I read 2026's most exciting new books — here are the best ones for your summer reading list
Denise O’Donoghue gives you her picks for the best summer holiday books. Picture: Noel Sweeney
All that is to say – a book is the number one accessory to have in your analogue bag (yes, that’s a trend too) this summer.
As a lifelong lover of books, I always keep a novel to hand, be it physical, digital, or audio, to plug a gap anywhere from the cafe to the office canteen.
Audio books fill my ears at the gym, well-thumbed paperbacks rattle around my handbag, and my Kindle is crammed with reads recommended by members of the numerous book clubs I am a part of.
As your resident bibliophile, I’ve read and rated quite a few of the books readers are raving about for summer 2026. Below you’ll find my picks of this year’s most talked-about books and why they’re worth reading.
Natalie Heller Mills is a conservative Christian, mother to six children, and an influencer with eight million followers. She’s the epitome of a ‘tradwife’, a woman who – at least on social media – embraces a traditional lifestyle of cooking and raising children while her husband is at work.
However, Natalie is not all she seems on Instagram. What her followers don’t see is the team of staff who help her perfect and polish her performance, how her older children resent the cameras, and how much she loathes the women who follow her.
When Natalie wakes up one morning to a different version of her house, one that has no mod cons and is without underfloor heating and electricity; to an unknown man who calls himself her husband; to strange children who call her mother, and to an environment that seems to be in the 1850s, Natalie is as confused as the reader.
Has she been drugged and smuggled to the set of a reality television show based in the past? Has she actually time-travelled? Or is something far more sinister going on?
Yesteryear will leave you guessing all the way to the end.
Liz Nugent’s previous book, Strange Sally Diamond, is a tough act to follow, but the thriller writer has pulled it off with this tale of two sisters.
Ruby Cooper, 16, and her sister, Erin, live an idyllic life in Boston, but Ruby is involved in an incident that causes her family’s world to implode. Decades later, Ruby is in Dublin, Erin is in Boston, and there is a wake of destruction between the two.
But the past can’t stay secret for ever…
Nugent is a brilliantly twisted storyteller, and her skills shine here, particularly around her morally questionable, deeply unlikable, but wholly compelling characters. The Truth About Ruby Cooper is at times intense with dark, heavy themes, but it is an addictive read.
I inhaled Good People when I got the audiobook through the library’s Borrowbox app. The audio book features a full cast of narrators and is a brilliant medium to consume the novel, which is laid out as a series of interviews and newspaper articles about an Afghan-American family and the tragic death of their oldest daughter. But did Zorah die in an honest accident, or was she the victim of an honour killing?
The Sharaf family arrived in America as immigrants, fleeing Afghanistan with only the clothes on their backs. They worked hard to become wealthy, to live in an exclusive neighbourhood, to attend prestigious schools, and to embody the American dream.
However, the death of Zorah casts the family in to the court of public opinion, and the chorus of voices that tells their version of events in each chapter is as varied as the stories they weave. Who is telling the truth?
A powerful novel, Good People examines issues of community, family, race, and belonging and the constant ping-pong of perspectives keeps the narrative engaging and addictive.
If you’ve ever gone down an internet rabbit hole to discover the fate of a television show star from decades ago, Louise O’Neill’s new book will appeal to you. In 2002, twins Madeline and Chelsea Stone were the stars of the sitcom Double Trouble.
While Maddie is the true star on screen, Chelsea beats her to the role of a lifetime.
And then, Maddie disappears. Twenty-three years later, heartbreaking truths are discovered about the year Maddie went missing, and Chelsea feels a flicker of hope. What really happened to her twin?
Told in a dual-timeline narrative, it’s a tale of fame, identity, and the fallout of child stardom. It’s a story of the dark side of Hollywood.
O’Neill masterfully crafts a sharp social commentary around how young stars were treated in Hollywood in the early 2000s, from up-skirting incidents with paparazzi to magazine covers highlighting physical ‘flaws’. A natural next read if you enjoyed Jennette McCurdy’s memoir, .
There are two reasons I think many people might pick up Maggie O’Farrell’s new book, which is released this month. The first is the interest generated by the success of Hamnet, the film adaptation of her last novel. And the second is a renewed interest in our personal histories since the release of the 1926 census records.
Yes, Land is set long before 1926, but O’Farrell says she was inspired to write this story of an Irish family struggling to survive in 1865 after she discovered that one of her ancestors worked for the British Ordnance Survey, mapping Ireland in the 19th century.
Land follows Tomás and his son, Liam, as they map the Famine-scarred west coast of Ireland.
