It’s a few days late, but at least it isn’t June yet, so you still have time to place holds at the library or pre-order you favorite books at your local bookstore. And, this month’s list isn’t as long as the ones from the last couple months. Don’t forget to comment, and tell me what June titles you’re waiting to read!

Remember when we were young, and the slogan was “Don’t trust anyone over thirty”? I’m going to admit nowadays I seldom read books with characters under thirty. The author of The Mutual Friend, Carter Bays, is the co-creator of “How I Met Your Mother”. This is an enormous “comedy of manners set in New York City” with a sprawling cast of characters, investigating life, love, loss, ambition, and spirituality – without ever looking up from their phones. It begins in the summer of 2015, and features a twenty-eight-year-old who needs to get her act together. It’s not for most of the readers of this blog, but the author’s past TV work may have fans. (Release date is June 7.)

Scott Blackburn’s It Dies with You is more my speed. For almost ten years, Hudson Miller has made his living in the boxing ring, but a post-fight brawl threatens to derail his career. Desperate for money, Hudson takes a gig as a bouncer at a dive bar. Then, he learns his estranged father, Leland, has been murdered in what appears to be a robbery gone bad at his salvage yard, Miller’s Pull-a-Part. When he learns he inherited the salvage yard, he returns to his Bible-belt hometown of Flint Creek, North Carolina. But, it turns out the business is far more than junk cars and scrap metal. It was the site of an illegal gun-running ring, and a grisly discovery there thrusts Hudson into the fight of his life. Reeling for answers, Hudson joins forces with a seventy-one-year-old, beer-guzzling Vietnam vet and a feisty teenage girl who is seeking justice for her own family tragedy. (Release date is June 7.)

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Geraldine Brooks writes Horse, a sweeping story of spirt, obsession, and injustice across American history, beginning with a discarded painting in a junk pile, a skeleton in an attic, and the greatest racehorse in American history. It’s based on the remarkable true story of the record-breaking thoroughbred Lexington, who became America’s greatest stud sire. In Kentucky, 1850, an enslaved groom named Jarret and a bay foal forge a bond of understanding that will carry the horse to record-setting victories across the South. When the nation erupts in civil war, an itinerant young artist who has made his name on paintings of the racehorse takes up arms for the Union. On a perilous night, he reunites with the stallion and Jarret. In New York City, in 1954, Martha Jackson, a gallery owner, becomes obsessed with a nineteenth-century equestrian oil painting of mysterious provenance. In Washington, D.C., 2019, a Smithsonian scientist from Australia, and a Nigerian American art historian find themselves connected through their shared interest in the horse. One is studying the stallion’s bones for clues to his power and endurance. The other uncovers the lost history of the unsung Black horsemen who were critical to his racing success. It’s a multilayered reckoning with the legacy of enslavement and racism in America. And, it’s Geraldine Brooks. (Release date is June 14.)

I’m going to have to reread the third Mace Reid K-9 mystery, The Lost by Jeffrey B. Burton. I think I get to interview Burton for an author event for The Poisoned Pen in June. A home invasion turned kidnapping at the mansion of billionaire financier Kenneth J. Druckman brings Mason “Mace” Reid and his cadaver dog, Vira, to a wealthy suburb of Chicago. Druckman was assaulted, left behind while his wife and young daughter were taken for ransom. After Vira finds the dead body of the mother, everyone is on high alert to find Druckman’s missing daughter before the five-year-old disappears forever. But, Vira finds an unusual trail. (Release date is June 28.)

It’s always fun to share a debut novel. Mindy Carlson’s Her Dying Day introduces June Masterson, an aspiring filmmaker working on her first documentary. Everyone has a theory about the disappearance years earlier of famed mystery author Greer Larkin. Greer’s mother and her best friend, Rachel, both think Greer’s fiance, Jonathan, is the culprit. Greer’s agent is convinced the author committed suicide. And, Jonathan claim it was either her controlling mother or Rachel. Rachel is desperate for a solution, so she gives June a suitcase full of Greer’s most personal writing. Then, Rachel turns up dead. June pours over the writing, looking for an answer. But, June’s work puts her in the sights of a killer. (Release date is June 7.)

