Reading in the Mountains

June First is a forbidden, emotional romance about Brant—the boy shaped by tragedy—and June, the girl he was never supposed to love.

Growing up together blurs every line between right and wrong until their bond becomes impossible to ignore.

Three tragedies define Brant’s life…but at the center of all of them is one thing: June, and the love that refuses to let go.

I couldn’t sleep last night, so of course I ended up devouring June First in one sitting—finished it in a few hours and finally crashed like my brain had been wrung dry. Jennifer Hartmann has this way of writing heartbreak that you feel in your teeth, and this one shares the same emotional DNA as Older. The forbidden tension? The built-in tragedy? The slow, aching unravel? Yep—same recipe.

Brant falls for June, his practically adoptive sister, because tragedy binds them from the moment she enters the world. When Brant is six, his father murders his mother and then himself. And because June’s parents were close friends of his family—and because Brant was already best friends with Theo, June’s brother—they take him in instantly. He grows up with them. With her. And that’s where the line starts to blur.

Their connection is tender, slow, and honestly uncomfortable in the exact way forbidden romance is meant to be. You feel the tension long before either of them names it. But personally? While I appreciated that slow burn, sometimes it felt too heavy. Too much tragedy layered on top of a romance that was already fragile. I like emotional books, but this one carries grief in every chapter.

And yes—the spice hits later (past the halfway point) and it’s good, but emotionally, it didn’t land with the same punch Older did for me. Older broke me in a way that felt cathartic. June First broke me and then kept piling more on, and somewhere along the way it stopped being my kind of pain.

I still read it fast—because Jennifer Hartmann books are addictive by default—but out of all the forbidden romances I’ve read, this one isn’t climbing into my favorites. Beautifully written? Yes. Emotional? Absolutely. But the grief-to-romance ratio was just too unbalanced for me.