Each and every month, a whole new batch of books get released into the world. It’s awesome, but it can be overwhelming too. We’ve combed through the new releases to make a short and sweet list of the titles we are most excited about so you don’t have to! Try one of these fresh new titles, coming out in July 2025.
Fiction:
Our Last Vineyard Summer by Brooke Lea Foster
Release Date: July 1
After suffering through her first year of graduate school at Columbia following her senator father’s death, Betsy Whiting is hoping to spend the summer with her boyfriend…and hopefully end the summer as his fiancée. Instead, her mother—a longtime feminist and leader in the women’s movement—calls Betsy and her sisters back home to Martha’s Vineyard, announcing that they need to sell their beloved summer house to pay off their father’s debts.
When Betsy arrives on the island a week later, she must reckon with her strained familial relationships, a long-ago forbidden romance, and the complicated legacy of her parents, who divided the family even as they did good for the world.
Following a dual timeline between 1965 and 1978, and filled with the vibrant, sunlit nostalgia of the cherished New England vacation setting, Our Last Vineyard Summer poignantly captures two generations of women navigating love, loss, and womanhood while trying to find the courage to stand up for what they believe in—and the strength to decide if the home they once loved is worth saving.
These Summer Storms by Sarah MacLean
Release Date: July 8
Alice Storm hasn’t been welcome at her family’s magnificent private island off the Rhode Island coast in five years—not since she was cast out and built her life beyond the Storm name, influence, and untold billions. But the shocking death of her larger-than-life father changes everything.
Alice plans to keep her head down, pay her final respects (such as they are), and leave the minute the funeral is over. Unfortunately, her father had other plans. The eccentric, manipulative patriarch left his family a final challenge—an inheritance game designed to upend their world. The rules are clear: spend one week on the island, complete their assigned tasks, and receive the inheritance.
But a whole week on Storm Island is no easy task for Alice. Every corner of the sprawling old house is bursting with chaos: Her older sister’s secret love affair. Her brother’s unyielding arrogance. Her younger sister’s constant analysis of the vibes. Her mother’s cold judgment. And all under the stern, watchful gaze of Jack Dean, her father’s intriguing and too-handsome second-in-command. It will be a miracle if Alice manages to escape unscathed.
A smart and tender story about the transformative power of grief, love, and family, this luscious novel explores past secrets, present truths, and futures forged in the wake of wild summer storms.
Wayward Girls by Susan Wiggs
Release Date: July 15
It was a place frozen in time, an ancient fortress haunted by echoes that whispered against the gray stone in a mysterious, heavy rhythm, as though this place was entirely separate from the rest of the world. A sign by the inner door read Our Lady of Charity Refuge and Sisters of the Good Shepherd.
Mairin’s breath caught in her throat as comprehension crept over her. This place was the one mentioned in scandalized whispers from the older girls at school. It was the one people gossiped about when a girl suddenly stopped showing up to class. It was the place angry parents—like her own mother—threatened their daughters “I’ll send you to the nuns, just you see if I won’t.”
Amid the turbulence of the Vietnam Era, in the all-American city of Buffalo, New York, teenage girls were condemned to forced labor at the Good Shepherd, a dark and secret institution controlled by the Sisters of Charity nuns.
In 1968 we meet six teens thrust into confinement at the Good Shepherd—merely for being gay, pregnant, or simply unruly.
Mairin— free-spirited daughter of Irish immigrants was committed to keep her safe from her stepfather.
Angela—denounced for her attraction to girls, was sent to the nuns for reform, but instead found herself the victim of a predator.
Helen—the daughter of intellectuals detained in Communist China, saw her “temporary” stay at the Good Shepherd stretch into years.
Odessa—caught up in a police dragnet over a racial incident, found the physical and mental toughness to endure her sentence.
Denise—sentenced for brawling in a foster home, dared to dream of a better life.
