Coming Soon – The Books We’re Most Looking Forward to Reading in June 2023
With Summer fast approaching (or even here depending on where you are in the world!) it’s time to start thinking about the Holiday TBR, the books you’re going to want to load onto your e-reader or pack in your suitcase to keep you company while you chill out and take a well-earned break. As always, the AAR team is here to help – we’ve scoured the new release lists and come up with a selection of upcoming titles (that we know about!) we think are most likely to engage and entertain you over the coming weeks.
Do drop by and let us know which – if any – of these you’re interested in, and whether there are books you’re eager to get stuck into that we’ve missed!
Releasing week of 5th June 2023
Releasing week of 12th June 2023
Releasing week of 19th June 2023
Releasing week of 26th June 2023
Just finished Cecilia Rabess’s Everything is Fine. It is not mentioned in the above list (as Caz points out, there are logistical reasons why the list cannot be comprehensive), but has been reviewed in at least two major newspapers and so I bought and read it one sitting. It is a romance novel, also a political one, that asks this tough question: Is love possible between a Black politically liberal woman and a White conservative man in the Trump era? The author’s answer is equivocal. The novel begins with Jess and Josh as freshmen at the same Ivy League school when Obama becomes the President and ends with Trump’s inauguration speech. Between these two mileposts, and Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter, they finish college, start as traders at Goldman Sachs, fall in love, break up and then get back together, with Jess all along wondering whether love can conquer ‘geography, history and socio-political reality’. Josh adores her, fights for her at work and yet has no empathy for her daily and systemic experience of misogyny and racism both at work and in the greater world. For Jess, there is the gradual realization that she has to speak up and be in solidarity with other struggles for equality and justice. The novel ends powerfully with the their starkly contrasting response to Trump’s ‘American Carnage’ inaugural speech. Seven years have gone by since then, I am left wondering if their love would have survived those tumultuous years.
For those who like ambiguous ending in their romance novels, I strongly recommend this book.
Although historical romances are my first love, more often I’ve been gravitating to scifi and fantasy reads. I’m looking forward to reading Jessie Mihalik’s Capture the Sun and Anne Leckie’s Translation State (not on the list).
i just read in Annabeth Albert’s newsletter that Make Me Stay has been pused back to July 13th. The cover has been revealed, however.
I’m not sure if you format the site for Firefox, too, but the book images/links aren’t showing up on Firefox.
I’m most looking forward to We Could Be so Good because I love Cat Sebastian’s 20th Century historicals. I’m cautiously optimistic about Mortal Follies by Alexis Hall.
Allie: I don’t know if you have the same browser issue I had months ago, but you might. I had to change my ad-blocker settings for AAR because most of the pictures got treated as ads to block. Once I changed that setting I started seeing a lot more pictures.
I’m most looking forward to Broadway Butchery by C.S. Poe. I liked Bring Me Home, the first book in Annabeth Albert’s Safe Harbor series much better than those in her A-list Security series so I’m excited about book 2. I’m also looking forward to the books by Jay Hogan, N.R. Walker and Ali Hazelwood. Not on this list is Oblivious by Leslie McAdam (M/M contemporary). It’s the 3rd in her IOU series and features a best friends to lovers trope with the best friends founding and running a law firm together. Should be a good reading month!
The problem with putting this list together, well one of the problems, is that with so much self-published stuff coming out, unless I get the author’s newsletter, or am in their FB group or have some way of finding out what’s coming up, it’s really difficult to include them – especially as so many self-publishing authors announce new books at or near the last minute. That said, if you – or anyone else who is interested in these Coming Soon posts – want to drop me an email about new books you know about that you think should be included, I’d be delighted to hear from you.
Hi Caz, I’m sorry that I didn’t phrase my comments better. I completely understand that you can’t put everything on this list and I appreciate the work you do each month to highlight these upcoming books. I just wanted to let others know about one more book that I am looking forward to reading and I’m happy to just add that to the comments section.
Oh, I wasn’t telling you off or complaining – I’m always pleased when readers add titles here and wanted to say that I’d be happy to receive info about titles you’re looking forward to in advance so I can add them to the post
I wish I could say I was organized enough to do that, ha ha!
I missed seeing Make Me Stay by Annabeth Albert on this list. I, too, enjoyed Bring Me Home and will definitely pick the new one up. While there are books of her’s I like better than others, she’s been an amazingly consistent writer over dozens of books. Thanks for pointing this one out!
Agreed – i don’t think she’s posted a cover image yet which is why there’s a blank ‘cover’ in this post (and it was therefore easy to miss!)
I hadn’t seen a cover yet on her FB group, so I bet you’re right there. I don’t mean to, but I think my eyes sometimes skim over the “filler” covers, or covers that are plain (I missed the N.R. Walker books the first time I looked through the list). I did look through the list two or three times I always do because I tend to miss one or two I’m interested in) but I still missed the Albert’s book! :-) I knew she had a second book coming out fairly soon, but I was thinking more like July.
She’s just done a cover reveal (so it should show up in the post now) but has also announced she’s had to push publication back to 13th July. It’s a shame, but at least it’s not too far off.
