The best summer reads for 2026
From sweeping historical fiction to propulsive thrillers, here are five books to get you through heatwaves and holidays, all from authors of Muslim heritage
If the rest of the summer is anything like the past few heatwaves in western Europe, you might find yourself indoors, curtains fully closed, fan on full blast and a book in hand, waiting out the worst of the high temperatures. When the weather becomes a bit kinder and you get to a park, beach or poolside, I trust that these summer fiction picks will travel just as well.
From sweeping historical fiction to propulsive thrillers, here are my summer 2026 favourites for every mood (and microclimate)…
Uprising by Tahmima Anam
Uprising, shortlisted for the Orwell prize, is an unflinching feminist novel by Bangladesh-born British writer and anthropologist Tahmima Anam, set against the backdrop of the climate crisis, with a plot that turns on itself in ways you don’t expect. The story was inspired by a real-life brothel in Bangladesh, where sex work is legal.
When Kusum Khan attends anti-corruption demonstrations in Dhaka, “she had not been born until that very moment”. Yet her future is stolen shortly after, when her sister Pyara, just 18 months older, is shot dead at one such protest. Broken by grief and with no other options, Kusum accepts an offer to work abroad, but instead is trafficked to a brothel on a remote island, presided over by a cruel madam who was once sold into sexual slavery.
When Kusum leads the sex workers in a plot to overthrow their captor and support themselves by selling explicit photographs online, the author asks whether that autonomy is freedom, or a better bargain within a society that exploits women and workers. The characters Anam draws richly capture the moral complexities around sex work.
Turbulence by Hafsa Lodi
At the heart of Turbulence, journalist Hafsa Lodi’s thoughtful debut novel, is an uncomfortable question: are you still a feminist if you find yourself living the gender roles you once rejected?
Dunya Dawood is on a flight to New York from an unnamed Middle Eastern city. After a surprise upgrade to first class, she is temporarily separated from her toddler and her husband. It is the first time in a while that she’s had the space to think properly about her life, and, at 36,000ft in the air, she begins to question whether the path of domesticity she is on is what she truly wants.
In her past life, Dunya was a university student in New York who found her calling in Islamic feminism. She had also been serious about becoming a documentary filmmaker, but when her husband took over his father’s luxury travel company, she decided to give up her ambitions for love and move to the other side of the world with him.
This book resonated deeply because Lodi understands the weight of decisions young Muslim women can face and how a traditional family life can close over you when you were so sure you’d be the exception. The author has given us a heroine whose contradictions feel familiar, torn between a life that seems perfect on paper and one that may actually fulfil her.
Wimmy Road Boyz by Sufiyaan Salam
Wimmy Road Boyz is an exhilarating debut novel set over one night on Wilmslow Road in Manchester, the city’s famous curry mile. A British-Pakistani trio of college friends are out on the town, driving through their city in a rented white BMW, but beneath the bravado is a deep denial of their realities. The main question is, will their friendship survive this night?
This is a novel with both style and substance. The single-night concept gives Sufiyaan Salam, who has been named as one of the Observer’s best debut novelists of 2026, room to breathe life into his characters and explore the multitude of pressures they face within their friendships, romantic relationships and families. There are a few places where the story loses momentum, but when it hits its stride, the writing dazzles.
This Is Where the Serpent Lives by Daniyal Mueenuddin
Daniyal Mueenuddin’s long-awaited debut novel (also shortlisted for the Orwell prize for political fiction), published 17 years after his acclaimed short-story collection In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, is a panoramic depiction of Pakistan’s landed elite and the people in their orbit. The author’s expansive storytelling spans interlinked novellas over many decades, tracing the lives of several characters and their shifting relationships to wealth and power.
The book opens with Yazid, an orphaned boy raised by a tea-stall owner, whose charm and intelligence earn him respect wherever he goes. When a wealthy friend’s housemaid reminds him sharply of his place, he leaves in search of new opportunities, eventually finding his way to the household of Colonel Atar, a powerful industrialist and landowner. We move on to Rustom, the colonel’s nephew, who returns from his US education full of liberal ideals that dissolve on contact with the harsh realities of corrupt rural Pakistan. Then comes the story of Hisham, Rustom’s cousin, and finally, Saquib, a gardener’s son and Yazid’s protege.
Mueenuddin renders this world of inherited power and servitude in granular detail, vividly bringing Pakistan’s society to life.
At Sea by Y M Abdel-Magied
This book genuinely surprised me. I’ve read plenty of novels about Muslim women and not a single one was set on an oil rig. I wish this kind of representation weren’t so radical, but it was to me. Sudanese-Australian writer, award-winning social advocate and “recovering mechanical engineer”, Yassmin Abdel-Magied drops Zainab, an expert driller, onto the rig for a high-stakes assignment, then makes the crew’s hyper-masculine culture drive the plot.
When Zainab takes charge of the operation, it is a significant step up for her career, especially as a Muslim woman navigating a male-dominated field. But as soon as she sets foot on the oil rig in the Pacific Ocean, she can sense that something is about to go terribly wrong. What begins as a journey to prove herself becomes a desperate fight to fix everyone else’s mistakes. Worst of all, a culture of dismissiveness towards safety has taken root at the top.
At Sea builds its tension expertly, with the social commentary never interrupting its momentum. I would have thought that a claustrophobic thriller set hundreds of miles offshore was an unlikely vehicle for exploring the perils of confirmation bias in the workplace, but the author makes it a perfect one.