Janice—deeply insecure, she couldn’t decide where her loyalty lay—except when it came to her friend Kay, who would never outgrow her childlike dependency.
Sister Bernadette—rescued from a dreadful childhood, she owed her loyalty to the Sisters of Charity even as her conscience weighed on her.
Wayward Girls is a haunting but thrilling tale of hope, solidarity, and the enduring strength of young women who find the courage to break free and find redemption…and justice.
Mystery/Thriller:
Can You Solve the Murder? By Antony Johnston
Release Date: July 1
Step into the shoes of a detective and investigate the most mysterious crime of your career.
There’s been a murder at Elysium, a wellness retreat set in an English country manor. You arrive to find the body of a local businessman on the lawn—with a rose placed in his mouth. It appears he was stabbed with a gardening fork and fell to his death from the balcony above. But that balcony can be accessed only through a locked door, the key is missing and everyone in Elysium is now a suspect.
Gather the evidence and examine the clues. Choose who to interview next, and who to accuse as your prime suspect. But remember that every decision you make has consequences—and some of them will prove fatal . . .
Do you have what it takes? Can YOU solve the murder?
The Woman in Suite 11 by Ruth Ware
Release Date: July 8
When the invitation to attend the press opening of a luxury Swiss hotel—owned by reclusive billionaire Marcus Leidmann—arrives, it’s like the answer to a prayer. Three years after the birth of her youngest child, Lo Blacklock is ready to reestablish her journalism career, but post-pandemic travel journalism is a very different landscape from the one she left ten years ago.
The chateau on the shores of Lake Geneva is everything Lo’s ever dreamed of, and she hopes she can snag an interview with Marcus. Unfortunately, he proves to be even more difficult to pin down than his reputation suggests. When Lo gets a late-night call asking her to come to Marcus’s hotel room, she agrees despite her own misgivings. She’s greeted, however, by a woman claiming to be Marcus’s mistress, and in life-or-death jeopardy.
What follows is a thrilling cat-and-mouse pursuit across Europe, forcing Lo to ask herself just how much she’s willing to sacrifice to save this woman…and if she can even trust her?
Asylum Hotel by Juliet Blackwell
Release Date: July 29
Aubrey Spencer loves photographing classic old buildings and abandoned places that hold old secrets. The Hotel Seabrink, perched overlooking the sea, is one such place. Currently abandoned but scheduled for a major renovation, it has a torrid history. Back in the 1920s it hosted A-list celebrity clientele, and now the locals insist it is haunted by the ghosts of two young women who died there. When Aubrey goes to photograph the site before the renovation begins, she bumps into a man named Dimitri Petroff, a minor online celebrity who shares her fascination with old buildings, the Hotel Seabrink in particular.
When he is found dead the next day at the base of a cliff, the police are quick to close the investigation. But Aubrey feels unsettled by locals who claim he was murdered and that it’s not the first time someone interested in the hotel was killed. As she digs deeper into the property’s dark history (and its origins as an asylum) as well as Dimitri’s professional rivalries, she becomes mired in an unsolved murder case from several decades earlier, one with eerie parallels to the contemporary case. But someone is determined to keep her from discovering the truth—at any cost.
Fantasy/Sci-Fi:
The Curse that Binds by Laura Thalassa
Release Date: July 1
A queen destined for magic. A king cursed by love. A fate no one could outrun.
Before Selene, there was Roxilana. Discover her darkly delicious origin story in this prequel to Bewitched, a complete standalone from TikTok sensation Laura Thalassa.
He called her queen―then turned her world to ash.
Two thousand years before the rise of Henbane Coven, Roxilana was just a Roman girl trying to survive the shadows of empire. Until the day a voice begins speaking inside her head.
That voice belongs to Memnon, King of the Sarmatians―a warrior touched by gods, cursed by fate, and utterly convinced that Roxilana is his soul mate.
