New Rowling, King Books Set for June

Written by Jon Williams

As we wait for spring to kick into full gear, it’s never too early to start thinking about summer beach reading and audiobooks for long trips. There is a wonderful slate of books scheduled for release later this spring and into the summer, but June looks to be a monster, with highly anticipated new titles coming from two juggernauts of the literary world.

It was recently announced that June 24 would bring The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith. This will be the second crime novel featuring private detective Cormoran Strike. The first Strike novel was last year’s The Cuckoo’s Calling, in which Strike investigated the death of supermodel Lula Landry, the adopted sister of his childhood friend. That book, of course, made news (and jumped to the top of the bestseller lists) when it was revealed that Robert Galbraith was, in fact, the pen name of J.K. Rowling, the wildly famous author of the Harry Potter books. After that series concluded in 2007, she made her first foray into writing for adults with 2012’s The Casual Vacancy. When that book was an automatic bestseller, she decided to use a pen name for her next book in order to see how it would perform on its own merits. That plan was foiled shortly after The Cuckoo’s Calling was published; however, it was drawing rave reviews even before the truth about its authorship was revealed. The Silkworm promises to pick up where the first book left off, with Strike this time investigating the case of an author gone missing before the publication of a devastating tell-all.

Before that comes out, though, June 3 will bring a new novel from Stephen King. Like Galbraith’s crime novels, King calls Mr. Mercedes his first “hard-boiled” detective novel, with his own signature macabre twist. The tale deals with a killer who operates by driving a stolen car into crowds of people, and the retired police officer on the trail to track him down before he can strike again. This is King’s first novel since last year’s Doctor Sleep, the long-awaited sequel to his early classic The Shining, and it kicks off a busy month for the horror master. On June 30, Under the Dome returns to CBS, a show based on King’s 2009 tome about a small town mysteriously trapped under an invisible force field that completely seals them off from the outside world. The second season’s premiere episode was written by King himself. In addition, later this year (November 11) King will publish Revival, a story more typical to his roots in the horror genre.

And of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of great stories coming out this spring and summer. Are there any titles you or your patrons are particularly excited about? Let us know in the comments section below.