If you thought there were a lot of titles coming out in April, wait until you see the May list! There are a number of beach reads on the May list, so those are added to the mysteries and crime fiction that normally appear here. In fact, a couple of the books I’m anticipating are beach reads. So, these are just the May Treasures in My Closet. Let me know what books you’re anticipating.

Lawyer, politician, romance author. Now, Stacey Abrams turns to a legal thriller with While Justice Sleeps. A brilliant young woman is a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Howard Wynn. When he slips into a coma, she’s shocked to learn he appointed her as his legal guardian. Then, she learns he was secretly researching a complex case, a proposed merger between an American biotech company and an Indian genetics firm. He suspected a dangerous conspiracy reaching into the highest power corridors in Washington. Now, Avery Keene is caught up in the case. (Release date is May 11.)

Aubrey Blake’s The Girl in His Shadow is a novel about a woman in medicine. Orphan Nora Brady was raised by the eccentric surgeon Dr. Horace Croft. Instead of practicing needlework and watercolors, she perfects her sutures and anatomical illustrations. Women face dire consequences if caught practicing medicine in Victorian times, but Nora is Croft’s trusted assistant. But, when a new surgical resident arrives, he doesn’t suspect Nora is more qualified than him, and she’ll have to play the role of a proper young lady. But, she can’t hide her skill when patients are suffering. And, when she makes a discovery that could change medicine forever, she has to decide if she’ll let the men take credit, or if she’ll let the world see her for what she is. (Release date is May 4.)

Even if I didn’t like the plot synopsis (and, I do), Kate Bromley’s Talk Bookish to Me would be my favorite title of the month. Kara Sullivan is a bestselling romance novelist and influential Bookstagrammer with a life full of love, although it’s fictional. She’s fine with getting her happily-ever-after fix between the covers of a book. But, she’s under a lot of stress with her best friend getting married in a week, and a deadline for her next novel,. She hasn’t written a word. Then, her first love appears in the wedding party, sparking creativity that inspires the steamy historical romance she desperately needs to deliver. Can she save her wedding duties, her novel, and, maybe write her own happy ending? (Release date is May 25.)

Laura Dave’s The Last Thing He Told Me is about a woman who thought she had found the love of her life. Then, he disappears a year later, leaving a note for his wife, “Protect Her.” Hannah knows Owen means his sixteen-year-old daughter, Bailey. Bailey lost her mother tragically as a child, and wants absolutely nothing to do with her new stepmother. When Owen’s boss is arrested, and a US marshal and federal agents arrive at their home, Hannah realizes her husband isn’t who he said he was. But, Hannah and Bailey believe there’s more to the story than the authorities suggest, and, if there are answers to be found, they’ll have to search for them, together. (Release date is May 4.)

The Summer Job is Lizzy Dent’s adult debut. Birdy has made a mistake. Everyone imagines running away from their life at some point. But Birdy has actually done it. When her best friend Heather ditches a summer gif at a hotel in the Scottish highlands, Birtdy covers for her. The only problem is, she hasn’t told Heather. And Heather happens to be a world class wine expert. Can Birdy survive a summer pretending to be her best friend? And can she stop herself from falling for the first man she’s ever actually liked, but who thinks she’s someone else? (Release date is May 18.)

Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Parasite and Other Tales of Terror is a collection of nine stories of suspense. It’s presented by the Horror Writers Association, and introduced by award-winning author Daniel Stashower. The author of the Sherlock Holmes stories had a talent for the macabre and the supernatural, showcased in this collection. (Release date is May 4.)

Caseen Gaines’ Footnotes: The Black Artists Who Rewrote the Rules of the Great White Way goes into my small personal collection of Broadway books for several reasons. First, it’s history of Broadway that I don’t know about. Second, it’s the story of “Shuffle Along,” composed by Noble Sissie and Eubie Blake, a hit in 1921. I was lucky enough to see the 2016 version on Broadway with Audra McDowell, Brandon Victor Dixon, Savion Glover, Billy Porter, Brian Stokes Mitchell, and Joshua Henry. I think I’m lucky again, to have a copy of this book. It may take me a while to get through it, but, as I said, this one is a keeper. (Release date is May 25.)

Librarian Lucy Richardson is finally marrying Connor McNeil in the eighth Lighthouse Library mystery, Deadly Ever After by Eva Gates. But, the wedding is at stake when a murder interrupts her engagement celebrations. Then, there’s that dog named Fluffy. Lucy agrees to temporarily take care of it, but Charles the library cat has other ideas. Humor mixes with murder in the latest from Gates. (Release date is May 11.)

