Genre readers will have much to look forward in July, as many familiar names are adding on to series, releasing standalone titles or trying out something entirely different. On to the highlights:
-For science fiction and fantasy fans, July is going to be quite busy. Multiple award winner and genre favorite Seanan McGuire heads in a different direction from her recent Wayward Children series to pick up the thread begun in 2014’s Sparrow Hill Road. The ghostly stories continues in The Girl in the Green Silk Gown, appearing on shelves mid-month. Weaver of magical stories Mary Robinette Kowal launches a new alternative history series with The Calculating Stars, a retelling of the space race and sexism of the mid 20th century, set against the backdrop of space colonization. Naomi Novak gained legions of fans with her creative retelling of fairy tales, most notably with Uprooted; she returns to the genre with Spinning Silver, drawing on Rumpelstiltskin and Eastern European tales to create a story that Kirkus calls ‘a thoughtful, emotionally complex, absorbing drama that stands confidently on its own merits.’
-Summer means thrillers, and there’s no shortage of choices this month. Ben Coes uses the premise of an ailing North Korean leader armed with nuclear missiles to propel his newest Dewey Andreas spy thriller Bloody Sunday; Publisher’s Weekly calls it the best yet in the series. In Brad Thor’s latest The Spymaster, Europe is the backdrop for an organization attacking diplomats, drawing a reluctant Scot Horvath from his counterterrorism work into covert actions; look for it on shelves in early July. If you like your thrills a bit closer to home, Paul Doiron sets his latest Mike Bowditch mystery, Stay Hidden, in the creepy environs of a Maine island, where an apparent accidental death of an investigative journalist takes a sinister turn after the victim turns up alive—but the corpses keep appearing. And for those who like their thrillers very close up, Linwood Barclay’s A Noise Downstairs gets into the mind of a college professor, who may or may not be losing his mind after stumbling onto the aftermath of a double murder. Publisher’s Weekly recommends it for readers of Harlan Coben, while Library Journal praises the ending as particularly memorable.
-If thrills of the romantic variety are more your thing, some great reads are in the offering for July. Alyssa Cole continues to prove she’s a star in the genre. A Duke By Default is the second offering in Cole’s contemporary Reluctant Royals series, and showcases some of her best characterizations yet. Our own Jane loved it, and this reader also has it in her own top romances of the year. Love with a strong dose of drama is at the center of Beatriz Williams’ The Summer Wives. Moving through the 1930s to the 1950s and beyond, Williams creates a tale of love, murder and redemption set against a summery Long Island setting.
-Nonfiction readers are getting a pretty steady diet of political titles this year, and July is no different. Former Trump press secretary Sean Spicer releases The Briefing: Politics The Press and The President, his memoir of brief but tumultuous time in that office; it hits shelves July 24. On a similar topic, former New York Times and Pulitzer-winning book critic Michiko Kakutani turns author with The Death of Truth: Notes on Falsehood in the Age of Trump, appearing July 17. The competing reviews should at least be entertaining.
Click on through to see the full list. Happy reading!