I’ll be the first to admit July’s list of forthcoming books is an odd one with few authors I’ve read. What about you? Do you have titles or authors to add to the list?

In Julie Buntin’s novel, Famous Men, Will Miles is trapped. Trapped in tiny Greening, Michigan, where a toxic high school rumor has turned her into a social exile. Trapped in the predictable routines of her mother, and under the unrelenting gaze of her mother’s increasingly sinister boyfriend. But when Will stumbles across the early poems of Nathaniel Fellow, a famous writer forty years her senior who also grew up in Greening, she feels she’s found a kindred spirit. A passing comment from her mother only adds to Will’s fascination: Is Nathaniel the father she’s never known? Will orchestrates a plan to track Nathaniel down, following in his footsteps to New York City, where she learns he’s not the answer to her past, not the way she imagined. But their meeting sparks a complicated, consuming relationship that gives Will sidelong access to a world she’s only ever imagined: of writers and intellectuals, a financial safety net, and, most intoxicatingly, a glimpse into her own potential. But who is Nathaniel Fellow, off the page? And what will shaping her life to suit his cost her? When a torrent of information about his past threatens not just her life with Nathaniel, but the story she tells herself about him, Will is faced with a choice that will change everything. (Release date is July 14.)

Now, here’s one I’m eager to read, A Dark Path: And Other Kate Burkholder Short Stories by Linda Castillo. Chief of Police Kate Burkholder investigates missing children, mysterious attacks, and vanished Amish couples in six thrilling short stories from this Edgar award-winning series. (Release date is July 14.)

It doesn’t matter to me that this is a compilation of stories previously published. Country Christie: Country Tales from the Queen of Mystery should be fun. Murder and mystery lurk in the picturesque English countryside in this new collection of Agatha Christie short stories.

Growing up in Torquay, Agatha Christie’s love of the West Country never left her and many of her most intriguing mysteries are set on the moors and shores of Devon and Cornwall. This collection celebrates some of Christie’s finest countryside stories featuring a cast of her most iconic characters: Hercule Poirot, Miss Jane Marple, Tommy and Tuppence Beresford and Parker Pyne. (Release date is July 14.)

After living in Florida for eighteen years, I’m always interested in true crime books set there. Pamela Colloff’s Catch the Devil is subtitled: A True Story of Murder, Deception, and Injustice on the Gulf Coast. For more than three decades, Paul Skalnik roamed the Gulf Coast lying about who he was. He passed himself off as a fighter pilot, a high-rolling oilman, a criminal defense attorney, an undercover agent, and a terminal cancer patient. In these guises he married nine women—some at the same time. When Skalnik got caught, as he invariably did, he would run a different con. Locked up with other men awaiting trial, he claimed they confessed their crimes to him. Then he peddled those stories to prosecutors. In Pinellas County, Florida, he became a frequent witness for the state, thinking nothing of exaggerating men’s wrongdoing or implicating the innocent to help prosecutors win convictions. In return, the state rewarded him with his freedom, fueling his growing sense of invincibility. This is the  true story of an audacious con man who helped send another man to death row for a murder he did not commit. (Release date is July 14.)

In Kate Eberle’s If Books Could Kill, Roxie’s wish to live in her favorite author’s next book comes true. However, she finds herself in a dangerous thriller instead of a romance, teaming up with a professor to survive. (Release date is July 21.)

Make Nice is a family story by Ryan Effgen. When the Pickford siblings arrive at The Grand Hotel—a nostalgic tourist paradise of horse-drawn carriages, muddled cocktails, and white sweaters on the tennis court—they have every intention of spending the long weekend making nice. Pete, the nation’s foremost expert on gastropods (mollusks), is keen to wade around the lake in search of a rare and exciting Carthusian snail. Viv, reeling from the secret revelation that her husband is gay, is determined to put on a brave face for her daughter. And Corey, a charming, handsome grifter, has lucked into five pounds of cocaine he plans to sell to the first dumb rich guy he can find. But when Pete falls for the alluring mother of a local kid, when Viv’s daughter gets up to teenage trouble, and when Corey finds the wealthy guests less interested in party drugs than golf clubs and waffle cones, the long weekend of family bonding veers into disaster. (Release date is July 14.)

