Wait until you see all the exciting books coming out in August, and these are just the ones that are in piles at my house. There are so many other great books released next month. And, if you think these two days of books are overwhelming, wait until you see the September releases. They take up quite a bit of room on my shelves.

Let’s kick off the August releases with Donna Andrews’ Die Like An Eagle. The latest Meg Langslow mystery finds Meg as Team Mom and Michael as couch of their twin sons’ youth baseball team. It isn’t long before Meg tangles with Biff Brown, the petty league head. When Biff’s lookalike brother is found dead at the ball field on opening day, Meg suspects Biff may have been the target. And how many people might have wanted Biff dead? (Release date is Aug. 2.)

Cooking for Picasso by Camille Aubray is inspired by a real-life interlude when Pablo Picasso disappeared from Parisian society. Aubray uses that episode as inspiration for her novel, the story of Ondine, a young chef whose life is transformed by the artist’s visit to her village. We also meet Ondine’s granddaughter in a contemporary story as Celine heads to the south of France to discover the truth behind Ondine’s relationship with Picasso, and the family secrets that have been hidden since then. (Release date is Aug. 9.)

Guiseppe Catozzella also bases the novel, Don’t Tell Me You’re Afraid, on a true story. It’s the story of Samia, a young Somali girl who lives to run. She shares her dream of representing her country in the Olympic Games with her best friend, Ali, a boy who takes on the takes of training her her, timing her, and pushing her. By the time she set her sights on the 2012 Games in London, conditions in Somalia had worsened. Sami must make the arduous migrant journey across Africa and the Mediterranean alone, risking her life in hopes of a better future. (Release date is Aug. 2.)

It’s always a treat to see a new Sheriff Dan Rhodes mystery from Bill Crider. Survivors Will Be Shot Again finds Rhodes dealing with attempted robbery, a marijuana patch guarded by an alligator, and murder. This one’s on my calendar for always needed comic relief. (Release date is Aug. 9.)

Fiona Davis’ debut novel, The Dollhouse, takes readers into the lush world of New York City’s glamorous Barbizon Hotel for women, where, in the 1950s, a generation of aspiring models, secretaries, and editors lived side by side while attempting to claw their way to success, and where a present-day journalist becomes obsessed with uncovering a dark secret buried deep with the Barbizon’s glittery past. (Release date is Aug. 23.)

Bestselling author Andrew Gross takes readers back to World War II and Auschwitz in The One Man.  Behind the barbed wires, Professor Alfred Mendl was just another number whose knowledge was considered an old man’s gibberish. But, the U.S. government thought Mendl’s knowledge could change the course of history. So, they asked Intelligence Lieutenant Nathan Blum to sneak into Auschwitz, find Mendl, and bring him out alive. (Release date is Aug. 23.)

The Nix, Nathan Hill’s debut novel, is considered by reviewers to be one of the top books of the summer. In 2011, Samuel Anderson, an English professor who was abandoned by his mother at the age of eleven, sees her on the news throwing stones at a presidential candidate. The news continues to run Faye’s picture while Samuel searches for the story of her past, and uncovers his own story. (Release date is Aug. 30.)

Insurance investigator Ryan Monahan may become a victim himself in Cate Holahan’s thriller, The Widower’s Wife. Monahan suspects Ana Bacon’s fall from a cruise ship wasn’t an accident because there’s a ten million dollar policy on her, and Ana had secrets. But, there are a number of people who claim to have seen her fall, and her husband has an alibi. How many people, though, would have killed to hide Ana’s secrets? (Release date is Aug. 9.)

Ann Hood, the author of The Knitting Circle, brings us The Book That Matters Most. It’s a story about “the healing power of literature”. After Ava’s marriage of twenty-five years falls apart, she joins a book group, desperate for companionship. What she finds is a group whose goal is for each member to present the book that matters most to them. Ava searches for a book that helped her through trauma in the past, and may help her adult daughter now. (Release date is Aug. 9.)

