MY JULY READING PICKS

July is meant to be hot hot hot in UK and is also my holiday time, finally going to see Spain. I am so excited and planning trips and activities for me and my little daughter. As a booknerd, I had to make a list with some of the most amazing titles I found and want to read this month and nothing makes me happier than being able to share it with you.

My first pick would have to be READING BEHIND BARS: a true story of Literature, Law and Life as a prison librarian by Jill Grunenwald.

In December 2008, twentysomething Jill Grunenwald graduated with her master’s degree in library science, ready to start living her dream of becoming a librarian. But the economy had a different idea. As the Great Recession reared its ugly head, jobs were scarce. After some searching, however, Jill was lucky enough to snag one of the few librarian gigs left in her home state of Ohio. The catch? The job was behind bars as the prison librarian at a men’s minimum-security prison.

“Reading Behind Bars shines a light on an important but often ignored corner of the literary world. This book makes you laugh while giving you a fresh perspective on why libraries are crucial in society today. Grunenwald’s story is as entertaining as it is enlightening – it’s Susan Orlean’s The Library Book meets Orange is the New Black. If you’re a book lover, don’t miss this one. A vital read for 2019.” — Mallory O’Meara, bestselling author of The Lady from the Black Lagoon

Moving forward I would choose to read NEVER HAVE I EVER by Joshilyn Jackson. It is announced to be one scary, full of suspense and surprises.

It starts as a game at a book group one night. Never Have I Ever… done something I shouldn’t. 

But Amy Whey has done something she shouldn’t. And Roux, the glamorous newcomer to Amy’s suburban neighbourhood, knows exactly what that is.

Roux promises she will go away. She will take herself and her son, who is already growing dangerously close to Amy’s teenage stepdaughter, and she will go. If Amy plays by her rules. But Amy isn’t prepared to lose everything she’s built. She’s going to fight back, and in this escalating game of cat and mouse, there can be only one winner.

After finishing “Never have I ever” I will probably go towards something light like HOW TO HACK A HEARTBREAK by Kristin Rockaway.

Swipe right for love. Swipe left for disaster.

By day, Mel Strickland is an underemployed help-desk tech at a startup incubator, Hatch, where she helps entitled brogrammers – “Hatchlings” – who can’t even fix their own laptops, but are apparently the next wave of startup geniuses. And by night, she goes on bad dates with misbehaving dudes she’s matched with on the ubiquitous dating app, Fluttr. But after one dick pic too many, Mel has had it. Using her brilliant coding skills, she designs an app of her own, one that allows users to log harassers and abusers in online dating space. It’s called JerkAlert, and it goes viral overnight.

Mel is suddenly in way over her head. Worse still, her almost-boyfriend, the dreamy Alex Hernandez – the only non-douchey guy at Hatch – has no idea she’s the brains behind the app. Soon, Mel is faced with a terrible choice: one that could destroy her career, love life, and friendships, or change her life forever.

After such a lovely and funny read we can move forward towards GIRLS LIKE US by Cristina Alger, a thriller and suspense novel expected to be unputdownable.

FBI Agent Nell Flynn hasn’t been home in ten years. Nell and her father, Homicide Detective Martin Flynn, have never had much of a relationship. And Suffolk County will always be awash in memories of her mother, Marisol, who was brutally murdered when Nell was just seven. 

When Martin Flynn dies in a motorcycle accident, Nell returns to the house she grew up in so that she can spread her father’s ashes and close his estate. At the behest of her father’s partner, Detective Lee Davis, Nell becomes involved in an investigation into the murders of two young women in Suffolk County. The further Nell digs, the more likely it seems to her that her father should be the prime suspect–and that his friends on the police force are covering his tracks. Plagued by doubts about her mother’s murder–and her own role in exonerating her father in that case–Nell can’t help but ask questions about who killed Ria Ruiz and Adriana Marques and why. But she may not like the answers she finds–not just about those she loves, but about herself.

Shall we do one last one for July? Let’s get into something calmer and choose a friendship one. I would go for “THE CHELSEA GIRLS” by Fiona Davies.

The bright lights of the theater district, the glamour and danger of 1950s New York, and the wild scene at the iconic Chelsea Hotel come together in a dazzling new novel about a twenty-year friendship that will irrevocably change two women’s lives—from the national bestselling author of The Dollhouse and The Address.

From the dramatic red brick facade to the sweeping staircase dripping with art, the Chelsea Hotel has long been New York City’s creative oasis for the many artists, writers, musicians, actors, filmmakers, and poets who have called it home—a scene playwright Hazel Riley and actress Maxine Mead are determined to use to their advantage. Yet they soon discover that the greatest obstacle to putting up a show on Broadway has nothing to do with their art, and everything to do with politics. A Red scare is sweeping across America, and Senator Joseph McCarthy has started a witch hunt for Communists, with those in the entertainment industry in the crosshairs. As the pressure builds to name names, it is more than Hazel and Maxine’s Broadway dreams that may suffer as they grapple with the terrible consequences, but also their livelihood, their friendship, and even their freedom.

Spanning from the 1940s to the 1960s, The Chelsea Girls deftly pulls back the curtain on the desperate political pressures of McCarthyism, the complicated bonds of female friendship, and the siren call of the uninhibited Chelsea Hotel

And these are my top five choices for July. Hope the sun is shining wherever you are and I wish you HAPPY READING.