A new month means new books on the horizon. These are some notable new releases for the month of June in my favorite categories: Historical Fiction, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Mystery and Thriller, and History and Biography. If I could pick just one this month, it would be “The Personal Librarian.” (amazon, Goodreads, 2021)

Historical fiction:
“The Personal Librarian” by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray
Release date: June 29, 2021

The remarkable story of J. P. Morgan’s personal librarian, Belle da Costa Greene, the Black American woman who was forced to hide her true identity and pass as white to leave a lasting legacy that enriched our nation, from The New York Times bestselling author Marie Benedict and acclaimed author Victoria Christopher Murray. “The Personal Librarian” tells the story of an extraordinary woman, famous for her intellect, style, and wit, and shares the lengths she must go to—for the protection of her family and her legacy—to preserve her carefully crafted white identity in the racist world in which she lives.

Fantasy:
“The Hidden Palace: A Novel of the Golem and the Jinni” Book 2 of 2 by Helene Wecker
Release date: June 8, 2021

This enthralling historical epic is set in New York City and the Middle East in the years leading to World War I and is the long-awaited follow-up to the acclaimed bestseller “The Golem and the Jinni.” Helene Wecker revisits her beloved characters Chava and Ahmad as they confront unexpected new challenges in a rapidly changing human world. Spanning the tumultuous years from the turn of the twentieth century to the beginning of World War I, “The Hidden Palace” follows these lives and others as they collide and interleave. Can Chava and Ahmad find their places in the human world while remaining true to each other? Or will their opposing natures and desires eventually tear them apart—especially once they encounter, thrillingly, other beings like themselves?

Science Fiction:
“The Ninth Metal” (The Comet Cycle) by Benjamin Percy
Release date: June 1, 2021

It began with a comet. At first, people gazed in wonder at the radiant tear in the sky. A year later, the celestial marvel became a planetary crisis when Earth spun through the comet’s debris field and the sky rained fire. The town of Northfall, Minnesota will never be the same. Meteors cratered hardwood forests and annihilated homes, and among the wreckage a new metal was discovered. This “omni metal” has properties that make it world-changing as an energy source and a weapon. In this gut-punch of a novel, the first in his Comet Cycle, Ben Percy lays bare how a modern-day goldrush has turned the middle of nowhere into the center of everything, and how one family—the Frontiers—hopes to control it all.

Mystery and Thriller:
“Survive the Night: A Novel” by Riley Sager
Release date: June 29, 2021

It is November 1991. Nirvana is in the tape deck, George H. W. Bush is in the White House, and movie-obsessed college student Charlie Jordan is in a car with a man who might be a serial killer. Charlie has nowhere to run and no way to call for help. Trapped in a terrifying game of cat and mouse played out on pitch-black roads and in neon-lit parking lots, Charlie knows the only way to win is to survive the night.

History and Biography:
“Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts” by Rebecca Hall
Release date: June 1, 2021

Part graphic novel, part memoir, “Wake” is an imaginative tour-de-force that tells the story of women-led slave revolts and chronicles scholar Rebecca Hall’s efforts to uncover the truth about these women warriors who, until now, have been left out of the historical record. Wake tells the story of Dr. Rebecca Hall, a historian, granddaughter of slaves, and a woman haunted by the legacy of slavery. The accepted history of slave revolts has always told her that enslaved women took a back seat. But Rebecca decides to look deeper, and her journey takes her through old court records, slave ship captain’s logs, crumbling correspondence, and even the forensic evidence from the bones of enslaved women from the “negro burying ground” uncovered in Manhattan. She finds women warriors everywhere.