May turned into quite a month for my reading and beyond. There’s plenty to share, but for now, I’ll stick with some of the books that stuck with me (and a couple that missed the mark).
The Man Made of Smoke by Alex North
Published by Celadon Books
Publication date: May 13, 2025
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Daniel is a criminal profiler who works finding serial killers. He’s chosen this line of work because he’s haunted by having seen an abducted boy at a highway rest stop when he was 12 and did nothing to help him. Twenty years later, when The Man Made of Smoke opens Daniel gets a call that his father, a former constable has gone missing and has likely killed himself. He returns to the island where he grew up to wait for answers and close out his father’s affairs if need be, but while there he’s made aware of unsolved murders that bear a resemblance to the case he was part of when he was younger. When there’s another disappearance and likely murder, he starts investigating.
I’m a fan of North for a lot of reasons. I loved his last book The Angel Maker. His plots are detailed in ways that hide as much of the truth as they present. He’s also incredibly clever with every choice in his books. In this case, the parts of the novel are divided into the five stages of grief. This ties into the overriding emotion of a number of the characters, including Daniel and his father. Finally, he opts for fewer gory details which is a wise choice for readers like me because my imagination is so vivid I’m always going to go really dark.
I look for psychological complexity in my thrillers and North delivers, but a villain who felt a bit last minute kept this from being 5 stars. It did not stop me from reading it straight through in a day.
Published by St. Martin's Paperbacks
Publication date: May 6, 2025
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The Jane Austen Society series has been a welcome addition to my reading as steady, bright novels that are well-written and provide pure enjoyment. The latest addition is Austen at Sea and it’s about the two daughters of a state Supreme Court Justice who establish a correspondence with Frances Austen, Jane’s only surviving sibling. He invites them to visit so they take a steamship to England. There is intrigue in the guise of a reporter and two booksellers all of whom are interested in Austen. This is the late 1800s, after the Civil War and the suffragette movement was in full swing so the historical aspects of the novel and the characters who were real from the times provide the meat of the novel, but the romantic plots started to outweigh all else leaving me feeling the series has run its course.
Published by Dutton
Publication date: May 27, 2025
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Storybook Ending centers around three protagonists and one letter. April is in tech and works from home for a real estate site. Laura is a widow with a young daughter and works as a personal shopper for a local high-end department store. Westley is the handsome guy working at their favorite book store. April has a tremendous crush on him and decides to reach out the old-fashioned way by leaving a note in a book on his desk. A book that he hurriedly hands to Laura when she comes in looking for a copy. The two women inadvertently begin corresponding through letters left in a specified location in the store and Westley is left clueless.
First of all, this was fun because I was mentally replacing the business names from the story with the real local companies such as Nordstroms for the dept store and either Zillow or Redfin for the real estate sites. The book store is Third Place Books—one of my favorite stores here.
The plot line is charming even if I can’t remember the last time I wrote a letter. On the emotional side McDonald aptly conveys the loneliness the two women feel. April, for working from home and becoming more socially awkward even as she’d desperately like more people in her life, and Laura for whom trying to raise her daughter and stay afloat financially takes all her time.
The problem for me was Westley, who is presented as good looking enough that he’s never had to try for anything in life and just goes with whatever falls into his lap. He’s a bit shy, but mostly he comes across as a doofus. I had no patience for him after his second chapter in the book because it was rinse and repeat of the same drivel.
I wanted more Laura and April and less Westley, but that aside this was a fast, light spring read.
Abigail and Alexa Save the Wedding by Lian Dolan
Published by William Morrow & Company
Publication date: May 20, 2025
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As you see rom-com can be hit or miss for me so I’m thrilled to end on a high with Abigail and Alexa Save the Wedding, a romantic comedy that flipped the script. Penny and Chase are a dream couple—ambitious, hardworking New Yorkers who know what they want including very specific details for their wedding. Unfortunately, their mothers have completely different weddings in mind.
Abigail, the groom’s mother, is tremendously proud of her family’s heritage: basically, she’s a WASP and she stings. Finding out that her precious son is marrying a fatherless Greek girl with a career is not good news. She wants the wedding at their family home to showcase the wealth they no longer have. The mother of the bride, Alexa, is not so thrilled either. She’s a successful luxury travel planner living in an elite CA community. She doesn’t believe in marriage, raised Penny on her own, and had hoped she would follow in her footsteps and choose a less traditional life.
This could so easily get completely campy, but Dolan opts not to play into the women-fighting-women trope. While in the beginning each has internal dialogues about the other’s unsuitability or inadequacies, both Alexa and Abigail refrain from over-the-top dramatics or scheming.
Right now, when everything feels heavy there’s something to be said for reading that is light and bright. Abigail and Alexa has no deep message or underlying theme. It’s simply reading that fills you up rather than empties you out and requires no decision making or taking a stance. There’s no agitation in the story even when things don’t go as planned. Instead, it left me nothing but happy and glad I’d read it.
How was your May reading?
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*I received a free copy of these books from the publishers in exchange for an honest review.*
My two five star reads this May were Heartwood by Amity Gaige and Speak to Me of Home by Jeanine Cummins. They were such great stories of family, lostness, and overall, they were so immersive!
I’ve not heard of Cummins or her books. Is this one I should try?
Jeanine Cummins is the author of American Dirt, which I never did read. I had no context into her writing style. Her new book is not getting the positive or negative buzz that American Dirt did. However, I kept hearing that Speak to Me of Home was a good story. It was so immersive into the complexity of familial relationships, not knowing where you stand when immigrating to a new country. I also had never read any books based in Puerto Rico before this one. Overall, I highly recommend the read!
Interesting! I might take a look at that. I recently read fiction set at least partially in PR. It was so good but I cannot remember the title.
Hi CG, hearing you on the podcast is always a treat. Love hearing your thoughts on books and always entertaining. Things are really heavy politically etc. so I have added some lighter or faster ones to my summer reading list this year. I hope books keep us alive. Keep it going.
I’ve had some great reading so far this summer. That and stepping away from news and social media has been a lifesaver. I hope you’re doing well!
I also need and escape book. I’ve had such trouble getting through books this year. Abigail and Alexa save the wedding looks like such fun!
I’m struggling now as well. I was having a lot of success, but can’t seem to stick with anything this month.
It is a fun, fast book.