8 Best Summer Reads, By Seven Days in June Author Tia Williams
Williams recommends Raven Leilani, Talia Hibbert, and more
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Graphic: Elena Scotti (Author photo by Francesco Ferendeles)
This summer, Jezebel is having authors stop by and recommend books for your beach bag/road trip tour of national parks/first airplane ride in 18 months/lazy afternoon in a hammock—whatever your personal energy. Today’s guest is Tia Williams, an editorial director at Estée Lauder Companies and the author of the recently released Seven Days in June, about an erotica writer and a literary novelist who were once together as teenagers, who reunite years later, now grown and (somewhat) ready to try again. The book quickly hit the New York Times bestseller list, got picked for Reese’s Book Club, and got optioned for television.
The book opens memorably, with our heroine, Eva, nearly choking to death on a piece of gum in a freak masturbation accident: “As she slowly blacked out, she kept imagining her daughter, Audre, finding her flailing about in Christmas jammies while clutching a tube of strawberry lube and a dildo called the Quarterback (which vibrated at a much higher frequency than advertised—gum-choking frequency).” Fortunately, she coughs up the gum, avoids becoming a Daily Mail headline, and reunites with the “intimidatingly handsome” blast-from-the-past Shane Hall. For Jezebel readers, Williams has recommended a blend of romance and literary fiction, plus a comfort read, in the form of… Stephen King’s Cujo.
Tia Williams’s Summer Reading List
Luster,
Truly some of the best writing I’ve ever encountered. Caustic, honest, and not a word wasted. The debut novel is about a young Black woman in publishing who has an affair with an older white man in an open marriage—and she moves in with them.