6 of the Best New Books Out June 23, 2026

In 1937 Suffolk, a young woman returns home for one last visit before she leaves to attend Oxford for university. Only her closest friend, Joanie, knows this isn’t actually the plan. Instead, the two intend to elope to London and live as lovers, escaping the claustrophobic society they’ve known. But when their plans are discovered, Margaret’s estranged father whisks her away to the woods. There, a strange power begins awakening in Margaret. She wakes covered in dirt and scratches. Is this the same curse that took her mother from her, or is it possible this could be the thing that finally allows Margaret to find some approximation of the love she’s always wanted? —Rachel Brittain

Fresh off his Pulitzer Prize win for Angel Down, Kraus is shaking things up again with this epic sci-fi novel! The mysterious crew aboard the sentient biomatter ship The Sickness travels to a plague-riddled planet to find out what is going on. But first, they’ll have to survive the journey and the scores that need settling among the crew. —Liberty Hardy

In a new twist on the concept of enemies to lovers, lapsed villain Cyrus and golden boy hero Maximillian decide to become fake nemeses. You remember the deal in Dragonheart? They present a problem, have big flashy battles, rake in the spoils, and go about their way to the next chance to profit on fortune and fame. I mean, technically, Draco and Bowen don’t fall in love, but just imagine if they did. Well, these two are both humanoid, so there’s that, but the silly and the serious are balanced in a similar way. It sounds delightful. —Jessica Pryde

For the 1980s slasher horror fans, there’s Slasher Summer, a story about seven former high school friends who reunite in their hometown of Cedar Lake Falls. This sleepy town was the shooting location of the cult horror classic Slasher. Now, the friends are staying in the cabin where the film was shot. It’s all fun and games until a real slasher shows up, wearing a mask and hungry for murder. Will the friends’ knowledge of slasher horror movie tropes be enough to save them from a real-life masked killer? —Emily Martin

This sapphic YA horror novel stars high school cheerleading captain Maris Larsen. Maris has a tumultuous home life and a girlfriend who doesn’t appreciate her, but when she’s cheering, she feels on top of the world. Then, the new girl Genevieve Ray joins the squad, and everything changes. Suddenly, Genevieve is the new favorite, and what makes matters even worse for Maris are her strange dreams and sleepwalking. At night, Maris meets a monstrous beast in the shape of a decaying doe who has wandered the Earth for decades, trapped in this form until she can be freed by a blood relative of one of the girls who originally bound her. —Emily Martin

Actress Hannah Murray became a celebrity as a teenager when she joined the cast of Skins as Cassie, one of the British television series’s most beloved characters. Off-camera, Murray’s struggles with mental health sent her looking for solace, and at the age of 27, she joined a wellness organization that promised spiritual rewards. But the organization turned out to be much more controlling than Murray anticipated. As she fell deeper in love with the organization’s charismatic leader, she found it more impossible to escape his manipulation. In writing The Make-Believe, Hannah Murray tells People that she felt “empowered to be telling my own story and reclaiming my own narrative. I’m excited to share this story with readers, to let them inside a chapter of my life that was sometimes magical, sometimes chaotic, sometimes painful and dark.” —Emily Martin