The time of year when celebrities are pictured lounging by the pool with a slim softcover book strategically placed next to them. The time of year when people frequent bookstores and libraries purely for the free air conditioning, but then one cover gets their attention, and they suddenly read whenever they can, giving their week a new sense of urgency. The 8 outstanding new books of july are here..
Honey & Spice
Bolu Babalola
Sharp-tongued (and secretly soft-hearted) Kiki Banjo has just made a huge mistake. As an expert in relationship-evasion and the host of the popular student radio show Brown Sugar, she’s made it her mission to make sure the women of the African-Caribbean Society at Whitewell University do not fall into the mess of “situationships”, players, and heartbreak.
But when the Queen of the Unbothered kisses Malakai Korede, the guy she just publicly denounced as “The Wastemen of Whitewell,” in front of every Blackwellian on campus, she finds her show on the brink.
Release Date: July 5, 2022
Sirens & Muses
Antonia Angress
It’s 2011: America is in a deep recession and Occupy Wall Street is escalating. But at the elite Wrynn College of Art, students paint and sculpt in a rarefied bubble. Louisa Arceneaux is a thoughtful, observant nineteen-year-old when she transfers to Wrynn as a scholarship student, but she soon finds herself adrift in an environment that prizes novelty over beauty. Complicating matters is Louisa’s unexpected attraction to her charismatic roommate, Karina Piontek, the preternaturally gifted but mercurial daughter of wealthy art collectors. Gradually, Louisa and Karina are drawn into an intense sensual and artistic relationship.
Release Date: July 12, 2022
Shmutz
Felicia Berliner
Like the other women in her Brooklyn Hasidic community, Raizl expects to find a husband through an arranged marriage. Unlike the other women, Raizl has a secret.
With a hidden computer to help her complete her college degree, she falls down the slippery slope of online pornography. As Raizl dives deeper into the world of porn at night, her daytime life begins to unravel. Between combative visits with her shrink to complicated arranged dates, Raizl must balance her growing understanding of her sexuality with the more conventional expectations of the family she loves.
Release Date: July 19, 2022
Self-Portrait With Ghost
Meng Jin
Written during the turbulent years of the Trump administration and the first year of the pandemic, these stories explore intimacy and isolation, coming-of-age and coming to terms with the repercussions of past mistakes, fraying relationships and surprising moments of connection.
Moving between San Francisco and China, and from unsparing realism to genre-bending delight, Self-Portrait with Ghost considers what it means to live in an age of heightened self-consciousness, seemingly endless access to knowledge, and little actual power.
Release Date: July 5, 2022
Fire Season
Leyna Krow
For the citizens of Spokane Falls, the fire of 1889 that destroyed their frontier boomtown was no disaster; it was an opportunity. Barton Heydale, manager of the only bank in Spokane Falls, is on the verge of ending his short, unpopular life. But when his city goes up in flames, he sees an ember of hope shimmering on the horizon, headed right for him.
As citizens flock to the bank to cash out insurance policies and take out loans, he realizes he can command the power he craves—and it’s not by following the rules. Here is his reason to live.
Release Date: July 12, 2022
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
Gabrielle Zevin
On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn’t heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom. These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster , Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs.
Release Date: July 5, 2022
Corinne
Rebecca Morrow
You want to walk away from the things that are bad for you and never look back. That’s what Corinne Callahan wants. Cast out of the fundamentalist church she was raised in and cut off from her family, Corinne builds a new life for herself. A good one. But she never stops missing the life—and the love— she’s left behind. It’s Enoch Miller who ruins everything for her.
It was always Enoch Miller. She’ll never get him out from under her skin. Set over fifteen years and told with astonishing intimacy, Rebecca Morrow’s Corinne is the story of a woman who risks everything she’s built for the one man she can never have.
Release Date: July 12, 2022
Acne
Laura Chinn
Despite having dirty-blonde hair and fair skin, Laura Chinn is mixed-race: the daughter of a Black father and a white mother, which on its own makes for some funny and insightful looks at identity. Laura’s parents were both Scientologists and nonconformists in myriad ways. They divorced early in Laura’s childhood, and she spent her teen years ping-ponging back and forth between Clearwater, Florida, and Los Angeles (with an extended stint in Tijuana for good measure). Laura lived alone and raised herself for long periods of time, but don’t worry! Her mom’s alcoholic boyfriend was always nearby to supervise.
Release Date: July 19, 2022