A Basic Guide to July Releases

Early thoughts on 4 releases as well as 40+ books on my radar.

Jun 27, 2025

Hello friends!

A new month means NEW BOOKS! Yippee!!

As per usual, I bring you a handful of releases that I’ve pre-read for you. I leaned into nonfiction and a couple of these even made my nonfiction summer reading guide. I share some basic thoughts on each, helping you decide whether you might want to prioritize them. The rest of the books are divided by publishing date so you can track when they hit shelves.

I, of course hope that you find a handful that get you pumped up for the month ahead.

Let me know what books are at the TIP TOP of your book stack for July.

Happy Reading!

Nice Girls Don't Win: How I Burned It All Down to Claim My Power by Parvati Shallow

REALITY TV STAR, LEGEND AND ICON of Survivor, Traitors + Deal or No Deal Island is here to tell us who she really is.

I first met Parv (we’re obviously good friends) on my all time favorite reality tv show, Traitors. WATCH IT! It’s so good.

This was an immediate audiobook download for me the minute it became available. Often times we see these reality stars on tv and we wonder if it’s a persona. I knew there had to be more to Parvati and indeed there is.

She recounts her childhood in a commune and her parents escape from the cult, the grief over the lost of her brother, her difficult divorce and of course her time on REALITY tv.

She searches for love and takes us along in her healing journey.

I’ll continue to root for Parv in life and on tv.

A bold, eye-opening memoir about survival, trauma, and healing from one of reality television’s most talked-about stars

At twenty-five years old, Parvati Shallow was plunged into fame and fortune after becoming the $1 million winner of the reality television series Survivor. But despite her success, the ghosts of her traumatic past, coupled with the harsh glare of the public eye, kept her locked in a survival cycle of fear and shame that sabotaged her self-confidence and eroded her self-trust. It wasn’t until a series of painful life events, including the death of her younger brother and a challenging divorce, that she found herself on a path of healing that would awaken her to her true power and reset the course of her life.

In Nice Girls Don’t Win Shallow shares the stories that allowed her to transform her most difficult moments into powerful catalysts for empowerment. From her childhood growing up in a Florida commune run by a tyrannical female guru, to her journey out of the South and inside the L.A. casting rooms that would eventually drop her into the lush but brutal landscapes of Survivor, Shallow shows readers what it took to build herself into the ultimate survivor—for better, and more often, for worse. And then she reveals what it took rebuild herself into something much greater.

As harrowing as it is healing, Shallow’s story is a testament to the profound lessons that can be found in radical self-acceptance and self-love.

You Wanna Be on Top?: A Memoir of Makeovers, Manipulation, and Not Becoming America's Next Top Model by Sarah Hartshorne

I've been waiting for someone to spill the tea on ANTM for YEARS!! Sarah brings it! She brings the wit, the honesty, the self-awareness and attention to the mess that reality tv IS.

ANTM exhibited such toxic cult like behavior and Hartshorne exposes the show for what it was. You’ll find her reference favorite authors including Amanda Montell (Cultish) and Emily Nussbaum (Cue the Sun).

I remember Sarah well from her season and loved that she was finally ready to share her experience. It was truly a behind the scenes account. A trip down memory lane for sure.

The 7.5 hours on audiobook FLEW by and I thought Sarah was so entertaining!

Sarah Hartshorne would have never guessed that her first foray into modeling would start with being blindfolded alongside three dozen other girls on a charter bus winding through Puerto Rico. In You Wanna Be On Top?, Cycle 9’s only plus-size contestant takes us into the heart of the unforgiving auditions; the labyrinthian cruise ship the girls weren’t allowed to enjoy; and, of course, the L.A. “Model House” teeming with hidden cameras and elaborately constructed tensions. As the season unfolds and the producers’ interview questions about her weight and her opinions of the other girls become increasingly pointed, Hartshorne uncovers the destabilizing methods employed to film “reality.”
Tyra Banks’s America’s Next Top Model was a cultural phenomenon with over six million weekly viewers at its peak. Over its fifteen-year run, the show captured the glitz of the early aughts as well as its most toxic attitudes—from the glamorous but often questionable photo shoots to the cutting feedback from its highly respected if out-of-touch judges. Watching ANTM now, it feels impossible to imagine a show like this airing today, and as its fans have grown up, they’ve also begun to reckon with the enduring ways that the show has affected their body image and self-esteem.
Drawing on her experience as well as interviews with other contestants and production crew, Hartshorne answers the questions you always wanted to ask: Why didn’t the house have a microwave or a dishwasher? Why did girls regularly faint during eliminations? Which judge was the meanest off-camera? Why is it that the girls had their most meaningful conversations in closets? (Answer: It was the one place camera crews couldn’t fit.)
With tender honesty and sharp wit, Hartshorne dissects the iconic show with an unflinching gaze that refuses to smize.

