It seems like time as flown but with every curve ball that was thrown at us this year, we’ve made it to 2025! It may sound like a broken record but for most of us, this year has been a struggle. And with the holiday weekend coming up in the US, you may not particularly feel like to be in a celebratory mood. Thankfully, with this long weekend, we can take our mind off the pomp and circumstance with some fantastic new reads gracing our TBR piles.
But moving beyond this long holiday weekend, your summer reading can finally begin with these July releases hitting bookstore and library shelves! We have new books from some our favorite authors and debut novels making waves this summer. Either your beach bag or backpack will be stuffed with exciting adventures that will keep you entertained (and cool) this month!
Featured Book of the Month
A Witch’s Guide to Magical Innkeeping by Sangu Mandanna
Expected Publication Date: July 15
Sera Swan used to be one of the most powerful witches in Britain. Then she resurrected her great-aunt Jasmine from the (very recently) dead, lost most of her magic, befriended a semi-villainous talking fox, and was exiled from her Guild. Now she (slightly reluctantly and just a bit grumpily) helps Jasmine run an enchanted inn in Lancashire, where she deals with her quirky guests’ shenanigans, tries to keep said talking fox in check, and longs for the future that seems lost to her. But then she finds out about an old spell that could hold the key to restoring her power…
Enter Luke Larsen, handsome and icy magical historian, who arrives on a dark winter evening and just might know how to unlock the spell’s secrets. Luke has absolutely no interest in getting involved in the madcap goings-on of the inn and is definitely not about to let a certain bewitching innkeeper past his walls, so no one is more surprised than he is when he agrees to help Sera with her spell. Worse, he might actually be thawing.
Running an inn, reclaiming lost magic, and staying one step ahead of the watchful Guild is a lot for anyone, but Sera Swan is about to discover that she doesn’t have to do it alone…and that the weird, wonderful family she’s made might be the best magic of all. (Credit: Berkley)
Runner 13 by Amy McCulloch
Seven years ago, Adri left the running world after a major scandal. She leveled an explosive, and as it turns out career-ending, accusation at one of the world’s most celebrated coaches—and then he died suddenly. Now, after years away from the limelight, she’s ready to race again. Adri is hungry for a challenge, and she’s picked one of the toughest events imaginable: a 250-mile trek through the Sahara Desert organized by a mysterious and famously sadistic race director. It will be a true test of her will and her stamina, proof that after all these years, she can still do it. But she’s also there to get closure on the mysteries that cloud her past. Was her family targeted by one of her coach’s defenders? Was his death due to natural causes?
Adri is determined to finish the race and to find the answers to these long-buried questions. But clarity is hard to come by out in the Sahara’s extreme conditions. And as a number of runners start dropping out, some from the heat and others under more mysterious circumstances, it becomes clear that there’s someone out there in the desert trying to stop anyone from winning—by any means necessary. (Credit: Doubleday)
Etiquette for Lovers and Killers by Anna Fitzgerald Healy
It’s 1964 in the tiny town of Eastport, Maine, and Billie McCadie is bored to death. She’s surrounded by dull people with more manners than sense, and no sign of the intrigue or romance that fill her beloved novels. That is, until an engagement ring and cryptic love letter turn up, addressed to “Gertrude.” Until she meets yacht-club handsome Avery Webster. Until the unsettling phone calls and visits from a man in a fedora begin. Until she’s one of the last people to see Gertrude alive . . . and the first to see her dead.
What follows is an intoxicating cocktail of stalking, blackmail, Jell-O salads, and champagne secrets, all served along the rocky Maine coastline. Everyone is a suspect. Everyone has a secret. And (strangely) everyone has a boat. But who is willing to kiss and tell? As the body count rises and the danger nears, why does Billie feel like she’s more than just a side character? After yearning to be in the action for so long, would it be terribly unladylike to have some fun of her own? (Credit: G.P. Putnam’s Sons)
Blood In The Water by Tiffany D. Jackson
This summer, beware of sharks…
Brooklyn girl Kaylani McKinnon feels like a fish out of water. She’s spending the summer with family friends in their huge house on Martha’s Vineyard, and the vibe is definitely snooty. Still, there are beautiful beaches, lots of ice cream, and a town full of fascinating Black history. Plus a few kids her age who seem friendly.
Until the shocking death of a popular teenage boy rocks the community to its core. Was it a drowning? A shark attack? Or the unthinkable–murder?
Kaylani is determined to solve the mystery. But her investigation leads her to uncover shocking secrets that could change her own life as she knows it… if she survives. (Credit: Scholastic Press)
This Is Where We Die by Cindy R.X. He
Sadie, Will, Isla, Anthony, Emily, and Charlie are survivors. They were the six (out of eight) to return from a ski holiday turned nightmare two years ago. Although… nobody knows exactly what happened; the details hushed up via the wealth and connections of Sadie’s rich parents.
When an exclusive private island with a mansion for rent goes viral on social media, their graduating class persuades Sadie to rent it for the weekend. The six arrive first by helicopter and wait for the rest of their classmates to join them by boat the next day.
