Books To Read This Summer When It’s Hot Outside (2026)

When I stumbled across this upcoming book, I knew it would be the perfect summer read. Ruby is our main character, and when she makes an unexpected wish one night, she wakes up inside a M.A.S.H. game from seventh grade! Truly stunned, no one has thought of this before.

Now Ruby is living her childhood dream, except for one little problem: her happily-ever-after is supposed to be her brother’s annoying best friend, Penn. Sparks do not start flying when she encounters him in this dream world. Instead, things are the same as before, sarcasm and zero romance.

However, Ruby is desperate to get home, and she thinks the only way is by “completing” the game, and that means winning Penn’s heart. Odds she can do it without falling in love herself? 

This is all to say, The Missed Connections is at the top of my summer reading list, and I will be devouring it as soon as it hits the shelves.

The premise: Sasha is on her way to Paris for work when the Italian man of her dreams sits next to her on the plane. They hit it off but miss the chance to exchange contact information, sending Sasha on a hunt to find her would-be soulmate.

Enlisting a work friend to help, Sasha accidentally emails the entire company the predicament she’s in, causing employees worldwide to start looking for this stranger from the plane.

Enter the smoldering detective Sasha hires, and we’ve got a love triangle! This has everything I want from a top summer read: Paris, serendipitous meet-cutes, and a love that criss-crosses the ocean.

This book is technically the opposite of the book younger me loved, yet I can’t help but be enamored.

In The Book Witch, the FMC, Rainy, can jump into books and interact with the characters. I know! Talk about the ideal life. The only issue is that she can only stay there long enough to fix whatever has befallen the book, and then she has to leave. Personally, I don’t think I’d have the willpower! 

And, well, Rainy apparently has her moments, too, because she might be falling in love with a fictional detective, and she might have been warned that if she visits him again, she’ll be kicked out of her coven.

She’s doing her best, truly, but when her grandfather disappears, she doesn’t know who else to turn to but her fictional detective. As they race through classic books to find clues, what will happen to Rainy, the detective, and her grandfather? 

We all know Medusa, yes? The mythological woman with snakes on her head that turns you to stone if you look at them? Some say she’s a villain, some an icon.

Ayana Gray has a different take: what if, instead of a monster, Meddy was a young girl training as a priestess under Athena when she caught the eye of the wrong God? Poseidon sends her life into a tailspin, culminating in her being punished by having her locs turned into snakes for a crime she didn’t commit.

Left with nothing to do but pick up the pieces of her life and redefine herself, Meddy becomes a vigilante, writing her own ending to her story. Which, to me, is icon behavior. Her story may be heartbreaking in parts, but her righteous feminine rage is profoundly felt through the pages.

The customers at the bookstore I work at rave about this book, and I will definitely be taking time this summer to catch up. Truly, what’s better than an FMC who takes back her power and agency, and possibly takes out a few bad men along the way? 

Despite what this list may lead you to believe, I am not a horror girly. I will not go see the latest scary movie with you, nor will I read the latest cannibal thriller my coworkers rave about. However, I am very glad I took a chance on the genre and read the incredibly unsettling yet incredibly popular book by the masked Japanese author Uketsu.

It was a TikTok that really got me. I mean, the first two pages contain a floor plan of a house, then the unsettling question, “Do you see anything strange about it?” And yes, yes, I did. The author goes on to say, “Those off details pile up and link together to lead to one inescapable truth. A truth so terrifying, you won't want to believe it.” I have chills just reliving that! Clearly, Uketsu is a talented writer if a floor plan can give me the heebie jeebies.

I devoured this book in one sitting last summer and am looking forward to doing the same with the next book in the series, Strange Buildings, this summer. 

Though I wouldn’t recommend reading this before staying at someone else’s house. Just trust me on that. 

Not in Love is one of my all-time favorite Ali Hazelwood books, and I was so nervous for Problematic Summer Romance because I didn’t see how it could live up to its predecessor. I shouldn’t have doubted Queen Ali, though, because Maya and Conor’s journey was exquisite.

It says it all in the name, but it truly is a (problematic) summer romance that you will devour every last morsel of.

Maya is reintroduced to Conor while going through a (very) bad breakup in college, and he just so happens to save the day with a bit of fake dating. It’s been a few years, and many times, almost crossing that line, and now they’re stuck in Italy together for Maya’s brother and Conor’s best friend’s wedding.

With nothing to do but enjoy the hot Italian summer days (and possibly save the wedding from a “curse”), Maya and Conor might just have to finally confront all of the tangled feelings that exist between them and decide once and for all how they’re going to move forward.