Following up her beguiling 2022 debut – the queer ghost story Briefly, A Delicious Life – the Oxfordshire writer’s new historical novel is set at the turn of the last century. Grace is an orphaned young artist living with extended family at their once-grand country estate who secretly produces remarkable forgeries of famous paintings. Because she has face blindness, she’s ostracized for being different. The intrigue begins with the arrival – or is it return? – of a man purporting to be her long-lost cousin Charles, back to claim the estate. The passages on art are memorably lush, while the atmospheric cat-and-mouse tension is Sarah Waters by way of the Ripley series. (July 1)

Those who enjoy stories from the point of view of precocious children will be captivated by Shteyngart’s latest, told in the sharp voice of ten-year-old Vera – a Korean-American prodigy who attends a school for the exceptional. Set in a lightly dystopian near–future, her internal monologue is trying to make sense of her family, school, and place in the complex world consumed by global crises. She internalizes, for instance, her stepmother’s worry about climate change and her left-leaning father’s fear for the political future of white supremacy laws, while also anxious about making friends at school and humanity’s relationship with AI. Tackling relationships and social commentary, it’s written in the author’s trademark darkly funny and sad style. (July 8)

Thriller maven Ruth Ware’s international hit about a luxury cruise gone awry, The Woman in Cabin 10, was her breakout. A decade later its heroine, travel journalist Lo Blacklock, is in Lake Geneva for the press preview opening of a luxury hotel. It’s all going to plan until she’s summoned to reclusive billionaire owner Marcus’s room late one night. The ensuing adventure has her criss-crossing Europe in another bout of psychological suspense and unreliable characters. (July 8)

Following the quickie remarriage and unexpected death of their father, a failed artist, adult siblings head to a fancy Italian villa to discover more about his final days and last work. This rich, sparkling novel of community and family is by the author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, who writes so well of older characters. It’s a group portrait that’s layered with explorations of fallout of grief on the fragile dynamics of familial bonds, in a gorgeously escapist setting. (July 8)

Between them, the Ferguson brothers have six Stephen Leacock Medals for Humour and one Giller Prize (Will’s, for Happiness). In their latest joint effort, the I Only Read Murder bookshop is hosting a crime writers festival when suddenly – you guessed it – one author is found dead in a locked room. Co-owner Miranda has to solve the murder before any more of the featured guests meet the same fate. It’s a cozy mystery for, and about, book lovers and literary culture, laden with self-referential wit. (July 8)

This thriller is billed as the 11th and final Arkady Renko novel. The popular Russian homicide detective was introduced in the American writer’s 1981 international sensation thriller Gorky Park, and in the 2023 case Independence Square Cruz Smith diagnosed his character with Parkinson’s disease – the same degenerative condition the author himself, now 82, has lived with for years. The investigator’s final outing is set during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as Renko’s symptoms worsen and he teams up with an American journalist to look into the suspicious death of a diplomat at a Moscow hotel. Whether you’ve kept up with the series or read it as a stand-alone adventure, it’s a fitting finale. (July 8)

Although it’s a lighthearted period piece that brings Swinging 1960s London to life, there are still stakes in this entertaining spy romp. Now living with her mother, Maggie Flynn is the overwhelmed middle-aged and widowed single parent to a Beatles-crazed teen girl. By day, however, she’s an unlikely covert operative, working surveillance as a “Watcher” for MI5; what better disguise than as an invisible woman? (She’s also decoding her late husband’s secret life.) The wry observational humour and undercurrent of female empowerment is in the vein of Lessons in Chemistry, complete with tongue-in-cheek references to the era’s Cold War and pop culture – and James Bond. For audiobook lovers, the narration by Clare Corbett is a treat. (July 15)

It is a truth universally acknowledged that summer calls for diverting levity. Irwin’s new romance has all the Austenesque trappings and Bridgerton-era English society but the fresh banter and meet-cute is a throwback spin on a more recent rom-com favourite. The title offers a clue: Lydia trying everything to dump an unwanted betrothed before the engagement is made public. The yellow Regency dress on the cover is a clever nod to Kate Hudson’s now-iconic gown in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, the 2003 enemies-to-lovers romp co-starring Matthew McConaughey that remains one of the genre’s most profitable and enduring. A charmer! (July 15)

What if a wealthy patriarch suddenly grew a conscience and began to give away the family fortune? The satirical premise is irresistible (and a fantasy of avid politicos). Alienated from his family, Arthur Candlewick goes for a long walk and has a freak accident: he promptly falls into a mineshaft. With just his rebellious daughter’s socialist manifesto, his son’s stash of MDMA and a bottle of wine for provisions, he’s forced into a mind-altering moment to confront life choices – and mortality. (July 15)

The Library Journal’s starred review calls this meaty, intense drama “transfixing” and full of “pathos.” It’s also gritty, violent and drug-fuelled, taking place among the biker gangs and crime rings on Florida’s economically-ravaged Space Coast in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. Touted as The Outsiders meets Sons of Anarchy, three young men with no prospects get sucked into the drug trade in order to survive and end up in way over their heads. It’s a relentless but gripping look at a lost generation that also has a vivid sense of place for the Florida landscape and climate. (July 22)

A British writer who previously worked in data administration in the tech industry makes her razor sharp debut with this novel of ideas about 21st century pharmaceutical supremacy, numb western sexuality, and late capitalist society. On holiday in Ibiza, a lonely office worker meets the chemist behind Eudaxa, the new anti-depressant that purports to assuage the anxieties of modern life. Back in London, she navigates dating apps, experimental pharmacology, and the churn of being a corporate drone pursuing constant user growth. When the book was published in the U.K. last year, Zadie Smith loved it: “Anyone interested in the relationship between tech, our bodies and our minds,” she blurbed, “should bump it to the top of their queue immediately.” (July 22)

In this quirky domestic dramedy, a Chinese-American stay-at-home mother’s chest begins to ache when her husband announces he’s ending their marriage. But it’s not heartbreak: soon she’s diagnosed with breast cancer. Wringing black humour out of catastrophe she names the tumour Maggie (after the other woman in his affair) and so begins a conversation about life, friendship, womanhood and parenthood, with digressive memories of her late mother, a seamstress. There are echoes of Nora Ephron’s self-deprecating, wisecracking voice. (July 22)

This buzzy literary debut charts the complex relationship between Ruth and Maria, two Catholic school girls who form an intense friendship as the only girls of colour in their class, but grow up to be rivals in the 1990s New York art world. The novel, “came from the idea that someone could grow up working-class and become upwardly mobile from a career in art while being dissatisfied by, and even bitter about, their career and success,” the author told PW. The push/pull of friendship between them unpacks identity, privilege and mental health themes. (July 29)

This tale of survival and moral ambiguity follows a conniving reluctant soldier in the Great War, sent on a doomed rescue mission with four comrades into No Man’s Land, where they find a fallen angel. The immersive narrative structure (with long sentences) is designed to conjure the overwhelming chaos and juxtaposes the horror of the war machine with hopeful elements. The Chicago television, film and fiction writer (Whalefall) also co-authored The Shape of Water novelization with filmmaker Guillermo del Toro and later, Trollhunters (turned into an Emmy-winning series). (July 29)