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The fact that I did a pretty decent job reading my Most Anticipated Books of Spring (the main set) has me feeling entirely too confident going into the summer months. I love to think that I’ll be able to read a lot while I’m on “vacation,” but historically, I actually don’t read a ton these days on vacation. We’ll see how this one turns out though. Cross your fingers for me! So let’s talk about the books coming out June, July, and August!

June

Crossroads by Devney Perry

Goodreads Synopsis: I met West Haven when I was eight years old. He taught me to play poker when I was nine, and we made paper airplanes together when I was eleven. He kissed me when I was sixteen. He was the best part about my family’s summer vacations to Montana. He was the boy who stole my heart. I was twenty-three when life ripped us apart.

Years later, I’m breaking my vow and returning to the ranch, not as a guest but its new owner. West might want me gone, but even he has to admit the only way to save his family’s legacy is with my help.

It’s not easy working side by side and facing those old memories. But this situation is only temporary. We’re at a crossroads. And as long as I don’t let myself fall in love with West Haven again, maybe this is our chance to put those ghosts to rest. Maybe this time we’ll finally be able to say goodbye.

Why I’m Excited: I really love Perry’s writing and the way she creates small towns.

Release Date: June 4, 2024

Just Some Stupid Love Story by Katelyn Doyle

Goodreads Synopsis: Molly Marks writes Hollywood rom-coms for a living—which is how she knows “romance” is a racket. The one and only time she was naive enough to fall in love was with her high school boyfriend, Seth—who she ghosted on the eve of graduation and hasn’t seen in fifteen years.

Seth Rubinstein believes in love, the grand, fated kind, despite his job as, well…one of Chicago’s most successful divorce attorneys. Over the last decade, he’s sought “the one” in countless bad dates and rushed relationships. He knows his soulmate is out there. But so far, no one can compare to Molly Marks, the first girl who broke his heart.

When Molly’s friends drag her to Florida for their fifteenth high school reunion, it is poetic justice that she’s forced to sit with Seth. Too many martinis and a drunken hookup later, they decide to make a bet: whoever can predict the fate of five couples before the next reunion must declare that the other is right about true love. The catch? The fifth couple is the two of them.

Molly assures Seth they are a tale of timeless heartbreak. Seth promises she’ll end up hopelessly in love with him. She thinks he’s delusional. He has five years to prove her wrong.

Why I’m Excited: This is actually me cheating, honestly. I’ve already read this book (thank you, Netgalley and publisher) and I absolutely ADORED it and cannot wait to have a physical copy and eventually re-read it. I loved it so, so much.

Release Date: June 4, 2024

Mirrored Heavens by Rebecca Roanhorse

Since this is book three in a series, I’m not going to provide a synopsis. But the first book in this series is basically that Serapio is destined to die in some sort of event that I can’t actually explain because I don’t know that I fully understood what was happening. That is not however why you should read this book. The CHARACTERS are everything and the plot is just the vessel through which we get to know them.

Why I’m Excited: Serapio. Xiala. TOGETHER???? @Rebecca, PLEASE.

Release Date: June 4, 2024

Love Unwritten by Lauren Asher

Rafael

Ellie Sinclair is a hopeless romantic who writes love songs.
I’m a struggling workaholic who could inspire a hundred breakup albums.
On paper, we have nothing in common except for my son.
For eight months, I avoid her until our summer trip.
Fourteen days. Two islands. And one nanny I shouldn’t be attracted to.
Spending time with Ellie is expected, but enjoying her company?
That isn’t part of our travel plans.
After my divorce, I swore to protect my heart at all costs.
Even if it means breaking hers in the process.

Ellie

What’s worse than working for a grumpy single dad?
Admitting that I once had a secret crush on him in high school.
Thankfully, Rafael Lopez and I have changed since we graduated from Wisteria High.
He is a billionaire with a company to run and a child to take care of.
I’m an unemployed songwriter he hired to watch his son and teach music.
We coexist without any issues until a vacation changes everything.
Lines blur and old feelings for Rafael return with vengeance as I face a new dilemma.
Being his son’s nanny is one thing, but wishing for more?
Sounds like a heartbreak song waiting to be written.

Why I’m Excited: I’m obsessed with Lauren Asher’s writing, tbh. I love the small towns she creates.

Release Date: June 18, 2024

Right Where We Left Us by Jen Devon

Goodreads Synopsis: Temperance Jean Madigan and Duncan Brady have never gotten it right. After one radiant, secret summer together when they were eighteen, they’ve been on-again off-again ever since. Now, despite red-hot chemistry and TJ’s closeness with Duncan’s family, they’re virtually strangers, only capable of adversarial banter, awkward small talk―and the occasional messy hookup. 