But nobody ever comes.
Cut off from the rest of the world with no cell service and no means off the island, paranoia and terror mount as they start to be picked off one by one by an unseen killer. Their past has finally caught up with them, and they’ll need to figure out who is killing them before they all wind up dead.(Credit: Sourcebooks Fire)
Into the Leopard’s Den: A Bangalore Detectives Club Mystery by Harini Nagendra
Bangalore, 1922: Pregnant and confined to the house by her protective mother-in-law, Kaveri Murthy has resolved to take a break from detection. But when an elderly woman is murdered at night and dies clutching a photograph of Kaveri while asking for her help—how can she refuse? Missing the assistance of her husband Ramu, who is working in Coorg, Kaveri investigates her new case with her able assistants, milk boy Venu and housemaid Anandi. They find a trail of secrets that lead them to suspect the killer may be in Coorg.
Eager to be reunited with her husband, Kaveri sets off to Coorg to investigate. When she arrives, she encounters a thorny thicket of cases. Why does a ghost leopard prowl the forests at night, terrorizing the plantation workers? And who is trying to kill Colonel Boyd, the Coffee King of Coorg? She finds suspects in every coffee bush and estate—from Boyd’s surly plantation manager and security guard to the feuding brothers who own the neighboring plantation—and the many women the Coffee King has pursued and abandoned.
When two vulnerable children appeal for her help, Kaveri is drawn deeper into the case, becoming emotionally involved in finding the killer. Soon, one murder turns into two—and then a few days later into three. Now the killer has tasted blood and needs to be stopped. Racing against time, Kaveri must take on her most complex challenge so far, with the assistance of Anandi and Venu in Bangalore, and with Ramu and Inspector Ismail in Coorg. In this stunning new novel by an acclaimed master of the form, the Bangalore Detectives Club must find and expose a brutally intelligent killer before they strike again. (Credit: Pegasus Crime)
History Lessons by Zoe B. Wallbrook
As a newly minted junior professor, Daphne Ouverture spends her days giving lectures on French colonialism, working on her next academic book, and going on atrocious dates. Her small world suits her just fine. Until Sam Taylor dies.
The rising star of Harrison University’s anthropology department was never one of Daphne’s favorites, despite his popularity. But that doesn’t prevent Sam’s killer from believing Daphne has something that belonged to Sam—something the killer will stop at nothing to get.
Between grading papers and navigating her disastrous love life, Daphne embarks on her own investigation to find out what connects her to Sam’s murder. With the help of an alluring former-detective-turned-bookseller, she unravels a deadly cover-up on campus. (Credit: Soho Crime)
Human Rites by Juno Dawson
Niamh, Ciara, Leonie, Elle and Theo. Five very different witches with one thing in common: they were unwittingly chosen by the dangerously charming Lucifer, the demon king of desire, to fulfil a dark prophecy: Satanis will rise and the daughters of Gaia will fall.
The coven is reunited—but broken. Niamh is back from the dead…but she hasn’t come back alone. Elle mourns a son she never had. Ciara languishes in a prison for witches, and Leonie reels from a very unexpected surprise.
Meanwhile, Lucifer offers fledgling witch Theo a deal: if she helps him, her coven—her family—will be spared. But the magic he asks for will take her out of London—out of time, entirely.
The final confrontation between good and evil in the spectacular conclusion to the saga of Her Majesty’s Royal Coven. (Credit: Penguin Books)
The Hitman Stans Vol. 1 by Rintarou Ohshima
THE ONE AND ONLY LEGENDARY “KILLING MACHINE” OWARU ENDOU IS THE STRONGEST HITMAN AROUND—UNTIL HE ANNOUNCES HIS RETIREMENT OUT OF THE BLUE! THE WHOLE UNDERWORLD IS STUPEFIED, ESPECIALLY SINCE THE REASON HE’S STEPPING DOWN IS TO FULLY DEVOTE HIMSELF TO STANNING HIS FAVORITE IDOL! TRADING GUNS FOR GLOWSTICKS, OWARU IS READY TO EMBRACE THE SUPERFAN LIFE! OR HE WOULD BE IF HIS PAST COULD JUST STAY BURIED, THANK YOU VERY MUCH… (Credit: Yen Press)
Let’s Make A Scene by Laura Wood
When Cynthie Taylor gets her first real acting job, starring in a small British movie, she is over the moon. There is only one problem…Cynthie’s arrogant and annoyingly handsome costar Jack hates her, and the feeling is definitely mutual. While they may be at war behind the scenes, their on-screen chemistry is palpable, and the studio sees an opportunity—have the two young stars fake a romance that will charm fans and draw crowds.
Thirteen years later, Cynthie and Jack have successfully kept their promise to stay far away from one another, until a surprising offer comes to make a sequel to the cult classic that launched their careers. But there’s a catch: they must also rekindle their pretend relationship…and this time there’s a documentary crew following their every move.
