On My Radar | June 2026

Here's my monthly roundup of books releasing this month that I've got my eye on. The Unicorn Hunters, Girls Girl, Heather, When You Loved Me  & The Shampoo Effect are top of my list.

Whistler by Ann Patchett 

Released → 2nd June

When Daphne Fuller and her husband Jonathan visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art, they notice an older, white-haired gentleman following them. The man turns out to be Eddie Triplett, her former stepfather, who had been married to her mother for a little more than year when Daphne was nine. Now fifty-three, Daphne hasn’t seen Eddie for many years, not since the fateful event that changed the direction of both their lives. Meeting again, time falls away; while their relationship was brief, it had a profound impact on them both, and now that they are reunited, they have no intention of ever being separated again.

Land by Maggie O'Farrell

Released → 2nd June

On a windswept peninsula stretching out into the Atlantic, Tomás and his reluctant son, Liam, are working for the great Ordnance Survey project to map the whole of Ireland. The year is 1865, and in a country not long since ravaged and emptied by the Great Hunger, the task is not an easy one. Tomás, however, is determined that his maps will be a record of the disaster.

The British soldiers in charge are due to arrive any day, expecting the work to be completed, but Tomás is sent off course by an unsettling encounter in a copse. His life, and those of his family, will never be the same again. Liam is terrified by the sudden change in his taciturn father. What was it that caused such cracks to open in Tomás and how is Liam, aged only ten, going to finish the mapping, and get them both home?

The Heirs by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé

Released → 2nd June

Octavius the Maestro.
Fola the Brain.
Bilal the Olympian.
Perdita the Artist.
Romeo the Failure.

These are the five heirs of the illustrious billionaire Leontes Button. Adopted and viciously trained with their father’s infamous “Button Method” to prove his hypothesis for creating prodigies—child geniuses—the Button siblings have had no choice but to be brilliant according to their father's impossibly high standards.

Until he is murdered at his annual Prodigy Ball.

Now, all who attended the ball are required to stay in the Button Manor while the police investigate. But the officers have their work cut out for them—each of the Button siblings has something to hide, but The Heirs aren't the only ones with secrets. After all, Leontes Button was especially good at making enemies. . .

The Unicorn Hunters by Katherine Arden

Released → 2nd June

Anne of Brittany was a child when her realm was invaded, her home besieged, and her royal father driven to his death.

Now her treasury is empty, her land occupied by her enemies, and she is ordered, under threat of renewed war, to become queen of her conquerors and marry the King of France.

This marriage means her country’s annexation. But Anne promised her father that Brittany would never be conquered.

Defiantly, she betroths herself in secret to France’s greatest enemy. But in a world where courts may spy on each other by magic, there is only one way to solemnize this illicit union.

Anne takes her court deep into a legendary forest, where the court diviners’ skill cannot reach. The world thinks they are only a hunting party, coursing after unicorns. But that is a lie, a trick, a feint. No one in living memory has seen a unicorn. All Anne wants is this secret wedding, which is her only hope of salvation.

But when against all hope a unicorn appears and a stranger out of legend stumbles from the trees and falls at her feet, Anne is plunged into a world of enchantment where a doomed sovereign might find the power to change her own and her country’s destiny—or be lost in the shadows forever.

Girl's Girl by Sonia Feldman 

Released → 2nd June

Fifteen-year-old Mina’s whole world is her two best friends, but after an unexpected kiss, the established dynamics of their trio quickly unravel. Everything that was once shared openly, from clothes to secrets, now feels impossibly fragile. Loyalties shift and tensions simmer across the long days of this pivotal summer, where the girls have nowhere new to go and everything new to feel.

Looking back, an adult Mina traces the undercurrents of longing that shaped her first experience of desire. The rituals of girlhood—gossip, selfies, sleepovers, and videogames—become threads in a delicate, volatile web of intimacy, in which everything feels achingly fleeting and permanently etched. Loving one person, Mina learns, can change the way we love everyone else—including ourselves.

