I don’t believe there was a summer in 2020. I’m writing about August book releases already. I believe 2020 is just a worldwide “Twilight Zone” episode. Everything since March has been a blur, and I don’t really remember doing anything except worrying and working this year. Fortunately, there have been some excellent books, once I started reading again. I hope you’ll find some interesting books in the August releases. (You don’t know how many ARCs I picked up that said August on them, and now are scheduled for September, so there are not as many August releases as usual.)

Maggie Gardiner and Jack Renner are back in Lisa Black’s Every Kind of Wicked. Gardiner is a forensic expert who studies the dead, and her unlikely partner, Renner, is a vigilante homicide cop. Eight months earlier, Maggie learned how far she would go to cover Renner’s tracks. But, her ex-husband, Rick, also a homicide detective, is convinced Jack is connected to a series of vigilante killings. Rick’s case, what seems like a routine overdose on Cleveland’s West Side, and the investigation of the murder of a young man merge onto the trail of a shadowy, pill-pushing physician, while Maggie and Jack uncover a massive financial shakedown. (Release date is Aug. 25.)

Perhaps it’s as important to read Ashley Blooms’ author’s note as it is to read Every Bone a Prayer. The novel introduces Misty, a ten-year-old who lives in a holler in the Appalachian Mountains, and hears things. “Even the crawdads in the creek have something to say, if you listen.” But, ever since her neighbor William cornered her in the barn, Misty has been trying to figure out how to get back to the Misty she was before – the Misty who wasn’t afraid to listen. Bloom’s warning to readers lets us know that it contains depictions, including sexual abuse between children and domestic violence, that some may not want to read. Blooms herself is a survivor of sexual abuse. (Release date is Aug. 4.)

Betsy Bonner’s The Book of Atlantis Black combines memoir and true crime. A young woman is found dead on the floor of a Tijuana hotel room. The police report states the ID “Atlantis Black” does not seem to match the identification, but the body is quickly cremated and the case is considered closed. Betsy Bonner doesn’t consider it closed though. She’s looking for her sister while unraveling the mysterious final months before her disappearance, alleged overdose, and death. She searches through her sister’s social media posts, and all kinds of documentation, looking for the sister who shared a history, a childhood filled with abuse and mental illness. But, the truth might be hard to find. (Release date is Aug. 4.)

The Key Lime Crime is Lucy Burdette’s lastest Key West Food Critic mystery. The week between Christmas and New Year’s brings all kinds of tourists and snowbirds to Key West. It doesn’t help that outrageously wealthy key lime pie aficionado David Sloan has persuaded the city to host his pie-baking contest. Every one who makes key lime pies on the island wants to win, and Key Zest food critic Hayley Snow will report on it. But, she’ll have to juggle it with entertaining her intimidating mother-in-law. Hayley offers to escort her on the iconic Conch Train Tour of the island’s holiday lights, but instead of twinkling lights, they find a corpse. (Release date is Aug. 11.)

Hannah Dennison launches the Island Sisters cozy mystery series with Death at High Tide. When recent widow Evie Mead mysteriously inherits an old hotel off the coast of England, she and her sister, Margot, find themselves at the center of a murder investigation. What started as a sisters’ getaway turns into a story of intrigue, romance, and deadly secrets, and it’s all they can do to try to make it off the island alive. (Release date is Aug. 18.)

The latest Magical Garden mystery by Amanda Flower is Mums and Mayhem. World-famous fiddle player Barley McFee arrives in Bellewick, Aberdeenshire, Scotland,, fro a grand homecoming concert. Fiona Knox, owner of the Climbing Rose Flower Shop, is starting to regret volunteering to help with the concert. She has enough on her plate dealing with her parents who are visiting Fi and her younger sister. But, when Barley is found dead during the concert’s intermission, and his death is tied to Fiona’s father, she realizes there are more secrets surrounding her family than she realized. And, to make it worse, the magical garden is dying because someone broke into the garden and cut the centuries-old climbing rose, the source of the garden’s magic. (Release date is Aug. 11.)

James Gould-Bourn’s novel, Bear Necessity, is the story of a father and son overcoming their grief. Danny’s life is falling apart. His eleven-year-old son, Will, hasn’t spoken since his mother died in a car crash a year earlier. Danny has just been fired, and he’s behind in the rent. In desperation, he spends his last dollars on a panda costume, and decides to become a dancing bear. While performing one day, he sees his son being bullied. He runs off the older boys, and Will opens up for the first time, unaware that the man in the panda costume is his father. (Release date is Aug. 4.)

