The best part of summer reading is that you can read anything. And the most challenging part?
You can read anything, so what will you choose?
Here are 16 books out this month that offer a little bit of everything: romance, literary fiction, fantasy, mystery, nonfiction and more. So take a look and grab a book to read wherever you end up spending time this month.
Out now
“Habits of the Sea,” Shea Ernshaw
In her second dive into adult novels, Ernshaw brings together folklore, magical realism and romance on a mystical island off the coast of Nova Scotia.
“Love You More,” Emily Giffin
A successful, newly engaged New York doctor is living life to the fullest, having finally moved on from the man she left behind in Wisconsin. Then, after a decade, that long-lost love calls, and she finds herself heading back to her hometown
“The Red Sacrament,” Sara Hinkley
A troupe of performing vampires in a Parisian theater during the 19th century might sound like something straight out of an Anne Rice book, but the debut novel from Hinkley promises much more.
“Country People,” Daniel Mason
Mason follows up his acclaimed “North Woods” with a campus novel in which a visiting professor and her husband trek to a college set in the woods of Vermont.
“Hide and Seek,” Søren Sveistrup
In this Nordic thriller, Sveistrup brings back detectives Naia Thulin and Mark Hess to find a missing woman with connections to a cold case.
Out Tuesday
“The Intrigue,” Silvia Moreno-Garcia
From the author of “Mexican Gothic” and “The Bewitching” comes “The Intrigue,” a historical noir about a con artist who gets more than he bargained for when he teams up with a woman to steal her aunt’s money. With themes of greed and seduction, nothing is as it seems in the author’s latest.
“White Rabbit,” Abigail Rose-Marie
A young girl finds an unexpected companion in the ghost of poet Sylvia Plath as she learns to navigate grief for her father, who’s gone, and her mother, whose mourning has made her withdraw into her own world.
“The Dragon Has Some Complaints,” John Wiswell
A dragon with three heads, each of which has its own personality, wanders into a dragon rider academy and epic adventure and hilarity ensue.
“Up All Night,” Imogen Willetts
What are some people doing while we’re at home reading? They’re out experiencing the nightlife, and historian Willetts gets the festivities started in 17th-century Japan before party-hopping through Georgian England, Jazz Age New York City, and L.A. in the 2000s, among other hot spots.
Out July 21
“Carry Me to My Grave,” Christopher Golden
How far would you go to carry out your mother’s dying wish? In “Carry Me,” Malcom must battle the demons of his mother’s past, literally, to return her body to her birthplace.
“The Biggest Lie,” Joseph Kelly
Kelly examines the roots of fascism as it courses through the antebellum and Jim Crow-era South and on through 20th-century nationalism and pre-World War II Nazi sympathizers.
“The Witch Below the Dreaming Wood,” H.G. Parry
Could King Arthur save Britain from World War II? How about Nimue, the Lady of the Lake from Arthurian legends? A librarian in 1941 Wales is about to find out in this historical fantasy.
“Tin Can Coast,” Joseph Ogilvy
Ogilvy’s history explores the ocean of riches that lies off the coast of California and the myriad ways fishing, canning and commerce have affected and at times exploited the ecosystem — and the people doing the work — over the past few hundred years.
“Yellow Pine,” Claire Vaye Watkins
The acclaimed novelist follows up her previous novels, “Gold Fame Citrus” and “I Love You, But I’ve Chosen Darkness,” with a story set in the Mojave Desert in which a woman’s hard-won peace is tested after a former flame comes back into her life.
“Cool Machine,” Colson Whitehead
The two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist returns with the final installment of his Harlem trilogy, which opens up in 1981 as Ray Carney aims to balance his life as a successful furniture salesman with the criminal itch that leads him into the literal underworld of New York City.
Out July 28
“Getting Away with Murder,” Shari Lapena
In the 10th thriller from Lapena, a New York City couple seems to have it all. Then, money troubles hit, and they begin formulating a plan that might involve murder.