Marion by Leah Rowan

Released → 2nd June

Marion is in deep. She's stolen money from the Manhattan ad agency where she works in a desperate bid to help her sister escape an abusive marriage, but the bus breaks down before she can make it to Saratoga Springs. It's late at night, and the only place with vacancies is an old set of cabins on the outskirts of town. She pays for a room in cash, and ends up chatting with Norm, the young innkeeper who's handsome, charming and a touch hung-up on his elderly mother. Back in her room, she steps into the shower, scrubbing off the late-summer heat, when the curtain is pulled back...

Norm Billings is there with a knife. He raises his arm to strike, but before he does, Marion knees him in the balls, grabs the knife, and stabs the life out of him. Now, she's covered in blood, and she's a woman on the run—not just a thief, but a killer, too. Where will she go? How will she save both herself and her sister? And what mysteries will she uncover as she does?

A Pair of Aces by Marie Benedict & Victoria Christopher Murray

Released → 2nd June

Eunice Carter, assistant district attorney for the City of New York and Manhattan’s first Black female prosecutor, has her sights set on the one and only Lucky Luciano, head of New York City’s five largest organized crime families. Other prosectors have tried to bring down Lucky, but they’ve all focused on the crime syndicate’s traditional businesses—bootlegging, gambling, loan sharking, and drug dealing—or tax evasion. No one has thought to approach the mob through its hand in prostitution. Until Eunice. But she can’t get Luciano alone.

Polly Adler has worked long and hard to build up her high-class brothel business. Her client list is filled with well-known names, both the famous and the infamous, who all know her booze is top-notch, her music first-rate, her food exquisite, and her girls the best. But Lucky has gone too far, putting her girls in danger, and Polly finally sees the chance to end his reign once and for all.

Together, Eunice and Polly fashion a case utilizing a network of women. Bridging the enormous divide between them and risking their own lives, they assemble evidence bit by bit, under the nose of the man they’re trying to convict. It is this very alliance—of two women from vastly different worlds—that launches the most sensational trial New York City has ever seen.

The Children by Melissa Albert

Released → 2nd June 

Guinevere Sharpe has two childhoods.

In one, she lives in the wooded shadow of her family's isolated Vermont farmhouse; in the other, the pages of her mother’s world-famous Ninth City books, where her magical adventures have made her a household name. In reality, Guinevere's childhood isn't the enchanted idyll her mother’s readers imagine: she and her older brother are growing up near-feral, unwashed and underfed, escaping each day to the lichen-clotted woods they’ve made their playland. As Edith Sharpe’s books explode into epic popularity, the threats of a rural childhood give way to the escalating perils of fame—until the night it all goes up in flames, leaving Edith’s series unfinished and her children the sole survivors.

Now an adult coasting on her mother's name, Guinevere is mid-promotion for a ghostwritten memoir when her estranged brother, an artist who has until now spurned his family's legacy, announces an upcoming installation titled Mother. As rumors swirl around a death connected to his last show, unsettling recollections from Guinevere’s childhood begin to surface. Her public facade starts to crack, forcing her to confront the questions she's spent the last twenty years running from: What really happened the night of the fire? And what dark history lies behind their mother’s creative genius?

The Kennedy's & the Windsor's by Caroline Hallemann

Released → 2nd June

For nearly a century, two families have captivated the world like no the British royal Windsor clan and the American Kennedys. Much ink has been spilled on these two institutions over the years, but no one has examined their powerful and intertwined legacies. Until now.

In The Kennedys and the Windsors, acclaimed journalist Caroline Hallemann unearths the story of two iconic families whose lives, ambitions, and respective reigns have juxtaposed each other in surprising ways. Through rich archival research and fresh interviews from insiders on both sides of the Atlantic, Hallemann reveals how an Irish Catholic immigrant family with little entrée into elite New England society came to host dinner parties for the King and Queen of England, carving their path to the White House. In the process, she draws out some startling parallels between the two the early deaths of Princess Diana and Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, the frustrated “second sisters” Princess Margaret and Lee Radziwill, the scandal-plagued next generation of Bobby Kennedy and Prince Andrew, and the current generation’s shared struggle to figure out what a monarchy (actual or imagined) means in the 21st century.

