Top authors reveal their chosen summer reads

“Having spent most of my childhood summers in seaside towns on the south coast of Ireland, I expect this will bring back memories of those glorious days, and with jacket endorsements from the likes of Anne Enright and Donal Ryan, it’s sure to be a valuable read.

“I was a great admirer of Emilie Pine’s essay collection Notes To Self, so I have high hopes for Ruth & Pen (Hamish Hamilton, £14.99), a novel that charts the story of a middle-aged woman and a teenage girl over a single day in Dublin. Pine is known for the authenticity and vulnerability of her writing, and I’m intrigued to see how she makes the leap from non-fiction to fiction.”

The award-winning writer Lisa Jewel says: “My eyes keep going to my reading pile and falling on the same three books that I am absolutely desperate to read but am saving for my holidays in August and the suspense is killing me! The first is Ocean State by Stewart O’Nan (Grove Press UK, £14.99). It’s set in Rhode Island where my best friend lives and it was she who recommended it. It’s the story of sisters, Angel and Marie, and the desperate childhood secret that haunts them.

“Next is Nonfiction by Julie Myerson (Corsair, £16.99). Myerson has written across many genres and is uniformly brilliant in all of them. It’s a fictional story about a mother dealing with her daughter’s drug addiction, loosely based on Myerson’s own well-documented struggles with her oldest son many years ago. Her writing is both beautiful and addictive and I know this will be done in one day on a sun-lounger.

“Lastly is Sun Damage by Sabine Durrant (Hodder & Stoughton, £16.99), who has written some of my favourite books of all time, including Lie With Me and Finders Keepers. This is a mystery suspense novel about a group of friends sharing a villa in the South of France, with, unbeknownst to them, a criminal in their midst.”