BP Note: Welcome to July! We are halfway through the calendar year as counted by certain parts of the world. Here we are preparing for a bank holiday usually marked by pyrokinetics, proteins and veggies cooked over charcoal or open flames, salads that really should stay refrigerated, fresh juicy fruit, frosty beverages of choice, and that unmistakable smell of bug repellent and sunscreen. If you are lucky your day will also involve immersion in a body of water, man-made or natural. Growing up in my family, we would make homemade ice cream, BBQ chicken, cut up melons, fresh lemonade, and spend the day at the park/pool while we waited for it to get dark enough for the fireworks. This year, it is blazing hot and very humid so I think we will stay cool indoors and watch the festivities on TV. This also means I get to have some significant reading time so I can’t say I am extremely disappointed. Let me know what you are looking forward to reading and as always, take care of yourself and each other.
Happy reading!
~E
- Cozy Fantasy
- Cozy Mystery
- Fantasy Romance
- Historical
- Historical Fantasy
- Paranormal Romance
- Post-apocalyptic Romance
- Science Fiction Romance
- Urban Fantasy
Contemporary Romance
The Forever Man by Stacy Gail – 1 Jul (Self)
Carly
That… man! I’ll admit, I used to crush hard on Justice Webb, owner of one of the largest dairy farms in Texas. I was just a kid when I moved to Sunrise Farm and my mama became Justice’s housekeeper. I thought he was perfect, a real forever kind of man. Then I grew up, moved out, and started my own business to show him I could make it on my own. That was when he became my enemy.Justice
Carly St. James might be the most stubborn woman alive. When I say up, she says down. When I say left, she goes right. All I want is for her to cater my Christmas party… and to come back to Sunrise. If only I had some way of figuring out what’s going on in that beautiful head of hers, I’d be able to talk her into anything. Even my bed.
Most Ardently Yours by Freya Sampson – 7 Jul (Sourcebooks Landmark)
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single woman in possession of many romance novels, must be in want of a book boyfriend.”
Zoe Knight, a struggling romance writer, has sworn off men for good. At least…the ones in real life. Once a believer in a happily ever after, she now curbs her loneliness with the help of the best book boyfriends in literature – and there is no better man than Jane Austen’s Mr. Darcy. So when she stumbles into a classic London bookshop and argues with the annoyingly attractive store owner, Nick, who refuses to sell romance novels, she decides to liberate him of a dusty copy of Pride & Prejudice abandoned on a top shelf.
But this is no ordinary book.
After reading from the pages, Zoe finds herself in a remarkable situation: she has accidentally summoned the Mr. Darcy to the real world. Now, she’s face-to-face with the man she’s loved forever, and he’s everything she dreamed he would be. Handsome? Check. Brooding? Check. Talks like he swallowed a thesaurus? Check and check. But even in all his regency perfection, can he ever be as good as in the novel? And if he’s here, in her London apartment trying to figure out how to work a shower , what will happen to the literary world he came from? With Nick—the last man she could ever be prevailed upon to work with—urging her to send the fictional Darcy back to his own story, Zoe will have to decide what she really wants from a happy ending, before it’s too late.
Vera Stein is Fine by Julie Murphy – 21 Jul (Avon)
Welcome to Starlight Palms, a favorite retirement facility among Hollywood actors and industry professionals tucked away just outside of sunny Palm Springs. Filled with forgotten scream queens, eccentric screenwriters, and heartthrobs of the past, it has a brand-new resident: Vera Stein, age forty.
Vera knows she’s missed her chance at a life worthy of the silver screen, just like she missed her chance at ever finding true love. But Vera isn’t one to take chances. She’s spent most of her adult years caretaking for her dying mother and her movie star boss’s ego. Now abruptly houseless and jobless, Vera has nowhere to land, so to grandmother’s house we go!
The Starlight Palms Senior Living Center is midcentury Hollywood down to its pastel-painted bones. This desert gem isn’t lacking in saucy plot twists (swinging seniors, anyone?) or a leading man: Elias Buckley, the on-site doctor and Vera’s former ill-fated college fling and—for reasons that will stay in Vegas—legally her ex-husband according to the state of Nevada.
