Best Summer Reads 2024 Goodreads

The day after I got engaged to my boyfriend, his best friend locked me up. He smiled as he unbuttoned his shirt, stepping closer with each passing moment. "Mich, I'm your true destiny," he said, his voice low and menacing. As I struggled to resist, I lost my footing and tumbled down the stairs. When I woke up, all my memories were gone. The handsome stranger standing before me noticed my confusion and kindly offered an explanation. "You're my fiancée, but you cheated on me," he said.

My father was the CEO of a major corporation, and I was his illegitimate daughter—the one no one was supposed to know about. Growing up, I was the child nobody cared for. My father didn’t love me, and my mother wasn’t much better. From a young age, it was just me and my little brother looking out for each other. When I got into college, my father’s family decided to take my brother in. However, only a few days later, I received the news that my brother was dead.  I knew, deep down, that his death wasn’t just some accident. From that moment on, I worked even harder, determined to succeed. When I finally returned, I had a special gift prepared for my father’s family. This one’s for my brother!

When her fated mate chooses her best friend, Euphyllia Ivara Ruinart discovers a cruel truth that she has been reborn countless times, only to be betrayed in every life. In her despair, one forbidden night binds her to Lucretius Xior Franciosa, Alpha of the Golden Eclipse Pack, commander in the royal military, and her mate's own uncle and sworn enemy. From that night on, cryptic notes and a single chrysanthemum begin to appear, which she soon discovers are from him. It's his constant reminder that she is being watched, claimed, and marked as his. Then comes his offer: vengeance, in exchange for her body, her trust, and perhaps even her soul. A deal with the devil, which she accepts, swearing to destroy the mate who cast her aside and the friend who betrayed her. What starts as revenge becomes an entanglement with his darkness, where obsession devours love and ruin is the only end. But amidst the chaos of betrayal and desire, Euphyllia yearns to uncover the mystery of her past lives and discover who she truly is.

I worked as a waitress in a small-town diner, but I put my husband Tom through Harvard Law School. But after he graduated, when I was eight months pregnant, he divorced with me and married my best friend, Sarah. On their wedding day, I didn't cry or make a scene. Instead, I went to work as their housekeeper. Tom thought my love made me easy to control. Sarah treated me like dirt, thinking I was born to serve. I never complained – I just prepared a surprise for them. But when their daughter was admitted to Harvard, they opened the surprise and went crazy.

"I just want to ask you one question before you walk away Hailey. How loud do you think you'll scream when I fuck you”? My name is Hailey King, and I’m living a lie. I’ve hidden the truth from everyone including my own brothers just to keep what I do and who I really am a secret. It’s not that I want to lie, it's just that I don't have a choice. I thought I was holding it all together, thought I was strong until I saw Jayden Knight last New Year’s Eve. He stripped me bare—emotionally and physically. Jayden is everything I want but everything I know I can’t have. We’ve known each other most of our lives, but I’ve kept my distance since I turned eighteen, because I knew deep down he was dangerous to my carefully built façade. And I was right. After that night we spent together, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about him or how completely he ignited something in me I didn’t know still existed. Now, I crave Jayden like he’s a drug I can’t quit… and that one unforgettable night still haunts me. But I'm in for a surprise the next morning.

Mexico gave her sun, tequila, and a man who kissed like a secret. L.A. gave her his twin-and a migraine. Jannah Cole wasn't supposed to fall for anyone on vacation. But then Ethan Hunt happened-dark eyes, cryptic smirks, and the kind of kiss that makes your brain short-circuit. He vanished before sunrise, and she told herself it was a one-time thing. Until she walked back into work and saw him again. Same jawline. Same voice. Same tattoo. Totally different name. Now he's Aaron Steele, her very polished CEO, and apparently? He's never seen her before in his life. Then there's Clinton Steele-his charming twin and self-declared Mexico mystery man. Sweet, attentive, and just confusing enough to make her question everything. After all, how many brooding, emotionally unavailable doppelgängers can one girl trip over in a single summer? And the real question: What if she didn't mistake one brother for the other? What if she didn't mistake anything at all? Two brothers. One ghost of a kiss. And a truth wrapped in too many lies to count.