When a wedding at the Brady’s vineyard lands TJ there for the summer, their mutual avoidance strategies prove impossible. The last thing TJ wants is to be under those angsty, heated glances Duncan thinks he hides. And for Duncan, having fiery TJ constantly close is the ultimate distraction that he absolutely can’t afford. When forced proximity begins to chip away at their armor, buried tensions resurface, old wounds urge confrontation, and once-in-a-lifetime love demands one last chance to finally get it right.

Why I’m Excited: I absolutely adored Devon’s debut, Bend Toward the Sun and so I am so keen to read this follow up. I am prepared for my socks to be knocked off because of the writing and also, the fact that she writes with an angst vibe so well.

Release Date: June 25, 2024

Change of Heart by Kate Canterbary

Goodreads Synopsis: Every summer, superstar surgeon Whitney Aldritch crashes weddings with her best friend. The first one was an accident though after a decade of dropping in uninvited, they’re masters of their craft. They keep the rules simple and they never go to bed alone. 
 
Then there’s Henry Hazlette, best man and the best one-night stand of Whit’s summer. She never imagined she’d see him again but now he’s one of her new surgical residents—and completely off-limits.
 
Whitney has staked her reputation on leading the hospital’s new ethics initiative. While Henry is under her supervision, they have to keep it professional. But it doesn’t help that she can’t turn around without running face-first into his offensively broad chest or rubbing up against him in crammed elevators. Also not helping: the way he smiles at her like he can hear her every not-safe-for-work thought.
 
All they have to do is survive this residency—and the accidental tarot card readings that hit too close to home, a few uninvited houseguests, and the hospital’s hyperactive rumor mill—but only if they’re prepared to bend some rules as the feelings go from just for tonight to get it out of our systems to mine.

Why I’m Excited: I’m obsessed with Kate Canterbary’s writing and her books are almost always a win for me.

Release Date: June 25, 2024

Honorable June Release Mentions

July

Business Casual by B.K. Borison

Goodreads Synopsis: Nova Porter isn’t looking for love, and she certainly has no explanation for her attraction to buttoned-up, three-piece-suit-wearing investment banker Charlie Milford. Maybe it’s his charm? Or maybe it’s his determination to help her fledgling business however he can. Either way, she’s distracted every time he’s around. With her new tattoo studio set to open in her hometown of Inglewild, she doesn’t have time for frivolous flirtations. 

In an effort to get Charlie out of her system once and for all, Nova offers a proposition. One night. No strings. They’ll kick their uncomfortable attraction to the curb and return to their respective responsibilities. But their explosive night together scatters their expectations like fallen leaves. And with Charlie in town as the temporary head of Lovelight Farms, Nova can’t quite avoid him. 

Why I’m Excited: Truly absolutely obsessed with this series. I love it so much.

Release Date: July 16, 2024

The Black Bird Oracle by Deborah Harkness

Synopsis: Diana and Matthew receive a formal demand from the Congregation: They must test the magic of their seven-year-old twins, Pip and Rebecca. Concerned with their safety and desperate to avoid the same fate that led her parents to spellbind her, Diana decides to forge a different path for her family’s future and answers a message from a great-aunt she never knew existed, Gwyneth Proctor, whose invitation simply reads: It’s time you came home, Diana.

On the hallowed ground of Ravenswood, the Proctor family home, and under the tutelage of Gwyneth, a talented witch grounded in higher magic, a new era begins for Diana: a confrontation with her family’s dark past and a reckoning for her own desire for even greater power—if she can let go, finally, of her fear of wielding it.

In this stunning new novel, grand in scope, Deborah Harkness deepens the beloved world of All Souls with powerful new magic and long-hidden secrets, and the path Diana finds at Ravenswood leads to the most consequential moments yet in this cherished series.

Why I’m Excited: I love this series so much. Well, not so much book four. But the first three, I love. I’ve reread them so many times. I just adore them. So I’m really looking forward to this next installment.

Release Date: July 16, 2024

Primal Mirror by Nalini Singh

Synopsis: Daughter of two ruthless high-Gradient telepaths, Auden Scott is not the child her Psy parents wanted or expected, even before her brain injury. Her thoughts are scattered, her memories fuzzy—or just terrifyingly blank. The only thing she knows for certain is that she must protect her unborn baby . . . a baby she has no recollection of conceiving and who draws an unnerving depth of interest from her dead mother’s closest associates.
 
