Notable New Releases in July

01. Gold by Chris Cleave (July 3; Simon & Schuster)
02. The Good Dream by Donna VanLiere (July 3; St. Martin’s Press)
03. The Woman at the Light: A Novel by Joanna Brady (July 3; St. Martin’s Press)
04. Murder on the Half Shelf (Booktown #6) by Lorna Barrett (July 3; Berkley)
05. Mistress of Mourning: A Novel by Karen Harper (July 3; Penguin/NAL)
06. Moonshell Beach (Shelter Bay #4) by JoAnn Ross (July 3; Signet)
07. The Great Escape (Wynette, Texas #7) by Susan Elizabeth Phillips (July 10; William Morrow)
08. Backfire (FBI Thriller #16) by Catherine Coulter (July 10; Putnam)
09. The Red Chamber by Pauline A. Chen (July 10; Doubleday)
10. Some Kind of Peace: A Novel by Camilla Grebe and Åsa Träff (July 10; Free Press)
11. When in Doubt, Add Butter by Beth Harbison (July 17; St. Martin’s Press)
12. Tigers in Red Weather: A Novel by Liza Klaussmann (July 17; Little, Brown)
13. Tidewater Inn by Colleen Coble (July 17; Thomas Nelson Publishers)
14. The Sandcastle Girls: A Novel by Chris Bohjalian (July 17; Doubleday)
15. Shine Shine Shine by Lydia Netzer (July 17; St. Martin’s Press)
16. Close Your Eyes by Iris Johansen and Roy Johansen (July 17; St. Martin’s Press)
17. The Empty Glass by J.I. Baker (July 19; Blue Rider Press)
18. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce (July 24; Random House)
19. Broken Harbour (Dublin Murder Squad #4) by Tana French (July 24; Penguin)
20. A Different Kind of Normal by Cathy Lamb (July 31; Kensington Publishing)

The cure for wanderlust might be found in some of this month’s new releases. The London Olympics, the 1800s coast of Key West, Tudor England and all its intrigue, eighteenth century Beijing, an eerily quiet cottage in Stockholm, Martha’s Vineyard during the Second World War, Syria in the 1910s, the English countryside, the streets of Dublin…get lost in a book, literally. So much caught my eye this month, narrowing it down to my usual selection of twenty turned out to be quite a chore. In addition to the above there are some new titles from well-known names, such as Danielle Steel’s Friends Forever, Emily Giffin’s Where We Belong, and Meg Cabot’s Size 12 and Ready to Rock, as well as James Patterson’s collaboration with Michael Ledwidge for I, Michael Bennett. I never did read Chris Cleave’s Little Bee; I know his Gold is a highly-anticipated release. I’m also intrigued by Karen Harper’s new Mistress of Mourning which focuses on a Tudor England that’s more or less a time before Anne Boleyn, with attention to Henry VIII’s older brother and his mysterious death. Tigers in Red Weather has all of the elements that make up my ideal sort of novel, so I’m very excited to read that at some point. And I’ve never read Chris Bohjalian, but he’s an author I’m starting to think I’d quite enjoy. Lydia Netzer’s science fiction novel Shine Shine Shine has been getting some very big buzz and seems to be generally very celebrated already. The Empty Glass by J.I. Baker turns the conspiracy theories surrounding the death of Marilyn Monroe into a work of fiction, which could make for interesting reading. And Rachel Joyce’s The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry pretty much stole my heart just from its synopsis so that’s absolutely going on my to-read list. Another month, another mountain of books I someday want to climb.

Don’t you feel like there are more interesting books being released every month than a reader can keep up with? What’s a book lover to do!