Who can resist a coming-of-age swamp saga with an alligator-wrestling heroine trying to save her family’s decaying South Florida theme park? Not us. Karen Russell’s debut novel will first drop your jaw and then break your heart. Insect repellent suggested.

Available at amazon.com, $15.

Hemingway writes of his starter wife, Hadley Richardson, “I wished I had died before I ever loved anyone but her.” Paula McLain pens her historical novel in Richardson’s voice, spinning a gripping love story that tragically seduces us into rooting for the doomed romance. Best read with a pitcher of dry martinis.

Available at amazon.com, $15.

Téa Obreht’s debut novel, set in postwar Balkans, blends the story of a young doctor searching for answers to her grandfather’s life and death with magical fables about a man who cannot die and a woman wed to a tiger. It’s escape realism that doesn’t require a passport.

Available at amazon.com, $14.

Kate Atkinson brings back beloved detective Jackson Brodie, last seen in When Will There Be Good News?, to solve multilayered mysteries where the past and present come together like a tightly wrapped towel in a beach bag. The intricate, twisty, for-want-of-a-nail plot keeps your brain sharp until the sun sets on the satisfying finale.

Available at amazon.com, $15.

Only David Foster Wallace would write a fascinating final novel about the boring world of tax accounting. Dive into his delicious genius and savor his brilliant prose. It’s not an easy read — trying to follow the deliberately detailed IRS storyline is like jogging backward in sand while drunk — but it’s worth the effort. Reapply sunscreen often.

Available at amazon.com, $15.

In Haley Tanner’s debut, Vaclav, a Russian boy who moves to Brooklyn, lives inside his imagination until his mom sets up a fateful playdate with the beautifully broken Lena. A profound and lasting friendship is born that day in the verboten sideshow at Coney Island — but it’s not happily ever after. You can use the corner of your towel to dry your tears.

Available at amazon.com, $15.

By day, Ben Ryder Howe is a WASPy editor of the Paris Review. By night, he struggles to run a Brooklyn convenience store with his wife and her Korean-immigrant family. No matter how you slice it, this funny tale morphs from amusing vignettes of deli ownership to the transforming experience of family, work, and identity. And it’s always rainy with a chance of sun.

Available at amazon.com, $15.

Sara Gran’s heroine, private investigator Claire DeWitt, arrives in post-Katrina New Orleans to use dreams, omens, and the occasional mind-expanding herb to help her solve a missing person/murder mystery. Smell something funny? That’s not the city rotting in the humidity — it’s our serious case of writer’s envy. (Read our interview with Sara Gran here.)

Available at amazon.com, $15.

Once we dove into Sara J. Henry’s debut, we didn’t come up for air until it was finished. When Troy Chance spots a bundle fall from a ferry opposite the one she is riding, she instinctively dives into icy waters to retrieve it. It’s a crazy move — one that saves a life and changes hers in a way she could not have predicted. Floaties not required.

Available at amazon.com, $14.

Girl meets boy. Girl loses boy. Boy comes back as a dog. Linda Francis Lee spins a tender romance that includes a rascally dog, serial-cheater dead husband, and healing new love interest for the appealing Emily. Sure, it’s miracles and magic, but reincarnating the scoundrel hub into a wise but scruffy dog named Einstein sounds pretty smart to us.

Available at amazon.com, $15.

This fabulously Frenchy novel by Hervé Le Tellier is a story about four characters who couple, uncouple, and recouple. Peer into the Parisian window of their romps and experience the forbidden thrill of illicit affairs of the heart. Summer is, after all, about lovin’.

Available at amazon.com, $10.