Beat the heat this summer with these exciting book releases!
Do you know the one definite way to get excited about summer and not focus on the heat? Looking forward to exciting and thrilling books hitting bookshelves this summer! Your summer will not be boring when you read fiction books that make you think, suspenseful tales that will chill your spine, or romances that will fog up your windows. Summer 2024 has something for every book lover, so you want to take advantage of what it offers!
So many great books are coming out this summer, but here are my highlighted picks that I can’t wait to read—and once you read the description, you will, too!
End of June Releases
Hey Zoey by Sarah Crossan
43-year-old Dolores O’Shea is logical, organized, and prepared to handle whatever comes her way. She keeps up with her job and housework, takes care of her mentally declining mother, and remains close with her old friends and her younger sister who’s moved to New York. Though her marriage with David, an anesthesiologist, isn’t what is used to be, nothing can quite prepare her for Zoey, the $8,000 AI sex doll that David has secretly purchased and stuffed away in the garage. At first, Zoey sparks an uncharacteristically strong violence in Dolores, whose entire life is suddenly cast in doubt.
But then, Dolores and Zoey start to talk…and what surfaces runs deeper than Dolores could have ever expected, with consequences for all of the relationships in her life, especially her relationship to herself. Provocative, brilliant, and tender, Hey, Zoey is an electrifying new novel about the painful truths of modern-day connection and the complicated and unexpected forms that love can take in a lifetime. (Credit: Little Brown and Company)
Sleep Like Death by Kalynn Bayron
Princess Eve was raised with one purpose: to destroy the Knight. Far too many of subjects of Queen’s Bridge have been devastated by this evil sorcerer’s trickery. Eve’s own unique magic–the ability to conjure weapons from nature–makes her a worthy adversary.
As she approaches her seventeenth birthday, Eve is ready to battle. But her mother, Queen Regina, has been acting bizarrely, talking to a strange mirror alone every night. Then a young man claiming to be the Knight’s messenger appears and shares a shocking truth about Eve’s past. Unsure of who to trust, Eve must find the courage to do what she’s always done: fight. But will it be enough to save her family and her queendom? (Credit: Bloomsbury YA)
Under Your Spell by Laura Wood
She wants three things. He isn’t one of them…
Dumped by her cheating ex, fired from her dream job, and about to lose her flat: Clementine Monroe is not having a good day. So when her sisters get her drunk and suggest reviving a childhood ritual called the Breakup Spell, she doesn’t see the harm in it.
But now Clemmie has accidentally ruined a funeral, had her first one-night stand, and she’s stuck with a new job she definitely doesn’t want–spending six weeks alone with the gorgeous and very-off-limits rock star, Theo Eliott.
He’s the most famous man on the planet. Her life’s a disaster. As their summer together turns into its own kind of magic, is Clemmie cursed to repeat the mistakes of her past–or will her future see all her wishes come true? (Credit: Atria Books)
- The Midnight Feast by Lucy Foley (Expected Publication Date: June 18)
- Redemption by Jack Jordan (Expected Publication Date: June 20)
- The Suspect by Rob Rinder (Expected Publication Date: June 20)
- Lavender Clouds: Comics about Neurodivergence and Mental Health by Bex Ollerton (Expected Publication Date: June 25)
- Trust Her by Flynn Berry (Expected Publication Date: June 25)
- Passiontide by Monique Roffey (Expected Publication Date: June 27)
July Releases
The Midnight Game by Cynthia Murphy
Expected Publication Date: July 2
Six strangers. One night. But how many survivors?
When a group of six strangers who have only ever spoken on a creepy Deddit thread decide to meet IRL, they have one plan in mind: they are going to play The Midnight Game and summon the Midnight Man.
Rules of the game are simple: Do not turn on the lights. Do not go to sleep. Do not leave the building
.And once you start the game, you must finish it–there’s no other way out…(Credit: Delacorte Press)
The Love Dare by Abiola Bello
Expected Publication Date: July 4
Can a dare made at Notting Hill Carnival turn into true love? He’s All That meets How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days in this trope-filled sizzling summer romance, perfect for fans of Joya Goffney and Lynn Painter.
Popular girl Eva Òjó is used to boys falling for her without her even trying. So when her friend dares her to dance with a random guy at Notting Hill Carnival, she meets Saint.
Comic obsessed Saint Rowe-Falade thinks Eva is cute, but he’s not interested in her in that way. He’d rather get lost in stories than look for romance.
