Summer is starting and there are lots of great new releases! If only the British weather would stop raining, reading in the sun would be amazing right now. This month I’ve found it difficult to narrow down my most anticipated reads so there is a grand total of 11 books. There are a couple of thrillers which sound great, not my usual genre of choice, but I have definitely been swept up in the hype.
So without further-ado, these are my most anticipated June releases, organised by publication date:
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Release Date: 01/06/2021
Age: Adult
Genre: Historical Fiction
ISBN: 9780008283353
Publisher: Harpercollins Publishers
Number of pages: 320
From the author of When God Was a Rabbit and Tin Man, Still Life is a big-hearted story of people brought together by love, war, art and the ghost of E.M. Forster.
1944, in the ruined wine cellar of a Tuscan villa, as bombs fall around them, two strangers meet and share an extraordinary evening.
Ulysses Temper is a young British soldier, Evelyn Skinner is a sexagenarian art historian and possible spy. She has come to Italy to salvage paintings from the wreckage and relive memories of the time she encountered EM Forster and had her heart stolen by an Italian maid in a particular Florentine room with a view.
Evelyn’s talk of truth and beauty plants a seed in Ulysses’ mind that will shape the trajectory of his life – and of those who love him – for the next four decades.
Moving from the Tuscan Hills and piazzas of Florence, to the smog of London’s East End, Still Life is a sweeping, joyful novel about beauty, love, family and fate.
The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris
Release Date: 01/06/2021
Age: Adult
Genre: Thriller / Mystery
ISBN: 9781526630377
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Number of pages: 368
Get Out meets The Devil Wears Prada in this electric debut about the tension that unfurls when two young Black women meet against the starkly white backdrop of book publishing.
Twenty-six-year-old editorial assistant Nella Rogers is tired of being the only Black employee at Wagner Books. Fed up with the isolation and the micro-aggressions, she’s thrilled when Hazel starts working in the cubicle beside hers. They’ve only just started comparing natural hair care regimens, though, when a string of uncomfortable events cause Nella to become Public Enemy Number One and Hazel, the Office Darling. Then the notes begin to appear on Nella’s desk: LEAVE WAGNER. NOW. It’s hard to believe Hazel is behind these hostile messages. But as Nella starts to spiral and obsess over the sinister forces at play, she soon realises that there is a lot more at stake than her career.
A whip-smart and dynamic thriller and sly social commentary, The Other Black Girl will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very last twist.
For the Wolf by Hannah Whitten
Release Date: 03/06/2021
Age: Adult
Genre: Fantasy
ISBN: 9780356516363
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Number of pages: 464
THE FIRST DAUGHTER IS FOR THE THRONE.
THE SECOND DAUGHTER IS FOR THE WOLF.
As the only Second Daughter born in centuries, Red has one purpose – to be sacrificed to the Wolf in the Wood in order to save her kingdom. Red is almost relieved to go. Plagued by a dangerous power she can’t control, at least she knows that in the Wilderwood, she can’t hurt those she loves. Again.
But the legends lie. The Wolf is a man, not a monster. Her magic is a calling, not a curse. And if she doesn’t learn how to use it, the Wilderwood – and her world – will be lost forever.
Hannah Whitten’s richly imagined debut is a sweeping tale of love, legends and the secrets that hide beyond the trees.
The Wolf and The Woodsman by Ava Reid
Release Date: 08/06/2021
Age: Adult
Genre: Fantasy
ISBN: 9781529100730
Publisher: Cornerstone
Number of pages: 432
Bookclub/Subscription: Illumicrate June monthly pick
Stories don’t have to be true to be real…
In her forest-veiled pagan village, Evike is the only woman without power, making her an outcast clearly abandoned by the gods. When soldiers arrive from the Holy Order of Woodsmen to claim a pagan girl for the king’s blood sacrifice, Evike is betrayed by her fellow villagers and surrendered.
But when monsters attack the Woodsmen and their captive en route, slaughtering everyone but Evike and the cold, one-eyed captain, they have no choice but to rely on each other. Except he’s no ordinary Woodsman – he’s the disgraced prince, Gaspar Barany, whose father needs pagan magic to consolidate his power. Gaspar fears that his cruelly zealous brother plans to seize the throne and instigate a violent reign that would damn the pagans and the Yehuli alike. As the son of a reviled foreign queen, Gaspar understands what it’s like to be an outcast, and he and Evike make a tenuous pact to stop his brother.
As their mission takes them from the bitter northern tundra to the smog-choked capital, their mutual loathing slowly turns to affection, bound by a shared history of alienation and oppression. However, trust can easily turn to betrayal, and as Evike reconnects with her estranged father and discovers her own hidden magic, she and Gaspar need to decide whose side they’re on, and what they’re willing to give up for a nation that never cared for them at all.
The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri (Burning Kingdoms #1)
Release Date: 10/06/2021
Age: Adult
Genre: Fantasy
ISBN: 9780356515649
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Number of pages: 592
Bookclub/Subscription: Illumicrate May monthly pick
One is a vengeful princess seeking to depose her brother from his throne.
The other is a priestess searching for her family.
Together, they will change the fate of an empire.
Imprisoned by her dictator brother, Malini spends her days in isolation in the Hirana: an ancient temple that was once the source of powerful magic – but is now little more than a decaying ruin.
Priya is a maidservant, one of several who make the treacherous journey to the top of the Hirana every night to attend Malini’s chambers. She is happy to be an anonymous drudge, as long as it keeps anyone from guessing the dangerous secret she hides. But when Malini accidentally bears witness to Priya’s true nature, their destinies become irrevocably tangled . . .