It’s not long before Vera falls into a job as the activities coordinator and under the spell of a certain smart-mouthed doctor… Suddenly all those empty years in LA look less like mistakes and a lot more like backstory. With a fresh start at her fingertips, Vera begins to see that even with all the detours she’s taken, there’s still a Hollywood ending (and maybe even a happily ever after) in sight…
Cozy Fantasy
Fates & Family (MEOW: Magical Emporium of Wares #3) by Toni Binns – 7 Jul (Self)
Welcome to the Magical Emporium of Wares, a bookshop that appears only to those who need to find it.
Sable’s life is colliding in strange ways. As the steady heart of the Magical Emporium of Wares, she thought she’d finally mastered the art of brewing magical lattes and managing interdimensional foot traffic. But as the shop’s foundations begin to hum with a restless energy, the role of Shopkeeper and the long-buried secrets surrounding her own family are finally coming to light.
They say gifts shouldn’t come with strings attached, but what about ripples through fate? In a rare moment of vulnerability, the Cat offers Sable a selfless a gesture of kindness that should have been a blessing. Instead, it triggers a cascade of unintended consequences, leading them both down roads better left untraveled.
Every decision pulls on the silver threads that tie the Cat to the shop, and the shop to a tree older than memory. The roots are deep, the magic is binding, and the clock is ticking. If Sable can’t find a way to untangle the knots of the past and free the Cat, he may be bound to the shop, and his feline form, forever.
As the Emporium’s floorboards tremble and ancient powers stir, it all comes down to a single is the Cat capable of trusting Sable? Or will his own stubbornness be the downfall of them all?
The Unwalked Routes of the Hearthkeeper (Enchanted Post #3) by Paula Lester – 10 Jul (Self)
Some routes aren’t on any map.
One year ago, Phoenix Firebolt stepped off a train into the enchanted village of Mosshollow and found a home she didn’t know she’d been missing. Now, on the anniversary of her arrival, she discovers something her mother left a ledger of postal routes that haven’t been walked in forty years. Houses forgotten. Neighbors gone quiet. Letters that were never delivered because no one came to the door.
Phoenix decides to reopen them, one route at a time.
What she finds along the way is stranger and sweeter than she a recluse who hasn’t spoken to the village in decades, a cottage that remembers her grandmother, and a letter that has been waiting on a doorstep for longer than Phoenix has been alive.
She is the Hearthkeeper now. And some of the most important letters are the ones that have been waiting the longest to be delivered.
The Dragon Has Some Complaints by John Wiswell – 14 Jul (DAW)
Garrodigh was once a four-headed dragon, among the most powerful in Kardoša. After an unfortunate incident, he now has three heads, one stump, and a daily whirlwind of internal bickering. Centerhead wants to rain death upon all humanity, Bottomhead is like a feral cat, and Upperhead is under the delicate delusion that he is, in fact, human.
When a nearby battle goes awry, Garrodigh sneaks into an elite dragon rider academy, pretending to be tame to get free food and a warm bed. Lucky for him, rider Rania Albright is desperate enough for a dragon of her own that she overlooks his eccentricities.
As Garrodigh recovers under Rania’s care, all three heads start to turn, for the first time, in the same direction. Each wants to protect her from the invaders who killed their fourth head—the same invaders who seek to conquer Kardoša. When the academy comes under attack, can this wild dragon and his wilder rider save their homeland together?
Cozy Mystery
You Had Me at Bigfoot (Daphne Drew Mystery #1) by Nancy Campbell Allen – 7 Jul (Shadow Mountain)
Rookie investigative journalist Daphne Drew is finally on assignment—though it’s not exactly the hard-hitting story she imagined. Sent to cover a high-society wedding at an opulent Pacific Northwest lodge, Daphne expects floral arrangements and champagne flutes, not whispered rumors of a missing maid . . . or reports of Bigfoot sightings.
