Monthly Book Recs | July 2025

Lots of fake dating, plus the most laugh-out-loud book I've read all year.

This newsletter is officially one year old and I just want to take a moment to say thank you for being here! I started building this community from scratch as a complete newbie in the bookish content space and don’t take for granted all of you who have joined me. Every subscription, direct message, like, comment, and reshare means the world to me and keeps me motivated to continue spreading joy one romance novel at a time.

Now onto July’s recommendations! We’re halfway through the year, and my top ten list is slowly solidifying. I’m a bit concerned that not a single book has received the elusive five-star rating from me yet in 2025. By this time last year, I had already read three of them! I may be stingy with those five stars, but I’m much more generous (perhaps occasionally too generous) with the four stars. That’s the thing I love about reading though: I live in perpetual anticipation that the next book I pick up could be my new favorite one.

How Freaking Romantic by Emily Harding

★★★★☆

July 1

It’s a rare occurrence these days for Book of the Month to spotlight a romance in its monthly curation, and when they do, it’s never the one I would have selected myself. But this one I actually agree with — it’s by far July’s best release! I’m familiar with Emily’s Austen-inspired contemporary romances, which she pens in partnership with Audrey Bellezza (Emma of 83rd Street is downright delightful and one of my favorites), so I was excited to read her solo debut. It’s fantastic! The slow-burn romance simmers with tension between a prickly, emotional, irrational heroine and her calm, stoic, and logical counterpart. The forbidden romance drama is just shy of messy, and I absolutely ate it up. The fact that I wanted to read more of the (already shorter) story is a testament to how much I like it. I have a feeling this one will end up keeping its spot in my current top 10.

When a woman discovers her best friend’s ex-husband is demanding alimony in the divorce, she storms into his attorney’s office to give him a piece of her mind. She never expected to see his divorce lawyer again — especially not as the new adjunct professor she must assist in her last semester of law school. As the two go from hostile adversaries to reluctant colleagues to more, she struggles with the moral implications of their burgeoning relationship and must decide whose happiness is more important: hers or her friends’.

Let’s Make a Scene by Laura Wood

★★★★☆

July 1

Laura’s adult debut last summer was my number two read of 2024 (and one of those books with the elusive five stars), so to say I was excited to dive into this one is an understatement. I hadn’t realized it would be a companion novel (you know how I feel about those), but you can read this one as a standalone. Overall, it’s not quite as sparkling as her first, but still enjoyable. Plus, the grand gesture at the end is so insanely adorable — I’ve only ever read one other book with this very specific grand gesture and both times it made me giddy. I will never complain about a then/now set-up, but for some reason, I found the pacing in this novel to be a smidge off balance — the past storyline takes up more space on the page than I expected while the present storyline takes a while to get where I wanted it to go. Still, it’s well-written, I like the characters, I found myself absorbed in the story, and it ends on a strong note that left me smiling.

In the book, two actors are reunited 13 years after the success of their regency romance movie to film its long-awaited sequel. Little do viewers know, their fiery chemistry on-screen was the result of their hate- (and lust-) fueled rivalry off-screen. Now, with her reputation in shambles and the fate of his longstanding network TV show up in the air, the two decide to embark on a fake relationship ahead of filming to drum up good press for their careers and for the sequel. As I mentioned about the pacing, the storyline from 13 years ago is a lot up front (a good chunk of the first third or so of the book), while the present storyline doesn’t see them getting back on set together (the part I was excited about) until the last third. The middle of the book details the aftermath of filming in the past in parallel with the prep for filming in the present.

Friends to Lovers by Sally Blakely

★★★★☆

July 22

Let me preface this by saying I’m very impressed this is a debut novel — the writing is good and I do not regret reading it at all. In fact, I was so engrossed I finished it in two days! Sally is certainly an author to keep on eye on. That said, this plot is basically People We Meet on Vacation, which IYKYK is Emily Henry’s worst novel (this year’s novel notwithstanding)¹. I thought long and hard about how I wanted to rate this, but I did rate PWMOV four stars, so it’s only fair that this one receive the same treatment. If you like that book, you will absolutely enjoy this one. The friends-to-lovers trope is hard to get right, and just like with Emily’s book, the downfall in this novel is that the drawn-out lack of communication between the characters overshadows the joy of the romance to an unsatisfying degree. Rather than feeling celebratory by the time the characters finally vocalize their feelings, I just wanted to get on with it. In both cases, the climax is much too underwhelming for that much build-up. The one saving grace: at least the MMC here is a bit more obvious about his secret feelings compared to Emily’s hero.