When Roxilana’s latent powers awaken, Memnon appears at her door with a crown in one hand and destiny in the other. Before she knows it, she’s swept away to a strange new land and named queen of a people she barely understands…and wife to a man whose love is as intense as it is terrifying.
Magic always demands a price. And as Roxilana learns the true cost of Memnon’s power, passion, and prophecy, she must decide whether to build an empire beside her cursed king…or burn it to the ground.
The Irresistible Urge to Fall for Your Enemy by Brigitte Knightley
Release Date: July 8
When Osric Mordaunt, member of the Fyren Order of assassins, falls ill, he realizes he needs the expertise of a very specific healer. As fate would have it, that healer belongs to an enemy faction, the Haelan Order.
Aurienne Fairhrim and her fellow Haelan are inundated by sick children suffering from an outbreak of a long-forgotten Pox. Unable to get the funding needed to launch an immunization program, the Haelan Order is desperate for money – so desperate that when Osric breaks into their headquarters to bribe Aurienne to heal him, she is forced to accept.
As Osric and Aurienne work together to solve not only his illness but the mysterious reoccurrence of the Pox, they find themselves ardently denying their attraction which only fuels the tension between them.
The Enchanted Greenhouse by Sarah Beth Durst
Release Date: July 15
Terlu Perna broke the law because she was lonely. She cast a spell and created a magically sentient spider plant. As punishment, she was turned into a wooden statue and tucked away into an alcove in the North Reading Room of the Great Library of Alyssium.
This should have been the end of her story . . . Yet one day, Terlu wakes in the cold of winter on a nearly-deserted island full of hundreds of magical greenhouses. She’s starving and freezing, and the only other human on the island is a grumpy gardener. To her surprise, he offers Terlu a place to sleep, clean clothes, and freshly baked honey cakes—at least until she’s ready to sail home.
But Terlu can’t return home and doesn’t want to—the greenhouses are a dream come true, each more wondrous than the next. When she learns that the magic that sustains them is failing—causing the death of everything within them—Terlu knows she must help. Even if that means breaking the law again.
This time, though, she isn’t alone. Assisted by the gardener and a sentient rose, Terlu must unravel the secrets of a long-dead sorcerer if she wants to save the island—and have a fresh chance at happiness and love.
Funny, kind, and forgiving, The Enchanted Greenhouse is a story about giving second chances—to others and to yourself.
Romance:
Only Between Us by Ellie K. Wilde
Release Date: July 8
After a death-defying injury sidelined him for two seasons, Brooks Attwood’s pro football comeback has hit a major snag. Naughty photos from a post-break-up bender have leaked, and they’re killing his chances with the Rebels—his old team, and the only one he wants to play on.
As he trains with the hope of being signed before the first kickoff of the season, Brooks’s plans to keep a low profile are suddenly upended when his selfie with a fiery fan goes viral, and tabloids mistake them as the football world’s newest It couple.
Turns out, Siena Pippen is the ex-girlfriend of the “face” of the League. And she wants nothing more to do with that world after being with her nightmare ex. While she and Brooks are busy blaming each other for the media circus surrounding them, NFL teams are suddenly scrambling to sign a housebroken Brooks. Meanwhile, Siena realizes that all this buzz could be the Hail Mary her family’s struggling business needs.
Together, Brooks and Siena hatch a plan: ignore the will to kill each other and pretend to be madly in love—at least, until Brooks signs with a team. But the longer they pretend, the less fake their fauxmance begins to feel…and Brooks becomes as determined to convince Siena they’re truly meant to be as he is to land a spot on the Rebels’ roster.
Maid for Each Other by Lynn Painter
Release Date: July 15
As a professional cleaner, Abi Mariano never thought her apartment would have any sort of infestation, but because of a building-wide outbreak, she now needs somewhere to stay for a week. As a part-time student with two jobs, she doesn’t have many options. Then the solution presents itself: the owner of the penthouse she cleans is out of town for the week. She normally wouldn’t consider it, but he’s literally never around (she hasn’t even met him). It goes great…until one morning she finds two strangers in the kitchen. They’re the parents of the penthouse owner and they seem to think they’ve heard all about Abi—not as their son’s maid, but as his girlfriend.
