Welcome to my June 2026 Favorite Books post! This monthly post is where I share the 5 star books I’ve read so far each month. You can see the first half of my June reading here and I will share the rest of my June reads next week, on Thursday for the Share Your Shelf link up. Since the month isn’t quite over yet, if I read any more 5 star reads, they will be in next week’s post as well. The Amazon links to the books I’ve read are affiliate links and if you use them and make a purchase, I may receive a small commission.
Title: Off The Record
Author: Sara Goodman Confino
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Lake Union, 6/9/26
Source: PR for Author
Why I Read It: Sent to me for my review / Favorite author
My Rating: 5 Stars
Sara Goodman Confino is one of my favorite authors and the only one I’ve met twice and who recognized me both times! Off The Record was such a fun story about Judy, a woman wanting to be a journalist and not (just) and wife and mom in 1963. She joins a typing pool for a newspaper and meets Jack. Together they stumble upon a story that may allow Judy to establish herself as an investigative journalist.
“In 1962, opportunities are typically few for nice Jewish girls clacking away at ninety words per minute in a newspaper typing pool. Except Judy Greenberg isn’t typical. An aspiring reporter in DC, she’s aiming for journalistic greatness―not finding a husband. Just don’t tell her mother. Then one day she answers her boss’s private line. The message is curiously cryptic. It’s also delivered in a Russian accent. Judy is certain she has stumbled upon a scoop. Charming reporter Jack Fields isn’t one to dismiss Judy’s instincts. Perfect. A seasoned ally she can trust, not to mention pass off as a pretend boyfriend around her relieved parents. Together, they’re following the leads―from a clandestine hotel bar to the dressing room of a slinky Cuban nightclub singer to an exhilarating underground of secrets and spies stretching from Moscow to Havana to Texas. Now Judy must choose between the safe life expected of her or one hell of a dangerous story that could make her career. She might even fall in love for real. If her ambitions don’t get her killed.”
I really enjoyed the little surprises that came along the way, especially the one where Jack meets Judy’s family. Plus I loved the references to the author’s other characters! Like in the author’s other books, this one also has a hilarious grandma and Jewish representation. The history of the time included Cuba and the Soviets as well as the unnamed president and vice president, antisemitism, misogyny, and medical gaslighting. And the acknowledgements of the book once again include my name!
Title: The Shippers
Author: Katherine Center
Genre: Rom Com
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press, 5/19/26
Source: Swap
Why I Read It: Favorite author
My Rating: 5 Stars
I did not receive The Shippers by Katherine Center from the publisher, even though I said it was a priority choice, and they sent me a different book I definitely didn’t request…so I swapped for this copy. This is about JoJo, who calls off her wedding at the last minute. She feels like she is cursed in love because of a childhood first kiss that made her think no one could live up to her early crush on Finn. And guess who’s attending her sister’s cruise ship wedding? Finn! Plus Cooper, JoJo’s childhood best friend, who is obviously the one she should be with but her head is set on winning over Finn.
“After a lifetime of being bad at love, JoJo Burton vows to solve her intimacy issues once and for all at her sister’s destination wedding on a cruise ship. Armed with pop psychology, she diagnoses herself with a fixation on the neighborhood guy who was her first crush and first kiss (and who just happens to be a newly-divorced wedding guest). Determined to woo him for closure, she ropes in her childhood bestie, Cooper Watts, as her wingman. Cooper: who RSVPed no, but showed up anyway. Cooper: who moved to London without a word four years ago. Cooper: who broke her heart. Shipboard antics abound in this witty, heart-tugging, childhood-friends-to-lovers romance, as JoJo and Cooper team up, fake flirt, slow dance, share a cabin, sing duets, get jealous, answer long-held questions, and finally, at last, discover truths about each other that will change everything.”
While people were mad about this one and I personally don’t love when the main character is set on the wrong guy for most of a book, I still loved this sweet, funny, and fun book by one of my favorite authors.
Title: The Burning Side
Author: Sarah Damoff
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 5/19/26
Source: Book of the Month
Why I Read It: Heard good things
My Rating: 5 Stars
The Burning Side by Sarah Damoff was my Book of the Month pick for May and it was so good! It is about a marriage about to break apart and a future threatened by an early onset Alzheimer’s diagnosis. The story is told by April and Leo, the young couple facing a separation, and Deb, April’s mom who is dealing with her husband’s dementia.