Cynthie and Jack both desperately need this film to work, but can two ex-rivals ever really trust each other? And what happens when the roles they’re playing start to feel all too real? (Credit: Atria Books)
The Red Queen: A Richard Jury Mystery by Martha Grimes
One calm night in Twickenham, a businessman named Tom Treadnor is shot off his barstool at The Queen pub. Superintendent Richard Jury is called in to investigate, and quickly realizes that everyone in Treadnor’s life – from his widow, Alice, to the staff at his manor, to his business partner had differing opinions of him. And to complicate things further, Jury has just happened upon a photo in a newspaper of a man in the United States, who is a dead ringer for Treadnor.
Meanwhile, Wiggins, Jury’s partner at New Scotland Yard, becomes sidetracked by an investigation of his own: His sister, missing for years and presumed dead, has just sent a postcard to their mother. When Wiggins takes off in search of his sister, the two investigations begin to converge. (Credit: Atlantic Monthly Press)
Do Not Disturb by Freida McFadden
Quinn Alexander has committed an unthinkable crime.
To avoid spending her life in prison, Quinn makes a run for it. She leaves behind her home, her job, and her family. She grabs her passport and heads for the northern border before the police can discover what she’s done.
But when an unexpected snowstorm forces her off the road, Quinn must take refuge at the broken-down, isolated Baxter Motel. The handsome and kindly owner, Nick Baxter, is only too happy to offer her a cheap room for the night.
Unfortunately, the Baxter Motel isn’t the quiet, safe haven it seemed to be. The motel has a dark and disturbing past. And in the dilapidated house across the way, the silhouette of Nick’s ailing wife is always at the window. Always watching.
In the morning, Quinn must leave the motel. She’ll pack up her belongings and get back on the road to freedom. (Credit: Poisoned Pen Press)
Can You Solve the Murder?: An Interactive Crime Novel by Antony Johnston
One murder. Six suspects. One truth for YOU to uncover.
YOU are the lead detective and it’s your job to investigate the most mysterious crime of your career.
There’s been a murder at Elysium, a wellness retreat set in an English country manor. You arrive to find the body of a local businessman on the lawn – with a rose placed in his mouth. It appears he was stabbed with a gardening fork and fell to his death from the balcony above. You quickly realize that balcony can only be accessed through a locked door, the key is missing, and everyone in Elysium is now a suspect… Who did it and why? It’s up to you to figure it out.
YOU gather the evidence and examine the clues.
YOU choose who to interview next, and who to accuse as your prime suspect.
But remember that every decision YOU make has consequences – and some of them will prove fatal…
Do you have what it takes? Can YOU solve the murder? Put your sleuthing skills to the test! (Credit: Penguin Books)
The CIA Book Club: The Secret Mission To Win The Cold War With Forbidden Literature by Charlie English
For nearly five decades after the Second World War, the Iron Curtain divided Europe, forming the longest and most heavily guarded border on earth. No physical combat would take place along this frontier: the risk of nuclear annihilation was too high for that. Instead, the war was fought psychologically. It was a battle for hearts, minds, and intellects. Few understood this more clearly than George Minden, head of a covert intelligence operation known as the “CIA book program,” which aimed to undermine Soviet censorship and inspire revolt by offering different visions of thought and culture.
From its Manhattan headquarters, Minden’s “book club” secretly sent ten million banned titles into the East. Volumes were smuggled aboard trucks and yachts, dropped from balloons, hidden aboard trains, and stowed in travelers’ luggage. Nowhere were the books welcomed more warmly than in Poland, where they would circulate covertly among circles of like-minded readers, quietly making the case against Soviet communism. Such was the demand for Minden’s texts that dissidents began to reproduce them in the underground. By the late 1980s, illicit literature was so pervasive in Poland that censorship broke down: the Iron Curtain soon followed.
Charlie English narrates this tale of Cold War spycraft, smuggling, and secret printing operations for the first time, highlighting the work of a handful of extraordinary people who fought for intellectual freedom—people like Mirosław Chojecki, who suffered beatings, imprisonment, and exile in pursuit of his clandestine mission. The CIA Book Club is a story about the power of the printed word as a means of resistance and liberation. Books, it shows, can set you free. (Credit: Random House)
Predatory Natures by Amy Goldsmith
Expected Publication Date: July 8
When Lara Williams gets a summer job aboard the luxury train the Banebury, she thinks she’s landed a five-star escape from her past. Even after she learns that her ex-friend Rhys, who she definitely did not have feelings for before their relationship imploded, is one of her coworkers, she’s determined to make things work.
But on the first day of their journey, the trip takes a strange turn. Two mysterious carriages filled with an array of beautiful and rare plants are attached to the Banebury in the middle of the night.
And with them comes a pair of siblings. Wealthy, mysterious, and charismatic, Gwen and Gwydion claim the plants they’re transporting are for research, but Lara can’t shake the feeling that there’s something . . . otherworldly about the strange blooms. Something that will stop at nothing to ensure the Banebury never reaches its destination.