From Queen Elizabeth’s coronation to President Kennedy’s historic London visit, from JFK Jr.’s tragic death to Prince Harry’s decisive break with his family, Hallemann traces the key moments of the lives of these two dynasties through a fresh and fascinating lens, showing how they have intersected over the generations in ways that not only shaped their images and legacies, but history itself.

The Secret World of Briar Rose by Cindy Pham

Released → 2nd June

100 years have passed since the last heir of Gyldan fell into eternal slumber and doomed the once-mighty kingdom into poverty and invasion. At least, that’s what the fairy tales claim.

Corin is a jaded thief who doesn’t believe in fables, even when she searches Gyldan’s underground tunnels to find her younger sister, Elly, who ran away to find the sleeping princess in hopes of a better life. Corin's conviction is challenged when she discovers the ruins of the ancient castle, maintained by beings from the kingdom's golden age, who protect a hidden portal into princess Amelia's subconscious. Following Elly’s voice, Corin jumps in the portal and seals the entry behind her.

Inside the lush world of Amelia's dreams, the sisters reunite for a new adventure as they meet Briar Rose, Amelia’s whimsical alter ego, and Malicine, a sharp-tongued demon with a gift for magic. But as they explore ice castles, sunflower mazes, and star-filled oceans, Corin suspects Briar Rose is hiding darker secrets behind her "perfect" paradise – and that there are some things their subconscious can’t bury forever.

Heather by Caitlin Mullen

Released → 9th June 

1994. In the myth-riddled woods of the New Jersey Pine Barrens, sixteen-year-old Annabelle Riley’s twin sister, Sabrina, has been having an affair with a mysterious older man, and Annabelle is determined to uncover what’s going on. Then, inexplicably, both sisters disappear.

In this same town years later, newly instated Police Chief Callie Hauser makes an arrest that unexpectedly resurrects details from a heartbreaking cold case. As she digs deeper, the past and the present collide, challenging everything Callie believes about right and wrong, about who she is, and about the town she’s always called home.

The Daffodil Days by Helen Bain

Released → 9th June

In the early 1960s in a small English town, the church bells ring. The people go about their days, catching glimpses of one another.

There’s the local doctor, who knows more about his patients than he would sometimes prefer. There’s the young assistant at the dress shop, who understands that the ladies who come there for a new outfit are often hoping to find a new self. There are the men who ring the tower bells at the church three times a week, the notes, harmonious and clashing, rippling out across the rooftops of the town.

Among all these lives, one young couple moves into focus. New to the town with their small daughter, they have escaped London for a quieter existence at Court Green, the thatched house beside the church. The life they intend to build—out of secondhand furniture stenciled with hearts and flowers, expertly cooked suppers for weekend guests, and devotion to the work that matters to them both—will be a good and happy one.

This Immortal Heart by Jennifer Saint 

Released → 9th June 

From the moment Aphrodite emerges fully formed from the sea, she is devastatingly beautiful and imbued with ancient power. Driven by passion yet strategic in how she moves through the halls of Olympus and the earthly realm alike, the free-willed goddess wields unparalleled influence over every living being.

When fate brings her face to face with Ares, she bristles at this surly, hot-tempered warrior who’s seemingly her disliked by everyone and devoted to stirring up conflict. Yet these gods are no more immune to the dizzying highs and lows of love and loss than anyone else, and soon, they are irresistibly drawn to one another.

As their love affair spans mortal lifetimes, Aphrodite begins to question the gods’ games and her role in them. But there’s only so much room for fire and passion in Zeus’s kingdom. Before long, she must test her devotion to her own divine purpose—and to a love that can only lead to ruin.

