2023 Adult Summer Reading Most Popular Books
A booklist is created by our summer readers! We’ve done the math to see which books were the most popular in the 2023 Adult Summer Reading program.
September 1, 2023
Remarkably Bright Creatures
Read By 13 Summer Readers!
Shelby Van Pelt
After her husband dies, widow Tova Sullivan starts working at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, where she forms a special bond with a giant Pacific octopus who holds the key solving the mysterious disappearance of her 18-year-old son, Erik, over thirty years ago on the Puget Sound.
Happy Place
Read By 12 Summer Readers!
Emily Henry
Despite breaking up months earlier, a picture-perfect couple still haven’t told their friends about the split and attempt to pretend they are still together at an annual Maine getaway.
Say My Name
Read By 12 Summer Readers!
Joe Clifford
On the heels of a divorce, a midlist mystery writer returns to his hometown in Central CT and is dragged back into a decades-old, unsolved case involving former missing classmates to expose the horrific secrets of a quaint, idyllic New England town.
Verity
Read By 12 Summer Readers!
Colleen Hoover
Lowen Ashleigh is a struggling writer on the brink of financial ruin when she accepts the job offer of a lifetime. Jeremy Crawford, husband of bestselling author Verity Crawford, has hired Lowen to complete the remaining books in a successful series hisinjured wife is unable to finish. Lowen arrives at the Crawford home, ready to sort through years of Verity’s notes and outlines, hoping to find enough material to get her started. What Lowen doesn’t expect to uncover in the chaotic office is an unfinished autobiography Verity never intended for anyone to read.
Five Star Weekend
Read By 11 Summer Readers!
Elin Hilderbrand
Inviting her best friend from each phase of her life, widow Hollis Shaw hosts an unforgettable weekend on Nantucket, during which things don’t go as planned as each woman deals with heartbreak, infidelity, scandal and secrets, but things turnaround due to new friendships, unexpected romance and self-discovery.
It Ends With Us
Read By 10 Summer Readers!
Colleen Hoover
After building what should be a perfect life with neurosurgeon Ryle Kincaid, Lily finds herself in a troubled relationship with an abusive husband and must make a decision about her future, as she reencounters Atlas Corrigan, a man with links to her past.
It Starts With Us
Read By 10 Summer Readers!
Colleen Hoover
Atlas Corrigan, Lily’s first love and the person who returned suddenly and interrupted her romance with neurosurgeon Ryan Kincaid, tells his side of the story in the sequel toIt Ends with Us.
Lessons In Chemistry
Read By 9 Summer Readers!
Bonnie Garmus
In the early 1960s, chemist and single mother Elizabeth Zott, the reluctant star of America’s most beloved cooking show due to her revolutionary skills in the kitchen, uses this opportunity to dare women to change the status quo.
Fourth Wing
Read By 8 Summer Readers!
Rebecca Yarros
Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders.
Heart Bones
Read By 8 Summer Readers!
Colleen Hoover
Bound for Penn State with a full scholarship, Beyah Grim must first spend the remainder of summer in Texas with a father she barely knows.
Spare
Read By 7 Summer Readers!
Prince Harry
With its raw, unflinching honesty, Prince Harry’s memoir—in which he discusses the effect of his mother Princess Diana’s death on his life—is full of insight, revelation, self-examination and hard-won wisdom about the eternal power of love over grief.
Seven Husbands Of Evelyn Hugo
Read By 7 Summer Readers!
Taylor Jenkins Reid
When an aging and reclusive Hollywood icon selects an unknown magazine reporter to write her life story, the baffled journalist forges deep ties with the actress during a complicated interview process that exposes their tragic common history.
Every Summer After
Read By 6 Summer Readers!
Carley Fortune
Persephone, a magazine writer, returns to her lake hometown for a funeral and lands straight in to the orbit of her ex- best friend and lover, Sam, and must reconcile the choices she made since their breakup.
Nature Of Fragile Things
Read By 6 Summer Readers!
Susan Meissner
Moving to early 20th-century San Francisco to escape New York tenement life, an Irish mail-order bride uncovers transformative secrets involving a silent child and two other women before her precarious existence is upended by the great earthquake of 1906.
Pineapple Street
Read By 6 Summer Readers!
