You can never have too many books on your summer reading list – if you’re looking for my books, enter your email address below and I’ll send a printable list straight to your inbox!
Once the annual Summer Reading Guide is published, one of my favorite early summer traditions is making a list of the books I plan to read over the summer (previous list here, if you’re curious!)
I just took a peek at last year’s list and I read most of it (incl The Stolen Life of Colette Marceau which ends up in the 2026 Summer Reading Guide!).
One year, I didn’t read ANY books on my personal list!
But for me, it’s less about covering everything and more about giving my summer reading a good start, plus it helps me if I’m feeling unsure about what to pick up next!
Here are the 12 books on my personal summer reading list this year!
What I Plan to Read This Summer
Everything Can Be Described by Marie Forleo
If you’ve ever looked at a problem and thought, “Well, I have absolutely no idea how to fix it,” this might need to be on your summer reading list too. Marie Forleo combines practical advice with plenty of encouragement to help you achieve big goals, overcome setbacks, and start to believe that maybe – just maybe – things can be solved. I’m a big goal setter, so this book really caught my attention!
Relatives by Tayari Jones
This multigenerational Southern novel follows two best friends whose lives take very different paths after growing up together in small-town Louisiana. I’ve heard that this is a rich, character-based story about friendship, family, and the choices that shape life.
A Wedding at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck by Sophie Elmhert
This true story sounds so unbelievable! A husband and wife sell everything to sail around the world, only to find themselves stranded on a small life raft in the middle of the Pacific after a whale sinks their boat. The premise not only sounds interesting, but it’s already been on various bestseller lists and awards, so it’s bound to be good.
One of Us by Elizabeth Day
A powerful British family, a potential future prime minister, decades of betrayal, and enough secrets to topple them all? I have a feeling it will be full of family drama, political intrigue, and all sorts of page-turning scandals.
Take by Kelly Yang
I love everything Kelly Yang writes for middle grade readers, so I was very excited to see her debut adult novel. Aspiring writer Maggie feels trapped between her dreams of becoming a writer and the hopes of her Chinese immigrant parents, while successful film producer Ingrid worries she’s losing her relevance, career, and marriage. When an experimental treatment brings the two women together, what begins as a mutually beneficial partnership quickly turns into something far more complicated and unsettling.
Jane and Dan at World’s End by Colleen Oakley
Jane plans to ask her husband for a divorce during their anniversary dinner at a very expensive restaurant, but the evening changes when climate activists burst in and take the guests hostage. As chaos ensues, Jane realizes that the activists seem to be following the plot of her long-forgotten novel…a book almost no one has ever read.
Half a Life by Rachel Beanland
Twenty-three-year-old Eileen O’Malley falls for a charismatic naval officer and soon finds herself living on the sun-drenched Italian island of La Maddalena. As she navigates life among a close-knit community of Navy wives, Eileen (still mourning the loss of her brother in Vietnam) finds herself drawn to Italy because of its differences from her hometown.
The Burning Side by Sarah Damoff
After a devastating house fire, April and Leo move in with her family and are forced to confront the cracks in their marriage that existed long before the fire. Told through multiple perspectives and timelines, this emotional family drama explores love, loss, forgiveness, and what it takes to rebuild when everything seems broken.
Whistler by Ann Patchett
Because I love Tom Lake I really want to, I really want to try other books written by him. When an unexpected meeting at the Met reunites Daphne with the former stepfather who changed her life decades ago, long-buried memories and emotions resurface. This one looks like it could be another good one!
Leave and Return by Lavanya Lakshmi
I can’t have a summer reading list without a little fun and cute romance! When Simran returns home to attend her cousin’s lavish wedding in India, the last thing she expects is for her new boyfriend to accidentally ruin the celebration – think family drama and Bollywood matchmaking schemes, and what sounds like a very touching love story.
A Founding Mother by Laura Kaye and Stephanie Dray
As the 250th anniversary of the United States approaches this summer, I was looking for a historical novel that would bring the era to life, and this novel fit my bill perfectly. The film follows Abigail Adams—not only as the president’s wife, but also as an intelligent and influential woman—from the American Revolution through the early years of the nation’s founding.
