As the weather finally gets warmer, I can’t help but daydream about all the books I could be reading on my porch or at the beach. But instead of ditching work to get lost in a good story, I’ve put together a list of the books I’m most looking forward to reading (hopefully, at some point) this month.
Missing The Hills? Read The Daydreams by Laura Hankin
Out May 2, 2023, from Berkley Books
Back in 2004, The Daydreams had it all: a cast of innocent-seeming teenagers acting and singing their hearts out, amazing ratings, and a will-they-or-won’t-they romance that steamed up fan fiction forums. Then, during the live season two finale, it all imploded.
Afterward, each star went there one way – Kat, a DC lawyer; Liana, a bored celebrity wife; Summer, the cautionary tale; and Noah, the golden boy who rose to even larger fame.
But now the fans are demanding a reunion special. The stars all have private reasons to come back: forgiveness, revenge, a second chance with a first love. But as they tentatively rediscover the magic of the original show, old secrets threaten to resurface–including the real reason behind their downfall.
The truth will out in what is sure to be a ratings hit.
According to Harper’s Bazar, The Daydreams is “The perfect novel to complement the return of cargo pants, platform flip-flops, and all other things Y2K.”
Get Your Cold Case Fix With The Night Flowers by Sara Herchenroether
Out May 2, 2023, from Tin House Books
In 1983, deep in New Mexico’s Gila National Forest, the bodies of a young woman and two children were found. Now 30 years later, two women find themselves drawn to the cold case: Laura MacDonald, a librarian who digs into the case as a way to distract herself from her cancer treatments, and Jean Martinez, a veteran detective who isn’t ready to quit working cold cases.
With only fragments from dusty case files and a witness who doesn’t want to remember, this unlikely duo is determined―no matter the cost―to uncover the truth behind the murders.
Tin House Books calls The Night Flowers “a haunting debut thriller written with pulse-pounding precision and a deep understanding of the psychology of violence and the tenacity of those who combat it.”
Homebodies by Tembe Denton-Hurst is a “Thrilling Debut” Ripped From the Headlines
Out May 2, 2023, from Harper Collins
Mickey Hayward, like so many of us, dreams of writing stories that matter. Despite being overlooked and mistreated at work, things seem like she might finally get the chance to prove herself. Her hopes of changing the world, though, and quickly dashed when Mickey finds out she’s being replaced.
Distraught and enraged, Mickey fires back with a detailed letter outlining the racism and sexism she’s endured as a Black woman in media, certain it will change the world for the better. When her letter is met with overwhelming silence, Mickey is sent into a tailspin of self-doubt.
Forced to reckon with just how fragile her life is—including the uncertainty of her relationship with her girlfriend—she flees to the last place she ever dreamed she would run to, desperate for a break from her troubles.
But when a media scandal catapults Mickey’s forgotten letter into the public zeitgeist, suddenly everyone wants to hear what Mickey has to say.
Called “intimate” and “witty,” Homebodies is a Most Anticipated Book of 2023 by Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, them, Bustle, and The Millions.
Fans of Madeline Miller’s Circe Will Love Clymtemnestra by Constanza Casati
Out May 2, 2023, from Source Landmark
Mythology is having a major moment, and I, personally, can’t get enough of these retellings. It’s why I’m especially excited to get my hands on Constanza Casati’s Clytemnestra.
Clytemnestra is the daughter of Zeus but is married to Agamemnon, who isn’t the hero myths make him out to be. She has to stand by, and he sacrifices her child to the gods and wages war on Troy. Her only solace in his absence is violent thoughts of her own. She knows this isn’t the life she deserves, and these losses will not be her undoing.
But when Agamemnon returns from Troy, triumphant, Clytemnestra has a choice to make: accept this life or choose vengeance.
Madeline Miller’s Circe meets Cersei Lannister in a stunning debut following set in Ancient Greece following Clytemnestra and the events that forged her into the legendary queen.
