The best part of summer reading is that you can read anything. And the most challenging part?
You can read anything, so what will you choose?
We’ve assembled 16 books coming out this month that offer a little bit of everything: romance, literary fiction, fantasy, mystery, nonfiction and more. So take a look at what’s coming and grab a book to read wherever you end up spending time this month.
And even better? We’ll still be bringing you more great books to consider as the month rolls out.
July 7
“Habits of the Sea,” Shea Ernshaw (Atria Books)
In her second dive into adult novels, Ernshaw brings together folklore, magical realism and romance to a mystical island off the coast of Nova Scotia. “Habits of the Sea” follows a woman as she finds an island, with a single occupant that vanished when she was a child.
“Love You More,” Emily Giffin (Ballantine)
A successful, newly engaged New York doctor is living life to the fullest, having finally moved on from the man she left behind in Wisconsin. And then, after a decade, that long-lost love calls, and she finds herself heading back to her hometown
“The Red Sacrament,” Sara Hinkley (Titan Books)
A troupe of performing vampires in a Parisian theater during the 19th century may sound like something straight out of an Anne Rice novel, but the debut novel from Hinkley promises much more.
“Country People,” Daniel Mason (Random House)
California’s Mason, a Stanford faculty member in psychiatry as well as a Pulitzer Prize-nominated novelist, follows up his acclaimed “North Woods” with a campus novel in which a visiting professor and her husband trek to a college set in the woods of Vermont.
“Hide and Seek,” Søren Sveistrup (Harper Collins)
In this Nordic thriller – which is featured in the second season of the Netflix series “The Chestnut Man,” based on his novel of the same name – author Sveistrup brings back detectives Naia Thulin and Mark Hess to find a missing woman with connections to a cold case.
July 14
“The Intrigue,” Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Del Rey)
From the author of “Mexican Gothic” and “The Bewitching” comes “The Intrigue,” a historical noir about a con artist who gets more than he bargained for when he teams up with a woman to steal her aunt’s money. With themes of greed and seduction, nothing is as it seems in the author’s latest.
“White Rabbit,” Abigail Rose-Marie (Union Square & Co.)
A young girl finds an unexpected companion in the ghost of poet Sylvia Plath as she learns to navigate grief for her father, who’s gone, and also her mother, whose mourning has made her withdraw into her own world.
“The Dragon Has Some Complaints,” John Wiswell (DAW)
A dragon with three heads, each of which has its own personality, wanders into a dragon rider academy and epic adventure and hilarity ensue. You’re welcome.
“Up All Night: A World History of Nightlife” by Imogen Willetts (Grove)
What are some people doing while we’re at home reading? They’re out experiencing the nightlife, and historian Willetts gets the festivities started in 17th-century Japan before party-hopping through Georgian England, Jazz Age New York City, and LA in the 2000s, among other hot spots.
July 21
“Carry Me to My Grave” by Christopher Golden (St. Martin’s Press)
How far would you go to carry out your mother’s dying wish? In “Carry Me to My Grave,” Malcom must battle the demons of his mother’s past, literally, to return her body to her birthplace.
“The Biggest Lie: The Prehistory of American Fascism,” 1818-1915 by Joseph Kelly (Bloomsbury)
Historian Kelly looks back to examine the roots of fascism as it courses through the antebellum and Jim Crow-era South and on through 20th-century nationalism and pre-World War II Nazi sympathizers.
“The Witch Below the Dreaming Wood” by H.G. Parry (Redhook)
Could King Arthur save Britain from World War II? How about Nimue, the Lady of the Lake from Arthurian legends? A librarian in 1941 Wales is about to find out in this historical fantasy from the New Zealand author.
“Tin Can Coast: A History of Industry, Greed, and Fishing in the Golden State” by Joseph Ogilvy (Bloomsbury)
Ogilvy’s history explores the ocean of riches that lies off the coast of California, including the Channel Islands, and the myriad ways fishing, canning and commerce have affected and at times exploited the ecosystem – and the people doing the work – over the past few hundred years.
“Yellow Pine by Claire Vaye Watkins (Riverhead)
The acclaimed Southern California novelist follows up her previous novels, “Gold Fame Citrus” and “I Love You, But I’ve Chosen Darkness,” with a story set in the Mojave Desert in which a woman’s hard-won peace is tested after a former flame comes back into her life.
“Cool Machine” By Colson Whitehead (Doubleday)
The two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist returns with the final installment of his Harlem trilogy, which opens up in 1981 as Ray Carney aims to balance his life as a successful furniture salesman with the criminal itch that leads him into the literal underworld of New York City.
July 28
“Getting Away with Murder” by Shari Lapena (Pamela Dorman Books)
In the 10th thriller from Lapena, a New York City couple seems to have it all – including a beautiful home that they’ve completely transformed into a magazine-ready example of wealth and taste. Then, money troubles hit, and they begin formulating a plan that may involve murder.
