Can you believe we’re already talking about July book releases? The list isn’t quite as long as usual. We’ll jump right into the books. I hope you find a book or two. Let me know if I missed any July titles you’re waiting to read. And, I’m sorry if the formatting is a little odd. WordPress keeps changing, but it’s still better than Blogger.

We’re heading back to Catalina with Gabby Allan’s cozy mystery, Something Fishy This Way Comes. Whitney Dagner might be the only one on the island who doesn’t know about the long-running feud between the Franklins and the Aherns. But, she’s the one who found Leo Franklin’s body on the golf course. Even though the Aherns are involved in a cover-up, Whitney’s the one whose family charges her with finding Leo’s killer. (Release date is July 26.)

I’m a fan of Leslie Budewitz’ Spice Shop mysteries, so I’m looking forward to Peppermint Barked. The holiday season lights up Seattle’s Pike Place Market, and Pepper Reece’s Spice Shop is right in the middle of a staff competition for peppermint bark, as well as the Dickensian Christmas theme. Then, a young woman working at a friend’s wine shop is brutally assaulted. Was the attack meant for Beth, or for the owner, Vinny? As the secrets of the market come to light, long-held grudges, family ties, and hidden plans only further obscure the truth. Is it a ghost of the past rattling its chains, or a contemporary Scrooge with more earthly motives? As Pepper chases down a killer, someone is chasing her, and in the end, the storied market itself may hold the final, deadly clue. (Release date is July 19.)

Katherine J. Chen’s Joan is secular reimagining of the epic life of Joan of Arc. Girl. Warrior. Heretic. Saint? The myth and legend of Joan of Arc is transformed into a flesh-and-blood young woman: reckless, steel-willed, and brilliant. This meticulously researched novel is a sweeping narrative of her life, from a childhood steeped in both joy and violence, to her meteoric rise to fame at the head of the French army, where she navigates the perils of the battlefield and the equally treacherous politics of the royal court. Many are threatened by a woman who leads, and Joan draws wrath and suspicion from all corners, while her first taste of fame and glory leaves her vulnerable to her own powerful ambition.  (Release date is July 5.)

In Kitt Crowe’s second Sweet Fiction Bookshop Mystery, A Poisonous Page, it’s summer festival time in Confection, Oregon, and that means a barrage of tourists making cash registers ring at Sweet Fiction Bookshop. But what should be bookseller Lexi’s most lucrative time of year turns disturbing when a member of the chamber of commerce suddenly dies of a heart attack. Not entirely unexpected—considering her family history—but it’s a different story when another chamber member dies just one week later…also, presumably, of natural causes. Something about this doesn’t read right to Lexi. And it gets more unfathomable when her friend Dash—who dated both women—stands accused of murder!  (Release date is July 12.)

Let’s face it. I’m a genre fiction reader who occasionally mentions literary fiction such as Alice Elliott Dark’s Fellowship Point. It’s the story of a lifelong friendship between two very different women with shared histories and buried secrets, tested in the twilight of their lives, set across the arc of the 20th century. Celebrated children’s book author Agnes Lee is determined to secure her legacy—to complete what she knows will be the final volume of her pseudonymously written Franklin Square novels; and even more consuming, to permanently protect the peninsula of majestic coast in Maine known as Fellowship Point. To donate the land to a trust, Agnes must convince shareholders to dissolve a generations-old partnership. And one of those shareholders is her best friend, Polly. Polly Wister has led a different kind of life than Agnes: that of a well-off married woman with children, defined by her devotion to her husband, and philosophy professor with an inflated sense of stature. She exalts in creating beauty and harmony in her home, in her friendships, and in her family. Polly soon finds her loyalties torn between the wishes of her best friend and the wishes of her three sons—but what is it that Polly wants herself? (Release date is July 5.)

In Vicki Delaney’s Murder Spills the Tea, the country’s hottest TV cooking show is coming to Cape Cod. And against her better judgment, Lily Roberts is entering America Bakes! with her charming tearoom, Tea by the Sea. Filming is already proving disruptive, closing the tearoom during Lily’s busiest season. But tensions really bubble over when infamous bad-boy chef and celebrity judge, Tommy Greene, loses his temper with Lily’s staff, resulting in an on-camera blowup with Cheryl Wainwright. Just as Lily thinks the competition can’t get more bitter, Tommy is found dead in Tea by the Sea’s kitchen . . . murdered with Lily’s rolling pin. (Release date is July 26.)

