With July comes the realisation that we’re already over half way through the year, and I for one am woefully behind on my TBR target! But the release schedule waits for nobody, and we’ve assembled a stellar list of brand new titles that explore powerful themes in truly unique ways. From boyfriends reincarnated as house plants to mysterious international pandemics, this list showcases the very best fiction that July has to offer!
Send Flowers by Emily Buchanan
9780857308931 / Verve Books / £10.99 / PB / Out now
Fiona, better known as eco-influencer @FoliageFifi, hasn’t left her flat since her boyfriend, Ed, died. She blames herself for what happened to him and for the failure of their climate activist group. But when Ed’s favourite plant appears on her doorstep with an anonymous note, Fifi feels a glimmer of hope. She sprinkles his ashes into the soil and wakes to find that the plant has flowered. Not just that – it can talk. Her explanation? Ed is back. This time as a houseplant.
Intent on keeping Ed and his flowers alive, Fifi follows his cues into a world on the brink of climate collapse. But when Ed becomes demanding, urging her towards the people and places that left her scarred, Fifi realises that preserving his life could mean risking her own. How far will she go to keep him blooming?
Set in a future that feels all too real, Emily Buchanan’s startlingly original debut explores the right to protest amidst climate chaos, the importance of community in weathering life’s storms and the resilience of love and hope in a world that seems beyond saving.
Supporting Act by Agnes Lidbeck
9781916806085 / Peirene Press / PB / £12.99 / Out now
The social contract is non-negotiable. The woman must be a mother. The woman must be desirable. The woman must be a caregiver. When Anna gives birth, she surrenders completely to motherhood, reshaping her body, identity and purpose, shielding herself from the burden of her own desires. But as her marriage crumbles and her children grow independent, she needs a new role. An affair with an ageing writer, Ivan, offers her a new narrative, a way to rewrite herself. But no role lasts forever, and sooner or later Anna must confront the woman beneath the performance.
Ancestors by Adrienne Maree Brown
9781849355520 / AK Press / PB / £15.00 / 03rd July 2025
Ancestors is the powerful conclusion to Adrienne Maree Brown’s Grievers trilogy — a story of how life blooms amid tragedy and hate. In the wake of a mysterious pandemic known as Syndrome H-8, the survivors of a ravaged and isolated Detroit are building a future inside the network of deserted skyscrapers that define the city’s skyline. Dune’s magic keeps a lush green wall encircling the community, and while some settle inside its safety, others grow desperate to get out, fueling the tension between shelter and confinement. As Dune’s power blossoms and her connection to the spirits of the departed deepens, she must learn how to balance the needs of her people, both living and dead.
After The Clearances by Alison Layland
9781916821262 / Honno / PB / £9.99 / Out now
Set in 2056, After The Clearances is a gripping cli-fi novel that explores the impacts of climate change through a story of loyalty and revenge. The Seeders, a self-sufficient community, flee to a remote Welsh island to escape the government’s repressive Clearances, and cultivate a new way of living. But 13-year-old Seeder, Glesni, suspects her family is hiding something. When Sandy, a vengeful mainlander, washes ashore, Glesni is drawn to search for a truth that threatens to put those she loves at risk and maybe even jeopardize the whole community. Meanwhile, on the mainland, fugitive Winter finds an unlikely friendship with a wild woman living off the land. How are their fates connected?
One Level Down by Mary G. Thompson
9781616964306 / Tachyon / PB / £13.99 / 24th July 2025
Ella is the oldest five-year-old in the universe. For fifty-eight years, the founder of a simulated colony-planet has forced her to pretend to be his daughter. Her ‘Daddy’ has absolute power over all elements of reality, which keeps the colonists in line even when their needs are not met. But his failing experiments and despotic need for absolute control are increasingly dangerous.
Ella’s very life depends on her performance as a child. She has watched Daddy delete her stepmother and the loved ones of anyone who helps her. But every sixty years, a Technician comes from the world above. Ella has been watching and working and biding her time. Because if she cannot make the technician help her, the only solution is a desperate measure that could lead to consequences for the entire universe.
Off-White by Astrid Roemer
9781917126090 / Tilted Axis / PB / £16.99 / 24th July 2025
In 1966 Suriname, the Vanta family, an intricate blend of Creole, Maroon, French, Indian, Indigenous, British, and Jewish heritage, is led by Grandma Bee, a proud, cigar-smoking matriarch facing her final days. As she reflects on her scattered family and the loss of her favourite granddaughter, Heli, exiled to the Netherlands for an affair with her white teacher, Bee grapples with one question: What truly binds a family? Off-White offers a moving exploration of Bee’s legacy amid themes of male violence, colonialism, and the dismantling of racial identity, marking the return of a celebrated Surinamese author after two decades.
The New Dinosaurs by Dougal Dixon
9781911081210 / Breakdown Press / HB / £29.99 / 28th July 2025
Breakdown Press is proud to present a new, updated edition of Dougal Dixon’s lavishly illustrated work of speculative zoology, The New Dinosaurs. Here, the meteorite missed… There was no cataclysmic impact on the Earth 65 million years ago, and the great reptiles of the Mesozoic lived on…
Thus begins a beguiling voyage of evolutionary discovery encompassing both geology and palaeontology, as scientist and father of speculative evolution, Dougal Dixon takes the reader on a journey around a strange new world where the dinosaurs have spread into every corner of the globe. Dixon’s remarkable vision of the creatures that could have evolved to live on is both awe-inspiring and educational. Learn about the dangerous Northclaws, track gargantuan flightless Trombles across bleak tundra, meet the cunning Springe of the swamps and marvel at the lightning fast Sprintosaurs!
Newly revised by the author to reflect discoveries in the field of dinosaur research since the book’s original publication, this remains a vital, provocative work of conjecture. Dougal Dixon’s potent blend of up-to-date science and inventive fantasy, given life by superbly detailed colour illustrations, has produced a highly convincing alternative zoology – and a wonderful, modern array of New Dinosaurs.
The Undrowned by Toby Vieira
9781068794148 / Weatherglass Books / PB / £12.99 / 31st July 2025
London: the threat of another pandemic looms. And Sebastian, a journalist searching for his colleagues who have disappeared on a mission in West Africa, may hold the secret to it all.
After surviving a life-threatening encounter with the new disease, Sebastian’s troubles get worse. As he fights to discover what’s happened to his friends, he realises that there are powerful forces pursuing him: a posse of fake nurses want his blood and the police want to find him guilty of murder.
And when he travels back to Africa to find out what has happened to his friends, he is forced to confront a presence yet more terrifying: the mythical, malevolent warlord who haunts the imagination of everyone who encounters him – Khai Manni.
For fans of Graham Greene and John Le Carre, The Undrowned is a story of courage, mystery and paranoia in a world that may be spinning completely out of control.
