Rich people behaving badly, poor people planning a heist and normal people just trying to get on with life make for perfect poolside reading this month — plus historical fiction featuring Helen Gurley Brown’s 1960s Cosmo, New York City in the 1970s and Harlem of the ’80s.

The acclaimed two-time Pulitzer Prize winner concludes his Harlem Trilogy with a gut punch hailed by Publishers Weekly as “the greatest New York novel in years.” The finale is itself a trilogy of sections set in 1981, 1983 and 1986 as the city emerges from the economic deprivation of 1970s financial ruin with an avant-garde arts scene and thriving Wall Street culture. Part-time fence and full-time Harlem furniture salesman Ray Carney is now a trusted community pillar in his early 50s and, in the time-honoured trope, takes on one last job. Befitting the greed-is-good decade, this one’s high stakes: “There’s big money, big stakes and big hair – while leaving room for proper goodbyes to the cast,” the author says. The triumphant conclusion can be read on its own – or refreshed with Zed Books’s 2023 interview with Whitehead about the previous instalment. (July 21)

The when-will-they (or maybe they won’t?) of this screwball romantic comedy takes place after Kurt and Eugenie have known each other for years. Both in their 50s, they’ve married other people and raised children. But now comes the reckoning, when Kurt can no longer contain his feelings for Eugenie, and the shift threatens to upend the rhythm of their lives. Canadian-born debut novelist Singer (raised in Yukon territory and northwest Saskatchewan) is a Las Vegas transplant and mines her adopted neon-lit milieu for all its seedy glamour. Think: When Harry Met Sally… by way of The Hangover. (July 7)

In 1962, self-described “mouseburger” Helen Gurley Brown published Sex and the Single Girl, a blockbuster advice book championing the independence of unmarried women. By the mid-1960s, she was the editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazine, where she reigned for 32 years. Inspired by his longtime friendship with the controversial feminist figure, Searles – who was a top Cosmo editor for 23 years – fictionalizes those early days, from Gurley Brown’s interior monologue during her initial pitch meeting at Hearst, where she (and her research on the ignored juggernaut demographic) was treated dismissively, to finding and asserting her era-defining voice. Crazy Rich Asians author Kevin Kwan calls it, “an irresistibly fun, sparkling novel that you’ll want to binge in one night!” (July 7)

Gods behaving badly is an understatement in this tongue-in-cheek contemporary tweak that mashes up Greek mythology with meeting the in-laws for the first time at a family reunion. The messy drama of marrying into an elite, closed kin is taken to the logical extreme when Julia finds out her boyfriend, Harry, is secretly rich – oh, and he’s also Ares, the god of war. Imagine the Ancient Greek gods as a bickering extended clan of billionaires who control different aspects of the universe – given the state of the world today, the only fantasy element, really, is them being immortal deities. McGee (American Royals) gives readers a view into the gods’ world of privilege while they use their divine powers to jostle for power within the family and meddle in Julia’s relationship to prevent their pledge of eternal love. With apologies to Christopher Nolan, The Odyssey isn’t the Homeric event of the summer: this entertainingly original romp is. (July 7)

Ambition, marriage and parenthood are under the microscope in the latest by this clever author (North Woods) as it follows middle-aged couple Kate and Miles on a year in Vermont. As she takes up a visiting professorship, Miles has been languishing, unable to finish his PhD dissertation in Russian folklore. There’s something mystical going on in the novel – which is rife with descriptions of nature – as Miles looks to find community. It makes for a light-hearted and funny picaresque about living among oddball characters in a small, quirky New England town. Picture the colourful cast of Widow’s Bay locals: it’s not far off.  (July 7)

Friendship and empowerment fuel this character-driven dual-timeline novel by Toronto author Fader, which delves into how women respond to injustice in different eras. Alternating chapters are split between the present day, where Margot is dealing with the fallout of her husband’s lewd internet behaviour, and 1977 New York City, where a mysterious vigilante named Lady X is taking revenge on creeps, rapists and other misogynist offenders a lot like him. When Margot and her teenage daughter go back to her childhood home, she learns new things about the mother (who now lives with Alzheimer’s) she thought she knew – and the bonds of sisters, mother and daughters across three generations. (July 14)

Climate journalist Tim and paranoid con artist Virginia are both hard up. They fall into an unlikely romance and are soon on a road trip to rural Oklahoma, targeting the world’s largest data center. Their elaborate plan is to plunder its terabytes and servers for exploitable, encrypted secrets that will hopefully make them rich. The smart, timely premise allows wryly funny Rich to touch on privacy, surveillance, the physicality of the internet, and the financial distinction between secrets and raw information. Equal parts modern relationship drama, philosophical inquiry and comic heist thriller, it’s thought-provoking realism at the intersection of technology and malaise – a caper for Cory Doctorow devotees. (July 14)

One of the most talked-about books of summer has been likened, in its reflective nature, to Fredrik Backman’s A Man Called Ove. The title invokes character Billy Pilgrim’s epitaph from Kurt Vonnegut’s anti-war classic Slaughterhouse-Five to strike a fatalist tone about the brevity of life. In enthralling prose, the story is told primarily from the point of view of the personification of Death (a cat-dad named Travis), who, as he goes about his work comforting the dying, begins to understand what it is to be alive. With care and compassion, short sections cover the people whose lives he briefly touches as well as various forms of grief and loss. Moving from poignant to joyful to sad, it’s an emotional rollercoaster – but so is life in all its fragility, and this is a profound and ambitious book about the heartbreaking carpe diem of it all. (July 7)

Now living in Canada, the author of the global bestselling 2007 memoir Prisoner of Tehran (about her teenage imprisonment in Iran’s notorious Evin Prison) turns to fiction with a historical novel inspired by the life of her paternal grandmother. Largely set before, during and in the immediate aftermath of the Bolshevik uprising in Russia, Zina is a privileged young lady in a well-connected family whose life is shattered and is exiled to post-war Iran because of the Russian Revolution. An imaginative reconstruction based on scant facts – but full of love – the novel tracks the resilience and survival of another remarkable woman. (July 14) 

Vera is all of 40 when her job as personal assistant to a vapid movie star (who is about to replace her with someone younger) hits a dead end. Broke after pausing her screenwriting ambitions to act as primary caregiver to her recently deceased mother, who had Parkinson’s, Vera moves in with her grandmother Ruby. The former scream queen is one of the many bygone Hollywood actors and industry insiders living at desert retirement community Starlight Palms. Surrounded by eccentric, frisky octogenarians in open relationships, Vera takes stock and looks forward – with the help of Elias, an old flame who happens to be the resident physician, raising his teenage daughter alone. Cue the spicy and sweet second-chance romance, with three opinionated generations of perspective on relationships. (July 21)