July! Hard to believe I’m talking about July book releases. This year, when we ask where does the time go, we all know what happened to it. My internal calendar is so off this year. Anyways, it’s time to talk about July releases. Hopefully, with libraries starting curbside service, and the world creaking open its doors, you’ll be able to get these books when they’re released. Just a warning, though. Publishers have been changing release dates for the last couple months. Books I thought would come out in June have been pushed to August or later. The release dates for these books were right, as of June 30. It doesn’t mean those dates will be accurate in July.

I’m always happy to mention a debut novel. Rachel Beanland’s Florence Adler Swims Forever, based on a true story, is set in Atlantic City, 1934. Over the course of one summer that begins with a shocking tragedy, three generations of the Adler family grapple with heartbreak, romance, and the weight of family secrets. (Release date is July 7.)

Of course, I’m looking forward to the next Kate Burkholder mystery by Linda Castillo, Outsider. A female cop on the lam only trusts Kate. Ten years earlier, Gina and Kate were best friends at the police academy. A falling out separated them for years. Now, Gina is in serious trouble, on the run for her life, and she turns to Chief of Police Kate Burkholder. Can Kate trust her? Kate hides her on an Amish farm, but she doesn’t know if Gina’s dark secrets will put them both in the sights of a dangerous killer. (Release date is July 7.)

I’m ready for a novel about people who choose joy. That’s Katherine Center’s What You Wish For. Samantha Casey is a teacher. She used to love the way Duncan Carpenter “drank life in”. He was her one true secret love, and then life got in the way. When fate reunites them, she barely recognizes the teacher who juggled and wore crazy ties. What happened to make him so cold, so intent in changing the school as its new principal? Can Sam find the man she fell in love with years ago? (Release date is July 14.)

FBI neuroscientist Sayer Altair returns in Ellison Cooper’s Cut to the Bone. After grieving the death of her fiance and almost losing her job, Agent Sayer Altair is back to her research into the minds of psychopaths. But her newfound happiness in her personal and professional life is threatened when she is called to investigate a girl’s body left inside a circle of animal figures below a cryptic message written in blood. When they discover that the dead girl is one of twenty-four missing high school students from a bus that disappeared from Washington, D.C. , Sayer realizes that nothing is this case is what it seems. (Release date is July 14.)

S.A. Cosby’s Blacktop Wasteland is one of the most talked about crime novels of the summer.  The jacket copy calls it, “Ocean Eleven meets Drive, with a Southern noir twist.” Beauregard “Bug” Montage is an honest mechanic, a loving husband, and a hardworking dad. He’s also the best getaway driver east of the Mississippi. He thought he’d left his past behind, but as his carefully built new life begins to crumble, he finds himself drawn back into a world of blood and bullets. (Release date is July 14.)

Exit Strategy is the first in Jen J. Danna’s NYPD Negotiators series. Gemma Capello is part of a close-knit NYPD law enforcement family, and the only female. She’s also the only hostage negotiator. When someone takes over City Hall, and the mayor disagrees with the police as to tactics, Gemma goes rogue to try to save the hostages. (Release date is July 28.)

Does the book cover of Anna Downes’ debut novel, The Safe Place, scream suspense and modern gothic feel? Emily Proudman lost her acting agent, her job, and her apartment in one miserable day. Scott Denny, CEO of the company, offers Emily a summer job as a housekeeper on his remote, beautiful French estate. Enchanted by his lovely wife and his eccentric young daughter, Emily falls headlong into the wine-soaked days by the pool. But soon Emily realizes Scott and his wife are hiding dangerous secrets, and if she doesn’t play along, the consequences could be deadly. (Release date is July 14.)

Edgar Award nominee Debra Jo Immergut brings us You Again. Abigail Willard first spots her double from the back of a New York cab: the spitting image of Abby herself at age twenty-two, right down to the shoes and raspberry coat she wore as a young artist. But the real Abby is now forty-six and married, with a corporate job and two kids. As weeks go by, Abby continues to spot her double, and finally tails her lookalike. While she’s hunting her double, her own life is slipping away; her marriage hits major turbulence; her teenage son drifts into a radical movement. Then, her double offers her a dangerous proposition. (Release date is July 7.)

Byron Lane’s novel, A Star is Bored, is influenced in part by his time as Carrie Fisher’s assistant. A young man’s world is turned upside down when he becomes an assistant to a Hollywood icon in a hilarious novel about discovering family when you least expect it. (Release date is July 28.)

PI Roxane Weary is back in Kristen Lepionka’s Once You Go This Far. When an experienced hiker plummets to her death soon after running into Roxane, the woman’s daughter contacts the PI. She doesn’t believe her mother’s death was an accident. The daughter, Maggie, points to her mother’s ex-husband, a well-connected ex-cop. Roxane discovers he’s a jerk, but the woman’s trail connects to a charismatic political candidate, a woman’s health organization, and to a secretive church group. Something doesn’t add up. (Release date is July 7.)