Sarah K. Jackson’s Not Alone is a Fresh Take on Post-Apocalyptic Fiction
Out May 2, 2023, from Doubleday Books
Five years ago, a microplastic storm wiped out most of the population. No infrastructure. No safe havens. No goodbyes.
Since then, Katie has lived in isolation with her son, Harry, in a small flat outside of London. She’s done what she could for him between foraging and hunting the surviving animal population. But when Katie’s persistent cough starts getting worse and a newcomer moves into the area, Katie and Harry are forced to leave their bubble.
Determined to find somewhere to build a better life for Harry, Katie’s resources, energy, and parenting abilities are pushed to the brink.
According to her publisher, Sarah K. Jackson “combines beautiful language, palm-sweating adventure, and a deep, true-to-life parent-child bond that transcends its post-apocalyptic setting in a debut that emphasizes the importance of resilience, hope, and sustainability today.”
If you loved The Giver, Check out The Ferryman by Justin Cronin
Out May 2, 2023, from Ballantine Books
Fans of The Hunger Games and The Giver are going to want to drop what they’re doing immediately and go pick up a copy of Justin Cronin’s The Ferryman.
Proctor Bennett lives on Prospera, an archipelago hidden away from the horrors of a deteriorating world. His job for this island paradise is ferryman, taking residents ready to retire from Propsera to the Nursery. There, they’re restored, their memories are wiped clean, and they start over again.
As idyllic as life is, things aren’t well for Proctor. For one, he’s been dreaming–something that’s supposed to be impossible in Prospera. He’s also noticing his own monitor percentage starting to drop. Then, before having to wrestle his own father onto the ferryboat for his retirement, Proctor is given a disturbing and cryptic message.
Meanwhile, something is stirring. Unrest is building, and there are rumors spreading of a resistance group–known as “Arrivalists”–who may be fomenting revolution.
Soon Proctor finds himself questioning everything he once believed, entangled with a much bigger cause than he realized–and on a desperate mission to uncover the truth.
Lose Yourself in Lisa Brideau’s Adrift
Out May 9, 2023, from Sourcebook Landmark
When Ess wakes up alone on a sailboat in the remote Pacific Northwest, she has no memory of who she is or how she got there. All she has is a note: Start over. Don’t make yourself known. Don’t look back.
Determined to have answers, Ess sails over a turbulent ocean to a town hundreds of miles away, hoping for insight. There, she finds chilling clues that point to a desperate attempt at erasing her former life. But someone is watching–someone who knows she must never learn her truth.
Ess’s world is precariously balanced at a climate tipping point, and she is perched at the edge of a choice: Does she want the life that was taken from her―and the dangerous secret that comes with it―or the blank slate?
Sourcebook Landmark calls Adift a “character-driven odyssey [that] explores a future challenged by our quickly changing world and the choices we must make to save what matters most.”
Personally, I’m counting down the seconds until this one hits the bookshelves.
No One Needs to Know by Lindsay Cameron is Gossip Girl for Grown Ups
Out May 9, 2023, from Bantam
As a big fan of stories about rich people behaving badly (see: Big Little Lies, Gossip Girl, Gypsy, Behind Her Eyes, etc.) I’m dying to get my hands on a copy of Lindsay Cameron’s No One Needs to Know.
The book follows what happens when New York’s wealthiest have their deepest, darkest secrets exposed.
UrbanMyth was supposed to be the anti-social media platform. Everything was anonymous and grouped by zip code. There, Manhattan’s exclusive Upper East Siders disclosed it all: secret bank accounts, steamy affairs, and tidbits of juicy gossip.
So when a “hacktivist” group breaks into the forum and exposes the real identity of each poster, the repercussions echo down Park Avenue with a force that none could have anticipated–including a dead body.
Each suspect has something to hide and would do anything to make sure their secrets stay hidden. This includes Heather, an outsider who is desperate to get her daughter into the elite’s good graces; Norah, a high-powered executive who can’t find a work/life balance; and Poppy, a woman who would do anything to make sure her life looks perfect.
