July Buzz Books Monthly: Your Best Guide to Top Titles Appearing This Month

July Buzz Books Monthly

Credits

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Contents

Credits

Introduction

The July 2017 Publishing Preview

Excerpts originally published in Buzz Books 2017: Spring/Summer

Christopher Brookmyre

The Last Hack (Atlantic Monthly Press)

Rachel Khong

Goodbye, Vitamin (Henry Holt)

Gin Phillips

Fierce Kingdom (Viking)

Riley Sager

Final Girls (Dutton)

Ellen Marie Wiseman

The Life She Was Given (Kensington)

Peter Hellman

In Vino Duplicitas (The Experiment)

Excerpt originally published in Buzz Books 2017: Young Adult Spring/Summer

Kathryn Berla

Dream Me (Amberjack)

Introduction

You’ll find exclusive excerpts of seven beach-worthy titles due for publication during the month of July in this sampler—but first check out our extensive preview of well over 100 new books of interest coming to market in the month ahead.

Then turn to new fiction from bestselling authors. Thrillers dominate our excerpts this month, with The Last Hack, the new Jack Parlabane thriller from one of the smartest minds in crime fiction, Christopher Brookmyre as well as literary thriller Fierce Kingdom by Barnes & Noble Discover Award-winner Gin Phillips. Riley Sager’s debut, Final Girls, is a gripping psychological thriller.

The Life She Was Given by Ellen Wiseman, while not a thriller, is an intense novel about the devastating power of family secrets—beginning in the poignant, lurid world of a Depression-era traveling circus and coming full circle in the transformative 1950s. On the lighter side is Rachel Khong’s funny, touching debut Goodbye, Vitamin.

Our nonfiction excerpt is In Vino Duplicitas: The Rise and Fall of a Wine Forger Extraordinaire Journalist Peter Hellman details the notorious, legendary Rudy Kurniawan, a 20-something Indonesian immigrant who burst onto the rarified scene of ultrafine wines in 2002 and then crashed and burned.

Rounding out the sampler is a young adult sci-fi/fantasy, Dream Me by Kathyrn Berla.

Buzz Books Monthlies are your first and best place to turn for a real insider’s taste of what to read next, and what the book world will be talking about next month. We hope you enjoy the monthly Buzz Books—and keep an eye out for August Buzz Books available in early July.

Passionate readers have relied on our twice-a-year Buzz Books

to sample and discover new books from big authors and breakout talents through exclusive and substantial pre-publication excerpts. You can read more than 50 excerpts from the hottest books appearing this fall and winter right now. Also, watch for our second annual Buzz Books Romance, devoted to this popular genre (available July 12).

The July 2017 Publishing Preview

With a focus on books scheduled for publication in July, here is our round-up of titles of note (asterisks indicate a Buzz Books 2017: Spring/Summer excerpt):

Extra attention

Curtis Dawkins, an MFA graduate and convicted murderer serving a life sentence, makes his debut with The Graybar Hotel (Scribner, 7/4), a collection of raw, funny, and poignant stories set at a prison.

Bestselling Silver Linings Playbook author Matthew Quick returns with The Reason You’re Alive (Harper, 7/4), the story of a Vietnam vet who sets off on a journey to find his nemesis from the war.

Draw Your Weapons by Sarah Sentilles (Random House, 7/4) combines memoir, history, reporting, visual culture, literature, and theology to make a case against violence.

Multi-award winner Edwidge Danticat turns to nonfiction with The Art of Death:Writing the Final Story (Graywolf, 7/11), an examination of death based on the loss of her mother.

Michael Connolly’s The Late Show (Little, Brown, 7/18) launches a new Hollywood-set detective series centering on a female investigator for the LAPD.

Nobel Prize winner Svetlana Alexievich’s The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II (Random House, 7/25) gets a long-awaited translation.

Literary Favorites and Emerging Talents

Among titles sure to attract attention are:

Joshua Cohen, Moving Kings (Random House, 7/11)

Andrew Sean Greer, Less (Lee Boudreaux Books, 7/18)

Sarah Hall, Madame Zero: Stories (Custom House, 7/4) – From the Man Booker Prize-shortlisted author of The Wolf Border.

Gabe Hudson, Gork, the Teenage Dragon (Knopf, 7/11)

Samantha Hunt, The Dark Dark: Stories (FSG, 7/18)

Matthew Klam, Who Is Rich? (Random House, 7/4) – The first novel from author of short story collection Sam the Cat

Antonio Munoz Molina, Like a Fading Shadow (FSG, 7/18)

Dina Nayeri, Refuge (Riverhead, 7/11)

Alissa Nutting, Made For Love (Ecco, 7/4)

Gunnhild Oyehaug, Knots (FSG, 7/11) – Story collection from award-winning Norwegian poet and essayist.

