I’m baaack, and with more books! Earlier this week, I shared the first part of my July preview list. Were you one of the fortunate who earned ebook credits from the settlement? Time to spend that money!
Following are the titles that publish the second week of July!
The Light o
f Paris by Eleanor Brown (July 12)
Madeleine has always felt like a failure: She’s the one whose expression ruins sorority photos, the person at parties who would rather be at home reading, the old maid at the age of thirty. Spending her entire life trying to fit in has only left her looking like she has everything, but feeling like she has nothing. At first when her marriage to controlling, critical Phillip is threatened, Madeleine panics. But when she discovers a journal detailing her grandmother’s wild, romantic summer in Jazz Age Paris, she begins to wonder if there is more to life than playing by someone else’s rules.
Madeleine has always thought her grandmother was exactly like her mother, and like the woman she was supposed to be—stiff, formal, elegant, untouchable. But reading the journal introduces Madeleine to a woman she never knew: a dreamy writer who defied her staid family’s expectations and spent an exhilarating summer in Paris in 1924, writing in cafés, finding work at the American library, and falling in love with a dashing young artist. Inspired by her grandmother’s story, and floored by a long-kept secret she finds in its pages, Madeleine begins to create her own Parisian summer on a visit to her mother back in her old hometown—rediscovering her love of painting, cultivating a vibrant circle of creative friends, and falling into a relationship with a down-to-earth chef who feeds her chocolate, encourages her to be true to herself, and makes her question the miserable perfection of her marriage and her life.
ELEANOR BROWN! Ahhh! I adored adored adored The Weird Sisters (so much so that I actually wrote two reviews), so when I received a review copy in the mail I did a celebrated by running through my house, book clutched to my chest, quite reminiscent of the field scene from The Sound of Music. The author, the premise, everything. I cannot wait to devour this book.
All Is Not Forgotten: A Novel by Wendy Walker (July 12)
In the small, affluent town of Fairview, Connecticut, everything seems picture perfect.
Until one night when young Jenny Kramer is attacked at a local party. In the hours immediately after, she is given a controversial drug to medically erase her memory of the violent assault. But, in the weeks and months that follow, as she heals from her physical wounds, and with no factual recall of the attack, Jenny struggles with her raging emotional memory. Her father, Tom, becomes obsessed with his inability to find her attacker and seek justice while her mother, Charlotte, prefers to pretend this horrific event did not touch her perfect country club world.
As they seek help for their daughter, the fault lines within their marriage and their close-knit community emerge from the shadows where they have been hidden for years, and the relentless quest to find the monster who invaded their town – or perhaps lives among them – drive this psychological thriller to a shocking and unexpected conclusion.
This book just recently showed up in the mail and I can’t wait to start reading. Comparisons to Gone Girl aside, this sounds like a phenomenal premise. Also, it’s already been optioned for film. This is going to be a big book!
Everything I Don’t Remember by Jonas Hassen Khemiri (July 12):
A young man named Samuel dies in a horrible car crash. Was it an accident or was it suicide? To answer that question, an unnamed writer with an agenda of his own sets out to map Samuel’s last day alive. Through conversations with friends, relatives, and neighbors, a portrait of Samuel emerges: the loving grandchild, the reluctant bureaucrat, the loyal friend, the contrived poseur. The young man who did everything for his girlfriend Laide and shared everything with his best friend Vandad. Until he lost touch with them both.
By piecing together an exhilarating narrative puzzle, we follow Samuel from the first day he encounters the towering Vandad to when they become roommates. We meet Panther, Samuel’s self-involved childhood friend whose move to Berlin indirectly cues the beginning of Samuel’s search for the meaning of love—which in turn leads Samuel to Laide. Soon, Samuel’s relationship with Laide leads to a chasm in his friendship with Vandad, and it isn’t long before the lines between loyalty and betrayal, protection, and peril get blurred irrevocably.
Everything I Don’t Remember is a gripping tale about love and memory. But it is also a story about a writer who, by filling out the contours of Samuel’s story, is actually trying to grasp a truth about himself. In the end, what remains of all our fleeting memories? And what is hidden behind everything we don’t remember? Told with Khemiri’s characteristic stylistic ingenuity, this is an emotional roller coaster ride of a book that challenges us to see ourselves—and our relationships to the closest people in our lives—in new and sometimes shocking ways.