Declan Powell has always put his career first, working his way up to become an executive at his company, but he still has his sights set on the next level. When his parents mention that they met his girlfriend, “Abby,” he all but chokes on his escargot. As wonderful as it sounds that she was just darling, he doesn’t actually have a girlfriend—he made her up to get everyone off his back. When Dex finds out who Abi really is, he makes her a proposition: pretend to date him, and he’ll provide everything she needs during their little arrangement. What harm would it do? It’s purely business, no pleasure…right?
Hot Work by Kate Cole
Release Date: July 26
Violet Thomas has everything figured out.
Fearless and over forty, she’s been a commercial diver for almost two decades and has mastered work at dark and dangerous depths. Cutting, welding, and inspecting offshore platforms and power dams with flawless execution, there isn’t much that fazes her anymore.
Except Cooper Brooks.
Bold, bright, and larger than life, he’s full of youth and BDE (Big Diver Energy). He’s the last thing the lone female on the dive team expects to find on a derelict oil platform set for decommission.
In the high-stakes world of diving, the pressure is intense, and safety is paramount. But maybe it’s time for risk-averse Violet to take a few chances. In a place where lives and careers are so easily set adrift, will the biggest plunge she takes be one she makes with her heart?
Young Adult:
Of Flame and Fury by Mikayla Bridge
Release Date: July 15
On an island built from ash and shrouded in fire, phoenix racing is a sport just as profitable as it is deadly.
Seventeen-year-old Kel Varra and her team of underdogs, the Crimson Howlers, are desperate to win the annual races and the fortune that comes with it. But the Howlers need a new rider, which leads Kel to join forces with Warren “Coup” Coupers – an arrogant rival she can’t get out of her head.
As tensions rise on and off the track, Kel’s home is mistakenly burned down, and she’s forced to take a job from a mysterious tech mogul with an unsettling interest in her phoenix, Savita. This sets in motion a conspiracy that threatens everyone Kel cares for, especially Coup, for whom her embers of resentment are quickly igniting into something dangerously new.
Heart-pounding pages full of steamy romance, fiery confessions, political scheming, and volatile magic culminate in a final twist readers will never see coming.
Between These Broken Hearts by Lexi Ryan
Release Date: July 22
Princess Jasalyn has eleven days to live.
Jasalyn is facing the repercussions of a deadly bargain. Her life, and the future of the shadow court, are forfeit on her birthday unless she can stop the evil fae king Mordeus. She needs to face her greatest fears and find him before she runs out of time, but even after everything, Kendrick won’t let her face this alone.
Shape-shifter Felicity has vanished.
Felicity disappeared from King Misha’s dungeons, and her friends have been searching for her to no avail. But even if she’s found, Felicity will never be able to escape the oracle’s tragic prophecy for her and her family. In her lonely battle with fate, Misha is the last person she can ask to stand by her side, but the first one she’ll need.
Soul of Shadow by Emma Noyes
Release Date: July 29
Charlie Hudson just wants to get through junior year. Since the death of her twin sister two years earlier, she’s drifted through life, going through the motions at school and parties and even at home. The spark that once burned so brightly within her has all but flickered out.
Until her classmate goes missing in the forest, leaving nothing behind but a pair of shoes and strange symbols carved into a tree.
Drawn to the disappearances by forces she can’t explain, she finds herself investigating the mysterious, alluring newcomer in town, Elias Everhart. With piercing eyes and sharp wit, he dances around her questions, only intriguing her further. Elias has a secret. More than one.
But what Charlie doesn’t know is that those secrets will lead her to a place she never a world hiding in plain sight, made of magic, gods, and monsters – and a first love fated to fall apart.