Finding Grace by Loretta Rothschild

The one where the synopsis gives NOTHING away.

I went in blind and honestly even those who read the synopsis will be in shock quickly after starting this novel.

While it surprised me early on and I binged the audio over two days of floating in my pool, I found myself a bit frustrated with the characters and storyline progression.

This is a very character driven story and a narrative choice the author made was unique. I’m not sure it worked for me as it felt a tad removed.

I finished the book wondering why I didn’t feel more. I think the author intentionally wants to leave the emotions up to the reader. Unfortunately that left me detached.

A twisty, gripping novel that wraps around a deeply moving love story, from an electric new voice in upmarket women’s fiction.
Honor seems to have everything: she adores her bright and beautiful daughter, Chloe, and her charming, handsome husband, Tom, even if he works one hundred hours a week. Yet Honor’s 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 never 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?
Blending a page-turning moral dilemma with satisfying emotional poignancy, Finding Grace is a sweeping love story that explores the price of a new beginning, how the ghosts of our past shape our future, and whether redemption can be found in the wreckage of what we've lost.

A Marriage At Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck by Sophie Elmhirst

Odd couple, Maurice and Maralyn, dream of setting off on a grand adventure and getting away from it all. For five years they research and prepare to set sail.

This listening experience started off a little shaky for me for a couple of reasons. We’re getting background on the couple and the narrator’s accent took some getting used to.

Luckily by the time I got in a groove we got to the BIG EVENT. This story of SURVIVAL will have you in its grip. Would you survive 117 days at sea in a tiny rubber raft? A marriage is put to the ultimate test. I’m 100% positive I would not have survived.

Although this story of survival had me hooked while the couple was lost at sea, it did begin to fizzle out a bit at the end.

Nonetheless it was a quick listen that I think will appeal to readers that don’t gravitate towards nonfiction.

The electrifying true story of a young couple shipwrecked at sea: a mind-blowing tale of obsession, survival, and partnership stretched to its limits.
Maurice and Maralyn make an odd couple. He’s a loner, awkward and obsessive; she’s charismatic and ambitious. But they share a horror of wasting their lives. And they dream – as we all dream – of running away from it all. What if they quit their jobs, sold their house, bought a boat, and sailed away?
Most of us begin and end with the daydream. But Maurice began to study nautical navigation. Maralyn made detailed lists of provisions. And in June 1972, they set sail. For nearly a year all went well, until deep in the Pacific, a breaching whale knocked a hole in their boat and it sank beneath the waves.
What ensues is a jaw-dropping fight to survive in the wild ocean, with little hope of rescue. Alone together for months in a tiny rubber raft, starving and exhausted, Maurice and Maralyn have to find not only ways to stay alive but ways to get along, as their inner demons emerge and their marriage is put to the greatest of tests. Although they could run away from the world, they can’t run away from themselves.
Taut, propulsive, and dazzling, A Marriage at Sea pairs an adrenaline-fueled high seas adventure with a gutting love story that asks why we love difficult people, and who we become under the most extreme conditions imaginable.

Runner 13 by Amy McCulloch ***Currently reading***

An exhilarating thriller set against a 250-mile foot race in the Sahara Desert, where more than one ultramarathoner will be running for their lives.

The Art of Vanishing by Morgan Pager

A stunningly original love story between a museum employee and the man in a masterpiece hanging on the walls—a breathtaking debut about time, art, and the enduring power of love.

Let's Make A Scene by Laura Wood

The companion novel to Laura Wood’s “excellent, unputdownable adult debut” (Library Journal, starred review) Under Your Spell follows Theo Eliott’s best friend Cynthie Taylor as she’s pulled back into a fake PR relationship with Jack Turner-Jones, the one costar she swore she’d never work with again.

Our Last Vineyard Summer by Brooke Lea Foster

From the “great storyteller” (Natalie Jenner, author of The Jane Austen Society) Brooke Lea Foster, a captivating new novel set in 1965 and 1978 about a graduate student who returns with her sisters to their family’s summer home on Martha’s Vineyard and begins to unravel old family secrets.

The Satisfaction Cafe by Kathy Wang

How do we live so that we are satisfied? How can people connect during moments of loneliness? This is the story of Joan Liang, a woman who moves across the world to America, and in trying to answer these questions builds a wildly original life.

