The book clubs up an announced their picks early, probably rushing off for their summer holidays. So without further ado, here are the July book club picks, some new releases and what I’m planning on reading. (I have recently become aware that my taste is diverse because I’ll jump on anything I see anyone recommend, so I’m working on refining my taste – but I’m not there yet- first I gotta finish that TBR.)
The book club picks:
Oprah’s bookclub: THe river is waiting by Wally Lamb
Expected publication: June 10 2025
Genre: Literary Fiction
pages: 466
Corby Ledbetter is struggling. New fatherhood, the loss of his job, and a growing secret addiction have thrown his marriage to his beloved Emily into a tailspin. And that’s before he causes the tragedy that tears the family apart.
She’s come undone was one of Oprah’s earlier picks, so this is a repeat author for Oprah’s book clup.
Read with Jenna: Happy wify by Meredith Lavender and Kendall Shores
Expected publication: June 24, 2025
Genre: Mystery thriller
pages: 320
Nora Davies doesn’t exactly fit in to Winter Park, Florida, where old-guard Floridians mix with the tax-fleeing coastal elite. Twenty-eight and barely making ends meet working at a country club, Nora feels like she’s going nowhere fast. Enter Will a prominent forty-six-year-old lawyer, father to a teenage daughter and recently divorced. The two set Winter Park’s social scene agog when they fall in love and marry after a whirlwind Cinderella-style courtship.
But Winter Park is fully upended when Will disappears the morning after a birthday bash Nora throws for him. Going back and forth between Nora and Will’s romance and the search in the wake of Will’s mysterious disappearance, Nora must answer the question from all Where. Is. Will?
GMA: The compound by Aisling Rawle
Expected publication: June 24, 2025
Genre: Thriller mystery
pages: 304
Described as Lord of the flies meets love island:
You wake up in a compound in the middle of the desert, along with nine other women.All of you are young, all beautiful, all keen to escape the grinding poverty, political unrest and environmental catastrophe of the outside world.You realise that cameras are tracking your every move, broadcasting to millions of reality TV fans.Soon, ten men will arrive on foot – if they all survive the journey.What will you have to do to win?And what happens to the losers?
Service95 book club: Small boat by Vincent Delecroix
Translated by: Helen Stevenson
Expected publication: March 24, 2025
Genre: Literary ficiton (French)
pages: 160
This is just my guess – Dua Lipa’s book club is hinting to her July pick and I think it might be this one. Regardless I’m going ro read it because listen to this:
In November 2021, an inflatable dinghy carrying migrants from France to the United Kingdom capsized in the Channel causing the death of 27 people on board. Despite receiving numerous calls for help, the French authorities wrongly told the migrants they were in British waters and had to call the British authorities for help. By the time rescue vessels arrived on the scene, all but two of the migrants had died. The narrator of Delecroix’s fictional account of the events is the woman who took the calls. Accused of failing in her duty, she refuses to be held more responsible than others for this disaster. Why should she be more responsible than the sea, than the war, than the crises behind these tragedies? A shocking, moral tale of our times, Small Boat reminds us of the power of fiction to illuminate our darkest crimes.
Reese’s bookclub: Spectacular things by Beck Dorey-Stein
Expected publication: July 1 2025
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Pages: 368
Mia and Cricket have always been close. The gifted daughters of a young single mother, the “Lowe girls” are well-known in the small Maine town they call home. Each sister has a role to fill: The responsible and academically minded Mia assumes the position of caregiver far too young, while Cricket, a bouncing ball of energy and talent, seems born for soccer stardom. But the cost of achieving athletic greatness comes at a steep price.
New releases July:
A witch’s guide to magical innkeeping by Sangu Mandanna
Expected publication: July 15
Genre: Fantasy Romance
pages: 336
From the bestselling author of The very secret society of irregular witches comes this new romance book. I’m sure a lot of people will pick this up from the hype of the last one.
In this book we find Sera Swon who used to be one of the most powerful witches in Britain. Then she did some questionable things and was exiled from the Guild. Until one day she finds an old spell that might be able to restore her powers.
Archive of unknown universes by Ruben Reyes Jr.
Expected publication: July 1, 2025
Genre: Historical fiction with Magical realism
pages: 288
From the author of the story collection There is a Rio Grande in Heaven comes his debut novel following two families in alternate timelines during the salvadorian civil war.
