The Best New Books Coming Out Summer 2018

By Caroline Rogers
April 13, 2018
Each product we feature has been independently selected and reviewed by our editorial team. If you make a purchase using the links included, we may earn commission.
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It’s shaping up to be another great summer for books, which is why the number one item on our spring cleaning to-do list is—you guessed it—clearing space on our bookshelves. Our bookmarks are at the ready in anticipation of a whole host of exciting summer releases. There are new books from Lauren Groff, Rachel Cusk, Ottessa Moshfegh, Kevin Wilson, and Anne Tyler on the horizon, as well as highly anticipated debut novels from Tommy Orange and R.O. Kwon preparing to hit bookstores in June, July, and August. There are plenty of new releases slated for summer that you just can’t miss ( Sweet & Low: Stories by Nick White, The Third Hotel by Laura van den Berg, and The Incendiaries by R.O. Kwon among them), and we’re expanding our reading lists accordingly.Looking for books set in the South? Check out Florida by Lauren Groff, Treeborne by Caleb Johnson, and The New Inheritors by Kent Wascom. Excited to dive into some compelling new short stories? Pick up Baby, You’re Gonna Be Mine: Stories by Kevin Wilson and Certain American States: Stories by Catherine Lacey. Whether you’re reading on the porch, in the park, or by the sea (or in an air-conditioned coffee shop while seeking respite from the summer heat), we have plenty of summer book recs for you. Also, if you’re looking for new spring releases and beach reads, we have you covered there too.
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Florida by Lauren Groff

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This highly anticipated collection of short stories from Lauren Groff—whose previous work includes the novels Fates and Furies, The Monsters of Templeton, and Arcadia and the story collection Delicate Edible Birds—delves into the state of Florida and assembles a cast of characters as memorable as they are well wrought. (June 5)

To buy: $27, amazon.com; indiebound.org

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Half Gods by Akil Kumarasamy

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Ten connected stories form Half Gods, the beautiful debut collection from Akil Kumarasamy that explores the depths that exist within and between people—brothers, families, strangers, friends, refugees—in changing landscapes across the world. (June 5)

To buy: $25, amazon.com; indiebound.org

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In the Distance with You by Carla Guelfenbein

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This novel by Chilean writer Carla Guelfenbein probes the mysteries of the life of an enigmatic novelist named Vera Sigall and the curiosity she sparks in the people around her, including a student, a poet, and a neighbor. (June 5)

To buy: $17.95, amazon.com; indiebound.org

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Kudos by Rachel Cusk

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The final installation in Rachel Cusk’s Outline trilogy, which also includes the novels Outline and Transit, focuses on a writer, Faye, who finds herself in Europe recalibrating the ways she understands the people she encounters in the world around her. (June 5)

To buy: $26, amazon.com; indiebound.org

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Rough Animals by Rae DelBianco

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In this haunting new novel by Rae DelBianco, a child with a gun interrupts the lives of twins Wyatt and Lucy at their ranch in Utah, prompting Wyatt to set out on a harrowing journey across both interior and exterior landscapes—both of which prove equally complex to navigate. (June 5)

To buy: $24.99, amazon.com; indiebound.org

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Southernmost by Silas House

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The latest novel from Silas House explores the relationship between a father and his son as they flee to Key West, leaving behind the life they’ve known and, along the way, grappling with hard-won new understandings of family, tolerance, and love. (June 5)

To buy: $26.95, amazon.com; indiebound.org

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Sweet & Low: Stories by Nick White

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The alchemy in this collection is anything but ordinary. These fantastic short stories from Nick White introduce surprising, memorable, and ultimately human characters whose journeys play out on familiar Southern landscapes and in White’s thrillingly executed prose. (June 5)

To buy: $25, amazon.com; indiebound.org

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Treeborne by Caleb Johnson

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Elberta, Alabama—its people, its past, and its uncertain future—is the focus of Treeborne, a story about complicated legacies and the people who bring to life the places we call home. (June 5)

To buy: $25.48, amazon.com; indiebound.org

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There There by Tommy Orange

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When Marlon James says that a book “drops on us like a thunderclap; the big, booming, explosive sound of 21st century literature finally announcing itself,” you know you have something to look forward to. This is Tommy Orange’s stunning debut novel, a powerful story about twelve characters assembling at the Big Oakland Powwow seeking tradition and grappling with their histories. (June 5)

To buy: $25.95, amazon.com; indiebound.org

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Upstate by James Wood

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A family—a professor and his two daughters—reunite in upstate New York and, over the course of a week, struggle with the pain of their past while asking essential questions about their present. (June 5)

To buy: $26, amazon.com; indiebound.org

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Visible Empire by Hannah Pittard

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A disaster has deep effects on the city of Atlanta, its citizens, and the progression of the Civil Rights movement in this novel based on the aftermath of a true event, the 1962 Air France Flight 007 crash of the Chateau de Sully. (June 5)

To buy: $25, amazon.com; indiebound.org

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The Shades by Evgenia Citkowitz

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If you’re looking for a mystery to keep you on the edge of your seat, add this electrifying new novel by Evgenia Citkowitz to your reading list. In it, an unexpected visitor interrupts the grief-stricken aftermath of a family tragedy. (June 19)

To buy: $25.95, amazon.com; indiebound.org

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We Begin Our Ascent by Joe Mungo Reed

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Joe Mungo Reed explores ambition, family drama, and the unknowability of the future in his first novel, a story about a professional cyclist and a geneticist, also a married couple, whose lives begin to change as their dreams for the future begin to warp. (June 19)

To buy: $26, amazon.com; indiebound.org

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The World Is a Narrow Bridge by Aaron Thier

