If you’re looking for the perfect beach and poolside reads, look no further. Contemporary fiction fanatics are going to be busy from Memorial Day to Labor Day with these anticipated picks perfect to add to your TBR!

John of John by Douglas Stewart (5/5)

With little to no money and nothing to show for his art school education, John-Calum Macleod is on the ferry back home to the island of Harris. Returning home he is met by his father, John, a sheep farmer and preacher of the local Presbyterian church and his grandmother, Ella, the one who helped him the most when he lost his mother. While Cal wonders if the island has any other lonely men on it, his father is looking to save him. As the threads holding the community together threaten to snap, everything is about to change.

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The Burning Side by Sarah Damoff (5/19)

April, Leo, and their children barely escaped the fire that burned their house to the ground. Returning to April’s childhood home in Dallas, she is reunited with her parents and siblings. Dealing with the aftermath of the fire, the cracks in April and Leo’s marriage are exposed as the two deal with grief and memories of the beginning of their relationship. 

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Whistler by Ann Patchett (6/2)

When Daphne and her husband, Jonathan, visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art, they find themselves unexpectedly face-to-face with Eddie Triplett, Daphne’s former stepfather. Eddie and Daphne’s mother were married for a year when Daphne was nine. Now, at fifty-three, Daphnie revisits the fateful event that changed their lives forever.

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Pool House by Mary HK Choi (6/9)

While most people dream of all that Los Angeles has to offer, Stevie cannot wait to get away from LA and her mother. Moon is an out-of-work actress, recovering addict, a sometimes mistress, and a mother. Trying to process the grieve of her TV husband and lover’s death, she is not prepared for Stevie to leave her too. When the cost-of-living forces them to live in a pool house together so they can rent their house to pay bills, Adam arrives for the funeral. Adam is Moon’s former TV son and Stevie’s crush. As tensions rise, the three are forced into an orbit that could cause relationships to unravel. 

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Villa Coco by Andrew Sean Greer (6/9)

Determined to have a serious life after an undistinguished undergraduate career, an aspiring archivist finds himself the assistant to Coco, a ninety-two-year-old Baronessa. Coco is young at heart and flamboyant yet still has a lifestyle that’s quite the handful for the young man as he tries to catalog her villa’s art and antiques. As he begins an affair with a married man, the Baronessa loses someone close to her that catapults them into a plan to reunite her with the love of her life before it’s too late. 

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The Great Wherever by Shannon Sanders (7/7)

Aubrey Lam is thirty-two and still feels like she’s struggling being an adult. Grieving the end of a serious relationship and the loss of her father, Aubrey finds that she has inherited her father’s stake in a large Tennessee farm. Hoping to escape the city and a big pile of debt, Aubrey takes off to reunite with her family where she will learn the history of the land including the purchases by her great-grandfather, Thomas, who was one of the first Black landowners in his community. Four ghosts that are Aubrey’s ancestors are also quite curious about her watch as she arrives. As a potential sale of the farm approaches, the ghosts fear expulsion from their home and Aubrey is forced to confront what she wants for her future. 

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Country People by Daniel Mason (7/7)

Miles Krzelewski is a devoted husband and father with a truffle-hunting dog in a land with no truffles. Twelve years late with his PhD on Russian folktales, he fears he is a disappointment to his family. When his wife, Kate, accepts a visiting professorship at a prestigious college in the woods of Vermont, Miles thinks this will help drive him to be more successful. Shortly after arriving, Miles befriends a cast of characters just as wild as the characters in the folktales he tells his children as bedtime stories. When Miles stumbles upon a local urban legend, he begins to believe that this isn’t a legend at all. 

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Meet Me in the Garden by Nina LaCour (8/4)

In 1944 New Orleans, Odette is one of the Honore sisters who is admired in the Creole community. Odette’s older sisters are happy being wives and mothers while Odette has always wanted more. Confessing her love for another woman and desire to be an artist to her cousin, Delphine, Delphine has a confession of her own: she has a secret lover who is a white man. Five years later, Odette’s life is nothing like she and Delphine planned in the hidden garden they used to dream of their futures. She’s a widowed mother living in Los Angeles and has drifted apart from Delphine, who is passing as white. Now, she must make a choice that will keep her family together when Delphine reaches her breaking point. 

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