July 2025 Reading List

I've got eight books planned for July, including the one that I started but paused and keep putting off, A Drop of Corruption (Shadow of the Leviathan #2) by Robert Jackson Bennett. Hopefully I'll be able to get back to it this month. I also just finished up one book from June, Be Buried in the Rain by Barbara Michaels.

 

 

 

Reading at Fantasy Buddy Reads-

 

Long Past Dues (The Unorthodox Chronicles #2) by James J. Butcher

 

Grimsby, the newest Auditor in the magical Department of Unorthodox Affairs, finds himself in hot water when he intercepts a friend’s case in this fast-paced and thrilling urban fantasy.

Against all odds, Grimshaw Griswald Grimsby has become an Auditor, enforcing laws about magic for Boston’s Department of Unorthodox Affairs. But Grimsby soon realizes the daily grind of his job is far removed from the glamour he imagined. Overlooked for every exciting case, Grimsby tires of being told to handle mundane magical troubles, and appropriates a case file intended for a friend.

Alongside Leslie Mayflower, the temporarily unretired Huntsman, Grimsby aims to crack the case and discover the origin of a strange, unfinished ritual—one that seems to imitate the handiwork of a foe Mayflower put down twenty years ago.

Together, they’ll have to deal with escaped werewolves, a cursed artifact, and a perilous journey to the mysterious subterranean city below Boston, all to uncover the shocking truth. At any cost, Grimsby must stop this ritual from finally being completed. Yet the cost may be paid not by himself but by his friends. . . 

 

  

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Dragons of the Hourglass Mage (Dragonlance: The Lost Chronicles #3) by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman 

 

Between Chronicles and Legends, what made Raistlin aspire to godhood?

Raistlin Majere has become a Black Robe wizard and travels to Neraka, the lord city of the Dark Queen, ostensibly to work for her, though in reality he means to further his own quest for power. But Takhisis finds out that the dragon orb has entered her city and sends her draconians to find and destroy the wizard who has it in his possession. Before her agents can strike, though, Raistlin finds out that Takhisis means to take control of all wizardly magic. She has ordered Kitiara to set a trap for the Gods of Magic on the Night of the Eye, when all the high-ranking wizards will be in Neraka to celebrate.

As the forces of light, with help from the good dragons, are turning the tide of battle, Raistlin is forced to flee, for his foes are closing in on him. As the Dragon Highlords vie for the Crown of Power in the Temple of the Dark Queen, Raistlin Majere wages his own desperate battle against Takhisis in the dungeons below and meets again the brother he betrayed. The fate of the world hangs in the balance. 

 

 

 

Reading with the Mystery Book Club-

 

Run Time by Catherine Ryan Howard

 

Feeling her stardom fading, struggling soap-actress Adele Rafferty is ready to give up on her dreams when she gets a last-minute offer to play the lead in upcoming horror film Final Draft . Could this be her big break? Will she have redemption for what happened the  last time  she was on a film set? Adele doesn't think twice before signing the dotted line.    Camera  Adele quickly makes her way to set, deep into the isolated and wintry woods of West Cork, Ireland, miles away from civilization and cell service.    Action  When real life on set starts to somehow mirror the sinister events portrayed in the script, Adele fears the real horror lies  off  the page. Isolated and unsure who in the crew she can trust, is there anywhere or any time left to run?

 

 

   

Beyond Reasonable Doubt (Keera Duggan #2) by Robert Dugoni

 

A master manipulator accused of murder. An attorney sworn to defend her. Keera Duggan returns in a riveting novel of suspense by New York Times bestselling author Robert Dugoni.

When Jenna Bernstein, disgraced wunderkind CEO of a controversial biotech company, is accused of murdering her former partner and lover, she turns to Seattle attorney Keera Duggan to defend her. Keera is more than a master chess player who brings her intuitive moves into court—she’s Jenna’s childhood friend. But considering their history, Keera knows that where Jenna goes, trouble follows.

