Are you ready for the second list of enticing books, releases for July? Let’s dive right in.

Jonas Karlsson’s novel, The Invoice, explores the nature of happiness through the eyes of a carefree
idealist who is content with very little. He’s a passionate film buff, works part-time in a video store, enjoys the company of just a few friends, and usually ends his day with pizza and a movie in his tiny space in Stockholm. And, then he receives an astronomical invoice from a national bureaucratic agency, a bill he has no way of paying. And, he calls the hotline day and night to find out why he is the recipient of the largest bill in the entire country. (Release date is July 12.)

Life of the Party by Bob Kealing was previously published as Tupperware Unsealed. It may sound unappealing, but I’ve heard good things from other librarians about “The Remarkable Story of How Brownie Wise Built, and Lost, a Tupperware Party Empire”. (Release date is July 12.)

J.C. Lane’s Tag, You’re Dead, sounds fascinating. Six young people play a dangerous Game of Tag in public, chasing through the crowds, streets, and buildings of Chicago. But, this game offers a macabre twist. If you’re Tagged, you get Dead. Three “Its” have reasons for buying a place in the game, determined to kill their prey. Three hand-picked innocents are “Runners”, with their loved ones threatened if they refuse to participate. The Game will not end until someone is Tagged. (Release date is July 5.)

The Wolf Road is Beth Lewis’ chilling debut, a psychological thriller. Elka learned everything she knows from the man she calls father, the solitary hunter who took her in when she was only seven. He taught her to shoot, track, set snares, and start fires, everything she’ll need to survive when she discovers her father is a killer, a serial killer. And, now that Elka knows the truth, she may be his next victim, unless she can escape on a journey to the frozen north. (Release date is July 5.)

I’ll admit I haven’t read Bill Loehfelm’s Maureen Coughlin novels, but I may have to go back and start with the first one, The Devil She Knows. The fourth one in the series is Let the Devil Out. Rookie New Orleans cop Maureen Coughlin has had a brutal year, and it’s only going to get worse. She’s in the crosshairs of a ruthless white supremacist group who want her out of the way, and the FBI wants her help in stopping the group. She doesn’t want to work with the FBI. No one in the NOPD does. But to save her career, and her life, she may have no choice. (Release date is July 5.)

I love the premise of A. Lee Martinez’ novel, The Last Adventure of Constance Verity. Granted a wish at birth, Constance Verity has become one of the world’s great adventurers. It started at her seventh birthday party when she defeated a giant snake, and it’s been going on for twenty years. Constance is sick of it. She wants an ordinary life. And, she thinks she can kill her fairy godmother and reset her life. But, saving the world is Constance’s destiny. And, she’s really good at it. There are forces at work to make sure she stays in the job. Of course, it’s also her destiny to have a glorious death. (Release date is July 5.)

Liz Moore’s latest novel is The Unseen World. Ada Sibelius is a young math-whiz who has been home-schooled/lab-schooled by her beloved father, David. But, when he’s diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and must move into a nursing home, Ada has to live with a family friend, and go to regular school for the first time. When she finds out that the stories David told her all her life may not be true, she embarks on a mission to find the truth, which takes her into adulthood. She becomes a computer programmer working on a virtual reality program called “The Unseen World,” which takes her in some surprising directions. (Release date is July 26.)

Truly Madly Guilty is the new book from #1 New York Times bestselling author Liane Moriarty. Sometimes people don’t appreciate how extraordinary their lives are until it’s too late. Six responsible adults. Three cute kids. One small dog. A neighborhood barbecue on a normal weekend. What could possibly go wrong? (Release date is July 26.)

Here’s another debut novel, The Last One by Alexandra Oliva. It’s all about survival as the line blurs between reality TV and reality itself in a novel of psychological suspense that focuses on one woman’s mind and body, pushed to the limit. She wanted an adventure, but never imagined it would go this far. For a reality show, twelve contestants are sent into the woods to face challenges that will test the limits of endurance. While they’re out there, something terrible happens. How widespread is the destruction, and has it occurred naturally or is it man-made. The contestants are cut off from society, and know nothing about the rest of the world. When one woman stumbles across the devastation, she can only imagine it’s part of the game. (Release date is July 12.)

