Page-Turners For Summer

Writer Sara Bragg recommends the books you need to pack in your beach bag

Silent Waters

By L.V. Matthews Welbeck £8.99

Meet Me At The Lake

By Carley Fortune Little Brown Book Group, £7.99

The Girls of Summer

By Katie Bishop Transworld £12.99

For fans of Gillian McAllister and Lisa Jewell comes a chilling, beautifully written novel about family, secrets and murder. At 5am one summer’s morning, police diver Jen Harper wakes to find herself submerged in the silt of a river with no memory of how she got there. Forty-eight hours later, she’s called to dive in the same river in search of a missing woman, Claudia Franklin. But for Jen, this is no ordinary job. Her and Claudia’s families were entangled for decades – there is unresolved resentment between them, unspoken secrets. Jen hasn’t seen Claudia for twelve years now. Or has she?

The Dive

By Sara Ochs Bantam £12.99

The perfect summer read full of longing and lost love. A random connection sends two strangers, Will and Fern, on a daylong adventure where they make a promise one keeps and the other breaks, with lifechanging effects. The timing was wrong, but their connection was undeniable. When Fern returns home to run her mother’s lakeside resort, Will arrives nine years too late. Though he might be the only person who understands what she’s going through. Yet how can she possibly trust this expensive suit-wearing mirage who seems nothing like the young man she met all those years ago

Carrie Soto is Back

By Taylor Jenkins Reid Cornerstone £9.99

A compulsive, sizzling debut that explores sex, power and consent. Rachel has never been able to forget the summer she spent with Alistair on a sun-soaked Greek island. But as dark and deeply suppressed memories rise to the surface, Rachel begins to understand that Alistair – and the enigmatic, wealthy man he worked for – controlled much more than she ever realized. Rachel has never once considered herself a victim – until now. Perfect for fans of My Dark Vanessa and Luckiest Girl Alive

This Family

By Kate Sawyer Hodder & Stoughton £14.99

The Guest List meets The Beach in this lockedroom thriller debut all about the dark side of paradise. Scuba diving instructor Cass leads her students out for their first dive off the beautiful coast of Koh Sang, Thailand’s world-famous party island. It’s supposed to be a life-changing experience, but things quickly spiral out of control. By the time she gets back to the shore, one of her students is dead, another badly injured, and she knows that her idyllic life is about to be smashed to pieces on the rocks. Someone has discovered Cass’s secret, and on an island as remote as this, accidents happen. Plenty of backpackers choose to stay here forever –but some are never heard from again.

From bestselling author, comes a story about the cost of greatness and the burden of fame. Carrie Soto is the greatest player the world has ever seen. But six years after her last match, she watches a young British tennis player steal her world record and Carrie knows she has to go back and reclaim her rightful place at the top. Even if the world doesn’t believe in her. Even if it almost breaks her. The fight for a place in history is about to begin.

A stunning portrayal of messy, complicated relationships. Wedding celebrations bring together a fractured family for the first time in years. Set over the course of an English summer’s day but punctuated with memories from the past forty years of love and loss, hope and joy, heartbreak and grief, this is the story of a family. Told by a chorus of characters, it is an exploration of the small moments that bring us to where we are, the changes that are brought about by time, and what, despite everything, stays the same.