“What is the book that everyone is talking about this summer?”

Traci Thomas, host of The Stacks literary podcast, recently posed this question to followers on Instagram. A couple of years ago, she suggested, it was Gabrielle Zevin’s totally irresistible novel Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, about a trio of college friends whose lives are transformed by the successful video game they create together. Last year, Traci argued, it might have been Yellowface, R.F. Kuang’s sly novel of racism and bad faith in the publishing industry—although I suspect that book was more buzzed about within the industry than outside it. But Summer 2024? Still up for grabs.

Kathleen Schmidt was already anticipating the lack of consensus back in May, when she posted on the social media platform X, “Is it just me or does it seem like there’s no ‘big’ summer fiction book this year?” Schmidt is a savvy longtime book publicist who writes a Substack newsletter, Publishing Confidential, and though her conclusion might have seemed premature at the time, it appears she was onto something.

Replying to Kathleen’s post, I ventured that Kaliane Bradley’s The Ministry of Time (Avid Reader Press, May 7) could be a contender; nearly everyone I knew who had read the book—a clever mashup of speculative fiction and romance about a 19th-century polar explorer who travels through time and falls in love with the 21st-century minder assigned to resettle him—rhapsodized about it. Ministry was already a Good Morning America Book Club pick, which couldn’t hurt, but Kathleen wasn’t buying it: “I’m not sure that’s the book of the summer,” she wrote back.

This week, I asked Kirkus’ fiction editor, Laurie Muchnick, what title she would nominate. “Women of all ages are reading Miranda July’s All Fours [Riverhead, May 14],” she told me, “about a 40-something woman who drops out of her life and checks into a hotel a few miles from home while her family thinks she’s driving cross-country for work. A bit of summer wish fulfillment?” I’ve certainly seen plenty of people reading All Fours in the wild—on my daily subway commute, at the beach over the July 4 holiday—so the novel may indeed be gaining traction.

As I’m writing this, Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s Long Island Compromise (Random House, July 9) is about to come out, and this latest novel by the journalist and author of Fleishman Is in Trouble is certainly one of the most talked-about releases of the season. It’s the story of the Jewish Fletcher clan in a wealthy enclave of the titular suburb; they are still grappling, decades later, with the kidnapping of patriarch Carl—although the episode had a nominally happy ending with Carl’s release and the recouping of the $250,000 ransom. There’s certainly been a lot of anticipatory press for the novel, including our interview with the author in the July 1 issue. By the time this issue reaches you, we may have a better sense of the book’s impact—indeed, we may have to wait for Labor Day to truly know the book of Summer 2024. In the meantime, write to me with your candidates at tbeer@kirkus.com. The field is open.

Tom Beer is the editor-in-chief.