She’s not alone. Tagging along is Clark Finklestine-Henry, a decorated war photographer with a haunted past—and a camera sharp enough to catch more than just candid reception shots. Together with their loyal dogs, Daphne and Clark begin to suspect something much darker is lurking in the forested shadows of the hotel grounds.
As wedding guests arrive and tension simmers beneath the surface, Daphne and Clark uncover a tangled web of lies, legends, and lost fortune—one that ties the vanished maid, some returning friends, and the infamous DB Cooper together in a mystery that’s anything but folklore.
Fantasy Romance
Dominion (Silk and Iron Trilogy #1) by Jean Kwok – 14 Jul (G.P. Putnam’s Sons)
In a world divided into four rival Dominions, power is everything—and Rubi Morningtail has almost none. Three years after the Annihilation destroyed her homeland and shattered her memories, she lives as an Azure refugee in the Dominion of the Silver Tyger, scraping by as a ribbon dancer and hiding her little bit of singing magic. When she wounds a massive battle tyger on her doorstep, she draws the notice of Blake Axefire—supreme metal mage, leader of the royal tyger warriors, and the last man an Azure should trust. His sentence? Cast her into the Bonding, a brutal trial where tygers choose their riders and slaughter the rest. Surviving is unthinkable.
But survive she does. Now she’s stuck on Blake’s elite team racing to reseal the Anchors to the demon realm. With rebels striking, demons rising, and the Dominions at each other’s throats, Rubi must unlock the truth of her magic and her past…while resisting her dangerous attraction to the ruthless warrior who could be her redemption—or her ruin.
Ember (The Hunted Kingdom #2) by Naima Simone – 14 Jul (Bramble Books)
Today, my father gave me the perfect gift: he died.
But he left my legacy, the multibillion drug empire, to pure evil―my stepbrother, Asad Prince.
Petty even in death? Two can play that game.
As the last Cross, I’ll leave it all behind. And I will have the last laugh too: I’ll take the formula for the drug I created with me.
It’s the perfect plan until Asad makes his final move―marry him, or everyone I love dies.
A deal with the devil. Until he reveals his secrets.
His obsession might have always been my freedom.
Now, Asad might rule with fire.
But I’ll light the match.
Historical
Summer of Love by Kerri Maher – 7 Jul (Berkley)
1967: Concerts, hippies, and war protests define the counter-culture revolution that flourishes during the Summer of Love in San Francisco. No one is more into the messages of love and peace than Winnie Hartley, who has just graduated from UC Berkeley determined to make it as a poet. When she reconnects with her high school boyfriend Lincoln Salyer, it feels like her life is finally everything she wants it to be. Meanwhile, her sister Miranda throws herself into running the family business, Hartley Vineyard, determined to make California wine that rivals French. Little do the sisters know that the choices they make and the secrets they keep will set their lives down radically different paths.
2015: Dawn Hartley has a secret that she can’t share with her mother Miranda, who has long been her closest confidant. How can she possibly admit that she has a drinking problem to her famous vintner mother? It feels like a betrayal of her own heritage. When an assignment for work requires her to research the wildly popular Vineland novels by a famously anonymous writer, she embarks on a quest that will shake her to the core, and just might set her life on the right path at last.
Historical Fantasy
The Witch Below the Dreaming Wood by H.G. Parri – 21 Jul (Redhook)
Wales, 1941. As the second world war ravages the globe and bombs fall from the sky, people all over the world begin to dream of King Arthur. The dreams spread like a fantastical plague, flooding people’s sleep night after night. Whispers arise of wonders and unexplained sights – dragons in the London Underground, and strange lights over Stonehenge. Self-proclaimed prophets claim they are miracles, heralding Arthur’s return at the time of Britain’s greatest need.
Elaine Ambrose has never dreamed of Arthur, and she doesn’t believe in miracles. A librarian at the British Museum, she wants only to protect the museum’s collection from the Blitz, and is frustrated to be sent instead to catalogue a reclusive professor’s private library on the coast of North Wales. But all is not as it seems. Soon Ellie must confront what she’s tried to ignore: she dreams not of Arthur, but of Nimue – the Lady of the Lake. And her dreams promise not salvation, but a return to the darkness of the last days of Camelot.