When Eva’s birthday party gets out of control and causes damage to her dad’s beloved car, her friends set the ultimate dare: get Saint to take her on one date and they’ll help her pay to fix her dad’s car. Operation fall-in-love-with-Eva is set in motion and Eva makes it her mission to make Saint fall head over heels. But just as Saint starts to warm to Eva, and her own feelings towards him grow, Saint finds out about the dare. Can Eva convince Saint she’s truly into him, or has she lost him for good? (Credit: Simon & Schuster UK)
- The Townsend Family Recipe for Disaster by Shauna Robinson (Expected Publication Date: July 2)
- Just Playing House by Farah Heron (Expected Publication Date: July 2)
- The Ones Who Come Back Hungry by Amelinda Bérubé (Expected Publication Date: July 2)
- Breaking the Dark: A Jessica Jones Marvel Crime Novel by Lisa Jewell(Expected Publication Date: July 2)
- Our Holiday by Louise Candlish (Expected Publication Date: July 4)
- More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa (Expected Publication Date: July 2)
- How To Die Famous by Benjamin Dean (Expected Publication Date: July 9)
- Bad Tourists by Caro Carver (Expected Publication Date: July 9)
- The Day He Never Came Home by Andrew DeYoung (Expected Publication Date: July 9)
- The Body in the Backyard: A Riley Thorn Novel by Lucy Score (Expected Publication Date: July 16)
Babylonia by Costanza Casati
Expected Publication Date: July 4
Animated by historical research and rich with detail, this captivating tale charts the controversial life and rise to power of Semiramis, the only female ruler of the Assyrian Empire
Nothing about Semiramis’s upbringing could have foretold her legacy or the power she would come to wield. A female ruler, once an orphan raised on the outskirts of an empire – certainly no one in Ancient Assyria would bend to her command willingly. This is the epic tale of a woman who knew if she wanted power, she would have to claim it. No one was coming to save her.
There are whispers of her fame in Mesopotamian myth- Semiramis was a queen, an ambitious warrior, a commander and builder whose reputation reaches the majestic proportions of Alexander the Great. Historical record, on the other hand, falls eerily quiet. (Credit: Penguin Books UK)
Imposter Syndrome by Joseph Knox
Expected Publication Date: July 11
When you’re living a lie, you find it’s best to avoid close attachments…’
Lynch, a burned out con-artist, arrives, broke, in London, trying not to dwell on the mistakes that got him there. When he bumps into Bobbie, a rehab-bound heiress – and when she briefly mistakes him for her missing brother – Lynch senses the opportunity, as well as the danger…
Bobbie’s brother, Heydon, was a troubled young man. Five years ago, he walked out of the family home and never went back. His car was found parked on a bridge overlooking the Thames, in the early hours of the same morning. Unsettled by Bobbie’s story, and suffering from a rare attack of conscience, Lynch tries to back off.
But when Bobbie leaves for rehab the following day, he finds himself drawn to her luxurious family home, and into a meeting with her mother, the formidable Miranda. Seeing the same resemblance that her daughter did, Miranda proposes she hire Lynch to assume her son’s identity, in a last-ditch effort to try and flush out his killer.
As Lynch begins to impersonate him, dark forces are lured out of the shadows, and he realises too late that Heydon wasn’t paranoid at all. Someone was watching his every move, and they’ll kill to keep it a secret.
For the first time, Lynch is in a life or death situation he can’t lie his way out of. (Credit: Transworld Publications)
- The Thread That Connects Us by Ayaan Mohamud (Expected Publication Date: July 4)
- The White Guy Dies First: 13 Scary Stories of Fear and Power edited by Terry J. Benton-Walker (Expected Publication Date: July 16)
- Queen B by Juno Dawson (Expected Publication Date: July 18)
- Cabaret Macabre by Tom Mead (Expected Publication Date: July 16)
- The Wilds by Sarah Pearse (Expected Publication Date: July 16)
- Jewel Me Twice by Charish Reid (Expected Publication Date: July 23)
- Goth Girl and the Wuthering Fright by Chris Riddell (Expected Publication Date: July 23)
- Long Live Evil by Sarah Rees Brennan (Expected Publication Date: July 30)
- The Blonde Dies First by Joelle Wellington (Expected Publication Date: July 30)
- My Favorite Mistake by Marian Keyes (Expected Publication Date: July 30)
August Releases
The Kill List by Nadine Matheson
Expected Publication Date: August 6
He will come for them, one by one…Five shocking murders
Twenty-five years ago, DCI Harry Rhimes arrested Andrew Streeter for the brutal murders of five young people. Streeter’s “kill list” of victims was found in his home, and he was convicted of all five crimes.
