The Best Fiction Books Our Editors Can’t Wait to Read on Vacation
There’s nothing quite like setting up your beach chair and feeling the salty air hit you as you dive straight into that book you just haven’t had the time to read. Vacation is the perfect time to unwind, relax, and get lost in a good book that you can finish beach-side with your toes in the sand. There are plenty of highly anticipated fiction books coming out this year you might already have on your list, but in case you need some recommendations, we asked our editors what new releases from 2022 they can’t wait to read this summer. Below, 12 of the best fiction books you’ll find us reading on our next vacation.
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Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl Gonzalez
Gonzalez’s debut novel has been showing up everywhere over the past few months—on recommended reading lists, in my IG feed, written up in my newspaper. Released in January 2022, the novel explores the intersection of identity, politics, and family, following the children of Puerto Rican revolutionaries now living in a gentrifying Brooklyn (as a resident of the city, this alone has me hooked). I hear there’s a TV adaptation already in the works, so I’m packing a copy for my next flight to dig in before the story hits screens. —Megan Spurrell, senior editor, US
The Wonders by Elena Medel
In 2013, Medel won the Loewe Fundation Poetry Prize, the most important poetry award in Spain and The Wonders is the long-awaited novel debut by one of the best poets of the new Spanish generation. The Wonders is a novel about money—a novel about how the money we don't have defines us. It is also a novel about care, responsibilities, and expectations; about the precariousness that does not respond to the crisis but to the class, and about who will tell the stories that define our origins and our past. It's a trip to the last decades of the history of Spain, set in Madrid after the Civil War. —David Moralejo, head of editorial content, Spain
Patricia Wants to Cuddle by Samantha Allen
I have loved working with Samantha Allen over the years, whether on stories for Traveler or as a guest on our Women Who Travel podcast, and the premise of her fiction debut novel sounds impeccable. It’s the best of romantic reality TV competition shows, the Pacific Northwest, and chosen family, mixed in with a queer Sasquatch. (Yes, you read that right.) I have a preview copy sitting on my shelf and I cannot wait to dive in on my next vacation, before its release this summer. —Meredith Carey, travel booking editor, U.S.
The Candy House by Jennifer Egan
I’ve been a fan of Jennifer Egan since she took home the Pulitzer in 2011 for A Visit from the Goon Squad. The lives of the characters in Eagan’s new book overlap with those of several characters from Goon Squad, and like Goon Squad, The Candy House is a collection of interlocking narratives as much as it is a novel. The main character seems a sort of Mark Zuckerberg type and issues of connectivity and privacy are at the center—it feels marvelously timely. —Rebecca Misner, senior features editor, U.S.
Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel
I enjoy stories that challenge a narrative and Kaikeyi sounds like it will. The Kaikeyi is one of the more vilified characters in Indian mythology—projected as an ambitious, warrior queen from the Ramayan who denied Lord Ram his right to the throne and had him exiled. Patel seems to have taken on the two untouchables: mythology and patriarchy, which sounds quite an adventure for a debut novel. Rooting for her and for Kaikeyi already. —Salil Deshpande, head of editorial content, India
You Have a Friend in 10a: Stories by Maggie Shipstead
I recently finished Traveler contributor Maggie Shipstead’s The Great Circle (and you’ll find Traveler editors Jesse Ashlock and Erin Florio in the acknowledgements) and am lucky I don’t have to wait too long to devour more of her writing. I am very much one to judge a book by its cover and this one—filled with short stories about love and relationships set in Montana, Paris, Romania, and more—has a stellar cover, inspired by in-flight safety pamphlets. It’s an automatic add-to-TBR for me. —Meredith Carey, travel booking editor, U.S.
To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara
It sounds trite to say that everyone I know read—and loved—Yanagihara’s second novel, A Little Life, but it’s true. Seven years later, the T magazine editor-in-chief and former Traveler editor has another (much-hyped) tome out, this time, a tripartite saga that traces the lives of its three sets of characters—all of whom live in the same townhouse in Washington Square Park, in an alternate-reality New York City—across three centuries: 1893, 1993, and 2093. Yanagihara’s writing, lavish and baroque, lends more than enough appeal—so, three stories for the price of one? Count me in. —Betsy Blumenthal, features editor, U.S.
The Summer Place by Jennifer Weiner
I’m in a fairly intense book club that tackles a lot of non-fiction and weighty fiction and, call me a philistine, when summer rolls around, I really just want a beach read. Something that I can devour in a day, not have to take notes in the margin or do supplemental reading to grasp the complexities. Jennifer Weiner's books occupy that sweet space—light enough but also smart enough and never formulaic the way many that fall into the vacation book genre do. The title alone has secured its place in my beach bag. —Rebecca Misner, senior features editor, U.S.
Either/Or by Elif Batuman
I loved Batuman’s 2017 book The Idiot, a semi-autobiographical bildungsroman that follows a woman named Selin as she navigates her first year at Harvard in the late ‘90s. She so deftly captures the awkwardness and confusion of that period, when everyone is trying to sort out exactly who they are—and in her case, that self-actualization runs parallel to the rise of emails as a form of regular communication. Cue idiosyncratic exchanges with an older Hungarian student named Ivan, and you have what feels like a true, turn-of-the-century masterpiece. This latest work, out May 24, is a sequel to that one, and tracks Selin, now in her sophomore year, as she travels abroad. And like The Idiot, whose title is lifted from Dostoyevsky’s 1869 classic, this one, too, is pulled from a previous literary work, that of the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard; in his book, the indulgences of an aesthetic life are pitted against the virtues of an ethical one. Needless to say, I can’t wait to see which route our heroine takes. —Betsy Blumenthal, features editor, U.S.
Sisters of Night and Fog: A WWII Novel by Erika Robuck
The Sisters of Night and Fog tells the story of two women in World War II. Virginia must decide with her French husband if she's willing to risk everything to help, when they face the countless people suffering in the war. Meanwhile, Nineteen-year-old Violette is desperate to fight the Nazis. Centered on the two women, the author uses powerful words to show the struggles of those under the shadow of the war. It is not just a story of romance, but also a historical reflection. With such global tensions, this book is an indicative signifier, that war is the worst means, whatever situation we are in. —Shawn Ong, head of editorial content, China
Strangers I Know by Claudia Durastanti
This very unconventional novel is also a memoir, migrating between Rome, rural Italy, London, and New York City. It’s funny, constantly changing the narrative, and often deep, investigating family bonds—main character's deaf parents never bothered to teach sign language to their kids—and what it means to belong when you always feel like a stranger. —Sofia Bordandini, adaptation editor, Italy
The Hotel Nantucket Hardcover by Elin Hilderbrand
I can't seem resist a good old-fashioned summer drama. Elin Hilderbrand certainly knows how to write a good beach read and her newest novel, The Hotel Nantucket, comes out this June. Hotel Nantucket appears to be summer paradise on the outside, but it's filled with a staff and guests that have complicated pasts—the hotel has even earned a tarnished reputation after a tragic fire there killed a young girl. I love dramas that reveal secrets about multiple characters and feel like you're a part of small-town gossip. Plus, this one gives a little bit of the roaring '20s history and glamour we all love. —Meaghan Kenny, editorial assistant, U.S.