Jack Friday’s Killer Vibes is the first Peter Key mystery. Meet Peter Key: self-proclaimed “laziest private investigator in Texas” (it’s harder than it looks), unapologetic bisexual, dedicated stoner, and the surprised recipient of a windfall inheritance from an uncle he barely knew. Peter’s life was a mess before, but now― as the owner of a dilapidated house in one of the most desirable neighborhoods in Austin―he has a mountain of debt to deal with and pressure to sell from every side. But Peter doesn’t like to be pushed around. And when he discovers a bag full of cash, he starts to suspect his uncle’s death wasn’t an accident. He soon finds himself pulled into a lethal game where not everybody plays by the rules. Fortunately, Peter’s never been good at following rules. (Release date is July 14.)

D.K. Furutani’s When Mikan Road Was Ours is the winner of Simon & Schuster’s Books Like Us contest, a gripping, sincere debut novel set across four generations of a Japanese American family living in California’s vibrant agricultural heartlands, exploring the sharp edges of inheritance and what it means to truly belong. Amid a sweltering Los Angeles heat wave, Murano, a reclusive high school English teacher, is muddling through life. Reeling from his father’s sudden death as well as his own recent cancer diagnosis, he passes time hazily grading papers and appeasing disgruntled parents while counting down each day until summer vacation. The monotony breaks when he inherits his great-uncle Benjiro’s unpublished memoir. What Murano expects to be a grim reminder of his position as the half-white son of the family’s outcast instead whisks him away to 1930s California, to a time when the Murano family was inseparable, relishing life together on their bucolic farm. As the memoir introduces him to relatives he never knew existed and unearths hidden complexities of the past, Murano is pulled close to the Japanese identity he’s dismissed all of his life. (Release date is July 28.)

Kristin Harmel’s latest novel is Meet Me in Paris. Nine Americans in Paris. Seven intertwined love stories. One City of Light.
“Love Actually” meets “The Notebook” in a tale of love, loss, and finding your way home, all set over the course of one life-changing week in Paris. Five  intertwining stories—plus several others—unfold over a few breathtaking spring days, as an unforgettable group of Americans in Paris must find their way to their own versions of happily ever after in the City of Light. (Release date is July 28.)

Witches Angelina and Evan Everhart-Trueblood take a case that spirals out of control until the whole city is at risk in this exciting new novel from Faith Hunter, Unpredictable Magic. Angelina Everhart-Trueblood and her brother Evan run Everhart Investigations, a PI firm in Chattanooga that solves paranormal crimes committed by supernatural beings. When their new client wants help finding her friend, who supposedly disappeared during a reception at Angie’s aunt Jane’s winter residence, things get . . . complicated. The client is not who she appears to be, and demons strike the city for the first time since the Witch War. On top of that, evidence is pointing toward the involvement of an overly ambitious vampire—who just happens to be Angie’s ex-husband. (Release date is July 14.)

Sandra Jackson-Opoku’s Savvy Summers and the Po’boy Perils is the next delectable mystery featuring quick-witted, unforgettable Savvy Summers, owner of a soul food café in Chicago. Savvy has her work cut out when an old friend hires her to cater a company luncheon at a nearby office building on Chicago’s South Side. Stepping out of her traditional soul food comfort zone, Savvy whips together a menu of Creole classics, with her own spin, of course―mini po’boys with assorted fillings, sunburst salad, and bread pudding using Great Aunt Essie’s famous buttermilk biscuits. But when someone is found dead in the company’s conference room, Savvy’s culinary creations are suddenly in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. While the focus should be on their delicious flavors and inventive techniques, Savvy’s beloved café instead becomes the center of a murder investigation once again. Caught within a messy web of gossip, miscommunication, and fraught coworker relationships, Savvy will have to settle the confusion to clear her name. (Release date is July 21.)

I’ve yet to enjoy any of Christina Lauren’s romances as much as I did The Unhoneymooners. However, I’ll always take a chance on her. The Romance Revival doesn’t sound as if it will be as funny, but it could be good. Three years ago, scientist Emery Finch did something completely out of character: She got married. To Luca—the impossibly charming landscaper she met on one blistering night in Vegas who made her laugh, made her dance, made her feel. But now, Emery is consumed by her top research, missing dinners, forgetting anniversaries, and promising herself Luca will understand once her cutting-edge discoveries come to light. Until the unthinkable happens: A tragic accident takes Luca from her. Desperate not to lose him, Emery breaks every rule, using the classified technology she’s developed to bring him back to life. And Luca would probably thank her for it, if only he could remember her. Their first kiss, their Sunny Sundays at the beach, the life they built together…all of it is gone. It may be a miracle of science, but for Emery it’s her one shot at a second chance. And this time, she won’t waste it—because true love is always worth reviving. (Release date is July 14.)