Paranormal Romance
The Pirate Captain’s Bargain by Amy Padilla – 7 Jul (Self)
Will
I’ve spent my whole life in service to others. The Davenport children are the closest thing I have to family, so when our ship is attacked by a notoriously cutthroat pirate captain, I do what I must to protect them. Pirates are known for cruelty, and I refuse to leave the girls at the mercy of criminals. So I make the captain a deal: in exchange for information worth a fortune, he’ll see the children returned safely to their father untouched.
I expect that to be the end of it. Instead, the captain offers me a place aboard his ship as his cabin boy so I can remain with my charges until they’re returned home. He thinks he’s demanding my servitude. He doesn’t realize he’s handing me my freedom.Damon
When we overtake a merchant ship in the Caribbean, I expect cargo worth stealing and little else. Instead, I find a manservant standing between my crew and his charges with a spine of steel and damned carving knife for protection.
Most men would beg for mercy.
Will negotiates.
Amused by his boldness—and intrigued despite myself—I offer him a position aboard my ship. Serve as my cabin boy, and he can remain at the children’s side until I collect their ransom and return them home.It should’ve been a simple arrangement.
Then Will steps aboard my ship… and proves far too bold, stubborn, and spirited to remain just a simple cabin boy.
Seduced by the Werewolf Highwaymen (Den of Thieves #1) by Eva Leigh – 8 Jul (Self)
In USA TODAY bestselling author Eva Leigh’s passionate new tale, there’s nothing more dangerous—or seductive—than a trio of werewolf highwaymen on the hunt…
When three dashing highwaymen hold up the carriage Jessica Colfax is traveling in, some might call it bad luck.
For Jessica, it’s an invitation to seduction. Little does she know that these highwaymen hold a secret—they’re werewolves. And the three supernatural thieves are determined to use every weapon in their sensuous arsenal to make her theirs.
But Jessica has her own secrets. Soon, she’ll have to make the ultimate choice. Will she choose duty…or desire…?
FoolSilver (Blood and Bond #2) by Meg Xuemei X – 28 Jul (House of Shades and Fantasy)
Two monsters want to own me.
The four princes standing between us are ready to burn the continent to ash to stop them.A Fae who hasn’t wanted anyone since the world ended. A vampire who’d rather starve than drink from another throat. A shifter who claimed me in front of his army. A dragon whose own fire chose me when he begged it not to.
Wanting all four isn’t loyalty—it’s betrayal. I know exactly what that makes me. But I won’t let a single one of them go.
The White Witch tests her lab-grown horrors on us like we’re a field she planted to harvest. And the Collector—the Haven’s tyrant—keeps the Oracle’s severed head alive under glass, feeding on stolen visions. He’s decided I’ll be the centerpiece of his collection. To guarantee I come to him, he’s locked my six-year-old sister in a cage.
So the heirs spring a trap. Lure him to the fortress. Take Missy back. End him on our ground.
He walks through the gate smiling, a signed blood contract in his hand. Claiming I was promised to him before I was born.
Blood contracts don’t break. Not by law. Not by fire. If the magic holds, I don’t belong to the four men willing to die for me.I belong to the monster who caged a child to complete his set.
A Wolfe in the Woods by Zoey Draven and Marcio Catalano – 28 Jul (Self)
A Little Red Riding Hood inspired retelling, where the wolf isn’t the only monster in the woods…
Blanchette Redfield has spent years sacrificing everything for her career. Working brutal hours under Graymore city’s most powerful corporate heir, she’s burned out, hollowed out, and one wrong move from defeat.
When she’s forced on a mandatory leave, she’s sent back to Everwick-by-the-Sea—her idyllic, quaint hometown, brimming with painful memories of her beloved late grandmother. On the outskirts lies Juniper Woods, an ancient forest steeped in magic and local legend…
A former high-profile lawyer turned reclusive caretaker of a crumbling B&B at the forest’s edge, Jonathan Wolfe only wants to be left alone. Grumpy and a bit wild, he knows exactly who Blanchette is…and wants nothing to do with her.
