By Melissa Tran, Lucy Shardlow and Sana Khalid
We are now officially in summer, and the warm weather brings changes in the top book charts. Let's have a look at what’s trending this week…
WHSmith
Nothing screams summer more than the infamous Richard and Judy Summer Book Club, and this year's line-up is bound to help you find your next sizzling read! This year's selection really does have it all and there is something for everyone. Hitting the top spot is Love Untold by bestselling author Ruth Jones. A heart-warming and compassionate story about mothers and daughters, and the complex bond between them. A joy-filled, life-affirming, sob-inducing novel that is sure to see you through the summer. Another read that has stormed the charts is Dawn O’Porter’s Cat Lady. When a shocking event crashes down on the conventional life that Mia has been so careful to build, she is faced with a choice. Does she live for a society full of judgement or does she live for herself? Cat Lady is a funny and refreshing reminder to live life your own way!
Waterstones
Despite being released last September, Stephanie Garber’s The Ballad of Never After sits comfortably at eighteenth place in the Waterstones bestselling charts. This fantastical sequel, that follows Evangeline’s adventures in the whimsical North with Jacks, the Prince of Hearts, was recently released in paperback. There is a standard pink edition and a Waterstones exclusive blue archer edition. The latter has limited stock, so fellow bookworms should hurry to their nearest store to get their hands on a copy. Scoring higher in the charts is Ian McEwan’s Lessons: an epic tour de force that takes in the key political events of the post-war world. When Roland Baines' wife vanishes, leaving him alone with their young son, he is forced to confront the reality of his restless existence. As the radiation from Chernobyl spreads across Europe, he begins a search for answers that look deep into his family history and will last for the rest of his life. Mesmerising and deeply humane, Lessons is a chronicle for our times – a powerful mediation on history and humanity through the prism of one man’s lifetime. The Ballad of Never After and Lessons are two very different reads that are perfect to lose yourself in this summer.
Amazon
In the Amazon charts this week is Icebreaker by Hannah Grace, book number one in the Maple Hills series. A TikTok sensation, Icebreaker is a story about a figure skater called Anastasia who has just received her dream scholarship. Whilst there, she meets Nate, a hockey player, who might just be her key to success. What follows is a fun and flirty romance novel about sport, talent and passion: the perfect beach read. Number one in the Amazon chart this week is Desert Star by Michael Connelly. Book five in the Detective Renée Ballard series. This series is the inspiration behind Amazon Prime’s series Bosch and Netflix’s The Lincoln Lawyer. A truly gripping, unputdownable crime series, Desert Star is just the murder mystery to keep you entertained.
Social Media
Two recent publications taking bookish social media by storm this week are Thao Thai’s debut novel Banyan Moon and Ashley Poston’s (bestselling author of The Dead Romantics), The Seven Year Slip. Banyan Moon is a powerfully gripping tale spanning decades and continents, from 1960s Vietnam to the wild swamplands of the Florida coast. This is a deeply moving story of mothers and daughters, the things we inherit, and the lives we choose to make with that inheritance. The Seven Year Slip follows an overworked book publicist whose perfectly planned future hits a snag when she falls in love with her temporary roommate … only to discover he lives seven years in the past! This witty and wise novel has already been hailed by some book influencers as their “favourite summer read so far.”
Author of the Month
Absolutely everyone has been talking about Japanese fiction – about time! From Kazuo Ishiguro to Toshikazu Kawaguvhi, Japanese novels are becoming some of the biggest bestsellers of the year! That is why we have chosen Nick Bradley and his new novel Four Seasons in Japan as our Author of the Month for July. Best known for his novel The Cat and The City, Bradley is back with this heart-warming story-within-a-story novel following a translator from Tokyo who stumbles across a mysterious book left on the subway about a grandmother haunted by family tragedy. Flo is transformed by this new discovery and immediately becomes compelled to translate this forgotten novel. But will this decision set her on a path that will completely change her life? So many critics have been raving about Bradley’s latest read with many of them absolutely loving the engrossing world and characters that he has created. This is a gorgeous book both inside and out, focusing on literature, purpose and what it truly means to belong.