#22: June 2025 Book Club Pick + Kindle Unlimited Recs + Queer Horror Vibes
This week’s vibe: dangerous women, soft planners, and one creamy Southern side dish.
The Weekly Insider is your weekly bookish roundup for romance, mystery and fantasy recs, plus all the bookish content you won’t want to miss.
Note: This newsletter contains affiliate links. If you purchase through these links, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thanks for supporting the community!
#22: June 2025 Book Club Pick + Kindle Unlimited Recs + Queer Horror Vibes
Hey friends 👋
Before we get into this week’s bookish happenings, let’s kick things off with a few quick updates:
🔐 The Book Vault got a refresh with new titles!
We’ve added more June releases, plus an early wave of July and August titles.
Just a reminder: Every blog list is also tagged and searchable inside the Vault, perfect for sorting by tropes, vibes, or creature type.
The June password is now live on the Book Vault page for paid members.
🌈 Vibe Check
🎧 Listening:
🍽️ Eating:
Alabama stone-ground grits that are so creamy I nearly wept.
These are the ones
🗓️ Planning:
Currently loving this Hobonichi-style digital planner.
Peek inside
📣 Big News:
Sophia Stallone is officially playing Lana Myers in the Mindfck* adaptation.
See the post
League of Lusty Ladies Book Club – June 2025 Pick
Welcome back, lusty ladies! It’s time to reveal our June 2025 book club pick, and I can’t lie, I’m extra excited for this one. You all voted in our genre poll and made it very clear: it’s historical romance season. Over 60% of you were ready for corsets, carriage rides, and scandalous society drama, and I am so here for it.
Before we get to the book, a quick reminder:
This is a Kindle Unlimited romance book club, which means all of our monthly picks are available to read for free with your KU subscription. We like it hot, we like it fun, and we like to keep your wallet happy.
📽️ Watch the Announcement + May 2025 Review Video
For the full breakdown you can watch the video right here:
The Duke Disaster by Kathleen Ayers
Book 1 in The League of Extraordinary Widows
Grab The Duke Disaster on Kindle Unlimited
We’re going historical and high-heat this month with a spicy new-to-me author. I’ve seen Kathleen Ayers recced over and over on romance Reddit as a must-read for fans of spicy historicals.
Here’s the setup:
The Duke of Hartwood is prim, proper, and would very much like his family to stay out of the gossip columns. But when a certain scandalous widow, his cousin’s widow, to be exact, starts stirring up London society, he’s sent to “deal with it.” The problem? Celia Barnes doesn’t care what anyone thinks. She’s done being quiet, done being good, and absolutely not here to make his life easy.
They hate each other.
Then they kiss.
Then there’s a very intense carriage ride.
And suddenly propriety is looking... overrated.
Tropes you'll find:
Enemies to lovers
Scandalous widow x grumpy duke
Forced proximity
Mutual disdain that quickly turns to “I’d risk it all for you”
Vote for July’s Genre!
I want to know what direction you're feeling for July. Vote below!
Join the Club
Want in? Read the book during the month of July. You can always join us in the chat or on social!
Did you miss last week’s Insider? Check it out here:
📚 Here’s What’s New This Week
Under the Covers Book Blog
Mysterylandia
On YouTube
Join us every Thursday at 12PM EST for our Novel Hour show on Youtube.
Final Little Note
If you made it to the end, congrats, you’ve officially survived the weekly insider. Same time next week? Bring snacks.
Hit reply and let me know what you’re reading!
Talk soon,
Francesca
P.S. If you're an author or brand and think you might be interested in advertising on our Substack, you can find more info here.
Sharing our love for books as Under the Covers Book Blog since 2011, running the Romanceopoly yearly reading challenge since 2019 and hosting the Reading Under the Covers podcast since 2020. Launched Mysterylandia in 2025.
The June Book Club pick looks really good! Going to try and get it read for this month 😀