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Babalola, Bolu. Honey and Spice. Morrow. Jun. 2022. 400p. ISBN 9780063141483. $25.99. CONTEMPORARY

Bays, Carter. The Mutual Friend. Dutton. Jun. 2022. 480p. ISBN 9780593186763. $27. CONTEMPORARY

Brenner, Jamie. Gilt. Putnam. Jun. 2022. 400p. ISBN 9780593087824. $27. lrg. prnt. CONTEMPORARY

Coleman, Ashley M. Good Morning, Love. S. & S. Jun. 2022. 256p. ISBN 9781982168629. pap. $16.99. CD. CONTEMPORARY

El-Wardany, Salma. These Impossible Things. Grand Central. Jun. 2022. 416p. ISBN 9781538709306. $28. Downloadable. CONTEMPORARY

Fowler, Therese Anne. It All Comes Down to This. St. Martin’s. Jun. 2022. 352p. ISBN 9781250278074. $27.99. CD. CONTEMPORARY

Ho, Lauren. Lucie Yi Is Not a Romantic. Putnam. Jun. 2022. 416p. ISBN 9780593422267. pap. $16. CONTEMPORARY

Moore, Meg Mitchell. Vacationland. Morrow. Jun. 2022. 384p. ISBN 9780063026117. $27.99. lrg. prnt. CONTEMPORARY

Patrick, Phaedra. The Messy Lives of Book People. Park Row: Harlequin. Jun. 2022. 352p. ISBN 9780778333173. $28.99; pap. ISBN 9780778312000; $16.99. lrg. prnt. CD. CONTEMPORARY

Schaitkin, Alexis. Elsewhere. Celadon: Macmillan. Jun. 2022. 224p. ISBN 9781250219633. $26.99. CD. CONTEMPORARY

Vercher, John. After the Lights Go Out. Soho. Jun. 2022. 288p. ISBN 9781641293310. $26. CONTEMPORARY

Wolfe, Toya. Last Summer on State Street. Morrow. Jun. 2022. 256p. ISBN 9780063209749. $27.99. CONTEMPORARY

In Honey and Spice, following Babalola’s buzzy debut story collection, Love in Color, young Black British woman Kiki Banjo—host of a popular student radio show and known for preaching bad-relationship avoidance—gets tangled in a fake liaison with the very guy she’s been citing as big trouble. From Bays, co-creator of the Emmy Award–winning series How I Met Your Mother, 2015 New York–set The Mutual Friend features Alice Quick, mourning her mother, barely managing as a nanny, and trying to make herself sign up for the MCATs even as her tech millionaire brother experiences a religious awakening. In Blush author Brenner’s latest, three sisters from a Gilt-edged family in the jewelry business are torn apart following a publicity stunt gone wrong, with one sister dying in a subsequent accident and her daughter struggling to regain traction within the family. In Coleman’s Good Morning, Love, aspiring songwriter/musician Carlisa “Carli” Henton’s efforts to keep her business and personal lives separate crumble when she meets rising hip-hop star Tau Anderson (50,000-copy first printing). From Egyptian-Irish BBC broadcaster El-Wardany, These Impossible Things features friends Malak, Kees, and Jenna, on the verge of adulthood as they struggle to be good Muslim women yet wanting to follow their dreams (50,000-copy first printing). In Fowler’s It All Comes Down To This, three sisters—freelance journalist Beck, struggling with her marriage and a desire to write fiction; Claire, an accomplished pediatric cardiologist, recently divorced; and Sophie, leading a glamorous life she can’t afford—face their mother’s impending death and the fate of their beloved summer cottage on Mount Desert Island, ME. In Ho’s Lucie Yi Is Not a Romantic, a follow-up to the LJ-starred Last Tang Standing, a hardworking career woman gives up on finding the right guy after her fiancé calls off their marriage and signs up for an elective co-parenting website so that she can have a baby—with unexpected consequences. In USA Today best-selling Moore’s latest, Maine is not exactly Vacationland for Louisa when she visits her parents one summer with her three children, as she’s dealing with an unfinished book, an absentee husband, and a father suffering from Alzheimer’s, plus a young stranger in town trying to get her own life in order (100,000-copy first printing). In popular Patrick’s The Messy Life of Book People, Liv Green forms a tentative friendship with the mega-best-selling author for whom she works as a housecleaner but is surprised when the author dies suddenly and in her will asks that Liv complete her final book (75,000 paperback and 10,000-copy paperback first printing). In Saint X author Schaitkin’s Elsewhere, an interesting departure, Vera grows up in a small town where for generations women keep vanishing mysteriously (200,000-copy first printing). Vercher follows the Edgar-nominated, best-booked Three-Fifths with After the Lights Go Out, about a biracial MMA fighter aging out of his career and facing his father’s end-stage Alzheimer’s when he scores a last-minute comeback fight. Already a multi-award winner, Wolfe debuts with Last Summer on State Street, about Felicia “Fe Fe” Stevens and two close-as-hugging friends—a happy threesome that expands to an uneasy foursome even as the Chicago Housing Authority prepares to tear down the high-rise in the projects where Fe Fe’s family lives (50,000-copy first printing).

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