Welcome to part 1 of Treasures in My Closet, featuring the June releases. It’s quite an eclectic mix, so  we’ll dive right in.

Italian novelist Nanni Balestrini brings us We Want Everything. In the autumn of 1969, Italy exploded as workers went on strike for better pay and working conditions. In the author’s fictionalized account of the uprising a young worker from Italy’s impoverished south is caught up in the movement that leads to months of continuous strikes. (Release date is June 21)

In The Book of Esther, author Emily Barton imagines a world in which an empire of Jewish warriors that existed in the Middle Ages never fell. Now, they’re the only thing standing between Hitler and his conquest of Russia. (Release date is June 14)

David Bell’s Since She Went Away is a novel of guilt and regret. Jenna Springer was supposed to meet her best friend, Celia, but Celia never showed up, and hasn’t been seen since. For the past three months, Jenna has blamed herself for her friend’s disappearance. When her son’s new girlfriend also disappears, Jenna begins to unwind the tangled truth behind Celia’s tragedy. (Release date is June 21)

Under the Harrow by Flynn Berry is a psychological thriller and an exploration of the fire love between sisters, and the terrifying power of the past. Berry’s debut finds Nora arriving to visit her sister, only to find her sister has been the victim of a brutal murder. With no faith in the police, Nora’s fear turns to obsession, and she becomes as unrecognizable as the sister her investigation uncovers. (Release date is June 14)

Ted Chiang’s story collection, Stories of Your Life, has been published before. One quote calls it, “Beautifully crafted speculative fiction that is full of truth.” The title story, “Story of Your Life” is soon to be a major motion picture starring Amy Adams, Forest Whitaker, and Jeremy Renner. (Release date is June 14)

Emma Cline’s The Girls is a debut novel. It’s about girls’ vulnerability, strength, and passion to belong. Set at the violent end of the 1960s, a lonely and thoughtful teenager becomes enthralled with a mesmerizing older girl, and is drawn into the circle of a soon-to-be infamous cult and the man who is its charismatic leader. As she moves into the rhythm of their lives, she does not realize she’s coming closer and closer to unthinkable violence. (Release date is June 14)

I’m looking forward to Genevieve Cogman’s debut novel, The Invisible Library. “Irene is a professional spy for the mysterious Library, a shadowy organization that collects important works of fiction from all the different realities. Most recently, she and her enigmatic assistant, Kai, have been sent to an alternative London. Their mission: Retrieve a particularly dangerous book. The problem: By the time they arrive, it’s already been stolen.” (Release date is June 14)

Here’s the other book I’m excited about in today’s list, E.J. Copperman’s Written Off. It’s the first in the new Mysterious Detective series. “Rachel Goldman is an author who writes mysteries in which Duffy Madison, consultant to the county prosecutor’s office, helps find missing persons. Rachel is busy working on her next book, when a man calls out of the blue asking for help in a missing person’s case. The caller’s name? Duffy Madison. (Release date is June 14)

In Widowmaker, Paul Doiron’s latest Mike Bowditch novel, Bowditch discovers a half-brother he never knew he had, a man who has disappeared from a work camp after being wrongly convicted as a sex offender. At least that’s what the distraught woman claims who says that man is her son, and the son of Mike’s dead and diabolical father. Now, Bowditch must revisit his own past and the memories of his father’s violence. (Release date is June 14)

Peter Geye tells two stories in Wintering, his latest novel, ones bound together when the elderly, demented Harry Eide escapes his sickbed and vanishes into the forbidding Minnesota wilderness that surrounds the town of Gunflint, changing the Eide family, and many other lives, forever. Thirty-some years earlier, in 1963, he did the same, fleeing a crumbling marriage and bringing along his eighteen-year-old son, Gustav. Now, with his father pronounced dead, Gus tells the story to a woman who waited almost thirty years for Harry. (Release date is June 7)

New York Times bestselling author Emily Giffin introduces two sisters who find themselves at a crossroads in First Comes Love. While they were growing up, Josie and Meredith Garland shared a loving, if somewhat contentious relationship. When tragedy struck, that delicate bond broke. Fifteen years later, they’re both leading lives they didn’t expect to lead. Now they discover they need each other more than they knew. (Release date is June 28)

If I Forget You by Thomas Christopher Greene is the story of two lovers driven apart. Twenty-one years later, Henry and Margot reunite on a Manhattan street. It’s the story of a love affair, told from alternating points of view through time, and the secrets revealed when two people find each other again. (Release date is June 14)

In Yaa Gyasi’s debut novel, Homegoing, she traces three hundred years in Ghana, as well as the story of America. Half-sisters Effia and Esi are born in two different villages in Ghana in the eighteenth century. Their lives take different paths. While Effia marries an Englishman and lives in a castle, she never knows her half-sister is in the dungeons below her, to be sold as part of the slave trade and sent to America. One thread follows Effia’s descendants through centuries of warfare in Ghana, while the other follows Esi’s descendants through slavery, the Great Migration, and to the present day in the United States. (Release date is June 7)

We Could Be Beautiful by Swan Huntley is another debut novel. Ie rs the story of a wealthy woman who has everything, but can trust no one. When she finally finds a man who seems to love her, and not her money, she begins to encounter strange signs and warnings from the past, warnings about William. (Release date is June 28)

I “believe” that Lisa Jewell’s forthcoming novel is called The Girls in the Garden, although my ARC actually only says “The Girls”. Perhaps someone discovered there was another novel called “The Girls” coming out in June? Imagine that you live in a picturesque communal garden square in London, where you’ve known your neighbors for years, trust them implicitly, and you know your children are safe. Are they? One evening at a festive neighborhood party, preteen Pip discovers her thirteen-year-old sister, Grace, lying unconscious and bloody in a hidden corner of the rose garden. What really happened to her? It’s a story of dark secrets and the games both children and adults play. (Release date is June 7)

Magnus “Steps” Craig is head of the FBI’s special tracking unit in Spencer Kope’s Collecting the Dead. The media calls him “The Human Bloodhound” because he’s known for his incredible ability to track and follow trails. He has stopped seventeen serial killers in the last five years. When a new monster strikes, it reminds Steps of an unsolved case from the past. While his current case heats up, he’s also in the sights of another killer. (Release date is June 28)

R.J. Koreto’s debut novel is Death on the Sapphire, introducing an extraordinary heroine living in extraordinary times. Lady Frances Folks in an Edwardian-era suffragette who has an uncanny ability to attract danger and romance. When a family friend and war veteran dies under mysterious circumstances, Frances discovers he was working on a manuscript about South Africa’s Boer War, and a scandalous mistake that cost lives. Now, Frances, along wither her loyal lady’s maid, need to track down the missing manuscript and bring the killer to justice. (Release date is June 14)

Some of the books jump out at me with plots that are appealing. What doesn’t jump out at me? The covers of most of these books. No bright colors, nothing that says “June”. I will say that despite the appeal of the book subjects themselves, the covers are just dull in most cases.

Which of the books are you looking forward to reading?