From Wonder Woman, to assassins, to limo drivers, and government agents, many of our picks for this month’s book releases are packed full of action! There are some fantastic new books coming out this month, including Matthew Landis’ novel which is being hailed as a mash-up of Hamilton and National Treasure, so there is certainly something for every reader to discover! But if action isn’t your thing, have no fear because we never forget a genre, especially with John Boyne, the author who wrote Boy In The Striped Pajamas, releasing a new coming-of-age story set in 1940’s Ireland!
Read on to discover our pick’s for August and tell us in the comments below if you’ll be checking one of them out!
Need more? Check out our August Book Releases List on Goodreads or follow our socials to be up-to-date when we post upcoming releases!
Wonder Woman: Warbringer by Leigh Bardugo | Goodreads
She is Diana, Princess of the Amazons and her fight is just beginning… Diana longs to prove herself to her legendary warrior sisters and when the opportunity finally comes, she throws away her chance at glory and breaks Amazon law to save a mere mortal. Even worse, Alia Keralis is no ordinary girl and with this single brave act, Diana may have doomed the world. Alia is a Warbringer—a direct descendant of the infamous Helen of Troy, fated to bring about an age of bloodshed and misery. Together, Diana and Alia will face an army of enemies—mortal and divine—determined to either destroy or possess the Warbringer.
League of American Traitors by Matthew Landis | Goodreads
In this Hamilton meets National Treasure novel, seventeen year-old Jasper is thrust into a world of secrets tied to America’s history. From finding out he is the sole surviving descendant of Benedict Arnold, the most notorious traitor in American history, to learning his father’s death was no accident, Jasper finds himself at the center of a war that has been going on for centuries, where descendants of the heroes and traitors of the American Revolution still duel to the death for the sake of their honor.
The Bedlam Stacks by Natasha Pulley | Goodreads
In 1859, ex-East India Company smuggler Merrick Tremayne is trapped at home in Cornwall after sustaining an injury that almost cost him his leg, but when the India Office recruits Merrick for a deadly expedition to fetch quinine—essential for the treatment of malaria—from deep within Peru, he knows it’s a terrible idea. Desperate to escape everything at home, so he sets off and soon becomes surrounded by local stories of lost time, cursed woods, and living rock, Merrick must separate truth from fairytale and find out what befell the last expeditions.
The Driver by Hart Hanson | Goodreads
Michael Skellig is now a limo driver after being an Army Special Forces sergeant and his limo company is staffed by a ragtag band of wounded veterans. When he begins to hear the guttural accent of the Chechen torturer he shot through the eye in Yemen a decade ago, he knows to listen carefully. In an attempt to protect his client, he ends up in custody at a hospital as the only person of interest for murder and becomes entangled with a dangerous situation as he is literally the only person sitting between his client and a bullet to the head.
Young Jane Young by Gabrielle Zevin | Goodreads
Aviva Grossman, an ambitious Congressional intern in Florida who makes the life-changing mistake of having an affair with her boss and blogging about it. When the affair comes to light, the Congressman doesn’t take the fall, but Aviva does, and her life is over before it hardly begins. Changing her name and moving to a remote town in Maine with her daughter, she tries to start over as a wedding planner, but at the urging of others, she decides to run for public office herself. But in our age, Google guarantees that the past is never, ever, truly past, that everything you’ve done will live on for everyone to know about for all eternity.
Age of Assassins by R.J Barker | Goodreads
Girton Club-foot, apprentice to the land’s best assassin, still has much to learn about the art of taking lives. But their latest mission tasks him and his master with a far more difficult challenge: to save a life. Someone, or many someones, is trying to kill the heir to the throne, and it is up to Girton and his master to uncover the traitor and prevent the prince’s murder. In a kingdom on the brink of civil war and a castle thick with lies Girton finds friends he never expected, responsibilities he never wanted, and a conspiracy that could destroy an entire land.
Red Swan by P.T Deutermann | Goodreads
Set in contemporary Washington D.C., Red Swan begins with the death of a behind-the-scenes operator at the CIA, who was integral to the Agency’s secret war against China’s national intelligence service and severely damaged China’s Washington spy ring with a “black swan” ruse. But this mysterious death suggests that the CIA itself has been compromised and that China has someone inside the Agency. It appears the ruse may have been turned against the CIA and instead, a Red Swan is flying. Who is she, what is her target, and where will she land?
All Rights Reserved by Gregory Scott Katsoulis | Goodreads
Speth Jime is anxious to deliver her Last Day speech, but the moment she turns fifteen, she must pay for every word she speaks, for every nod ($0.99/sec), for every scream ($0.99/sec) and even every gesture of affection. But when her friend commits suicide rather than work off his family’s crippling debt, she can’t express her shock and dismay without breaking her Last Day contract. Backed into a corner, she finds a loophole: she closes her mouth and vows never to speak again. Speth’s unexpected defiance of tradition sparks a media frenzy, inspiring others to follow in her footsteps, and threatens to destroy her, her family and the entire city around them.
Poe: Stories and Poems (A Graphic Novel) by Gareth Hinds | Goodreads
In “The Cask of Amontillado,” a man exacts revenge on a disloyal friend at carnival, luring him into catacombs below the city. In “The Masque of the Red Death,” a prince shielding himself from plague hosts a doomed party inside his abbey stronghold. A prisoner of the Spanish Inquisition, faced with a swinging blade and swarming rats, can t see his tormentors in “The Pit and the Pendulum”. The seven concise graphic narratives, keyed to thematic icons, amplify and honour the timeless legacy of a master of gothic horror.
The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne | Goodreads
Born out of wedlock to a teenage girl cast out from her rural Irish community and adopted by a well-to-do if eccentric Dublin couple via the intervention of a hunchbacked Redemptorist nun, Cyril is adrift in the world, anchored only tenuously by his heartfelt friendship with the infinitely more glamourous and dangerous Julian Woodbead. At the mercy of fortune and coincidence, he will spend a lifetime coming to know himself and where he came from and over his many years will struggle to discover an identity, a home, a country, and much more.
The Burning Girl by Claire Messud | Goodreads
Julia and Cassie have been friends since nursery school. They have shared everything, including their desire to escape the stifling limitations of their birthplace, the quiet town of Royston, Massachusetts. But as the two girls enter adolescence, their paths diverge and Cassie sets out on a journey that will put her life in danger and shatter her oldest friendship.
The Blinds by Adam Sternbergh | Goodreads
Imagine a place populated by criminals-people plucked from their lives, with their memories altered, who’ve been granted new identities and a second chance. Welcome to The Blinds, a dusty town in rural Texas populated by misfits who don’t know if they’ve perpetrated a crime, or just witnessed one. What’s clear to them is that if they leave, they will end up dead. For eight years, Sheriff Calvin Cooper has kept an uneasy peace—but after a suicide and a murder in quick succession, the town’s residents revolt.