Hurry Home, Roz Nay’s latest thriller, introduces two sisters. Alexandra Van Ness has the perfect life in a resort town in the Rocky Mountains where she’s working her dream job in child protection. But when her long-lost sister, Ruth, shows up, Alex’s perfect life is upended. Even as a child, Ruth was the troublemaker, pulling Alex into her messes. Now, Alex will help Ruth under one condition: they will never, ever, talk about the past. But when trouble befalls a local child, both women are forced to confront the secrets they’ve promised to keep buried. (Release date is July 7.)

Creepy and scary does not add up to my type of book, but readers who liked Alex North’s The Whisper Man may want to pick up The Shadows. “They believed they could escape into the shadows….Then one of them did.” Charlie Crabtree was one of those teenagers with a dark imagination, a sinister smile. One of those teens you suspect might be capable of doing something awful. Twenty-five years ago, Crabtree did that, committing a murder so shocking that it attracted a strange kind of infamy and inspired more than one copycat. Paul Adams remembers the case. Crabtree and his victim were Paul’s friends. Paul slowly put his life together, but now it’s time to come home to take care of his mother. Then, things start to go wrong. Paul learns of another copycat. But, the most unsettling thing about that awful day? Afterwards, Charlie Crabtree was never seen again. (Release date is July 7.)

Chet and Bernie are back in Spencer Quinn’s Of Mutts and Men. When the duo finds a scientist murdered, Bernie takes on the case because he knows it involves his issue, water in the desert. Chet the dog? He’s on the case because he adores his partner, Bernie. And, maybe a Slim Jim or two will be involved. (Release date is July 7.)

Oh, I’m looking forward to a book subtitled “A Mercenary Librarians Novel”. Kit Rocha’s Deal with the Devil introduces Nina, an information broker with a mission. She and her team of mercenary librarians use their knowledge to save the hopeless in a crumbling America. Knox is the bitter, battle-weary captain of the Silver Devils. His squad of supersoldiers went AWOL to avoid slaughtering innocents, and now he’s fighting to survive. They’re on a collision course, and the passion that flares between them only makes it more dangerous. They could burn down the world, destroying each other in the process…. Or they could do the impossible: team up. Deal with the Devil is the first in a near-future science fiction series with elements of romance. I’m in. (Release date is July 28.)

If nothing else, I always include David Rosenfelt’s new Andy Carpenter novels because I love the covers. Carpenter, the lawyer who would rather not practice law, is back in Muzzled. Andy’s friend, Beth, finds a stray that seems to have belonged to a murder victim. In fact, the man and two colleagues died in an explosion a few weeks earlier. But when the murdered man contacts Beth, asking for his dog back, Andy knows there must be more to the story. The man claims he disappeared because his life is in danger. Andy can’t help but come to the rescue of a man who’d risk everything to reunite with his dog. (Release date is July 7.)

I just love the non-stop action in Jay Stringer’s Marah Chase adventures. In Marah Chase and the Fountain of Youth, Chase and a friend try to find the truth behind the Fountain of Youth before a fellow relic runner. Marah’s recovery of the Ark of the Covenant captured the eye of someone with money to spend, and the conviction that the Fountain of Youth will bring answers to the secret of life. (Release date is July 7.)

Heather Webber’s South of the Buttonwood Tree has been called “A captivating blend of magical realism, heartwarming romance, and small-town Southern charm.” The author of Midnight at the Blackbird Cafe introduces Blue Bishop who has a knack for finding lost things. No one is more surprised than Blue, however, when she comes across a newborn baby in the woods. Sarah Grace Landreneau Fulton has always tried so hard to do the right thing. Blue’s unexpected discovery will alter their lives forever. Both women will uncover long-held secrets that reveal exactly who they really are, and what they’re willing to sacrifice in the name of family. (Release date is July 21.)

Leslie Wheeler’s first Berkshire Hilltown mystery, Rattlesnake Hill, was an atmospheric, foreboding story. Now, she follows up with Shuntoll Road. Boston library curator Kathryn Stinson returns to the Berkshires, hoping to rebuild her romance with Earl Barker, but ends up battling a New York developer, determined to turn the property she’s been renting into an upscale development. The fight pits her agains Earl, who has been offered the job of clearing the land. When a fire breaks out in the woods, the burned body of another opponent is discovered. Kathryn’s search for answers puts her in grave danger. (Release date is July 15.)

You might want to check out these books as well.

Delaney, JP – Playing Nice (7/28)
Haines, Carolyn – The Devil’s Bones (7/21)
Hall, Alexis – Boyfriend Material (7/7)
Klass, David – Out of Time (7/7)
Lackberg, Camilla – The Golden Cage (7/7)
Maizes, R.L. – Other People’s Pets (7/14)
Waite, Jen – Survival Instincts (7/14)