30 Must-Read Summer Books You Need in Your Beach Bag

Paula Hawkins, the author of The Girl on the Train, is back with another thoroughly captivating mystery. Into the Water is centered on a 15-year-old whose mother is found murdered and is forced into living with her mysterious aunt, and who had left her hometown to avoid the truths she must now confront.

The legendary Dennis Lehane's newest novel, Since We Fell, tells the story of a former-journalist-turned-shut-in who finds herself at the center of an absolutely mind-blowing conspiracy that forces her out of her comfort zone in pursuit of the truth.

Dorothea Benton Frank has once again produced the ultimate beach read, Same Beach, Next Year. Centered on two couples who return back to the same Summer spot over the span of 20 years, it tracks the evolution of love, loss, and friendship in a way that is absolutely riveting.

Darcy, a year-round Nantucket resident, braces herself for the onslaught of Summer tourists, only to find that her ex-husband, a new romantic interest, and a whole lot of complications have come, too. Nancy Thayer deftly tackles the ultimate choice in Secrets in the Summer: will Darcy choose a new path that doesn't have a concrete end or stick with the stable life she knows?

The hilarious Kevin Kwan's newest novel, Rich People Problems, centers on an extravagant, overzealous, and sabotage-prone family who find themselves in all-out war after the family fortune is withheld by its matriarch.

The newest book from Courtney Maum, Touch focuses on a New York City trend forecaster who finds herself faced with revelations that won't make her employer happy — people don't want electronics, they want human contact. What unfolds is a quest to reconnect with the humanity she's so long commodified and a reintroduction to what it means to feel in real life, and not just online.

After his partner dies, a man sets fire to every reminder of her within their shared home and flees to the opposite coast to try to start his life over. But in Val Emmich's novel, The Reminders, it's impossible to escape the past. He meets a 10-year-old who's able to recount memories in cinematic detail, and he enters a partnership with her only to relive the memories he thought he was ready to leave behind.

Rachel Khong's first novel, Goodbye, Vitamin, is an exploration of what it means to return home to the world you thought you'd once left behind — and what can never be the same. After 30-year-old Ruth splits up with her fiancé, she decides it's time to take a little break from life and quits her job to move back in with her parents. The one thing she hadn't anticipated, however, is the fact that with time her parents have aged — and every moment recounted in the book is unpredictable, poignant, and downright fascinating.

Take a trip back to the '70s with Daniel Riley's tale, Fly Me, of a woman who throws her mainstream life to the wind and takes a job as a flight attendant based in LA, only to find herself caught up in a hedonistic world of drugs, sex, and trafficking.

Arundhati Roy, the much-celebrated author of The God of Small Things, is back with a brand-new trip through the underbelly of India with The Ministry of Utmost Happiness. From love to war to the bonds of family, his prose is thoroughly engrossing, and as the characters in the novel are brought together, it's almost impossible to put the book down.

Mandy Berman's first book, Perennials, centers on two girls who met as campers but are reunited as camp counselors once they're in college. As the Summer progresses, they begin to grow apart — keeping secrets from one another, avoiding conversations about things they need to talk about — all culminating in one fateful event that makes them put everything on the table.

Catherine Lacey's second novel, The Answers, is so incredibly fresh and original that it's hard to resist the premise: a long-suffering disabled woman finds that there may be a cure to what ails her, but the expense of the treatment is astronomical. She takes to Craigslist to find a way to make quick cash and stumbles into an absolutely wild experiment being conducted by an emotionally starved actor.

British author Anthony Horowitz tackles the world of publishing with his latest foray into fictional crime: Magpie Murders. When an editor is given a writer who has written disturbing, but massively successful, novels for years, she doesn't think much of it — until she realizes that perhaps the crime is one that exists outside of the pages she's been given. Can she resist getting pulled into an entirely new world of power, money, and murder?

Roxane Gay tackles food, body image, and weight issues in her latest memoir, Hunger — and it's just as much of a must read as all of her previous published works.