The Maidens by Alex Michaelides
Release Date: 10/06/2021
Age: Adult
Genre: Thriller / Mystery
ISBN: 9781409181668
Publisher: Orion Publishing Co.
Number of pages: 368
From the author of the global #1 bestselling debut The Silent Patient comes a spellbinding literary thriller which weaves together Greek mythology, psychology, and murder…
St Christopher’s College, Cambridge, is a closed world to most.
For Mariana Andros – a group therapist struggling through her private grief – it’s where she met her late husband. For her niece, Zoe, it’s the tragic scene of her best friend’s murder.
As memory and mystery entangle Mariana, she finds a society full of secrets, which has been shocked to its core by the murder of one of its own.
Because behind its idyllic beauty is a web of jealousy and rage which emanates from an exclusive set of students known only as The Maidens. A group under the sinister influence of the enigmatic professor Edward Fosca.
A man who seems to know more than anyone about the murders – and the victims. And the man who will become the prime suspect in Mariana’s investigation – an obsession which will unravel everything…
The Maidens is a story of love, and of grief – of what makes us who we are, and what makes us kill.
Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé
Release Date: 10/06/2021
Age: Young Adult
Genre: Thriller
ISBN: 9781474967532
Publisher: Usborne Publishing Ltd
Number of pages: 480
Bookclub/Subscription: Illumicrate Debut Box
A compelling, incendiary, and unputdownable thriller with a shocking twist, Faridah Abike-Iyimide delves deep into the heart of institutionalized racism with this compulsive debut.
Hello, Niveus High. It’s me. Who am I? That’s not important. All you need to know is…I’m here to divide and conquer. – Aces
Welcome to Niveus Private Academy, where money paves the hallways, and the students are never less than perfect. Until now. Because anonymous texter, Aces, is bringing two students’ dark secrets to light.
Talented musician Devon buries himself in rehearsals, but he can’t escape the spotlight when his private photos go public. Head girl Chiamaka isn’t afraid to get what she wants, but soon everyone will know the price she has paid for power.
Someone is out to get them both. Someone who holds all the aces. And they’re planning much more than a high-school game…
Grace and Glory by Jennifer L. Armentrout (Harbinger Series #3)
Release Date: 10/06/2021
Age: Young Adult
Genre: Fantasy / Romance
ISBN: 9781335212788
Publisher: Harlequin
Number of pages: 512
When Angels Fall
Trinity Marrow has lost the battle and her beloved Protector. Even with both demons and Wardens on her side, Trin may not win the war against the Harbinger.
Bringing Lucifer back to the world to fight the Harbinger is probably a really, really bad idea, but they’re out of options—and the world’s ultimate fallen angel is the only being powerful enough to impact the outcome.
As Trin and Zayne form a new and more dangerous bond and Lucifer unleashes Hell on earth, the apocalypse looms and the world teeters on the end of forever. Win or lose, one thing is certain—nothing will ever be the same.
The Sweetness of Water by Nathan Harris
Release Date: 15/06/2021
Age: Adult
Genre: Historical Fiction
ISBN: 9781472274373
Publisher: Headline Publishing Group
Number of pages: 368
What price do we pay for freedom?
In the dying days of the American Civil War, newly freed brothers Landry and Prentiss find themselves cast into the world without a penny to their names. Forced to hide out in the woods near their former Georgia plantation, they’re soon discovered by the land’s owner, George Walker, a man still reeling from the loss of his son in the war.
When the brothers begin to live and work on George’s farm, the tentative bonds of trust and union begin to blossom between the strangers. But this sanctuary survives on a knife’s edge, and it isn’t long before the inhabitants of the nearby town of Old Ox react with fury at the alliances being formed only a few miles away.
Conjuring a world fraught by tragedy and violence yet threaded through with hope, The Sweetness of Water is a debut novel unique in its power to move and enthral.
Release Date: 24/06/2021
Age: Adult
Genre: Thriller / Mystery
ISBN: 9781526630940
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Number of pages: 336
Meet Joan.
I drove myself out of New York City where a man shot himself in front of me. He was a gluttonous man and when his blood came out it looked like the blood of a pig. That’s a cruel thing to think, I know. He did it in a restaurant where I was having dinner with another man, another married man. Do you see how this is going? But I wasn’t always that way. I am depraved. I hope you like me.
Release Date: 24/06/2021
Age: Adult
Genre: Historical Fiction
ISBN: 9781474619233
Publisher: Orion Publishing Co.
Number of pages: 352
Delhi, 1946
Ma and Bappu are liberal intellectuals teaching at the local university. Their fourteen year-old daughter – precocious, headstrong Alma – is soon to be married to a young man training to be a doctor: Alma is mostly interested in the wedding shoes and in spinning wild stories about evil spirits for her beloved younger sister Roop, a restless child obsessed with death.
Times are bad for girls in India. The long-awaited independence from British rule is heralding a new era of hope, but also of anger and distrust: political unrest is brewing, threatening to unravel the rich tapestry of Delhi – a city where different cultures, religions and traditions have co-existed for centuries.
When Partition happens and the British Raj is fractured overnight, the wonderful family we have come to love is violently torn apart, and its members – Ma and Bappu, Alma and Roop – are forced to find new and increasingly desperate ways to survive.
But the resilience of the human spirit is an extraordinary thing…
It is also pride month so be sure to look out for a pride reading list. From these new releases The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri and Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé both involve LGBTQ+ characters.
Honestly I don’t know how to keep up with all of these exciting new releases! If you are anticipating any of them let me know.
Lily.
readingbytorchlight.com 