I know it’s Easter Sunday, but there’s a full box of May releases to talk about. And, the review schedule is so full of April books, that we have to do this today or there’s no time in the schedule. So, catch up when you can, but I have quite a list for you.

I’m a fan of Kate Ellis’ Wesley Peterson mysteries, so I immediately thought of that series when I read Rebecca Alexander’s A Baby’s Bones. Others may think of Elly Griffiths’ Ruth Galloway books. Archaeologist Sage Westfield is supervising the excavation of a sixteenth-century well when her team recovers bones, the bones of a baby and an adult. The account of a cold case four hundred years earlier links with a contemporary murder and discovery of a body. (Release date is May 1.)

The High Tide Club by Mary Kay Andrews is the story of two groups of women on Talisa Island, Georgia. In 1941, four young women bury a body on the island. Almost eighty years later, the owner of the island summons the heirs of those women. When the owner dies, this new generation join together to find the secrets of the past. (Release date is May 8.)

Maymee Bell launches the Southern Cake Baker Mystery series with Cake & Punishment. Pastry chef Sophia Cummings is back home in Rumford, Kentucky. She insists it’s only temporary because she broke up with her boyfriend, but she agrees to bake the wedding cake for her best friend from high school. Then, the chef at the country club where the wedding is to be held is murdered, and Sophia steps up to replace the chef, bake the cake, and try to save the wedding by finding the real killer. (Release date is May 6.)

Fall of Angels is the first in Barbara Cleverly’s new historical series, Detective Inspector Redfyre Investigates. Back from four years in the trenches in World War I, Redfyre is in attendance at a concert when a female trumpet player plunges down a flight of stairs. Is someone angry at a woman’s nerve in performing in public, or is this part of a larger campaign to attack women who want greater roles for women in post-war England? (Release date is May 15.)

In the fourth Sam Clair mystery, A Howl of Wolves, Judith Flanders sends her amateur sleuth to the theater. Samantha and her boyfriend, a Scotland Yard detective, go to support Sam’s upstairs neighbor. But, when the curtain opens for the second act, the hanging body isn’t a dummy. It’s the director of the production. The show must go on, but a killer needs to be caught. (Release date is May 15.)

Amanda Flower kicks off the Magic Garden mystery series with Flowers and Foul Play. Fiona Knox lost her fiancé and her flower shop, but when she flies to Scotland after she inherits her godfather’s cottage and possibly a magical walled garden, she may lose her life when she’s swept into a murder investigation. (Release date is May 8.)

Southern private investigator Sarah Booth Delaney has an unusual case in Charmed Bones by Carolyn Haines. When she’s called to a school board meeting, she wasn’t expecting to face three Wiccan sisters who want to open a Wiccan school. She’s enlisted to find the real reason they came to town, but before she gets far, the sisters’ landlord is murdered, and all evidence points to the Wiccan sisters. (Release date is May 15.)

Catherine Isaac’s You Me Everything is a summer vacation in the French countryside for readers. Just months after she gave birth to their son, Laura left her boyfriend, Adam, because she was sick of his lies and his complete lack of interest in fatherhood. Adam moved to France to follow his dreams, unencumbered by a child he never wanted. But, ten years later when Laura’s mother is in a nursing home, she forces her to recognize that William needs his father in his life. So, Laura and ten-year-old William set off to spend the summer in France. Laura’s mission? To make Adam fall in love with his own son. (Release date is May 1.)

In Linda O. Johnston’s Pick and Chews, Carrie Kennersly, a technician for a local vet and owner of the Barkery & Biscuits dog bakery is caught up in murder when her boyfriend, veterinarian Dr. Reed Storme is accused of killing a former veterinary colleague who was trying to compete with him. Now, he’s a little more amenable to the amateur sleuth digging for clues. (Release date is May 8.)