A mother and daughter must break their family’s curse through trials of war and immigration, love, loss, and redemption in this riveting multi-generational saga with a shimmer of magic, Fishbone Cinderella by Elizabeth Lim. 1940s Hong Kong
When Japanese soldiers invade her hometown, Ha Yut Ying makes an unlikely escape—by turning invisible. But her miraculous survival is only the beginning. After the war is over, she’s sent to Hong Kong to live with her distant father and glamorous stepmother, who end her dreams of becoming a singer and turn her into the family’s servant. As the years pass, Yut Ying learns the hard truths of betrayal and ambition, of forbidden love and devastating loss, and discovers that sometimes the only way to endure is to disappear.
1960s San Francisco
Marigold has always had a knack for uncovering secrets, but nothing prepares her for the day she accidentally witnesses her mother vanish before her eyes. The moment fractures their bond, leaving questions that shadow her entire childhood. But when her mother’s condition suddenly deteriorates, Marigold is convinced she’s the only person who can save her. To do so, she must journey into the secrets her mother never shared and uncover the tragic, fairytale-tinged history their family has fought to forget. (Release date is July 28.)

Natalie Messier’s heartfelt contemporary romance debut , Every Version of You, follows a woman who gets a second chance at a formative time in her adult life—this time to win the “one that got away. Joey Vasquez’s life is the definition of good on paper. At thirty-two, she’s a lawyer on the cusp of making partner, she owns her house in Los Angeles, and she almost keeps pace with her doctor sister in her parents’ eyes. When she reluctantly arrives at the very couple-y dinner party hosted by Elijah Aarons, the best friend she’s secretly pined after for fourteen years, she’s dismayed to find that the last person on earth she’d ever want to see again is also there: Alex Aquino. Your basic rich Silicon Beach bro asshole. The night couldn’t possibly get worse—and then she dies. When Joey is given a second chance at life, she finds herself eighteen again, the year she first met both Elijah and Alex. Armed with memories from her first life, Joey is certain she’s come back to finally convince the one man she ever loved to love her back—so why does she find herself strangely drawn to the man she thought she hated? (Release date is July 7.)

A professional thief takes the chance of a lifetime when he agrees to mastermind the raid of a tech billionaire’s secret bunker in this action-packed heist thriller, The Haul, set in the heart of contemporary Los Angeles, from master of West Coast noir Gary Phillips. After years of close calls, O’Conner—the former “Warlord of Willow Ridge”—spends most of his time in semi-retirement, running his legitimate businesses and playing pickleball. Except for his longtime girlfriend, no one in his middle-class neighborhood is the wiser to his double life. But O’Conner’s past refuses to stay dead. When he’s approached with a job he can’t resist, he agrees to mastermind his biggest heist yet: a multi-million-dollar raid of a tech billionaire’s secret bunker, hidden beneath his newly constructed basketball arena. As the job goes down, testing O’Conner’s mettle with new challenges, the promise of the score attracts ghosts from his past he thought were long buried. (Release date is July 7.)

Maggie and Arthur’s Magic Moment is a romance by Leslie Rene. A dangerous spell gone wrong forces the passionate professor of incantations to share tight quarters with her magical college’s leading—and most brooding—alchemist. Despite the college’s budget cuts that slashed her syllabus, Linguistics and Incantation Translation professor Maggie Linden has almost made it to the end of the spring semester. To celebrate, Maggie attends a magical masquerade on Beltane. Maybe the end-of-year frenzy explains why she kissed a masked stranger at the festival, though her celebration may have come too soon….An accident in the lab of famous (and famously broody) alchemist Arthur Taliesin sets loose a dangerous, haunting magic called a pall that renders the nicer parts of their academic building uninhabitable. Maggie is assigned to share her tiny basement office with none other than Taliesin himself. With his insufferable attitude and unfortunate good looks, Arthur makes it impossible for Maggie to concentrate on anything—her research, her students’ final exams, or tracking down her mysterious Beltane suitor. (Release date is July 28.)

From Kathleen Rooney, author of Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk, comes a funny and moving novel, Man Overboard, in which a former college swimmer falls off a cruise ship and must keep treading water as memories and regrets wash over him. Patrick “Kick” Kilpatrick hates the ocean. Has always been terrified of it. And now he’s in a real pickle. Drifting alone in the sea after falling (or jumping? He can’t remember as the all-inclusive drinks on the cruise he was taking with his extended family were, well, inclusive) Kick must survive. Breath by breath, hour by hour in the lonely sea. (Release date is July 7.)