R.J. Jacobs’ latest novel of suspense is Somewhere in the Dark. Jessie Duval finally has her life together with a job with a catering company. But everything changes when she works an event with celebrities, including singer Shelly James. Jessie doesn’t hate Shelly, but she has to avoid her. One summer, Jessie followed Shelly’s tour everywhere, but Shelly was terrified, and Jessie was arrested. Jessie’s had a year of therapy, but, when Shelly is found dead, Jessie knows she’s the perfect scapegoat for the murder. She needs to find the real killer, and no one knows Shelly’s life better than Jessie Duval. (Release date is Aug. 11.)

Shadows of the Dead is Spencer Kope’s third book featuring Steps Craig and the Special Tracking Unit of the FBI. A woman, abducted and found in the trunk of a car after a high-speed chase, reveals two crucial pieces of information. The man who kidnapped her is not the same as the man who left her in the woods, and she’s not the first victim. She’s number eight. Steps Craig, the best tracker in the world, must find two nearly untraceable killers before time runs out for their victims. (Release date is Aug. 25.)

The Bright Side Sanctuary for Animals is Becky Mandelbaum’s debut novel. The Bright Side Sanctuary for Animals is in trouble but after the 2016 election, Ariel discovers that her mother Mona’s animal sanctuary has not only been the target of anti-Semitic hate crimes, it’s also for sale due to financial problems. Ariel has been estranged from her mother for six years, but she knows she has to return to her childhood home in western Kansas. The tense reunion isn’t unexpected, but the continued presence of her first love, a ranch hand named Gideon, is. When Ariel’s hapless fiance, Dex, tracks her down, he finds her questioning the meaning of her life, and where she belongs. (Release date is Aug. 4.)

I’m looking forward to Beth O’Leary’s novel, The Switch. When overachiever Leena Cotton is ordered to take a two-month sabbatical after blowing a big presentation at work, she escapes to her grandmother Eileen’s house for some long-overdue rest. Eileen is newly single and about to turn eighty. She’d like a second chance at love, but her tiny Yorkshire village doesn’t offer many eligible gentlemen. So they decide to try a two-month swap. Eileen will live in Leena’s flat in London, while Leena will look after everything in rural Yorkshire. It’s never to late to change everything. (Release date is Aug. 18.)

Alex Pavesi’s The Eighth Detective sounds intriguing. Grant McAllister, an eccentric but brilliant professor of Mathematics once composed seven stories to demonstrate the rules of a murder mystery – there must be a suspect, a victim, and a detective. Then, he disappeared to live on an isolated island. Thirty years later, Julia Hart, an ambitious young editor shows up at his door. She wants to republish his work, but as they work together, some things in the stories don’t add up. Julia doesn’t think they’re mistakes. They may be clues, and she has a mystery of her own to solve. (Release date is Aug. 4.)

Robert Pobi blows up New York City in his latest Lucas Page novel, Under Pressure. Well, not really. On an October evening, New York’s iconic Guggentheim Museum is closed for a tech company’s gala when an explosion instantly kills all 702 attendees. Because a blast of that precision would take enormous skill, Dr. Lucas page, astrophysicist, university professor, and former FBI agent enters the case. When a second explosion levels an Internet hub, the FBI starts looking for someone with a grudge against tech companies. But, Lucas thinks the bomber is hiding a more sinister motive. (Release date is Aug. 4.)

Hank Phillippi Ryan’s latest novel of suspense is The First to Lie. After a devastating betrayal, a yong woman sets off on an obsessive path to justice, no matter what dark family secrets are revealed. What she doesn’t know – she isn’t the only one plotting her revenge. “An affluent daughter of privilege. A glamorous manipulative wannabe. A determined reporter, in too deep. A grieving widow who must choose her own reality. Who will be the first to lie? And when the stakes are life and death, do a few lies really matter?” (Release date is Aug. 4.)

If you read women’s fiction, you might be familiar with the common trope of four women who are friends who gather at a beach house or vacation retreat, but there’s upheaval or one of the women dies. In Charlotte Wood’s The Weekend, those women are in their seventies. Four older women have a lifelong friendship. But when Sylvie dies, the ground shifts dangerously for the remaining three. Now the grieving women gather at Sylvie’s old beach house to clean it out before it’s sold. Without Sylvie, the memories become painful and long-buried feelings threaten to sweep away their friendship for good. (Release date is Aug. 4.)

Here are a few other books you might find interesting.

Briscoe, Joanna – The Seduction (8/25)
Connolly, MarcyKate – Twin Daggers (8/25)
Rosenberg, Charles – The Day Lincoln Lost (8/4)