There are so many June releases at home, especially crime fiction ones, that this may be a little overwhelming. And, because I worked on Sunday, I didn’t have as much time as usual to get this ready. Here goes, though.

Stephanie Butland’s The Lost for Words Bookshop is the first of two books this month about bookshops. (That usually sells me right there – bookshops.) Loved Carlew prefers books to people, and even has the first lines of novels she loves most tattooed on her skin. Into her hiding place – the bookstore where she works – comes a poet, a lover, and three suspicious deliveries. Someone has found out about her mysterious past. Will Loved survive her own heartbreaking secrets? (Release date is June 19.)

Tracy Clark’s debut, Broken Places, is one of the best books I’ve read this year. As a Chicago police officer, Cass Raines took a bullet when an incompetent colleague messed up a tense confrontation with an armed suspect. Two years later, she’s a private investigator. When Father Ray, a priest who helped raise her, asks her to look into problems at the church, she agrees. But, he refuses protection, and the next day, he and a teenager are found murdered in the church. The lead detective calls it theft gone wrong, but Cass disagrees, and starts her own investigation. (Release date is May 29, but I’m including it in June because it was scheduled as a “June release”.)

Sheila Connolly launches the Victorian Village Mystery series with the enjoyable Murder at the Mansion. Kate Hamilton is laid off when a Japanese conglomerate buys the boutique hotel where she works. So she has the time to help when her hometown, on the verge of bankruptcy, asks her for suggestions. The huge Victorian mansion that belongs to the town offers possibilities. Those possibilities will have to wait until a murder is solved. Kate and the mansion’s caretaker found the body of a town councilperson, a woman who was disliked by most of the town, including Kate. (Release date is June 26.)

If it’s not bookshops, it’s writers. The Bar Harbor Retirement Home for Famous Writers (And Their Muses) is a novel by Terri-Lynne DeFino. The Bar Harbor Home was established specifically for elderly writers needing a place to live in understated luxury, surrounded by congenial literary company. It’s where literary giant Alfonse Caraducci ends up after forsaking life to pursue greatness. Now, he has writer’s block. But, one of the staff members, a young woman whose face was destroyed in an accident, Cecibel, meets her favorite writer, and becomes Alfonse’s muse. The Bar Harbor Home, “a place where the old are made young, the damaged are made whole, and anything is possible:. (Release date is June 12.)

A Study in Treason is Leonard Goldberg’s second Daughter of Sherlock Holmes mystery. Dr. John Watson, Jr. tells the story of a locked room mystery involving Joanna, daughter of Sherlock Holmes, himself, and his father, Dr. John Watson, Sr. The executed original of a secret treaty between England and France, the French Treaty, has been stolen from a country estate, and Scotland Yard asks the trio to investigate. As the government gets impatient, Joanna devises a clever plan to trap the thief. (Release date is June 12.)

Matt Goldman brings back Minneapolis private detective Nils Shapiro in Broken Ice. When Shapiro is shot through the arm with an arrow, he knows he’s getting closer to discovering what happened to a missing teenager, Linnea Engstrom. She could be anywhere, and someone doesn’t want her to be found. As bodies start piling up, the clues lead Nils and his partner, Anders Ellegaard, north to a small town with secrets to hide. (Release date is June 12.)

Sarah J. Harris’ The Color of Bee Larkham’s Murder is the story of a thirteen-year-old boy with synesthesia – a condition that causes him to see colors when he hears sounds. Recently, Jasper has been haunted by a color he doesn’t like or understand, the color of murder. He’s convinced he’s done something terrible to his new neighbor, Bee Larkham. As he revisits the events of the last few months, and struggles to untangle the knot of memories and colors, it seem there’s someone out there determined to stop him. (Release date is June 12.)

Last Girl Gone is a debut mystery by J.G. Hetherton. It introduces investigative journalist Laura Chambers, back in her hometown after she was fired from the Boston Globe. When a young girl goes missing, and then another, she thinks she has the story she’s been waiting for. After the girls’ bodies are found, she’s given a hint that she should research the past when the same kind of disappearances and murders haunted the community. (Release date is June 12.)

Annie Hogsett’s sequel to the fun Too Lucky to Live, Murder to the Metal, brings back narrator Allie Harper and the man she loves, lottery winner Thomas Bennington III. The couple are hiding out in a rented mansion when they agree to help one of Allie’s former co-worker’s, a librarian who wants to know what happened to the man she loves. It’s a search that threatens Allie and Tom’s new life when they realize they’ll always be a target because of Tom’s money. (Release date is June 5.)

