May 2022 Book of the Month Predictions

It is that time of the month where all of us Book of the Month subscribers start to anxiously anticipate the next month’s releases. I am here to speculate and possibly predict which books will be selected for Book of the Month (BOTM) main picks and add-ons.

There are a ton of books being published in May and quite a few are by BOTM authors. It will be interesting to see which BOTM selections and which is passes over.

Contemporary & Literary Fiction

Love Marriage

Monica Ali

Yasmin Ghorami in twenty-six, in training to be a doctor (like her Indian-born father), and engaged to the charismatic, upper-class Joe Sangster, whose formidable mother, Harriet, is a famous feminist. The gulf between families is vast. So, too, is the gulf in sexual experience between Yasmin and Joe. Monica Ali has written a captivating social comedy and a profoundly moving, revelatory story of two cultures, two families, and two people trying to understand one another.

Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance

Alison Espach

Opening in the early nineties and charting almost two decades of shared history and missed connections, Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance is both a breathtaking love story about two broken people who are unexplainably, inconveniently drawn to each other and a wryly astute coming-of-age tale brimming with unexpected moments of joy.

Half-Blown Rose

Leesa Cross-Smith

An irresistible story of a woman remaking her life after her husband’s betrayal leads to a year of travel, art, and passion in Paris, from the award-winning author of This Close to Okay. In a journey that is both transportive and intimate, Half-Blown Rose traverses Paris, art, travel, liminal spaces, and the messy complexities of relationships and romance.

Repeat Author

Book of the Month

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The Lies I Tell

Most Anticipated Books of May 2022

April 2022 BOTM Selections

April 2022 BOTM Predictions

March 2022 BOTM Selections

March 2022 BOTM Predictions



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Remarkably Bright Creatures

Shelby Van Pelt

For fans of A Man Called Ove, a charming, witty and compulsively readable exploration of friendship, reckoning, and hope, tracing a widow’s unlikely connection with a giant Pacific octopus.

Debut

Neruda on the Park

Cleyvis Natera

An exhilarating debut novel following members of a Dominican family in New York City who take radically different paths when faced with encroaching gentrification. A beautifully layered portrait of family, friendship, and ambition, Neruda on the Park weaves a rich and vivid tapestry of community as well as the sacrifices we make to protect what we love most.

Debut

Yerba Buena

Nina Lacour

When Sara Foster runs away from home at sixteen, she leaves behind the girl she once was, capable of trust and intimacy. Years later, in Los Angeles, she is a sought-after bartender, renowned as much for her brilliant cocktails as for the mystery that clings to her. Across the city, Emilie Dubois is in a holding pattern, yearning for the beauty and community her Creole grandparents cultivated but unable to commit. On a whim, she takes a job arranging flowers at the glamorous restaurant Yerba Buena and embarks on an affair with the married owner.

Debut

What We Do In the Dark

Michelle Hart

Mallory is a freshman in college when she meets the woman. She sees her for the first time at the university’s gym, immediately entranced by this elegant, older person, whom she later learns is married and works at the school. Before long, they begin a clandestine affair. This simmering, unsettling debut novel reveals the consequences of desire and influence, portraying two women whose lives have been transformed by love, loss, and secrecy.

Debut


Historical Fiction

Bloomsbury Girls

Natalie Jenner

Natalie Jenner, the internationally bestselling author of The Jane Austen Society, returns with a compelling and heartwarming story of post-war London, a century-old bookstore, and three women determined to find their way in a fast-changing world.

Trust

Hernan Diaz

Even through the roar and effervescence of the 1920s, everyone in New York has heard of Benjamin and Helen Rask. He is a legendary Wall Street tycoon; she is the daughter of eccentric aristocrats. Together, they have risen to the very top of a world of seemingly endless wealth—all as a decade of excess and speculation draws to an end. But at what cost have they acquired their immense fortune?

Our Little World

Karen Winn

Perfect for readers of Celeste Ng’s Everything I Never Told You, Our Little World is a powerful and lyrical 1980s coming-of-age story that examines the complicated bond of sisterhood, the corrosive power of envy, and how the traumas of our youths can shape our identities for a lifetime.

Debut


Romance

Book Lovers

Emily Henry

Nora is a heroine for are her clients, for whom she lands enormous deals as a cutthroat literary agent, and her beloved little sister Libby. Which is why she agrees to go to Sunshine Falls, North Carolina for the month of August when Libby begs her for a sisters’ trip away, where Nora keeps bumping into Charlie Lastra, a bookish brooding editor from back in the city

Repeat Author

You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty

Akwaeke Emezi

New York Times bestselling author, National Book Award finalist, and my favorite author reimagines the love story in this fresh and seductive novel about a young woman seeking joy while healing from loss. It’s been five years since the accident that killed the love of Feyi’s life and she’s almost a new person now. Her best friend and flatmate Joy insists it’s time for Feyi to ease back into the dating scene. Feyi isn’t ready for anything serious, but a steamy encounter at a rooftop party cascades into a whirlwind summer she could have never imagined.

