10 summer reads to dive... - Financial Unions

No holiday check list is complete without a book, if you ask me.

From gossipy, sultry romances and sun-baked coming-of-age stories, to gripping mystery novels and a rollicking tale of underdogs in the tennis world, there's a wealth of stories to bring with you on your hollibops - if only for the queue for boarding the plane.

Here, we've rounded up some of the best books to dive into this summer, from new Irish literary stars, world-famous celebrities and some new names to our libraries.

Evenings and Weekends - Oisín McKenna

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Set in London during a sweltering heatwave, McKenna's debut novel is like summer in a bottle: sultry, uplifting, claustrophic and a little bit dangerous. A spoken word artist and playwright by trade, McKenna's prose thrums with sights, smells, sounds and more, drawing you into this sprawling metropolis gripped by heat.

A wide cast of characters rolls around north and east London, also gripped by their own crises: a cancer diagnosis, a pregnancy recharting a life, a marriage, a secret love. With these characters all in their 30s, the challenges they face take on a heightened tension: not in the youth of their 20s anymore, some decisions simply must be made, whether they feel ready to or not.

When a whale washes up on Bermondsey beach in the middle of this scorching summer, the threat of explosion takes on figurative and literal meanings.

Sunburn - Chloe Michelle Howarth

Set in the years before homosexuality was decriminalised, Sunburn tells the story of two teenage girls who fall in love in their small town of Crossmore. Lucy, admittedly at a "tricky age", feels on the outskirts of her friend group and stifled by the assumption that she will eventually marry Martin, her childhood friend, despite having no romantic feelings for him.

When she meets Susannah, however, Lucy quickly progresses from infatuation to love. Small town life in the 90s isn't a comfortable setting for such love, and the pair's relationship flourishes in hidden moments, made even richer by the heady summer.

It's an exceptionally vivid and tender depiction of queer love that thrives in spite of the restrictions a community puts on it.

Reality Check - Vicki Notaro

If you want your holiday to be as glamorous and dramatic as a Real Housewives vacation, look no further than Vicki Notaro's debut. The former magazine editor, podcaster and journalist has turned her hand to fiction, crafting a story of relationships and family that marries Bravo reality television with the sassy worldliness of Sex and the City.

We meet Portia Daniels, a TV writer living in her dream apartment in Manhattan and dodging the glare from her exceedingly famous mother and siblings. When her "perfect man", Jason, is revealed to be not so perfect, Portia is sent reeling and reevaluating her life.

The story unfurls in a gossipy stream of steamy moments, cringe dates and tense family conflict, all told in a conversational voice that feels like chatting with a girlfriend over cocktails.

Funny Story - Emily Henry

The reigning queen of the summer read, Emily Henry has once again offered up a perfectly crafted tale of romance and misadventure - all staged in a stunning location.

We meet Daphne and Peter, an engaged couple whose fairytale romance - a stirring meet-cute and a cosy lakeside home together - comes to an abrupt end when Peter reveals he is hopelessly in love with his childhood best friend, Petra.

Shunted out of her happy ending, Daphne convinces Petra's own ex boyfriend - Miles - to become her roommate. Though the two start off avoiding each other, a plan to make their exes jealous leads to an unlikely union. A classic "opposite attract" tale.

The Racket - Conor Niland

There's just something about cracking open a sports memoir when you're laid out, feet up in the sun. Out on 6 June, The Racket by Conor Niland - the professional tennis player and once the Irish junior number one - tells a very different kind of sport story, however.

Though he's faced off against Novak Djokovic in Arthur Ashe Stadium at the US Open, been in the room with Roger Federer and trained with Serena Williams, Niland never reached the upper echelons of professional tennis that those stars did. He is one of the 99%, he says - the scores of ambitious athletes striving to reach the top.

It explores the gulf of difference between the super-rich players, with their entourages and press teams, and the players like him, trying to live off touring money. Definitely one to watch if you've been bitten by the Challengers bug.

Kairos - Jenny Erpenbeck

If you're looking for something a bit weightier for your summer read, this dreamy and heartrending novel about love and loss is a knockout.

Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize, this bewitching novel opens with a woman receiving a box of papers belonging to a former lover who has just died. She's instantly catapulted back to East Berlin, 1986, when she (19 years old) meets Hans (34 years older than her, married with a child) on a bus.

What begins as a romantic tale gradually devolves into one about control, power and heartbreak, though Erpenbeck's writing style remains blissfully beautiful throughout.

Free Therapy - Rebecca Ivory

Ivory's cast of characters are united by the lessons they've gleaned from counselling, mental health discourse and support groups - while also not being fully able or ready to put those lessons into practice to better their lives.

We meet a young girl obsessing over body image, characters struggling to complete basic tasks, and nightmarish housing issues, all underpinned by people who actively think through everything around them, and yet can't express those thoughts.

The stories are so astutely observed, and so deeply relatable, that you're often left with the uncomfortable sensation of having stared too long into the mirror - at which point, there's no better time to throw off the sunhat and go for a dip in the water.

Kala - Colin Walsh

Set in 2018 in Kinlough, on the west coast of Ireland, this dark and affecing novel follows three friends who gather to remember a summer they spent together 15 years earlier, when their friend Kala Lanann disappeared. Part of a gang of six teens, Helen, Joe and Mush are brought back together for separate reasons, but when human remains are discovered, their lives are upturned once again.

Expertly paced, with red herrings and nuggets of information shared bit by bit, it's a lavishly descriptive novel with timeless themes at its core: friendship, innocence, loss, misogyny.

The House of Hidden Meanings - RuPaul

Although having already published three memoirs, the superstar 'Queen of Drag' and creator of RuPaul's Drag Race is back with an even more revealing deep dive into his epic life story.

This memoir is as hilarious, fierce and dazzling as the man behind it, and charts RuPaul Charles' path to stardom, from his tumultuous upbringing in San Diego with an absent father, to drug-fueled nights in the club scene, battling addiction, finding sobriety and eventually falling in love with his husband.

Along the way are hugely entertaining vignettes about his influences, from Cher to Mae West, and wise adages he's picked up on the way.

Glorious Exploits - Ferdia Lennon

Anthony Bourdain said that, when travelling somewhere new, he would buy a book set in the destination and read it on the plane. If you're heading to Sicily this summer, why not get a taste for the historic country's ancient past?

Set in Syracuse, Sicily in 412BC, it follows two friends – Lampo and Gelon – who decide to stage a production of Euripides, starring imprisoned Athenians captured during the Peloponnesian War. It's not entirely fabricated either, with accounts in Plutarch mentioning Athenian prisoners in Sicily who won food and drink by reciting lines of epic poetry.

Although set in the past, this novel thrums with a distinctly modern Dublin charm, with plenty of quips and turns of phrase that will keep you chuckling. Its reflections on art and humanity also feel particularly meaningful in light of today's tumultuous political landscapes.

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10 summer reads to dive into this year