A legacy under threat
Now, Streeter’s convictions are being overturned, as new evidence implies the original investigation was corrupt. No one is more shocked than DI Henley. Because this case is personal; Rhimes was her old boss, and he’s no longer alive to defend himself. But when the killings start up again, Henley must face the truth: Rhimes got it wrong twenty-five years ago.
A hunt for a killer
Henley and her team reopen the original murder cases, but they must put their personal feelings to one side. Because the real killer is still out there, and he’s working his way through a new kill list…(Credit: Hanover Square Press)
The Chamber by Will Dean
Expected Publication Date: August 6
Six experienced saturation divers are locked inside a hyperbaric chamber. Calm and professional, they know that rapid decompression would be fatal and so they work in shifts, breathing helium, and surviving in hot, close quarters.
Then one of them is found dead in his bunk.
With four days of decompression to go before the locked hatch to the chamber can be safely opened, the group must watch one another’s backs at all times. And when another diver is discovered unresponsive, everyone is on edge. What…or who…is taking them out one by one? And will any of them still be alive by the time the four days is up or will paranoia, exhaustion, suspicion, and pressure destroy them all? (Credit: Atria Books)
This Ravenous Fate by Hayley Dennings
Expected Publication Date: August 6
It’s 1926 and reapers, the once-human vampires with a terrifying affliction, are on the rise in New York. But the Saint family’s thriving reaper-hunting enterprise holds reign over the city, giving them more power than even the organized criminals who run the nightclubs. Eighteen year-old Elise Saint, home after five years in Paris, is the reluctant heir to the empire. Only one thing weighs heavier on Elise’s mind than her family obligations: the knowledge that the Harlem reapers want her dead.
Layla Quinn is a young reaper haunted by her past. Though reapers have existed in America for three centuries, created by New World atrocities and cruel experiments, Layla became one just five years ago. The night she was turned, she lost her parents, the protection of the Saints, and her humanity, and she’ll never forget how Elise Saint betrayed her.
But some reapers are inexplicably turning part human again, leaving a wake of mysterious and brutal killings. When Layla is framed for one of these attacks, the Saint patriarch offers her a deal she can’t refuse: to work with Elise to investigate how these murders might be linked to shocking rumors of a reaper cure. Once close friends, now bitter enemies, Elise and Layla explore the city’s underworld, confronting their intense feelings for one another and uncovering the sinister truths about a growing threat to reapers and humans alike. (Credit: Sourcebooks Fire)
- Crimes of Cymru: Classic Mystery Tales of Wales edited by Martin Edwards (Expected Publication Date: August 6)
- All The Little Liars by Victoria Selman (Expected Publication Date: August 6)
- I Want to Die but I Still Want to Eat Tteokbokki : Further Conversations with My Psychiatrist by Baek Sehee (Expected Publication Date: August 6)
- Hera by Jennifer Saint (Expected Publication Date: August 13)
- Through The Midnight Door by Katrina Monroe (Expected Publication Date: August 13)
- I Need You To Read This by Jessa Maxwell (Expected Publication Date: August 13)
- Lady Macbeth by Ava Reid (Expected Publication Date: August 13)
- The Murders in Great Diddling by Katarina Bivald (Expected Publication Date: August 13)
- You Will Never Be Me by Jesse Q. Sutanto (Expected Publication Date: August 20)
- Drown Me with Dreams by Gabi Burton (Expected Publication Date: August 20)
- Storybook Ending by Poppy Alexander (Expected Publication Date: August 1)
The Silence Factory by Bridget Collins
Expected Publication Date: August 20
1820: Sophia Ashmore-Percy reluctantly accompanies her husband James to a remote Greek island, where he searches for rare biological specimens. Once there, however, she sets on her own voyage of discovery–stumbling across the very creature he is looking for, making an unexpected connection with a local woman, and ultimately reconsidering her marriage, life, and own desires.
Decades later, audiologist Henry Latimer is sent to the home of industrialist Sir Edward Ashmore-Percy and tasked with curing the man’s young daughter, Philomel, of her deafness. But Henry, eager to escape a troubled past, quickly becomes obsessed with the fascinating nature of Sir Edward’s business: spinning silk with a rare and magical breed of spiders. The extraordinary silk shields sound, offering respite from bustling streets and noisy neighbors. The result is instant tranquility, as wearers experience a soothing calmness. Yet, those within earshot of the outward-facing silk are subjected to eerie murmurs that amplify with proximity. Bystanders suffer the consequences of this unnerving phenomenon, manifesting in physical and mental afflictions ranging from headaches and drowsiness to severe cases of madness.
