June Baby: A Novel
Shannon Garvey
May 2026 · Penguin Random House Audio · Narrated by Christine Lakin
headphones
Audiobook
12 hr
Unabridged
family_home
Eligible
info
Want a free 10 min sample? Listen anytime, even offline.
Add
About this audiobook
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • In this “old-fashioned love letter to summer” (The New York Times Book Review), set over the course of one transformative season in the lush, beachy enclave of Block Island, a young woman reckons with love, loss, and the choices she must make to move forward.
“The book of the summer! It has everything I want in a beach read: juicy romance, explosive family secrets, and a delicious island setting.”—Elin Hilderbrand
Some summers never leave you.
At seventeen, Ruth lost her mother to cancer, and her father, unable to handle his grieving daughter, shipped her off to Block Island with nothing but a name scribbled on the back of a receipt: Diana Beckett. Diana, a renowned photographer, took Ruth in for the summer, and Block Island became Ruth’s refuge, a place of beauty and creativity, a place where she could nurture her dreams of being a writer, a place where she could fall in love for the first time—with Diana’s nephew, Charlie.
Now, at twenty-seven, Ruth has spent the last ten summers living and working among the lucky few who get to vacation in this wealthy beach town, and the rest of the year just scraping by, yearning to return to the place where she feels safe and unburdened. But then Ruth’s world is upended by tragedy again. Desperate for an anchor, she reaches for the person she’s been pining for since she met him—Charlie—who has his own startling revelation to share. And when another surprise comes in the form of a box left to Ruth by Diana, its contents raise questions about just how well she knew the two women who raised her. Torn between what to believe about her past, and what her future might hold, Ruth is faced with another choice: does she dare to rewrite her story entirely?
Both a heartfelt coming-of-age story and a tender exploration of love and grief, set against a backdrop of golden dunes and seaside sunsets, June Baby shows us what it might look like to embrace a life shaped not by loss, but by possibility.
“The book of the summer! It has everything I want in a beach read: juicy romance, explosive family secrets, and a delicious island setting.”—Elin Hilderbrand
Some summers never leave you.
At seventeen, Ruth lost her mother to cancer, and her father, unable to handle his grieving daughter, shipped her off to Block Island with nothing but a name scribbled on the back of a receipt: Diana Beckett. Diana, a renowned photographer, took Ruth in for the summer, and Block Island became Ruth’s refuge, a place of beauty and creativity, a place where she could nurture her dreams of being a writer, a place where she could fall in love for the first time—with Diana’s nephew, Charlie.
Now, at twenty-seven, Ruth has spent the last ten summers living and working among the lucky few who get to vacation in this wealthy beach town, and the rest of the year just scraping by, yearning to return to the place where she feels safe and unburdened. But then Ruth’s world is upended by tragedy again. Desperate for an anchor, she reaches for the person she’s been pining for since she met him—Charlie—who has his own startling revelation to share. And when another surprise comes in the form of a box left to Ruth by Diana, its contents raise questions about just how well she knew the two women who raised her. Torn between what to believe about her past, and what her future might hold, Ruth is faced with another choice: does she dare to rewrite her story entirely?
Both a heartfelt coming-of-age story and a tender exploration of love and grief, set against a backdrop of golden dunes and seaside sunsets, June Baby shows us what it might look like to embrace a life shaped not by loss, but by possibility.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • In this “old-fashioned love letter to summer” (The New York Times Book Review), set over the course of one transformative season in the lush, beachy enclave of Block Island, a young woman reckons with love, loss, and the choices she must make to move forward.
“The book of t...
Discover more
About the author
Shannon Garvey received her MFA from the University of New Hampshire, where she taught undergraduate classes. She has published short fiction in The Saturday Evening Post. She grew up in Rhode Island, and now lives on the rocky New Hampshire coast. She researched June Baby during many years waiting tables in tourist towns and her time working on Block Island.
Shannon Garvey received her MFA from the University of New Hampshire, where she taught undergraduate classes. She has published short fiction in The Saturday Evening Post. She grew up in Rhode Island, and now lives on the rocky New Hampshire coast. She researched June Baby during many years waiti...
Rate this audiobook
Tell us what you think.
Listening information
Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can read books purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
