The Best New Book Releases Out June 25, 2024

The author of The Seven Year Slip and The Dead Romantics is back with a bookish love story perfect for summer reading. Eileen Merriweather retreats to the pages of romance novels after she is left at the altar. She’s been counting down the days until her annual book club retreat, but her car breaks down along the way, and she finds herself in a small town identical to her favorite romance series. She’s determined to complete the series the late author left unfinished, but the grumpy (and irritatingly good-looking) bookstore owner seems determined to stop her.

Josh Malerman — author of Bird Box, Daphne, and many others — is one of the most popular horror authors writing today. In his newest, eight-year-old Bela lives with her family Mommy, Daddo, and Grandma Ruth — but she also sees someone else in their house: Other Mommy. Other Mommy asks her every day, “Can I go inside your heart?” Bela always says no, but the entity is getting impatient and is threatening her family if she doesn’t say yes soon.

Here’s another horror story, this one with one of the most upsetting covers I’ve seen this year. It’s about Ji-won, who is grieving the dissolution of her family after her father cheated on her mother and then left them. Ji-won’s mother has a new boyfriend, George, who sees her and her sister as competition for their mother’s attention. And Ji-won keeps having dreams about eyeballs…dreams that come with new cravings. She now knows how to get her revenge on George, but she won’t stop there.

Meet the new queer literary novel Ruth Madievsky, author of All-Night Pharmacy, calls a “must-read for anyone who has ever white-knuckled their way through the wilderness of their own mind.” Norma is one chapter away from finishing her manuscript, and she’s convinced she’s being sent signs from God through Spotify and Instagram that breaking up with her girlfriend is the way to do that. Her therapist has diagnosed her with Depersonalization/Derealization Disorder, but Norma is not convinced. Is her girlfriend her savior against Oblivion or the final obstacle to her quest to finish her manuscript? Or is she just a human?

In this Filipino-inspired fantasy, María spends her days as a nun serving the colonizers of Aynila, hiding the fact that she’s a stormcaller for the Aynilan goddess Anitun Tabu. She’s built a family for herself in the convent along with her lover Catalina and Cat’s younger sister, but her goddess is angry at being slighted. When a revelation upends her life, María reaches out to Alon, heir to the most powerful family in Aynila, for help. But Alon has been in love with her for years, and soon María is caught between Catalina, Alon, and a vengeful goddess.

Eve has been training her whole life to take on the Knight, the figure who has been tearing families apart across the Queendom — including her own. She has a magical ability to draw weapons from nature, and she’s been honing her skills for years. As her 17th approaches, Eve is ready to battle. But in the weeks before, her mother, the queen, begins acting strangely, speaking to a mirror every night. Then, a messenger arrives, claiming to bring word from the Knight with a secret from Eve’s past that changes everything…