Repeat Author

Set on You

Amy Lea

Curvy fitness influencer Crystal Chen built her career shattering gym stereotypes and mostly ignoring the trolls. After her recent breakup, she has little stamina left for men, instead finding solace in the gym. Enter firefighter Scott Ritchie, the smug new gym patron who routinely steals her favorite squat rack. Sparks fly as these ultra-competitive foes battle for gym domination.

Debut

Every Summer After

Carley Fortune

Told over the course of six years and one weekend, Every Summer After is a big, sweeping nostalgic story of love and the people and choices that mark us forever.

Debut


Thrillers, Mysteries, & Horror

The Hacienda

Isabel Cañas

Mexican Gothic meets Rebecca in this debut supernatural suspense novel, set in the aftermath of the Mexican War of Independence, about a remote house, a sinister haunting, and the woman pulled into their clutches…

Debut

My Summer Darlings

May Cobb

Three lifelong friends plus a dangerous, sexy new stranger in town add up to a scorching summer of manipulation, obsession, and murder, from the acclaimed author of The Hunting Wives.

Repeat Author

Two Nights in Lisbon

Chris Pavone

Tautly wound and expertly crafted, Two Nights in Lisbon is a riveting thriller about a woman under pressure, and how far she will go when everything is on the line. Ariel Pryce wakes up in Lisbon, alone. Her husband is gone―no warning, no note, not answering his phone. Something is wrong.

Hide

Kiersten White

The challenge: Spend a week hiding in an abandoned amusement park and don’t get caught. The prize: enough money to change everything. Even though everyone is desperate to win—to seize a dream future or escape a haunting past—Mack is sure she can beat her competitors. All she has to do is hide, and she’s an expert at that. It’s the reason she’s alive and her family isn’t.

The Lies I Tell

Julie Clark

Meg. Maggie. Melody. Whatever name she’s using at the moment, she’s a con artist who slides into your life and takes everything when she leaves. Kat Roberts has been waiting ten years to expose the con artist who upended her life. Yet, when the con artist returns, Kat finds matters much more complicated than she realized.

Repeat Author & Early Release

Counterfeit

Kirstin Chen

For fans of Hustlers and How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, the story of two Asian American women who band together to grow a counterfeit handbag scheme into a global enterprise—an incisive and glittering blend of fashion, crime, and friendship.

Early Release


Fantasy, Science Fiction, & Magical Realism

Elektra

Jennifer Saint

A spellbinding reimagining of the story of Elektra, one of Greek mythology’s most infamous heroines, from Jennifer Saint, the author of the beloved international bestseller, Ariadne.

Repeat Author

This Time Tomorrow

Emma Straub

What if you could take a vacation to your past?

With her celebrated humor, insight, and heart, beloved New York Times bestseller Emma Straub offers her own twist on traditional time travel tropes, and a different kind of love story.

Repeat Author

City of Orange

David Yoon

A man who can not remember his own name wakes up in an apocalyptic landscape, injured and alone. He has vague memories of life before, but he can’t see it clearly and can’t grasp how his current situation came to be. He must learn to survive by finding sources of water and foraging for food. Then he encounters a boy–and he realizes nothing is what he thought it was, neither the past nor the present.

Repeat Author

When Women Were Dragons

Kelly Barnhill

A rollicking feminist tale set in 1950s America where thousands of women have spontaneously transformed into dragons, exploding notions of a woman’s place in the world and expanding minds about accepting others for who they really are from the Newbery award-winning author of The Girl Who Drank the Moon.

Siren Queen

Nghi Vo

Siren Queen offers up an enthralling exploration of an outsider achieving stardom on her own terms, in a fantastical Hollywood where the monsters are real and the magic of the silver screen illuminates every page.


Young Adult

I Kissed Shara Wheeler

Casey McQuiston

From the New York Times bestselling author of One Last Stop and Red, White & Royal Blue comes a debut YA romantic comedy about chasing down what you want, only to find what you need…

Repeat Author


Nonfiction

Mean Baby

Selma Blair

Selma Blair has played many roles: Ingenue in Cruel Intentions. Preppy ice queen in Legally Blonde. Muse to Karl Lagerfeld. Advocate for the multiple sclerosis community. But before all of that, Selma was known best as … a mean baby. In a memoir that is as wildly funny as it is emotionally shattering, Blair tells the captivating story of growing up and finding her truth.    


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