What to read this summer holidays? Whether you’re watching the waves roll in from a seaside cottage or plotting your next seaside escape, dive into stories that take you to the seaside. We’ve picked holiday books that bottle the pull of the ocean and take you to the beach. Some are wild and windswept, others tender or thrilling – but all are rich with salt air, crashing surf and unforgettable characters.
So if you want to feel the sea both inside and out this summer, start here…
The Summer Book by Tove Jansson
A quiet, tender story set on a remote Finnish island, this timeless classic captures the deep bond between a young girl and her grandmother. With sparse prose and a sharp eye for nature, Jansson gently explores grief, solitude, and the joy of small things. Each chapter is a vignette of island life: storms, silliness, silence and sand. It’s a slow burn — one for readers who love thoughtful fiction that moves like the tide and lingers like a memory.
Sea Wife by Amity Gaige
Sail away in a gripping tale of survival at sea. A young family sets sail on a year-long voyage aboard a small boat — and what begins as a dream turns into a psychological storm. Told in dual perspectives, this taut literary thriller explores marriage, identity, and survival, with the open sea as both escape and battleground. Poetic, sharp, and unsettling, it’s perfect for readers who like their holiday books thoughtful and tense.
Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
Set in a sleepy coastal town, this heartwarming debut centres on a lonely widow who finds unexpected connection with an intelligent, grumpy octopus at the local aquarium. Part mystery, part emotional journey, the story flows with summer lightness and surprising depth. It’s about second chances, healing, and unlikely friendships — all with a strong dose of coastal charm. Uplifting and quirky, it’s a perfect read for anyone who loves the ocean, or a beach town with secrets.
Buy Remarkably Bright Creatures
The Surf House by Lucy Clarke
Ocean-drenched and full of secrets, this page-turning thriller sweeps you from the UK to the surf breaks of Morocco. Clarke – who writes much of her fiction by the sea in Dorset – spins a thriller that will leave you needing to dip in the sea to cool off between chapters. Her love of the sea pulses through the plot – expect twists, heat, sisterhood and cliff-hanger chapters. One to devour with your toes in the sand.
Buy The Surf House by Lucy Clarke
Whale Fall by Elizabeth O’Connor
Be whisked away to a remote Welsh island, in the hands of this literary gem that explores what happens when one woman dares to want more. A dead whale washes up on the beach, altering the course of young Manod’s life forever. Caught between tradition and the lure of the unknown beyond her shores, she grapples with ambition, belonging and the weight of island life. Brace yourself for book rich with haunting prose, dark humour, and rugged coastal atmosphere.
Buy Whale Fall by Elizabeth O’Connor
The Secrets of Harbour House by Liz Fenwick
If you’re heading to Cornwall, no-one can take you out onto the rugged cliffs and deep into sweeping Cornish dramas faster than Fenwick – the queen of contemporary Cornish fiction. A plot full of longing, mystery and memory follows Mara’s return to Cornwall to uncover her mother’s past, where the salt-stained walls of Harbour House reveal more than she bargained for. Set against a vividly drawn backdrop, it’s our top pick for a Cornish escape, especially if you like dual timelines, emotional depth and heroines finding strength by the sea.
Buy The Secrets of Harbour House by Liz Fenwick
The Wild Silence by Raynor Winn
We’re all out tracing Raynor Winn’s footsteps along The Salt Path, but have you read Winn’s sequel – The Wild Silence? In this powerful follow-up, Raynor and Moth step back into the wild — not walking the coast path this time, but rewilding a neglected Cornish farmhouse. After the freedom of the open trail, settling into ‘normal’ life is harder than expected, but as they reconnect with nature, community and purpose, a new path begins. Raw, inspiring and deeply rooted in landscape, this is a story of healing and homecoming, told with Winn’s lyrical honesty and soul.
Buy The Wild Silence by Raynor Winn
The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman
Off the coast of Australia in the years after WWI, a lighthouse keeper and his wife find a baby washed ashore in a boat — and make a life-altering decision. Sweeping, heartbreaking and morally complex, this novel is a coastal classic. The remote island setting is as vivid as the emotional landscape, with waves of love, loss and longing. Read with tissues and prepare to stare out at the sea wondering what you would have done.
Buy The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman
Untamed Shore by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Sun-scorched Baja California in the 1970s sets the scene for this noir-tinged coming-of-age tale. Viridiana dreams of escaping her dusty town when glamorous foreigners arrive and sweep her into their world. But when death and deceit enter the picture, her summer turns dark fast. Sharp, cinematic and full of atmosphere, this is a sunburned thriller with feminist bite. A great twist on the classic beach read — more tequila and shark bones than sun hats and sandals.
Buy Untamed Shore by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Beach Read by Emily Henry
Looking for a feel-good escape that delivers both laughs and feels? This romantic comedy demands to be read on a sun lounger. A literary writer and a romance novelist — both suffering from creative block — swap genres and spend a summer sparring, writing, and falling in love. Emily Henry nails the sparkling dialogue and emotional heart, all with a summery setting that’ll have you reaching for sunglasses and spritz.
