgettable poetry—heartrending without a trace of pathos, wise and smart at once, unforgettable. The short section her mother penned as she was trying to escape the marriage moved me to tears. I read the book in one gulp and expect to reread it more than once. A must-read classic.” We couldn’t agree more.

Humankind: A Hopeful History
Rutger Bregman
If the world has left you feeling a bit depleted as of late, this is the book to fill you back up. Rutger Bregman, bestselling author of Utopia for Realists, offers a fresh and optimistic perspective on humanity and our innate tendencies toward generosity and kindness. Backed by 200,000 years of human history, Humankind makes a convincing argument to seek out the best in others, rather than looking for the worst. This book has started a conversation you’ll want to be part of and is already receiving much-deserved buzz: Stephen Fry, author of Mythos, hails it as “An extraordinarily powerful declaration of faith in the innate goodness and natural decency of human beings. Never dewy-eyed, wistful or naive, Rutger Bregman makes a wholly robust and convincing case for believing—despite so much apparent evidence to the contrary—that we are not the savage, irredeemably greedy, violent and rapacious species we can be led into thinking ourselves to be. Hugely, highly and happily recommended.” (Our sentiments exactly).