June is a busy month for books, and I had to make some incredibly difficult decisions to get this list down to 10 recommendations - but I think there’s something for everyone among these wonderful reads.

There a number of great debuts out this month, including Tara Isabella Burton’s unsettling Social Creature, Kelleigh Greenberg-Jephcott’s Swan Song, a fictionalised version of the reaction to Truman Capote’s roman-à-clef Answered Prayers, Fatima Farheen Mirza’s gorgeous family drama A Place for Us, and Caroline O’Donoghue’s look at office politics and power, Promising Young Women. Plus YA novelist Holly Bourne turns her hand (successfully) to adult fiction for the first time with How Do You Like Me Now?

In crime, Abir Mukherjee is back with another book in his historical fiction series set in Calcutta; Smoke and Ashes features not just crime, but plenty of commentary on the political and social upheaval in India in the period. Cressida Connolly’s After the Party is a historical novel with some crime aspects running through it, with a bitter, lonely woman recounting the events that led to her imprisonment.

Benjamin Wood follows up the stunning The Ecliptic with A Station on the Path to Somewhere Better, a meditation on fathers and sons, and the lasting effects of horrific acts of violence.

If you’re looking for a big book to sink into, Meg Wolitzer’s The Female Persuasion is a look at a woman finding feminism and herself after university. Alternatively, if you want something more succinct, Clare Fisher’s How the Light Gets In is a collection of short stories exploring contemporary British life.

Happy reading!

Gripping debuts and short, short stories: June’s best new books