10 Intriguing July 2017 Book Releases

It's nearly the start of July -- the halfway point of the year! I've had a pretty mediocre (sometimes abysmal) reading year and I'm going to avoid new releases for the next month or two and focus on older books I'm more sure to love, but of course I've still been keeping track of what's coming out. July is a pretty lean month for book releases -- at least, books I'm interested in. A ton of good-looking ones came out in June, and I've already noted over a dozen that come out in August, but July... meh. I think the book from the list I'm most likely to read anytime soon is the non-fiction pick "Beautiful Bodies." I'm super-intrigued by "Gork, the Teenage Dragon," but it seems like it could be either amazing or horrific, and I'll definitely be waiting to see some reviews first.

What new books are you looking forward to in July?

We Shall Not All Sleep by Estep Nagy: The entangled pasts of two ruling class New England families come to light over three summer days on an island in Maine in this extraordinary debut novel. 1964. The Hillsingers and the Quicks have shared the small Maine island of Seven for generations. Though technically family they do not mix. Set during three summer days, Estep Nagy’s debut novel moves among the communities of Seven as longstanding tensions become tactical face-offs where anything is fair game for ammunition. "We Shall Not All Sleep" is a richly told story of American class, family, and manipulation -- a compelling portrait of a unique and privileged WASP stronghold on the brink of dissolution.

Gork the Teenage Dragon by Gabe Hudson: Fans of Harry Potter and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy will relish this teenage dragon's spellbinding love story filled with bighearted humor and imagination. Gork isn't like the other dragons at WarWings Military Academy. He has a gigantic heart, two-inch horns, and an occasional problem with fainting. His nickname is Weak Sauce and his Will to Power ranking is Snacklicious--the lowest in his class. But Gork is determined not to let any of this hold him back as he embarks on the most important mission of his life: tonight, on the eve of his high school graduation, he must ask a female dragon to be his queen. If she says yes, they'll go off to conquer a foreign planet together. If she says no, Gork becomes a slave. It is Gork's biggest perceived weakness, his huge heart, that will guide him through his epic quest and help him reach his ultimate destination: planet Earth. A love story, a fantasy, a coming-of-age story, "Gork the Teenage Dragon" is a wildly comic, beautifully imagined, and deeply heartfelt debut novel that shows us just how human a dragon can be.

What We Lose by Zinzi Clemmons: Raised in Pennsylvania, Thandi views the world of her mother’s childhood in Johannesburg as both impossibly distant and ever present. She is an outsider wherever she goes, caught between being black and white, American and not. She tries to connect these dislocated pieces of her life, and as her mother succumbs to cancer, Thandi searches for an anchor -- someone, or something, to love. In arresting and unsettling prose, we watch Thandi’s life unfold, from losing her mother and learning to live without the person who has most profoundly shaped her existence, to her own encounters with romance and unexpected motherhood. Through exquisite and emotional vignettes, Clemmons creates a stunning portrayal of what it means to choose to live, after loss.

Hello, Sunshine by Laura Dave: Sunshine Mackenzie is living the dream -- she’s a culinary star with millions of fans, a line of #1 bestselling cookbooks, and a devoted husband happy to support her every endeavor. And then she gets hacked. When Sunshine’s secrets are revealed, her fall from grace is catastrophic. She loses the husband, her show, the fans, and her apartment. She’s forced to return to the childhood home -- and the estranged sister -- she’s tried hard to forget. But what Sunshine does amid the ashes of her own destruction may well save her life. In a world where celebrity is a careful construct, "Hello, Sunshine" is a compelling, funny, and evocative novel about what it means to live an authentic life in an inauthentic age.

When the English Fall by David Williams: A riveting and unexpected novel that questions whether a peaceful and nonviolent community can survive when civilization falls apart. When a catastrophic solar storm brings about the collapse of modern civilization, an Amish community in Pennsylvania is caught up in the devastating aftermath. With their stocked larders and stores of supplies, the Amish are unaffected at first. But as the English (the Amish name for all non-Amish people) become more and more desperate, they begin to invade Amish farms, taking whatever they want and unleashing unthinkable violence on the peaceable community. Seen through the diary of an Amish farmer named Jacob as he tries to protect his family and his way of life, When the English Fall examines the idea of peace in the face of deadly chaos: Should members of a nonviolent society defy their beliefs and take up arms to defend themselves? And if they don’t, can they survive?

