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Hide Your Wallet: May 7th Release Week!

We’re officially in May!

This month is so busy when it comes to new releases. Sometimes I find it hard to keep up or even decide what to read. It’s a real paralysis of choice so then I wind up reading nothing at all. Anyone else in that boat?

What are you excited for this week? Let us know in the comments!

Five Broken Blades

Five Broken Blades by Mai Corland

Author: Mai Corland
Released: May 7, 2024 by Entangled: Red Tower Books
Genre: , ,
Series: The Broken Blades #1

It’s the season
for treason…

The king of Yusan must die.

The five most dangerous liars in the land have been mysteriously summoned to work together for a single to kill the God King Joon.

He has it coming. Under his merciless immortal hand, the nobles flourish, while the poor and innocent are imprisoned, ruined…or sold.

And now each of the five blades will come for him. Each has tasted bitterness—from the hired hitman seeking atonement, a lovely assassin who seeks freedom, or even the prince banished for his cruel crimes. None can resist the sweet, icy lure of vengeance.

They can agree on murder.

They can agree on treachery.

But for these five killers—each versed in deception, lies, and betrayal—it’s not enough to forge an alliance. To survive, they’ll have to find a way to trust each other…but only one can take the crown.

Let the best liar win.

Amanda: Seems like a good about of fantasy and mystery and perhaps some romance.

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The Five Year Lie

The Five Year Lie by Sarina Bowen

Author: Sarina Bowen
Released: May 7, 2024 by Harper Paperbacks
Genre:

She thought it was love. Then he vanished.

On an ordinary Monday morning, Ariel Cafferty’s phone buzzes with a disturbing text message. Something’s happened. I need to see you. Meet me under the candelabra tree ASAP. The words would be jarring from anyone, but the sender is the only man she ever loved. And it’s been several years since she learned he died.

Seeing Drew’s name pop up is heart-stopping. Ariel’s gut says it can’t be real. But she goes to the tree anyway. She has to.

Nobody shows. But the text upends everything she thought she knew about the day he left her. The more questions she asks, the more sinister the answers get. Only two things are clear: everything she was told five years ago is wrong, and someone is still lying to her.

The truth has to be out there somewhere. To safeguard herself—and her son—she’ll have to find it before it finds her. And with it, the answer to what became of Drew.

With a heart-stopping romance that only Sarina Bowen can execute, The Five Year Lie is a page-turning, spine-tingling thriller that will have you guessing until the very end.

Sarina Bowen is coming out with a mystery!

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Love, Lies, and Cherry Pie

Love, Lies, and Cherry Pie by Jackie Lau

Author: Jackie Lau
Released: May 7, 2024
Genre: ,

A charming and clever rom-com about a young woman’s desperate attempts to fend off her meddling mother…only to find that maybe mother does know best.

Mark Chan this. Mark Chan that.

Writer and barista Emily Hung is tired of hearing about the great Mark Chan, the son of her parents’ friends. You’d think he single-handedly stopped climate change and ended child poverty from the way her mother raves about him. But in reality, he’s just a boring, sweater-vest-wearing engineer, and when they’re forced together at Emily’s sister’s wedding, it’s obvious he thinks he’s too good for her.

But now that Emily is her family’s last single daughter, her mother is fixated on getting her married and she has her sights on Mark. There’s only one solution, clearly: convince Mark to be in a fake relationship with her long enough to put an end to her mom’s meddling. He reluctantly agrees.

Unfortunately, lying isn’t enough. Family friends keep popping up at their supposed dates—including a bubble tea shop and cake-decorating class—so they’ll have to spend more time together to make their relationship look real. With each fake date, though, Emily realizes that Mark’s not quite what she assumed and maybe that argyle sweater isn’t so ugly after all… all…

Sarah: New! Jackie! Lau! New! Jackie! Lau!

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The Ministry of Time

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley

Author: Kaliane Bradley
Released: May 7, 2024 by Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster
Genre: , ,

A time travel romance, a speculative spy thriller, a workplace comedy, and an ingeniously constructed exploration of the nature of truth and power and the potential for love to change it Welcome to The Ministry of Time, the exhilarating debut novel by Kaliane Bradley.

In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and is, shortly afterward, told what project she’ll be working on. A recently established government ministry is gathering “expats” from across history to establish whether time travel is feasible—for the body, but also for the fabric of space-time.

