I hope the extensive April post for Treasures in My Closet didn’t give you false expectations. I don’t have as many May releases here. Of course, I’m sure there are many I missed. Let me know what you’re anticipating, please.

Disturbing the Dead is the third in Kelley Armstrong’s Rip Through Time series. Victorian Scotland is becoming less strange to modern-day homicide detective Mallory Atkinson. Though inhabiting someone else’s body will always be unsettling, even if her employers know that she’s not actually housemaid Catriona Mitchell, ever since the night both of them were attacked in the same dark alley 150 years apart. Mallory likes her job as assistant to undertaker/medical examiner Dr. Duncan Gray, and is developing true friends—and feelings—in this century. So, understanding the Victorian fascination with death, Mallory isn’t that surprised when she and her friends are invited to a mummy unwrapping at the home of Sir Alastair Christie. When their host is missing when it comes time to unwrap the mummy, Gray and Mallory are asked to step in. And upon closer inspection, it’s not a mummy they’ve unwrapped, but a much more modern body. (Release date is May 7.)

While the author’s blurb says A Lonesome Place for Dying is a debut, Nolan Chase has been published under the name Sam Wiebe. Until I read that, I kept thinking this is such a polished novel for a debut. In the quiet seaside town of Blaine, Washington, the most serious police work involves dealing with stray coyotes or ticketing speeders along the I-5. But on Ethan Brand’s first day as the town’s chief of police, he finds a threat on his porch, along with a gruesome souvenir, a bloody animal heart. There are plenty of people who are upset about Ethan replacing the last Chief, but when a body shows up on the railroad tracks, Ethan has to turn his focus from the threats against him to the first homicide case the town has seen in years. Blaine’s population is only five thousand, but eight million vehicles pass through its railroad crossing every year. It’s the perfect site for drug smuggling, human trafficking, larceny, and murder. (Release date is May 7.)

Krista Davis’ Domestic Diva mysteries are some of my favorite cozies, although the mystery hasn’t been very mysterious in the last couple books. But, the setting of Old Town Alexandria and all my favorite characters will be there in The Diva Goes Overboard. In Old Town Alexandria’s unlikeliest match, Natasha Smith’s free-spirited mother, Wanda, is engaged to notoriously pompous antiques dealer, Orson Chatsworth—leaving Natasha to plan the entire wedding, beginning with an elaborate engagement party. For the extravagant affair, Natasha splurges on trendy food boards created by rising social media star, Stella St. James. The sumptuous boards go way beyond basic cheese and crackers, as Stella dazzles guests with picture-worthy butter boards, dessert boards, and even doughnut boards. Just as Natasha planned, the food is to die for—until someone actually does. When the groom collapses, it seems as if a heart attack is to blame. Then guests discover Orson was poisoned, and suddenly Stella’s bespoke boards look a lot less appealing. (Release date is May 21.)

I’m a fan of Matt Goldman’s Nils Shapiro series, so I’m looking forward to reading Still Waters. If you’re reading this email, I am dead. I know this will sound strange, but someone has been trying to kill me. Liv and Gabe Ahlstrom are estranged siblings who haven’t seen each other in years, but that’s about to change when they receive a rare call from their older brother’s wife. “Mack is dead,” she says. “He died of a seizure.” Five minutes after they hang up, Liv and Gabe each receive a scheduled email from their dead brother, claiming that he was murdered. The siblings return to their family run resort in the Northwoods of Minnesota to investigate Mack’s claims, but Leech Lake has more in store for them than either could imagine. Drawn into a tangled web of lies and betrayal that spans decades, they put their lives on the line to unravel the truth about their brother, their parents, themselves, and the small town in which they grew up. After all, no one can keep a secret in a small town, but someone in Leech Lake is willing to kill for the truth to stay buried. (Release date is May 21.)

Stacie Grey’s She Left isn’t my normal type of reading, but I liked this one. Twenty years ago, she survived. This time she may not be so lucky.On the night that changed everything, Amy Brewer walked out of a house party, trudging angrily away from the friends who made her feel like she didn’t belong. Within the next hour, all five of those friends would be dead. The Memorial Day Massacre, as it came to be called, rocked their small California community and Amy―the girl who had walked away just in time―couldn’t escape the media circus…or the guilt.Twenty years later, ten people with connections to the crime have been invited to a remote cliffside house by a journalist looking to do a story on the murders. But the group quickly learns the event is not what it seems. As a storm closes in and guests begin to die, Amy realizes there is someone in the house who knows more than they admit about what happened that night long ago… and they will stop at nothing to protect their secrets. (Release date is May 14.)

Alison B. Hart’s April May June July sounds as if it has strong possibilities for an interesting story. April, May, June, and July Barber don’t have much in common anymore. An upcoming family wedding will place the four siblings in the same room for the first time in years. But shortly before, when April spots their father, who went missing while serving overseas a decade ago, their reunion becomes entirely more complicated. While the siblings’ search for the truth about their father forces them back into each other’s lives, it also intensifies their private dramas. Confronting the past together, April, May, June, and July will find not only answers about their father, but new romance, hope, and understanding as they learn to embrace the beauty of their shared history. (Release date is May 14.)

