June 2026 Book Marks
Summer is my favorite time of year and it’s just beginning…which means more time outside and in the garden. It’s the anticipation of the weeks to come, family gatherings, meals with fresh ingredients, swimming in the lake and blue-sky simplicity. This June is especially exciting. My eldest child is getting married and we’re anticipating the birth of our first grandchild. Even if I may not personally be reading in a hammock, there’s no reason YOU can’t enjoy this selection for June!
Fiction:
Whistler by Ann Patchett
I eagerly await Ann Patchett’s novels. She can take a seemingly simple plot and infuse it with dialogue, blood, bones and a beating heart. In its purest form, this book is about a grown stepdaughter reconnecting with her stepfather as an adult after one fateful night profoundly impacted both of their lives, breaking them apart for decades. But once reunited, they both choose to never let go. Secrets are revealed, stories are told, and all of it is set against the backdrop of a long-ago tale about a horse named “Whistler” who rescued its owner in the western wilderness. This is a book about choices, about the family we are born into and the ones we choose. This is storytelling at is finest; simple but deep, that makes you want to get back to it and dive in.
Fiction:
Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
There is so much to think and talk about with this book. You might expect it to be a head-on take-down of the current trad-wife social media craze, but it’s much more nuanced than that. Burke’s gimlet eye touches women of every ilk and that’s what makes this book interesting, despite the need to suspend disbelief in places. Natalie’s farmhouse is rustic, her husband is a handsome cowboy, and her six children are innocent and dutiful as she grows her social media empire and creates branded products (Think Ballerina Farm). Of course, everything on camera is an illusion, as behind the scenes there are nannies and cooks and producers and her husband is the wealthy heir to a political family dynasty. The “Angry Women,” coastal elites, educated at Ivy schools, stoke her popularity with their comments and then, one morning, she wakes up to realize she has been transported a century back in time, before electricity and antibiotics, when being a wife and mother meant servitude to household chores and to the man of the house. Her entire focus becomes how to escape.
Fiction:
When You Loved Me by Beatriz Williams
Lucy Cooper returns to her summer childhood home on Winthrop Island to bury her father. She’s spent years living in Europe, avoiding her father’s growing obsession with buried pirate treasure and now he is gone and she is grieving. What she thought would be the trip of a dutiful daughter is suddenly made more interesting by the fact that her former girlhood crush has also returned to the island, for very different reasons. NFL star Ben Ressler has made a tackle that ended a player’s life and then his marriage. As sparks begin to ignite, other unsettling events happen, including a mysterious break-in at her father’s house. Known for stories that are told in parallel timelines, Williams shifts the story to 1717 on the island, when Pirate Ramsey meets a young woman and the story takes off, as chapters alternate between past and present, ending in a satisfying conclusion. And who doesn’t love a little buried treasure?
Fiction:
Short Stories: Brawler by Lauren Groff
Groff (one of our best contemporary American writers) is back with a story collection that showcases her expressive yet taut, brutal writing. These nine stories range from the 1950s to present day, encompassing different ages, classes and geographies as they showcase the most profound part of being human – the power and battle between dark and light, good and evil in all of us. A young woman is suddenly responsible for her disabled sibling, a brawling high school swimmer must care for her parent, and a woman basks in the last light of her sexuality before understanding she may never feel new love again. This book showcases a profound insight into the precious turning points that exist in all of us.
Fiction:
Lake Effect by Cynthis D’Aprix Sweeney
The author of “the Nest” is back with a 1970’s family saga that covers two generations in Rochester, NY, a town whose wealth was made by Kodak and Xerox. Having graduated high school in Buffalo, NY, I know that a “lake effect” storm can dump a tremendous amount of snow in a short time, otherwise known as a blizzard, which is an apt metaphor for what happens to two families who live on the same street. Nina Larkin is bored in life and marriage, and she’s fallen in love with a prominent neighbor while each of their own children are recognizing they have feelings for one another. When the couple elopes, things quickly unravel for each family. The relationship between Nina and her eldest daughter Clara seems to have ruptured forever. The book moves forward to a time when Clara is now a successful food stylist in Manhattan. When she returns home for a family wedding, one decision will either put her on the path to reconciliation or drive her away forever.
Fiction:
A Far-Flung Life by M.L. Stedman
The author of “The Light Between Oceans” is back with her second book, a sweeping epic family saga of a family in the Australian outback that examines what happens when an unspeakable, tragic act ripples out to touch multiple people. The MacBrides have lived on a million-acre, arid sheep station for generations, under a wide, cloudless blue sky. One day, swerving to avoid a kangaroo, the family is upended through death and injury. But what happens next buckles back on the family, causing one life to dead end in a sacrificial effort to make an innocent person whole. There are secrets at the heart of this novel and a cast of beautiful and complicated characters trying to choose between duty, love and selfishness, while trying to do their best for the whole. Stedman’s carefully constructed story forces us to think about life questions, one in-an-instant moment and the limits and endurance of the human heart.