Sparrow Shield by Devney Perry
This is one of the fantasy-romance books everywhere nowadays: the slow-paced, high-stakes story of Princess Odessa, whose life changes completely when she becomes engaged to Prince Zavier and is thrown into a world of ancient magic, monsters and menacing war. I’m not a huge fan of fantasy (or even a fan of romance), but I try to step out of my comfort zone and this one is a favorite in the fantasy community.
And this is what my team wants to read this summer!
Jennifer
Flags of Our Fathers by James Bradley
I really wanted to read something patriotic this summer in honor of America’s 250th birthday. I asked some friends (and of course Janssen) and he recommended a book they read for a book club over a decade ago. I love well-written nonfiction books and a book about the men who raised the American flag on Iwo Jima looks great. I even convinced some friends to read it with me and had a little book club afterward! Here’s the Janssen review if you want to check it out!
The Night We Met by Abby Jimenez
Abby Jimenez has become one of my favorite chic-lit authors. I’ve read most of his other books, so I was excited to read this new book coming out in March. I like that the writing is usually fun and fast-paced. I also love that the book characters have random connections to characters from other books. You don’t have to read them in any order, but it’s fun to draw connections from different books.
Kelsey
Lady Tremaine by Rachel Hochhauser
This one’s been in my library for weeks – I’m still about six weeks out, but I’ve heard great things, and honestly, the big line feels like a good sign. This is a Cinderella story told from the perspective of Lady Tremaine (the “evil” stepmother), which sounds really fun and different.
The Heir Apparent by Rebecca Armitage
I really like royalty/monarchy novels (American Royals is another favorite of mine!). Lexi Villiers is living happily in Australia and completing her medical residency when a tragic accident suddenly makes her next in line to the British throne. He is given a year to choose between his royal duties and the life (and love) he left behind. And this isn’t your current British monarchy either, told as an alternative British monarchy descended from the bloodline of the Villiers, the family of one of King Charles II’s famous mistresses.
analysis
The Stranger by Belle Burden
I listened to Belle on The Oprah Podcast and knew I wanted to read her memoir as soon as possible. This just became available to me and I can’t wait to dive into it. At the start of the pandemic, Belle, her husband and their two children went to Martha’s Vineyard to stay safe. And with one voice message, Belle’s life was never the same again.
PS I Hate You by Lauren Connolly
What would summer be without rom com books? After her brother’s death, Maddie is determined to fulfill his final wish of scattering his ashes in eight dream places—but she’s horrified to discover she’ll have to do it with Dominic, her brother’s best friend. Of course she and Dominic have history and it’s only natural that as they start spending time together, old feelings start to resurface. And I’m here for it! Can’t wait to dive into it.
And if you’d like a printable copy of this summer reading list that you can take to the library or a screenshot on your phone for easy access, just enter your email address below and it will go straight to your inbox!
If you liked this post about my summer reading list for 2026, you might also like these other posts:
PakarPBN
A Private Blog Network (PBN) is a collection of websites that are controlled by a single individual or organization and used primarily to build backlinks to a “money site” in order to influence its ranking in search engines such as Google. The core idea behind a PBN is based on the importance of backlinks in Google’s ranking algorithm. Since Google views backlinks as signals of authority and trust, some website owners attempt to artificially create these signals through a controlled network of sites.
In a typical PBN setup, the owner acquires expired or aged domains that already have existing authority, backlinks, and history. These domains are rebuilt with new content and hosted separately, often using different IP addresses, hosting providers, themes, and ownership details to make them appear unrelated. Within the content published on these sites, links are strategically placed that point to the main website the owner wants to rank higher. By doing this, the owner attempts to pass link equity (also known as “link juice”) from the PBN sites to the target website.
The purpose of a PBN is to give the impression that the target website is naturally earning links from multiple independent sources. If done effectively, this can temporarily improve keyword rankings, increase organic visibility, and drive more traffic from search results.