Soon Lara will learn: You can’t outrun your troubles. You have to grab them by their roots. And if she can’t unearth the secrets of the Banebury, they might drag her down for good. . . . (Credit: Delacorte Press)
How to Survive a Horror Story by Mallory Arnold
Expected Publication Date: July 8
When legendary horror author Mortimer Queen passes, a group of writers find themselves invited to his last will and testament reading expecting a piece of his massive fortune. Each have their own unique connection to the literary icon, some known, some soon to be discovered, and they’ve been waiting for their chance to step into the author’s shoes for some time.
Instead, they arrive at his grand manor and are invited to play a game. The rules are simple, solve the riddle and progress to the next room. If they don’t, the manor will take one of them for itself.
You see, the Queen estate was built on the bones of Mortimer’s family, and like any true horror story, the house is still very, very hungry. (Credit: Poisoned Pen Press)
The Woman In Suite 11 by Ruth Ware
Expected Publication Date: July 8
When the invitation to attend the press opening of a luxury Swiss hotel—owned by reclusive billionaire Marcus Leidmann—arrives, it’s like the answer to a prayer. Three years after the birth of her youngest child, Lo Blacklock is ready to reestablish her journalism career, but post-pandemic travel journalism is a very different landscape from the one she left ten years ago.
The chateau on the shores of Lake Geneva is everything Lo’s ever dreamed of, and she hopes she can snag an interview with Marcus. Unfortunately, he proves to be even more difficult to pin down than his reputation suggests. When Lo gets a late-night call asking her to come to Marcus’s hotel room, she agrees despite her own misgivings. She’s greeted, however, by a woman claiming to be Marcus’s mistress, and in life-or-death jeopardy.
What follows is a thrilling cat-and-mouse pursuit across Europe, forcing Lo to ask herself just how much she’s willing to sacrifice to save this woman…and if she can even trust her? (Credit: Gallery/Scout Press)
Sounds Like Trouble by Pamela Samuels Young and Dwayne Alexander Smith
Expected Publication Date: July 8
Jackson Jones and Mackenzie “Mac” Cunningham can’t agree on anything. After coming close to death on their last case, the two have decided to team up but they can’t even decide on how to furnish their new office. Jackson wants to make a big splash. Mackenzie just wants a desk and some filing cabinets to clean up the mess. Before they can reach a truce on the decor, the two PIs get an offer they have no choice but to accept: infamous gangster Big Ced and two of his mafia dons want them to track down a package. Or else.
Things heat up in more ways than one as Jackson and Mac track down the sensitive information for the mobsters, while a police investigator is on their tail. When sparks fly between Mackenzie and Lieutenant Good Looking, Jackson’s jealousy and fiery back-and-forth with his partner has them flirting with danger in more ways than one. As they race through LA’s fanciest neighborhoods in a race against time, Jackson and Mac must stick closer to each other than ever as they dodge bullets, bad guys, and their feelings for each other. (Credit: Atria Books)
Night Watcher by Daphne Woolsoncroft
Expected Publication Date: July 8
Nola Strate is being watched, again.
After an encounter with a notorious serial killer in the Pacific Northwest as a child, Nola has grown up and tried her best to forget her traumatizing night with the Hiding Man. She installed security cameras outside her Oregon home, never spoke of her experience, and now hosts Night Watch, a popular radio call-in show her semi-famous father used to run. When coincidences lead Nola to believe that she is being stalked, and a caller on Night Watch has a live incident with an intruder in the caller’s home–the description of whom is chillingly familiar–Nola is convinced that the Hiding Man has resurfaced and is coming for her.
With a mysterious next-door neighbor lurking in the shadows, more people getting hurt, the police not taking her concerns seriously, and evidence pointing towards her own father, Nola decides to become, like her listeners, a Night Watcher herself, and uncover the monster behind the Hiding Man’s mask. (Credit: Grand Central Publishing)
Stay Away From Him by Andrew Deyoung
Expected Publication Date: July 8
Relocating with her 5-year-old son to a new city after an ugly divorce, Melissa Burke isn’t looking for a new relationship right away–only distance from her ex, and space to rest and heal from the emotional scars of a broken marriage. But an unexpected relationship is exactly what she finds at a friend’s dinner party when she meets Thomas Danver, a charming widower who asks for her number at the end of the night. Intrigued, Melissa learns from her neighbors that Thomas is a dedicated father of two girls, one of the most respected pediatricians in the city–and an exonerated murderer.
Thomas’s first wife went missing three years ago, presumed dead, and Thomas was eventually cleared of her murder in an investigation that became a local media sensation. But while some still believe he killed his wife, Melissa’s friends insist that he was unfairly targeted by the police and couldn’t hurt a fly. Attracted to Thomas and also fascinated by the case, Melissa agrees to one date–and finds herself quickly swept into an obsessive, whirlwind romance.