Donal Ryan, All We Shall Know (Penguin, 7/4)

Joanna Scott, Careers for Women: A Novel (Little, Brown, 7/25)

Akhil Sharma, A Life of Adventure and Delight (Norton, 7/11)

Debut Fiction

Among the new writers with the most anticipated first works of fiction in the early part of July:

Ian Bassingthwaighte, Live from Cairo (Scribner, 7/11)

Alisyn Camerota, Amanda Wakes Up (Viking, 7/25)

Jesus Carrasco, Out in the Open (Riverhead, 7/4)

*Laurel Davis Huber, The Velveteen Daughter (SheWrites, 7/11)

Sheena Kamal, The Lost Ones (Morrow, 7/25)

*Deborah E. Kennedy, Tornado Weather (Flatiron, 7/11)

*Rachel Khong, Goodbye, Vitamin (Holt, 7/11)

Bianca Marais, Hum If You Don’t Know the Words (Putnam, 7/11)

Estep Nagy, We Shall Not All Sleep (Bloomsbury, 7/4)

Jean Pendziwol, The Lightkeeper’s Daughters (Harper, 7/4)

Brian Platzer, Bed-Stuy Is Burning (Atria, 7/11)

Noley Reid, Pretend We Are Lovely (Tin House, 7/18)

Sally Rooney, Conversations with Friends (Hogarth, 7/11)

Ian Stansel, The Last Cowboys of San Geronimo (HMH, 7/4)

Tim Taranto, Ars Botanica (Curbside Splendor, 7/19)

*Fred Van Lente, Ten Dead Comedians (Quirk, 7/11)

David Williams, When the English Fall (Algonquin, 7/11)

Jenny Williams, The Atlas of Forgotten Places (Thomas Dunne, 7/11)

Commercial Fiction

Among the big names launching new books in the first half of July:

Ace Atkins, The Fallen: A Quinn Colson Novel (Putnam, 7/18)

Elizabeth Berg, The Story of Arthur Truluv (Random House, 7/25)

Saul Black, LoveMurder (St. Martin’s, 7/25)

C.J. Box, Paradise Valley (Minotaur, 7/25)

Suzanne Brockmann, Some Kind of Hero (Ballantine, 7/11)

*Christopher Brookmyre, The Last Hack (Atlantic Monthly, 7/1)

Edgar Cantero, Meddling Kids (Doubleday, 7/11)

Eve Chase, The Wildling Sisters (Putnam, 7/25)

Glen Erik Hamilton, Every Day Above Ground: A Van Shaw Novel (Morrow, 7/25)

L.S. Hilton, Domina (Putnam, 7/11)

Joshilyn Jackson, The Almost Sisters (William Morrow, 7/11)

Richard Lange, The Smack (Mulholland, 7/18)

Bill Loehfelm, The Devil’s Muse (Sarah Crichton, 7/11) – Latest in series featuring New Orleans cop Maureen Coughlin.

George R.R. Martin and Mike Miller, The Mystery Knight (Bantam, 7/4) – A graphic novel.

Lawrence Osborne, Beautiful Animals (Hogarth, 7/18)

B.A. Paris, The Breakdown (St. Martin’s, 7/18) – Thriller from the bestselling author of Behind Closed Doors.

Elizabeth Peters (and Joan Hess), The Painted Queen (William Morrow, 7/25)

*Gin Phillips, Fierce Kingdom (Viking, 7/11)

Daniel Price, The Song of the Orphans (Blue Rider, 7/4) – The second book in the genre-bending Silvers series.

Kathy Reichs, Two Nights (Bantam, 7/11)

Michelle Richmond, The Marriage Pact (Bantam, 7/25)

Michael Robotham, The Secrets She Keeps (Scribner, 7/11)

Daniel Silva, House of Spies (Harper, 7/11)

Susie Steiner, Persons Unknown (Random House, 7/4)

*Ellen Marie Wiseman, The Life She Was Given (Kensington, 7/25)

Nonfiction

Prominent and notable authors with new nonfiction releases:

Adam Begley, The Great Nadar: The Man Behind the Camera (Tim Duggan, 7/11)

Angela J. Davis, editor, Policing the Black Man: Arrest, Prosecution, and Imprisonment (Pantheon, 7/11) – Anthology of twelve essays analyzing key issues of the BlackLivesMatter movement.

Paul Farmer, A Path Out of Poverty (PublicAffairs, 7/11)

Sujatha Gidla, Ants Among Elephants: An Untouchable Family and the Making of Modern India (FSG, 7/18)

Al Gore, An Inconvenient Sequel (Rodale, 7/25)

Elaine Hayes, The Queen of Bebop: The Musical Lives of Sarah Vaughan (Ecco, 7/11)

*Peter Hellman, In Vino Duplicitas (The Experiment, 7/11)

Bruce Henderson, Sons and Soldiers: The Untold Story of the Jews Who Escaped the Nazis and Returned with the U.S. Army to Fight Hitler (Morrow, 7/25)

Patrick Hunt, Hannibal (S&S, 7/11)

Sam Kean, Caesar’s Last Breath (Little, Brown, 7/18) –Award-winning author on the science and history of the air around us.

