July arrives with the slightly metallic tang of rain on parched earth. It’s the smell of something breaking, of turbulence and renewal, and our book picks mirror that charged mood. Each of the following five novels unfolds under high stakes and simmering anxiety, whether it’s the threat of war, the pressures of family and tradition, or the quiet violence of everyday life.
In this month’s reading list, we lean into stories that feel as charged and weighty as that pre-storm clay smell.
Half of a Yellow Sun, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Adichie’s modern classic is set in late 1960s Nigeria, as colonial rule dissolves and the Biafran civil war ignites. The novel follows the lives of three intertwined characters: Ugwu, an Igbo village boy working for a university professor; Olanna, the professor’s lover and the daughter of a wealthy man; and Richard, a British writer drawn into their world. Against the backdrop of coups and ethnic conflict, love and loyalties are tested. The author “tackles colonialism, ethnic allegiances, class, race, and female empowerment” through personal stories, and even amid such epic themes, Adichie keeps the narrative intimate and urgent.
This novel is critically acclaimed: it won the Orange Prize for Fiction (now the Women’s Prize) in 2007, and in 2020 was even voted the prize’s “Best of the Best” winner by readers. It has become an international bestseller (widely studied in schools) for good reason. You should pick up Half of a Yellow Sun to experience a story that is as human and heartbreaking as history itself.
Stay with Me, Ayobami Adebayo
Set in 1980s Nigeria, Adebayo’s debut novel is a wrenching marital drama that builds quiet but intense tension. We meet Yejide and Akin, a young couple madly in love, who by 1981 are married but remain childless four years later. In a society where family and children are everything, pressure mounts. Akin eventually yields to his mother’s urging and secretly marries a second wife, Funmi. The arrival of this second wife is the catalyst for a series of devastating events. Through their spiral of love, betrayal, and sacrifice, Adebayo exposes how cultural expectations and infertility can fracture even the deepest bonds.
Why is Stay with Me on our tense-July list? Because this novel simmers with emotional suspense. It explores the pressure-cooker atmosphere of family expectations in a modern African setting, and every decision feels urgent. Adebayo’s debut won widespread acclaim for its emotional power. It was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction (2018) and for the Wellcome Book Prize, and it took home Nigeria’s 9mobile Prize for Literature in 2019. Critics were blown away: The New York Times’ Michiko Kakutani praised Adebayo as “an exceptional storyteller,” writing that she handles love and loss with “extraordinary grace” and creates “a powerfully magnetic and heartbreaking book.”
Small Worlds, Caleb Azumah Nelson
In Small Worlds, Azumah Nelson (who burst onto the scene with Open Water) follows Stephen over three pivotal summers. Under family pressure to follow a conventional path (university degree, stable career), Stephen instead throws himself into his passion: music. He abandons college and even moves to Accra, Ghana, at one point, chasing his calling. We watch him navigate first loves, loss, and the challenge of bridging the gap between immigrant parents’ expectations and his own desires. Nelson’s prose is enthralling and, like his debut, it moves gracefully between London and Ghana, capturing Stephen’s internal conflict.
Small Worlds has already won major prizes: it took the 2023 Dylan Thomas Prize and was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction. Azumah Nelson himself was named one of TIME’s “One of 2021’s 10 Best Novels” for Open Water. The novel strikes a balance between cultural roots and personal freedom, reminding us that sometimes the deepest conflicts lie within.
Open Water, Caleb Azumah Nelson
Azumah Nelson’s debut (2021) is a quiet thunderclap of a love story. Told entirely in the second person, the unnamed narrator, a young Black photographer in southeast London, meets a dancer at a pub, and their connection grows into an intense romance. As they fall in love, they share not just dreams but also the deep anxieties they carry: the pains of racism, the fear of being seen only as a “Black body,” the grief over loss. Throughout, Nelson explores how even in love, the shadows of injustice can hold people back.
Though intimate in scale, Open Water has an intensity that earned it major awards. It won the Costa First Novel Award in 2021, as well as the Betty Trask and Somerset Maugham awards in 2022. Critics raved: The New York Times Book Review praised Azumah Nelson’s “poetic brilliance” and his “truly special” descriptive powers when depicting both tense police encounters and lovers intertwined. What makes this novel worth your time is the way it balances lyrical beauty with urgency. It’s a deeply vulnerable story about two people finding solace in each other, yet constantly aware of the world’s dangers.
Rootless, Krystle Zara Appiah
Krystle Zara Appiah’s debut is a tense, heartrending story of motherhood, choice, and sacrifice. In Rootless, Sam and Efe have been best friends (and now spouses) since childhood. To outsiders, they seem like a dream couple, but behind closed doors, their desires clash. Sam yearns to start a family; Efe, feeling suffocated by obligation, dreams of a life without children. When Efe unexpectedly becomes pregnant, the couple faces a dramatic crossroads. What follows is a raw exploration of postpartum depression, cultural expectations, and the costs of following one’s own path.
Appiah’s intimate writing hooks readers with its honesty and heat. It’s a book that shows how even love can become suffocating, how doing the right thing can tear a family apart. Readers will find themselves torn between sympathy for Sam’s dream and understanding of Efe’s pain. In July, Rootless fits right in; its tension is domestic but relentless.
Explore June’s reading list here.