As Henry becomes entangled in the allure of the silk and Sir Edward’s charm, he glimpses a more sinister family history. The closer he ventures into the inner circle of Carthmute House, the more he unravels the horrifying underbelly of the silk business. (Credit: William Morrow & Company)
The Four by Ellie Keel
Expected Publication Date: August 20
I don’t regret what we did. And I would do it all again.
Each of the four had, for their own reasons, been desperate to come to High Realms. Marta, Rose, Sami, and Lloyd beat out thousands of applicants for spots at one of the most exclusive private schools in the UK, whose alumni can be found at the highest levels of society. As the only scholarship students in their class, the four form a crucial comradery as they navigate the school’s web of rivalries, honor, loyalty, and revenge.
Because within the storied institution, amongst the majestic buildings and rolling grounds, a sinister undercurrent of violence is brewing. And when one of the four reveals a devastating secret, each of the friends must wonder just how far they will go in order to remain at High Realms.
What follows is a hauntingly atmospheric and compulsively page-turning academic noir that explores the secretive world of elite institutions and the complex and often dangerous bonds of friendship. (Credit: William Morrow & Company)
- Guilty By Definition by Susie Dent (Expected Publication Date: August 15)
- Someone In The Attic by Andrea Mara (Expected Publication Date: August 20)
- The Voyage Home by Pat Barker (Expected Publication Date: August 22)
- This Girl’s A Killer by Emma C. Wells (Expected Publication Date: August 27)
- One House Left by Vincent Ralph (Expected Publication Date: August 27)
- Bite Risk by S.J. Wills (Expected Publication Date: August 27)
- The Examiner by Janice Hallett (Expected UK Publication Date: August 29)
- The Life Impossible by Matt Haig (Expected UK Publication Date: August 29)
- Shy Creatures by Clare Chambers (Expected Publication Date: August 29)
- Geomancer: The Storm and the Sea Hawk by Kiran Millwood Hargrave (Expected Publication Date: August 29)
The Trials of Lila Dalton by L.J. Shepherd
Expected Publication Date: August 27
I look up to find twelve strangers staring back at me… and I realize I’m the one they’re waiting for.
Lila Dalton has no memory of how she came to be in this courtroom; no memory of how she got to the courthouse at all, or why she’s facing a jury who seems to be waiting for her. The man on trial is accused of mass murder, and she’s his lawyer, but she can’t remember any details of the case. She can’t remember anything… Stranded on an island in the Atlantic Ocean where the most serious crimes are tried, Lila has to prove her client’s innocence if she wants to go home. But how can she solve this case when she’s not sure she can trust anything around her, including her own memory?
The Trials of Lila Dalton is a twisty, unexpected locked-room mystery that follows one woman’s race against time to find a killer, clear her own name, and escape the island that threatens to keep her trapped forever.(Credit: Poisoned Pen Press)
Houses of the Unholy by Ed Brubaker and illustrated by Sean Phillips
Expected Publication Date: August 27
In this new tale, an FBI agent from the cult crime beat and a woman with a past linked to the Satanic Panic are drawn into a terrifying hunt for an insane killer hiding in the shadows of the underworld.
This pulse-pounding story asks: can you ever escape your past, or are all your bad decisions just more ghosts to haunt you, wherever you go? (Credit: Image Comics)
That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America by Amanda Jones
Expected Publication Date: August 27
Part memoir, part manifesto, the inspiring story of a Louisiana librarian advocating for inclusivity on the front lines of our vicious culture wars.
One of the things small town librarian Amanda Jones values most about books is how they can affirm a young person’s sense of self. So in 2022, when she caught wind of a local public hearing that would discuss “book content,” she knew what was at stake. Schools and libraries nationwide have been bombarded by demands for books with LGTBQ+ references, discussions of racism, and more to be purged from the shelves. Amanda would be damned if her community were to ban stories representing minority groups. She spoke out that night at the meeting. Days later, she woke up to a nightmare that is still ongoing.
Amanda Jones has been called a groomer, a pedo, and a porn-pusher; she has faced death threats and attacks from strangers and friends alike. Her decision to support a collection of books with diverse perspectives made her a target for extremists using book banning campaigns-funded by dark money organizations and advanced by hard right politicians-in a crusade to make America more white, straight, and “Christian.” But Amanda Jones wouldn’t give up without a fight: she sued her harassers for defamation and urged others to join her in the resistance.
Mapping the book banning crisis occurring all across the nation, That Librarian draws the battle lines in the war against equity and inclusion, calling book lovers everywhere to rise in defense of our readers. (Credit: Bloomsbury Publishing)
Check out these reads in audiobook format on Libro.fm!
All these titles and more can be found at my store on Bookshop.org
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