50+ Books by BIPOC Authors Coming Out in June

Summer is quickly approaching and I’m READY! Sunshine, BBQs, family and that good stuff. Most of all I’m excited that Summer reads are beginning to hit shelves. This month, so many books are coming out that I can’t wait to read, including one that I received as an ARC and I think this will be a summer fav. 

From cute romances to thrillers and beachy reads, there are so many books by BIPOC authors coming out in June that you should add to your list. 

Here are the eight at the top of my list…

Children of Anguish and Anarchy by Tomi Adeyemi – June 25 

We waited and it’s FINALLY here. Featuring gorgeous spray-painted and stenciled edges, dazzling metallic foil designs on the jacket and case, and an exclusive endpaper map that reveals new unexplored territories, Tomi Adeyemi’s #1 New York Times -bestselling Legacy of Orïsha series comes to an earth-shaking conclusion.

This is book three in the series and everything comes to an end. New allies rise. The Blood Moon nears. Zélie faces her final enemy. The king who hunts her heart.

When Zelie seized the royal palace that fateful night, she thought her battles had come to an end. The monarchy had finally fallen. The maji had risen again. Zélie never expected to find herself locked in a cage and trapped on a foreign ship. Now warriors with iron skulls traffic her and her people across the seas, far from their homeland.

Then everything changes when Zélie meets King Baldyr, her true captor, the ruler of the Skulls, and the man who has ravaged entire civilizations to find her. Baldyr’s quest to harness Zélie’s strength sends Zélie, Amari, and Tzain searching for allies in unknown lands.

But as Baldyr closes in, catastrophe charges Orïsha’s shores. It will take everything Zélie has to face her final enemy and save her people before the Skulls annihilate them for good.

This book is at the very TOP of my list to read this month, I might even take a mental health day to read it. Yes, I’m committed. 

Curvy Girl Summer by Danielle Allen – June 11

When I saw the cover of this book and read the title, I knew I was in for an enjoyable read. And as predicted this one did not disappoint. Curvy Girl Summer by Danielle Allen, is a hilarious, hot girl summer/online dating story that sweeps you into the life of Aaliyah, our main character.

Aaliyah has it all, a great job, a great apartment, wonderful friends, and a loving family. But on the heels of her thirtieth birthday, she wants to finally find a man of her own, and get to the next phase of her life. With a push from her family and the memory of her departed sister, she jumps into online dating.

After being stood up the first time she meets a handsome bartender Ahmad, who promises to watch out for her as she brings her first dates to the bar on Fridays, when he’s working, and just like that a friendship is formed. As Aaliyah goes on bad date after bad date she begins to build a connection with Ahmad, the only problem is, that he’s married.

This story was so good, I loved the big girl love and representation, something you don’t see too much of. I loved Aaliyah, she was real and I felt that her voice, thoughts, and actions were very believable.

Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for providing me with an advanced audio copy of this book! The audio was Narrated by Wesleigh Siobhan and it was perfect.

Storm: Dawn of a Goddess by Tiffany D. Jackson – June 4

Although Tiffany Jackson is responsible for some of my biggest emotional rides in literature I still read everything she writes and I can’t wait to read this one too. I love Storm, and this new installment in the Marvel series follows our beloved as a teenager before she was Storm, when she was Ororo and lived in Egypt. With the ability to change the weather, she attracts the attention of the Shadow King who wants to use her for her new power. Fearful of what he’ll do to her friends, Ororo leaves Cairo searching for her true family. She hopes to find others like her so she can break her curse.

What I love about this book is that it also introduces the love story between Storm and Black Panther, which I’m here for!

Swift River by Essie Chambers – June 4 

I’m always up for a family sage and this one didn’t disappoint. Part saga, part coming of age, the book follows the ripple effect of an absent father’s disappearance and how it impacts those he left behind. It begins in 1967, with his daughter Diamond, who is the only Black girl in her small town. When her father disappears her mother finally wants to have him declared dead so she can file for his insurance money and get their lives back on track. When Diamond receives a letter from a distant relative, suddenly she learns about two generations of African American Newberry women. But can learning about her father’s past change anything about her future?

Magic Enuff: Poems by Tara M. Stringfellow – June 25 

This collection was magical, it was beautiful it was rhythmic, and it spoke to me. There’s no question that Black girlhood/woman is under attack and this collection celebrates the beauty of both. It looks at the magical aspects of Black womanhood while celebrating strength, resilience, brilliance, and beauty. I felt each word in my soul as Stringfellow crafted words that captured the essence of legacy and honouring the places and people who came before us.

