In no particular order, as I find all these novels great, here is a list of five great books to read for the summer:
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
The Alchemist is the magical story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who yearns to travel in search of a worldly treasure as extravagant as any ever found. From his home in Spain he journeys to the markets of Tangiers and across the Egyptian desert to a fateful encounter with the alchemist. The story of the treasures Santiago finds along the way teaches us, as only a few stories have done, about the essential wisdom of listening to our hearts, learning to read the omens strewn along life's path, and, above all, following our dreams.
City of Glass by Paul Auster
In City of Glass the main character, the writer of detective novels, receives a phone call in the middle of the night which results in him taking on the role of a detective trying to save the life of a man who was the subject of an experiment as a child. The writer, Daniel Quinn, becomes the subject of an experiment at the end with another writer looking for him. He is helpless to walk away from a case that was a set up.
Blackbirds by Chuck Wendig
In Blackbirds, Miriam Black knows when you will die.
Still in her early twenties, she's foreseen hundreds of car crashes, heart attacks, strokes, suicides, and slow deaths by cancer. But when Miriam hitches a ride with truck driver Louis Darling and shakes his hand, she sees that in thirty days Louis will be gruesomely murdered while he calls her name. Miriam has given up trying to save people; that only makes their deaths happen. But Louis will die because he met her, and she will be the next victim. No matter what she does she can't save Louis. But if she wants to stay alive, she'll have to try.
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
In The Big Sleep, Los Angeles PI Philip Marlowe is working for the Sternwood family. Old man Sternwood, crippled and wheelchair-bound, is being given the squeeze by a blackmailer and he wants Marlowe to make the problem go away. But with Sternwood's two wild, devil-may-care daughters prowling LA's seedy backstreets, Marlowe's got his work cut out - and that's before he stumbles over the first corpse!
Gods From the Machine by Andrew Ly
In Gods From the Machine, demons and humans are at constant war, the delicate balance between destruction and salvation are monitored by elite factions of trained knights known as Garrisons. Nick Emberson is a soldier of the Glenhaven Garrison with high hopes of becoming a knight.
On his eighteenth birthday he meets the mysterious and beautiful Quinn Valentine. Captivated by her fiery red hair and green eyes, he is compelled to know everything about her. But before their relationship can develop, he discovers that he possesses the soul of a bloodthirsty demon! Things can’t possibly get worse.
But they do. Dangerous and powerful demons are bent on eliminating him before he can achieve his true purpose. And with threats of war looming and figures from the past that cannot hope to stay buried, finding love is the least of his worries.