Summer is officially here, which generally means scorching temperatures, late nights, and plenty of time poolside (or in the air-conditioned location of your choice). The season’s slower vibes naturally lend themselves to increased downtime and whether or not you’re headed off on vacation, you’re probably building in some extra time to unwind—hopefully with a good book in hand. Thankfully, for YA fans, you’ve got a ridiculous number of intriguing new titles hitting shelves this summer—and a not insignificant portion of them are already here.
The buzziest June YA books run the gamut from contemporary romances and intricate thrillers to fairytale reimaginings and an update of an American classic that puts the original’s barely-there heroine front and center. There’s truly something for everyone this month, and readers are (yet again!) spoiled for choice.
Here are our picks for the best YA books hitting shelves this June.
Now, Conjurers by Freddie Kölsch
Release Date: June 4 from Union Square & Co.
Why You’ll Love It: A briskly paced thriller inspired by 1990s cult classics, this YA debut features a tight-knight coven of weird high school kids who can do real magic, plenty of thoughtful queer representation, and a unique twist on the be-careful-what-you-wish-for trope that promises great things to come from both this author and this cast of characters.
Publisher’s Description: November 1999. North Dana, Massachusetts.
Nesbit Nuñez discovers the partially devoured body of Bastion Attia: star quarterback, secret witch, and Nesbit’s even more secret boyfriend.
No one knew why brilliant, gentle Bastion lived his life by a seemingly arcane set of rules, including a strange manner of speech and an inability to say his own name.
Now the remaining members of North Coven—Nesbit, Dove, Drea, and Brandy—vow to get answers. Nothing can prepare them for what they uncover: Bastion had been locked in a terrifying battle of wits and wills with something living deep beneath an ancient mausoleum in the local cemetery.
North Coven must confront the red-gloved monster that took piece after piece of Bastion, that he fought until his last breath. Not knowing that Bastion left behind the key to its destruction . . .
Heiress Takes All by Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka
Release Date: June 4 from Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Why You’ll Love It: From the powerhouse duo behind titles like Never Vacation with Your Ex, this deliciously fun YA adventure about a vengeful daughter determined to pull off the perfect heist during her father’s wedding is perfect summer entertainment.
Publisher’s Description: Seventeen-year-old Olivia Owens isn’t thrilled that her dad’s getting remarried…again. She’s especially not thrilled that he cheated on her mom, kicked them out of their Rhode Island home, and cut Olivia out of her rightful inheritance.
But this former heiress has a plan for revenge. While hundreds of guests gather on the grounds of the gorgeous estate where she grew up, everyone will be thinking romance—not robbery. She’ll play the part of dutiful daughter, but in reality she’ll be redistributing millions from her father’s online accounts. She only needs the handwritten pass code he keeps in the estate’s safe.
With the help of an eclectic crew of high school students and one former teacher, Olivia has plotted her mid-nuptial heist down to the second. But she didn’t plan for an obnoxiously nosy wedding guest, an interfering ex-boyfriend intent on winning her back, greedy European cousins with their own agenda, or a vengeful second wife. When everything seems like it’s going wrong, Olivia has to keep her eyes on what really matters: getting rich. And when she’s done, “something borrowed” will be the understatement of the year.
Looking for Smoke by K.A. Cobel
Release Date: June 4 from Heartdrum
Why You’ll Love It: A timely thriller that explores the growing crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Looking for Smoke deftly depicts the realities of reservation life even as a quartet of teens find themselves suspects in a murder.
Publisher’s Description: Since moving to the Blackfeet Reservation with her parents, Mara Racette has felt like an outsider, taunted by her tight-knit classmates for growing up far away. So, when a local girl includes Mara in a traditional Blackfeet giveaway to honor her missing sister, Mara thinks she’ll finally make some friends.
Instead, a girl from the giveaway, Samantha White Tail, is found murdered.
Because the members of the giveaway group were the last to see Samantha alive, each becomes a person of interest in the investigation:
New-girl Mara, who hated Samantha for being particularly cruel.
Grief-stricken Loren Arnoux, who was Samantha’s best friend until her sister’s disappearance drove a wedge between them.
Class-clown Brody Clark, whose unreciprocated crush on Samantha is an open secret.
And tough-guy Eli First Kill, who has his own complicated history with Samantha.
