Seven Days in June

Seven Days in June by American novelist Tia Williams was published in 2021. It was a Reese Witherspoon book club pick and a New York Times Bestseller. The novel follows two Black writers, Eva Mercy and Shane Hall, who reunite 15 years after a passionate and destructive week in June that connected them forever.

Please note that the text includes potentially triggering scenarios including assault, suicide, self-harm, and substance use.

Plot Summary

Eva Mercy is a successful erotica novelist who found herself thrust into the Black literati writing scene after winning a contest when her roommate submitted her manuscript Cursed—a vampire-witch love story—without her knowledge. Now after finishing her 14th book in the Cursed series, Eva has a dedicated, ever-watchful audience who are active on Black book Twitter and Facebook. This gives Eva financial stability and allows her to send her daughter Audre to private school. Eva hopes the book’s upcoming film adaptation will bring her more financial success. She has sold the movie rights, but an A-list director wants to make the characters white for box office reasons. Eva is desperate for the movie to be made, but its Blackness is an essential part of the series.

While participating in a Brooklyn literary panel titled “The State of the Black Author,” Eva has a surprise reunion with the elusive, award-winning author Shane Hall. Shane is best known for his four works of literary fiction set in the same nameless and low-income neighborhood. His most famous work is Eight, which earned him praise for well-drawn characters and plotless stories. Eva is shocked to see Shane; as seniors in high school, the two of them met and felt a strange, extraordinary connection, and they ended up sharing a week of passion and mutual vulnerability. During these seven days in June, they revealed their pain and coping mechanisms to each other: For Shane, it was drugs and alcohol; for Eva, it was self-harm. After Eva almost overdosed, their week ended. Eva left for hospital treatment, and Shane disappeared.

Fifteen years later, Shane is almost two years sober, and Eva has found a pain management plan for her debilitating migraines. The pair reunite and must face their shared past and current mutual attraction. They admit their stories were written about and for the other. Eva tries to leave the past behind, but she is eventually forced to ask Shane for a favor: Eva’s daughter, Audre, is on the verge of being expelled from school, and the headmaster tells Eva that she can save Audre’s place if she finds a new English teacher. Shane agrees to teach there. After he and Eva reconnect over this favor, their old intimacy strikes up again—and they can’t resist the magnetic pull of one another, even though both of them remain conflicted.

The novel opens on another seven days in June, and Eva and Shane must be there for each other again—to heal the pain from their traumatic and lonely childhoods. Shane finds it hard to write while sober, so instead of writing, he now helps at-risk youth. On deadline with her 15th Cursed book, Eva decides to face her family’s history, which has been mythologized and passed down through the generations. Eventually, with assistance from Cece (Eva’s editor) and Audre, Eva and Shane admit they belong together.