But when Melissa receives a chilling, anonymous threat–or perhaps it’s a warning–she begins to question how much she truly knows about the man she’s falling in love with. Is he really innocent? (Credit: Poisoned Pen Press)
The World’s Greatest Detective and Her Just Okay Assistant by Liza Tully
Expected Publication Date: July 8
Olivia Blunt is thrilled to be hired as assistant to the nationally renowned investigator Aubrey Merritt. She longs to become a valued contributor to the great detective’s work, but Merritt is a difficult, exacting boss, and the learning curve is steeper than she expected.
After weeks of boring computer work, Olivia is finally invited to join Merritt on an important case. On the night of her sixty-fifth birthday party, Victoria Summersworth somehow fell over her balcony railing to her death on the rocky shore of Vermont’s Lake Champlain. She was a happy woman—rich, beloved, in love, and matriarch of the preeminent Summersworth family. The police ruled her death a suicide, but Victoria’s daughter Haley thinks it was murder.
Merritt and Olivia soon discover that the Summersworth family is complicated web of lies, ambitions, and resentments. As the list of suspects grows, Olivia makes one apparent mistake after another. When she blunders into a truly dangerous situation, she realizes Merritt might be right: she might be in over her head with this whole detective thing…or she might be unravelling a mystery even bigger than the one they started with. (Credit: Berkley)
The Game Is Afoot by Elise Bryant
Expected Publication Date: July 8
After rage quitting her job, Mavis finally has time to get all the rest she’s been putting off. Or she should have the time. Hypothetically. Except she’s taken on a new role: Supermom. Her hours are filled with chauffeuring her daughter, Pearl, around to her extracurricular activities, somehow ending up class mom, and…investigating another mystery?
When Coach Cole, the director of the kids’ soccer program, drops dead on a sunny Saturday morning, no one suspects foul play. However, the police soon discover something suspicious left on the field, making it clear that someone had it in for the coach. But who? Sure, parents got mad when he made their precious star athletes sit on the bench, but not that mad.
Mavis is determined to find out, even if it takes her into the dark, dangerous underbelly of gentle parents and MLM girlbosses. Plus, it’s an easy distraction from everything else going on. Like the panic attacks she keeps brushing off. Or the fact that she’s unemployed and totally lost as to what her purpose and path in life should be. And then there’s her ex-husband who’s back in town and doing everything she’s ever wanted, just as she’s beginning a new relationship. Mavis knows a murder investigation probably isn’t the self-care she needs right now. But how exactly are you supposed to take care of yourself when you don’t even know who you are anymore? (Credit: Berkley)
Clementine Book Three by Tillie Walden
Expected Publication Date: July 8
From the world of Robert Kirkman’s THE WALKING DEAD comes the highly anticipated and heart-wrenching finale of CLEMENTINE.
Clementine finally has it all–a safe place to live, a girlfriend, even a cat…but nothing lasts forever. And when Clementine suffers a loss unlike anything she’s ever faced, a new mentor called The Gardener offers her a new family and a new way of living… but at what cost? (Credit: Image Comics)
Jamaica Road by Lisa Smith
Expected Publication Date: July 15
South London, 1981: Daphne is the only Black girl in her class. All she wants is to keep her head down, preferably in a book. The easiest way to survive is to go unnoticed.
Daphne’s attempts at invisibility are upended when a boy named Connie Small arrives from Jamaica. Connie is the opposite of small in every way: lanky, outgoing, and unapologetically himself. Daphne tries to keep her distance, but Connie is magnetic, and they form an intense bond. As they navigate growing up in a volatile, rapidly changing city, their families become close, and their friendship begins to shift into something more complicated. When Connie reveals that he and his mother “nuh land”—meaning they’re in England illegally—Daphne realizes that she is dangerously entangled in Connie’s fragile home life. Soon, long-buried secrets in both families threaten to tear them apart permanently. (Credit: Knopf)
The Goldens by Lauren Wilson
Expected Publication Date: July 15
Chloe has always dreamed of becoming a bestselling writer. Then she meets Clara Holland, a prominent influencer, socialite, and model. Clara is enigmatic, dazzling, gorgeous. And at last, ordinary Chloe has something to write about.
Bonding instantly, Chloe moves into Clara’s grand family estate. They spend long afternoons together, writing Clara’s memoir, polishing social media posts, and planning sumptuous, decadent parties: fairy lights in the orangery, themed cocktails, sequined backdrops, roaring bonfires. But as Clara opens her home to more girls who want to live like her and inspire one another, the media calls them a cult.
As life becomes more claustrophobic, Chloe begins to hear unsettling rumors about Clara. When a girl goes missing after a spectacular New Year’s Eve party, the rumors take on a sinister new meaning. If she can’t escape Clara’s influence, everything Chloe holds dear may be in danger. (Credit: Flatiron Books: Pine & Cedar)
Pugs and Kisses by Farrah Rochon
Expected Publication Date: July15
From the outside, veterinarian Evie Williams appears to have the perfect but boring life. She is desperate to figure out a way to shake it up, but gets more than she bargained for when she finds her fiancé in bed with another woman. Suddenly, Evie is without a fiancé or a job, and isn’t sure what her next steps should be. That is, until her college crush, Bryson Mitchell, returns to town.
