Every book lover has an ideal summer reading set-up: Maybe you like to read on the beach, with the sun beating down and the waves breaking at your feet, or on an airplane with no Wi-Fi, anticipating your vacation. My fantasy reading experience would take place in a hammock, with a warm breeze blowing and a glass of lemonade in easy reach. Wherever you find yourself reading this summer, here’s a selection of books you’ll want to dive into.
The Dark Maestro by Brendan Slocumb (Doubleday, May 13): In two previous thrillers, Slocumb planted his flag in the dangerous—who knew?!—world of classical music. His latest features Curtis Wilson, a cello prodigy and Juilliard graduate, who’s forced to go into witness protection when his drug-dealing father cooperates with the FBI. “This is an intricately plotted novel, paced perfectly by Slocumb, who keeps the book moving at a breakneck speed—but not at the expense of his beautifully drawn characters,” says our starred review. “A virtuosic thriller.”
Atmosphere: A Love Story by Taylor Jenkins Reid (Ballantine, June 3): As in her earlier novels about rock stars and tennis pros, Reid gives us a juicy story about female ambition in the late 20th century, this time in the hothouse atmosphere of NASA. Joan Goodwin is an astrophysics professor who’s determined to become an astronaut, and she’s accepted into the space shuttle program in 1980. The book begins with a disaster in 1984, then moves back and forth between that fateful mission and Joan’s training. Our starred review says, “Reid keeps the tension high, making this perhaps her most propulsive novel yet as she balances the drama of Joan’s personal life with the fast-paced action of a catastrophe in space.”
Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E. Schwab (Tor, June 10): Fans of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (2020)—and they’re legion—have been waiting five years for Schwab’s next novel, and it doesn’t disappoint; once again we get history and magic and romance, but this time there are also queer vampires. Three women in three different centuries find that freedom may come with a set of fangs, and it’s a pleasure to follow each of their stories even before we find out how they intertwine. “Maria, Charlotte, and Alice are queer women searching for love, recognition, and wholeness…defying mortality in a world that would deny them their very existence,” according to our starred review.
The Art of Vanishing by Morgan Pager (Ballantine, July 1): Wouldn’t it be a trip to lounge around the colorful interior of a Matisse painting or picnic with Seurat’s park-goers? In Pager’s debut novel, Claire, a night-shift cleaner at a private museum, finds herself crossing over into the world of the paintings and falling in love with Matisse’s son, Jean, who lives in one of his father’s works. Our review says “the joy of this book is the world [Pager] has invented on the other side of the canvas, a kind of Phantom Tollbooth for grown-ups. Whimsical and beguiling.”
Laurie Muchnick is the fiction editor.