Katrina Monroe Explores Madness and Motherhood in Graveyard of Lost Children
Out May 9, 2023, from Poised Pen Press
When Olivia Dahl was four months old, her mother became haunted by visions and became convinced Olivia was a changeling. The only way her mother thought she could get her “real baby” back was to make a trade with the “dead woman” living at the bottom of a well.
Now Olivia is ready to give birth to a daughter of her own.
Everyone tells Olivia she should be happy. She should be glowing, but the birth of her daughter only fills Olivia with dread. As Olivia’s body starts giving out, slowly deteriorating as the baby eats and eats and eats, she begins to fear that the baby isn’t her daughter at all and, despite her best efforts, history is repeating itself.
Soon images of a black-haired woman plague Olivia’s nightmares, drawing her back to the well that almost claimed her life―tying mother and daughter together in a desperate cycle of fear and violence that must be broken if Olivia has any hope of saving her child…or herself.
Madness and motherhood are intertwined in this gripping, horrific exploration of postpartum depression.
R.F. Kuang’s Yellowface is “Chilling” and “Hilarious”
Out May 16, 2023, from William Morrow & Company
What’s the harm in a pseudonym? Bestselling sensation Juniper Song is not who she says she is, she didn’t write the book she claims she wrote, and she is most certainly not Asian American—in this chilling and hilariously cutting novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author R. F. Kuang.
June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars: they were the same year at Yale and had the same debut year in publishing. But Athena’s a cross-genre literary darling, and June didn’t even get a paperback release.
Clearly, no one wants to read about basic white girls anymore. So when June witnesses Athena’s death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse: she steals Athena’s just-finished masterpiece: an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers to the British and French war efforts during World War I.
When she sends the manuscript to her agent, June lets her publisher rebrand her as the ambiguously-ethnic Juniper Song. June convinces herself that this piece of history deserves to be told, whoever the teller–and the New York Times bestseller list agrees.
But June can’t get away from Athena’s shadow, and emerging evidence threatens to bring June’s (stolen) success down around her. As June races to protect her secret, she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.
If You’re Not Over Iventing Anna, Pick Up The Guest by Emma Cline
Out May 16, 2023, from Random House
I was (still am) obsessed with Emma Cline’s debut novel, The Girls. There’s just something about summer weather that makes me hungry for culty, psychological literary slow burns–especially in Cline’s style of storytelling. In her latest novel, a young woman pretends to be someone she isn’t in a novel Vogue calls “A grifter tale for the post-Anna Delvey era.”
Summer is coming to a close on the East End of Long Island, and Alex is no longer welcome. After a misstep at a dinner party, the older man she’s been staying with drops her off at the train station with a one-way ticket back to the city.
With few resources and a waterlogged phone–but gifted with an ability to navigate the desires of others– Alex stays on Long Island and drifts like a ghost through the hedged lanes, gated driveways, and sun-blasted dunes of a rarefied world that is, at first, closed to her. Propelled by desperation and a mutable sense of morality, she spends the week leading up to Labor Day moving from one place to the next, a cipher leaving destruction in her wake.
Taut, propulsive, and impossible to look away from, Random House calls Emma Cline’s The Guest “a spellbinding literary achievement.”
Eliza Clark Makes “Shocking and Hilarious” Debut With Boy Parts
Out May 23, 2023, from Harper Perennial
In what Harper Perennial calls, “an incendiary debut novel from a brash new talent—a pitch-black comedy, both shocking and hilarious,” Eliza Clark fearlessly explores sexuality and gender roles in the twenty-first century.
Exiled from the art world and on sabbatical from her dead-end bar job, Irina obsessively takes explicit photographs of the average-looking men she persuades to model for her, scouted from the streets of Newcastle.
But her talent has not gone unnoticed, and Irina is invited to display her work at a fashionable London gallery. It is a chance to revive her career and escape from the rut of substances and extreme cinema she’s fallen into. Yet the news instead triggers a self-destructive tailspin, centered around Irina’s consuming relationship with her best friend, and a shy young man from her local supermarket who has attracted her attention.
