The Only Summer Reading List You Need

​Looking for the perfect poolside page-turners? Flip through the gallery for Bookazine’s Marketing Director, Clemence Robine’s top recommendations.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child – Parts I & II (Special Rehearsal Edition): The Official Script Book of the Original West End Production by J.K. Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany

If like me, you’re a Harry Potter fan, then you can’t wait to get your hands on the eighth story out on July 31! In the most awaited book of summer, Harry is older now, a husband and father of three school-age children and an overworked employee of the Ministry of Magic. While Harry grapples with a past that refuses to stay where it belongs, his youngest son Albus struggles with the weight of a family legacy he never wanted. As past and present fuse ominously, both father and son learn the uncomfortable truth: sometimes, darkness comes from unexpected places. The Cursed Child is also the first official Harry Potter story to be presented on stage and will be released on the same day as the play.  Not to miss a chance to have a party, we are celebrating the worldwide release with a Harry Potter Dawn Release Party on July 31 from 7:01am to 10am, at the Bookazine store in Prince’s Building, Central.

After You by Jojo Moyes

Let’s hope we won’t be going through yet another box of tissues in this sequel to Me Before You, the international bestseller and number one film starring the Dragon Queen herself, Emilia Clarke and Sam Claflin. After You begins where the last story ends. Lou Clark has lots of questions. Like how it is she’s ended up working in an airport bar, spending every shift watching other people jet off to new places. Or why the flat she’s owned for a year still doesn’t feel like home. What Lou does know for certain is that something has to change. Then, one night, a stranger arrives on Lou’s doorsteps seemingly with the answers she’s searching for. Read the book to find out more!

Modern Lovers by Emma Straub

By the talented author Emma Straub, who also wrote The Vacationers, this entertaining novel explores the challenges we face in adulthood and the compromises we make in marriage and parenthood. It’s about a tight-knit group of friends from college and bandmates Elizabeth, Andrew and Zoe who are now in their late forties and watching their kids grow up. Back in their heyday, Elizabeth put on a snarl over her Midwestern smile, Andrew let his unwashed hair grow past his chin, and Zoe was the lesbian all the straight women wanted to sleep with. Now they all live within shouting distance in the same neighborhood deep in gentrified Brooklyn, and the trappings of the adult world seem to have arrived with ease. But the summer that their children reach maturity (and start sleeping together), the fabric of the adult lives suddenly begins to unravel, and the secrets and revelations that are finally let loose—about themselves, and about the famous fourth band member who soared and fell without them—can never be reclaimed.

The Royal We by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan

Well I admit, I love chick lit! Will and Kate’s royal romance serves as the inspiration for the first adult novel by the duo Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan. I’ll read this one on the beach!

The protagonist, Rebecca Porter was never one for fairy-tales. But when she heads to Oxford and finds herself living down the hall from Prince Nicholas, Great Britain’s future king, she finds herself falling for him, propelling herself into a world she did not expect to inhabit, under a spotlight she is not prepared to face. Dating Nick immerses Bex in ritzy society, dazzling ski trips, and dinners at Kensington Palace with him and his charming, troublesome brother Freddie. But the relationship also comes with unimaginable baggage: hysterical tabloids, Nick’s sparkling and far more suitable ex-girlfriends, and a royal family whose private life is much thornier and more tragic than anyone on the outside knows. Pressure mounts as Bex struggles to reconcile the man she loves with the monarch he’s fated to become. Now, on the eve of the wedding of the century, Bex is faced with whether everything she’s sacrificed for love — her career, her home, her family, maybe even herself – will have been for nothing.

The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena (Out in July)

Not sure parents will dare read this one! Kidnapping is our worst nightmare… but if you are brave enough to pick it up I’m sure you’ll be glued to this thriller. When Anne’s neighbour told her that she didn’t want her six-month-old daughter to come to her dinner party, her husband assured her it would be fine. After all, they only lived next door. Anne and Marco would have the baby monitor and they could take it in turns to go back every half hour. Anne’s daughter was sleeping when she checked on her last. But now, Anne and Marco are racing up the stairs in their deathly quiet house, their worst fears are realized. She’s gone. Suddenly the police are in their home and who knows what they’ll find there. What would you be capable of, when pushed past your limit?

The Good Liar by Nicholas Searle 

The Good Liar will be available in paperback in July which is the perfect format to read this menacing, psychological thriller with a twist in the ending you won’t see coming.

Roy is a conman living in a leafy English suburb, aiming for the last big payday of his life. He is going to woo Betty, a beautiful wealthy widow he has met online. In no time at all, he’s moved into Betty’s lovely cottage and is preparing to accompany her on a romantic trip to Europe. Betty’s grandson disapproves of their blossoming relationship, but Roy is sure this scheme will be a success. He knows what he’s doing. But who is this man who has lied all his life? And why is this beautiful woman so willing to be his next victim? As this remarkable feat of storytelling weaves together Roy’s and Betty’s futures, it also unwinds their pasts. 

The Games by James Patterson and Mark Sullivan

Get in the mood for the Olympics with this action-packed thriller by the world’s most prolific author, James Patterson.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil is about to host one of the biggest spectacles in sports- the Olympics. To ensure that the games go off without a hitch, the organizers turn to Jack Morgan, the unflappable head of a renowned international security and consulting firm, who was in Rio consulting on security for the World Cup two years ago. It’s not long before he uncovers terrifying evidence that someone has set in motion a catastrophic plan. The Olympic Games could be the setting for the worst atrocity the world has ever seen.

Seven Brief Lessons On Physics by Carlo Rovelli

If you want to sound like the smartest person at your next dinner party then this is the book for you. Like the title suggests, this international bestseller reveals everything you need to know about modern physics, the universe and our place in the world in seven short and enlightening lessons. Carlo Rovelli guide us, with simplicity and clarity, through the scientific revolution that shook physics in the twentieth century and still continues to shake us today. In this mind-bending introduction to modern physics, you will get a better understanding of Einstein’s theory of general relativity, quantum mechanics, black holes, the complex architecture of the universe, elementary particles, gravity, and the nature of the mind.

The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between by Hisham Matar (Out in July)

A truly remarkable and breath-taking memoir in which the author narrates his return to Libya in search of his father or at least to find out the truth behind his disappearance.

When Hisham Matar was a nineteen-year-old university student in England, his father was kidnapped. One of the Qaddafi regime’s most prominent opponents in exile, he was held in a secret prison in Libya. Hisham would never see him again. But he never gave up hope that his father might still be alive. “Hope,” as he writes, “is cunning and persistent.” Twenty-two years later, after the fall of Qaddafi, the prison cells are empty and there is no sign of Jaballa Matar. Hisham returns with his mother and wife to the homeland he never thought he’d go back to again.