I set out to put together a list of new books out in June that complete 2025 Read Harder Challenge tasks, but I kept coming back to just one task: Read a genre-blending book. It turns out, there are lots of great genre-blending books out this month, so I decided to focus on them. Romance, especially, is a heavy hitter when it comes to genre-blending books: is there any genre we can’t add a love story to?
Whether you’re looking for something that mixes mystery and romance, sci-fi and horror, spy thriller and romance, or literary and paranormal, I have the new releases for you.
Alice Chen’s Reality Check by Kara Loo and Jennifer Young (Mystery + Romance)The murder mystery rom-com is apparently here to stay, because this isn’t the only one out this month. In this one, Alice goes on a reality show with her fiancé, but gets broken up with just a couple of weeks in. When she and her high school rival (who is also newly single) decide to fake date to get through the rest of the show, they don’t expect they’ll also have to solve a murder mystery when a dead body is found on set. Nothing like a shared goal to bring out those feelings! —Jessica Pryde |
Of Monsters and Mainframes by Barbara Truelove (Sci-Fi + Horror)Vampires! In! Space! In this queer sci-fi horror, humans can travel between Earth and Alpha Centauri, and Demeter is one of the spaceships that makes the journey. But when Demeter’s passengers start dying mysteriously, Demeter discovers the cause: a vampire. To stop the killings and keep from being shut down, Demeter has to put together her own monster squad to try to take down Dracula, the most powerful vampire of all time. —Liberty Hardy |
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Which genre-blending book are you reading for the 2025 Read Harder Challenge? And are there any June releases on your TBR? Let’s chat in the comments!