12 Great New Paperbacks in Honor of Paperback Book Day

Gyasi’s second novel came out in hardcover last year and is one of this summer’s most anticipated new paperback reads. It’s about scientist Gifty, whose family has been through a tragedy that leaves her determined to uncover the mystery of the suffering she sees around her. Raised in the church by a family of Ghanaian immigrants, though, Gifty can’t quite let go of the promises of her childhood faith and the salvation it promises. How can we balance science and religion? Love and pain? Transcendent Kingdom asks these questions and more as it tells the story of one family in Alabama.

Set in the near future, in a world where animals are rapidly dying off, this evocative novel is about Franny Stone, a woman who loves deeply but cannot bring herself to stay in one place for long. Finding her way north to Greenland, she talks her way onto a fishing boat, determined to follow the path of the last Arctic terns as they migrate down to Antarctica. Franny’s reasons for doing so are shrouded in the secrets of her past, but as the sea voyage grows more treacherous, both she and her new crew must decide what they’re willing to risk to reach their destination.

Available on August 3, the paperback edition of this murder mystery would fit easily in your beach tote. In a retirement village where nothing exciting ever happens, four friends form a murder club to research unsolved crimes. Except one day there’s a real crime to solve — the murder of a much-disliked local developer. Joyce, Elizabeth, Ibrahim, and Ron manage to convince a local cop that they have information to share, but soon the bodies are beginning to pile up.

This contemporary retelling of Sense and Sensibility is the perfect paperback to read by the pool. Ten years ago, Yash Raje and India Dashwood had one magical night together. But now, Yash is a serious candidate for governor of California — the first Indian American candidate — and he believes in the power of control above all else. When that control is threatened by a hate incident at a rally, Yash’s family turns to India, now a stress management coach who doesn’t believe in repressing anything. Will they clash, or will their long-denied passion come alive again?

If historical fiction is your summer reading flavor of choice, this paperback is for you. Daisy Wilder is all about horses and bare feet on the beach, not high society. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, she joins a secret program as a WARD, guiding pilots and tracking planes across the Pacific. But not everyone thinks women are capable of this work, and Daisy must throw herself into it with her fellow recruits to prove the naysayers wrong, even as the stakes get ever higher.

This novel by the author of Beartown came out in hardcover last year, so if you missed it then, now’s your chance. A failed bank robber takes an open house full of surprised people hostage. The hostages are all kinds of people — a retired couple looking for a fixer upper, a banker, a young couple expecting their first baby, a plucky woman in her 80s, the real estate agent, and a mystery man in the bathroom. Are any of these people, including the bank robber, who they appear to be? As they’re reluctantly forced to reveal truths to each other, they set in motion a surprising and unexpected chain of events.

Room author Donoghue’s latest novel came out last year, just as the pandemic was raging across North America. Now, it’s here in paperback. A wise, moving story of hope in the face of darkness, the novel is set in the maternity ward of a Dublin hospital in 1918, as another pandemic, along with a world war, is ravaging the world. Nurse Julia Power, doctor Kathleen Lynn, and volunteer Bridie Sweeney must come together to help the pregnant women in their care over the course of three long days.