Despite deep mistrust, the four must now take matters into their own hands and clear their names. Even though one of them may be the murderer.
Past Present Future by Rachel Lynn Solomon
Release Date: June 4 from Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Why You’ll Love It: The charming sequel to Today, Tonight, Tomorrow, Rachel Lynn Solomon’s latest entry in her Rowan & Neil series follows the eponymous characters—who fell in love over the course of 24 hours in the first book—as they embark on a long-distance relationship during their first year at college.
Publisher’s Description: When longtime rivals Rowan Roth and Neil McNair confessed their feelings on the last day of senior year, they knew they’d only have a couple months together before they left for college. Now summer is over, and they’re determined to make their relationship work as they begin school in different states.
In Boston, Rowan is eager to be among other aspiring novelists, learning from a creative writing professor she adores. She’s just not sure why she suddenly can’t seem to find her voice.
In New York, Neil embraces the chaos of the city, clicking with a new friend group more easily than he anticipated. But when his past refuses to leave him alone, he doesn’t know how to handle his rapidly changing mental health—or how to talk about it with the girl he loves.
Over a year of late-night phone calls, weekend visits, and East Coast adventures, Rowan and Neil fall for each other again and again as they grapple with the uncertainty of their new lives. They’ve spent so many years at odds with each other—now that they’re finally on the same team, what does the future hold for them?
Wish You Weren’t Here by Erin Baldwin
Release Date: June 4 from Viking Books for Young Readers
Why You’ll Love It: A delightfully sunny and summery queer rom-com, Wish You Weren’t Here is utterly charming from its first pages. The story of a pair of frenemies who wind up paired as roommates during a stint at summer camp prior to their senior year, this debut is both a great enemies-to-lovers romp and an ode to the delightful weirdness of camp life.
Publisher’s Description: Rising seniors Juliette Barrera-Wright and Priya Pendley have always tolerated each other. Ever since elementary school, the girls have mutually agreed to endure each other’s presence in the overlapping parts of their lives, and once a year, Juliette attends Priyatopia–Priya’s over-the-top birthday party that seems to get more and more lavish with every passing year–with the rest of their high school class and even brings her a gift.
Juliette acquiesces the spotlight to Priya all year long in exchange for her moment in the sun at Fogridge Sleepaway Camp–the place where no one is “too much.” Entering her final year as a camper at Fogridge with the prestigious title of North Star, Juliette’s ready to forget about Priya and enjoy the outdoors, her fellow campers, and an environment where she gets to be more than a side character. But her hopes for a Priya-free summer are shattered when her rival shows up at Fogridge on move-in day and is assigned to be her roommate.
Juliette’s perfect summer continues to spiral out of control when everything that could possibly go wrong does and she is forced to spend even more time with the person she thought she couldn’t stand. But as she begins to see a new side of Priya, she’s forced to grapple with a new and unexpected feeling…love?
There Is a Door In This Darkness by Kristin Cashore
Release Date: June 11 from Dutton
Why You’ll Love It: The fact that There Is a Door In This Darkness hails from the author of the Graceling series is enough to get most people (read: me) to give it a look, but its intriguing premise—a magic-tinged contemporary YA story about depression, grief, and hope that centers around a high school student who lost her senior year to the COVID pandemic—is a welcome bonus.
Publisher’s Description: Wilhelmina Hart is part of the infamous class of 2020. Her high chool years began with the election of Donald Trump and they ended with COVID. Now Wilhelmina, like so many of her peers, is in limbo, having deferred college because of the pandemic. Compounding the national trauma of 2016 to 2020, Wilhelmina has wrestled with the devastating loss of one of her three beloved aunts shortly after the 2016 election. This is a loss she felt so keenly that she’s spent the last years deep in her personal depression, only obscured by the seemingly endless waves of national trauma. Now on the cusp on the most consequential election in living memory, Wilhelmina may have found a door in her darkness and perhaps the courage to pass through it, if she can decipher the bizarre messages that keep appearing in her life.
The Wilderness of Girls by Madeline Claire Franklin
Release Date: June 11 from Zando Young Readers
Why You’ll Love It: An intriguing YA debut with serious Yellowjackets vibes, The Wilderness of Girls is a story about female rage, authenticity, and the ways the world often asks young women to make themselves smaller in order to properly exist within its boundaries. The story of a foster teen who discovers a pack of feral girls in the woods, and who must figure out whether they’re victims of a horrible crime, or something much more magical and strange.
