BAD SUMMER PEOPLE
This audiobook is read by January LaVoy and includes a bonus conversation between the author and Chandler Baker.
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,
This audiobook is read by January LaVoy and includes a bonus conversation between the author and Chandler Baker.
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.
- Macmillan Audio
- Audio
- May 2023
- 9 hours 23 minutes
- 9781250900845
Buy the Book
$26.99
About Emma Rosenblum & January LaVoy (Narrator)
Emma Rosenblum is chief content officer at Bustle Digital Group, overseeing content and strategy for Bustle, Elite Daily, Nylon, The Zoe Report, Romper, Scary Mommy, Fatherly, The Dad, Inverse, and Mic. Bad Summer People is her first novel.
January Lavoie has narrated the Sweet Valley Confidential series for Macmillan Audio, as well as The Snow Angel by Glenn Beck and Dreams of the Dead by Perri O’Shaughnessy.
Praise
“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
“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
“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
“[A] scintillating debut… Wickedly entertaining.” —Publishers Weekly
Discussion Questions
1. So much of this story follows the lives of the morally bankrupt. So, why do we listen? What is so enthralling about bad people doing bad things? Why do we keep listening? How does the novel make us care?
2. What’s the significance of the body being discovered face-down on the boardwalk?
3. Gossip. Secrets. Deception. What roles do these elements play in the novel and how do they drive the narrative forward? What impact do they have on the character’s relationships?
4. Why do you think Emma Rosenblum sets the story on Fire Island? Explore how different settings would affect the suspect pool.
5. What does it mean to be a “bad” person? Is there a hero? An anti-hero? A straight-up villain? Explore the characters and their motivations.
6. We hear so much go down on the tennis court in this novel. What makes this social activity a perfect backdrop for the plot?
7. How does this novel act as a commentary on wealth? How does this interact with what we know of the world we live in?