Book of the Month is a monthly book subscription box. Each month, their editorial team picks out their favorite new hardcover books, and you can choose which one you want to receive on the first of the month for $17.99/month. You can also add up to two additional books for only $9.99 each. (This box was named one of the best subscriptions for avid readers in the 2025 Subscription Box Awards.).
This box was sent to us at no cost for review. (Check out the editorial guidelines to learn more about how we review boxes.)
My BOTM Pick for July: These Summer Storms by Sarah MacLean; Retail $27
Back of Book Summary:
Alice Storm hasn’t been welcome at her family’s magnificent private island off the Rhode Island coast in five years—not since she was cast out and built her life beyond the Storm name, influence, and untold billions. But the shocking death of her larger-than-life father changes everything.
Alice plans to keep her head down, pay her final respects (such as they are), and leave the minute the funeral is over. Unfortunately, her father had other plans. The eccentric, manipulative patriarch left his family a final challenge—an inheritance game designed to upend their world. The rules are clear: spend one week on the island, complete their assigned tasks, and receive the inheritance.
But a whole week on Storm Island is no easy task for Alice. Every corner of the sprawling old house is bursting with chaos: Her older sister’s secret love affair. Her brother’s unyielding arrogance. Her younger sister’s constant analysis of the vibes. Her mother’s cold judgment. And all under the stern, watchful gaze of Jack Dean, her father’s intriguing and too-handsome second-in-command. It will be a miracle if Alice manages to escape unscathed.
My Summary
For Alice Storm, being cast out by her eccentric tech billionaire father five years ago was supposed to mean freedom from the suffocating world of extreme wealth. Working as an elementary school teacher in New York City, she's the only one of Franklin Storm's four children to forge her own path, though she can never fully escape the scrutiny that comes with the Storm name or her very public betrayal of her father.
When Franklin dies, Alice is summoned to Storm Island, the family's private retreat off the coast of Rhode Island, where her cold Boston Brahmin mother is hosting a "celebration" of his life. There, she faces the three siblings who abandoned her during her exile, each harboring their own secrets and demons.
But the Steve Jobs-esque Franklin has one last invention to reveal — a twisted game designed to determine whether his wife and children deserve their inheritance. Letters left for the Storms include tasks that must be completed by the week's end, and Alice's seems deceptively simple: stay on Storm Island for an entire week. If she leaves, no one in the family inherits anything.
Feeling rejected by her siblings and unable to forget her mother's callous parenting, Alice wrestles with whether to stay and where she fits in the Storm family. She finds both comfort and confusion in Jack Dean, her father's enigmatic second-in-command who has been tasked with judging whether the Storms complete their challenges.
The first contemporary novel from historical fiction bestseller Sarah MacLean, These Summer Storms explores what happens when money becomes the ultimate weapon in a family's war against itself.
The Verdict
I had the oddest sense of deja vu as I paged through my July BOTM Club pick. There was something about the tumultuous Storm family and their private island that felt incredibly familiar.
And then it hit me. I just finished streaming the Amazon Prime mini series We Are Liars, the adaptation of E. Lockhart's popular YA novel about the wealthy Sinclair family, their private island off the coast of New England, their bickering over the family inheritance, and their controlling patriarch. Sound familiar?
Sarah MacLean's novel has echoes of both the manipulative island patriarch of We Are Liars and the wealthy family dysfunction in Succession. For readers who devoured Succession and found themselves simultaneously repulsed and fascinated by the Roy family's machinations or those who found themselves coveting the island escape of We Are Liars, this Book of the Month Club choice delivers that same addictive blend of privilege, betrayal, and family loyalty.
Value — Was This Box Worth It?
The July 2025 BOTM Club subscription box was a bona fide savings blitz.
The hardcover currently retails for $27 on Amazon, but the BOTM Club starts at $17.99, depending on your chosen subscription (the first month of a subscription is currently $9.99). That's a $9 savings right there. Add on the surprise email I received at the start of the month letting me know I could choose a free book in honor of my birthday, and I was more than $30 ahead!
The Cost: $9.99 (This price is only for your first month).
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To Wrap Up:
Can you still get this book if you sign up today? Yes! But you will need to order it as an add-on.
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