The Best New Books Out in June, According to Indie Booksellers

This is the #1 Indie Next List Pick for June!

Easily one of the most anticipated books of 2025, Schwab’s excellent “toxic lesbian vampire” novel is about three women in three different times in history and places in the world. Each will make choices that severely change their future and may have them hunting for answers. Are they all vampires? Are they immortal? You’ll have to read it to find out. —Liberty Hardy

The protagonist in this novel has a special connection to the ghosts that have been swirling around him since he was ten. He can’t exactly see them, but he can taste their favorite foods. For the longest time, he does nothing with this ability. But then it occurs to him that if he prepares these dishes for the loved ones who survived, he can momentarily reunite the living with the deceased, providing them with a sort of closure. Unfortunately, good intentions aren’t everything. —Steph Auteri

Taylor Jenkins Reid’s latest feels like the perfect read to kick off the summer months. In the summer of 1980, Joan Goodwin is chosen to join NASA’s Space Shuttle program and to train at Houston’s Johnson Space Center. As she makes friends among her fellow trainees and prepares for her first flight, Joan finds everything she thought she knew about herself and about the universe challenged. —Emily Martin

Words cannot express how excited I am for this book! I’m looking forward to being delighted by the story of a young woman who marries the royal heir to the neighboring kingdom for political purposes, only to be saddled (lol) with a man who turns into a horse during the day after an assassination attempt goes very wrong. Very right? I dunno. This is very much for the reader who read/watched My Lady Jane and wanted more, or for the (ahem) slightly older reader who imprinted on Ladyhawke and has always wanted something similar… but much more fun. —Jessica Pryde

I am a big fan of books that open people up to viewing nature in a different light, and in Forest Euphoria, this light is more personal. Ononiwu Kaishian saw herself—and her emerging identies as a queer and neurodivergent person—in the snakes and fungi of the swamps and culverts near her house. She shares her journey to being a scientist, then invites us to witness the queerness of nature. Fungal species have more than two sexes, some intersex slugs shoot “love darts” at each other, and more. —Erica Ezeifedi

In 1888 Portland, Celia passes as white to protect herself from the raging anti-Chinese sentiment poisoning the U.S. But when she wakes underground, drugged and disguised, in the subterranean labyrinth of the Shanghai Tunnels, she realizes she’s been “shanghaied.” Now, at risk of being shipped off for forced labor, she tries to piece together the events that brought her here and figure out some means of escape. —Rachel Brittain

“Great Black Hope is an immersive experience of the dilemmas faced by characters confronting a broken justice system and a society that still erects barriers to Black achievement. It is marvelous.” —Shane Grebel, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, KS (Indie Next List)

For fans of crime novels, family drama, past missing person case, and returning home to face the past!

Roman Carruthers returns to his hometown when his father ends up in a coma. But that quickly becomes the least of his problems when in trying to save his brother from a bad decision he finds himself in the position of needing to outwit the local crime boss. His sister, now running the family crematorium, knows Roman is up to something and is becoming increasingly convinced that their father was responsible for their mother’s disappearance when they were teenagers. Every move Roman makes to try and protect his family ends up putting them deeper in danger… —Jamie Canaves

Vampires! In! Space! In this queer sci-fi horror, humans can travel between Earth and Alpha Centauri, and Demeter is one of the spaceships that makes the journey. But when Demeter’s passengers start dying mysteriously, Demeter discovers the cause: a vampire. To stop the killings and keep from being shut down, Demeter has to put together her own monster squad to try to take down Dracula, the most powerful vampire of all time. —Liberty Hardy

Madeline Hill’s dad is not only a deadbeat who left her and her mom to fend for themselves 20 years ago on their farm in Tennessee—he’s like the Deadbeat Final Boss, because it turns out that he’s been starting families and leaving them for years. At least, that’s what Reuben Hill—who was left behind by their dad 30 years ago—claims when he pulls up out of nowhere in a PT Cruiser. He tells Mad that he’s hired someone to find their father and their many half-siblings. It gets even more crunchy when Reuben suggests Mad hops in for a road trip to meet them all. As they meet more and more of their siblings, it becomes clear that they all got different versions of the man, which leaves the question of who they will encounter at the end of their journey. Get ready for a sibling story full of road trip hijinks and all the feelings. —Erica Ezeifedi