She is tasked with working as a “bridge”: living with, assisting, and monitoring the expat known as “1847” or Commander Graham Gore. As far as history is concerned, Commander Gore died on Sir John Franklin’s doomed 1845 expedition to the Arctic, so he’s a little disoriented to be living with an unmarried woman who regularly shows her calves, surrounded by outlandish concepts such as “washing machine,” “Spotify,” and “the collapse of the British Empire.” But he adjusts quickly; he is, after all, an explorer by trade. Soon, what the bridge initially thought would be, at best, a seriously uncomfortable housemate dynamic, evolves into something much more. Over the course of an unprecedented year, Gore and the bridge fall haphazardly, fervently in love, with consequences they never could have imagined.

Supported by a chaotic and charming cast of characters—including a 17th-century cinephile who can’t get enough of Tinder, a painfully shy World War I captain, and a former spy with an ever-changing series of cosmetic surgery alterations and a belligerent attitude to HR—the bridge will be forced to confront the past that shaped her choices, and the choices that will shape the future.

An exquisitely original and feverishly fun fusion of genres and ideas, The Ministry of Time asks the universal What happens if you put a disaffected millennial and a Victorian polar explorer in a house together?

Amanda: This gives me vibes of a lot of books I’ve previously enjoyed like stuff from Jasper Fforde and This Is How You Lose the Time War.

Elyse: This book looks like so much fun and reminds me vaguely of the series Loki.

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Mistakes We Never Made

Mistakes We Never Made by Hannah Brown

Author: Hannah Brown
Released: May 7, 2024 by Forever
Genre: ,

Bachelorette fan-favorite and New York Times bestselling author Hannah Brown delivers the perfect beach read with her fiction debut—“a fun, fast, epic rom-com” (Abby Jimenez, #1 New York Times bestselling author). 

Emma Townsend can sum up her situationship with hot-as-hell romantic red flag Finn Hughes in one word: almost. They almost dated in high school. They almost hooked up after college. They almost took things too far one magical night. Their whole story is one series of “almosts” and “nearlys,” and now they just kind of can’t stand each other. Like, at all.

But this weekend, one of their mutuals is getting married . . . and Emma and Finn will have to pretend they don’t remember how disastrous it was the last time they were in a room together.

Emma’s doing a stellar job of playing it cool—until the bride goes missing. Now, with two days before the wedding, Emma and Finn are hitting the road in a sweet vintage sports car in hopes of salvaging someone else’s happily-ever-after.

Yet somewhere between Emma’s breakfast burrito throw down, a high-stakes kayak chase (it can happen), and an outrageous Vegas detour, these sworn enemies are crossing more than just state lines. As old feelings spark once more, Emma begins to question whether risking your heart is ever really a mistake.

Elyse: This book was co-authored by The Bachelor and Bachelorette‘s Hannah Brown so I’m intrigued.

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One Last Shot

One Last Shot by Betty Cayouette

Author: Betty Cayouette
Released: May 7, 2024 by St. Martin's Griffin
Genre: ,

From the creator of viral TikTok account Betty’s Book List, a debut romance about a supermodel and a photographer with a past marriage pact who meet again ten years later on a photoshoot in Cinque Terre, Italy.

From the moment Emerson and Theo met as teenagers, they were inseparable. But just when they finally expressed their feelings to one another, they were torn apart.

Now, supermodel Emerson is nearing her twenty-eighth birthday, and she’s tired of looking for love in all the wrong places. When the calendar reminder for the marriage pact she and Theo made as teens goes off on her phone, she realizes this is it—her chance to rekindle the only romance that ever really made sense. Emerson convinces her grumpy agent to book her as the face of the fashion campaign that Theo, now a fashion photographer, is shooting. The good news: the campaign is being shot in ridiculously romantic Cinque Terre, Italy. The bad news? Theo might not be as happy to see her as she’d hoped.

The two embark on a four-day campaign that tests not only their feelings, but their ability to keep their hands off one another. But as roadblock after roadblock keeps them apart, Emerson starts to wonder: will this photoshoot be the key to getting one last shot at love, or will it be a final goodbye?

Debut contemporary romance by a BookTok-er! 

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The Takedown

The Takedown by Lily Chu

Author: Lily Chu
Released: May 7, 2024 by Sourcebooks Casablanca
Genre: ,

Love and Vanity meets Succession in a clever, funny, and romantic uplit about wealth, power, family, and love from rising star Lily Chu.

For Dee Kwan, every day is the perfect day. No, really. She has a house she loves, a job she adores, and a ridiculously attractive “nemesis” who never seems to mind when she wins their favorite online game. How can life possibly get better? (It can’t, obviously. It can only get much, much worse.)

