Looking for a book to get stuck into this summer? Here’s our pick

In Tell Me Everything (Viking), Elizabeth Strout’s 10th novel, some of her most beloved characters from earlier books finally cross paths. Small-town lawyer Bob Burgess is defending a man accused of murdering his own mother. Bob’s relationship with writer Lucy Barton teeters on a platonic precipice and Lucy forms a friendship with Olive Kitteridge, who lives in a retirement village on the edge of town. A beautifully told story about the extraordinary lives of ordinary people.

The Ledge (Affirm Press) by Christian White is a gripping crime novel that begins in a regional Victorian town in 1999, following four teenage boys and the concealment of a terrible crime. Almost 25 years later, human remains are discovered in a state forest, shocking locals and threatening to uncover long-held secrets. A fast-paced thriller that will keep you enthralled until the final jaw-dropping twist.

Margot, the title character in Margot’s Got Money Troubles (Sceptre) by Rufi Thorpe, is determined to have the baby conceived during an ill-advised affair with her college professor. A single mother at 19, broke and desperate to support her child, she starts an OnlyFans account to make ends meet and, with the help of her ex-pro wrestling father and some questionable new friends, soon becomes a social media sensation. Smart and funny, with a cast of endearing characters, this delightful book is set to be adapted into an Apple TV+ series starring Elle Fanning.

The much anticipated third instalment in The Elements quartet, Fire (Doubleday) is John Boyne’s most confronting yet. Exploring the premise of nature versus nurture, it follows Freya, whose seemingly perfect life as a successful surgeon hides a very dark past. But can a traumatic childhood excuse cruel and sinister adult behaviour? This is a deeply uncomfortable yet undeniably powerful read that has us eagerly awaiting the fourth and final book in the series, Air.

Set in Melbourne at the end of the pandemic, The Burrow (Text) by Melanie Cheng follows the Lee family – Jin, a doctor, his wife Amy, their 10-year-old daughter Lucie and Amy’s mother Pauline – as they deal with the aftermath of the tragic death of baby Ruby. Trying to find a way through their grief, a pet rabbit is brought into the home for Lucie, and with it comes a welcome distraction from inescapable loss, as well as a glimmer of hope.

Our Evenings (Picador) by Alan Hollinghurst is a beautifully told novel that follows actor Dave Win as he looks back over six decades of significant encounters and moments in his life. As a schoolboy, Dave visits the wealthy couple who sponsor his tuition at a prestigious school and is introduced to their son Giles, a bully who becomes a politician and who features throughout. Dave is a gay biracial man living in London who never knew his Burmese father, and the author deals deftly with racism and homophobia. However, it’s Dave’s close relationship with his mother that lies at the heart of this poignant story.

Set in Ireland in the lead-up to Christmas 1962, Time of the Child (Bloomsbury) by Niall Williams follows Doctor Jack Troy and his daughter Ronnie as they navigate life without matriarch Regina, who’s died, and the two younger sisters who fled the nest. Ronnie, who helps her father run the house and his surgery, learns that the boy she fancies is migrating to America. Her father, racked with guilt for vetoing their union, comes up with a hair-brained plan to ensure her happiness. A life-affirming story that’s heartbreaking and uplifting in equal measure.

Set in 1980s St Kilda, Theory & Practice (Text) by Michelle de Kretser is a genre-defying novel narrated by an unnamed young woman writing a thesis on the novels of Virginia Woolf. As she struggles to reconcile the racism she finds in Woolf’s dairies, the woman embarks on an affair with someone else’s partner, maintains a complicated relationship with her mother, and wrestles with jealousy, shame and desire.

Although a long-time Western Bulldogs supporter, Helen Garner was surprised by the fervour of her interest in her grandson Ambrose’s under 16s Aussie Rules team. In The Season (Text), she chronicles the ups and downs of the season and reflects on team spirit and her tender relationship with a boy on the cusp of adulthood. Her sharp observations and perfect prose are a joy.

Lisa Marie Presley’s unflinchingly honest memoir, From Here to the Great Unknown (Macmillan), finished by her daughter Riley Keough from tape recordings after her mother’s untimely death, is a fascinating read about a privileged life marred by tragedy. Leaving nothing off the record, from memories of her loving father Elvis at Graceland to her relationship with Michael Jackson and a spiralling opioid addiction, it’s at once a riveting warts-and-all celebrity memoir and a heart-wrenching plea for empathy and compassion.

In her brilliant memoir about overcoming an eating disorder, All I Ever Wanted Was to Be Hot (Pantera Press), Lucinda Price takes a deep dive into today’s beauty standards and the dangerous body image ideals over the past 30 years that shaped our obsession with “looking good”. Lucinda’s cultural commentary on everything from Playboy Bunnies to cosmetic surgery is funny and relatable, rendering this an eye-opening and thoroughly entertaining read.

Didion & Babitz (Atlantic) by Lili Anolik is a fabulous book that explores the rivalry between Joan Didion and Eve Babitz – two writers who famously chronicled Californian life in the 1960s and ’70s. Inspired by an unsent letter from Babitz to Didion, discovered after their deaths, a week apart, in 2021, Anolik delves into both their public and private lives, offering titillating titbits and powerful insights into the psyches of two very different women.

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