“When April and Leo’s house burns in the middle of the night, they escape with their two young children and the quiet knowledge that the fire is not the only thing threatening their family. They retreat to April’s childhood home in Dallas, where her spirited parents and siblings provide both comfort and complication. As the family reckons with the aftermath—grief, guilt, logistics, and memories scorched and intact—the fire exposes the cracks already forming in April and Leo’s marriage. The novel unfolds in alternating perspectives: from April, who feels the crushing weight of motherhood, marriage, and self-blame; from Leo, a high school history teacher shaped by a lonely, fractured childhood; from Deb, April’s generous and no-nonsense mother who has to contend with her husband’s recent Alzheimer’s diagnosis; and from flashbacks that trace April and Leo’s relationship from its earliest days of connection to the devastating decisions that led them here.”
I loved how the book explores all the stages of a relationship, from young love to parenting to growing old together. It has a lot of difficult topics covered including infidelity, the loss of a child, parental abandonment, and trauma, but focuses on the love people experience despite it all. I loved the characters and their back stories.
Title: Our Perfect Storm
Author: Carley Fortune
Genre: Rom Com
Publisher: Berkley, 5/5/26
Source: Swap
Why I Read It: Favorite author
My Rating: 5 Stars
I received Our Perfect Summer by Carley Fortune in a swap. This was a slow burn, friends to lovers story about Frankie, whose fiance Nate leaves her during their pre-wedding celebrations after her childhood best friend George shows up. Frankie and George go on Frankie and Nate’s planned honeymoon together so that George can help Frankie recover from losing Nate.
“Frankie and George have been best friends since they were eight years old. Both passionate, impulsive, and headstrong—they’ve always clashed . . . and come back together. Until now. It’s the eve of Frankie’s wedding weekend, and she doesn’t know where they stand or even if George will show up as her best man. Then, at the start of the festivities, in walks George. For one glorious evening, surrounded by her loved ones, Frankie’s life is finally perfect. But it all comes crashing down when her fiancé dumps her the next morning, leaving only a note as an explanation. Crushed and confused, Frankie returns to her family’s home to wallow. But George has a different idea and a plan for healing Frankie’s broken heart. He wants her to go on her honeymoon. With him. For one week, to the lush rainforests and misty beaches of Tofino. Frankie agrees, seeing the trip for what it really is: one last chance to repair their friendship. Even if it means unearthing secrets and long buried feelings neither knows how to handle. Even if it means falling apart for good.”
The descriptions of the location in this book definitely made me want to go there. Frankie and George both dealt with parental abandonment as children and therefore have dealt with loss in their lives. George is a journalist and also experienced the trauma of the Canadian wildfires while covering the story. The one thing I wasn’t a big fan of was that these friends apparently had tattoos of each other’s names – and they expected their partners to be okay with them! But of course, going from friends to lovers made them make sense in the end.
Title: The Forgotten Midwife
Author: Laura Anthony
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Gallery Books, 5/12/26
Source: Publisher
Why I Read It: Sent to me for my review
My Rating: 5 Stars
The Forgotten Midwife by Laura Anthony is about Margaret, who is forced into becoming a nun in 1950s Ireland. She works in a laundry facility which is run by pregnant and unwed girls and young woman. In the present, Riley’s grandmother, who has dementia, gives her information about her family that connects her to Margaret’s story.
“New Jersey, 2023. Riley Carmichael is getting married and finally joining a huge, loving family, but she can’t help but feel the emptiness of her own side of the church. For most of Riley’s life, it’s been just her and her grandmother, Betty, but as late-stage dementia overtakes her grandmother’s mind, Riley knows she’s losing her, too. On one of Riley’s visits to Betty’s nursing home, she encounters her grandmother in one of her increasingly rare moments of lucidity, and Betty desperately shares with Riley a tatty birth certificate for an unknown baby born in Ireland in the 1950s. Full of questions about her heritage, Riley embarks on a trip to Ireland to find that elusive sense of home, identity, and belonging. Tipperary, Ireland, 1954. Margaret Lannigan’s life is made up of weekly dances and time spent with the love of her life, Joseph. But when Margaret’s older sister dies suddenly, it falls to Margaret to fulfill the family’s commitment to the Catholic Church: the eldest daughter of the Lannigan family has joined a local convent for generations. Forced to part with Joseph and take the veil, Margaret is sent to Ballyvale Home for Fallen Girls to care for expectant mothers who fell pregnant outside of marriage. With no training or midwifery skills, she must fight to provide the compassionate care she feels these women deserve amid the cruelty they face. When Margaret meets a young and terrified Delia O’Rourke, the sister of her childhood best friend, she must find the strength she needs to protect this young woman and her baby in the face of a system built to ensure they disappear.”
This story is similar to Wayward Girls by Susan Wiggs, which I also enjoyed. It is a sad story about deaths and the abuse that the girls go through, but also the kindness of those who supported them. I enjoyed how the two timelines connected in the end!
Come back next week for the rest of my June reads and the Share Your Shelf link up!
Do you have a favorite book you’ve read this month?
