The Heat Is On With The 8 Best Books Of July

From the author of the Manhattan-angst manifesto “Fleishman Is in Trouble” comes a hilarious take on generational trauma. Carl is briefly kidnapped in 1980 and it all seems to end well, but 40 years later, it haunts him, his wife and his three children. From their anxiety to their destructive coping tactics, plus their dwindling fortune, they must face the effects money has had on the family, both in success and failure.

Grace resides in a woman’s boarding house in 1950 Washington, DC, where she forms a circle of eclectic friends. There’s poised Fliss, mob-affiliated Nora, baseballer Beatrice and paranoid Arlene. The women bond at weekly dinner parties in Grace’s room, until secrets and violence threaten to tear them apart.

A wedding crasher with a melancholy backstory might spell disaster for a Newport wedding in this funny and tender book. Phoebe and the bride hit it off immediately when they meet at the little inn hosting the wedding weekend, but if only the bride knew what Phoebe was planning...

In 1975, Barbara, the daughter of the owners of a summer camp, goes missing from her bunk. This is the same thing that happened to Barbara’s brother over a decade ago. In this gripping novel, the search is on, but family secrets come to light in the shadow of the working-class town the camp employs.

Based on the same legend that inspired the Disney film “Mulan,” this book tells a darker version of the tale. When Meilin’s father can’t join the war because of his opium addiction, she escapes her arranged marriage to a violent husband and enlists, disguised as a boy. Should she trust Sky, the prince that she has grown close to in battle, a sea dragon spirit with deadly intentions or an enemy that makes her question everything?

For a twist on the teen horror trope, how about a novel told from the point of view of the teen killer? Tolly is a good kid with a taste for revenge. After a party changes his life, Tolly becomes an unlikely killer and one you just may root for.

Cleo, a college student, returns to her childhood home in Brooklyn for dinner to find her mother missing and a bloody shoe left behind. She doesn’t know Kat is secretly a fixer for her law firm, dabbling in danger in a way Cleo never imagined. Cleo, meanwhile, is slipping back into an unsafe relationship. Now the two must save each other, before it’s too late.

When Nina’s father dies, she inherits a posh vacation home in the British Virgin Islands that she never even knew existed, and she is urged by a realtor to urgently arrive at the property, where she begins to snoop for secrets. Maria is a nanny for the ultra-rich who just needs one more job before she is set. Maria waits for her next job by the pool, but when the children never show, she goes into the one room off-limits — the basement. These two stories are about to intersect in a heart-pounding way.