Publisher’s Description: After being placed in foster care, Rhi is hungry for a fresh start and begins working at the Happy Valley Wildlife Preserve. While in the woods, she stumbles upon a surreal sight: a pack of wolves guarding four feral and majestic girls. After Rhi gains their trust, they reveal that they’re princesses from another land, raised by a magical prophet they call Mother―and they’re convinced Rhi is their lost fifth sister.
Unsure what to believe, Rhi ushers the girls to civilization, where they’re met with societal uproar and scrutiny, dubbed by the ravenous media and true crime junkies as “The Wild Girls of Happy Valley.” Desperate to return to their kingdom, the girls look to Rhi for help. Rhi knows the girls are deluded, but at the same time she’s drawn in by their boldness and authenticity―traits she is afraid she has lost within herself. And when Rhi witnesses strange phenomena she can’t quite explain, the line between fantasy and reality grows blurry.
As the hunt for answers intensifies, Rhi must make a decision that will change the course of her life and the lives of her Wild Girls forever.
The Color of a Lie By Kim Johnson
Release Date: June 11 from Random House Books for Young Readers
Why You’ll Love It: We really don’t get enough historical fiction in the YA space, and Kim Johnson’s timely social justice thriller about a Black teen torn between two worlds when his white-passing family moves them into a “Whites Only” suburb in 1955 is a story that somehow feels timelier and more necessary than ever.
Publisher’s Description: Calvin knows how to pass for white. He’s done it plenty of times before. For his friends in Chicago, when they wanted food but weren’t allowed in a restaurant. For work, when he and his dad would travel for the Green Book.
This is different.
After a tragedy in Chicago forces the family to flee, they resettle in an idyllic all-white suburban town in search of a better life. Calvin’s father wants everyone to embrace their new white lifestyles, but it’s easier said than done. Hiding your true self is exhausting — which leads Calvin across town where he can make friends who know all of him…and spend more time with his new crush, Lily. But when Calvin starts unraveling dark secrets about the white town and its inhabitants, passing starts to feel even more suffocating–and dangerous–than he could have imagined.
Sleep Like Death by Kalynn Baron
Release Date: June 25 from Bloomsbury YA
Why You’ll Love It: Another fairytale retelling from Kalynn Baron, author of the excellent Cinderella is Dead, and this one tackles Snow White? What’s not to love?
Publisher’s Description: Only the truly desperate – and foolish – seek out the Knight, an ancient monster who twists wishes into curses. Eve knows this first-hand: one of her mothers was cursed by the Knight and trapped in the body of a songbird. With the unique abilities to communicate with animals and conjure weapons from nature, Eve has trained all her life to defeat him.
With more and more villagers harmed by the Knight’s corrupt deals, Eve believes she’s finally ready to face him. But when Queen Regina begins acting strangely – talking to seemingly no one, isolating herself, and lashing out at the slightest provocation – Eve must question if her powers are enough to save her family and her kingdom.
We Shall Be Monsters by Tara Sim
Release Date: June 25 from Nancy Paulsen Books
Why You’ll Love It: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein meets Indian mythology in this story from the author of The City of Dusk. In it a young woman is determined to resurrect her recently deceased sister and finds her goal becomes a great more complicated when Lasya’s soul becomes a dangerous wraith.
Publisher’s Description: After her sister Lasya’s sudden death, Kajal vows to do whatever it takes to bring her back. No cost is too great, even if it means preventing Lasya’s soul from joining the cycle of reincarnation. But as Kajal prepares for the resurrection, her sister’s trapped soul warps into a bhuta—a violent, wraith-like spirit hell-bent on murdering those who wronged it in life. With each kill, the bhuta becomes stronger and fiercer, and Kajal’s chances of resurrecting Lasya with her soul intact grow slimmer.
Blamed for Lasya’s rampage and condemned as a witch, Kajal is locked away with little hope of escape. That is, until two strangers who label themselves rebels arrive and offer to free her. The catch: She must resurrect the kingdom’s fallen crown prince, aiding their coup to overthrow the usurper who sits the throne. Desperate to return to Lasya’s body, Kajal rushes to revive the crown prince . . . only to discover that she’s resurrected another boy entirely.
