I’ve recently been put in charge of the women’s book club at the company I work for. Which is great. I get to spend hours looking at books online on the company’s dime, creating a list of books for the month for people to vote on. If you read my article about badass book heroines to read for Women’s History Month, this list was the result of another month’s book club list. Needless to say, I’m doing the work to find these books, and I can’t wait to share them with you all too.
Check out my 2023 summer book club picks below! To note, I know some of these are also on popular celebrity book club lists, and I absolutely saw that when I was browsing Amazon, and I give them that credit! However, these are still books from their lists that I think are great reads for the summer and would be interested in for a book club – and I certainly don’t agree with all their picks. Just not my taste (aka probably lacking romance)!
The Bookshop By the Bay – Pamela Kelley
Official Blurb
TWO LIFELONG FRIENDS.
Jess loves her work as a high-profile lawyer in Charleston. But when her marriage implodes, she retreats to her childhood home on Cape Cod with her thirty-year-old daughter, Caitlin, hoping to regroup with her longtime best friend, Alison…
The Summer of Broken Rules – K.L. Walther
Official Blurb
Meredith’s family’s annual game of assassin at Martha’s Vineyard during a summer wedding is the perfect chance to honor her sister’s legacy, and finally join the world again. But when she forms an alliance with a cute groomsman, she’s at risk of losing both the game … and her heart.
meet Me at the Lake – carley Fortune
Want my thoughts? Check out my spoiler-free review here!
Official Blurb
Fern Brookbanks has wasted far too much of her adult life thinking about Will Baxter. She spent just twenty-four hours in her early twenties with the aggravatingly attractive, idealistic artist, a chance encounter that spiraled into a daylong adventure in the city. The timing was wrong, but their connection was undeniable: they shared every secret, every dream, and made a pact to meet one year later. Fern showed up. Will didn’t.
At thirty-two, Fern’s life doesn’t look at all how she once imagined it would. Instead of living in the city, Fern’s back home, running her mother’s lakeside resort—something she vowed never to do. The place is in disarray, her ex-boyfriend’s the manager, and Fern doesn’t know where to begin.
That Summer Feeling – Bridget Morrissey
Official Blurb
When a divorced woman attends a sleepaway camp for adults, she reconnects with a man from her past—only to fall head over heels for his sister instead.
Garland Moore used to believe in magic, the power of optimism, and signs from the universe. Then her husband surprised her with divorce papers over Valentine’s Day dinner. Now Garland isn’t sure what to believe anymore, except that she’s clearly never meant to love again. When new friends invite her to spend a week at their reopened sleepaway camp, she and her sister decide it’s an opportunity to enjoy the kind of summer getaway they never had as kids. If Garland still believed in signs, this would sure seem like one. Summer camp is a chance to let go of her past and start fresh.
Romantic Comedy – Curtis Sittenfeld
Official Blurb
Sally Milz is a sketch writer for The Night Owls, a late-night live comedy show that airs every Saturday. With a couple of heartbreaks under her belt, she’s long abandoned the search for love, settling instead for the occasional hook-up, career success, and a close relationship with her stepfather to round out a satisfying life.
But when Sally’s friend and fellow writer Danny Horst begins dating Annabel, a glamorous actress who guest-hosted the show, he joins the not-so-exclusive group of talented but average-looking and even dorky men at the show—and in society at large—who’ve gotten romantically involved with incredibly beautiful and accomplished women. Sally channels her annoyance into a sketch called the Danny Horst Rule, poking fun at this phenomenon while underscoring how unlikely it is that the reverse would ever happen for a woman.
Pineapple Street – Jenny Jackson
Official Blurb
A deliciously funny, sharply observed debut of family, love, and class, this zeitgeisty novel follows three women in one wealthy Brooklyn clan
Darley, the eldest daughter in the well-connected old money Stockton family, followed her heart, trading her job and her inheritance for motherhood but giving up far too much in the process; Sasha, a middle-class New England girl, has married into the Brooklyn Heights family, and finds herself cast as the arriviste outsider; and Georgiana, the baby of the family, has fallen in love with someone she can’t have, and must decide what kind of person she wants to be.
Hello Beautiful – Ann Napolitano
Official Blurb
William Waters grew up in a house silenced by tragedy, where his parents could hardly bear to look at him, much less love him—so when he meets the spirited and ambitious Julia Padavano in his freshman year of college, it’s as if the world has lit up around him. With Julia comes her family, as she and her three sisters are inseparable: Sylvie, the family’s dreamer, is happiest with her nose in a book; Cecelia is a free-spirited artist; and Emeline patiently takes care of them all. With the Padavanos, William experiences a newfound contentment; every moment in their house is filled with loving chaos.
But then darkness from William’s past surfaces, jeopardizing not only Julia’s carefully orchestrated plans for their future, but the sisters’ unshakeable devotion to one another…
Let me know if you read any of these books or your book club chooses one for the summer – in the comments or over on Instagram! As always, if you liked this list of summer book club reads, I’d love for you to share this post!
