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The Best New Book Releases Out June 4, 2024

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Danika Ellis

Associate Editor

Danika spends most of her time talking about queer women books at the Lesbrary. Blog: The Lesbrary Twitter: @DanikaEllis

Happy Pride Month! If you’re looking for some LGBTQ books to add to your TBR this month, I have a few queer new releases to share with you this week, but you can also check out The Hottest Queer Books of Summer 2024 and The Best Recent LGBTQ+ Books to Read for Pride Month, According to Goodreads. And if you want to keep up with new LGBTQ book releases and recommendations, you can sign up for the Our Queerest Shelves newsletter.

June has plenty of exciting new releases, many of them out today! I can only name a few here, but you can find more in our round-ups of the Best New SFF Books Out June 2024 and the Best New Mystery, Thriller, and True Crime Books for June 2024.

For even more new releases out this week, check out today’s episode of All the Books. Liberty and I talk about books like Prairie Edge by Conor Kerr, There Is No Ethan: How Three Women Caught America’s Biggest Catfish by Anna Akbari, Swift River by Essie Chambers, Soldier Sailor by Claire Kilroy, Wish You Weren’t Here by Erin Baldwin and more.

Now, let’s jump into six of the most exciting new releases out today — including one of my favorite reads of the year!

cover of Fire Exit

Fire Exit by Morgan Talty

Charles Lamosway is a white man who has been keeping a secret for more than 20 years: his neighbor Elizabeth, who lives across the river in Maine’s Penobscot Reservation, is his daughter. He’s been watching her grow up from afar, but he hasn’t seen her in weeks. Charles wants to find Elizabeth and make sure she’s safe — and he wants to tell her the truth. But telling her this secret could put everything she’s grown up with at risk, thanks to colonialist imposed standards around blood quantum.

cover of Triple Sec

Triple Sec by TJ Alexander

This is a fun, sexy, and sweet queer romance about Mel, a bartender at a cocktail lounge. When Bebe walks in, they have immediate chemistry. Bebe is married and polyamorous, and Mel thinks this is the perfect opportunity to try casual dating — her divorce has left her jaded about love. But despite her best efforts, Mel finds herself falling for Bebe — and making things even more complicated, she might also have feelings for Bebe’s nonbinary wife, Kade. This is one of my favorite reads of the year so far!

The Ballad of Jacquotte Delahaye book cover

The Ballad of Jacquotte Delahaye by Briony Cameron

Here’s another queer new release to add to your Pride month TBR, this one a sapphic pirate adventure! This is inspired by the maybe historical maybe folkloric figure Jacquotte Delahaye. Jacquotte was a shipwright in the 1600s in the Dominican Republic when her ship is boarded by Blackhand. The crew becomes indentured servants for this cruel pirate, but Jacquotte plots a way to free them with the help of a crew mate she is falling for: Theresa.

youthjuice book cover

youthjuice by E.K. Sathue

In this satirical take on the beauty industry, Sophia can tell soon after joining the skincare company HEBE that there are some red flags — but she can’t help but be pulled in by their promises of beauty. She grows closer to Tree, the founder at HEBE, and gets to test their new miraculous youthjuice moisturizer. When she learns the stomach-turning secret ingredient in youthjuice, she has to decide how far she’s willing to go for beauty. The description says that “youthjuice does to skincare influencers what Bret Easton Ellis did to yuppies. You’ll never moisturize the same way again.”

Four Eids and a Funeral book cover

Four Eids and a Funeral by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé and Adiba Jaigirdar

Author of Ace of Spades Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé and author of Hani and Ishu’s Guide to Fake Dating Adiba Jaigirdar have teamed up for this YA romance! Said and Tiwa used to be best friends until Said left to go to an elite boarding school and seems to have no time for his old friends anymore. When he’s back in town for the summer, though, Tiwa has to reluctantly ask for his help to save the Islamic Center, which the mayor wants to demolish.

The Deep Dark book cover

The Deep Dark by Molly Knox Ostertag

You might recognize Molly Knox Ostertag’s name from books like The Girl from the Sea and The Witch Boy, but her newest YA graphic novel is darker than those — no pun intended. Mags is keeping a lot of secrets, like that she can’t seem to stop kissing a girl who has a boyfriend. Or that something brings her to the basement each night, leaving her bloodied and drained. When her childhood friend Nessa reappears in her life, Mags is forced to bring her secrets out into the light or risk losing everything.

Other Book Riot New Releases Resources:

  • All the Books, our weekly new book releases podcast, where Liberty and a cast of co-hosts talk about eight books out that week that we’ve read and loved.
  • The New Books Newsletter, where we send you an email of the books out this week that are getting buzz.
  • Finally, if you want the real inside scoop on new releases, you have to check out Book Riot’s New Release Index! That’s where I find 90% of new releases, and you can filter by trending books, Rioters’ picks, and even LGBTQ new releases!