Now, a nationally recognized veterinary surgeon, Bryson is stunned when he encounters Evie Williams for the first time in half a decade. When they learn the animal shelter where they used to volunteer is in danger of closing, the two must work together to save it. It has Bryson wondering, can he and Evie also save the friendship they once shared and finally bring it to the next level? (Credit: Forever)
Mrs. Spy by M.J. Robotham
Expected Publication Date: July 15
Maggie Flynn isn’t your typical 1960s mum.
She’s a spy, a covert operative for MI5, stalking London’s streets in myriad disguises.
Widowed and balancing her clandestine career with raising a very angsty teenage daughter, Maggie finds comfort and purpose in her profession – providing a connection to her late husband, whose own covert past only surfaced after his death.
But Maggie’s world spins out of control when a chance encounter with a mysterious Russian agent triggers a chilling revelation: he knew her husband. And what’s worse, the agent suspects someone on home soil betrayed him.
As Maggie searches for answers, she’ll question everyone – and everything – she thought she could trust. In the dangerous world of espionage, can she outsmart those determined to keep her silenced? (Credit: Aria)
The House At Devil’s Neck by Tom Mead
Expected Publication Date: July 15
An apparent suicide in a London townhouse uncannily mirrors a similar incident from twenty-five years ago, prompting Scotland Yard’s George Flint to delve deep into the past in search of the solution to a long-forgotten mystery.
Meanwhile, Joseph Spector travels with a coach party through the rainy English countryside to visit an allegedly haunted house on a lonely island called Devil’s Neck. The house, first built by a notorious alchemist and occultist, was later used as a field hospital in the First World War before falling into disrepair. The visitors hold a seance to conjure the spirit of a long-dead soldier. But when a storm floods the narrow causeway connecting Devil’s Neck to the mainland, they find themselves stranded in the haunted house. Before long, the guests begin to die one by one, and it seems that the only possible culprit is the phantom soldier.
Flint’s and Spector’s investigations are in fact closely linked, but it is only when the duo are reunited at the storm-lashed Devil’s Neck that the truth is finally revealed. Tom Mead once again creates a brilliant homage to John Dickson Carr and the Golden Age of mysteries with this intricately plotted puzzle.(Credit: Mysterious Press)
Seesaw Monster by Kotaro Isaka
Expected Publication Date: July 15
Miyako suspects her mother-in-law is a murderer. It’s not just a case of them rubbing each other the wrong way–there is definitely something suspicious going on. But Miyako isn’t exactly what she seems either. Her husband has no idea about her past life as a secret agent. When she decides to use her professional skills to investigate her mother-in-law, the delicate equilibrium of their lives is thrown wildly out of balance.
Many decades after the events of Seesaw Monster, in a future world dominated by surveillance, facial-recognition software, and AI, the most sensitive information lives only on paper, and confidential messages must be delivered by trusted couriers like Mito. But one delivery pulls Mito into a conspiracy beyond his wildest imagination and forces him into a race against time to defeat a world-changing technological threat. (Credit: Overlook Press)
The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Expected Publishing Date: July 15
“Back then, when I was a young woman, there were still witches”: That was how Nana Alba always began the stories she told her great-granddaughter Minerva—stories that have stayed with Minerva all her life. Perhaps that’s why Minerva has become a graduate student focused on the history of horror literature and is researching the life of Beatrice Tremblay, an obscure author of macabre tales.
In the course of assembling her thesis, Minerva uncovers information that reveals that Tremblay’s most famous novel, The Vanishing, was inspired by a true story: Decades earlier, during the Great Depression, Tremblay attended the same university where Minerva is now studying and became obsessed with her beautiful and otherworldly roommate, who then disappeared under mysterious circumstances.
As Minerva descends ever deeper into Tremblay’s manuscript, she begins to sense that the malign force that stalked Tremblay and the missing girl might still walk the halls of the campus. These disturbing events also echo the stories Nana Alba told about her girlhood in 1900s Mexico, where she had a terrifying encounter with a witch.
Minerva suspects that the same shadow that darkened the lives of her great-grandmother and Beatrice Tremblay is now threatening her own in 1990s Massachusetts. An academic career can be a punishing pursuit, but it might turn outright deadly when witchcraft is involved. (Credit: Del Rey)
The Red Letter by Daniel G. Miller
Expected Publication Date: July 22
Hazel has everything she wants.
Business is booming at her boutique private investigation firm. She’s dating the man of her dreams. Even her perpetually skeptical mother seems impressed. Then the NYPD finds a beloved neighborhood priest dead along with a mysterious red letter.
Hazel investigates the murder as a favor to an old friend and discovers that the priest wasn’t the only recent murder victim to receive a red letter…and one victim has ties to a psychopath from a past life that Hazel thought she had buried. One by one, the red letters continue to appear, and with every letter, another killing, each more mysterious than the last.