However, Tomás changes after exploring a mysterious copse of trees, and becomes like a man possessed, leaving Liam to finish the mapping and get them both home. O’Farrell’s prose is unsurprisingly beautiful in this book of family, land, and history.
Belle Burden’s memoir shares the story of how her husband of 20 years suddenly left her, and it details her separation and divorce after his affair.
Burden first published a version of the story in The New York Times in 2023, before the book was published by Penguin in January and became an instant publishing success.
Burden was born into an old-money family — her family tree features Vanderbilts and Pulitzer Prize winners — and her privilege and status are explored in the book.
Burden describes the process of divorce, as well as its psychological impact on her, and how it upended her life. And she writes about the financial
impact, particularly since she had stopped working during their marriage and had left the management of the family’s money to her now-ex-husband, ‘James’.
This is another book I listened to on audio, with Burden’s own voice narrating her story and adding an extra layer of depth.
Think your family is strange? I bet you’re normal next to the Flynn family.
Parents Catherine and Bud’s marriage is falling apart, amid an open relationship and sexual experimentation.
Their three daughters are more than a handful, whether dabbling in online terrorism or dating an older man, or falling in with a billionaire shipping magnate who may or may not be monitoring the entire town and moving some very illegal cargo for exclusive and secretive parties.
This family saga had me hooked from page one, with its quick wit and sharp characters.
Cash explores religion, family dynamics, and social justice within a very quick read.
Speaking of quick reads, I listened to the audiobook of Louise Nealon’s new book in one sitting.
Her debut, Snowflake, was a hit, and her second novel takes on a complicated family dynamic, as told through three women.
The Foleys are at the centre of the story and of their town. The father was a legendary hurler, his wife a doting mother. Alongside the Foleys’ own children, neighbouring Niamh Ryan spent her childhood on their farm, growing up among the family.
Years later, ties are strained when they unite for a family wedding, but a tangled love still exists between them all. It is a compelling read, and each character feels real, with the GAA an ever-present factor in their story. A modern Irish classic.
When the author of Say Nothing and Empire of Pain brings out a new book, you sit up and take notice. London Falling is as strange as fiction: The bizarre tale of a teenager with a double life. Zac Brettler fell to his death from a luxury apartment in London in 2019 and his grieving family later learned he had been posing as the son of a wealthy Russian oligarch.
In this gripping non-fiction book, Patrick Radden Keefe explores what brought Brettler to the balcony that night — and how he became involved with some of London’s most notorious gangsters.
London Falling unearths the unsettling truths he and Breather’s parents discovered, both about the sinister underworld on their doorstep and about their son’s secret world.
A must-read for true-crime fans, or anyone who wants a well-crafted narrative that will keep you guessing.
You didn’t think I’d leave you without some proper summer romance reads, did you?
In Carley Fortune’s latest book, two best friends have one week in paradise to fix their friendship — or fall apart. On the eve of Frankie’s wedding, her best friend, George, is ready to be her best man, despite their ups and downs. But when her fiancé dumps her the next morning, George tells Frankie to go on her honeymoon. With him.
Frankie agrees, and the duo are off to the lush rainforests and misty beaches of Tofino to repair their friendship… and unearth long-buried feelings. This is your quintessential beach read, so pack it in with your SPF and enjoy a summer fling.
This is the book I was hearing about for months, with rave reviews popping up everywhere about an intoxicating, must-read love story. It follows AJ and Noah, who are best friends as teens, and eventually become acting partners, until Noah disappears from AJ’s life.
Seven years later, AJ is shocked to be cast in the same intergalactic television production as Noah, who has become a well-known Hollywood heartthrob.
Growing ever closer, they are forced to confront the truth of what happened years ago, and the devastating secret that will send their lives careening apart.
This book is filled with romantic chemistry and nostalgia and it will stay with you long after you have read the final page.
TikTok continues to be a melting pot of book reviews and raves, and, given its sheer size (the hashtag #BookTok has generated over 77 million posts globally), it can be hard to whittle down a select few reads to dive into. Cork BookTok creator Emma O’Connell (@emmareads20) has shared some buzzy books with us that she recommends for summer reading.
This book is full of those 2000s-style romcom moments that had us giggling like teenage girls, paired with some tender moments between the two protagonists that evoked more tears than I’d like to admit. And most importantly, while most of us are more versed with the ins and outs of GAA, you don’t need to know anything about ice hockey to enjoy these books.
This series makes the perfect poolside companion — although I still haven’t a notion how ice hockey is played.
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