But Jonathan is hiding a secret. He’s a Lycan, bound to protect the sacred land he inherited. Falling for a pretty city girl with sad eyes isn’t on his endless to-do list. But despite their best efforts, they can’t stay away from each other.
As their attraction deepens, Juniper Woods is threatened. Caught between a future she’s spent years building and the newfound love with a Lycan she’s come to crave, Blanchette must decide what matters most, even if it means putting herself in the dangerous crosshairs between two forces destined to clash.
Post-apocalyptic
Hooded (Post-Apocalyptic Fairy Tales #3) by Claire Kent – 10 Jul (Self)
He might be a wolf in disguise.
Ever since the world fell apart a year ago, I’ve been doing whatever I can to survive, serving food at a trading post in the flooded hills of eastern Virginia and sometimes taking men to my room upstairs.
They have to pay, of course.
Cade stops by every few weeks. He’s gruff and quiet and not looking for friends, but he always treats me okay. I don’t mind having him as a customer. I actually start to like him, which is the last thing I expect in the hellish place the world has become. But Cade isn’t the harmless loner he’s been pretending to be, and his secrets could drag me into danger.
I thought he was just a regular guy, but all this time he’s been hiding a wolf.
Science Fiction Romance
The Aliens Who Abducted Me Aren’t So Bad by Amy Padilla – 15 Jul (Self)
When I first saw the headline about alien ships hovering over major cities, I did what any traumatized millennial would do. I rolled my eyes and kept scrolling.
Then the call came. Report to base. No explanation.
Before I could even process what was happening, I was yanked off Earth and dumped onto an alien ship alongside millions of military personnel from around the world.
Except these aliens—the Krezikians—aren’t here to conquer us. They’re here to stop humanity from destroying the only livable planet we have. Which is… noble, terrifying, and wildly inconvenient when you’re being “saved” against your will.
Things get complicated when I sneak out to check on a friend and get caught by gorgeous, sweet, and equipped with a set of curious tentacles that do not understand the concept of personal space. Suddenly, I’m being shoved into the role of Earth’s unwilling spokesperson, spending far too much time with my abductor-turned-ally… and discovering his interest in me might not be entirely diplomatic.
Turns out that the monsters in this situation might not be the ones from space.
And maybe the aliens who abducted me… aren’t that bad.
Her Cyborg Bounty Hunters (The Drift: Defiance Station #1) by Susan Hayes – 24 Jul (Self)
She’s alone, in trouble, and needs to disappear.
Corporations call it a service contract. Tish calls it slavery with an expiry date. On the run from her new owner, she’s working off the books and keeping out of sight until it’s safe to come out of hiding.
It was a simple, straightforward plan…but when does a plan ever survive contact with reality?They swore they were done fighting other people’s battles.
Best friends. Bounty hunters. Cyborg batch-brothers. Mace and Sabre have carved out a life for themselves since the end of the Resource Wars, but they never found a place that felt like home.
These two battle-weary veterans are about to discover that for them, home isn’t a place. It’s a person. And they will go to war again if that’s what it takes to keep her safe.
Urban Fantasy
Unpredictable Magic (Everhart Investigations #1) by Faith Hunter – 14 Jul (Ace)
Angelina Everhart-Trueblood and her brother Evan run Everhart Investigations Inc., a PI firm in Chattanooga that solves paranormal crimes committed by supernatural beings. When their new client wants help finding her friend who supposedly disappeared during a reception at Angie’s aunt Jane’s winter residence, things get . . . complicated.
The client is not who she appears to be, and demons strike the city for the first time since the Demon War. On top of that, evidence is pointing toward the involvement of an overly ambitious vampire—who just happens to be Angie’s ex-husband.
As Angie and Evan team up with the CPD, they will have to dig deep into their magical reserves—and rely on some friends in high places—to rid Chattanooga of the danger creeping into their city.
The monthly Must Have list is a compilation of the upcoming release titles that we, The Book Pushers, just can’t wait to get our hands on. Don’t see a title you’re excited about listed here? Add it to the comments section below. Let us know what you’re looking forward to!