My Most Anticipated Releases for July
Southern Gothics galore.
July is coming in HOT (pun intended) with new releases that seem tailor-made to me specifically. We’ve got not one but TWO supernatural Southern Gothics, essays about the 2000s, multiple female-friendship centric coming of age stories… we’re eating good this month girlies.
Mayra by Nicky Gonzalez
A supernatural-tinged Southern Gothic novel about female friendship and rage set in the swamps of the Florida Everglades???? Was this book designed in a lab for me specifically?! I cannot wait for this one. I’ve already pre-ordered the hardcover, because I know I’m going to love it.
Promising Review
“Nicky Gonzalez channels Shirley Jackson (something I do not say lightly) in this disquieting, mesmerizing twenty-first-century Southern Gothic. In Mayra, the hazy borders of friendship and identity are blurred, made uncanny and dangerous, and I was hooked from paragraph one.”
— Paul Tremblay, New York Times bestselling author of Horror Movie and A Head Full of Ghosts
Release Date: July 22nd
Oddbody by Rose Keating
This collection of short stories sounds promising, and very in line with some of the books I’ve really enjoyed this year so far, like The Lamb, Nightbitch, and Hungerstone.
Promising Review
“This is weird girl fiction at its finest - an uneasy, bold and subversive collection of astonishing tales that left me hungry for more. With Rose Keating, we are witnessing the birth of a rare and precious talent in literature."
— Lucy Rose, author of The Lamb
Release Date: July 1st
The Original by Nell Stevens
This book sounds like The Goldfinch meets We Have Always Lived in the Castle meets Rebecca and I’m very here for it. A heist-y, art-y period piece? Count me in.
Promising Review
A delightful, playful puzzle of a novel, and a brilliant twist on the nineteenth century orphan-makes-good story. The Original asks whether, sometimes, faking it is the right thing to do.
– Claire Fuller, author of Unsettled Ground
Release Date: July 1st
Finding Grace by Loretta Rothschild
This book sounds super dramatic, and the premise is fascinating, though I’m waiting to find out if it will be too much of a Jodi Picoult-esque melodrama for my current tastes. Still, I’m intrigued!
Promising Review
"Loretta Rothschild's debut novel, seemingly effortlessly written, is the darkest beach read imaginable, with a protagonist that no reader could predict."
— Plum Sykes, bestselling author of Wives Like Us
Release Date: July 8th
Wanting by Claire Jia
I’ve realized that I love any book that examines wealth and fame, especially if it’s in contrast to a character who is friends with the famous wealthy one but is otherwise a normal, everyday person. This book sounds like it will deliver on that premise deliciously.
Promising Review
Wanting vividly traces the arc of adolescent friendship and love into adult hunger and hope. Whether for a wealthy immigrant YouTuber or the lonely strivers of the world she leaves behind, Claire Jia's attention to her characters is at once compassionate and unflinching. This is a dazzling portrait of both modern China and the unrelenting ambitions of the human heart.
– Belinda Huijuan Tang, author of A Map for the Missing
Release Date: July 1st
Grave Birds by Dana Elmendorf
Another delicious sounding Southern Gothic with ghosts, devils, and small town secrets? I’m already in. Like, what more is there to say?
Promising Review
"Hauntingly sad, deeply chilling and infused with a twisty family mystery, Grave Birds is a warm, yet eerie Southern gothic that explores grief, unfinished business, and deals made with the devil in South Carolina. A brilliant read."
– Dawn Kurtagich, award-winning author of The Madness
Release Date: July 1st
The Lake’s Water is Never Sweet by Giulia Caminito
This book’s premise had me hooked from the start: a portrait of girlhood and female friendships set against a backdrop of a generation in crisis, struggling to reconcile with the lives they’re living and the futures their parents promised them. SOLD.
Promising Review
"Raw, radiant, and relentless – Giulia Caminito's unforgettable novel ignites like a match struck in darkness, inviting readers into a world where beauty and brutality exist in perfect, devastating harmony. You won't just finish this book; you'll emerge from it transformed. Achingly intimate and visceral."
– Chelsea Bieker, author of Madwoman
Release Date: July 8th
Sloppy by Rax King
I absolutely loved Rax King’s debut essay collection, Tacky, so I can’t wait to read this follow-up. I love the way she writes about uniquely personal struggles in a widely relatable way. Her last book made me cry about Bath and Body Works so I have high hopes for this one.
Promising Review
“It is frankly rude to take a book full of such poignant insights and sharp jokes and call it Sloppy, but that's what Rax King did with her tender and charming new essay collection. I hope this book sells one million copies, because the writing deserves it, and also because then Rax can pay back the money she borrowed from me when she was doing all those drugs.”
—Josh Gondelman, comedian and author of Nice Try
Release Date: July 29th
Bitter Sweet by Hattie Williams
This book sounds like a searing and, well, bittersweet depiction of a woman’s early twenties, and a cautionary tale about not meeting (or falling in love with) your heroes, especially if said hero is a married man several decades your senior.
Promising Review
“Bitter Sweet is raw and beautiful and true. Hattie Williams writes so honestly on love and loss that it hurts. This book will make you ache for your twenties and make you equally glad you survived them.”
— Abigail Dean, New York Times bestselling author of Girl A
Release Date: July 8th
I Want to Burn This Place Down by Maris Kreizman
You know I love an essay collection, and this one about the so-called American Dream, and how it’s consistently failed us sounds like exactly what I need right now. The author describes herself as a rule-follower who believed in the system until, well… everything from the past decade, basically. This excerpt from Bookshop.org’s description pretty much sums it up:
“Like any good Democrat and feminist, she believed that if she just worked hard and played by the rules, she was guaranteed a safe and comfortable life. Now in her forties, the only thing Maris Kreizman knows for sure is that she no longer has faith in American institutions or any of their hollow promises.”
Promising Review
"If you're a rule-follower watching our current political and social moment with goggle-eyed disbelief, this incisive essay collection about the way the American Dream hasn't quite panned out (and maybe was only ever meant to benefit a chosen few) will be a balm for your soul."
— People, Best Nonfiction Books of Summer 2025
Release Date: July 1st