Dispatch No. 2 · July 2026

Dispatched 30 June 2026  ·  36 new releases for July

July, and the rainbow bunting is already down. The publishers who rediscovered the word "queer" four weeks ago have moved on to back-to-school. The books, happily, did not get the memo.

Thirty-six releases, and the season has turned hard toward horror — sixteen of them, plus a vampire cluster that all lands on the 7th, as though the genre kept office hours (The Brides retells Dracula from the wives' side; The Red Sacrament answers with covens). The month's flagship is warmer: John Wiswell, fresh off a Nebula for Best Novel, returns with The Dragon Has Some Complaints, a cozy fantasy narrated by a three-headed dragon who can't agree with himself. And August Clarke follows the Lambda-winning Metal from Heaven with The Felicity Complex — six lab-grown women turning on the billionaires they were built to serve. Bring garlic, or at least a grudge.