At 16 years old, I travel with my sister, Sarah Barnes, to the remote mountains of Nectar Valley to participate in a program. While herding cattle in the mountains, I fall asleep. In my drowsy state, I hear strange panting and gasps. Thick fog has somehow risen throughout the forest by the time I wake up. Suddenly, Sarah's anxious voice calls out from within the fog. I'm about to respond when someone suddenly covers my mouth with their hand. A voice whispers in my ear, "Don't answer. That's not your sister. It's the Temptress!"

When my best friend and I realized we had been reborn and traveled back several decades, we locked eyes, collapsed into each other's arms, and sobbed, shouting that we wanted to break off our engagements. The entire neighborhood whispered that we had lost our minds. But only we knew the truth. In our past lives, this was the day everything was sealed: she married a battalion commander, Ned Stark, and I became the wife of a high school teacher, Robbie Stark. My husband betrayed me. For the sake of that pretentious whore, Scarlett Wheaton, he stole my university admission letter and let her take my place on campus. The world mocked me as a failure, and Robbie stood by in silence. After we married, every time he touched me, he would immediately write another love letter to Scarlett—atoning for his supposed guilt. "Scarlett, even if I can't be with you in this life, my soul will always belong to you alone." Even my own child despised me, calling me an ignorant village woman, urging me again and again to divorce so that his father could be with his "true love," Scarlett. And my best friend, Rachel Croft—born the daughter of a factory director—was tricked by her husband, Ned, under the pretense of buying a house. He drained her savings and her wages for twenty long years. It wasn't until she fell gravely ill and went to sell the house that she discovered the deed he had given her was a forgery. The real house—the one paid in full—was in Scarlett's name. One of Scarlett's dresses cost more than my friend's entire monthly salary. When Rachel begged to reclaim what rightfully belonged to her, she was met only with contempt from Ned and her child. "All you ever care about is money. You're nothing like Scarlett, who isn't materialistic at all. Your illness is retribution," Ned had said. "Exactly. Only someone as noble and kind as Scarlett deserves to be my mother!" her child had said. Rachel and I both spent our lives working ourselves to the bone, only to end with nothing—dying bitter and broken from the injustice. But this time, fate has given us another chance. I will go to university. Rachel will become a wealthy woman. This time, without us paving the way, those shameless men and that wretched woman think they can still live happily ever after? Dream on.

Could anything be more worse than a betrayal from the ones you loved and trust the most? "You better not be an ingrate or you sure will regret it for the rest of your life, that you know pretty well.. Understood?" "Yes sir!" I managed to answer back as rivers of tears were already rushing down from my eyes. I rubbed the tears off my face with the back of my palm as I walked to the exit of the office. Join Diana Roberts on a heart-wrenching odyssey through betrayal, survival, and the quest for identity. When her mother's tragic death thrusts her into a vicious family power struggle, Diana is cast into the unforgiving streets. Yet, in the shadows of despair, she encounters unlikely allies, including the compassionate Jake Stewart. As she battles demons from her past, a sinister conspiracy unfolds, revealing a tangled web of deception, crime, and a shocking family secret. Can Diana break free from the chains of her lineage, or will she succumb to the darkness that threatens to consume her newfound life? Uncover the gripping saga of one girl's resilience against a world determined to break her.

A young widow is given one more chance at life when her life is reversed back in time using a time travel machine that had been her late husband's father's life's work, way before she was forced into an arranged marriage. But what does the new trip in time hold for her, especially when she meets her then husband in a new setting, and sees him in a different light, bearing in mind that he is already dead? And how fast is a whirlwind romance when she has to go back to her place in time to an empty bed? "You don't...look like someone who has a long time to live." I said to him, watching as his gaze became a little sad. "I guess when you live right, you don't need to."