Bad Summer People - by Emma Rosenblum

Book Synopsis

NATIONAL BESTSELLER * Emma Rosenblum's Bad Summer People is a whip-smart, propulsive debut about infidelity, backstabbing, and murderous intrigue, set against an exclusive summer haven on Fire Island.

"This roiling beach community satire serves up wicked, clever fun that is White Lotus sharp." --Kevin Kwan, New York Times bestselling author of Crazy Rich Asians and Sex and Vanity

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF SUMMER 2023: Bustle, ELLE, Cosmopolitan, PopSugar, Bloomberg, Vogue, and more!

None of them would claim to be a particularly good person. But who among them is actually capable of murder?

Jen Weinstein and Lauren Parker rule the town of Salcombe, Fire Island every summer. They hold sway on the beach and the tennis court, and are adept at manipulating people to get what they want. Their husbands, Sam and Jason, have summered together on the island since childhood, despite lifelong grudges and numerous secrets. Their one single friend, Rachel Woolf, is looking to meet her match, whether he's the tennis pro--or someone else's husband. But even with plenty to gossip about, this season starts out as quietly as any other.

Until a body is discovered, face down, off the side of the boardwalk.

Stylish, subversive, and darkly comedic, this is a story of what's lurking under the surface of picture-perfect lives in a place where everyone has something to hide.

Review Quotes

"Delicious...[An] addictive thriller of manners...[Rosenblum is] a keen observer of small, telling details." --New York Times

"A novel of family and romantic foibles, with a murder mystery thrown in to boot--juicy in more ways than one." --Vogue.com

"A smart, slyly observed take on power and privilege." --Town & Country

"Come for the twisted murder mystery and stay for the guaranteed drama amongst the group." --ELLE

"The Real Housewives has nothing on all these families' personal drama." --Cosmopolitan

"A beach-book blockbuster....[Rosenblum's] debut novel has it all: wealth, gossip, unhappy husbands and even unhappier wives, infidelity, still more gossip--and murder...Expect to see it on beach towels up and down the Eastern Seaboard." --Bloomberg

"[A] seductive summer debut." --PopSugar

"[A] scintillating debut... Wickedly entertaining." --Publishers Weekly

"A delicious, dishy trip of a novel." --Bustle

"A heck of a beach read." --Kirkus (starred review)

"Rosenblum is a master of understated social satire, and her gift for capturing human follies and the dark, emotional depth of her characters through artfully rendered details make Bad Summer People a seriously compulsive read." --Shelf Awareness

"This roiling beach community satire serves up wicked, clever fun that is White Lotus sharp. Emma Rosenblum gets to the comic heart of these nasty, nasty people. When I say she is unsparing and they are dreadful I mean it as the highest compliment. It is sinfully good like a summer cocktail you want to keep refilling. I found myself laughing out loud as I read and staying up way too late with this fabulous book." --Kevin Kwan, New York Times bestselling author of Crazy Rich Asians and Sex and Vanity

"I am 100% invested in all the petty (and not-so-petty) drama of the delightfully messy residents of Emma Rosenblum's Fire Island. I like my beach reads either twisty, steamy, or funny and--lucky me--this was all three. Bad Summer People will absolutely be the book I push on all my friends this summer." --Chandler Baker, author of Whisper Network and The Husbands

"Like a tidbit of gossip flowing by on the sea breeze, Bad Summer People is irresistible. Funny, sexy, and scary, it made me eager to eavesdrop but glad not to be entangled in the vacation scandals dreamed up by Emma Rosenblum in her juicy debut." --Miranda Beverly-Whittemore, New York Times bestselling author of Bittersweet and Fierce Little Thing

"Bad Summer People is a great summer page-turner packed with sun-soaked secrets, outrageous scandals and salacious gossip. Its cast of gloriously terrible one-percenters and the caustic wit dripping from each page make this a perfect rich-people-behaving-badly beach read. Loved it!" --Ellery Lloyd, New York Times bestselling author of The Club

"Delicious: such gossipy, naughty fun. Cancel all plans while reading--I inhaled this darkly hilarious book over one weekend and resented everything that kept me away from it." --Lucy Foley, bestselling author of The Paris Apartment

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