The Lies I Tell by Julie Clark is the story of a con artist. Or is it? Depending on the town and the job, she might be Meg Williams, Maggie Littleton or Melody Wilde. As a con artist, she erases herself and becomes whoever you need her to be. By the time she’s done, you’ve likely lost everything. Kat Roberts has been waiting ten years to expose the woman who upended her life. But, as the two women get closer, Kat’s long-held assumptions begin to crumble, leaving her to wonder who Meg’s real target is. (Release date is June 21.)

If you still want to read a psychological thriller with “Girl” in the title, you might want to try Lucy Clarke’s One of the Girls. Six very different women travel to a Greek island for Lexi’s bachelorette party. The vacation feels like an ideal escape. But, each of the women is hiding a secret, and soon their masks begin to slip. Someone is determined to make sure that Lexi’s marriage never happens – and that one of the women doesn’t leave the island alive. (Release date is June 28.)

I’m looking forward to Sutanya Dacres’ Dinner for One: How Cooking in Paris Saved Me. Here’s the summary. “When Sutanya Dacres married her French boyfriend and moved to Paris at twenty-seven, she felt like she was living out her very own Nora Ephron romantic comedy. Jamaican-born and Bronx-raised, she had never dreamed she herself could be one of those American women in Paris she admired from afar via their blogs, until she met the man of her dreams one night in Manhattan. A couple of years later, she married her Frenchman and moved to Paris, embarking on her own “happily-ever-after.” But when her marriage abruptly ended, the fairy tale came crashing down around her. Reeling from her sudden divorce and the cracked facade of that picture-perfect expat life, Sutanya grew determined to mend her broken heart and learn to love herself again. She began by cooking dinner for one in her Montmartre kitchen. Along the way, she builds Parisienne friendships, learns how to date in French, and examines what it means to be a Black American woman in Paris—all while adopting the French principle of pleasure, especially when it comes to good food, and exploring what the concept of self-care really means. (Release date is June 21.)

Alison Fairbrother’s The Catch is another debut novel. Ellie Adler thinks she has it all, including a father who has children from three marriages, but she knows she’s the favorite. When he dies unexpectedly, she learns at the reading of the will that he left her a seemingly ridiculous, even insulting, gift. And, he left his prized possession to someone no one in the family ever heard of. In her grief, Ellie wonders who could have possibly meant more to her father than she did. Setting out to track down this person, she learns startling information about who her father was, and who she herself is becoming. (Release date is June 21.)

In Tracy Gardner’s second Avery Ayers Antique Mystery, Peril at Pennington Manor, Avery and her associates have a new assignment, cataloging and appraising the contents of a castle-like mansion on the Hudson River. Then a precious timepiece disappears, and the housekeeper plummets from a parapet to her death. Avery’s team learns the previous housekeeper also met with an untimely end. And, the death coincides with Avery’s discovery that many of the Duke of Valle Charme’s most priceless heirlooms have been replaced by fakes. When the duke himself is injured in an inexplicable riding accident, and the clock ticks toward a reckoning with a cold-blooded killer. (Release date is June 7.)

Death by Beach Read is Eva Gates’ ninth Lighthouse Library mystery. Lucy and Connor have finally moved into their new house, a historic cottage on the Nags Head Beach. Lucy is now happily immersed in her job at the library, planning her wedding, and decorating the house. The first night Lucy’s alone in the house with just Charlie the library cat, they hear sounds, and she finds footprints, and the door is open. Lucy’s reminded of the rumors of a haunted house, but the sounds have a human origin. When Lucy and Connor find the dead body of a man they don’t know in their kitchen, Lucy has to find out the story behind the death and the house. (Release date is June 7.)