Soon Dee is forced to share her adorably cozy home with her parents and prickly estranged grandmother. Then she’s tossed into the deep end, tasked with cleaning up a scandal for intimidatingly chic luxury fashion firm Celeste. If that weren’t enough, she discovers her hot-nemesis works there, too…and Teddy is nothing like the man she thought she knew.

Before she can cry foul, Teddy comes clean about his double he’s the heir to the CEO and he needs her help to make Celeste a better place—for everyone. But that means taking down the old guard—including his father—intent on standing in their way. Now in the center of a dizzying corporate coup, Dee is forced to decide whether she’s ready to stop watching the world through rose-colored glasses and instead face the about herself, about her feelings for Teddy, and about what she’s willing to do to truly make a difference.

Elyse: I will read anything Chu writes!

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May 2024 Queer Romances

Bookshelves everywhere are getting ready for Pride Month, and these are just five of the glorious May Flowers that’ll get your spring blooming, if you know what I mean. (You know what I mean.)

Lavash at First Sight

Lavash at First Sight by Taleen Voskuni

Author: Taleen Voskuni
Released: May 7, 2024 by Berkley
Genre: , ,

Sparks fly between two women pitted against each other in this delectable new romantic comedy by Taleen Voskuni, author of Sorry, Bro.

Twenty-seven-year-old Nazeli “Ellie” Gregorian enjoys the prestige of her tech marketing job but is sick of the condescending Patagonia-clad tech bros, her micromanaging boss, and her ex-boyfriend, who she’s forced to work with every day. When Ellie’s lovingly overbearing parents ask her to attend PakCon—a food packaging conference in Chicago—to help promote their company and vie to win an ad slot in the Superbowl (no big deal), she’s eager for a brief change and a delicious distraction.

At the conference, she meets witty, devil-may-care Vanya Simonian. Ellie can’t believe how easy it is to talk to Vanya and how much they have in common—both Armenian! From the Bay Area! Whose families are into food! Their meet-cute is cut short, however, when Ellie’s parents recognize Vanya as the daughter of the owners of their greatest rival, whose mission (according to Ellie’s mother) is to whitewash and package Armenian food for the American health-food crowd.

Sworn as enemies, Ellie and Vanya must compete against each other under their suspicious parents’ scrutiny, all while their feelings for each other heat to sizzling temps.

Voskuni won me over with her witty, chemistry-filled debut and its unique homage to Armenian culture, so I’ve been anxiously awaiting the follow-up, and am delighted to see it promising many of the same vibes.

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You Should Be So Lucky

You Should Be So Lucky by Cat Sebastian

Author: Cat Sebastian
Released: May 7, 2024 by Avon
Genre: , ,

An emotional, slow-burn, grumpy/sunshine, queer mid-century romance about grief and found family, between the new star shortstop stuck in a batting slump and the reporter assigned to (reluctantly) cover his first season—set in the same universe as We Could Be So Good.

The 1960 baseball season is shaping up to be the worst year of Eddie O’Leary’s life. He can’t manage to hit the ball, his new teammates hate him, he’s living out of a suitcase, and he’s homesick. When the team’s owner orders him to give a bunch of interviews to some snobby reporter, he’s ready to call it quits. He can barely manage to behave himself for the length of a game, let alone an entire season. But he’s already on thin ice, so he has no choice but to agree.

Mark Bailey is not a sports reporter. He writes for the arts page, and these days he’s barely even managing to do that much. He’s had a rough year and just wants to be left alone in his too-empty apartment, mourning a partner he’d never been able to be public about. The last thing he needs is to spend a season writing about New York’s obnoxious new shortstop in a stunt to get the struggling newspaper more readers.

Isolated together within the crush of an anonymous city, these two lonely souls orbit each other as they slowly give in to the inevitable gravity of their attraction. But Mark has vowed that he’ll never be someone’s secret ever again, and Eddie can’t be out as a professional athlete. It’s just them against the world, and they’ll both have to decide if that’s enough.

Cat Sebastian, man. She is just so good at what she does. You cannot forget for a moment exactly what era you’re in when reading, to the extent I swear sometimes I feel like I’m on a movie set when I’m reading her work, it’s so immersive and consuming. This was a great followup to We Could Be So Good (with some lovely cameos!); I loved experiencing the ways both protagonists moved forward to forge a new future in the wake of unforeseen circumstances, wrapped up in a story of grief, journalism, and of course, baseball. Another home run from Sebastian, for sure.

 

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Second Night Stand

Second Night Stand by Karelia Stetz-Waters

Author: Karelia Stetz-Waters
Released: May 21, 2024 by Forever
Genre: , ,

One hook-up is about to become one seriously hilarious situationship in this vibrant and lively romantic comedy about taking chances . . . and breaking the rules.