This is one of those beach reads that I’m excited about reading, Emily Henry’s People We Meet on Vacation. I loved her book, Beach Read. Poppy and Alex have nothing in common. She has wanderlust; he prefers to stay home with a book. Somehow, though, ever since a car share home from college many years ago, they are the very best of friends. For most of the year, she lives in New York City, and he’s in their small hometown. But, every summer for a decade they have taken one glorious week of vacation together. Until two years ago, when they ruined everything, and they haven’t spoken since. When Poppy realizes the last time she was truly happy was that trip with Alex, she convinces him to take one more vacation together. Now, she has a week to fix everything. (Release date is May 11.)

Pam Jenoff follows The Lost Girls of Paris with another historical novel, The Woman with the Blue Star. In 1942, when the Nazis liquidate the Krakow ghetto, eighteen-year-old Sadie Gault and her mother are forced to seek refuge in the perilous sewers beneath the city. Ella Stepanek, an affluent Polish girl, is on an errand when she catches of glimpse of something moving beneath a grate in the street. Upon closer inspection, she realizes it’s a girl hiding. Ella begins to aid Sadie, and the two become close, but as the dangers of the war worsen, they are tested in the face of overwhelming odds. (Release date is May 4.)

It doesn’t surprise me that one of the blurbs for Michael Koresky’s Films of Endearment comes from Will Schwalbe, author of The End of Your Life Book Club. Like the earlier book, it deals with mother-son relationships. Film critic Koresky’s most formative memories were simple ones. A movie rental. A mug of tea. And a few shared hours with his mother. Years later, Koresky set out on a journey with his mother to discover more about their shared cinematic past. They rewatched ten films that she first introduced to him as a child, one from every year of the 80s, each featuring women leads. Koresky argues that the 80s should be called “The Decade of the Actress”. The book is the memoir of a young man, his dynamic mother, and the 80s movies they shared together. (Release date is May 4.)

Mary Kubica, author of The Other Mrs., now introduces Local Woman Missing. “People don’t just disappear without a trace…Shelby Tebow is the first to go missing. Not long after, Meredith Dickey and her six-year-old daughter, Delilah, disappear, striking fear into their once-peaceful community. Are these incidents connected? After an elusive search, the case eventually goes cold. Now, eleven years later, Delilah shockingly returns. Everyone wants to know what happened to her, but no one is prepared for what they’ll find. (Release date is May 18.)

Well, there’s a cover that screams beach read, Susan Mallery’s The Stepsisters. Once upon a time when her dad married Sage’s mom, Daisy was thrilled to get a bright and shiny new sister. But Sage was beautiful and popular, everything Daisy was not, and she made sure Daisy knew it. After their parents divorced, the stepsisters’ rivalry continued until the final show: Daisy married Sage’s first love, and Sage fled California. Eighteen years later, Daisy never expects, nor wants, to see Sage again. But when the little sister they have in common needs them both, they put aside their differences to care for Cassidy. No one is more surprised than the two of them when friendship develops. But, their fragile truce is threatened by one careless act. They could turn their backs on each other, or learn to forgive and become true sisters of the heart. (Release date is May 25.)

The plot may sound like a typical cozy for Mia P. Manansala’s debut Tita Rosie’s Kitchen mystery, Arsenic and Adobo, but the characters are original and fun. Lila Macapagal moves home after a break-up, and while working at Tita Rosie’s failing restaurant, her ex-boyfriend, a snarky food critic, dies. Lila’s accused of killing him, but her family and a group of matchmaking aunties will do their best to keep her out of prison. The aunties, the Filipino-American cast, and the amazing sounding food bring this mystery to life. (Release date is May 4.)

I’m not the only reviewer to think that the fourth Tish Tarragon mystery, The Curse of the Cherry Pie, is the best in Amy Patricia Meade’s series. In previous books, Tish, the amateur sleuth, had a few idiosyncrasies that started to bother me. This time, though, those flaws are missing. Tish wants to help a friend, so she enters the Virginia Commonwealth Bake-Off, hoping to be able to pass on some prize money. But, whenever she mentions her third baked good will be a cherry pie, she’s met with stories of previous contestants who died. Tish and her friends dig into the stories to uncover scandal and secrets in this mystery that will appeal to fans of “The Great British Baking Show”. (Release date is May 4.)

Road trip! There’s nothing I love more than a road trip novel, so I’m ready for Sarah Morgan’s The Summer Seekers. Kathleen is eighty years old. After she has a run-in with an intruder, her daughter wants her to move into a residential home. But, what Kathleen craves is adventure. Liza is drowning under the daily stress of family life. The last thing she needs is her mother jetting off on a wild holiday, making Liza long for a solo summer of her own. Martha is having a quarter-life crisis. Unemployed, unloved, and uninspired, she can’t get her life together. When Martha sees Kathleen’s advertisement for a driver and companion to share an epic road trip across America, she decides this job might be the answer to her prayers. Anything has to be better than living with her parents. And traveling with a stranger? No problem. How much trouble can one eighty-year-old woman be? (Release date is May 18.)