As Hazel closes in on the killer, the killer closes in on her, and Hazel begins to question everything she thought she knew about herself and the people around her. Even worse, Hazel discovers that the only way to find the truth is to open one more…(Credit: Poisoned Pen Press)
Transformers Worst Bot Ever: Meet Ballpoint by Brian “Smitty” Smith and Marz Jr.
Expected Publication Date: July 22
The Decepticons are known for being bad…but Ballpoint is truly the worst –the biggest failure of them all. After the latest attempt to take down the Autobots goes horribly wrong, he’s kicked out of the Decepticons, for good!
Will Ballpoint be able to prove his worth by defeating the Autobots all by himself? Or will he keep failing and find that being the “best” is More than Meets the Eye? (Credit: Image Comics)
Not Quite Dead Yet by Holly Jackson
Expected Publication Date: July 22
Margaret “Jet” Mason has never been able to finish anything. In her twenty-seven years, she’s dropped out of school, quit a promising career, and dumped all her boyfriends. Her town’s annual Halloween festival is a pageant of the familiar faces of friends and family, each a reminder of her failure to launch, made more surreal by the ghoulish costumes everyone’s wearing. But no matter—she’s about to leave this town behind and get her fresh start somewhere else. Like with everything else, she quits the party and heads home.
But as she walks in her front door, someone attacks her from behind, fracturing her skull—and leaves her for dead.
Thirty-six hours later, she wakes up in the hospital to grim news: The attack has left a small bone fragment that’s putting pressure on her brain’s arterial wall. The doctors tell her that a large aneurysm will soon form, and when it ruptures, the hemorrhage will be fatal.
Jet has two choices: Undergo immediate surgery to remove the bone fragment, with less than a ten percent chance of survival. Or don’t, and die sometime in the coming week.
With the odds stacked against her and death a foregone conclusion, Jet knows what she has to do. She has never finished anything in her life . . . until now. With her last remaining week, she’s going to find out who murdered her. (Credit: Bantam)
Fault Lines in the Constitution (Third Edition): The Framers, Their Fights, and the Flaws that Affect Us Today by Sanford Levinson and Cynthia Levinson
Expected Publication Date: July 22
Many of us take certain features in our political system for granted, even when we complain about them. But these fault lines didn’t spontaneously arise—they have their roots in the Constitution itself, the result of disagreements and compromises made by the Framers in 1787—and we’re still feeling the ramifications today.
Fault Lines in the Constitution takes readers back to the creation of this historic document and discusses the original intent and worldview of the Framers, when and how problems arose after the fact, and possible solutions for those problems, inspired by both constitutions of individual US states and other countries. Each chapter begins with a true story that connects directly back to a section of the document that forms the basis of our society and government.
Written by an award-winning middle grade author and a constitutional law scholar, this new edition includes updated content throughout; two new chapters on Impeachment and Secession; significant expansion of the chapters on Emergency Powers and Term Limits; and revisions throughout that reflect political and social changes leading up to and following the 2024 national election. (Credit: Peachtree)
The Feather Detective: Mystery, Mayhem, and the Magnificent Life of Roxie Laybourne by Chris Sweeney
Expected Publication Date: July 22
In 1960, an Eastern Airlines flight had no sooner lifted from the runway at Boston Logan Airport when it struck a flock of birds and took a nosedive into the shallow waters of the Boston Harbor, killing sixty-two people. This was the golden age of commercial airflight—luxury in the skies—and safety was essential to the precarious future of air travel. So the FAA instructed the bird remains be sent to the Smithsonian Institution for examination, where they would land on the desk of the only person in the world equipped to make sense of it all.
Her name was Roxie Laybourne, a diminutive but singular woman with thick glasses, a heavy Carolina drawl, and a passion for birds. Roxie didn’t know it at the time, but that box full of dead birds marked the start of a remarkable scientific journey. She became the world’s first forensic ornithologist, investigating a range of crimes and calamites on behalf of the FBI, the US Air Force, and even NASA.
The Feather Detective takes readers deep within the vaunted backrooms of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History to tell the story of a burgeoning science and the enigmatic woman who pioneered it. While her male colleagues in taxidermy embarked on expeditions around the world and got plum promotions, Roxie stayed with her birds. Using nothing more than her microscope and bits of feathers, she helped prosecute murderers, kidnappers, and poachers. When she wasn’t testifying in court or studying evidence from capital crimes, she was helping aerospace engineers and Air Force crews as they raced to bird-proof their airplanes before disaster struck again.
In The Feather Detective, award-winning journalist Chris Sweeney charts the astonishing life and work of this overlooked pioneer. Once divorced, once widowed, and sometimes surly, Roxie shattered stereotypes and pushed boundaries. Her story is one of persistence and grit, obsession and ingenuity. Drawing on reams of archival material, court documents, and exclusive interviews, Sweeney delivers a moving and amusing portrait of a woman who overcame cultural and scientific obstacles at every turn, forever changing our understanding of birds—and the feathers they leave behind. (Credit: Avid Reader Press)
The Cleaner by Mary Watson
Expected Publication Date: July 29
It’s not dust she’s looking for . . . it’s dirt.