Less by Andrew Sean Greer: Who says you can't run away from your problems? You are a failed novelist about to turn fifty. A wedding invitation arrives in the mail: your boyfriend of the past nine years is engaged to someone else. You can't say yes -- it would be too awkward -- and you can't say no -- it would look like defeat. On your desk are a series of invitations to half-baked literary events around the world. Question: How do you arrange to skip town? Answer: You accept them all. What would possibly go wrong? Arthur Less will almost fall in love in Paris, almost fall to his death in Berlin, barely escape to a Moroccan ski chalet from a Saharan sandstorm, accidentally book himself as the (only) writer-in-residence at a Christian Retreat Center in Southern India, and encounter, on a desert island in the Arabian Sea, the last person on Earth he wants to face. Somewhere in there: he will turn fifty. Through it all, there is his first love. And there is his last. Because, despite all these mishaps, missteps, misunderstandings and mistakes, "Less" is, above all, a love story.

Beautiful Bodies by Kimberly Rae Miller: A brave and witty examination of how and why we try to control our bodies with food. Like most people, Kimberly Rae Miller does not have the perfect body, but that hasn’t stopped her from trying. And trying. And trying some more. But what is the ideal body? Knowing she’s far from alone in this struggle, Kim sets out to find the objective definition of this seemingly unattainable level of perfection. While on a fascinating and hilarious journey through time that takes her from obese Paleolithic cavewomen, to the bland menus that Drs. Graham and Kellogg prescribed to promote good morals in addition to good health, to the binge-drinking-prone regimen that caused William the Conqueror’s body to explode at his own funeral, Kim ends up discovering a lot about her relationship with her own body. Warm, funny, and brutally honest, "Beautiful Bodies" is a blend of memoir and social history that will speak to anyone who’s ever been caught in a power struggle with his or her own body... in other words, just about everyone.

The Life She Was Given by Ellen Marie Wiseman: On a summer evening in 1931, Lilly Blackwood glimpses circus lights from the grimy window of her attic bedroom. Lilly isn't allowed to explore the meadows around Blackwood Manor. She's never even ventured beyond her narrow room. Momma insists it's for Lilly's own protection, that people would be afraid if they saw her. But on this unforgettable night, Lilly is taken outside for the first time -- and sold to the circus sideshow. More than two decades later, nineteen-year-old Julia Blackwood has inherited her parents' estate and horse farm. For Julia, home was an unhappy place full of strict rules and forbidden rooms, and she hopes that returning might erase those painful memories. Instead, she becomes immersed in a mystery involving a hidden attic room and photos of circus scenes featuring a striking young girl. At first, The Barlow Brothers' Circus is just another prison for Lilly. But in this rag-tag, sometimes brutal world, Lilly discovers strength, friendship, and a rare affinity for animals. Soon, thanks to elephants Pepper and JoJo and their handler, Cole, Lilly is no longer a sideshow spectacle but the circus's biggest attraction...until tragedy and cruelty collide. It will fall to Julia to learn the truth about Lilly's fate and her family's shocking betrayal, and find a way to make Blackwood Manor into a place of healing at last.

Strange Practice by Vivian Shaw: Meet Greta Helsing, fast-talking doctor to the undead. Keeping the supernatural community not-alive and well in London has been her family's specialty for generations. Greta Helsing inherited the family's highly specialized, and highly peculiar, medical practice. In her consulting rooms, Dr. Helsing treats the undead for a host of ills -- vocal strain in banshees, arthritis in barrow-wights, and entropy in mummies. Although barely making ends meet, this is just the quiet, supernatural-adjacent life Greta's been groomed for since childhood. Until a sect of murderous monks emerges, killing human and undead Londoners alike. As terror takes hold of the city, Greta must use her unusual skills to stop the cult if she hopes to save her practice, and her life.

Bone White by Ronald Malfi: A landscape of frozen darkness punctuated by grim, gray days. The feeling like a buzz in your teeth. The scrape of bone on bone. Paul Gallo saw the report on the news: a mass murderer leading police to his victims' graves, in remote Dread's Hand, Alaska. It's not even a town; more like the bad memory of a town. The same bit of wilderness where his twin brother went missing a year ago. As the bodies are exhumed, Paul travels to Alaska to get closure and put his grief to rest. But the mystery is only beginning. What Paul finds are superstitious locals who talk of the devil stealing souls, and a line of wooden crosses to keep what's in the woods from coming out. He finds no closure because no one can explain exactly what happened to Danny. And the more he searches for answers, the more he finds himself becoming part of the mystery.