Summer reading, so nothing too depressing this week

Summer has descended upon us, though not so much as you’d notice, and some people will take time off to escape to a real summer on foreign shores, while others might opt to stay at home with the fire lit.

But whatever the location, the summer break calls for a book or two, but nothing too depressing, the weather is disheartening enough. Here is the cream of the crop of summer holiday/ beach reads published this year. There are 14, that’s one for every day of a fortnight’s holiday!

Somebody Knows by Michelle McDonagh (Hachette) opens with a garda appeal from December 1990, for information on a missing woman. Fast forward to now and journalist Cara Joyce, who’s always known she was adopted, overhears something she shouldn’t as her adoptive mother lies dying. A heart-stopping thriller.

Richard Madeley’s Father’s Day (Simon and Schuster) ties the 21st century with the Roman Empire with the discovery of a modern-day crucifixion performed upside-down, like St Peter. Unlike St Peter, the victim was a nasty piece of work. A tense story about taking the law into your own hands.

I Hope This Finds You Well by Natalie Sue (Borough Press) is an inventive yarn where an IT cockup in the office allows the lonely, friendless Jolene access to her colleagues’ private emails and messages. Realising she’s not the only employee with personal problems changes her perspective on her fellow workers. A perfect uplit story for the sun lounger.

While on your holiday, you could read Our Holiday by Louise Candlish (HQ). Pine Ridge in Dorset is where Charlotte and Perry intend to spend summer in their holiday home, but the Dorset locals have turned against people owning second homes in their village, and decide to embark on a campaign to air their grievances. And things go from bad to terrifying in jig time.

It’s off to Ponza in Catherine Mangan’s The Italian Holiday (Sphere), where rookie travel writer Katie is sent to report on the pros and cons of holidaying there, taking her friend Farrah along. Farrah has an accident on the island, forcing Katie to stay in Italy for an unscheduled month before she can return home. Sparks fly, with both her boss and her boyfriend, and then she meets local chef, Nico. Need I say more?

In Andrea Mara’s Someone in the Attic (Bantam Press), Anya is taking a bath when she sees someone alight from her attic trapdoor. Thirty seconds later, she’s dead. Now her friend Julia sees a video online, of someone alighting from another attic trapdoor – Julia’s! The one in her own house. But why has she and Anya been targeted? And who’s behind it? Riveting stuff from one of our thriller queens.

Amy Ewing’s Worth a Shot (Eriu) has New York photographer Cordelia James take a holiday job on Inishmore, to escape her sorrows back home in the US. On the island, she meets chef Niall O’Connor and there’s a bumpy, potholed road ahead for them both.

Lucy Foley is one of the hottest thriller writers around and The Midnight Feast (Harper Collins) won’t disappoint. The Manor is a luxury hotel on the Dorset coast, opening its doors on Midsummer night with a gala party and sparkling guest list. But the morning after, one of the guests is found dead in the grounds. Is it natural causes or revenge from the spirit world for encroaching on their ancient woodland?

Santa Montefiore’s Shadows in the Moonlight (Orion) sees psychic Pixie Tate and her colleague travel to a renovated Elizabethan house in Cornwall, where there are strange goings-on after dark. The house has been exorcised but to no avail, and Pixie is the owner’s last hope.

Michelle Teahan’s Knock Knock (Headline) has a new couple move into the luxurious Cowerworth development in Cork, all manured lawns and adjacent woodland. The young couple, Marcus and Gina, seem perfect. But Marcus is far from perfect. Marcus is, in fact, a psycho.

The Winner by CJ Parsons (HQ) is a chilling take on social media in which Heather wins a place in the rather odd Triple-F Lottery, promising Fame, Fortune and Followers to 12 ‘lucky’ winners. But there’s a catch. And Heather discovers, a bit late in the day, that previous winners have found themselves in bad situations. She becomes very afraid, and not without reason.

In RB Egan’s One Perfect Stranger (Hodder and Stoughton), Nicole gets a strange message. There’s €1 million in her bank account and to access it, all she has to do is drive a car, yes or no? Her doctor husband Mark left his job in the local hospital six months beforehand and they’re out of money, with two small kids to rear. Should she say yes? A fine and tense debut thriller.

Karin Slaughter’s This is Why we Lied (Harper Collins) is the author’s 12th book in her Will Trent crime series. Here, Will and partner Sara are on honeymoon in Georgia in a hideaway resort run by the McAlpine family, a clan with lots of secrets. There’s a murder, naturally, but the who and why of it is Trent’s and Sara’s challenge as the holiday of a lifetime becomes a race against time.

Sinéad Moriarty’s Good Sisters (Penguin Sandycove) sees the return of the Devlin sisters, Louise, Julie and Sophie. Now that their mother has passed away, they need each other more than ever, as each sister struggles with their own respective families and work issues. An exploration of modern family life, this is vintage Moriarty.

Footnotes

Galway International Arts Festival runs from July 15 to 28 and yes, they’re always having arts festivals in Galway but this is the big one, with Irish and international theatre, opera, circus and visual arts. And anyway, who wouldn’t want to hang out in a city with permanent arts festivals? Full programme on giaf.ie.

Emo in County Laois is where Forestfest takes place, with plenty of gigs plus family entertainment, circus and street theatre, drumming workshops, street food, craft beers, a cocktail bar and a funfair. From July 19 to 21 see forestfest.ie for details.