From David Ellis comes a wickedly clever and fast-paced novel of greed, revenge, obsession—and quite possibly the perfect murder, Look Closer. Simon and Vicky couldn’t seem more normal: a wealthy Chicago couple, he a respected law professor, she an advocate for domestic violence victims. A stable, if unexciting marriage. But one thing’s for sure … absolutely nothing is what it seems. The pair are far from normal, and one of them just may be a killer. When the body of a beautiful socialite is found hanging in a mansion in a nearby suburb, Simon and Vicky’s secrets begin to unravel. A secret whirlwind affair. A twenty-million-dollar trust fund about to come due. A decades-long grudge and obsession with revenge. These are just a few of the lies that make up the complex web…and they will have devastating consequences. And while both Vicky and Simon are liars, just who exactly is conning who? (Release date is July 5.)

I’ll always take a second look at a crime novel involving a journalist. In J.G. Hetherton’s What Lies Beneath, Laura Chambers finds herself caught in a deadly web of small town secrets as she hunts for the truth about her father, who mysteriously disappeared. Hillsborough, North Carolina is a town with a dark history, one that was hidden until investigative journalist Laura Chambers pulled it into the light. Nearly a year has passed since her deadly encounter with a serial killer’s twisted progeny, a brutal confrontation that left her physically and emotionally scarred. She’s ready to put the past behind her, but the past has other plans.
A woman runs onto the interstate, directly into the path of a truck, and the gruesome accident leaves behind a mangled corpse. Her very last phone call was to Laura, but the victim was barefoot, in a state of undress, and her face is disfigured beyond recognition. Identification seems impossible, and the only thing in her possession is an old photograph depicting Laura, her father—and standing next to them, her imaginary friend from childhood. What else is mistaken about her memories? (Release date is July 12.)

Where are Niko and Zora Norman? Crime writer Augusta Hawke puts her sleuthing skills to the test to solve the mystery of her disappearing neighbors in Augusta Hawke, the first entry in a new series by G.M. Malliet. While Augusta Hawke is a successful author of eighteen crime novels, since her husband’s death she’s been living vicariously through her Jules Maigret-like detective Claude and his assistant Caroline. Then a police detective appears investigating a real-life mystery. Where are her neighbors, the Normans? No one has a clue what’s happened – except Augusta. Although she isn’t nosy, spending all day staring out the windows for inspiration means she does notice things. Like the Normans arguing. And that they’ve been missing a week. Once the Normans’ car is found abandoned, Augusta senses material for a bestseller and calls on the investigatory skills she’s developed as a crime writer. But she soon uncovers long-hidden secrets and finds herself facing real-life dangers her characters never faced . . . ones she can’t write her way out of. (Release date is July 5.)

I love the cover of Tom Mead’s Death and the Conjuror. A tribute to the classic golden-age whodunnit, when crime fiction was a battle of wits between writer and reader, Death and the Conjuror joins its macabre atmosphere, period detail, and vividly-drawn characters with a meticulously-constructed fair play puzzle. A magician-turned-sleuth in pre-war London solves three impossible crimes. In 1930s London, celebrity psychiatrist Anselm Rees is discovered dead in his locked study, and there seems to be no way that a killer could have escaped unseen. There are no clues, no witnesses, and no evidence of the murder weapon. Stumped by the confounding scene, the Scotland Yard detective on the case calls on retired stage magician-turned-part-time sleuth Joseph Spector. For who better to make sense of the impossible than one who traffics in illusions? (Release date is July 12.)

I finished Paula Munier’s latest Mercy Carr and Elvis mystery, The Wedding Plot, so long ago that I’m going to rely on the online summary to discuss it, other than to say it’s another terrific book in the series, with such a satisfying ending. When Mercy’s grandmother Patience marries her longtime beau Claude Renault at the five-star Lady’s Slipper Inn, it promises to be the destination wedding of the year. Just as the four-day extravaganza is due to begin, the inn’s spa director Bodhi St. George disappears―and Mercy’s mother Grace sends Mercy and Elvis to find him. But what they discover instead is a stranger skewered by a pitchfork in the barn on the goat farm where St. George lived. As Mercy tries to figure out who the victim is and where St. George is hiding, the bride and groom’s estranged relations gather for the first of the pre-wedding festivities. Long-buried rivalries and resentments surface―and Mercy realizes that they’re all keeping secrets that could tear both families apart.  (Release date is July 19.)