Jenny Milchman brings us Wicked River. Honeymooners Doug and Natalie Larson want to start their lives together, on their own in the six million acres of Adirondack forest, separated from civilization. But, just as they start to explore, it becomes clear they are not alone in the woods. As they struggle with the worst the wilderness has to offer, a man watches them, wielding the forest like a weapon. (Release date is May 1.)

Film rights have already been sold for Aimee Molloy’s The Perfect Mother. Set among a new mothers’ group in Brooklyn, the novel centers on an infant abduction that upends the lives of the women in the group. The story of betrayals, lies, and the pressures of modern motherhood, takes place in thirteen days in the record-breaking heat of July. (Release date is May 1.)

Beach House Reunion is the latest in Mary Alice Monroe’s Beach House series set on the Isle of Palms, South Carolina. This moving story of the strong Rutledge women brings Cara Rutledge home with her newly adopted baby daughter. She needs the help of her niece over the summer, and it’s a summer that will change everyone’s life, filled with love and courage. (Release date is May 22.)

Clare O’Donohue’s first World of Spies mystery, Beyond the Pale, might have been written just for me. Two tenured professors, Finn and Hollis Larsson, head to Ireland for a simple, twenty-minute job. Procure a priceless rare book manuscript. But, their contact doesn’t show. Now, they’re followed across Ireland as they search for the truth. Ireland, theatre, castles, craic. It doesn’t get any better. (Release date is May 8.)

Warlight is the new novel by Michael Ondaatje, author of The English Patient. In 1945, two teenagers in London are abandoned by their parents and left in the care of a near stranger – someone referred to only as The Moth. During the day, Nathaniel and his sister attend classes. At night, their home becomes crowded with an odd assortment of people. Then their mother returns, with no explanation, and without their father. Only years later does Nathaniel realize what was actually taking place, and the profound effect it had on their lives. (Release date is May 8.)

Nora Page’s first Bookmobile mystery, Better Off Read, introduces seventy-five-year-old librarian Cleo Watkins. When the roof at the local library is damaged in a storm, Cleo takes to the road to drum up support. But, one of her library supporters is murdered, and the local good ol’ boys are quick to pin the murder on Cleo’s best friend. Now, she has to fight for the library, and her friend’s freedom. (Release date is May 8.)

Shelter in Place is Nora Roberts’ latest novel. “It was a typical summer evening at a mall outside Portland, Maine – until the shooting began. For eight minutes the chaos and carnage spread – eight minutes that transformed the lives of everyone in its wake. Some had their futures stolen from them, while others would discover their true calling. But for one person, it would be the start of a far more calculated plan, one that would force the survivors to face an even greater test int he years to come. (Release date is May 29.)

Susan C. Shea takes readers back to France in Dressed for Death in Burgundy. Amateur sleuth Katherine Goff seems to have finally found her place in the small community of Reigny-sur-Canne. Then she stumbles across a body in the local museum during a tour, and sets out to clear a friend of suspicion of murder. (Release date is May 1.)

Graeme Simsion, author of The Rosie Project, teams up with Anne Buist for Two Steps Forward. It’s the story of a pilgrimage, a journey for Zoe, an artist from California still reeling from her husband’s sudden death, and Martin, an engineer from England who is recovering from a messy divorce. They meet at the beginning of the Camino de Santiago, the route walkers follow through northwest Spain, some on a religious journey, while others are on life’s journey. (Release date is May 1.)

Gloomy. Dark. Foreboding. Those are all words to describe Larry D. Sweazy’s atmospheric new Marjorie Trumaine mystery, See Also Proof. The isolation of a North Dakota winter is essential in creating the mood for a mystery that finds a young mentally challenged girl missing in a storm. The community turns out to search for her, but Marjorie and the sheriff find the local grocer shot to death. Sweazy is a master at creating atmosphere. (Release date is May 1.)

Jon Talton fictionalizes an actual Arizona bombing case in his latest David Mapstone mystery, The Bomb Shelter. Talton’s story is a about a Phoenix reporter killed by a car bomb forty years earlier. Three men went to prison, but was there more to the story of the assassination? David Mapstone, historian-turned-sheriff’s deputy is the perfect one to take on the case when the newly re-elected sheriff reopens the investigation. (Release date is May 2.)