Viola Shipman’s books, including The Charm Bracelet and The Heirloom Garden are favorites of my mother’s and several friends. Shipman is a pen name for Wade Rouse, who uses his grandmother’s name for these books. The latest, The Clover Girls, features four girls who met at Camp Birchwood in the 1980s, where they were the inseparable Clover Girls for four summers. They’re now approaching middle age. Emily sends the other three a letter with devastating news, imploring them to reunite one last time at Camp Birchwood. But the women are not the same idealistic, confident girls from those summers, and perhaps some friendships aren’t meant to last forever. (Release date is May 18.)

Maggie Shipstead’s Great Circle tells of two vastly different women – a daredevil aviator and a disgraced Hollywood starlet – whose fates collide across geographies and centuries. It begins with the rescue of twins, Marian Graves and her brother, Jamie, from a sinking ocean liner in 1914. The novel tracks their lives across America and beyond as Marian pursues her dreams of becoming the first pilot to circumnavigate the globe over the North and South Poles. The story travels from Prohibition-era Montana to the skies of wartime Britain to the sound stages of modern Hollywood. (Release date is May 4.)

I have a disclaimer that goes with City of Dark Corners by Jon Talton. I read and loved this historical mystery, but I lived in Arizona for eight and a half years. I knew some of the history and some of the roads, so I really appreciated the book. Even if you never lived there, though, Jon Talton is an excellent writer and journalist. This mystery, set in Phoenix in 1933, brings that period and setting to life, a period during the Great Depression when people often chose to disappear. Great War veteran and rising star Gene Hammons lost his job as a homicide detective when he tried to prove that a woman was wrong convicted of murder. Now, he’s a private investigator, but his brother, a cop, still calls on him when a woman’s dismembered body is found near the railroad tracks. As Hammons investigates, he discovers the woman had secrets and connections to some of Phoenix’s most powerful citizens. Actual people and actual cases are part of Talton’s story of old Phoenix. (Release date is May 11.)

Ashley Weaver launches the Electra McDonnell series with A Peculiar Combination. Electra McDonnell and her family earn their living outside of the law, breaking into the homes of the rich and cracking their safes. With World War II in full swing, Uncle Mick’s locksmith business just can’t pay the bills any more. So when Uncle Mick receives a tips about a safe full of jewels in an empty house, he and Ellie can’t resist. All is going as planned, until they’re caught. But instead of arresting them, government official Major Ramsey has an offer. Either Ellie agrees to help him break into a safe and retrieve blueprints crucial to the British war effort, or he turns her over to the police. But, even their efforts go wrong, and Ellie and Major Ramsey are forced to put aside their differences to unmask a double agent, and stop Allied plans from falling into enemy hands. (Release date is May 11.)

Here are all those other treasures that were too many for the list above.

Bazelon, Lara – A Good Mother (5/11)

Blake, Robin – Secret Mischief (5/4)

Carity, Anna – Leda and the Swan (5/4)

Carter, May Dixie – The Photographer (5/25)

Coates, Darcy – The Whispering Dead (5/4)

Cry, Morgan – Thirty-One Bones (5/4)

Gerard, Anna – Peaches and Schemes (5/11)

Haines, Carolyn: Independent Bones: A Sarah Booth Delaney Mystery (5/18)

Harrison, Matte Ivie – The Prodigal Daughter (5/25)

Housewright, David – What Doesn’t Kill Us (5/25)

Korelitz, Jean Hanff – The Plot (5/11)

Logan, Kylie – A Trail of Lies (5/11)

McDowell, Christina – The Cave Dwellers (5/25)

Meister, Ellen – The Rooftop Party (5/25)

Mentink, Dana – Pint of No Return (5/25)

Nguyen, Eric – Things We Lost to the Water (5/4)

Park, Ishle Yi – Angel & Hannah (5/11)

Solomon, Rivers – Sorrowland (5/4)

Stratman, Liv – Cheat Day (5/25)

Swann, Stacey – Olympus, Texas (5/4)

Weir, Andy – Project Hail Mary (5/4)

Weisberger, Lauren – Where the Grass is Green and the Girls are Pretty (5/18)

Wilson, Carter – The Dead Husband (5/4)

Yates, Maisey – Confessions from the Quilting Circle (5/4)