Death and a Pot of Chowder is a solid debut in a new series by Lea Wait, writing as Cornelia Kidd. Anna Winslow was quite satisfied with her quiet life on Maine’s Quarry Island, where everyone knows their neighbors. But, she had no idea she has a half-sister. And, there are other secrets on the island. Even Anna’s husband, Burt, is keeping secrets. That doesn’t help when Burt’s brother, Carl, is killed on his boat. Now, Anna teams up with her newly discovered sister, Izzie, to find a killer. (Release date is June 12.)

Geneva Chase is back in Thomas Kies’ Darkness Lane. Geneva is a hard-drinking, hard-living reporter, trying to survive personal tragedy and career challenges as she raises a rebellious ward. On the crime beat, Geneva finds herself making dangerous choices relating to two seemingly unrelated crimes. A fifteen-year-old girl goes missing, along with her English teacher. And, an abused woman torched her sadistic husband. Twists and turns involve the possible sale of the newspaper, movie stars, diamond merchants, adultery, sex traffickers, and murder. And, Geneva realizes she’s over her head. (Release date is June 5.)

The Bookshop of Yesterdays is Amy Meyerson’s debut novel. Miranda Brooks grew up in the stacks of her eccentric Uncle Billy’s bookstore, Prospero Books, solving the inventive scavenger hunts he created just for her. But, after Billy has a falling-out with Miranda’s mother, she doesn’t hear from him again until she’s twenty-eight. Billy has died and left her Prospero Books, which is teetering on bankruptcy – and one final scavenger hunt. (Release date is June 12.)

I haven’t read Oscar de Muriel’s other books featuring “Nine-Nails” McGray and Inspector Ian Frey, but A Mask of Shadows caught my attention. Edinburgh, 1889. The Scottish Play is coming home, a new production of Macbeth with Henry Irving, Ellen Terry, and their assistant, Bram Stoker. But a grisly message is found smeared across the cobbles in blood, foretelling someone’s demise. Frey believes it’s a publicity stunt. McGray is betting the supernatural is at work. But, the duo must solve the mystery before the curtain rises. (Release date is June 5.)

Bryan Reardon’s latest novel, The Real Michael Swann, is “part family drama, part tragic love story, and part disaster narrative”. Julia Swann is on the phone with her husband, Michael, when the phone call goes dead. The the news rolls in. A bomb has gone off at Penn Station, where Michael was waiting for a train home. Julia is frantic about the man she loves. When someone finds a lyer she’s posted, and tells her they may have seen her husband, Julia has more troubling questions. Did Michael survive the flyer? Why hasn’t he contacted her? Was he the man she fell in love with? (Release date is June 12.)

Little Big Love marks Katy Regan’s U.S. debut. Ten-year-old Zac Hutchinson collects facts, but no one will answer the question he wants most to know. Who is his father, and where did he go? When Zac’s mother, Juliet, inadvertently admits that his dad is the only man she ever loved, Zac decides he’s going to find him and deliver his mom the happily ever after she deserves. But, Liam Jones left for a reason. (Release date is June 12.)

Journalist Ellie Stone is caught up in the world of horse racing in Saratoga in James W. Ziskin’s A Stone’s Throw. After a fire at a deserted stud farm, Ellie is allowed in to walk through the sight. She and an officer find the remains of two bodies. Ellie’s the one who suggests the small body may be a jockey, a suggestion that kicks off her investigation. (Release date is June 5.)

I warned you. These are all June releases that I either didn’t have time or space to review. Some may appeal to you, or to me. I just didn’t have the time or space for all of them. Enjoy!

Bleeding Darkness by Brenda Chapman (June 12)
Bimini Twist by Linda Greenlaw (June 26)
Call Me American: A Memoir by Abdi Nor Iften (June 19)
Treeborne by Caleb Johnson (June 5)
Providence by Caroline Kepnes (June 19)
Murder at the Grand Raj Palace by Vaseem Khan (June 12)
The Lavender Ladies Detective Agency: Death in Sunset Grove by Minna Lindgren (June 1)
There There by Tommy Orange (June 5)
Bring Me Back by B.A. Paris (June 19)
When Katie Met Cassidy by Camille Perri (June 19)
The Madonna of the Mountains by Elise Valmorbida (June 12)