Readers’ Choice: The Top 10 Most Shelved Books in July

Eighty-four-year-old Florence has fallen in her flat at Cherry Tree Home for the Elderly. As she waits to be rescued, she thinks about her lifelong friend Elsie and wonders if a terrible secret from their past is about to come to light. Is the charming new resident who suddenly appeared who he claims to be? Why does he look exactly like a man who died sixty years ago? And why will no one listen to her concerns?

Love reading about friendships? Mysteries? This novel is for you.

NYPD rookies and good friends Francis Gleeson and Brian Stanhope lead very different lives behind the doors of their neighboring homes. Their friendship—filled with secrets and hidden tensions—is also the start of a lifelong friendship between their children, Kate Gleeson and Peter Stanhope. But when a shocking tragedy takes place that reverberates over the next 40 years, loyalties are divided and bonds are tested. 

Heading to the beach? Bring one of these book club picks with you.

In season four of Darren Star’s hit TV Land series Younger, the editors at Empirical Press are shocked and deeply moved when they read Marriage Vacation, an autobiographical novel by the publisher’s estranged wife, Pauline Turner Brooks. Knowing the book will cause a sensation, they decide they must publish it. Now you can read what the hype is about—including page 58 that had everyone buzzing (...and blushing).

Marriage Vacation is for anyone who has ever fantasized about what it would be like to run away from it all.

By all appearances, Kate Carmichael has the perfect life: two adorable daughters, a prewar townhouse on the Upper East Side, and a husband who runs one of the most successful publishing companies in New York.

But when Kate attends a wedding and reconnects with successful friends from graduate school, she suddenly sees her life in a different light: the career she didn’t pursue, the dreams she’s locked away, the empty veneer of her privilege.

When the wedding weekend ends, instead of heading home to her husband and family, Kate gets on a plane and flies halfway around the world. She claims it’s just going to be for a week—two max—just so she can clear her head and reconnect with her lost dreams. But the adventure doesn't go quite as planned.

This provocative and gripping novel asks: Is a wife and mother allowed to have a midlife crisis? And, if she does, can she ever be forgiven?

PRAISE FOR Marriage Vacation

“Marriage Vacation has everything you want an in a novel: fascinating characters, drama, secrets, emotional reckonings, and far-flung adventure. If you love Younger, you’ll love this book. If you’ve never watched an episode of Younger (you should change that), you’ll still love this book. And just wait until you read page 58!”
—Darren Star, creator of Sex and The City and Younger

“This brilliant romp helps us understand why Liza was so excited to discover the manuscript, how any woman could leave the dreamy Charles, and what exactly Pauline—by way of her fictional alter ego, Kate Carmichael—did on that mysterious Marriage Vacation. Pack this heartfelt, insightful, funny, sexy book when you take a vacation of your own.”
—Pamela Redmond Satran, author of Younger

When Abi Knight gets a call that her teenaged daughter, Olivia, has fallen off a bridge, she never expects to learn her daughter is brain dead and pregnant. Then she sees the bruises on her daughter’s wrists and is left with even more questions: Was Olivia’s fall an accident? Or is there something more sinister at play?

Here’s what we’re reading on our next vacation.

When honeymooners Erin and Mark discover something in the water while scuba-diving, their decision to speak out or keep their discovery a secret trigger a devastating chain of events. Perfect for readers of Ruth Ware (another Reese Witherspoon favorite), SOMETHING IN THE WATER is the vacation read you never knew you needed.

Read these suspenseful novels and vacation with caution.

One of Stephen King’s most propulsive and unsettling stories, THE OUTSIDER follows the investigation of a stranger who becomes another person’s double—and commits horrific acts.

We highly recommend putting these novels in your beach bag this summer.

Imagine going on a luxurious ocean liner voyage . . . only to discover when you disembark that war has been declared and the world has irrevocably changed. In A DANGEROUS CROSSING, a young woman has this experience when she leaves Britain in 1939 for Australia. As glamorous as the passage seems to be, there are sinister intrigues, deadly secrets, and danger lurking behind every glitzy passenger.

All aboard! Add these suspenseful novels set on cruise ships to your shelf today.

At the edge of the Russian wilderness, Vasilisa has grown up listening to her nurse’s chilling tales of demons and her admonitions to honor the benevolent spirits who protect their home from evil. But when Vasilia’s mother dies and her father remarries a woman who forbids the family from honoring household spirits, terrible things start to happen and Vasilia must call on dangerous gifts she has long hidden in order to protect her family.

This eerie, whimsical novel is perfect for historical fantasy readers.

The book club in Lisi Harrison's delicious novel is a little different than most book clubs. Started in the 1960s by a group of women who were fed up watching men having all the fun, the Dirty Book Club has now been passed down to a younger group of women who explore timeless reads. The novel follows M.J. as she moves to California, joins the book club that's now 50 years in the making, and starts a new life for herself.

Sip on your favorite cocktail while you read one of these books.

WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN THE CASTLE reads like a haunted house story, but it is much darker than that. In this modern gothic tale, two reclusive, troubled, and unnerving sisters live in a labyrinthine house outside of town. Just what happened to the rest of the family? It’s a complicated and deadly secret.

Read these books before watching the movies this summer.