How Freaking Romantic by Emily Harding

In this sharply funny solo debut, an aspiring lawyer is forced to work alongside the opposing counsel in her best friend’s divorce case, which leads to the biggest irreconcilable difference of all: love.

A Mother Always Knows by Sarah Strohmeyer

The beloved, award-winning author of Do I Know You? and We Love To Entertain returns with an electrifying novel of psychological suspense that explores the way our pasts shape our futures in so many unexpected ways.

The White Crow by Michael Robotham

Ambitious young London police officer Philomena McCarthy returns in this propulsive thriller by the author of When You Are Mine.

All The Words We Know by Bruce Nash

With wicked humor, genuine poignancy, and clever insight, this is an unforgettable novel about murder, secrets, and memory that is perfect for fans of Richard Osman and Fredrik Backman, and “will be loved by readers wanting to have their heart strings plucked” (The Guardian).

The Woman in Suite 11 by Ruth Ware

In this follow-up to #1 New York Times bestselling author Ruth Ware’s multi-million copy mega-hit The Woman in Cabin 10, Lo Blacklock returns to attend the opening of a luxury hotel, only to find herself in a white-knuckled race across Europe.

Our Last Resort by Clemence Michallon

From the bestselling author of The Quiet Tenant comes a propulsive new thriller: Fifteen years ago, Frida and her brother escaped a cult. Now her brother is the prime suspect in a murder investigation—and it isn’t the first time.

Vera, or Faith by Gary Shteyngart

A poignant, sharp-eyed, and bitterly funny tale of a family struggling to stay together in a country rapidly coming apart, told through the eyes of their wondrous ten-year-old daughter, by the bestselling author of Super Sad True Love Story and Our Country Friends

Night Watcher by Daphne Woolsoncroft

In what Jeneva Rose declares a "chilling and atmospheric" tale, Nola Strate, a late night radio host in Portland, Oregon, listens to stories of hauntings and cryptic sightings for a living. But one foggy evening, a caller describes an eerie scene that triggers memories of Nola's childhood escape from a serial killer, and she fears he's back to finish what he started.

The Frozen People by Elly Griffiths

Some murders can’t be solved in just one lifetime.
Ali Dawson and her cold case team investigate crimes so old, they're frozen—or so their inside joke goes. Nobody knows that her team has a secret: they can travel back in time to look for evidence.

All the Men I've Loved Before by Christine Pride

From Christine Pride, the beloved coauthor of the Good Morning America Book Club Pick We Are Not Like Them, comes a dazzling solo debut novel about a woman who finds herself in the impossible situation of being in love with the same two men who won her heart in her early twenties again as she nears forty.

Slanting Towards The Sea by Lidija Hilje

Spanning twenty years and one life-altering summer in Croatia, Slanting Towards the Sea is at once an unforgettable love story and a powerful exploration of what it means to come of age in a country younger than oneself.

Bitter Sweet by Hattie Williams

A young book publicist finds herself in an all-consuming workplace affair with her literary idol in this “very impressive debut” (Chris Whitaker, New York Times bestselling author of All the Colors of the Dark).
Sometimes the things you love most are the very things that can tear you apart.

Mailman: My Wild Ride Delivering the Mail in Appalachia and Finally Finding Home by Stephen Starring Grant

An exuberant, hilarious, and profound memoir by a mailman in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, who found that working for the post office saved his life, taught him who he was, gave him purpose, and educated him deeply about a country he loves but had lost touch with.

Culpability by Bruce Holsinger ***Currently reading***

From the bestselling author of the "wise and addictive" (New York Times) The Gifted School comes a riveting family drama, set at a summer rental on the Chesapeake Bay, about moral responsibility in the age of artificial intelligence.

Everyone is Lying To You by Jo Piazza

The #tradwife murder mystery we’ve all been waiting for. From the bestselling author of The Sicilian Inheritance and the creator of the Under the Influence podcast comes an explosive thriller about two estranged friends, a grisly murder, a sudden disappearance, and the truly shocking revelation that everyone is lying to you about something . . .

The Other Wife by Jackie Thomas Kennedy

A big-hearted novel of nostalgia and longing, and a poignant exploration of how we choose to love.

Until Alison by Kate Russo

The night Alison was murdered, Rachel could have stopped it.

Matchmaking for Psychopaths by Tasha Coryell

Love is a dangerous game when your clients are killers…from the bestselling author behind Love Letters to a Serial Killer.

