Ah, June Treasures in My Closet. Books are always magic, but there’s an enormous collection of magical books that will be released in June. Wait until you see this list!

It’s the twentieth anniversary of Aimee Leduc, while Murder in Bel-Air is the nineteenth book in Cara Black’s series. Private investigator Aimee Leduc is about to go onstage to deliver the keynote address at a tech conference when she receives word her mother never showed to babysit Aimee’s daughter. Now, Leduc is entangled in a dangerous web of international spy craft, post-colonial Franco-African politics, and neighborhood secrets in Paris’ 12th arrondissement. (Release date is June 4.)

Espionage also takes center stage in Kate Carlisle’s latest Bibliophile mystery, The Book Supremacy. While on the last day of their Parisian honeymoon, Brooklyn finds the perfect gift for her husband, Derek Stone. It’s a first edition James Bond novel, The Spy Who Loved Me. Brooklyn shows the gift to Ned, an old friend of Derek’s from his spy days. Back in San Francisco, the couple wonder if their new problems are related. After Brooklyn lends the book to a local spy shop for a display, someone breaks in, and there’s a murder. And, Derek learns Ned has been killed. Carlisle’s links between books and murder are always clever. (Release date is June 4.)

Blake Crouch, author of the bestseller Dark Matter, now brings us Recursion, a combination thriller and science fiction puzzle. “My son has been erased” are the lat words a woman tells Barry Sutton before she leaps from the Manhattan rooftop. When Barry begins to investigate her death, he discovers that all across the country, people are waking up to lives different from the ones they fell asleep to. Miles away, neuroscientist Helen Smith is developing a technology that allows us to preserve our most intense memories and relive them. But, Barry discovers that Helena’s work has yielded a terrifying gift – the ability not just to preserve memories, but to remake them. And, that means destroying all the memories and moments that make us human. (Release date is June 11.)

One Small Sacrifice marks the launch of a new series by Hilary Davidson. NYPD Detective Sheryn Sterling is brilliant, dedicated, and hard-headed, a detective with invaluable insight, but also tunnel vision. Sterling is certain Alex Trainer got away with murder when his friend Cori fell to her death a year earlier. She thinks Trainer, a wartime photojournalist suffering from PTSD is to blame. When Alex’s fiancee goes missing, Sheryn is determined he won’t escape justice this time. But, as she delves into the investigation, all her suppositions are overturned. (Release date is June 1.)

Edgar Award nominee Dianne Freeman is back with A Lady’s Guide to Gossip and Murder. When a gossip novelist is found murdered, Frances Wynn, the widowed Countess of Harleigh, teams up with George Hazelton to assist the police in a highly sensitive case that is upsetting all of society. I loved the first book, A Lady’s Guide to Etiquette and Murder. (Release date is June 25.)

Magic for Liars is Sarah Gailey’s fantasy debut. Ivy Gamble was born without magic, and she never wanted it. She’s satisfied with her life, and doesn’t wish she was liked her gifted twin sister, Tabitha. Ivy Gamble is a liar. When a gruesome murder is discovered at The Osthome Academy of Young Mages, where her estranged twin sister teaches, reluctant detective Ivy Gamble is pulled into the world of untold power and dangerous secrets. She will have to find a murderer and reclaim her sister – without losing herself. (Release date is June 4.)

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, brings us a novel set in a world of glamour, sex and adventure in the 1940s New York Theater world, City of Girls. At ninety-five, Vivian Morris looks back at her life in the 1940s after she was kicked out of college and went to live with her Aunt Peg in Manhattan. At Aunt Peg’s midtown theater, the Lily Playhouse, Vivian is introduced to an entirely different world, but a personal mistake that results in professional scandal turns her life upside down. (Release date is June 4.)

I had never read Matt Goldman’s Nils Shapiro mysteries, but, after reading The Shallows, I went back and picked up both of the earlier ones. Shapiro is a shrewd private detective in Minneapolis. When a widow hires Shapiro to investigate her husband’s savage murder, she’s not the only one looking for Shapiro’s help. Everyone, from the widow’s boyfriend to a congressional candidate to the FBI wants to know what happened. It’s a convoluted story, but Nils Shapiro is the true draw in this mystery. (Release date is June 4.)