What a premise, right? This has been compared to Serial. I think it will do quite fine on its own merit!
Life Debt: Aftermath by Chuck Wendig (July 12):
Set between the events of Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens, the never-before-told story that began with Star Wars: Aftermath continues in this thrilling novel, the second book of Chuck Wendig’s New York Times bestselling trilogy.
It is a dark time for the Empire. . . .
The Emperor is dead, and the remnants of his former Empire are in retreat. As the New Republic fights to restore a lasting peace to the galaxy, some dare to imagine new beginnings and new destinies. For Han Solo, that means settling his last outstanding debt, by helping Chewbacca liberate the Wookiee’s homeworld of Kashyyyk.
Meanwhile, Norra Wexley and her band of Imperial hunters pursue Grand Admiral Rae Sloane and the Empire’s remaining leadership across the galaxy. Even as more and more officers are brought to justice, Sloane continues to elude the New Republic, and Norra fears Sloane may be searching for a means to save the crumbling Empire from oblivion. But the hunt for Sloane is cut short when Norra receives an urgent request from Princess Leia Organa. The attempt to liberate Kashyyyk has carried Han Solo, Chewbacca, and a band of smugglers into an ambush—resulting in Chewie’s capture and Han’s disappearance.
Breaking away from their official mission and racing toward the Millennium Falcon’s last known location, Norra and her crew prepare for any challenge that stands between them and their missing comrades. But they can’t anticipate the true depth of the danger that awaits them—or the ruthlessness of the enemy drawing them into his crosshairs.
My teen son and I are fighting over who gets to read this one first. I think we may need to get a second copy!
The Trouble with Goats and Sheep by Joanna Cannon (July 12)
England, 1976. Mrs. Creasy is missing and the Avenue is alive with whispers. The neighbors blame her sudden disappearance on the heat wave, but ten-year-olds Grace and Tilly aren’t convinced. As the summer shimmers endlessly on, the girls decide to take matters into their own hands. Inspired by the local vicar, they go looking for God—they believe that if they find Him they might also find Mrs. Creasy and bring her home.
Spunky, spirited Grace and quiet, thoughtful Tilly go door to door in search of clues. The cul-de-sac starts to give up its secrets, and the amateur detectives uncover much more than ever imagined. As they try to make sense of what they’ve seen and heard, a complicated history of deception begins to emerge. Everyone on the Avenue has something to hide, a reason for not fitting in.
In the suffocating heat of the summer, the ability to guard these differences becomes impossible. Along with the parched lawns and the melting pavement, the lives of all the neighbors begin to unravel. What the girls don’t realize is that the lies told to conceal what happened one fateful day about a decade ago are the same ones Mrs. Creasy was beginning to peel back just before she disappeared.
I just love the premise of this one! Two young, inquisitive girls embarking on an investigation. It sounds like something I would have done at their age. Coming of age meets mystery? I’m sold.
Baby Doll by Hollie Overton (July 12):
Escape was just the beginning.
Held captive for eight years, Lily has grown from a teenager to an adult in a small basement prison. Her daughter Sky has been a captive her whole life. But one day their captor leaves the deadbolt unlocked.
The Last One by Alexandra Oliva (July 12):
She wanted an adventure. She never imagined it would go this far.
It begins with a reality TV show. Twelve contestants are sent into the woods to face challenges that will test the limits of endurance. While they are out there, something terrible happens—but how widespread is the destruction, and has it occurred naturally or is it man-made? Cut off from society, the contestants know nothing of it. When one of them—a young woman the show’s producers call Zoo—stumbles across the devastation, she can imagine only that it is part of the game.
Alone and disoriented, Zoo is heavy with doubt regarding the life—and husband—she left behind, but she refuses to quit. Staggering countless miles across unfamiliar territory, Zoo must summon all of her survival skills—and learn new ones as she goes.
But as her emotional and physical reserves dwindle, she grasps that the real world might have been altered in terrifying ways—and her ability to parse the charade will either be her triumph or her undoing.
Sophisticated and provocative, harrowing and surprising, The Last One is a novel that forces us to confront the role that media plays in our perception of what is real—how readily we cast our judgments, and how easily we are manipulated.
Chilling right? My interest is piqued; I can’t wait to get this one!
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