Looking for a good read as we approach the end of the summer? These five books have you covered.

Summer Cannibals, Melanie Hobson

A delicious tale of family dysfunction. Siblings Georgina, Jax and Pippa have returned to the stately Hamilton manse, perched on the escarpment overlooking Lake Ontario, in which they were reared. It’s also where their parents, the aggrieved Margaret and David, a jackass and possibly worse, remain. The reason for the convergence is that Pippa, pregnant and ill, has fled her husband and four kids in New Zealand. Scabs will be picked at, scores will be settled. An uncommonly skilled debut. The author is a Canadian living in Florida. Bonus: One of the year’s most gorgeous covers.

The Third Hotel, Laura Van Den Berg

Clare has come to Havana for a Latin film festival, to meet the director of Revolución Zombi, the first horror movie made in Cuba. She and her husband, Richard, a film-studies professor, had planned to attend together, but he died in a car accident five weeks before. And yet on the third day, while exploring Havana, the grieving widow is certain she sees her husband, alive, and proceeds to follow him. This is the beginning of a novel that is variously described as eerie, complex, surreal and mysterious, and takes us deep into the baffling union that is marriage.

Hits & Misses, Simon Rich

Simon Rich’s stories are reminiscent of the early confections of Woody Allen, with a dusting of Steve Martin: smart, inventive, funny. This is Rich’s fifth comedic collection, and most of the 18 short pieces involve culture, show biz or the arts — writers and directors, actors and musicians, etc. That makes sense: Rich is the creator of the FXX comedy series Man Seeking Woman and knows these worlds well. But there are also comic bits about a court jester, Paul Revere’s unsung steed and a competitive monk, which in their own ways are seeking stardom, too.

Conscience, Alice Mattison

Helen, Val and Olive became friends in the 1960s, joined by their anger over America’s involvement in Vietnam. Helen, the radical, died in a protest in 1970. Val went on to write a fictional account of Helen’s life, Bright Morning of Pain. Now, decades later, Olive, an editor, has agreed to write an essay about the book. Her husband, Griff, was involved in those turbulent times but it is only now that he decides to read the book, perhaps all these years later to see how his fictional self was depicted. This sets the stage for tensions within Olive and Griff’s happy union and a rethink of their shared history. Well-drawn characters inhabit this cracking-good yarn.

The Summer Wives, Beatriz Williams

Here’s another summer read set in Long Island Sound, this one on Winthrop Island, where generations of Portuguese fishermen have lived alongside old-money wealth. Beatriz Williams’ eighth novel is told concurrently over three time periods: In 1930, Bianca Medeiro, the adopted daughter of a shopkeeper, is delighted when handsome young Hugh Fisher, scion of the ruling family, takes an interest in her; in 1951, when Miranda Schuyler first arrives on the island when her mother marries Hugh; and 1969, when Miranda, now the famous actress Miranda Thomas, returns to the island to right a terrible wrong.

Sarah Murdoch, smurdoch49@gmail.com