Love Fiction? 6 Delightfully Anticipated Summer Reads From Around the World

With Summer just around the corner, here are this Summer’s most anticipated fiction books. Diverse, eclectic and worldly, if there’s only 6 books you read this summer, make it these.

City of Girls (Fiction) by Elizabeth Gilbert

From the Eat, Pray, Love lady, comes this enticing book aptly titled City of Girls. A nostalgic tale of an older woman reminiscing her past, specifically her youthful time at the Lily Playhouse, a revue theatre owned by a her eccentric Aunt Peg.

Dial back to the summer of 1940. A barely-adult Vivian Morris springs up in the Big Apple with nothing but a sewing machine and suitcase. She becomes a essentially a seamstress for the showgirls. When the talented English actress Edna Watson arrives to take centre stage in the theatre’s most aspiring show ever, Vivian is mesmerised with the excitement, glamour and heady moments of theatre life and a unique love story of her own. However with the highs come the crashing lows — regrets and failures. A story about what it means to be a woman— about transforming your life and living it many times over before coming to terms with shame and living your true authentic self.

A sex-in-the-city tale about theatre life in 1940s New York.

Out on June 4, you can pre-order your copy here.

The Stationery Shop (Fiction) by Marjan Kamali

A literary treat, this wonderfully powerful story on the surprising nature of fate, is about two teenagers, Roya and Bahman who’s love for each other blossoms over their mutual love for literature in a warm and humble little stationery shop in Tehran.

On the day before they are due to marry, political violence takes centre stage with the disappearance of Bahman, the handsome young man that Roya falls head over heels in love with. As each day passes, Roya realises she may never see him again, until hope and fate lead to a final meeting and reconciliation in old-age.

A hauntingly timely exploration of unbearable loss and gracious love.

Out on June 18, you can pre-order your copy here.

A Pure Heart (Fiction) by Rajia Hassib

A striking story of two sisters whose lives are literally worlds apart. Rose and Gameela Gubran grew up in Egypt, both religiously and culturally Muslim. The choices that they make in work and in love result in them inheriting completely different fates.

Rose becomes an Egyptologist, marries an American and moves to New York, finding a prestigious job at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Gameela devotes her life to Islam, whilst still a teenager, residing in Cairo. Post the Egyptian revolution, Gameela dies in a suicide bombing. Seeking answers to her sister’s death, Rose comes home determined to understand why Gameela had kept so many secrets from the family and who was influencing her.

Emotional and courageous, A Pure Heart examines the lives of two sisters who could not be more different despite having grown up in the same family. One is desperately trying to blend her identity as both an Egyptian and American whilst trying to understand Gameela’s loyalty to her country and religion.

An intimate, deep exploration of the power of faith and love to divide families and how we must look beyond this division so that we can unite, accept and forgive.

Out on August 8, you can pre-order your copy here.

The Memory Police (Fiction) by Yolo Ogawa

If you loved The Handmaid’s Tale and Nineteen Eighty-Four, here comes another dystopian novel by one of Japan’s most remarkable contemporary writers, Yolo Ogawa.

On a secret island with no name, things are slowly disappearing — hats, ribbons , roses, birds. Residents discard these items and have no recollection of them — they tend to forget them entirely. However if you are a resident who cannot get rid and forget about it, a secret police — the memory police will come and find you to uphold their mission to ensure that the disappeared remains forgotten. The are determined to ensure that all memories and identities vanish in order to prevent them from disturbing the resident’s peace of mind.

Amongst the residents is a novelist. Concerned that her editor who is struggling to forget and hide his memories will be taken away by the memory police, she attempts to hide him under the floorboards of her home, and preserve whatever they can as a way to keep the past alive.

A fable and metaphor about the significance of memory and what it means to us, it brings home the trauma of loss and gives us space to reflect and contemplate. Poignant, poetic and nostalgic, it will make you appreciate the small things in life.

Out on August 15, you can pre-order your copy here.

Everything Inside (Fiction) by Edwidge Danticat

Edwidge Danticat is an internationally hailed author best known for her memoir Brother, I’m Dying. This summer she brings a stunning collection of fiction in the form of eight colourful stories contemplating community, family, and love.

A master of the affairs of the heart, each story, intimate in its own way invites us to meditate life and the relationships we hold so dear to our heart. In love, we also find pain and how we learn to open our arms to the bittersweetness of life. A marriage that was meant to end well brings with it permanent ramifications. An unexpected romance, a woman fighting to survive upholds her dream and ambition, a reunion after a traumatic tragedy, the power of a newborn baby to stir up emotions between younger and older generations, and the story of a man who watches his death before his eyes in what feels like a lifetime of seconds as flashes of the most memorable moments of his life present themselves.

Plus the stories take you on a literary journey from Miami to Port-au-Prince to the Caribbean.

A masterpiece fit for the soul.

Out on June 18, you can pre-order your copy here.

The Beekeeper of Aleppo (Fiction) by Christy Lefteri

A timely novel that is haunting and perhaps urges us to not forget the outrageous consequences of the Syrian war. Yet war brings out the best of the human spirit — love, courage and hope.

When war hits the serene Syrian city of Aleppo, Nuri and his wife Asra are shell-shocked, quite literally. Their homely life in the city with wonderful family and friends is turned upside down. Nuri is a beekeeper. Him and his wife Asra are forced to escape, letting themselves into a dangerous world, where they suffer a multitude of losses. Having to smuggle themselves into the UK they encounter heart-breaking suffering, pain and hardship — yet they are more than determined to find safety again and rebuild their lives.

A refugee story that we have all recently encountered, gripping and persuasive, it will keep you hooked.

The good news is this book’s already out and you can grab a copy here.

More book prescriptions can be found at our A-Z of Book Prescriptions.

A big hello and thank you for reading! Passionate about literature, psychology, and life I launched Book Therapy as an alternative form of therapy using the power of literature. I create reading lists/personalised book prescriptions based on your individual needs, this is my signature personalised reading service. You can also check out Book Therapy’s other free reading lists and A- Z of book prescriptions (covering both fiction and non-fiction). These suggest books based on your existing life situation (e.g. anxiety, job change, relationship heartache) as well as interests (e.g memoir, historical fiction, non-fiction, crime etc). There’s also a Children’s A — Z of Book Prescriptions. Feel free to check out the blog for more literary gems. There’s also a post on my personal story of how I entered the world of bibliotherapy and book curation. And if you’d like to connect, email me at bijal@booktherapy.io or www.booktherapy.io.

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