All her life, Kajal has trusted no one but her sister. But with Lasya dead and rebels ready to turn her over to the usurper’s ruthless soldiers, Kajal is forced to work with the boy she mistakenly revived. Together, they must find the crown prince before the rebels discover her mistake, or the bhuta finally turns its murderous fury on the person truly responsible for Lasya’s death: Kajal.
Adventures of Mary Jane By Hope Jahren
Release Date: June 25 from Delacorte Press
Why You’ll Love It: A retelling of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of side character Mary Jane—who only appears in something like 30 pages of the original novel. Jahren brings her to delightful life here as a smart, thoughtful, and boldly courageous girl who is every inch as deserving of her own adventure down the Mississippi.
Publisher’s Description: Meet Mary Jane Guild — she’s on a dangerous and unpredictable adventure down the Mississippi River — and she’ll steal Huck Finn’s heart along the way.
In these chapters you’ll come to know the real Mary a girl on her own dangerous and unpredictable journey down the Mississippi River in pre–Civil War America. Equipped with an uncanny ability for mathematics, a talent for sewing, and a bale of beaver skins, Mary Jane navigates deadly illnesses, angry mobs, treacherous landowners, outright thieves and swindlers, and more than a thousand miles of muddy water. What’s more, she thrives in the face of these challenges, thanks to support from a caring boat captain, generous neighbors, a cheery peddler, a chosen family, a loyal and loving dog, and two hardworking horses. Traveling solo requires Mary Jane to grow up fast, but it ultimately leads her to a new resilience, a love of adventure, deep and enduring sisterhood, and a blue-eyed, pony-tailed boy she can’t stop thinking about.
Two Sides to Every Murder by Danielle Valentine
Release Date: June 25 from G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Reader
Why You’ll Love It: An entertaining YA thriller about a pair of teens trying to solve family mysteries surrounding their connection to the site of a famous murder case, Two Sides to Every Murder features dual POVs, multiple timelines, and plenty of unexpected twists.
Publisher’s Description: Most people’s births aren’t immortalized in a police report—but Olivia was born during the infamous Camp Lost Lake murders. Seventeen years later, Olivia’s life looks pretty perfect . . . until she discovers the man she calls dad is not her biological father. Now she wants answers about her bloodline, and the only place she knows to look is Camp Lost Lake.
Most people don’t spend their formative years on the run with an alleged murderer—but Reagan did. In the court of public opinion, her mom was found guilty of the deaths at Camp Lost Lake, and both of them have been in hiding ever since. But Reagan believes in her mother’s innocence and is determined to clear her name.
Luckily for Olivia and Reagan, Camp Lost Lake is finally reopening, providing the perfect opportunity to find answers. But someone else is dead set on keeping the past hidden, even if it means committing murder.
Six of Sorrow By Amanda Linsmeier
Release Date: June 25 from Delacorte Press
Why You’ll Love It: The latest creepy YA thriller from the author of Starlings, Six of Sorrow follows the story of six former best friends—all born on the same day—who are forced to reunite when one of them goes missing under mysterious circumstances. She returns deathly ill, and they’ll need ot figure out the supernatural mystery surrounding them, their mothers, and their small Louisiana town before they’re all killed. Come for the small-town Yellowjackets vibes, stay for the entertaining horror tropes and messy friendships.
Publisher’s Description: For most of her life, Isabeau and her five best friends were inseparable—amazingly enough, the six girls even shared a birthday. Then a rift caused their friendships to fracture, and Iz lost everyone except Reuel, the only one who didn’t abandon her.
Until now. The night of their sixteenth birthday, Isabeau leaves Reuel sitting on her front porch and heads home—and in the morning, Reuel is missing. She’s gone for two days, and when she reappears, there’s something wrong with her. She’s sick. Really sick. And she doesn’t remember anything that happened while she was gone.
If there’s any bright side to the situation, it’s that Reuel’s peculiar disappearance brings the six girls back together. Their sisterhood feels as strong as it was years ago, but when another one of them disappears, they all agree that they must have more in common than simply their birthday. They all feel it. Something’s been waiting for them, and that something has come to claim them one by one.
Deep in their bones, they know—it’s just a matter of time until they’re all taken. And if they don’t save themselves, no one will.
Lacy Baugher Milas is the Books Editor at Paste Magazine, but loves nerding out about all sorts of pop culture. You can find her on Twitter @LacyMB