Has anyone else noticed how many of these there are? A few I have read are:
Instructions for a Heatwave/Maggie O'Farrell
Time out of Time/Alex Marchant
Summer of '76/Isabel Ashdown
The Wayward Girls/Amanda Mason
A Fatal Inversion/Barbara Vine
The Ghost in the Electric Blue Suit or The Ladybird Summer/Graham Joyce
The Summer of '76/Ray Burston
It's as if the heatwave becomes a character in its own right, and also kicks off supernatural forces. Some of the above are based on supernatural The stifling heat, it seemed, opened a door, a portal to something unseen, forever altering the way many characters perceived that particular summer. Ghosts and hauntings abounded, but not all were about that. The heatwave became a metaphor.
It's not new, of course, there is The Go-Between, the Great Gatsby etc, but it feels as if 1976 was more focused on because of the heatwave. I'm sure there must be more!