June’s Best New Fiction

Here’s to Us, by Elin Hilderbrand
Three headstrong women connected by one charismatic man are thrown together after his death. Deacon was a larger than life celebrity chef, and the women he married—teen years sweetheart Laurel, Hollywood hottie Belinda, and sharp-tongued southern beauty Scarlett—are just as indelible. To fulfill his last wishes, the women and their children head to the beloved Nantucket cottage where they all have history, and attempt to pay homage to his memory without tearing each other apart.

The Girls, by Emma Cline
On the ragged edge of the Summer of Love, a teen girl searching for belonging is drawn into the dark, cultish world of Mansonlike figure Russell and his devoted “girls,” led by thrillingly nonconformist Suzanne. The daughter of divorced parents, Evie is lonely and drifting when she first spots Suzanne, and soon finds a place beside her at Russell’s tumbledown ranch. But as the girls’ leader makes increasingly twisted demands of his followers, Evie must decide how far she can follow them into the dark, in a pulse-pounding literary thriller that just may be the book of the summer.

First Comes Love, by Emily Giffin
Josie and Meredith were sisters who shared a loving bond despite their wildly different temperaments—until something happened that ruined their relationship for good. Now in their thirties, the sisters are living separate lives, yet each is hungering for a change: once spontaneous and confident Josie is done with dating, but aching to become a mother. And good girl Meredith, living a seemingly happy life as an attorney, wife, and mother, finds herself strangely dissatisfied. As old memories and old pains are dredged up by an approaching anniversary, the two sisters find the key to moving forward might be closer than they think.

Homegoing, by Yaa Gyasi
Gyasi’s radiant debut spans two countries and seven generations, telling parallel histories of America and Ghana through the lives and descendants of two half-sisters who never meet. Effia is forced into marriage with a British colonizer, while Esi is captured by European slavers. Through the years, their family fortunes rise and fall, love is found and lost, and each descendant of the original sisters has their story told in miniature, through brief narratives that capture larger truths about history and humanity. An epic and inspirational must-read.

I Almost Forgot About You, by Terry McMillan
Georgia Young is 54 years old with two failed marriages at her back when she decides to make a change. Putting her uninspiring career as an optometrist on hold, she hits the road with a singular goal in mind: to revisit her past loves, in the hopes of figuring out her next steps in both love and life. The trip expands when she spontaneously quits her job and sells her house in pursuit of a more inspiring future, in a story enriched by fantastic female characters and warm wisdom.

Vinegar Girl, by Anne Tyler
In this modern retelling of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, sharp-tongued Kate is reimagined as a preschool assistant oppressed by her unappreciated role as housekeeper to her scientist father and blithely pretty younger sister. When her father is threatened with the loss by deportation of his brilliant lab assistant, he turns to Kate yet again: this time, he wants her to marry the man to keep him in the country. Their courtship of convenience turns, of course, into one of love, in a quirky, sweeter take on the original.

Barkskins, by Annie Proulx
Proulx’s latest may just be her masterpiece. A massive novel that takes the form of ten novellas, it covers the destruction of the world’s forests over the course of three centuries. Starting with two 17th-century Frenchmen arriving in what is now Canada in pursuit of land, then following their descendants through the years, it explores the violence humans do, and how it’s visited back upon them, whether by other men or by pitiless nature. It examines the twisting power of greed and the effects of colonialism, and evokes such wonder in the face of the trees when they still stood that it reaches the height of ecological tragedy.

The Cavendon Luck, by Barbara Taylor Bradford
On the eve of World War II, Miles and Cecily Ingham, master and mistress of English great house Cavendon Hall, are charged with bringing the estate and its residents through what may prove to be the blackest chapter in its history. Alongside faithful members of the Swann family that serves them, the Inghams fight to protect the surrounding village, and to maintain their storied past while making way for an uncertain future.

A Certain Age, by Beatriz Williams
Williams’ latest is a glittering Roaring Twenties–set love triangle you’ll want to eat up with a silver caviar spoon. When married socialite Theresa Marshall charges her dashing aviator paramour, Octavian, to serve as her brother’s cavalier, presenting an engagement ring to the man’s intended, she doesn’t expect Octavian to fall for the girl himself. What follows is a tale of submerged secrets, betrayal, and sweeping romance, all set against the decadent backdrop of 1920s New York.

Lily and the Octopus, by Steven Rowley
Anyone who has ever loved and lost an animal must read this book, but beware: there will be tears. Dealing with uninspiring dates and endless therapy sessions, Teddy is lonely in L.A., but finds love and companionship with his dachshund, Lily. Their bond extends into the magical realistic, as they communicate in very literal ways—but the “octopus” of the title is a cranial tumor that signals loving Lily’s inevitable end. Rowley wrote it while grieving for his own lost pet, and it rings with insight and warmth.