Prima ballet dancer Lillian Jackson is all about control—on stage and in bed. Which is precisely why she keeps her hook-ups to one night, and one night only. No strings. No phone numbers. No scones in the morning. There’s no room for mistakes, especially now that her dance company’s survival depends entirely on winning a million-dollar cash prize in one of America’s biggest reality competitions. That is, until one night with a certain curvy, blue-haired siren changes everything . . .

As burlesque dancer “Blue Lenox,” Izzy Wells is the queen of on-stage seduction. Almost no one knows that she’s close to losing everything—her theater, her home, and her troupe—unless she wins this competition. Now she’s going toe-to-toe with a gorgeous ballerina in front of the world. The chemistry between them is hot, but even more distracting are the feelings they’re starting to develop. There’s no way Lillian can fit Izzy into her life, and Izzy knows better than to fall for someone who can’t put her first. But if they can make it through the show with their hearts and dreams intact, they just might win the biggest prize of all.

I have such a soft spot for real-life couples writing together, but I’m not sure I’ve ever felt the actual love bleeding from the pages the way I did reading this first collaboration between the Stetz-Waters duo. The pairing of Lillian and Izzy is Opposites Attract to the max, but in the most “You complete me” way imaginable that has you knowing that when one of them has a bad day, she’s going to sink into the other’s arms and it’ll make it all better. Yes, this book made me sappy, and I am not ashamed.

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Nearlywed

Nearlywed by Nicolas DiDomizio

Author: Nicolas DiDomizio
Released: May 21, 2024 by Sourcebooks Casablanca
Genre: , ,

An engaged couple’s compatibility is put to the test during their ill-fated early honeymoon in this smart, dazzling, and provocative summer comedy perfect for fans of People We Meet on Vacation.

5 Signs You and Your Fiancé Might Be Secretly Incompatible…and #3 Will Shock You!

Ray Bruno and Kip Hayes are horrible on paper. Ray is a chaotic millennial ex-clickbait-writer who’s been oversharing his every thought online since he was a teenager, and Kip is a pragmatic Gen X doctor who values privacy above all else.

But somehow it all manages to work…until Ray convinces Kip to join him for an early honeymoon at a famous lux resort in Ray’s coastal New England hometown, eschewing the tradition of bachelor parties and hoping to recharge before their end-of-August wedding. When a surprising encounter with another couple at the resort leads to a series of escalating mishaps and miscommunications, Ray and Kip are forced to look at their many differences in a stark new light, turning the trip into less of a vacation and more of a test: will they be able to work through their issues in time for the big day? Or is this marriage over before it begins?

You generally know a book by Nicolas DiDomizio is going to result in some literal LOLs (and this one definitely did), but I think this is also the first standalone romance I’ve ever read where the couple is committed to each other before the book begins. I’ll admit I went in a little skeptical; it’s hard to make readers care about a couple when you didn’t see them get together, and harder to have a plot that doesn’t revolve around wild, unbelievable miscommunications. But DiDomizio handles both with aplomb, centering communication issues on the characters themselves, and the way both their pasts and their respective generations’ (Millennial and Gen X, in this case) experiences of queerness have shaped them.

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A Little Kissing Between Friends

A Little Kissing Between Friends by Chencia Higgins

Author: Chencia Higgins
Released: May 28, 2024 by Carina Adores
Genre: , ,

Music producer on the rise Cyn Tha Starr knows what she likes, from her sickening beats in the studio to the flirty femmes she fools around with. Her ever-rotating roster has never been a problem until her latest fling clashes with Jucee, her best friend and the most popular dancer at strip club Sanity.

It makes Cyn see Jucee in a different light. One with far fewer boundaries and a lot more kissing.

Juleesa Jones makes great money dancing the early shift and spends most evenings with her son, her Sanity family or at Cyn’s house. Relationships are not high on the priority list—until she’s forced to admit that maybe friendship isn’t the only thing she wants from her bestie.

But hooking up with your ride-or-die is risky. Jucee isn’t just Cyn’s best friend—Jucee is her muse. When Cyn lays down her beats, it’s Jucee she imagines in the club throwing it back to every note. If they aren’t careful, this could crash and burn…but isn’t real love worth it?

Higgins’ followup to the much-beloved D’Vaughn and Kris Plan a Wedding looks absolutely delightful. Best friends with benefits turned best friends to lovers between a music producer and a dancing single mom? The stakes are real, and so’s the potential for something serious. Something tells me this is gonna be the kind of romance novel that makes you do that little squeal with your legs kicking in the air.

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