Books in hot places to read this summer

Sofia brings her mother to a coastal Spanish village in search of a cure for her mysterious illness. Intoxicated by thick heat and the seductive people who move through it, both women begin to see their lives clearly for the first time in years. 

Wildfires take hold, the internet turns off, and clean water stops running. As Cass’ city blazes, she learns what it means to love her children beyond reason, leading them towards survival and hope in a startlingly familiar vision of dystopia. 

A girl grows up in the north of England, fearing her own desires and feeling undeserving of love. Years later, a relationship takes her to the sticky heat of Barcelona, where among tropical plants and secluded beaches, she must find out if she’s capable of change.

In a crumbling apartment complex in a heatwave-struck Indiana town, a gifted foster girl’s life spirals towards violence. The Rabbit Hutch paints a darkly hilarious and searing picture of contemporary America through the lives of a motley cast of disenfranchised residents. 

During one suffocating summer at a French campsite, 17-year-old Leonard witnesses a death – and does nothing. As the heat intensifies, guilt, lust and isolation boil over. This mesmerising thriller explores adolescent desire and recklessness, and secrets too big to keep. 

Spanning decades from wartime Florence to sun-soaked postwar Tuscany, a young British soldier and a witty art historian form a bond that will shape the trajectory of their lives, and those who love them. A sweeping novel about beauty, love, family and fate. 

As a baker’s wife becomes obsessed with a mysterious new couple in a small French town, strange things begin to happen beneath the tranquil surface of daily life. A darkly erotic tale of a town gripped by madness and desire that burns and consumes.  

From the burning deserts of WWII Egypt to intimate memories of love and loss, historian Claudia Hampton confronts her own personal history as she is dying in hospital, unearthing the passions and pains that have defined her life in an exquisite mesh of flashbacks and shifting voices. 

Four very different women escape dreary London for a sun-drenched Italian villa. Amid blooming wisteria and Mediterranean light, each finds their spirit stirring, and transformation blossoms. A witty and delightful depiction of rediscovering joy during one Italian spring. 

Erica, freshly eighteen and ready for freedom, sets out for the Greek island of Hydra. Swept up in a bohemian world of artists and poets, passion, art and freedom flourish beneath the blazing sky in this intoxicating 1960s summer idyll. But nothing can last forever. 

Sweaty London nights pulse with heat, hedonism, and heartbreak as two friends navigate the chaos of queer love and millennial ambition. In a city on the brink of political upheaval, facing the hottest summer on record, the feverish search for meaning ramps up. 

A young girl and her grandmother spend a summer on a remote Finnish island basking in endless daylight. A fierce yet understated love emerges as they learn to adjust to each other’s fears, whims and yearnings in this tender meditation on life’s quiet, fleeting beauty.