Welcome to the Bookends Summer Staycation 2021! | Which books are you bringing with you on your staycation this year?

Welcome to the Bookends Summer Staycation 2021! That’s right, our annual summer blog series is BACK featuring some of the hottest authors of the summer from Headline, Quercus and Hodder & Stoughton.

To kick things off, we asked our authors, Which books are you bringing with you on your staycation this year?

Jill Mansell, author of AND NOW YOU’RE BACK

 I’m currently reading In the Heights: Finding Home, written by Jeremy McCarter, which details the origins and making of the summer movie, just out, originally written as a stage musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda, and starring Anthony Ramos. As a huge Hamilton fan, I already know I’m going to love this book – and of course the movie too!

Rosanna Ley, author of THE ORANGE GROVE

Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell (she is one of my favourite authors and I am intrigued by this one), The Switch by Beth O’Leary (I so enjoyed The Flat Share which was brilliant) and Miss Benson’s Beetle by Rachel Joy (because I couldn’t resist the title…)

Kate Sawyer, author of THE STRANDING

I’ve quite the pile! I’ve been writing my second novel and had quite a lot to do in the run up to publication of The Stranding, so my usually voracious reading habit has taken the hit. I’ve got quite a few proofs to read of upcoming books, a fair few I’ve picked up on my recent tour of bookshops and a few, mostly classics, that I want to read for research before the next round of edits. Among them (without saying which category they slot into!) are: The Origins or Iris by Beth Lewis, The Cazalet Chronicals (yes, all of them) by Elizabeth Jane Howard, The Overstory by Richard Powers, Detransition Baby by Torrey Peters, Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf and The Unravelling by Polly Crosby.

Ruth Druart, author of WHILE PARIS SLEPT

My Ship is So Small – Ann Davison – the story of the first woman to cross the Atlantic alone.

Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

Hamnet – Maggie O’Farrell

Harriet Walker, author of THE WEDDING NIGHT

I’m just back from a staycation and I sped through Hostage by Clare Mackintosh, The House Guest by Charlotte Northedge, The Manningtree Witches by AK Blakemore and am halfway through Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason – an absolutely excellent holiday selection, if I say so myself.