The Best Beach Reads to Sink Into in Summer 2024

A delightful rom-com with a wickedly funny and original angle, Just Some Stupid Love Story is about a rom-com screenwriter who doesn’t believe in love, and a divorce attorney who desperately does. Molly Marks, Hollywood screenwriter, has only fallen in love one time: in high school, with her boyfriend Seth…who she consequently ghosted on the night of graduation and hasn’t spoken to in 15 years. 

Seth, a divorce attorney, ironically believes in true love and every cliche thing that comes with it. He knows his soulmate is out there, but so far, no one has compared to his first heartbreak, Molly. So is it fate that when Molly’s friends drag her to their 15th highschool reunion, Molly is forced to sit with Seth? 

Post-drunken-hookup, the two make a bet: whoever can predict the fate of five couples before the next reunion must declare that the other’s opinion about true love is correct. And the best part? The fifth couple is the two of them.

Olivia Nkomo has always known what she wants, and has been more than capable of going after it. Now a university graduate, she’s going after her dream job at the Summer Games, beginning with her internship at the center of the action. 

Ezekiel “Zeke” Moyo, is similarly ambitious, working to claim his title as the fastest man in the world. Even though his recent breakup with gymnast Valentina Ross-Rodriguez is all over the headlines, he’s in the zone. 

Sparks immediately fly when Zeke and Olivia (literally) collide on the first day of training, and they continue to grow closer. But when Zeke’s uncomfortable past comes back to haunt him, and Olivia’s internship doesn’t turn out to be what she hoped, they may not be able to achieve their dreams without losing each other. 

When Phoebe Stone arrives at Newport, Rhode Island’s beautiful Cornwall Inn, her grand arrival instantly has her mistaken as one of the wedding guests. But Phoebe is perhaps the only person at Cornwall this weekend who is not attending the wedding being hosted there. 

She’s dreamed of visiting there for years, except, in her dreams she was with her husband, shucking oysters and taking sunset cruises, and in reality she’s at rock bottom and alone, looking for one last unrestrained splurge on herself. Simultaneously, the bride at Cornwall has accounted for every possible fumble the weekend may endure, except for Phoebe–which is why it’s so surprising when the women can’t stop confiding in each other. 

With a faint Outer Banks feel, Summers at the Saint is an intriguing mystery-romance set at the St. Cecelia hotel, on the coast of Georgia. Everyone calls St. Cecelia “The Saint” because those who grew up visiting were “saints” and those who grew up on the wrong side of the river were “Ain’ts.” 

Traci Eddings, certified “Ain’t,” never had the money to vacation there. But she could work there, and she ended up marrying the boss’s son one summer. Now the widowed owner of the hotel, she’s determined to leap the hurdles of financial struggle, staff shortages, and a brother-in-law who wants to see her fail, so that she can return the hotel to its former glory. 

With an unreliable crew of summer help, new information of a previous drowning at the hotel swirling, and a potential new romance standing in the way, Traci has one summer to turn it around. 

It only takes a single one-night stand with her clingy ex to tell Aaliyah James that if she wants a real relationship, she’s got to move on. But when her family reminds her that time is running out, as she’s almost thirty, God forbid, and they imply that her large…personality might be too much to land a man, Aaliyah is pissed. 

She lets them know that her (nonexistent) man LOVES her curves, as a matter of fact. And now she has just seven weeks to find the perfect boyfriend to show off at her big, fancy birthday celebration she’s been planning. 

She attends a blind date, which goes horribly wrong, and is consoled by charming local bartender Ahmad Williamson, who recommends a dating app. Though she takes him up on the advice, she can’t stop thinking about their witty banter…perhaps her real love has been right under her nose all along. 

Renee Goh had the perfect life: she’s thirty, beautiful, the owner of a glamorous and profitable women’s clothing company in London, and the girlfriend of a gorgeous Taiwanese pop star. But she’s lonely–estranged from her family in Singapore, she’s turned into a workaholic, and her supposed boyfriend just dumped her. 

Just as she goes to mourn her losses with a pint of Ben and Jerry’s, her father calls: he’s retiring, and as he can’t trust her brothers to run the family business, he’s considering her for the CEO role. She’s desperate for her father’s approval, but can she learn to cooperate with the brothers who drove her out of Singapore? 

And then, to make matters more complicated, she runs into her first love, Yap Ket Siong, the very same night. They spend a wonderful night together, but Ket Siong is wandering down a dangerous path. Though he’s doing it for his family, Renee isn’t sure if there could ever be a future for them. 

The day her husband was buried was the day the first letter arrived from the state penitentiary, and it read: I’ll wait forever if I have to. It was signed by Dante, a man she didn’t know, and out of pure curiosity, she wrote a return letter asking exactly what he was waiting for. His reply contained one word: You. 

She told the mystery man that he had the wrong girl, that they’d never met. But he said he didn’t, and that she was wrong. They continued to exchange letters weekly, growing more intimate as the weeks went on. But one day, the letters stopped coming. And Dante was on her doorstep. Nothing could have prepared her for what happened next. 

An L.A. crime thriller featuring unbridled female rage, Sing Her Down introduces us to Florence “Florida” Baum, who is not nearly as innocent as she makes herself out to be upon arriving at the Arizona women’s prison. Diosmary Sandoval, her ex-cellmate, knows the truth though. 

She not only knows Florida’s crimes, but she also knows the details that Florida hides even from herself; that she was not an unlucky bystander misled by a bad man. Dios knows that women can be criminals too, even if society refuses to believe it, and she’s determined to open Florida’s eyes and discover her true self. But when both women unexpectedly gain their freedom, Dios’ obsession with Florida becomes dangerous, and a deadly game of cat and mouse takes them from Arizona to L.A.

Annie never believed in love–until she met Mark, that is. They meet originally while crossing paths on morning commutes and then connect unexpectedly at a group counseling session for trauma survivors. 

They embark on a whirlwind romance after that which peaks on their wedding day. It was a day Annie never saw coming for herself but yet a day she couldn’t feel more sure of. But then she spotted a stranger in the crowd while standing at the altar, and suddenly her happily ever after is in jeopardy. 

Who is this stranger? What really happened to Mark’s first wife? And were Annie and Mark “meant to meet” or was their meeting sinisterly set up by outside forces? 

Emlyn doesn’t let herself think about the past…because if she does, she’ll just think about how she and her best friend Janessa hardly speak anymore. Or how Tyler, the love of her life, left on the roadside for dead three years ago. 

Her new life is just fine; she lives alone in her Airstream trailer in Idaho, working as a hunting and fishing guide. The community’s closest thing to a reverend and a handsome Forest Service ranger who took her in at rock bottom are her only friends, and that’s all she needs. 

But then Tyler shows up with the news that Janessa is missing, and all the memories Emlyn tries to avoid come rushing back. Janessa has reached new status as a #vanlife social media star, but when Emlyn realizes her latest post doesn’t match its caption, she reluctantly joins forces with Tyler to find her. As the two journey into the wilderness, Emlyn can’t deny the sparks still flying between them…but she also can’t shake the feeling that there are dark things at play in these woods, and that Janessa may not be the only one in danger.