A fairy tale that embodies all of the values, social issues, and problems of our time — Victor Lavalle's latest novel, The Changeling, is laced with magic and unlike anything else you'll read this year.

Jennifer Kitses's Small Hours is one of those books where you have to read it all in one sitting. Set over the course of one 24-hour period and centered on a husband and wife, the deconstruction of their relationship in that timespan is absolutely riveting.

Genesis is 17 when her boyfriend abandons her at a Planned Parenthood appointment, and what follows in Bonnie Pipkin's Aftercare Instructions is the story of her rediscovery of self, her embrace of history, and the painful but often enlightening experience of growing up.

A sophisticated, sexy thriller, Christopher Bollen's The Destroyers follows a man's attempt to reinvent himself on a Greek island and the hidden truths he discovers that are even more dangerous than the lies he's trying to escape.

Daryl Gregory's latest novel, Spoonbenders, is, at heart, the story of a family struggling to keep itself together. But along the way we're treated to a whole host of magical powers — both real and manufactured — that will keep you guessing until the very end.

Alissa Nutting follows up the jaw-dropping Tampa with Made For Love, an equally original and thoroughly wild jaunt through a world we rarely see. Hazel has just exited her marriage and moved into a trailer park with her father, who has taken up residency with an extremely lifelike sex doll. The novel tracks Hazel's attempts to avoid rushing back to her increasingly angry husband and of learning how to live on her own.

Deborah E. Kennedy's Tornado Weather is centered on a town where a young girl has just gone missing, and every resident seems to know a clue as to where she is but not the full picture. And what everyone soon discovers is that there's a lot more being hidden in the town than anyone ever expected.

Gin Phillips's new novel, Fierce Kingdom, takes place almost entirely in a zoo. There, a mother learns of an enormous danger to her son, and for the three hours over which the book takes place, it keeps her running within the confines of the amusement park to save him.

From Flushing, Queens, to Shanghai, China, Jenny Zhang's debut short-story collection, Sour Heart, is bursting at the seams with honesty, reality, and a tremendous amount of heart as she traverses the world between being a kid and being an adult.

See What I Have Done is a riveting retelling of the Lizzie Borden murders, giving new life to a story that has haunted us for generations and now has a brand-new life in Sarah Schmidt's artful hands.

The Blinds, the newest release from the riveting Adam Sternbergh, is centered on a town in which criminals have been given new memories, new identities, and a chance to start over. Unfortunately, what seems like an idyllic way to start anew quickly unravels after a crime is committed in the town, and it's up to one man — the sheriff — to hold it all together.

Danzy Senna's New People is a brilliant, thoughtful treatise on race and identity in the 21st century. Maria and Khalil appear to have it all — until she finds herself falling for a new man who she barely knows. As her obsession grows deeper, she realizes she'll have to choose between the idyllic life she has or a new world that may, quite possibly, be all in her head.

In Lucy Ives's Impossible Views of the World, Stella is having the worst week ever. She's basically hit max capacity on drama in her life, but the discovery of a mysterious map in the museum in which she works draws her into a quest for answers that could change not only Stella's life but also the course of history as we know it.

Lindsay Hunter's new novel focuses on a father who thinks he's the only one who can find his missing addict son on the streets of Florida. Eat Only When You're Hungry traces his journey from hint to clue to possible answer in a trip that not only teaches him about his son but also about things he needs to face about himself.

In Chiara Barzini's new novel, Things That Happened Before the Earthquake, an Italian teenager is dragged out of the world she knows and dropped in the center of LA in the '90s – a city plagued by riots, crime, and the disparity of the wealthy suburbs. What follows is a voyage of epic proportions, dealing not only with the well-known struggles of being an American teen but also of survival.

Out Aug. 15

Claire Messud, the phenomenal author of The Emperor's Children, once again sets her sights on lifelong friends who have just begun to set out on separate paths in The Burning Girl. As Julia and Cassie move toward adulthood, the two women are faced with challenges that threaten to destroy them – and highlight the lengths we go to in order to save our oldest friends.

Out Aug. 29.