July 2026 Book Wrap-Up: Eight Books, Two Trips to Hercules & One Very Big Reading Month
June had four books.
Apparently July said, We can do better than that.
This month I finished eight books, ranging from Greek mythology romantasy and psychic mysteries to college love triangles, emotional beach reads, social satire, dark academia and one enormous literary novel about aviation.
My July reading list was:
- Blood of Hercules by Jasmine Mas, #1 Pick of the month
- Katabasis by R.F. Kuang
- Riley Thorn and the Blast from the Past by Lucy Score
- Bonds of Hercules by Jasmine Mas
- Seating Arrangements by Maggie Shipstead
- Heart the Lover by Lily King
- Heart Bones by Colleen Hoover
- Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead
And somehow there really wasn’t a dominant genre.
July was apparently my Maggie Shipstead month
I read not one but two Maggie Shipstead novels this month, and they couldn’t be more different.
Seating Arrangements stays mostly within one chaotic New England wedding weekend, watching a wealthy family slowly lose its grip on respectability.
Great Circle, meanwhile, spans decades and continents as Marian Graves pursues her obsession with aviation while a modern actress attempts to understand her story years later.
One is claustrophobic and socially observant.
The other is enormous.
Reading them in the same month was a fun way to see how much range one author can have.
Then there was Hercules
I also apparently decided that one dark Greek mythology romantasy was insufficient.
So I read two.
Blood of Hercules introduces Jasmine Mas’s very unconventional version of Hercules and the dangerous world of Spartans surrounding her. Bonds of Hercules immediately makes those relationships even more complicated.
These were easily the most chaotic books of my month.
And I mean that affectionately.
Katabasis took academia all the way to Hell
R.F. Kuang’s Katabasis probably wins July’s award for best premise to explain to someone without context:
Two Cambridge graduate students descend into Hell to retrieve their dead professor because they still need him for their careers.
It’s mythology, magic and dark academia mixed with a fairly brutal examination of ambition and academic power.
Probably not the graduate-school recruitment brochure Cambridge was hoping for.
A little mystery chaos
Riley Thorn and the Blast from the Past gave me something completely different.
Riley and Nick’s lives continue to be a bizarre combination of romance, murder investigations, psychic abilities, elderly neighbors and situations that would cause most normal people to move several states away.
Sometimes you want a serious literary novel.
Sometimes you want psychic kidnapping and accidental arson.
A balanced reading diet is important.
Two very different love stories
Heart Bones and Heart the Lover were probably the month’s easiest books to place beside each other while also being completely different.
Heart Bones is a younger, emotionally intense summer romance about two people who aren’t quite what they initially appear to be.
Heart the Lover is looking backward.
It’s about first love after enough time has passed to understand that the people we loved when we were young can influence the rest of our lives—even when those relationships don’t last.
One asks what happens when you’re just beginning to fall in love.
The other asks what that love looks like thirty years later in your memory.
July by the numbers
8 books.
6 different authors.
2 Maggie Shipstead novels.
2 Hercules books.
1 literal journey through Hell.
1 psychic detective situation.
Several catastrophically complicated relationships.
And an impressive number of people who would have avoided their entire plot by communicating more effectively.
So, basically, a very successful reading month.
Final thoughts
July was one of those months that reminds me why I don’t want to stick to one genre.
I went from dark romantasy to literary historical fiction.
From romantic comedy mystery to dark academia.
From college nostalgia to emotional beach romance.
And from a three-day New England wedding disaster to an aviator trying to circle the entire planet.
That’s a lot of ground to cover in eight books.
And after doubling my June reading total, I’m curious whether August is going to keep the momentum going—or whether my TBR pile finally wins.
