10 Vintage paperbacks that are summer holiday must-reads

For the reader in search of their next compulsive summer read, look no further than to this list of paperbacks you won’t be able to put down or shut up about.

28 July 2025

Soak up the sun and sink into the pages of these holiday must-reads. From chilling thrillers and swoon-worthy fiction to tropical island escapes, this list is your one-stop destination for the best paperbacks to read this summer.

The Husbands by Holly Gramazio

What if you could change husbands as easily as a lightbulb?

One night Lauren finds a strange man in her flat who claims to be her husband. All the evidence – from photos to electricity bills – suggests he’s right. And then another one appears.

Lauren’s attic, she slowly realises, is creating an endless supply of husbands for her – but how do you know whether the one you have now is the good-enough one, or the wrong one, or the best one? And how long should you keep trying to find out?

Welcome to Glorious Tuga by Francesca Segal

Welcome to glorious Tuga – the world’s most remote island and Charlotte Walker’s new home.

Charlotte has swapped her grey life in London for a year in this tropical paradise. Officially, she’s there for conservation but the reality is far more complicated.

For somewhere on Tuga lies the answer to a truth she’s waited her whole life to learn. If she finds it, then perhaps she might finally find herself too.

Waist Deep by Linea Maja Ernst

Five friends from university; seven summer days in a cabin in rural Denmark. A chance to swim, sunbathe, flirt, read and mess around like in the old days.

At least that’s what Sylvia had hoped. But when her friends arrive with real jobs, kids and partners, Sylvia is left wondering what happened to the radical ways of living they embraced at university. Worse, Esben and Karen announce their plan to get married at the end of the week, striking a blow to Sylvia’s simmering, decades-long crush on Esben – a crush that her monogamous girlfriend Charlie would definitely not approve of.

They Never Learn by Layne Fargo

Scarlett Clark is an exceptional English professor and an even better serial killer. She’s made it her mission in life to track down predatory men on campus and kill them and she’s preparing for her biggest murder yet.

When police start investigating the spate of local deaths, Scarlett starts to realise it’s only a matter of time before her secret life is exposed and everything she’s built comes crashing down with it…

Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino

Meet Adina: a woman who has never felt at home on Earth. Born at the moment when Voyager 1 is launched into space, Adina is a baby of unusual perception. As a child, she recognises she is different, not least because of her strange knowledge of a faraway planet. Then a fax machine arrives at home. Her mission is clear: she must report on the oddities of humankind.

As Adina grows up, she dispatches transmissions on the terrors and delights of human existence. But then she starts to wonder. Is there a chance there are others like her out there?

The Lying Guest by Mahi Cheshire

Anika’s life is turned upside down when her patient dies in surgery, and she’s given the blame.

Hounded by news reporters and online trolls, she’s left with no choice but to escape to Sri Lanka and take up a mysterious housesitting job – a job she thinks could be her fresh start.

But when a man is found dead close to where she’s staying, and the towns people start telling her to leave, people she’s never seen before, she fears her past may be catching up with her in ways she never could have imagined…

Blood Ties by Jo Nesbo

Brothers Carl and Roy Opgard have succeeded in life. Or at least they’ve had as much success as is possible in a small town like Os, where they've killed their way to the top. Carl manages the swanky spa hotel, while Roy has made ambitious plans for an amusement park.

Sheriff Kurt Olsen believes he has new evidence that will prove the brothers’ involvement in several past murders – but Carl and Roy are used to covering their tracks, and they're not afraid to get their hands dirty.

Hunted by Abir Mukherjee

Your kids are missing, accused of plotting to kill thousands. Can you find them before it's too late?

In London, armed police storm Heathrow Airport and arrest Sajid Khan. His daughter, Aliyah entered the USA with the suicide bomber, and now she's missing, potentially plotting another attack on American soil.

But then a woman called Carrie turns up at Sajid's door after travelling halfway across the world. She claims Aliyah is with her son and she has a clue to their whereabouts. Carrie knows something isn't adding up - and that she and Sajid are the only ones who can find their children and discover the truth.

On the run from the authorities, the two parents are thrown together in a race against time to stop their kids and prevent a catastrophe the likes of which the world has never seen.

10 Vintage paperbacks that are summer holiday must-reads

10 gripping Vintage audiobooks to listen to this summer

7 summer must-haves for non-fiction readers from Vintage

10 red-hot Vintage Classics to read this summer

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