From Istanbul fairytales to Cornish quests, espionage in Slough House to Chilean revolutions, Anna Selby selects this summer’s most captivating reads – the kind you can dip into between swims, siestas and sundowners…
I don’t know about you but I’m not the world’s greatest beach bum. I like the idea of lounging around all day (albeit under a sunshade) but the reality is that boredom sets in pretty quickly. So what you need is a good book to while away those seashore hours.
Beach reads are not, though, the same as those books that keep you rapt over the course of a winter’s evening. You need something easy to put aside (when you go for lunch or a swim) and pick up again when you get back – and preferably in paperback. With this in mind, here are a few recommendations…
The Book of Heartbreak fits the bill nicely. Ova Ceren draws on her Turkish heritage both in terms of the setting (for the main part) being the city of Istanbul and also in her use of Turkish fairy tale and folklore. From this you might guess that this is not a piece of gritty realism. Indeed, there are curses and seers, several returns from death and a creature who is a little like Tinkerbell. At its heart, though, it’s a love story (as well as being all about the heart in quite different ways) between Sare and Leon.
It begins when Sare loses her mother in a road accident and meets her grandfather (she’d been told he was dead) at the funeral. Her grandfather invites her to his home in Istanbul and she starts to uncover her past and discover the truth about her family and the father she has never met. There’s a whole subplot concerning angels and their domain which turns out to be a seethingly hostile version of the civil service with a plan explaining the hierarchy before you get going.
For younger readers – especially those who enjoyed the Narnia and Harry Potter stories – there’s a series of five books (this can run on till autumn) called The Dark is Rising. It beats me why this never got the acclaim or coverage of Lewis and Rowling’s series as this one is very much in the same vein – contemporary fantasy with a battle between good and evil drawing on lots of Arthurian, Norse and Celtic mythology with a family of four children who discover they have connections to the Old Ones, mystical beings who possess great magical power. The first book, Over Sea, Under Stone is set in Cornwall and a perfect holiday read.
Speaking of series, the next tranche of Slow Horses is coming out in a few weeks and you can refresh your memory with Mick Herron’s eight books or get ahead of the game and read the next up in the series (London Rules) so you never lose the plot. There are a further three after that (Joe Country, Slough House, Bad Actors) and these will no doubt appear on our screens too. Herron is a pleasure to read – gritty, wry and plot driven – though I defy you to read the books without picturing Gary Oldman as the appalling Jackson Lamb.
For a gentler read, My Name is Emilia Del Valle is the latest from Isabel Allende. While nothing will ever quite be as wondrous as her magical realist The House of the Spirits, this is one of her better recent books. A historical novel set in the 1880s, its background is the Chilean civil war, seen through the eyes of Emilia, an ambitious young San Franciscan reporter who, given the times she lives in, has to publish her stories under a man’s name. Love and war – perfect beach reading.
These recommendations are available in paperback online and in all good stockists – and don’t forget to ask at your local independent bookshop.
Header photo by Dan Dumitriu on Unsplash