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Take to the open road alongside Murphy and Eva, a couple from Miami whose journey is soon sidetracked by the incomprehensibility of the world—and a visitation from a figure from the Old Testament, who sends them into ever more absurd, funny, and poignant scenarios in their trip across the country. (July 3)

To buy: $26, amazon.com; indiebound.org

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The New Inheritors by Kent Wascom

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Partly set on the Gulf Coast in the early 1900s, Kent Wascom’s poetic and grounded new book—one in a series of connected novels including The Blood of Heaven and Secessia—tells the story of the Woolsack family, its rivalries, its fractures, and its tumult amid the tides of storms and war. (July 10)

To buy: $26, amazon.com; indiebound.org

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Clock Dance by Anne Tyler

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In this new novel from Anne Tyler, central character Willa Drake’s life takes an unexpected turn. After playing many roles defined by the choices of others, she agrees to take care of her son’s injured ex-girlfriend and, in the process, becomes part of a new community and begins to re-write her future. (July 10)

To buy: $26.95, amazon.com; indiebound.org

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My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh

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What if you could check out of your life for months at a time? A young woman tries to do just that by literally hibernating through her days in early 2000s New York City in Ottessa Moshfegh’s propulsive and altogether uncategorizable new novel. (July 10)

To buy: $26, amazon.com; indiebound.org

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The Last Cruise by Kate Christensen

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A retro-style cruise aboard the 1950s ocean liner Queen Isabella doesn’t go according to plan in this novel of adventure, crisis, and the powerful grip of history. (July 10)

To buy: $26.95, amazon.com; indiebound.org

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What We Were Promised by Lucy Tan

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This book introduces readers to the Zhen family—Wei, Lina, and Karen—who move back to Shanghai from the U.S. and find that a whole world of long-quiet anxieties reemerges in their lives amid the changed and changing city. (July 10)

To buy: $26, amazon.com; indiebound.org

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From a Low and Quiet Sea by Donal Ryan

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Three men—Farouk, Lampy, and John—and their lives in a small Irish town are at the heart of this affecting new novel by Irish writer Donal Ryan, whose 2012 novel The Spinning Heart was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. (July 17)

To buy: $16, amazon.com, indiebound.org

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America for Beginners by Leah Franqui

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Leah Franqui’s debut novel follows Pival Sengupta, a widow traveling from India to the U.S. with the First Class India USA Destination Vacation Tour Company, as she sets her sights on California. While she hopes to find her son at the end of the trip, it’s the journey that brings her and her two traveling companions new understanding of themselves and of America. (July 24)

To buy: $26.99, amazon.com; indiebound.org

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Fruit of the Drunken Tree by Ingrid Rojas Contreras

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Set in Bogotá, Colombia, amid permeating violence and with Pablo Escobar at large, this novel tells a story about two young women—Chula, a daughter of a privileged family, and Petrona, the family’s maid—and the connections, betrayals, and difficult choices the two must make as they grow up. (July 31)

To buy: $26.95, amazon.com; indiebound.org

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The Incendiaries by R.O. Kwon

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When Phoebe Lin and Will Kendall meet at Edwards University, they are soon gripped by the thrall of a mysterious cult. While Phoebe disappears into the cult’s extremism, Will resists and soon sets out to find her—and the truth behind a crime he can’t believe she's committed. If you only read one book this summer, make it this complex and searing debut novel by R.O. Kwon. (July 31)

To buy: $26, amazon.com; indiebound.org

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Baby, You’re Gonna Be Mine: Stories by Kevin Wilson

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Prepare to be captivated by Kevin Wilson’s latest collection of short stories. The author of the collection Tunneling to the Center of the Earth and the novels The Family Fang and Perfect Little World is back with stories that make the strange all at once funny, fractious, and familiar. (August 7)

To buy: $26.99, amazon.com; indiebound.org

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Certain American States: Stories by Catherine Lacey

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This quietly poignant and utterly moving collection of short stories—about characters seeking, struggling, and attempting to come to terms with the world around them—is forthcoming from the author of the novels The Answers and Nobody Is Ever Missing. (August 7)

To buy: $26, amazon.com; indiebound.org

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The Distance Home by Paula Saunders

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Two siblings are at the heart of this vividly imagined debut novel by Paula Saunders. It’s a story set in rural South Dakota in the 1960s, and it probes questions of family, ambition, and belonging in America. (August 7)

To buy: $27, amazon.com; indiebound.org

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The Third Hotel by Laura van den Berg

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On a visit to Havana, Cuba, a woman named Clare glimpses her supposedly dead husband and embarks on a journey through the city—following him, revisiting her past, and encountering metaphysical mystery along the way—in this otherworldly and unputdownable new novel. (August 7)

To buy: $25, amazon.com; indiebound.org

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A River of Stars by Vanessa Hua

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Vanessa Hua’s debut novel—a story about immigration and motherhood and adventure—follows an expectant mother named Scarlett Chen from China to Los Angeles, where she has been sent to give birth, and from whence she flees, embarking on a journey toward a future of her own making. (August 14)

To buy: $27, amazon.com; indiebound.org

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Severance by Ling Ma

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When a fever spreads across New York, Candace Chen finds herself unaffected, left in the deserted city, and blogging about what she sees. She soon encounters a group of survivors who promise to rescue her but perhaps have other plans in this sharp satire about habits, belonging, and the rhythm of modern life. (August 14)

To buy: $26, amazon.com; indiebound.org

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French Exit by Patrick DeWitt

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When the threat of ruin looms, an Upper East Side widow and her adult son flee to Paris and along the way encounter an unforgettably curious cast of characters in this darkly comic novel of manners by Patrick DeWitt. (August 28)

To buy: $25.99, amazon.com; indiebound.org

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