Esmie is meant to be invisible. A cleaner for an exclusive gated neighborhood in Ireland, Esmie fades into the background, slipping in and out of kitchens and closets, quietly observing her clients’ perfect domestic lives. These entitled families only see a quiet woman with a mop in hand, who speaks with an accent they don’t bother to place, and this is exactly what she wants.
Esmie is well aware that her employers don’t truly see her. To them, she’s a foreigner who cleans up their messes. But there’s one mess she refuses to clean up. Because Esmie is not a cleaner. She’s come to this neighborhood for one purpose and one purpose only. Revenge. Armed with a duster and a cunning plan, Esmie could soon find herself entangled with the very people she came to destroy. (Credit: Crown)
Savvy Summers and the Sweet Potato Crimes by Sandra Jackson-Opoku
Expected Publication Date: July 29
When Savvy Summers first opened Essie’s soul food café, she never expected her customer-favorite sweet potato pie to become the center of a murder investigation. But when Grandy Jaspers, the 75-year-old neighborhood womanizer, drops dead at table two, she suddenly has more to worry about than just maintaining Essie’s reputation for the finest soul food in the Chicagoland area.
Even as the police deem Grandy’s death an accident, Savvy quickly finds herself—and her beloved café—in the middle of an entire city’s worth of bad press. Desperate to clear her name and keep her business afloat, Savvy and her snooping assistant manager, Penny Lopés, take it upon themselves to find who really killed Grandy.
But with a slimy investor harassing her to sell her name and business, customers avoiding her sweet potato pie like the plague, and her police sergeant ex-husband suddenly back in the picture, will Savvy be able to clear the café’s name and solve Grandy’s murder before it all falls apart?
After all, while Savvy always said her sweet potato pie was to die for, she never meant literally.(Credit: Minotaur Books)
Bones at the Crossroads by Ladarrion Williams
Expected Publication Date: July 29
It’s Homecoming season at Caiman University, and all 17-year-old Malik Baron wants to do is be a regular college student…or as regular as he can get at a magical HBCU for young, Black Conjurers. He’s ready to go to parties, hang out with his new friends, choose a major, and talk to girls. Instead, he’s reeling from a summer of revelations, heartbreak and betrayal, and still uncovering the truth about his powers and his legacy.
The family he only just discovered is already fractured beyond repair, and a new relative who shows up on his doorstep brings even more questions. Then there’s the mother he risked everything to find, who might be the biggest threat to the life he’s trying to build. To protect his new community, Malik joins an elite secret society with roots in ancient magic.
His journey takes him even deeper into his own heritage and the history of the magical world, while bringing him closer to a classmate whose friendship might mean something more, if Malik is ready to let her in. But how can he use powers he can’t even control to defend a world he’s not sure will ever fully accept him? And as the pressure and danger builds, will he be able to confront the deepening cracks within the magical society, and those building within himself? (Credit: Labyrinth Road)
The Game is Murder by Hazell Ward
Expected Publication Date: July 29
In this fresh and immersive murder mystery that riffs on crime classics, the reader is put in the role of the Great Detective, reinvestigating an infamous never-before-solved case from 1970s England.
You are invited to a very special murder mystery party. The game is simple: Listen to the witnesses. Examine the evidence. Solve the case. Be careful. Trust no one. All might not be as it seems.
If you agree to play the role of the Great Detective, you must undertake to provide a complete solution to the case. A verdict is not enough. We need to know who did it, how they did it, and why. Are you ready? Can you solve the ultimate murder mystery—and catch a killer?
A word of warning: Unsolved mysteries are not permitted. . . . (Credit: Berkley)
Silvercloak by L.K. Steven
Expected Publication Date: July 29
Two decades ago, the Bloodmoons ruthlessly murdered Saffron Killoran’s parents, destroying her idyllic childhood. Hell-bent on revenge, she lies her way into Silvercloak Academy—the training ground for her city’s elite order of detectives—with a single goal: to bring the Bloodmoons to justice.
But when Saff’s deception is exposed, rather than being cast out, she’s given a rare opportunity: to go undercover and tear the Bloodmoons down from the inside.
Descending into a world where pleasure and pain are the most powerful currencies, Saff must commit some truly heinous deeds to keep her cover—and her life. Not only are there rival gangs and sinister smuggling rings to contend with, but there’s also her growing feelings for the kingpin’s tortured son, with his vicious pet fallowwolf, his dark past, and the curious prophecy foretelling his death at Saffron’s hand.
With each day testing her loyalties further, Saff finds her web of lies becoming harder to spin. And when one false step could destroy everything and everyone she’s ever loved . . . the detective who’s dedicated her life to vengeance just might die for it. (Credit: Del Rey)
Disclosure: This blog is a member of affiliate programs. If you buy through links on this site, it will receive a small commission. Don’t worry…we only link books that we really love!
Leave a Reply