I’ve seen two readers comment that Jenn McKinlay’s Love at First Book was just what they needed. It isn’t hard to convince me with a romantic comedy set in Ireland, featuring a librarian and a bookstore. I’m in. Emily Allen, a librarian on Martha’s Vineyard, has always dreamed of a life of travel and adventure. So when her favorite author, Siobhan Riordan, offers her a job in the Emerald Isle, Emily jumps at the opportunity. After all, Siobhan’s novels got Em through some of the darkest days of her existence. Helping Siobhan write the final book in her acclaimed series—after a ten-year hiatus due to a scorching case of writer’s block—is a dream come true for Emily. If only she didn’t have to deal with Siobhan’s son, Kieran Murphy. He manages Siobhan’s bookstore, and the grouchy bookworm clearly doesn’t want Em around. (Release date is May 14.)

Here’s a debut that sounds a little different, Shanghailanders by Juli Min. 2040: Wealthy real estate investor Leo Yang—handsome, distinguished, a real Shanghai man—is on the train back to the city after seeing his family off at the airport. His sophisticated Japanese-French wife, Eko, and their two eldest children, Yumi and Yoko, are headed for Boston, though one daughter’s revelation will soon reroute them to Paris. 2039: Kiko, their youngest daughter and an aspiring actress, decides to pursue fame at any cost, like her icon Marilyn Monroe. 2038: Yumi comes to Yoko in need, after a college-dorm situation at Harvard goes disastrously wrong. As the years rewind to 2014, Shanghailanders brings readers into the shared and separate lives of the Yang family parent by parent, daughter by daughter, and through the eyes of the people in their orbit—a nanny from the provinces, a private driver with a penchant for danger, and a grandmother whose memories of the past echo the present. We glimpse a future where the city’s waters rise and the specter of apocalypse is never far off. But in Juli Min’s hands, we also see that whatever may change, universal constants remain: love is complex, life is not fair, and family will always be stubbornly connected by blood, secrets, and longing. (Release date is May 7.)

Are you familiar with British mystery author Amy Myers? According to her website, she’s written over seventy-four books, and she says, “The crime novels I write are varied and all of them fall roughly into the Agatha Christie field with a mystery at their heart and a sleuth to solve it.” I’ve actually only read a few of her books, but I liked them, and I’m looking forward to Murder at Tanton Towers, the first in a new series. Everyone told Cara Shelly that she was crazy to set up a cafe in the shadow of eccentric Kentish stately home Tanton Towers. But now, three years later, the forty-something single mother can’t believe her good luck. The Happy Huffkin cafe is thriving, and Cara considers the Tanton Towers staff – and its equally eccentric owners, Max and Alison – to be more like family than colleagues. Three cheers for Tanton Towers! But one beautiful summer evening, when Cara’s hard at work clearing up after closing time, Alison comes hurtling down to the cafe to beg her for help. It’s trouble – and of the worst kind. Daphne Hanson, queen of the Towers’ costume-clad dancing troupe – and the greatest nosy parker in Kent – is lying dead in the orangery. Strangled! But by whom? And why? (Release date is May 7.)

Children and social media. Onyi Nwabineli takes on that challenge in her novel, Allow Me to Introduce Myself. Anuri Chinasa has had enough. And really, who can blame her? She was the unwilling star of her stepmother’s social media empire before “momfluencers” were even a thing. For years, Ophelia documented every birthday, every skinned knee, every milestone and meltdown for millions of strangers to fawn over and pick apart. Now, at twenty-five, Anuri is desperate to put her way-too-public past behind her and start living on her own terms. But it’s not going so great. She can barely walk down the street without someone recognizing her, and the fraught relationship with her father has fallen apart. Then there’s her PhD application (still unfinished) and her drinking problem (still going strong). When every detail of her childhood was so intensely scrutinized, how can she tell what she really wants? Still, Ophelia is never far away and has made it clear she won’t go down without a fight. With Noelle, Anuri’s five-year-old half sister now being forced down the same path, Anuri discovers she has a new mission in life…
To take back control of the family narrative. (Release date is May 28.)

Let’s end with an intriguing title, The Library Thief by Kuchenga Shenje. 1896. After he brought her home from Jamaica as a baby, Florence’s father had her hair hot-combed to make her look like the other girls. But as a young woman, Florence is not so easy to tame—and when she brings scandal to his door, the bookbinder throws her onto the streets of Manchester. Intercepting her father’s latest commission, Florence talks her way into the forbidding Rose Hall to restore its rare books. Lord Francis Belfield’s library is old and full of secrets—but none so intriguing as the whispers about his late wife…  (Release date is May 7.)

What about you? What books are on your TBR pile for May?