Michelle Pretorius’ The Monster’s Daughter is also a debut taking place in the author’s native South Africa. It begins in 1901, at the height of the Boer War when a doctor at a British concentration camp conducts a series of grim experiments on Boer prisoners. When his work ends, two children survive. One hundred years later, a disgraced young police constable, reassigned to a sleep town, discovers the body of a young woman. The crime leads her into her country’s violent past, including the story of her father, a high-ranking police official under apartheid, and the children left behind in that concentration camp. (Release date is July 19.)

Nine Women, One Dress by Jane L. Rosen is the “charming, hilarious, irresistible romp” of a novel about nine women whose lives change thanks to the dress of the season, the perfect black number everyone wants. (Release date is July 12.)

Defense lawyer Andy Carpenter is back in David Rosenfelt’s Outfoxed. The Tara Foundation is his dog rescue organization, and he’s been involved in a county prison program where inmates help train the rescued dogs. Andy’s been helping one prisoner, Brian Atkins, who has been training Boomer, an adorable fox terrier. When Brian uses Boomer to make an ingenious escape, and then the man who testified against Brian is murdered, Andy finds himself with a new client and a new dog. (Release date is July 19.)

Little Girl Gone by Gerry Schmitt introduces Afton Tangler, family liaison officer with the Minneapolis Police Department. On a frozen night in an affluent Minneapolis neighborhood, a baby is abducted after her teenage babysitter is violently assaulted. The parents are frantic, the police are baffled, and Afton Tangor begins to suspect that the perpetrator has taken babies before, and, if she doesn’t solve the case soon, more children will go missing. (Release date is July 5.)

Anna Solomon’s Leaving Lucy Pear, set in 1920s New England, is about two women, both mothers to the same extraordinary girl. One woman, Beatrice Haven, is a teenage mother who leaves her newborn baby at the foot of a pear tree, and watches as another woman claims the infant. Ten years later, Bea returns home when Prohibition is in full swing, and is inadvertently reunited with the Irish Catholic woman who has been raising her abandoned child – now a bright, bold cross-dressing girl named Lucy Pear. (Release date is July 26.)

Peter Spiegelman introduces Dr. Knox,  the story of a doctor with a strong humanitarian impulse, an unhealthy appetite for risk, and a knack for finding himself between a rock and a hard place. Dr. Adam Knox’ service in Central African Republic ended with a disastrous attempt to protect patients from a brutal militia. Now he runs a clinic near Los Angeles’ Skid Row. When a young boy is abandoned at his clinic, Knox searches for the woman who may be the boy’s mother. It’s a search that leads him and his friend, Ben Sutter, a former Special Forces operator, into a labyrinth of human traffickers, Russian mobsters, corporate security thugs, and a ruthless family that threatens to destroy Dr. Knox. (Release date is July 12.)

Kate Summerscale is the internationally bestselling author of The Suspicions of Mr Whicher. Now, the author who specialized in true historical crimes brings us The Wicked Boy. It takes readers back to the summer of 1895 when two boys told boys they had been left alone while their mother visited families. Their aunt was suspicious, and when she insisted they let her in the house, she found the badly decomposed body of the boys’ mother. Robert Coombes, thirteen, confessed to killing his mother, but his lawyers argued he was insane. Once he was sentenced to Broadmoor, a criminal lunatic asylum, it was the beginning of his new life. (Release date is July 12.)

All is Not Forgotten is Wendy Walker’s summer psychological thriller. Everything seems picture perfect in the small affluent town of Fairview, Connecticut. At least until a young teen, Jenny Kramer is attacked at a party. In the hours after the attack, she’s given a controversial drug to make her forget what happened. As Jenny struggles afterward, her family is torn apart, and the relentless search for a monster changes the entire town. (Release date is July 12.)

The last July release is one of the most anticipated books of the month, Ruth Ware’s The Woman in Cabin 10. The blurbs refer to Agatha Christie, probably because journalist Lo Blacklock is on a luxury trip. She’s been given the assignment of covering a week on a luxury cruise with oly a handful of cabins. Everything is pleasant at first, until the weather gets worse, and Lo witnesses a woman being thrown overboard. The problem is, all the passengers are accounted for. (Release date is July 19.)

Take your pick. How large is your TBR (To Be Read) pile now? Which books are you waiting to read?