The third Booklover’s B&B mystery, Victoria Gilbert’s A Fatal Booking finds owner Charlotte Reed and her former spy neighbor, Ellen Montgomery, pitted against a tea-party poisoner. Charlotte is delighted to welcome an eclectic group of guests for a book club retreat focused on fairy tales and classic children’s literature. But when one of the guests is poisoned at a Mad Hatter tea party, Charlotte realizes she’s fallen down a rather unpleasant rabbit hole. The victim had plenty of enemies, but as Ellen and Charlotte dig into each of the guests’ stories, they realize they all had a motive, and the means, to close the book on the victim. (Release date is June 7.)

The fate of the allied forces lies in the hands of Joanna and the Watsons in the sixth Daughter of Sherlock Holmes mystery from Leonard Goldberg, The Blue Diamond. During a critical stage in World War One, the Governor-General of South Africa journeys to London for a meeting of The Imperial War Conference. Days prior to the conference, the Governor-General is scheduled to have an audience at Buckingham Palace at which time a most precious blue diamond will be presented to King Edward as a symbolic gesture of the colonies’ resolute and never-ending allegiance to England. When the famous diamond is stolen, and the police have no clues, Joanna and Watson are called in to investigate. It becomes clear that the crime is not simply the work of a master thief, but one that could greatly aid the Germans and turn the tide of war in their favor.  (Release date is June 14.)

Kate Khavari’s debut historical mystery is A Botanist’s Guide to Parties and Poisons. Set in London, 1923, it features research assistant Saffron Everleigh who attends a dinner party for the University College of London where Mrs. Henry, one of the professors’ wives drops to the floor, poisoned by an unknown toxin. Dr. Maxwell, Saffron’s mentor is the main suspect, and as evidence mounts against him and the university’s expedition to the Amazon draws closer, Saffron realizes she’ll have to clear her mentor’s name. Joined by a fellow researcher, Saffron uses her knowledge of botany as she explores steamy greenhouses, dark gardens, and deadly poisons. She can either uncover the truth or land on a murderer’s list. (Release date is June 7.)

Just yesterday, a number of librarians raved about Clare Pooley’s novel, Iona Iverson’s Rules for Commuting. Nobody ever talks to strangers on the train. It’s a rule. But what would happen if they did?  Every day Iona, a larger-than-life magazine advice columnist, travels the ten stops from Hampton Court to Waterloo Station by train, accompanied by her dog, Lulu.  Every day she sees the same people, whom she knows only by nickname: Impossibly-Pretty-Bookworm and Terribly-Lonely-Teenager. Of course, they never speak. Seasoned commuters never do. Then one morning, the man she calls Smart-But-Sexist-Manspreader chokes on a grape right in front of her. He’d have died were it not for the timely intervention of Sanjay, a nurse, who gives him the Heimlich maneuver. This single event starts a chain reaction, and an eclectic group of people with almost nothing in common except their commute discover that a chance encounter can blossom into much more. (Release date is June 7.)

Marcy D’arcy returns in The Drowning Sea, the third mystery by Sarah Stewart Taylor. Marcy resigned from the Long Island police department, and she and her teen daughter, Lilly, head to Ireland where they meet up with Marcy’s boyfriend and his son, renting a cottage for the summer. But, Marcy hasn’t decided what her plans are after the summer. She just knows she’s no longer a police officer when a body turns up on the local beach. Secrets and politics are woven into the small seaside community, and Marcy doesn’t have the connections to get involved in the investigation. However, both Marcy and Lilly are pulled into the case. (Release date is June 21.)

Check out these additional titles with June release dates.

Bazawule, Blitz – The Scent of Burnt Flowers (6/28)
Moehling, Joshua – And There He Kept Her (6/14)
Moxhfegh, Ottessa – Lapvona (6/21)
Schaitkin, Alexis – Elsewhere (6/28)
Thomas, Julia Bryan – For Those Who Are Lost (6/14)
White, Lionel – Invitation to Violence/A Party to Murder (6/20)