Leopard alpha Remi Denier is a man driven by the primal instinct to protect. Protect his pack, protect his allies . . . and protect the mysterious woman who has become a most unlikely neighbor. With eerie eyes that see too much and a scent that alters in ways disturbing and impossible, Auden Scott is the enemy . . . but nothing about this strange Psy is what it seems, and Remi’s feline heart is as fascinated by her as his human half.
 
Then Auden asks Remi to help her shatter the wall of secrets that is the Scott bloodline. What they unearth will reveal a nightmare beyond imagination. This time, the battle is to the death. . . .

Why I’m Excited: A) I love this series, but b) I’ve been wanting more about Remi since we first met him in Shards of Hope. Such a brilliant book.

Release Date: July 23, 2024

The Fiancé Dilemma by Elena Armas

Goodreads Synopsis: Josie Moore has given the opposite sex—and love—plenty of chances. Four exactly, if you count all her failed engagements, and five if you include the absentee father who kept her existence a secret until very recently. So when her father decides to announce his retirement with a splashy magazine piece about the family, Josie realizes her romantic history is a complicated PR issue.

Matthew Flanagan is in the mud, literally. Not only has he been fired from his job, but also the tires of his car are stuck in the muck after taking a wrong turn as he enters Green Oak, North Carolina. So, he grabs a duffel with his essentials and goes in search of a place to crash until he gets his life back on track. But instead, he finds his best friend’s sister, Josie, greeting him as her fiancé. 

What starts as a big messy misunderstanding quickly turns into an arrangement with Matthew playing a new role as doting fiancé. A fifth engagement—and a stunt, at that—makes Josie’s stomach turn, but every dilemma requires a choice between equally undesirable alternatives, and Matthew doesn’t seem to mind becoming one more number in a colorful list of grooms-that-never-were. Despite the ring on her finger, Josie knows this is only temporary, even if the rest of the small town believes that the fifth time’s the charm.

Why I’m Excited: I absolutely adored The Long Game by Elena Armas so I’m very much looking forward to the second in the series.

Release Date: July 30, 2024

July Releases Honorable Mentions

August

Daydream by Hannah Grace

Goodreads Synopsis: When procrastination lands him in a difficult class with his least favorite professor, Henry Turner knows he’s going to have to work extra hard to survive his junior year of college. And now with his new role as ice hockey captain – which he didn’t even want – Henry absolutely cannot fail. Enter Halle Jacobs, a fellow junior who finds herself befriended by Henry when he accidentally crashes her book club.

Halle may not have the romantic pursuits of her favorite fictional leads, but she’s an academic superstar, and when she hears about Henry’s problems with his class reading material, she offers to help. But being a private tutor isn’t exactly ideal given her own studies, job and the novel she’s trying to write. New experiences are the key to beating her writer’s block, though, and Henry’s promising to be the one to give them to her.

They just need to stick to their rulebook. Oh, and not fall in love.

Why I’m Excited: I’ve loved both of the first two books in this series and I’m super excited to read more about Henry.

Release Date: August 27, 2024

Hers for the Weekend by Helena Greer

Goodreads Synopsis: No-nonsense lawyer Tara Sloane Chadwick is perfectly fine with going to her ex’s wedding—the break-up was congenial, and Tara is nothing if not well-mannered. But after one too many reminders of her dismal dating track, Tara panics when asked if she’ll need a plus-one and declares she’s bringing her new girlfriend. One Tara is seriously single. Thankfully, Holly, the waitress she’s been crushing on, happily offers to be her fake date . . .    Only Holly’s offer isn’t quite selfless—she’s been lusting over Tara for ages, but Tara only dates women she can marry. And Holly has no interest in settling down with anyone or in any one place. A temporary arrangement is the perfect Holly and Tara can enjoy a no-strings fling for the wedding and part ways after. However, between sharing kisses and hotel beds and cuddling under the mistletoe, Tara begins to dream of a life with Holly in Charleston . . . just as Holly starts wishing she could travel with Tara by her side. Soon, neither can see a future without the other, but can they find a path forward where they both can thrive?  

Why I’m Excited: I’ve really enjoyed the first two books of this series, so I can’t wait to read this one!

Release Date: August 27, 2024

August Releases Honorable Mentions

Closing Thoughts

This was more books that I originally intended to talk about, but there really are just so many to be excited about! I hope you found some books you hadn’t heard of before, but regardless, let me know if we share any anticipated books! Also let me know the books you think I’ve left off my list that I shouldn’t have. Happy reading!

xx