The Peculiar Gift of July: A Novel

Written by Ashley Ream

Narrated by Cassandra Campbell

With a dash of magic and a cast of oddball, small-town characters, this feel-good novel explores forgiveness, family, and the sense of humor it takes to live with the ones we love the most.

Ebey’s End is a small town on an island off the Pacific coast, reachable only by ferry (assuming the gods are with you and it’s not a Tuesday). It’s a comfortable, familiar (but okay, fine, sometimes lonely) life for its resident grocer Anita Odom. That is, until fourteen-year-old July shows up on her doorstep.

Taking in the recently orphaned daughter of an estranged cousin had not been on Anita’s to-do list. In fact, it’s a terrible idea. Anita is ill-suited, ill-prepared, and absolutely certain the entire enterprise will end in disaster—for both of them.

From the moment she arrives, July seems to “know” what each customer at the Island Grocery needs. They’re small things: a housekeeping magazine slipped into old Mr. Daly’s basket or a coconut cream pie pressed into the hands of Pastor Chet. But one by one, these gifts start to change the lives of nearly everyone in town in ways much larger than they—or July—could have imagined.

It's not long before secrets are exposed and questions emerge, and everyone in Ebey’s End has to open their hearts a little wider to make room for it all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Audio
• Release date: Jul 1, 2025
• ISBN: 9798217076918

Ashley Ream

Ashley Ream got her first job writing for newspapers when she was 16. Since then her career has taken her all over the Midwest, Gulf, and West Coasts with more moves than she would care to count. She is now finally and happily settled in Seattle, where she lives with her husband, runs ultramarathons, and is finishing her next book. Her debut novel, Losing Clementine, was short-listed for the Balcones Fiction Prize.