I have it on good authority that I’m going to love Lisa Grunwald’s Time After Time with its Grand Central Terminal setting. It’s a magical love story inspired by the legend of a woman who vanished from Grand Central Station. It sweeps readers from the 1920s to World War II and beyond. In 1937, Joe Reynolds, a hardworking railroad man meets a vibrant young woman at the famous clock. Nora Lansing’s clothes and talk of the Roaring Twenties seems out of place in Depression-era New York. When Joe tries to walk her home, she disappears. Nora is trapped with a strange connection to Grand Central. The story defies age, class, place, and even time. (Release date is June 11.)

Set in a small fishing town in Maine, Evvie Drake Starts Over is a debut novel by Linda Holmes, host of the NPR podcast, Pop Culture Happy Hour. Evvie is recently widowed at age thirty-three, adrift in her life, and keeping secrets from herself and those closest to her. Things start to look up after she meets Dean, a former Yankees pitcher who can no longer throw straight. Dean rents the small apartment attached to Evvie’s house. Given town, and some good conversation and bourbon, they find a way back to themselves, and toward each other. (Release date is June 25.)

Katherine Howe returns to the world of her first book, The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, with her latest novel, The Daughters of Temperance Hobbs. Professor Connie Goodwin specializes in the history of domestic healing arts and the women who possessed those skills. But, Connie harbors a secret. She is the direct descendant not only of Deliverance Dane, a woman tried as a witch in Salem, but of an entire bloodline whose abilities were far more magical than the historical record shows. A hint from her mother, though, and clues from her research forces Connie to realize her beloved finance’s life is in danger, and she must solve the mystery behind a centuries-old deadly cycle to save him. (Release date is June 25.)

The Stationery Shop by Marjan Kamali takes readers to Iran in the 1950s. Royaa is a dreamy, idealistic teenager living in 1953 Tehran who, amidst the poltical upheaval of the time, finds a literary oasis in kindly Mr. Fakhri’s neighborhood book and stationery shop. When Mr. Fakri introduces her to his other favorite customer, Bahman, who has a burning passion for justice and a love for Rumi’s poetry, Rosa loses her heart. But, several months later, on the eve of their wedding, when the young couple are to meet, violence erupts, and Bahman never shows. (Release date is June 18.)

Susan Mallery’s latest novel, The Summer of Sunshine & Margot, is about the Baxter sisters and the changes in their lives thanks to one fateful summer and one aging movie star. Etiquette coach Margot Baxter can handle wayward clients, until she has to deal with Bianca, an aging movie star notorious for her shock-and-awe tactics. But, Bianca needs to learn to behave as a diplomat’s wife. Then, there’s Margot’s good-time sister, Sunshine. She’s ready to straighten up and change her life. Both sisters learn that change doesn’t just happen. (Release date is June 10.)

In We Were Killers Once, Becky Masterman picks up where Truman Capote left off with In Cold Blood. Capote wrote of Perry Smith and Dick Hickok, convicted and executed for killing a family of four in Holcomb, Kansas in 159. “What if there was a third killer, who remained unknown? But what if there was another family, also murdered, who crossed paths with this band of killers?” What if Dick Hickok left a written confession? Retired FBI agent Bridgid Quinn’s husband, a former priest, was once a prison chaplain, and he knows he has a written document hidden away that has become a target for a man on the run. (Release date is June 4.)

The Burning Chambers launches a new historical fiction series by Kate Mosse. In France, 1561, war sparks between the Catholics and the Huguenots, dividing neighbors, friends, and family. Minou and Piet are a young couple thrown together by chance who find themselves on opposing sides as forces beyond their control threaten to tear them apart. Their fates are sealed by a mysterious mission that will forever change the course of their lies and the future of their country. And, a feud that will burn across generations begins to blaze. (Release date is June 18.)

Junior reporter Riley Ellison is back in Jill Orr’s funny mystery, The Ugly Truth. There are two shocking murders in small-town Tuttle Corner Virginia, cases involving high-profile players from Washington, D.C. This brings national attention, and national competition for the story, to Riley Ellison’s title corner of the world. Beloved cafe owner Rosalee is the prime suspect, but she insists she’s innocent. In exchange for protection, Rosalee gives Riley and her fellow reporter Holman exclusive information that incriminates a powerful person. (Release date is June 18.)

Is the perfect sister also a perfect liar? That’s Ryan Gracey’s question about her “perfect” older sister Wendy in Emilie Richards’ A Family of Strangers. Ryan never even tried to compete with Wendy, who seems to have everything. But, when Wendy calls and begs Ryan for help, she’s stunned. There’s been a murder, and Wendy believes she may be wrongfully accused. While Ryan moves back to their hometown to care for the two nieces she barely knows, she uses her skills refined as a true-crime podcaster to look for answers. Yet the trail of clues Wendy left behind leads to nothing but more questions. (Release date is 6/25.)