The Assassin’s Kiss by J.A. Kazimer is the second in the romantic suspense series, The Assassins. Julia fled from Nate Taylor on their wedding night. She’s ready to marry again, but he won’t sign the annulment papers. She storms his houseboat in the Florida Everglades, just in time to survive an attack by a group of assassins Nate believes are targeting her. He should know. He’s an assassin himself working for a secret government agency, something he never told his bride of one day. Now, as they flee the assassins, they’re forced to spend time together as they try to find answers before one of them ends up dead. (Release date is Aug. 15.)

Maybe you already read Alex Lake’s After Anna as an ebook. When a five-year-old is taken from outside her school, the police are at a lost. But, the biggest mystery is yet to come. One week after she was abducted, Anna is returned with no memory of where she has been. And, for her mother, this is just the beginning of the nightmare. (Release date is Aug. 2.)

The Couple Next Door is Shari Lapena’s suspense debut. How well do you know the couple next door, or your husband, or yourself? Anne and Marco Conti seem to have it all, including a beautiful baby. But, one night when they are at dinner party next door, a terrible crime is committed. Suspicion immediately focuses on the parents. Detective Rasbach knows that the couple is hiding something. But, Anne and Marco soon discover they’re both keeping secrets, secrets they’ve kept for years. (Release date is Aug. 23.)

I booktalked Forrest Leo’s debut novel, The Gentleman, when I was at BEA. How can you resist a description that calls a book “in the spirit of Wodehouse and Monty Python”? It’s about a famous poet in Victorian London who inadvertently sells his wife to the devil, and then recruits a band of adventurers to rescue her. (Release date is Aug. 16.)

Jay McInerney tells a New York story in his latest novel, Bright, Precious Days. Russell and Corrine Calloway seem to be living the New York dream, book parties, charity events, jobs they enjoy and twin children. But, Russell encounters  an audacious, expensive, and possibly ruinous opportunity, the couple discover they’re being priced out of their neighborhood, and Corrine’s world is turned upside down when a man she had an affair with suddenly reappears. (Release date is Aug. 2.)

The Glorious Heresies is Lisa McInerney’s debut novel that plays out in the criminal underworld of Cork, Ireland, in housing estates, nightclubs, and brothels. When grandmother Maureen Phelen is surprised in her home by a stranger, she clubs the intruder with a Holy Stone. The consequences of this unplanned murder connect four misfits living on the fringes of Ireland’s post-crash society. (Release date is Aug. 9.)

Deputy Police Chief Rocco Schiavone returns in Antonio Manzini’s Adam’s Rib. Six months after being exiled from his beloved Rome, Rocco has settled into a routine in the cold, quiet, chronically backward alpine town of Aosta. The laid-back, self-medicating officer answers a complaint about a burglary by picking the lock at the residence, only to find a body. It may appear to be a suicide, but Rocco’s intuition tells him the scene has been staged. And, murder is such a pain. (Release date is Aug. 2.)

Edgar Award-winner Alex Marwood brings us a psychological thriller, The Darkest Secret. When a child goes missing at an opulent house party, it makes international news, and the attendees are nicknamed the Jackson Associates, for the man who was celebrating his birthday, Sean Jackson. It was one of his daughters, Coco, that disappeared. Twelve years later, Sean is dead, and the Jackson Associates assemble for the funeral. Barbed comments and accusations fly, and someone else ends up dead. And, one of Jackson’s surviving daughters makes a shocking discovery. (Release date is Aug. 30.)

We’ll end today’s list with Seicho Matsumoto’s A Quiet Place, a crime novel that takes readers into Japanese society. Tsuneo Asai’s wife had a heart condition, so it comes as no surprise when she dies while he’s on a business trip. But, the woman who only left the house twice a week for haiku meetings died in a small shop in a quiet residential neighborhood. It’s only when Tsuneo goes to the boutique to apologize for the trouble his wife’s death caused that he learns she was leading a double life. (Release date is Aug. 16.)

Enough books for today? Are there any that excited you? I know which ones are on the top of my TBR pile. If nothing interests you today, come back tomorrow for the second part of August Treasures in My Closet.