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May is here and with it comes a host of amazing titles to add to your TBR pile!

We have picked out 10 of the hottest books released in May 2022 from fiction to non-fiction. We have included a dark and funny take on classic fairytales, an unsettling thriller, a filthy tale from the infamous John Waters, and a reflective non-fiction title about the nature of today’s social-media-driven society, and much more!

Check out the whole list below and see if we have found your favourite book of the year so far.

how to be eaten maria adelmann 1

How To Be Eaten – Maria Adelmann

Released 31st May 2022

“In present-day New York City, five women meet in a basement support group to process their traumas. 

Though the women start out wary of one another, judging each other’s stories, gradually they begin to realise that they may have more in common than they supposed . . . What really brought them here? What secrets will they reveal? And is it too late for them to rescue each other?

Dark, edgy, and wickedly funny, this debut for readers of Carmen Maria Machado, Kristen Arnett, and Kelly Link takes our cosiest, most beloved childhood stories, exposes them as anti-feminist nightmares, and transforms them into a new kind of myth for grown-up women.”

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you have a friend in 10a maggie shipstead

You Have A Friend in 10A – Maggie Shipstead

Released May 17th 2022

“From the Booker Prize nominee and New York Times best-selling author of Great Circle, a piercing, irresistible first collection of short stories exquisite in their craft and audacious in their range

A love triangle plays out over decades on a Montana dude ranch. A hurdler and a gymnast spend a single night together in the Olympic village. Mistakes and mysteries weave an intangible web around an old man’s deathbed in Paris, connecting disparate destinies. On the slopes of an unfinished ski resort, a young woman searches for her vanished lover. A couple’s Romanian honeymoon goes ominously awry, and, in the mesmerising title story, a former child actress breaks with her life in a Hollywood cult.”

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adrian mckinty the island

The Island – Adrian McKinty

Released May 17th 2022

“A family on holiday discover a remote Dutch Island, off-limits to outside visitors. Run by a tightly knit clan of locals the family soon discovers that everything feels… wrong. Then a shocking accident propels Heather and her family from an unsettling situation into an absolute nightmare.

Heather has been underestimated her entire life, but she knows that only she can bring her family home again and become the mother the children desperately need, even if it means doing the unthinkable to keep them all alive.”

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Bitter Orange Tree – Jokha Alharthi

Released May 10th 2022

“Zuhour, an Omani student at a British university, is caught between the past and the present. As she attempts to form friendships and assimilate in Britain, she can’t help but ruminate on the relationships that have been central to her life. Most prominent is her strong emotional bond with Bint Amir, a woman she always thought of as her grandmother, who passed away just after Zuhour left the Arabian Peninsula.

As the historical narrative of Bint Amir’s challenged circumstances unfurls in captivating fragments, so too does Zuhour’s isolated and unfulfilled present, one narrative segueing into another as time slips and dreams mingle with memories.”

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Liarmouth – John Waters

Released May 3rd 2022

“A hilariously filthy tale of sex, crime, and family dysfunction from the brilliantly twisted mind of John Waters, the legendary filmmaker and bestselling author of Mr. Know-It-All.

Marsha Sprinkle: Suitcase thief. Scammer. Master of disguise. Dogs and children hate her. Her own family wants her dead. She’s smart, she’s desperate, she’s disturbed, and she’s on the run with a big chip on her shoulder. They call her “Liarmouth”―until one insane man makes her tell the truth.

John Waters’s first novel, Liarmouth, is a perfectly perverted “feel-bad romance,” and the reader will thrill to hop aboard this delirious road trip of riotous revenge.”

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Hidden Pictures – Jason Rekulak

Released May 10th 2022

“Fresh out of rehab, Mallory Quinn takes a job as a babysitter for Ted and Caroline Maxwell. She is to look after their five-year-old son, Teddy.

Mallory immediately loves it. Teddy is a sweet, shy boy, never without his sketchbook and pencil. His drawings are the usual fare: trees, rabbits, balloons. 

Then, Teddy’s artwork becomes increasingly sinister, and his stick figures quickly evolve into lifelike sketches well beyond the ability of any five-year-old.

Knowing just how crazy it all sounds, Mallory nevertheless sets out to decipher the images and save Teddy before it’s too late.”

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Happy Go Lucky – David Sedaris

Released May 31st 2022

“When the pandemic hits, Sedaris is stuck in lockdown, like so many others are, unable to tour and read for audiences, the part of his work he loves most. To cope, he walks for miles through a nearly deserted city, smelling only his own breath. He vacuums his apartment twice a day, fails to hoard anything, and contemplates how sex workers and acupuncturists might be getting by during quarantine.

As the world gradually settles into a new reality, Sedaris too finds himself changed. His offer to fix a stranger’s teeth rebuffed, he straightens his own, and ventures into the world with new confidence. Newly orphaned, he considers what it means, in his seventh decade, no longer to be someone’s son. And back on the road, he discovers a battle-scarred America: people weary, storefronts empty or festooned with Help Wanted signs, walls painted with graffiti reflecting the contradictory messages of our time.

David Sedaris once again captures what is most unexpected, hilarious, and poignant about these recent upheavals, personal and public, and expresses in precise language both the misanthropy and desire for connection that drive us all.”

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Now What? – Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers

Released May 3rd 2022

“From friendships to Facebook to far-off countries, what do we do when our lives seem mired in conflict? How do we find connection when our differences are constantly on display and even exacerbated by algorithms and echo chambers? How do we build a kinder society?

If you are tired of the anxiety, frustration, and fear that pervade your connections with other people, both online and in real life, Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers want you to know one thing–you are not alone. In this book they will help you understand the powerful connections you have with other people on a personal, community-based, national, and even international level.”

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Every Summer After – Carley Fortune

Released May 10th 2022

“Instead of glittering summers on the lakeshore of her childhood, Persephone Fraser spends them in a stylish apartment in the city, going out with friends, and keeping everyone a safe distance from her heart.

Until she receives the call that sends her racing back to Barry’s Bay and into the orbit of Sam Florek—the man she never thought she’d have to live without.

For six summers, through hazy afternoons on the water and warm summer nights working in his family’s restaurant and curling up together with books—medical textbooks for him and work-in-progress horror short stories for her—Percy and Sam had been inseparable. Eventually that friendship turned into something breathtakingly more, before it fell spectacularly apart.

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.”

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American Seoul – Helena Rho

Released May 1st 2022

“Helena Rho was six years old when her family left Seoul, Korea, for America and its opportunities. Years later, her Korean-ness behind her, Helena had everything a model minority was supposed to want: she was married to a white American doctor and had a beautiful home, two children, and a career as an assistant professor of paediatrics. For decades she fulfilled the expectations of others. All the while Helena kept silent about the traumas―both professional and personal―that left her anxious yet determined to escape. It would take a catastrophic event for Helena to abandon her career at the age of forty, recover her Korean identity, and set in motion a journey of self-discovery.”

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We hope you find some good suggestions there and we’ll be back with more recommendations lists soon. If you want to ensure you never miss any of these, subscribe now.



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