Haven’t booked your seaside escape yet?
Find your perfect beach holiday cottage to curl up with a good book this summer. Read them with your feet in the sand, a cup of tea on a coastal balcony, or tucked up in bed with the sound of waves outside your window.
And if you’re still looking for more literary inspiration, checkout our…
Top Picks from Last Summer’s Essential Beach Reads:
Everything’s Fine by Cecilia Rabess
Romance
Everyone needs a romance novel for summer, but we don’t all want the breezy, cheesy boy-meets-girl book for the beach. This more disruptive romance novel confronts ideological opposites in a relationship, as Jess – Black and liberal, is thrown together with Josh – white and conservative, against the backdrop of Trump’s presidential campaign. It’s got all the lust and passion of a romance, alongside politics and economics, wrapped into an absolute page-turner.
Go As A River by Shelley Read
Historical fiction
This coming-of-age novel, and Sunday Times bestseller, will bring both tears and joy to your beach blanket this summer. Set in the wild beauty of 1930’s Colorado, it’s the enthralling story of how one moment changes 17 year-old Victoria’s life forever. And as the backwater of her family’s peace farm is left beneath a river, we track the story of the last female in a family of troubled men, and experience a haunting tale of female empowerment and strength.
The Outrun by Amy Liptrot
Memoir
If you haven’t read Liptrot’s epic memoir, do it this summer, before it’s released on the big screen in September 2024. Winner of the Wainwright Prize as well as other accolades, Liptrot’s mesmeric memoir takes you to the wild shores of the Orkneys, and the tiny island of Papay, where Liptrot washes up and reinvents her life after rehab. A frank account of alcoholism and vulnerability, it taps into how nature can change the course of a life, and skilfully weaves the islands’ wild outer spaces with Liptrot’s wild inner spaces.
Caledonian Road by Andrew O’Hagan
Social satire
If you’re ready to bury yourself in a big book this summer, get comfy on your sun lounger and sink into nearly 700 pages of masterful storytelling with Andrew O’Hagan. His new release, Caledonian Road, is a vast, state-of-the-society novel that flicks between all levels of the social world in post-pandemic, post-Brexit Britain. And when you fall too deep into his satire on the class and politics of our nation, you can simply lift your head and appreciate the much lighter tone of your sandy-toed holiday lifestyle.
Good Material by Dolly Alderton
Comedy
Author and columnist Dolly Alderton has done it again with a laugh-out-loud-on-your-beach-towel second novel. This modern summer ‘romance’ follows the recently dumped Andy, left by the love of his life who’d prefer to go it alone. Fast, funny and relatable, you’ll zoom through it in a day on the beach, soaking up the millennial themes along with the sea air.
Big Swiss by Jen Beagin
Dark humour
Part unconventional romance, part psychological thriller and popular on the lists of many book clubs this year, if you haven’t read Big Swiss yet, it’s definitely one to pack for your summer holiday. A dark sex comedy narrated by 45-year-old Greta, a transcriber for a sex therapist, it draws you into the traumas and unlikely relationship between Greta and 28-year-old Flavia – aka Big Swiss – in a zippy, witty and passionate plot.
The List by Yomi Adegoke
Relationships and Social Media
This topical and thought-provoking book will have you plugged back into the digital world, even from your deckchair. Sharp, shocking and impossible to put down, it explores the fallout of cancel culture, when podcaster Michael appears on ‘The List’ of allegedly abusive men prior to his marriage to a successful journalist. Hailed as the book of the summer by Vogue, it’s worth dipping back into the world of social media, even on your beach holiday.
A Game of Lies by Clare Mackintosh
Crime thriller
Reality TV will never seem the same again once you’ve immersed yourself in this dark and twisted plot of murder and deceit. Seven reality show contestants arrive in the Welsh mountains to compete for a life-changing prize, unaware of what they’re truly signing up for. Everyone has a secret worth killing for, and when murder strikes, Detective Ffion Morgan is summoned to untangle the truth behind the scenes.
Sing Like Fish: How Sound Rules Life Under Water by Amorina Kingdon
Non Fiction
Did you know that coral larvae instinctively move toward sound to find nearby reefs? Or that dolphins develop unique whistles to identify themselves to others? French oceanographer Jacques Cousteau once described the depths of the ocean as ‘the silent world’, but as Kingdon reveals, the ocean teems with noise and underwater communication is vital. Dive deep into this musical tour of underwater life.
Book Your Seaside Holiday Cottage
With your reading list sorted, if you haven’t booked your summer holiday, now’s the time. Use our date filters to find last-minute availability for a coastal cottage in the UK this summer.
Voracious readers should also check out our article on ocean-themed books as suitable reads for your time by the sea.