The Unmagical Life of Briar Jones by Lex Croucher 

Released → 9th June

For as long as they can remember, Briar Jones dreamed of attending the Temple School of Thaumaturgy. Behind its looming ornate gates, the elite prep school—the place that has produced the most CEOs and Prime Ministers in British history—is whispered to be magical.

Briar's best friend, Sebastian Wolfe, never cared about Temple or believed in the rumors. He just wanted them to stay together forever.

When, at age 11, Seb gets an acceptance letter and Briar doesn't, their childhood friendship is shattered. Seb vanishes onto Temple's grounds and Briar resigns themself to a mundane life. But they can't completely forget their yearning for Temple, for the extraordinary, to be one of the chosen in the ivory tower.

Seven years later, a summer job advert a temp position sorting through the junk in Temple’s attics. Briar takes it. And they discover that quiet, sensitive Seb, the boy they once loved more than anything else in the world, has become a beautiful, arrogant villain feared by most of the school. And worse, the secrets Temple is hiding might not be so magical after all, but a dark conspiracy with implications that extend far beyond the gates.

Villa Coco by Andrew Sean Greer

Released → 9th June 

Broke and directionless, our young man takes a job in the Italian countryside as the all-purpose assistant to Lisabetta, known to her friends as Coco - a strong-willed, wealthy widow of great local renown.

Trained as an archivist, he thinks he's been hired to catalogue the contents of the beautiful, crumbling mansion nestled in the green Tuscan hills... but what are his actual duties? Days are spent ridding the house of a marten - whatever that is - locating the antediluvian septic system, entertaining an endless carousel of guests (from bohemian painters to elderly princesses to unnervingly handsome nephews), attending a funeral in order to make off with the urn, and not inadvertently sabotaging Coco's great and final plan-to locate the lost love of her life and be reunited before it's too late.

As summer turns into autumn and the Italian countryside begins to work its magic on our protagonist, the secrets of Villa Coco and its inhabitants are slowly brought to light - and with them, an unforgettable story of the enduring power of friendship.

The Emilys by Heather Abel

Released → 16th June 

Eve is at a breaking point. Alone with her two children in Massachusetts while her husband pursues his music career in New York City, she’s frustrated, bored, and above all, lonely when she runs into Demeter, a childhood friend with whom she shared one transformative summer. Demeter is as beautiful and charismatic as Eve remembers, but she’s also distraught. Demeter’s daughter, like a growing number of others, young and old, cannot go outside during the day. No one knows why, and doctors are skeptical that these people—soon dubbed Emilys, after a famously reclusive local poet—are telling the truth. But Eve believes her friend, whose company revives her and gives her purpose. She will help Demeter—if she can just figure out how.

Eve’s search for answers brings her into the fold of an unlikely band of detectives—the local librarian and the town’s most prolific writer of letters to the editor, who both loved the same woman and now hate each other; an actor hoping to make amends for past mistakes; a hermit botanist whose seed collection might hold a clue if she’d only open her door. They meet in playdates and potlucks, the Elks Lodge and the food co-op, the botanical garden and the riverbank, venturing deep into the town’s past and finding their way towards a future wilder and more wondrous than they had ever expected. But for Eve, this future will require a She is keeping secrets from her husband, fighting with Demeter, distracted from her children. What is she willing to risk to find a cure?

The Someday Garden by Ashley Poston

Released → 16th June

When Sophie Drear plans her escape to coastal Maine for the summer—for a temporary job revitalizing the storied grounds at Lilymoor House—she doesn’t expect to fall in love.

But she does: With the beguiling land, the fragrant flowers, and the towering hedge maze. With the quirky staff and the enigmatic woman who owns the place.

And then, the door appears. Never in the same place twice, it leads her to a secret, and unfinished, garden with a frustrated thundercloud of a man trapped inside.

This mysterious garden is not the only sign that the future of Lilymoor is unstable: the foliage resists Sophie’s careful nurturing, vines threaten to strangle the hedges, and the manor’s owner has wild ideas about who will take over when she retires—including her inconveniently attractive nephew who is also there just for the summer.

