JD Vance is releasing a new book after his huge success Hillbilly Elegy

Vice President JD Vance has a new book coming out in June that he has been working on since 2019.

Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith out June 16, HarperCollins Publishers imprint Harper said Associated Press Tuesday.

HarperCollins has also been released Hillbilly ElegyA record of millions of sales since 2016 that helped make Vance a national figure.

“The story of how I found my faith, of course, happened because I had lost it from the beginning,” Vance, 41, said in a statement.

He wrote: “The interesting question that remains in this book, and in my mind, is why I went astray.

Tuesday’s announcement is likely to increase speculation that Vance will seek the presidency in 2028 — an opportunity the Republican vice president says he is not focused on now, indicating he will wait until after the 2026 midterm elections to decide on a campaign.

Presidential hopefuls often, though not always, release books before campaigning, giving them exposure time to new audiences and an opportunity to clarify their message as they campaign.

Now, about 2,028 people on the Democratic side have published books or plan to publish them this year, including Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, California Governor Gavin Newsom and former Vice President Kamala Harris.

Vance wrote the 304-page “Communion” himself, according to his publisher, working on it since 2019, and it will include details about his time in politics. Vice presidents from Walter Mondale to Mike Pence have published books, but Vance will be the first in recent memory to do so while in office.

By 2022, HarperCollins said by AP that Vance had set aside a planned religious memoir. Some of the “Communion” was taken from that project.

Vance said that he converted from Christianity to Catholicism. He converted in 2019 and thanks his new faith for giving him a purpose that he did not get through his studies at Yale University or working in the financial industry.

“Hillbilly Elegy,” Vance’s memoir about his rural roots, was widely read when it was published and grew in popularity after the surprise victory of Republican President Donald Trump in 2016, as Democrats sought the book as a way to understand Trump’s appeal. Ron Howard adapted “Hillbilly Elegy” into a 2020 film starring Glenn Close and Amy Adams.

Vance was initially a critic of Trump but became a close friend. He was elected to the Senate as an Ohio Republican in 2022 and was chosen two years later by Trump as his running mate, becoming the last vice president since Richard Nixon to serve under President Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s.

The news about Vance’s book followed the announcement Monday by his wife, Usha Vance, that she had started a podcast called “Storytime with the Second Lady” to promote reading among children.

The Vances have three young children, and Usha Vance is pregnant with their fourth, a boy due in late July.