I posted this info above before I saw this!
I’m curious about the Storm Boys series by N.R. Walker. (Out Run the Rain and Into the Tempest, above) I can’t find anything about them. I did see that the prequel novella; Second Chance at First Love, is out tomorrow on Kindle. I think I’ll grab that and see what this series is about.
Of course I’m most excited about Broadway Butchery! But I’m also looking forward to The Art of Husbandry by Jay Hogan and curious about the Cat Sebastian book, We Could Be So Good.
N.R. Walker is an auto-buy for me and I’m looking forward to the Storm Boys. In her newsletter she said the prequel would be about 1 couple and then there will be a 3 book series featuring another couple but no details as yet about the 3 books.
I got the basic info about the books in NRW’s newsletter, but I don’t think she’s put any blurbs out for the full length books yet. She did say that Glenn Lloyd is doing the audios.
Cat Sebastian has become rather hit and miss for me, but I loved this new one!
Oh, good! I’m hoping to get this one on audio.
I read Second Chance at First Love last night. It was more a slice of a relationship rather than a full story but I enjoyed seeing 2 characters realize they had grown and had to talk and work out their problems. What intrigued me was that the upcoming trilogy will have the same setting and an unusual topic (people who study lightning and storms). I enjoy N.R. Walker’s depictions of some of the less populated parts of Australia (like in her Red Dirt Heart and Imago series and her standalone Davo).
thanks for this info! I didn’t realize what the setting was going to be. The titles make sense now. :-) I also enjoy N.R. Walker’s use of unusual settings and occupations, including all the one’s you’ve mentioned. as well as Galaxies and Oceans.
Mimi Matthews has Appointment in Bath releasing 27 June. I love her.
I’m looking forward to Reckless by Elsie Silver, coming 6/9. I have an eye out for Perfect Together by Kristen Ashley, 6/13. I enjoyed her older books like the Colorado Mountain series, It’s Complicated and the Moonlight and Motor Oil series, but haven’t connected with her newer books. I’m looking forward to many books on your list. Thank you!
I just recently discovered Elsie Silver and am looking forward to Reckless. I want to see how the author redeems the heroine Winter, who was pretty unlikeable in previous books!
I’m looking forward to Beau’s story which looks like it will be after Reckless.
Ooooh, I want that too!
I have so many books on my June TBR, it’s a good thing I’m off work for the summer!
WHAT WE BROKE (June 1) by Marley Valentine doesn’t have much of a blurb except that it’s an emotional m/m romance. I’m not sure if this is the second book in Valentine’s Unlucky Ones series (if so, it’s had a title chance because that book was originally to be titled UNLOVED) or if this is a completely new book unaffiliated with the series. Either way, Valentine’s books are usually full of angst and complications…and I’m there for them!
GOOD AS GOLD (June 1) by Sarina Bowen is a second-chance romance set in the Vermont world of her True North series.
TANGLED WITH YOU (June 13) by J. Kenner is a romantic-suspense novella set in her Stark Security world. I might be wrong, because I haven’t read everything Kenner has written, but I think this might be her first m/m romance.
CROSS YOUR HEART (June 20) by Amelia Wilde begins a new series set in the Midnight Dynasty universe of dark romances. In this story, the hero (an investigative journalist) discovers a long-buried secret about the heroine’s family, and the heroine is determined to do whatever it takes to keep it covered up.
CROWNE JEWEL (June 27) is the next book in CD Reiss’s Crowne Brothers series—although the heroine of this book is the only sister in the Crowne family. This one features a lot of catnip: second-chance, bodyguard, bossy (when he needs to be) hero, and role-play.
HER VOW TO BE HIS DESERT QUEEN (June 27) is the second in Jackie Ashenden’s Three Ruthless Kings trilogy of Harlequin Presents romances. This one features a marriage-of-convenience between a sheikh and the woman who jokingly promised to marry him many years before.
WILL THEY OR WON’T THEY (June 27) by Ava Wilder is the story of an actor and an actress reunited to film the final season of a show on which they once co-starred. I loved Wilder’s HOW TO FAKE IT IN HOLLYWOOD, and I’m looking forward to WILL THEY OR WON’T THEY, but $11.99 for an ebook is a little too rich for my blood, so I’ll be waiting for either a library loan or a price drop.
OUT OF OFFICE (June 29) by Ruth Cardello is the second book in her Twin Find duet, about identical twins separated at birth and adopted by different families. The hero of this book seeks revenge on the man he feels ruined his life; but, because that man is dead, decides to take his revenge on the man’s daughter—a woman who is, of course, completely ignorant of what her father did. I enjoyed the first book in this duet, STRICTLY FAMILY, and am looking forward to another interesting story featuring a hero discovering his biological family.
I have the Wilder for review. I don’t do much m/f as you know, but I enjoyed the previous book in audio, so I’m going to give it a go.
I’m looking forward to Good as Gold too!
I’m sad to say we were turned down when we asked for a review copy of that book. We have a harder time getting self-pubbed books, especially contemporaries.