Three years earlier, Keera’s father successfully defended Jenna when she was tried for the killing of her company’s chief medical scientist who threatened to go public with allegations of corporate fraud. Keera knows Jenna too well. When she was a kid, Keera saw Jenna for what she a manipulative and frighteningly controlling sociopath. Now, with only circumstantial evidence against Jenna, Keera is willing to bury any trepidation she might have to defend a woman she believes, this time, to be innocent.

As the investigation gets underway and disturbing questions arise, Keera puts her trust in a client who swears nothing but the truth. If this is all just another devious game, Keera might be working to set a murderer free. 

 

 

 

My Book Club Book-

 

Way Station by Clifford D. Simak

 

Enoch Wallace is an ageless hermit, striding across his untended farm as he has done for over a century, still carrying the gun with which he had served in the Civil War. But what his neighbors must never know is that, inside his unchanging house, he meets with a host of unimaginable friends from the farthest stars.

More than a hundred years before, an alien named Ulysses had recruited Enoch as the keeper of Earth's only galactic transfer station. Now, as Enoch studies the progress of Earth and tends the tanks where the aliens appear, the charts he made indicate his world is doomed to destruction. His alien friends can only offer help that seems worse than the dreaded disaster. Then he discovers the horror that lies across the galaxy...

 

 

 

Reading for NetGalley-

  

Rage (Kate Burkholder #17) by Linda Castillo

 

In this gripping new installment of the Edgar Award winning series, Chief of Police Kate Burkholder investigates a brutal double murder that takes her into the dark underbelly of society and exposes the dangers of Amish lives gone wrong.

Summer has arrived with a vengeance in Painters Mill, and a macabre discovery by three Amish children brings the quiet to a grinding halt. Chief of Police Kate Burkholder arrives on scene to find the dismembered body of 21-year-old Samuel Eicher, a local Amish man who owned a successful landscaping business. What twisted individual murdered him in such a sadistic way?

The investigation has barely begun when, miles away, a second body is found, stuffed into a barrel and dumped in a ravine. The deceased is 21-year-old Aaron Shetler, Samuel Eicher’s best friend. What could these two young Amish men have done to deserve such violent ends?

With a heat wave bearing down, Kate learns quickly that, for reasons she doesn’t understand, no one is willing to talk about what happened to the men. Just as she begins to fear the case may be hopeless, a mystery woman comes forward and reveals that fun-loving Aaron and Samuel had recently befriended some very unsavory characters―individuals who may have ties to a larger, more sinister, black market.

To solve the case, Kate must delve into the most sordid corners of her community, but when she gets too close, the killers target Kate herself. Will the secrets simmering beneath the surface of Painters Mill take another life before she can expose the truth? Or will Kate be the final victim?

 

 

 

Pick It For Me Book-

 

No Exit by Taylor Adams

 

A brilliant, edgy thriller about four strangers, a blizzard, a kidnapped child, and a determined young woman desperate to unmask and outwit a vicious psychopath.

A kidnapped little girl locked in a stranger’s van. No help for miles. What would you do?

On her way to Utah to see her dying mother, college student Darby Thorne gets caught in a fierce blizzard in the mountains of Colorado. With the roads impassable, she’s forced to wait out the storm at a remote highway rest stop. Inside, are some vending machines, a coffee maker, and four complete strangers.

Desperate to find a signal to call home, Darby goes back out into the storm . . . and makes a horrifying discovery. In the back of the van parked next to her car, a little girl is locked in an animal crate.

Who is the child? Why has she been taken? And how can Darby save her?

There is no cell phone reception, no telephone, and no way out. One of her fellow travelers is a kidnapper. But which one?

Trapped in an increasingly dangerous situation, with a child’s life and her own on the line, Darby must find a way to break the girl out of the van and escape.

But who can she trust?

With exquisitely controlled pacing, Taylor Adams diabolically ratchets up the tension with every page. Full of terrifying twists and hairpin turns, No Exit will have you on the edge of your seat and leave you breathless.