In Emma Noyes’s Soul of Shadow, truths and temptations lurk in the darkness, and for Charlie, the only thing more dangerous than facing her past, is the boy with the power to change her future.
Non-fiction:
The CIA Book Club by Charlie English
Release Date: July 1
For nearly five decades after the Second World War, the Iron Curtain divided Europe, forming the longest and most heavily guarded border on earth. No physical combat would take place along this frontier: the risk of nuclear annihilation was too high for that. Instead, the war was fought psychologically. It was a battle for hearts, minds, and intellects. Few understood this more clearly than George Minden, head of a covert intelligence operation known as the “CIA book program,” which aimed to undermine Soviet censorship and inspire revolt by offering different visions of thought and culture.
From its Manhattan headquarters, Minden’s “book club” secretly sent ten million banned titles into the East. Volumes were smuggled aboard trucks and yachts, dropped from balloons, hidden aboard trains, and stowed in travelers’ luggage. Nowhere were the books welcomed more warmly than in Poland, where the texts would circulate covertly among circles of like-minded readers, quietly making the case against Soviet communism. Such was the demand for Minden’s books that dissidents began to reproduce these works in the underground. By the late 1980s, illicit literature was so pervasive in Poland that censorship broke down: the Iron Curtain soon followed.
Charlie English narrates this tale of Cold War spycraft, smuggling, and secret printing operations for the first time, highlighting the work of a handful of extraordinary people who fought for intellectual freedom—people like Mirosław Chojecki, who suffered beatings, imprisonment, and exile in pursuit of his clandestine mission. The CIA Book Club is a story about the power of the printed word as a means of resistance and liberation. Books, it shows, can set you free.
The Liberation Summer by Micki McELya
Release Date: July 1
Of the many pivotal years in United States history studied and recreated by historians, journalists, and filmmakers, 1968, in particular, is widely recognized as a major turning point in the country’s social and political trajectory. In just twelve months the US experienced the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy, the Tet Offensive and the rising intensity of the Vietnam War, the deadly riots at both the Republican and Democratic National Conventions, and the election of Richard Nixon, a president whose tenure would ultimately erode trust of government and authority to an uncomfortable degree. But these narratives usually omit another, equally important moment in the story of that unprecedented year: the summer that defined and determined the future of the women’s liberation movement, culminating in the dual protest of the Miss America and Miss Black America Pageants on the boardwalks of Atlantic City.
Now, for the first time, Liberation Summer corrects this written historical record, offering a detailed account of the months of planning, debates, and decisions that led to the demonstrations, as well as the broader social and political landscape that gave rise to some of the most iconic women on both sides of the ideological spectrum, from Betty Friedan, Carol Hanisch, and Florynce Kennedy to Anita Bryant and Phyllis Schlafly. A sweeping saga of American history and culture, Liberation Summer presents a kaleidoscopic view of our nation on the brink of change, amidst the continuing quest for justice and gender equality.
A Year With the Seals by Alix Morris
Release Date: July 15
It might be their large, strangely human eyes or their dog-like playfulness, but seals have long captured people’s interest and affection, making them the perfect candidate for an environmental cause, as well as the subject of decades of study. Alix Morris spends a year with these magnetic creatures and brings them to life on the page, season by season, as she learns about their intelligence, their relationships with each other, their ecosystems, and the changing climate.
Morris also gets to know all of the competing interests in the intense debate about the newly recovered seal populations in our coastal waters, from local fishermen whose catch is often diminished by savvy seals, to tribes who once relied on seal-hunting for food, clothing, and medicine, to seal rescue workers and biologists, to surfers and swimmers now encountering seal-hunting sharks in coastal waters. A Year with the Seals is a rare look at what happens when conservation efforts actually work, and how human tampering with ecosystems continues to have unexpected consequences. But it’s also a gripping adventure story of a journalist determined to understand seals and our relationship with them for herself.