Fiction:
The Elements by John Boyne
Irish novelist John Boyne has used a genius conceit to construct an interlocking novel. Using the four elements of earth, water, fire and air in his story, he weaves together four separate narratives representing different perspectives on crime: the enabler, the accomplice, the perpetrator, and the victim.
A mother is on the run from her past, a young soccer star faces a trial, a successful surgeon is acting out childhood trauma, and a father takes a transformative journey with his son. Each is connected to the next, and as the story unfolds, their lives collide in fascinating ways. As with “The Heart’s Invisible Furies,” the author tackles a complex subject with empathy, honesty and imagination.
Fiction:
Kin by Tayari Jones
This novel tells the story of two girls, raised in Honeysuckle, Louisiana. Vernice and Annie have been friends since before they can remember, and both are motherless daughters, from slightly different circumstances. When Vernice heads off to college in Atlanta, she’s immersed in a world of affluence, culture and manners. But Annie views inequality from a different perch than her friend. Her mother abandoned her as a baby and she has been determined to find her, to understand the reasons why and to get to know her in some way. She sets out on a different journey from Vernice, one that contains both danger and love. When the girls are finally reunited, their lives have become polar opposites, but the love they share will be tested by the tumult and fate of life.
Fiction:
Incidentals by Sheila Yasmin Marikar
Take a couple who has lost their mojo—add in a first-class trip to a five-star Maldives resort and throw in another couple with no apparent money issues who are giving swinger vibes and you’ve got a White Lotus style story complete with dead body. It’s Sarah and Sam’s fifth wedding anniversary and they’re in a mutual stand-off, staring at stalled careers and approaching middle age. They cash in their credit card points and head to a luxury destination, hoping that paradise might save them. When older, clearly wealthy Kevin and Krista befriend them, Sarah is excited, but Sam has reservations, especially when a body is found in the ocean. Written with a humorous and wry look at marriage, the book’s action will keep you entertained.
Fiction:
The Lake Club by Lina Patton
The country club set is in full swing in Aldon Lakes, Minnesota, with gossip flowing as freely as the champagne in the summer heat. People are behaving badly and everyone seems to have some version of a secret relationship. The story alternates between two women, the first is a comely 32-year-old mother and wife, Danika Crawley, who has hired a “manny” named Chat to watch her kids. Club employee Augie Elling is just 22 years old, and Chat’s arrival captivates her just as much as it does his employer and the rest of the country club women. This is the perfect salacious summer escape, a coming-of-age story with a view into the world of Midwest money and what it means to have it all.
Thriller:
The Keeper by Tana French
On a cold night in the remote Irish village of Ardnakelty, a girl on the verge of being engaged to a prominent town member’s son goes missing. Soon after she is found dead in the river by suicide. Or is it? Small towns hold layers of grudges and power struggles, and Rachel’s death splits the townland in two. Retired Chicago detective Cal Hooper has friends here now, and he is loyal, but his fiancée Lena wants nothing to do with Ardnakelty’s tangles. As the feud becomes vicious, everything begins to crack open as they uncover a scheme casting a new light on Rachel’s death. This is the third and last installment of Cal Hooper stories in a series by French, an accomplished thriller writer who sets her stories deep in the Irish isle.
Memoir:
Between Chapters by Zibby Owens
Podcaster and author Zibby Owens has created an anthology of essays from various points in her life that represent the whole. Taken together, they comprise a compendium of thoughts, musings, parenting lessons and lived experiences that encompass all the things that make up the chapters of our lives, from mothering, divorce, new love, obsessing about our appearance and our weight and the present situation in the world. I’m a short story and essay fan, so I love being able to take snack-sized bites during various parts of the day and get inside someone else’s head about topics we are all living.
Non-Fiction:
Reimagining Grief by Kate Doerge
For decades the advice around grief has been the same: Take things in stages and move from anger to denial, despair and acceptance. But in truth, there has never been one way to grieve. What if there were a blue print to actively take steps to be resilient after loss, to navigate it in a way that strengthens and celebrates rather than isolating and breaking us? That’s what Kate Doerge proposes after experiencing an unimaginable series of losses from her parents to her daughter Penny, at age 16, from a rare genetic condition called neurofibromatosis. Kate decided to find actions, experiences and mind-sets to help herself and her family through the emotions and rollercoaster experiences around their loss. The result is this beautiful book that helps turn pain into purpose as we actively try to make sense of this universal human experience.
Lee Woodruff Speaker-Author-Executive Media Trainer
Leewoodruff.com