My Train Leaves at Three by Natalie Guerrero

By a striking new voice in fiction, an electric coming-of-age novel that explores grief, family, sexuality, and love as an ambitious young woman from Washington Heights tries to make it on Broadway

Her Many Faces by Nicci Cloke

When four influential members are poisoned at London’s most exclusive private club, a young waitress is charged with their murder. Her personal life and upbringing are dissected, and five men begin to question how well they really knew her.
FIVE MEN. FIVE STORIES. BUT ARE THEY READY FOR HERS?

The Greatest Possible Good by Ben Brooks

For readers of Paul Murray’s The Bee Sting and Jenny Jackson’s Pineapple Street, an irresistibly funny and incisive novel about a wealthy family that is confident in its good intentions—until the discovery that their patriarch has secretly given all their money to charity ruins their lives.

The Idaho Four: An American Tragedy by James Patterson and Vicky Ward

The murders of four innocent college students attending the University of Idaho left us all with so many questions.
Now, after more than 300 interviews, James Patterson and prize-winning journalist Vicky Ward finally have some answers.

Dead of Summer by Jessa Maxwell

Years after her best friend mysteriously disappeared from a remote New England island, a young woman returns in search of answers in this atmospheric and scintillating thriller from Jessa Maxwell, nationally bestselling author of the “deliciously entertaining” (Sarah Penner, New York Times bestselling author) The Golden Spoon.

Pan by Michael Clune

A strange and brilliant teenager's first panic attacks lead him down the rabbit hole in this wild, highly anticipated debut novel from one of our most distinctive literary minds.

The Confessions Paul Bradley Carr

A high-octane and “hugely entertaining” (Chris Pavone, New York Times bestselling author) thriller about a supercomputer and the secrets we keep from one another—perfect for fans of Blake Crouch, Harlan Coben, and Gillian Flynn.

Millions of letters arrive in the mail.
Murders are uncovered, affairs revealed, family secrets exposed.
These are the first Confessions.
This is our last chance.

That Last Carolina Summer by Karen White

Beloved bestselling author Karen White returns with a captivating Southern drama about sisterhood, secrets and one woman's reckoning with the past.

Maggie; Or, A Man and A Woman Walk Into A Bar by Katie Yee

A Chinese American woman spins tragedy into comedy when her life falls apart in a taut, wry debut novel that grapples with grief, motherhood, and myths—perfect for fans of Joan Is Okay and Crying in H Mart.

Love You To Death by Christina Dotson

When two best friends’ hobby of crashing weddings takes a deadly turn, they’re forced to embark on a road trip of survival in this addictive thriller.

She Didn't See It Coming by Shari Lapena

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?

You Belong Here by Megan Miranda

Memories fade, but on this campus, legacies are never forgotten…or forgiven. A new thriller from New York Times bestselling author Megan Miranda.

Guess Again by Charlie Donlea

On the 10th anniversary of a teenage girl’s disappearance, her cold case breaks open in dangerous ways…and threatens to tear apart her small Wisconsin town all over again in the masterfully twisty new psychological suspense novel from the internationally bestselling author of Twenty Years Later.

The Lies They Told by Ellen Marie Wiseman

In rural 1930s Virginia, a young immigrant mother fights for her dignity and those she loves against America’s rising eugenics movement – when widespread support for policies of prejudice drove imprisonment and forced sterilizations based on class, race, disability, education, and country of origin – in this tragic and uplifting novel of social injustice, survival, and hope for readers of Susan Meissner, Kristin Hannah, and Christina Baker Kline.

Scarred: A Memoir of a Childhood Stolen and a Life Reclaimed by Clark Fredericks

A memoir of trauma and transformation by a man who was haunted by childhood abuse but who fought his way back—a journey from vengeance and prison to freedom and redemption.

Mean Moms by Emma Rosenblum

Spanning the course of one eventful school year in New York, Mean Moms is part satire of upper-crust mom-ing and part mystery, interrogating the line between friendship and jealousy, and getting at the question:
What would happen if the woman standing next to you at school pickup was actually a sociopath?

Love Forms by Claire Adam

A heart-stirring novel about a mother’s love, in all its forms, as a woman searches for the daughter she gave up for adoption, from the prize-winning author of Golden Child.

Angel Down by Daniel Kraus

The critically acclaimed author of the “crazily enjoyable” (The New York Times) Whalefall returns with an immersive, cinematic novel about five World War I soldiers who stumble upon a fallen angel that could hold the key to ending the war.

The Carpool Detectives: A True Story of Four Moms, Two Bodies, and One Mysterious Cold Case by Chuck Hogan