Little Rot by Akwaeke Emezi – June 18 

Aima and Kalu are a longtime couple who have just split. When Kalu, reeling from the breakup, visits an exclusive sex party hosted by his best friend, Ahmed, he makes a decision that will plunge them all into chaos, brutally and suddenly upending their lives. Ola and Souraya, two Nigerian sex workers visiting from Kuala Lumpur, collide into the scene just as everything goes to hell. Sucked into the city’s corrupt and glittering underworld, they’re all looking for a way out, fueled by a desperate need to escape the dangerous threat that looms over them.

Blessings A Novel by Chukwuebuka Ibeh 

Obiefuna has always been the black sheep of his family—sensitive where his father, Anozie, is pragmatic, a dancer where his brother, Ekene, is a natural athlete. But when an intimate connection blossoms between Obiefuna and a boy from a nearby village, happiness is fleeting once his father catches them together and banishes him to boarding school.

Told from the alternating perspectives of Obiefuna and Uzoamaka, Blessings is an elegant and exquisitely moving story that asks how to live freely in a country that forbids one’s truest self, and the love that can flourish despite it all.

Here are additional diverse books coming out this month that you should add to your list:

• Barda by Ngozi Ukazu
• One of Our Kind by Nicola Yoon
• Black Cake, Turtle Soup, and Other Dilemmas: Essays by Gloria Blizzard
• Crazy as Hell: The Best Little Guide to Black History by Hoke S. Glover III
• Daughter of the Merciful Deep by Leslye Penelope
• Farewell, Amethystine by Walter Mosley
• Four Eids and a Funeral by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé
• Isabel and the Rogue by Liana De la Rosa
• Louder Than Words by Ashley Woodfolk
• Malas by Marcela Fuentes
• Match Me If You Can by Swati Hegde
• Mirrored Heavens Rebecca Roanhorse
• Pardon My Frenchie by Farrah Rochon
• The Ballad of Jacquotte Delahaye by Briony Cameron
• The Grandest Garden by Gina L. Carroll
• The Road to the Country by Chigozie Obioma
• We Refuse A Forceful History of Black Resistance by Kellie Carter Jackson 
• The Curious Secrets of Yesterday by Namrata Patel
• All Friends Are Necessary A Novel by Tomas Moniz
• Do What Godmother Says by L.S. Stratton
• Hip-Hop Is History by Questlove
• Some Soul to Keep by J. California Cooper
• This Thread of Gold A Celebration of Black Womanhood by Catherine Joy White 
• Truth Be Told by Patricia Raybon
• What Fire Brings by Rachel Howzell Hall
• The Art of Vanishing by Lynne Kutsukake
• Where Wolves Don’t Die by Anton Treuer Levine Querido
• For Such a Time as This by Shani Akilah
• The Devil’s Berries The last Favorite’s Page: Book Two by Patti Flinn
• Do the Work: Unlearn Your Biases. Reclaim Your Personal Power. by Roxane Gay
• Of Jade and Dragons by Amber Chen
• Systemic: How Racism Is Making Us Sick by Layal Liverpool
• The Book of Juju Africana Spirituality for Healing, Liberation, and Self-Discovery by Juju Bae
• Spilled Ink by Nadine Hashimi
• What You Leave Behind by Wanda M. Morris
• A Taste for More by Phyllis R. Dixon
• Sleep Like Death by Kalynn Bayron
• The Change by Whoopi Goldberg
• The Lions’ Den by Iris Mwanza
• The Liquid Eye of a Moon A Novel by Uchenna Awoke
• If I Loved You Less by Aamna Qureshi
• Tiananmen Square by Lai Wen
• Everything and Nothing at Once: A Black Man’s Reimagined Soundtrack for the Future by Joel Leon
• A Love Like the Sun by Riss M. Neilson
• Devil is Fine by John Vercher 
• Motherland Herbal: The Story of African Holistic Health by Stephanie Rose Bird
• Love & Whiskey: The Remarkable True Story of Jack Daniel, His Master Distiller Nearest Green, and the Improbable Rise of Uncle Nearest (Hardcover) By Fawn Weaver
• Looking for Smoke by K.A. Cobell
• Rapunzella, or Don’t Touch My Hair by Ella McLeod 
• Brownstone by Samuel Teer and Mariana Julia 
• Twelth Knight by Alexene Farol Follmuth 
• Hearts of Fire and Snow by Guadalupe Garcia McCall and David Bowles

Which ones are you adding to your list this month? Let me know in the comments.