The latest novel from two-time Edgar Award-winning author Lori Roy, is a powerful, timely story, Gone Too Long. Roy uses several viewpoints, and historical accounts to tell the story of a town and several women who were terrorized for years by a connection to the local Ku Klux Klan chapter. (Release date is June 24.)

Jennifer Ryan, the author of The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir, brings us a World War II story, The Spies of Shilling Lane. It’s the story of a village busybody determined to find, and then rescue, her missing daughter. Mrs. Braithwaite, self-appointed queen of her English village, finds herself dethroned, despises, and dismissed following her husband’s divorce petition. So, she takes off to London when a family secret is threatened, in order to find the only person she has left, her clever daughter, Betty. When Betty’s landlord informs her that the young woman hasn’t been home in days, and, with the chaos of the London Blitz, who knows what happens. Now, Mrs. Braithwaite storms into the London Blitz to learn of Betty’s fate. (Release date is June 4.)

Set on a Southern plantation in the 1920s, Deb Spera’s debut novel, Call Your Daughter Home, follows the trials and triumphs of three fierce, unforgettable women. It’s 1924 in South Carolina, and the region is still recovering from the infamous boll weevil infestation that devastated the land and the economy. Gertrude, a mother of four, must make an unconscionable decision to save her daughters from starvation or die at the hands of an abusive husband. Retta is navigating a harsh world as a first-generation freed slave, still employed by the Coles, the family who once owned her family. Annie, the matriarch the Coles family, must come to terms with the terrible truth that has ripped her family apart. These three women, seemingly with nothing in common, find strength in the bond that ties women together. (Release date is June 11.)

I don’t know how to summarize Jennifer Weiner’s Mrs. Everything without giving away too much. So, here’s the summary from Barnes & Noble’s page, “timely exploration of two sisters’ lives from the 1950s to the present as they struggle to find their places—and be true to themselves—in a rapidly evolving world. Mrs. Everything is an ambitious, richly textured journey through history—and herstory—as these two sisters navigate a changing America over the course of their lives.” (Release date is June 11.)

Sometimes, a romantic comedy just sounds fun. Waiting for Tom Hanks by Kerry Winfrey features Annie Cassidy, a rom-com-obsessed romantic waiting for her perfect leading man. When Annie gets a job on a movie that’s filming in her neighborhood, she mets the lead actor, Drew Danforth. He’s a cocky prankster who couldn’t be less like Tom Hanks if he tried. Despite that, Annie finds herself sharing some classic rom-com moments with Drew, while she learns that life doesn’t always go according to a script. (Release date is June 11.)

There’s a wealth of books for June, especially if you’re a fan of what is commonly called “women’s fiction”. I prefer to think of them as books with interesting stories.

There are so many books for June that, naturally, there’s a list I couldn’t summarize. These books are also June releases.

Anderson, Richard – Retribution (6/4)
Baker, Jo – The Body Lies (6/17)
Belle, Kimberly – Dear Wife (6/25)
Brodesser-Akner, Taffy – Fleishman is in Trouble (6/18)
Clifford, Joe – Rag and Bone (6/4)
Edvardsson, M.T. – A Nearly Normal Family (6/24)
Graham, Scott – Arches Enemy (6/10)
Harrison, Nicola – Montauk (6/3)
Houston, Victoria – Dead Big Dawg (6/11)
Jalaluddin, Uzma – Ayesha at Last (6/3)
Kate, Lauren – The Orphan’s Song (6/24)
King, Reed – FKA USA (6/17)
Lombardo, Claire – The Most Fun We Ever Had (6/24)
Mackin, Jeanne – The Last Collection (6/24)
Mackintosh, Clare – After the End (6/24)
Mancusi, Nicholas – A Philosophy of Ruin (6/17)
Martineau, Maxym M. –  Kingdom of Exiles; The Beast Charmer (6/24)
Mechling, Lauren – How Could She (6/24)
Nesbitt, John D. – Dusk along the Niobrara (6/18)
Smith, Dominic – The Electric Hotel (6/3)
Vuong, Ocean – On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous (6/3)
Wolff, Jake – The History of Living Forever (6/10)
Zaki, Jamil – The War for Kindness (6/3)