Florence Nightingale must save her career by becoming an amateur sleuth in Christine Trent’s No Cure for the Dead. When a young nurse appears to have committed suicide at the Establishment for Gentlewomen During Temporary Illness, the new superintendent, Florence Nightingale, realizes she could lose her job. She doesn’t believe it’s suicide and sets out to find a killer in a historical mystery that reveals the conditions of hospitals and nursing before Nightingale took control. (Release date is May 8.)

Isn’t that one of the cutest covers you’ve ever seen on Betty Webb’s latest Gunn Zoo Mystery, The Otter of Death? While volunteering for the yearly otter count near Gunn Landing Harbor, zookeeper Teddy Bentley spies her favorite otter, Maureen, with a cell phone. That leads Teddy to find the body of the phone’s owner. The local Marine Biology instructor was known to sexually harass his female students. There are more suspects than just the one the local sheriff has picked as the primary suspect, and Teddy sets out to find a killer. (Release date is May 2.)

Boston and the Red Sox go hand-in-hand, but murder? In Pamela Wechsler’s latest Abby Endicott mystery, The Fens, the star catcher for the Red Sox goes missing on opening day. Then, another player turns up dead. Endicott, Boston’s chief homicide prosecutor, discovers greased baseballs and mysterious sums of cash. A lot more than the Red Sox’s season is in danger. (Release date is May 1.)

Tin Man by Sarah Winman is the intimate story of a working class man and all the loves and small kindnesses that make a life. (One of my best friends says this is a must-read.) Matt Haig, author of How to Stop Time, is quoted as saying, “It breaks your heart and warms it all at once.” (Release date is May 15.)

I’m always curious. Do any of these books appeal to you? Do you have other May releases you’re anticipating?

Other May Treasures in My Closet – As I said, there are so many May releases. Here’s the rest of what I have in my closet.

Alam, Rumaan – That Kind of Mother (May 8)
Barron, Laird – Blood Standard (May 29)
Blundell, Judy – The High Season (May 22)
Butler, Ellen – Isabella’s Painting (May 2)
Cohen, Elisabeth – The Glitch (May 22)
Fleet, Rebecca – The House Swap (May 22)
Fontaine, Tessa – The Electric Woman: A Memoir in Death-Defying Acts (May 1)
Gabel, AJA – The Ensemble (May 15)
Gobbell, Phyllis – Treachery in Tuscany (May 2)
Greenaway, R.M. – Creep: A B.C. Blues Crime Novel (May 15)
Hechtman, Betty – On the Hook (May 8)
Kidd, Jess – Mr. Flood’s Last Resort (May 1)
Kirsanow, Peter – Second Strike (May 15)
Klein, Randall – Little Disasters (May 22)
Krist, Gary – The Mirage Factory: Illusion, Imagination, and the Invention of Los Angeles (May 15)
Laukkanen, Owen – Gale Force (May 8)
Lepionka, Kristen – What You Want to See (May 1)
McCauley, Stephen – My Ex-Life (May 8)
McNamara, Frances – Death at the Selig Studios (May 29)
Orenduff, J. Michael – The Pot Thief Who Studied Edward Abbey (May 22)
Pataki, Allison – Beauty in the Broken Places: A Memoir of Love, Faith, and Resilience (May 1)
Pollan, Michael – How to Change Your Mind (May 15)
Poulson, David A. – Last Song Sung (May 29)
Richardson, Lance – House of Nutter: The Rebel Tailor of Saville Road (May 1)
Skalka, Patricia – Death Rides the Ferry (May 8)
Thompson, Victoria – Murder on Union Square (May 1)
Wallace, Auralee – Down the Aisle with Murder (May 1)
Weeks, Stephen – Sins of the Father (May 2)
Whishaw, Iona – It Begins in Betrayal (May 1)
Wolff, James – Beside the Syrian Sea (May 15)