Despite herself, Sophie has come to care for the residents of Lilymoor just as much as she cares for its grounds. With the help of one man on the outside of the secret garden, and one man on the inside, she might be the only person who can figure out exactly what Lilymoor needs to bloom once more.

When You Loved Me by Beatriz Williams

Released → 23rd June 

Local history insists that a legendary pirate buried his treasure somewhere beneath Windward, the decayed Cooper estate on Winthrop Island, but Lucy Cooper never trusted the fable that broke her family apart. When a widowed Lucy returns with her young daughter to grieve her estranged father, she discovers the property’s buried under a mountain of debt, and Ben Ressler has just turned up on her doorstep.

Thirteen summers ago, a teenaged Lucy never meant to fall in love with Ben, a Dartmouth football star vacationing next door at the Peabody estate, and the object of an all-consuming crush by Laura Peabody, Lucy’s best friend. Those two weeks with Ben were the best and worst of Lucy’s life, dooming her friendship with Laura. Now Ben’s returned to live quietly in the Peabodys’ caretaker lodge, after a fatal accident ended his dazzling NFL career. He’s also the last person who saw Lucy’s father alive.

As Lucy reconstructs her father’s troubling final days, she uncovers his research on the frozen winter of 1717, when a desperately wounded pirate sought refuge on Winthrop Island with an enigmatic healer. To Lucy, this history points the way to a different kind of how to forgive yourself for the mistakes of the past and earn a second chance at love. But just as Lucy’s long-buried emotions sear to the surface, a shocking turn of events reveals that someone else on the island will do whatever it takes to claim the fabled plunder.

The Shampoo Effect by Jenny Jackson

Released → 30th June

When Caroline Lash arrives in Greenhead, Massachusetts, she falls head-over-heels for Van Whittaker, a fleece-wearing, litter-collecting, kayak enthusiast with long, floppy hair and the personality of a Border collie. Born and raised in this picturesque coastal village, Van runs with the same crowd he did as a kid, his ex-girlfriend, Bailey, a beautiful girl who attracts men like moths to a flame; Augusta, old money, horsey, and snobbish; and Fran, surrounded by brothers and sons, too fed up with boys to ever consider marrying one.

Together, the group runs wild through the marshes, beaches, and bars of Greenhead, drinking on houseboats, spending long afternoons sunbathing with their children, and playing games the way they always have. But when Bailey discovers that she is pregnant with Van’s baby, the delicate balance of the group’s friendship is thrown off. Soon Caroline is cast out of the circle and what she does next—in a potent mix of fury and heartbreak—exposes long-held secrets and works the entire town of Greenhead into a lather.

Dead But Dreaming of Electric Sheep by Paul Tremblay

Released → 30th June 

Meet Julia Flang, a twenty-something former semi-professional gamer, living with her retired uncle, and working two jobs she doesn’t like. Out of the blue, her estranged mother, a CFO for one of the world’s largest tech companies, offers her a temp job with a payday Julia can’t refuse. One sham interview later, she’s offered the job: to chaperone a man in a vegetative state—one with proprietary AI implanted in his head—from California to the East Coast.

To sum up in Julia’s own words: “You want me to remote control this dead dude across the country.” In a word, yes. But he’s not dead dead.

Meet a middle-aged man who wakes within a disorienting hellscape filled with monstrous grotesqueries. Worse than the fluid, morphing reality in which he’s trapped, he has no memory of who he is. He certainly doesn’t remember getting the rabbit tattoo on his arm. He only knows that he must find a certain person. Who? He can’t remember.

Using a cell phone modeled after a video game controller, Julia fumblingly navigates the man she calls “Bernie” from the company campus and onto planes and through one of the largest airports in America. All the while, the man endures an ever-changing and worsening nightmare that offers clues as to who he was—and who he must track down. And as their two lives intertwine, Julia and Bernie become unlikely allies and fugitives on a collision course with reality.

Which books being released in June are you excited for? Let me know in the comments and Happy Reading!