It’s almost two years since I posted my first five summer reads, mentioning how much I look forward to summer although not heatwaves like the poleaxing one we’ve been experiencing in Europe. The five novels below summon up the season for me, all with 
Set over a single drenching summer’s day, the kind I remember from childhood holidays, Sarah Moss’s Summerwater takes us into a set of chalets in a remote Scottish park where peace and quiet is shattered by the partying of one renegade family. Moss dips in and out of the chalet occupants’ long wet day, exploring their preoccupations through their inner monologues. Beneath it all runs the low hum of xenophobia, each of the holidaymakers giving the noisy chalet’s inhabitants a different eastern European nationality having not bothered to find out what it is for themselves. Another sharply observed slice of fiction from Moss, delivered with characteristic insight.
For me, the late Helen Dunmore’s writing is hard to beat, showcased beautifully in Talking to the Dead. Nina has gone to help her sister Isabel, weak from the difficult birth of her first child. Nina and Isabel’s husband are both deeply concerned for her mental and physical welfare but eventually find themselves drawn into an obsessive affair. As the heat of the summer intensifies so do relationships within the household. Nina begins to remember scenes from her childhood with Isabel, in particular disturbing memories of their brother who died at three months supposedly of cot death. The pace of the narrative quickens as it works towards its shocking climax.
Georgina Harding’s Harvest is the third in a loosely linked trilogy about the Ashe family, echoing both The Gun Room and Land of the Living in its exploration of the legacy of war. When Jonathan invites his Japanese lover to visit the farm his father took on after the Second World War, Kumiko decides to spend the summer there while Jonathan helps his brother bring in the harvest. As the season wears on, tension between the brothers tightens and Kumiko feels increasingly like an outsider. Harding’s prose is eloquently spare, punctuated with gorgeous descriptions of the Norfolk countryside.
Any novels that say summer to you that you’d like to recommend?
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My first five summer novels are here.
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Yey for five satisfying summer reads! I read The Fire this month too. It was my first Krien and I really loved it. In sparse prose the depth of feelings and psychological depth seemed masterful and I forgot I was reading it in translation, which shows how well it’s been done.
Summerwater has been languishing in one of my piles for a while but I have now shuffled some books and moved it to (hopefully) this summer’s pile(s!). I’m pleased you rated that.
I’m also off to see if I can source a copy of Harvest (I wasn’t even aware of Georgina Harding) as I love being reminded about the beauties of the Norfolk countryside.
Delighted you like the sound of these. Georgina Harding is one of those authors that doesn’t get nearly the attention she deserves. I hope you enjoy her writing.
A Month in the Country by JL Carr. I reread it last week in the brutal heatwave. A beautiful novel.
I might pick that off the shelves. I could do with something to lose myself in as we enter are second week of house renovation chaos!
Harvest is very tempting.
I’ve never got to Helen Dunmore even though I’m certain I’ll enjoy her writing – she’s in the TBR somewhere, I must have a hunt…
I’m sure you’d appreciate Dunmore, and Harvest is a novella…
Tom Lake is such a summery read! I’ve just finished Will MacLean’s Solace House which definitely felt like summer to me.
I spotted the MacLean on NetGalley but already had too much on my plate. Adding it to my list.
Tom Lake and The Fire really appeal to me. I liked Summerwater a lot.
Both highly recommended, Cathy. Krien is brilliant. Her themes are in a similar vein to Jenny Erpenbeck’s.
I LOVED Talking to the Dead. I think that, and maybe Mourning Ruby are my favourites of hers. x
The depiction of heat in Talking to the Dead is superb. Perhaps one to reread in winter! I think Mourning Ruby tends to be forgotten about which is a shame. Difficult themes handled so well x
I’ve been having a Helen Dunmore moment too, having just finished House of Orphans, set in Finland at the turn of the 20th century, and which complements The Siege very well – a book I read long ages ago, but which stays with me still. I read Georgina Harding’s The Harvest first, before the other two, but really, it didn’t matter. She’s a bit under-the-radar isn’t she? I haven’t read this Daniela Krien yet. I’ll enjoy that, as much as anything for the cover. Whoever does her covers is Rather Good. A good haul here!
Dunmore had such a range, didn’t she. Both novels you mention are so different from Talking to the Dead. You’re right about Harding who doesn’t get nearly the attention she should, rather like Dunmore. That series of covers for the Kriens is exemplary: eye-catching and appropriate for her themes. I have hopes your library might stock her.
I loved Tom Lake because it reminded me of work trips to Michigan when I could escape the corporate environment and visit the cherry farms!
And sample the produce, I hope!