Jenny Jackson
Darley, the eldest daughter in the closely-tied, carefully-guarded, old money Stockton family, made the classic feminine mistake and gave up her job for her children before she realized she’d sacrificed more of herself than she intended; Sasha married into the Stocktons, and finds herself the outsider looking into the fishbowl, wondering if she will ever understand their ways; and Georgianna, the baby of the family, has fallen in love with someone she can’t (and really shouldn’t) have, and must confront the kind of person she wants to be.
Yellowface
Read By 6 Summer Readers!
R. F. Kuang
After the death of her literary rival in a freak accident, author June Hayward steals her just-finished masterpiece, sending it to her agent as her own work, but as emerging evidence threatens her success, she discovers just how far she’ll go to keep what she thinks she deserves.
Court Of Thorns And Roses
Read By 6 Summer Readers!
Sarah J. Maas
Dragged off to a treacherous magical land as retribution for killing a wolf, huntress Feyre learns that her captor, Tamlin, is one of the lethal, immortal faeries who once ruled her world.
23rd Midnight
Read By 5 Summer Readers!
James Patterson, Maxine Paetro
When an obsessed maniac turns serial killer Evan Burke’s true-crime story into a playbook, adding some of his own gruesome touches, Detective Lindsay Boxer, who put Burke in jail, tracks this elusive suspect, who is determined to put an end to the Murder Club—permanently.
All The Dangerous Things
Read By 5 Summer Readers!
Stacy Willingham
After her son is kidnapped while sleeping in his crib, a mother agrees to be interviewed by a true-crime podcaster with ulterior motives.
Bad Summer People
Read By 5 Summer Readers!
Emma Rosenblum
Two Fire Island queen bees and their single friend who meant to spend summertime relaxing and gossiping discover a body face down off the side of the boardwalk and in addition to uncovering the murderer also reveal infidelity and backstabbing.
Before We Were Yours
Read By 5 Summer Readers!
Lisa Wingate
Learning that her grandmother was a victim of the corrupt Tennessee Children’s Home Society, attorney and aspiring politician Avery Stafford delves into her family’s past and begins to wonder if some things are best kept secret.
Hang The Moon
Read By 5 Summer Readers!
Jeannette Walls
Sallie Kincaid is the daughter of the biggest man in a small town, Duke Kincaid. Born at the turn of the 20th century into a life of comfort and privilege, Sallie remembers little about her mother who died in a violent argument with the Duke. After encouraging her younger step-brother to participate in daredevil activities leads to an accident, Sallie Kincaid is cast out of her family. Nine years later, she returns, determined to reclaim her place.
Hotel Nantucket
Read By 5 Summer Readers!
Elin Hilderbrand
Attempting to win the favor of the Hotel Nantucket’s new London billionaire owner, general manager Lizbet Keaton, with drama behind closed doors, staff and guests with complicated pasts, a ghost roaming the halls and her own romantic uncertainty, has her work cut out for her.
Last Thing He Told Me
Read By 5 Summer Readers!
Laura Dave
After her husband disappears, Hannah Hall quickly realizes he isn’t who he said he was and that his 16-year-old daughter, who wants nothing to do with her, may hold the key to figuring out his true identity.
Paris Apartment
Read By 5 Summer Readers!
Lucy Foley
Arriving in Paris to stay with her brother Ben, Jess learns that he has gone missing, and to find him, starts digging into his life, realizing even though she has come to the City of Lights to escape her past, it’s his future hanging in the balance.
Reminders Of Him
Read By 5 Summer Readers!
Colleen Hoover
Released from prison, Kenna Rowan returns to the town where it all went wrong, hoping to reunite with her four-year-old daughter, but with everyone against her, she turns to local bar owner Ledger Ward who, risking everything, secretly helps her make amends.
Whispers
Read By 5 Summer Readers!
Ashley Audrain
When their picture-perfect hostess explodes in fury because her son disobeys her and then he falls from his bedside window in the middle of the night, three women grapple with what led to that terrible night as his life hangs in the balance.
Wishing Game
Read By 5 Summer Readers!
Meg Shaffer
Years ago, a reclusive mega-bestselling children’s author quit writing under mysterious circumstances. Suddenly he resurfaces with a brand-new book and a one-of-a-kind competition, offering a prize that will change the winner’s life.