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20 best beach reads for summer 2025
New England booksellers recommended these 20 must-read summer books with a beach—so you'll know what to read and where to enjoy it.
Whether you’re stretched out on a sandy Cape Cod shoreline, lakeside in New Hampshire, or sipping iced coffee on a porch in Maine, the right book can make your summer escape unforgettable.
We asked New England booksellers and readers to share their favorite beach reads – and where they’d most like to enjoy them. From breezy romances to page-turning mysteries and transporting literary fiction, here are 20 books handpicked for your summer getaway – each one with the perfect reading spot for a New England summer.
Full list of books and reading spots:
- Read “A Harvest of Hearts” by Andrea Eames at the Fresh Pond Reservation (Cambridge)
- Read “Bad Nature” by Ariel Courage at East End Beach (Portland, Maine)
- Read “Best of All Worlds” by Kenneth Oppel at Gore Place (Waltham)
- Read “Dead of Summer” by Jessa Maxwell at Jetties Beach (Nantucket)
- Read “Fang Fiction” by Kate Stayman-London at The Granary Burying Ground (Downtown Boston)
- Read “How to End a Love Story” by Yulin Kuang at The ‘Good Will Hunting’ bench (Boston Public Garden)
- Read “I’m Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself” by Glynnis MacNichol at Café Sauvage (Back Bay)
- Read “Malibu Rising” by Taylor Jenkins Reid at Castle Island (South Boston)
- Read “Mexican Gothic” by Silvia Moreno-Garcia at Long Hill Historic Gardens (Beverly)
- Read “Our Little World” by Karen Winn at Coast Guard Beach (Eastham)
- Read “Paladin’s Grace” by T. Kingfisher at Beverly Commons Conservation Area (Beverly)
- Read “Summer Sisters” by Judy Blume at South Beach (Martha’s Vineyard)
- Read “The Blue Book” by Elin Hilderbrand at Mitchell’s Book Corner (Nantucket)
- Read “The Nightingale” by Kristin Hannah at Block Island North Lighthouse (Block Island, Rhode Island)
- Read “The River Has Roots” by Amal El-Mohtar at Sewall’s Falls Dam (Concord, New Hampshire)
- Read “The River is Waiting” by Wally Lamb at Madaket Beach (Nantucket)
- Read “The Staircase in the Woods” by Chuck Wendig at the Madame Sherri Forest (West Chesterfield, New Hampshire)
- Read “The Women” by Kristin Hannah at the Vietnam Memorial (Back Bay Fens)
- Read “Whack Job: A History of Axe Murder” by Rachel McCarthy James at Myles Standish State Forest (Carver)
- Read “Wrong Place, Wrong Time” by Gillian McAllister at Salem Willows Park (Salem)
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