Ivy Pchoda’s Sing Her Down is a Gritty, Western Killing Eve
Out May 23, 2023, from MCD
No Country for Old Men meets Killing Eve in this gritty, feminist Western thriller from the award-winning author of These Women.
When Florence “Florida” Baum arrives at the Arizona women’s prison, she’s trying to escape the claims of her her ex-cell mate, Diosmary Sandoval.
Dios knows the truth about Florida’s crimes and understands the truth that Florence hides even from herself: that she wasn’t a victim (or so Dios thinks). Dios knows that darkness lives in women, too, despite the world’s refusal to see it. And she is determined to open Florida’s eyes and unleash her true self.
When an unexpected reprieve gives both women their freedom, Dios’s fixation on her ex-cell mate turns into a dangerous obsession, and a deadly cat-and-mouse chase ensues from Arizona’s unforgiving desert to the desolate streets of Los Angeles.
Gripping and immersive, MCD calls Sing Her Down a “spellbinding thriller setting two indelible women on a path to certain destruction and an epic, stunning showdown.” They had me at Killing Eve.
Waiting for White Lotus? Read Bad Summer People by Emma Rosenblum
Out May 23, 2023, from Flatiron Books
Emma Rosenblum’s Bad Summer People is a whip-smart, propulsive debut about infidelity, backstabbing, and murderous intrigue that’s perfect for fans of White Lotus and The Watcher.
This summer is starting out quieter than others, despite there being plenty of gossip about.
There’s Jen Weinstein and Lauren Parker, the queens of Salcombe, Fire Island. They have power at the beach and tennis courts, plus are incredibly adept at convincing people to give them what they want. The pair spends every summer on the exclusive island with their husbands, Sam and Jason–childhood frenemies who hold as many grudges as secrets.
Their one single friend, Rachel Woolf, is looking to meet her match this year, whether he’s the tennis pro—or someone else’s husband.
But when a body is discovered, face down, off the side of the boardwalk, the tempo of the summer quickly changes, and fingers start getting pointed. Sure, none of them are particularly good people. But are they capable of murder?
Stylish, subversive, and darkly comedic, this is a story of what’s lurking under the surface of picture-perfect lives in a place where everyone has something to hide.
Megan Abbot Is at The “Height of Her Game” With Beware the Woman
Out May 30, 2023, from G.P. Putnam’s Sons
From New York Times bestselling and award-winning author Megan Abbott comes an eerie and prescient novel about a family outing that takes a terrifying turn.
Jacy’s mom always told her she wanted her to have everything she always wanted. Finally, Jacy feels like she does. Newly married and with a baby on the way, Jacy and her new husband Jed embark on their first road trip together to visit his father, Doctor Ash, in Michigan’s far-flung Upper Peninsula.
But after a perfect first days, Jacy has a health scare. Swiftly, vacation activities are scrapped, and all eyes are on Jacy’s condition. At the same time, whispers about Jed’s long-dead mother and complicated family history seem eerily to be impeding upon the present.
As the days pass, Jacy begins to feel trapped in the cottage, her every move surveilled, her body under the looking glass. But are her fears founded, or is it paranoia, or—as is suggested to her—a stubborn refusal to take necessary precautions? The dense woods surrounding the cottage are full of dangers, but are the greater ones inside?
This article was produced and syndicated by Wealth of Geeks.
Nicole Tommasulo is Boston-based and Buffalo-born writer and editor. Typically covering all things lifestyle, her beat spans from food, to breaking news, to travel, mental health, and everything in between. She has an MFA in Writing from Savannah College of Art and Design and has been previously published by The List, Heels Down Magazine, Hello Giggles, and several now-dead but not forgotten websites like xoJane and Femsplain. When she’s not writing or editing, she’s nerding out over books, prestige TV, plants, food, and frisbee golf.
