Summer books preview: A dozen hot books for the beach

Another dreamy summer awaits the beach reading contingent. Our 2026 list is literally one for the books. In addition to the standouts below, you might consider checking out this year's official Long Island Reads selection, "The Doorman," Chris Pavone's high-stakes thriller exploring class and privilege in New York City that critics are comparing to Tom Wolfe's "The Bonfire of the Vanities.' Thanks to its One Book-One Island anointment, you'll likely have to look no further than the next beach blanket down.

THE SUMMER IS FOUND YOU, by Jennifer O'Brien

Long Island-based home design influencer O'Brien makes her fiction debut with a second-chance romance featuring settings in Southold and on Shelter Island. Newly divorced Dahlia returns to the North Fork to sell her family’s crumbling beach house, enlisting the help of a neighbor Noah, who happens to be an HGTV-style renovation star. (Alcove Press, out now)

KEEPER OF MY KIN, by Ada Ferrer

In her debut memoir, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Ferrer tells an intimate family story that illuminates painful emotional truths about migration and separation. She was an infant when she and her mother left Cuba to join her father in New York; her 9-year-old brother, Poly, stayed behind. Filled with insight and love. (Scribner, out now)

THE FOURSOME, by Christina Baker Kline

Kline, a descendant of conjoined twins Chang and Eng, transforms their sensational biographies into historical fiction, adopting the perspective of one of the North Carolina sisters they married — and with whom they fathered 21 children. Her riveting account movingly highlights the quotidian experience of the Civil War. (Mariner, out now)

WHISTLER, by Ann Patchett

Visiting a museum, Daphne and husband, John, run into her long-lost stepfather. The delight of their reunion unfolds alongside memories of the accident that preceded his sudden disappearance from Daphne's life. As in "The Dutch House," "Commonwealth" and "Tom Lake," Patchett chronicles how families evolve with suspense, poignancy, wit and tenderness. (Harper, June 2)

THE FIRE AGENT, by David Baerwald

In 1900, German-Jewish linguist and musician Ernst Baerwald is recruited as a spy, working undercover at a chemical conglomerate. In Frankfurt, Milan and Tokyo — and over the course of two world wars — he battles organized crime, meets luminaries and loves two dazzling women. Based on the life of the author's grandfather, this is a Father's Day natural. (Spiegel and Grau, June 2)

ALAN OPTS OUT, by Courtney Maum

A high-flying ad man rejects consumerism and decamps to the backyard playhouse, shocking his family and prim Connecticut suburb. No one is more horrified than his status-conscious wife, angling to be accepted by an exclusive women’s club and busy planning for a swimming pool. A sharp comedy of manners about consumer values and authenticity. (Little Brown, June 2)

RASPUTIN SWIMS THE POTOMAC, by Ben Fountain

Ben Fountain’s near-future political satire imagines a redacted but obvious president angling for a third term amid a tsunami of mass public weeping. Through Clarence, a wry journalist; Faith, a young communications aide; and Rasputin, a wrestler turned running mate, the novel skewers reality TV, politics and the media. (Macmillan, June 9)

ONE DAY IN SEPTEMBER: Baseball, Brotherhood, and the Birth of the All-Star Game, by Scott Reich

In 1917 at Boston's Fenway Park, Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb and a handpicked roster of legends staged a benefit for sportswriting legend Tim Murnane. The precursor to the All-Star Game, it reinvented baseball as a civic ritual, uniting thousands in shared grief, generosity and public responsibility — Communion as much as competition for all. (Compass Rose, July)

GET LOST, Justin Halpern

"Abbott Elementary" co-showrunner Justin Halpern’s debut novel is a fast-paced, darkly funny thriller about a young woman who reluctantly teams up with her estranged, deadbeat father to search for her missing mother. Their cross-country investigation uncovers buried grudges, family secrets and unexpected tenderness. (Cardinal, July 7)

HOT GIRL MURDER CLUB, by Ashley Winstead

In Los Angeles, detective Grey Holloway — whose side hustle is bottle service at a nightclub — investigates a celebrity-adjacent murder that features a lyric by songwriter Scout Sage written in blood. As more bodies surface, Scout’s underground network, the Ladies of the Dark, swings into action. Watch out, predators and fat cats! (Minotaur, July 14)

COOL MACHINE, by Colson Whitehead

In 1980s New York City, Ray Carney and his crony Pepper continue to pull off their hair-raising schemes on the streets of Harlem. The final book of Whitehead's trilogy probes race, power, family and a corrupt city where skyscrapers soar and truth lurks below the surface. Critics are calling it the best New York City novel in years. (Doubleday, July 21)

THE AMATEUR, by Chris Bohjalian

Bohjalian’s 26th novel reimagines Vladimir Nabokov's "Lolita" as a memoir by Mira Winston, erstwhile teen golf prodigy. Decades after her 1978 practice drive kills caddy Kenny Foster and exposes her affair with a much older man, Mira recounts the relationship, fatal accident and ensuing public disgrace as she ruefully understands it now. (Doubleday, Aug. 4)