Books to Curl Up With This July; Our Top Picks for the Month

There’s something about July that calls for deeper reads. Hmm, maybe it’s the weather…yes, it definitely is. Stories that pull you in and sit with you long after you’ve turned the last page. 

This month’s bookshelf mixes heartache, healing, money talk, and messy love. From multi-generational sagas to self-reflective fiction and money truths, these titles promise perspective and page-turning satisfaction. 

If you’re in the mood for books that stir your soul or change your budget mindset, you’ll find something worth diving into here.

Roving Heights
₦9,000

A novel soaked in emotion and textured with culture, Butter Honey Pig Bread is a story about grief, family rupture, and the long road to healing. At its centre are Taiye and Kehinde, twin sisters who’ve spent years apart after an unnamed childhood trauma splinters their bond. Taiye drowns her guilt in reckless pleasures in London, while Kehinde rebuilds a quiet life in Montreal, far from home and her past. 

Their mother, Kambirinachi, is not just a parent but an Ọgbanje. A spirit-child who believes her presence in the world may have disrupted fate. When the women reunite in Lagos, food, memory, and pain fill the air. Francesca Ekwuyasi writes with tenderness and depth, layering Yoruba spirituality, queer identity, and generational trauma into a novel that smells, tastes, and aches like real life.

Roving Heights
₦28,000

In Matriarch, Tina Knowles steps out from behind the scenes to tell her story in her own words. She takes readers on a journey from her early days in segregated Galveston, Texas, to raising iconic daughters Beyoncé and Solange. But this isn’t just a celebrity memoir. It’s a blueprint for resilience, a story of a woman who faced heartbreak, racism, divorce, and reinvention, and still chose to live with intention. 

Knowles blends her Southern upbringing with the lessons of Black womanhood, motherhood, and entrepreneurship in an intimate and inspiring way. This book isn’t about fame but foundation, legacy, and what it means to build something lasting.

School Store
₦12,000

Chimamanda returns to fiction with Dream Count, a calm but piercing story that orbits four women across two continents. Chiamaka, a Nigerian travel writer isolated during the pandemic in America, reflects on lost loves and the choices she thought made sense. Zikora, the golden girl turned divorcee, must face the truth behind her seemingly perfect image. 

Omelogor, all power and drive back in Nigeria, discovers that her inner life has more shadows than she realised. Kadiatou, Chiamaka’s housekeeper, anchors the story with her fierce will to survive, even when the unthinkable strikes. 

In Dream Count, Adichie doesn’t just write characters; she builds emotional maps. The result is a novel that unpacks the cost of love, the shape of womanhood, and the uncomfortable space between freedom and connection.

Amazon Kindle
$23.18 

Money is messy, and Emma Edwards knows it. Good With Money skips the guilt-trip approach and gets straight to the real problem: your money habits are emotional and never built for today’s hyper-digital world. With compassion and wit, Edwards explains why payday anxiety and budget burnout are symptoms of deeper beliefs around worth, control, and fear. 

She guides readers to untangle money shame, confront toxic spending cycles, and start building financial systems that stick. This book isn’t about saving more; it’s about feeling safe and confident while doing it. If you’ve ever avoided your bank app or felt like budgeting never quite works, this read offers clarity without the cringe.

Book Peddler
₦20,300

If He Had Been With Me is a love story wrapped in heartbreak. At its core is Autumn, who’s always lived beside Finny, next-door neighbour, childhood best friend, and almost something more. But by the time high school ends, Finny is someone she barely knows, yet still can’t let go of. 

Laura Nowlin’s writing is subtle, slow, and emotionally charged. The novel doesn’t rely on dramatic twists but builds tension in the ordinary glances, missed chances, and what-ifs. It’s a story about the weight of timing, the fragility of friendship, and how deeply we can mourn a future that never had a chance to begin. The ending will stay with you, quietly wrecking your chest in the way only a truly honest book can.

If you're looking for books to read this July that spark self-reflection, challenge emotional patterns, or make you feel deeply human, this is your lineup. With stories that stretch across continents and emotions that settle deep, these reads remind us that July is a good time to feel everything.