Jeremiah Moss, Vanishing New York: How a Great City Lost Its Soul (Dey Street, 7/25)

Claire Mulley, The Women Who Flew For Hitler: A True Story of Soaring Ambition and Searing Rivalry (St. Martin’s, 7/18)

Bill Nye, Everything All At Once: How Nerds Solve Problems (Rodale, 7/11)

Michael Robbins, Equipment for Living: On Poetry and Pop Music (S&S, 7/18)

Laura Shapiro, What She Ate (Viking, 7/25) – A culinary historian on six famous women through the lens of food and cooking.

Ahdaf Soueif and Omar Robert Hamilton, This Is Not a Border: Reportage & Reflection from the Palestine Festival of Literature (Bloomsbury, 7/18) – A collection of essays, poems, and sketches from dozens of writers including J. M. Coetzee, Claire Messud, Michael Ondaatje, and Alice Walker.

Inara Verzemnieks, Among the Living and the Dead: A Tale of Exile and Homecoming on the War Roads of Europe (Norton, 7/11)

Week by Week

Here are still more titles of note scheduled for release in July.

July 3

A Game of Ghosts, John Connolly (Emily Bestler)

The Reluctant Queen, Sarah Beth Durst (Harper)

The Last Laugh, Lynn Freed (Sarah Crichton)

Wired, Julie Garwood (Berkley)

Cold-Hearted River, Keith McCafferty (Viking)

The Lies We Tell, Theresa Schwegel (Minotaur)

A Stone of Hope, Jim St. Germain (Harper)

July 10

Down a Dark Road, Linda Castilo (Minotaur)

What We Lose, Zinzi Clemmons (Viking)

Hello, Sunshine, Laura Dave (Simon and Schuster)

The Third Nero, Lindsey Davis (Minotaur)

Dark Saturday, Nicci French (Morrow)

Besieged, Devin Hearne (Del Rey)

Beautiful Tempest, Johanna Lindsey (Gallery)

Poetry Will Save Your Life, Jill Bialosky (Atria)

The Darkening Web, Alexander Klimburg (Penguin)

A Beautiful, Terrible Thing, Jen Waite (Plume)

Reading with Patrick, Michelle Kuo (Random House)

So Much Things To Say, Roger Steffens (Norton)

Why? Mario Livio (S&S)

I Need a Lifeguard Everywhere but the Pool, Lisa Scottoline and Francesca Serritella (St. Martin’s)

Fall Down Seven Times, Get Up Eight, Naoki Higashida (Random House)

July 17

Blame, Jeff Abbott (Grand Central)

Strays, Britt Collins (Atria)

The Body in the Clouds, Ashley Hay (Washington Square)

Soul Cage, Tetsuya Honda (Minotaur)

Look Behind You, Iris Johansen and Roy Johansen (St. Martin’s)

A Distant View of Everything, Alexander McCall Smith (Pantheon)

Hook’s Tale, John Leonard Pielmeier (Scribner)

The Library of Light and Shadow, M.J. Rose (Atria)

Collared, David Rosenfelt (Minotaur)

July 24

The World Broke in Two, Bill Goldstein (Holt)

Deadfall, Linda Fairstein (Dutton)

The Goddesses, Swan Huntley (Doubleday)

Every Day Above Ground, Glen Erik Hamilton (Morrow)

Let The Dead Speak, Jane Casey (Minotaur)

The Lying Game, Ruth Ware (Scout)

Talon of God, Wesley Snipes and Ray Norman (Voyager)

Excerpts originally published in Buzz Books 2017: Spring/Summer

SUMMARY

There are no women on the Internet. It is one of the cardinal rules of hacking, and not since Lisbeth Salander famously violated it in Stieg Larsson’s Millennium series has the maxim been so compellingly broken as in The Last Hack, the new Jack Parlabane thriller from one of the smartest minds in crime fiction, Christopher Brookmyre.

Sam Morpeth has had to grow up way too fast. Left to fend for a younger sister with learning difficulties when their mother goes to prison, she is forced to watch her dreams of university evaporate. But Sam learns what it is to be truly powerless when a stranger begins to blackmail her online. Meanwhile, reporter Jack Parlabane seems to have finally gotten his career back on track with a job at a flashy online news start-up, but his success has left him indebted to a volatile source on the wrong side of the law. Now that debt is being called in, and it could cost him everything. Thrown together by a