Bad Summer People: A Novel

by Emma Rosenblum

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250887009
Publisher:	Flatiron Books
Publication date:	05/23/2023
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	75,812
Product dimensions:	9.30(w) x 6.20(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Emma Rosenblum is the bestselling author of Bad Summer People. She is also chief content officer at Bustle Digital Group, overseeing content and strategy for Bustle, Elite Daily, Nylon, The Zoe Report, Romper, Scary Mommy, The Dad, and Inverse.

Editorial Reviews

01/09/2023

In Rosenblum’s scintillating debut, liars, cheaters, and scoundrels converge on Fire Island for the summer, where a series of shake-ups to the seasonal routine culminates in the discovery of a dead body. A prologue features eight-year-old Danny Leavitt’s discovery of the body, which Rosenblum doesn’t identify or describe until the end, but which Danny excitedly takes to be a murder victim. The reader is then treated to colorful portraits of the cliquish seasonal community members without knowing which one will die. Rosenblum starts with broad strokes before really digging in to the various players, noting how the “men measured themselves by their net worth and women by their tennis games.” Rachel Woolf, 42, is the reigning gossip queen; Danny’s mother is a “B-lister”; lawyer Sam Weinstein and private equity investor Jason Parker, both married, continue a bitter rivalry over Sam’s wife, Jen, whom Jason dated first. Every island event—from Fourth of July to the Bay Picnic—is overseen by a 73-year-old curmudgeonly widow, Susan Steinhagen. Rosenblum does a terrific job of establishing the setting and atmosphere, and adds complexity to the plot by revisiting events from various points of view. This is wickedly entertaining. Agent: Alexandra Machinist, ICM Partners. (May)

Publishers Weekly

★ 2023-02-23
Not all wealthy, poorly behaved White New Yorkers go to the Hamptons in the summer. Welcome to Fire Island.

In addition to its famous gay enclaves, nature-y, narrow Fire Island sports a few towns full of heteronormative families with inherited cottages or gorgeous new builds, spending the summer playing tennis, drinking cocktails, and observing wholesome annual traditions. Kids go to day camp and are otherwise looked after by full-time nannies. Cars are not allowed, so everyone owns a bike to ride around the boardwalks that serve as pathways. In Salcombe (the B is silent, thank you), said boardwalks were raised three feet above the scrub after Hurricane Sandy. Someone could easily bike over the edge and break their neck and, indeed, someone does right at the start of the book. But who the victim is and whether it was an accident remains to be seen. First, meet the cast of unhappy characters: Lauren Parker, the “ice queen”; Jason, her cheating husband; Sam Weinstein, Jason’s best friend and rival; Jen, his cheating wife. A handsome, down-on-his-luck tennis pro and a lonely, unmarried gossip round out the Shakespearean ensemble. Trouble is brewing the moment they disembark from the ferry. In juicy chapters that alternate viewpoints, it seems at first that there are too many regulars to keep track of. But, as the same names keep popping up over and over, readers get a sense of how claustrophobically small the community is and how, as in any small town, everyone is in everyone’s business. Herein is a wonderful experience of schadenfreude. These characters are so readable and so terrible. They think highly of themselves but consistently have the worst impulses, and, as the book wears on, it becomes delightfully clear that they are incapable of resisting.

A heck of a beach read.

Kirkus Reviews

"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

From the Publisher

Narrator January LaVoy's range is highlighted in this audiobook about a single summer on Fire Island when gossip among vacationers and townies is ratcheted up to new levels. Glamorous Lauren and Jen rule the small community on and off the tennis courts. Their husbands have summered on the island together since childhood. Appearances can be deceiving though, and the couples harbor secrets. When a body turns up on the boardwalk, the suspect list is numerous. Characters' inner thoughts are shared in alternating perspectives, and while everyone is hiding something, are any of them capable of murder? LaVoy expertly performs a quick succession of conversation bits in various pitches to showcase a watching crowd. Squeaky-voiced children contrast with the scratchy voice of an elderly resident. A.L.C. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

MAY 2023 - AudioFile

Narrator January LaVoy's range is highlighted in this audiobook about a single summer on Fire Island when gossip among vacationers and townies is ratcheted up to new levels. Glamorous Lauren and Jen rule the small community on and off the tennis courts. Their husbands have summered on the island together since childhood. Appearances can be deceiving though, and the couples harbor secrets. When a body turns up on the boardwalk, the suspect list is numerous. Characters' inner thoughts are shared in alternating perspectives, and while everyone is hiding something, are any of them capable of murder? LaVoy expertly performs a quick succession of conversation bits in various pitches to showcase a watching crowd. Squeaky-voiced children contrast with the scratchy voice of an elderly resident. A.L.C. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

MAY 2023 - AudioFile