June 2026 Goodreads TBR Shelf Clean-Up

Howdy, y’all! It’s time for my June 2026 Goodreads TBR Shelf Clean-Up. I wonder if this will help me reduce the number of books on my TBR. Who am I kidding? I’m a reader; of course, I’ll always add books. In May 2026, I had 609 books. Today, I have 597. Will my June 2026 Goodreads TBR shelf clean-up help bring that number down more?

I saw this Goodreads TBR Clean-Up post at Megan’s Book Stacks and knew I had to try it. Megan found it over at MegaBunnyReads.

Click the titles to go to Goodreads.

How It Works:

• Go to your Goodreads want-to-read shelf.
• Use a random number generator to pick a number between 1 and however many books are on the list.
• Go to that book and look at the four after it for a total of 5.
• Read the synopses of the books.
• Decide: keep it or delete it?
• Discuss here.

Books To Be Read: 597

Starting Number: 520. It appears that I’m reviewing the books I added in Fall 2025.

Shelf Sorted: Date Added

Let’s get this June 2026 Goodreads TBR Shelf Clean-Up underway!

The Golden Boy by Patricia Finn

After an involuntary retirement from his high-flying Hollywood career, Stafford Hopkins has retreated to a luxury estate on Maui, along with his wife Agnes, both grimly resigned to life in a paradise where neither feels fully at home. Stafford is ready to retreat into himself, too, when a letter arrives with shocking news.

Stafford has been named guardian of four children he didn’t know: the grandchildren of his late childhood friend, Bobby Shepherd, whose ghost Stafford can no longer ignore. Returning to both the hardscrabble farming town and the dark secret he’d tried to forget for decades, Stafford is forced to confront his past in order to rebuild his future – and to redirect the fates of his family and the four young people suddenly in his care.

My Thoughts

The synopsis makes it sound really interesting. But after skimming a few reviews, I’m not sure I want to read it any longer.

DELETE

Agnes Aubert’s Mystical Cat Shelter by Heather Fawcett

Agnes Aubert leads a meticulously organized life—and she likes it that way. As the proudly type-A manager of a much-needed cat rescue charity, she has devoted her life to finding forever homes for lost cats.

But after she is forced to move the cat shelter, Agnes learns that her new landlord is using her charity as a front—for an internationally renowned and thoroughly disreputable magic shop. Owned by the disorganized—not to mention self-absorbed, irritating, but also decidedly handsome—Havelock Renard, magician and failed Dark Lord, the shop draws magical clientele from around the world, partly due to the quality of Havelock’s illicit goods as well as their curiosity about his shadowy past and rumors of his incredible powers. Agnes’s charity offers the perfect cover for illegal magics.

Agnes couldn’t care less about the shop—magical intrigue or not, there are cats to be rescued. But when an enemy from Havelock’s past surfaces, the magic shop—and more importantly, the cat shelter—are suddenly in jeopardy. To save the shelter, will Agnes have to set aside her social conscience and protect the man who once tried to bring about the apocalypse—and is now trying to steal her heart?

My Thoughts

I’ve heard so many great things about this book, and the author in general. So why haven’t I read it yet? Because I’ve yet to get my hands on a copy.

KEEP

The Chambermaid’s Key by Genevieve Graham

Welcome to the Dominion, where secrets lurk behind every locked door.

1929: Rosie Ryan wants nothing more than to escape the poverty of The Ward, Toronto’s roughest neighborhood, and become a chambermaid at the brand-new Dominion Hotel. Until she meets Damien, that is—a charming and ambitious waiter who promises her a better life—and adds him to the top of her list. The Dominion offers her a chance to do well, but behind the gleaming chandeliers and polished marble lurk dangerous secrets involving its most notorious guest, a wealthy gangster who’s about to profit from The Crash that will decimate the economy. When a friend is murdered, Rosie finds herself tangled in a web of betrayal—one that just might cost her everything.

Present City building Inspector Bridget Kelly is assigned to scrutinize the recent renovations at the elegant old Dominion Hotel, a task she relishes as a lover of history and architecture, and that gets even better once she starts working with a brilliant and fascinating archivist. But when a routine inspection uncovers mysterious boxes, locked doors, and secret corridors, bringing to light a long-buried clue to a decades-old murder, her inspection is thwarted, and threats rise around her on every side. Bridget soon realizes someone doesn’t want the truth to surface—and they’ll do anything to keep it buried.

My Thoughts

I have a complicated and twisted reason I haven’t read this yet. I was originally approved for an ARC and then lost access to it. And then I was approved again, but only recently, and I’ve been busy reading other books. Sadly, it may take me until the fall before I get the chance to read it. But read it I will!

KEEP

Heat Wave by Maureen Jennings

July 1936. Toronto is in the grip of a deadly heat wave. Horses are dropping in the street. Charlotte Frayne is the junior associate in a two-person private-investigation firm owned by T. Gilmore.

Anti-Semitism and murder in “Toronto the Good” in the depths of the Great Depression provide the historical background for this satisfying mystery. The fabric of the City of Toronto is as fully realized in Heat Wave as it is in all the Detective Murdoch books.

A hate letter is delivered to Charlotte’s boss, who leaves the matter in Charlotte’s hands to investigate. On the same day, Hilliard Taylor, a First World War veteran who, together with three other former prisoners-of-war, operates the Paradise Café, seeks the firm’s assistance in uncovering what he believes is the systematic embezzlement of the Café. These two events, seemingly unrelated, come together and bring to life characters as real to the reader as those of the Detective Murdoch series.

My Thoughts

Heat Wave is the first book in a new series by the author who introduced the world to Detective William Murdoch. I’ve enjoyed the few books I’ve read by Jennings. Oh, and this one currently resides on my physical bookshelf. So the answer is obvious to me.

KEEP

Things Not to Do by Jessica Westhead

Things Not to Do is a collection of stories that seeks to examine—through humor, wit, empathy, and honesty—the dark side of ordinary people. We know them; sometimes we are them. A man attends a gathering on the coattails of his new, zealously empowering friend. A woman helps her husband build an escape room to free him from working for a hated boss. A veteran wedding DJ imparts wisdom, and more besides, to a new recruit. The father of a teen pop sensation gathers with his fans in the wake of a controversy. The actions of these characters, for good or ill—and there is light in their lives, as often as there is dark—stem from the same place, and Westhead cuts right to the heart of that place. They aren’t scheming supervillains; they’re folks trying to make the most of what they think they have—even if that sometimes means stepping on someone who doesn’t deserve it.

My Thoughts

I added this book to my physical TBR in the fall, after attending a book festival. It was part of a blind bag that was acquired. And it’s part of my Summer 2026 TBR.

KEEP

That is my June 2026 Goodreads TBR Shelf Clean-Up. It appears to have had little effect on my shelf, as I’m keeping four of the books. LOL!

This was fun. I may do it now and then to help keep my shelf realistic. In the past, I had added books without giving them much thought. Will I stop doing that? Of course not! What kind of animal do you think I am?

What do you think? Have you tried something like this to manage your TBR?

Are you looking for some more ideas to read? Check out my monthly reading wrap-ups.