In Cambridge 2018 Ana uses “The Defractor” and experimental device that allows user to see into an alternate version of their life (very sliding doors). What we get is a daring imagining of what could have been and a powerful reckoning of the past.
I’m intrigued !
Finding Grace by Loretta Rothschild
Expected publication: July 8
Genre: Riction, Romance
pages: 336
Honor seems to have everything. She adores her daughter Chloe and her husband Tom (even if he does work one hundred hours a week). But her longing for another baby threatens to eclipse all of it―until a shocking event changes their lives forever.
Years later Tom makes a decision that ripples through their families’ lives in ways he could not have foreseen. As the consequences of that fateful choice unfold, two women’s paths become irrevocably intertwined. But when old love clashes with new, who will be left standing? And what happens when your secrets come back to haunt you?
Maggie or, a man and a woman walk into a bar by Katie Yee
Expected publication: July 22
Genre: Contemporary fiction
pages: 208
A man and a woman walk into a restaurant. The woman expects a lovely night filled with endless plates of samosas. Instead, she finds out her husband is having an affair with a woman named Maggie.
A short while after, her chest starts to ache. She walks into an examination room, where she finds out the pain in her breast isn’t just heartbreak—it’s cancer. She decides to call the tumor Maggie.
Transforming personal tragedy into defiant comedy – I’m sat.
Not quite dead yet by Holly Jackson
Expected publication: July 22
Genre: Mystery Thriller
pages: 400
Holly Jackson is well known through the good girls guide to murder ya-series but she has now written a thriller for adults about a woman trying to solve her own murder.
A wealthy young heiress is attacked on Halloween night and the doctor fears that she might suffer a deadly aneurysm within a week – until then, she’s gonna find out who did it.
(Can they predict aneurysms? If so, can’t those be fixed?) I’m curious enough to look into it.
She didn’t see it coming by Shari Lapena
Expected publication: July 29, 2025
Genre: Thriller mystery
pages: 352
When a beloved wife and mother disappears, a luxurious condo building transforms into a potential crime scene, and the investigation begins: can the detectives find her before it’s too late?
Bryden and Sam have it all: thriving careers, a smart apartment in a luxury condominium, supportive friends and a cherished daughter. The perfect life for the perfect couple.
Then Sam receives a call at his office. Bryden–working from home that day–has failed to collect their daughter from daycare. Arriving home with their little girl, he finds his wife’s car in the underground garage. Upstairs in their apartment her laptop is open on the table, her cell phone nearby, her keys in their usual place in the hall.
Except Bryden is nowhere to be seen. It’s as if she just walked out.
The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Expected publication: July 15
Genre: Horror / Fantasy
pages: 368
The author of Mexican Gothic is back to bewitch us! (I still haven’t read Mexican gothic but it’s on my list.) In her new novel Minerava is a graduate student focusing on the history of horror literature. Upon researching the life of an obscure author she finds the author studied at the same university and that her roomate disappeared under mysterious circumstances and she can still feel the ghost of this girl walk the halls of the campus.
An academic career can be a punishing pursuit, but it might turn outright deadly when witchcraft is involved.
These summer storms
Expected publication: July 8, 2025
Genre: Romance
pages: 400
Four siblings at their eccentric manipulative fathers funeral are given a challenge designed to humiliate and devistate before given their billion dollar inheritance. All they have to do is stay on the island for a week and complete the assigned tasks.
I’m curious enough because this is labeled romance.
Books I’m planning on reading in July:
I’ve plowed through three bricks by Karl Ove Knausgaard in his “Morning star”-series, and they are quite heavy, so I need some light summer literature. Romance, thrillers and other beach reads. Perhaps some books that will be released as movies soon, like Margot’s got money troubles. I didnt get to read Elsie Silver last month, so I’ll try again this month.
I also started The Stand by Stephen king last month and 300 pages in -nothing has happened. Haha, but I’ll see if I can power through to the story moving along.
I also want to try the first book in the boys of Tommen series – Binding 13 by Chloe Walsh. And I already started The Emperor of gladness, and I’ll definitely be finishing that. And maybe some short stories that’s been lying around. Who know’s what I’ll find in exchange libraries this summer.
Marie III 