Freya Sampson brings us Most Ardently Yours,  a swoon-worthy, laugh-out-loud romance inspired by Jane Austen’s beloved Pride and Prejudice that begs the question: what if your book boyfriend jumped from the pages of their story and into your life? Zoe Knight, a struggling romance writer, has sworn off men for good. At least…the ones in real life. Once a believer in a happily ever after, she now curbs her loneliness with the help of the best book boyfriends in literature – and there is no better man than Jane Austen’s Mr. Darcy. So when she stumbles into a classic London bookshop and argues with the annoyingly attractive store owner, Nick, who refuses to sell romance novels, she decides to liberate him of a dusty copy of Pride & Prejudice abandoned on a top shelf.But this is no ordinary book.After reading from the pages, Zoe finds herself in a remarkable situation: she has accidentally summoned the Mr. Darcy to the real world. Now, she’s face-to-face with the man she’s loved forever, and he’s everything she dreamed he would be. Handsome? Check. Brooding? Check. Talks like he swallowed a thesaurus? Check and check. But even in all his regency perfection, can he ever be as good as in the novel? (Release date is July 7.)

Stephanie Soileau’s Should the Waters Take Us is an epic debut novel that follows one family across four centuries, from France to Acadia to the bayous of Southern Louisiana—a poignant examination of belonging, place, and how individual acts of moral compromise contribute to cycles of injustice and destruction. In the shifting bayous of coastal Louisiana, on a rapidly disappearing spit of land, generations of Acadians have kept their heads above water any way they can. When an offshore rig explodes and unleashes a catastrophic spill, the people of Pelerin Parish face a reckoning that tests the bonds of family and the survival of their way of life. (Release date is July 14.)

V.A, Vazquez’ The Death Row Club is a dark, dazzlingly original psychological thriller about a woman invited to an annual weekend getaway for the adult children of serial killers…but when one of the participants ends up dead, they begin to wonder if someone among them might be carrying on the family traditions. When Nicola Fischer’s father is arrested for the murder of five women—including her best friend—the entire world watches it unfold on To Catch a Killer, the hit true crime TV show hosted by Greer Woods. Overnight, Nicola becomes a pariah: fired from her job, drowning in debt, and shunned by everyone she knows. And to make matters worse, Greer—once a budding friend and fellow child of a serial killer—hasn’t returned a single call since the show aired. Then comes an unexpected invitation to the Death Row Club, a secret retreat for the adult children of serial killers—founded by none other than Greer herself. Desperate for answers and human connection, Nicola agrees to go. At first, it seems like exactly what she needs. The club members are strange but welcoming, and Greer seems eager to mend their fractured friendship. But when a mysterious girl arrives, claiming her father is a killer too, the club’s fragile peace is shattered, unraveling the buried secrets at its core. By morning, the girl has vanished. By afternoon, one of the club members is dead. (Release date is July 14.)

It’s been six years since David Heska Wanbli Weiden’s debut with Winter Counts. Wisdom Corner is the new thriller about life and death on the Rosebud Indian Reservation. Virgil Wounded Horse is desperately trying to escape his past as a hired vigilante on the Rosebud Indian Reservation. But when a legendary figure from the reservation is murdered, Virgil is forced to return to the job. Making matters more complicated, threats are coming from the Pine Ridge 705—a street gang from a neighboring reservation who want to expand their reach into Rosebud—and Mitch Gagnon, a shady politician who will stop at nothing to gain more power. With a heated tribal council election looming, as well as new revelations regarding past injustices at the local Native boarding school, the stakes grow even higher. Will Virgil find the justice he’s seeking before it’s too late? (Release date is July 7.)

I’ll end with a “Pocket Portrait”, Agatha Christie: The Mother of the Cozy Mystery by Nancy West. Step into the world of history’s most legendary mystery and crime writer—Agatha Christie. Inside, you’ll get an intimate glimpse into the life, mind, and works of the Mother of the Cozy Mystery. Featuring quotes about (and from) the literary genius and excerpts from her suspenseful stories, this beautifully crafted literary biography is a celebration of Christie’s literary brilliance and timeless creations. With each page, you’ll learn all there is to know about the bestselling novelist of all time, from her early years to her lasting impact on pop culture. (Release date is July 14.)

It’s an eclectic mix of books for July. If you’d like a reminder of the June releases, check out the blog post at https://tinyurl.com/3rkvukje.

What about you? What are you planning to read in July?