Summer reads set in THE HAMPTONS and southern NEW ENGLAND

2nd May 2023

The Hamptons and southern New England are summer playgrounds for the rich and famous from New York City. Weekends or longer vacations are idled away on the beaches and in coastal second homes – where anything can happen. Summer reads set in The Hamptons and southern New England.

We have selected ten of our favourites:

The Pool House by Tasmina Perry – THE HAMPTONS

To Jem Chapman, it’s the chance of a lifetime. An invitation to join a group in an exclusive Hamptons house-share, who could say no? But when she discovers what happened last summer, Jem can’t help but feel a chill.

A young woman was found drowned in the house’s pool. The housemates said Alice was troubled. She’d been drinking. She couldn’t swim…

A Secret To Kill For
As Jem gets to know her glamorous new housemates, she realises each has something to hide. What really happened last summer? And who would go to any lengths to keep a person quiet?

A Hundred Summers by Beatriz Williams – RHODE ISLAND

The New York Times bestselling novel.

Rhode Island, 1938. A sweltering summer of secrets, passion and betrayal…

Lily Dane has returned to Seaview, Rhode Island, where her family have summered for generations. She’s hoping for an escape from the city and from her heartbreak, but when Budgie and Nick Greenwald – her now-married former best friend and former fiancé – show up, she soon finds herself sucked back in by Budgie’s glamorous and enticing influence.

As the summer progresses, Lily and Budgie renew their friendship against the looming spectre of war in Europe and the prospect of a cataclysmic hurricane. As uneasy secrets are revealed, an emotional storm threatens to destroy everything…

The Summer without you by Karen Swan – THE HAMPTONS

Rowena Tipton isn’t looking for a new life, just a new adventure, something to while away the months as her long-term boyfriend presses pause on their relationship before they become engaged. But when a chance encounter at a New York wedding leads to an audition for a coveted houseshare in The Hamptons – Manhattan’s elite beach scene – suddenly a new life is exactly what she’s got.

Stretching before her is a summer with three eclectic housemates, long days on white sand ocean beaches and parties on gilded tennis courts. But high rewards bring high stakes and Rowena soon finds herself caught in the crossfire of a vicious intimidation campaign. Alone for the first time in her adult life, she has no-one to turn to but a stranger who is everything she doesn’t want – but possibly everything she needs.

Cape Cod Noir by David L Ulin – CAPE COD

An anthology of short stories under the editorship of David L Ulin.
Los Angeles Times book critic David L. Ulin has been holidaying in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, every summer since he was a boy. He knows the terrain inside out – enough to identify the squalid underbelly of this allegedly idyllic location. His editing prowess is a perfect match for this fine volume. Features brand-new stories by David L Ulin, Ben Greenman, Lizzie Skurnick, Dana Cameron, Jedidiah Berry, Paul Tremblay, Vincent McCaffery, Seth Greenland, Kaylie Jones, Adan Mansbach, Elyssa East, Fred Leebron, William Hastings and others.

Island Apart by Steven Raichlen – MARTHA’S VINEYARD

An editor from New York is getting over breast cancer, and coming to terms with other difficult aspects in her life. A healing romance restores her on the island. And the author takes this opportunity to introduce his readers to the culinary delights of Martha’s Vineyard, so if you want a great story and some savvy food recommendations, then look no further!

Nantucket Nights by Elin Hilderbrand – NANTUCKET 

A full moon, a twenty-year old friendship-and a Nantucket night no one would ever forget…

For 20 years, Kayla, Antoinette, and Val have performed their own special summer ritual. Once a year, the old friends put aside their daily, separate lives to drink champagne, swap stories, and swim naked under the Nantucket stars. This time though, one of them swims out from the shore and doesn’t return. After the surviving friends emerge from their grief, they realize that the repercussions of their loss go far beyond their little circle, and they begin to uncover layers of secrets, and their connections to each other, that were never revealed on the beach. What has made their friendship strong now has the power to destroy their marriages, families-and even themselves.

One Little Secret by Cate Holahan – THE HAMPTONS

Everyone has a secret. For some, it’s worth dying to protect. For others, it’s worth killing.

The glass beach house was supposed to be the getaway that Susan needed. Eager to help her transplanted family set down roots in their new town—and desperate for some kid-free conversation—she invites her new neighbors to join in on a week-long sublet with her and her workaholic husband.

Over the course of the first evening, liquor loosens inhibitions and lips. The three couples begin picking up on the others’ marital tensions and work frustrations, as well as revealing their own. But someone says too much. And the next morning one of the women is discovered dead on the private beach.

Town detective Gabby Watkins must figure out who permanently silenced the deceased. As she investigates, she learns that everyone in the glass house was hiding something that could tie them to the murder, and that the biggest secrets of all are often in plain sight for anyone willing to look.

A taut, locked room mystery with an unforgettable cast of characters, One Little Secret promises to keep readers’ eyes glued to the pages and debating the blinders that we all put on in the service of politeness.

The Old Cape Magic by Richard Russo – CAPE COD

Jack and Joy Griffin are back on Cape Cod – where they spent their hope-filled honeymoon – for a wedding. Cracks are begining to show in Jack’s peaceful family life and thirty-four year marriage. He’s driving round with his father’s ashes in an urn in the boot of his car, haunted by memories of bittersweet family holidays spent at the Cape, while his acerbic mother is very much alive and always on his mobile. He’s spent a lifetime trying to be happier than his parents, but has he succeeded?

A year later, at a second wedding, Jack has a second urn in the car, and his life is starting to unravel.

The Beach House by James Patterson and Peter De Jonge – THE HAMPTONS

The second that Columbia law student Jack Mullen steps down from the train at East Hampton, he knows that something is very wrong. As he greets his family, his kid brother Peter lies stretched out on a steel gurney, battered, bruised – dead. The police are calling the drowning an accident. Jack knows that’s not right. Someone wanted his brother dead.

But the establishment says otherwise. Jack tries to uncover what really happened on the beach that night, only to confront a wall of silence; a barricade of shadowy people who protect the privileges of the multi-billionaire summer residents. And when he discovers that his brother had nearly $200,000 in his bank account, Jack realises Peter wasn’t just parking cars to make a living…

Tigers in Red Weather by Liza Klaussmann – MARTHA’S VINEYARD

Nick and her cousin, Helena, have grown up sharing sultry summers at Tiger House, the glorious old family estate on the island of Martha’s Vineyard. As World War II ends they are on the cusp of adulthood, the world seeming to offer itself up to them. Helena is leaving for Hollywood and a new marriage, while Nick is to be reunited with her young husband Hughes, due to return from London and the war. Everything is about to change. Neither quite finds the life she had imagined, and as the years pass, the trips to Tiger House take on a new complexity. Then, on the brink of the 1960s, Nick’s daughter Daisy and Helena’s son Ed make a sinister discovery. It plunges the island’s bright heat into private shadow and sends a depth-charge to the heart of the family. Summer seemed to arrive at that moment, with its mysterious mixture of salt, cold flesh and fuel. Magnificently told from five perspectives, Tigers in Red Weather is an unforgettable debut: a simmering novel of passion, betrayal and secret violence beneath a polished and fragile facade.

Enjoy your Summer reading in The Hamptons and southern New England…

Tony for the TripFiction team

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