The book is about a woman who’s seeing her childhood best friend again for the first time in two years, after a disastrous falling apart. In the present storyline, they unite at their family’s beach house in celebration of her sister’s wedding and must present a united front to both their families who still think they’re BFFs. The past storyline begins when she moves across the country after college for a job and the two of them begin to use other people’s weddings as a way to see each other.

Maid For Each Other by Lynn Painter

★★★★☆

July 15

I underestimated how much I would enjoy this book. It’s unrealistic and insta-lusty, but utterly adorable and, as I learned earlier this year, I simply cannot resist a billionaire romance trope (especially one in which he falls first). It’s on the shorter side and goes by quickly for a compulsively binge-able beach read.

It all starts when a house cleaner gets mistaken for her very wealthy client’s girlfriend. When they both realize that faking a relationship could be the very thing they each need, they strike up a deal: she’ll pretend to be his girlfriend for a weekend of networking with his colleagues and he’ll pay off her student loans. But what starts as a fun ruse quickly turns into something more as the two develop a friendship that has nothing to do with the deal they struck.

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Till Summer Do Us Part by Meghan Quinn

★★★★☆

Surprisingly, this book wasn’t on my radar for June, but I was able to request a last-minute ARC after

Laura Yamin

called it hilarious and heartfelt. Can confirm, that description is accurate. It’s a wild fever dream of a plot that’s crazy outlandish at times, but I haven’t laughed that much from reading a book this entire year. Seriously, I was cackling. It’s almost as if Meghan took the marriage-of-convenience trope and said, “how can I make this set-up as silly as possible?” If a book can make me laugh that hard, I honestly don’t even care if the plot is absurd. Lean into the ridiculousness and you have a really fun book on your hands.

The story starts when a woman, fed up of working alongside happily partnered colleagues after her own divorce, announces in a meeting that she and her (non-existent) husband are going through a rough patch. Now, invited to a week-long marriage bootcamp alongside her boss and colleagues, she must scramble to find a fake husband. Enter: her best friend’s younger brother — a fun-loving guy who’s got nothing but free time after retiring early. She’s uptight and a little bit of a prude. He’s super into improv and has a lip piercing. What could go wrong?

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Now onto some books that didn’t make the cut.

By all accounts, Overruled by Lana Ferguson is a book that should have worked for me, so I was surprised by my mixed feelings. This is the type of plot I think Lana excels at — simple and steamy — and it’s a solid read that I think a lot of people will enjoy. The banter is fun and realistic, the characters are likable, and the spice is hot and heavy. I’m going through a phase right now of hating negative anticipation in my books and the villain storyline really took me out of the story. I couldn’t bear to not finish, so ended up skipping over the conflict to get to the happy ending.

The Spirit of Love by Lauren Kate received three stars from me and I think it will be my last time reading a novel from the author. The premise is cute (a discount The Seven Year Slip, if you will), the banter is creative (if not entirely realistic), and there are certainly some elements that work. However, just like with another novel of hers I reviewed in 2022, it lacks the narrative depth and development required for me to become emotionally invested in the characters and plot. Everything progresses quickly and the next thing you know the characters get their happy ending without you really feeling like they worked for it.

I played myself by reading Scotch on the Rocks by Elliot Fletcher. I rarely fall for social media promo, so I was surprised when this Instagram post from the author caught my eye. It sounded like it would be a quick steamy read. Instead, it was a let-down — the ideas are all on the page for sure, the book just needs a tighter edit and a more refined execution to make the elements and tropes come together in a way that feels more organic and less manufactured. Oh, and that quote featured in the illustration? Totally misappropriated and not at all from the same conversation between the characters.

1. Fellow Substack creator

Rena Rani

wrote an absolutely flawless essay about the evolution of Emily Henry’s novels and what she had to say about PWMOV echoes exactly how I feel about Sally’s debut. At the end of the day, gifted writing can still outweigh an unsatisfying plot:

“But here’s the magic, and the frustration: even in this watered-down form, Henry still manages to make you care about Poppy and Alex. You get to the end, and some part of you roots for them. That’s craft muscle. Raw talent.”