Here’s the nonfiction book I’m looking forward to in July, Graham Robb’s France: An Adventure History. A wholly original history of France, filled with a lifetime’s knowledge and passion―by the author of the New York Times bestseller Parisians. Beginning with the Roman army’s first recorded encounter with the Gauls and ending in the era of Emmanuel Macron, France takes readers on an endlessly entertaining journey through French history. Frequently hilarious, always surprising, Graham Robb’s France combines the stylistic versatility of a novelist with the deep understanding of a scholar. Robb’s own adventures and discoveries while living, working, and traveling in France connect this tour through space and time with on-the-ground experience. There are scenes of wars and revolutions from the plains of Provence to the slums and boulevards of Paris. Robb conveys with wit and precision what it felt like to look over the shoulder of a young Louis XIV as he planned the vast garden of Versailles, and the dangerous thrill of having a ringside seat at the French revolution. Some of the protagonists may be familiar, but appear here in a very different light―Caesar, Charlemagne, Louis XIV, Napoleon Bonaparte, General Charles de Gaulle. This extraordinary narrative is the fruit of decades of research and thirty thousand miles on a self-propelled, two-wheeled time machine (a bicycle). (Release date is July 5.)

A retired Scotland Yard Inspector races to prove the innocence of a falsely accused fugitive―his daughter’s fiancee―in Should I Fall, a whodunnit by Scott Shepherd. When John Frankel’s ex-wife is discovered dead on the floor of his Manhattan studio apartment, the NYPD Detective instantly becomes the prime suspect in her murder. Then more information surfaces, linking his gun to the fatal bullet, a motive is discovered, and Frankel flees the city, all of which further convinces his colleagues of his guilt. In spite of the mounting evidence, Frankel’s bride-to-be, Rachel Grant, and her father, Austin Grant, formerly of Scotland Yard, are certain of his innocence. But with the police under orders to use whatever force necessary to stop what they view as a dangerous criminal, the duo will have to act fast, before the manhunt goes violently wrong. (Release date is July 5.)

Casey Sherman takes readers back to 1969 in the true crime book Helltown: The Untold Story of a Serial Killer on Cape Cod. Before Charles Manson, there was Tony Costa―the serial killer of Cape Cod. 1969: The hippie scene is vibrant in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Long-haired teenagers roam the streets, strumming guitars and preaching about peace and love… and Tony Costa is at the center of it all. To a certain group of smitten young women, he is known as Sire―the leader of their counter-culture movement, the charming man who speaks eloquently and hands out hallucinogenic drugs like candy. But beneath his benign persona lies a twisted and uncontrollable rage that threatens to break loose at any moment. Tony Costa is the most dangerous man on Cape Cod, and no one who crosses his path is safe. When young women begin to disappear, Costa’s natural charisma and good looks initially protect him from suspicion. But as the bodies are discovered, the police close in on him as the key suspect. Meanwhile, local writers Kurt Vonnegut and Norman Mailer are locked in a desperate race to secure their legacies as great literary icons―and they both set their sights on Tony Costa and the drug-soaked hippie culture that he embodies as their next promising subject, launching independent investigations that stoke the competitive fires between two of the greatest American writers. (Release date is July 12.)

Check out these titles as well.

Alterman, Liz – The Perfect Neighborhood (7/12)
Calvin, Kris – Under a Broken Sky (7/12)
Carey, Bernice – The Beautiful Stranger/The Missing Heiress (7/22)
Cast, P.C. – Into the Mist (7/12)
Hannah, Darci – Murder at the Blueberry Festival (7/26)
Hillier, Jennifer – Things We Do in the Dark (7/19)
Hollis, Lee – Death of an Ice Cream Scooper (7/26)
Hollon, Cheryl – Death A Sketch (7/26)
Howard, Amalie – Always Be My Duchess (7/12)
Laurie, Victoria – Coached Red-Handed (7/26)
Malfi, Ronald – Black Mouth (7/19)
Miranda, Megan – The Last to Vanish (7/26)
Monroe, Katrina – They Drown Our Daughters (7/12)
Pearse, Sarah – The Retreat (7/19)
Reichs, Kathy – Cold, Cold Bones (7/5)
Sanders, Angela M. – Witch and Famous (7/26)
Vaughan, Sarah – Reputation (7/5)