Tantalizing Tales — May 2025 — Part Three

Hello, readers! We’re doing a third roundup column of Most Anticipated Titles this May because there are so many good books still pouring in here at the end of the month and in the first weeks of June. Gosh, how is it almost June already? It feels like we were just slogging through the five years of January before suddenly fast-forwarding to the start of summer!

It’s perhaps a little ironic then that the first selection I have for you today is a book super high on my interest list, Caitlin Rozakis’ The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association (and not just because I had a lunchtime meeting today about my kids transitioning to middle school soon!) As a lifelong lover of the magical school trope, I was totally sold on reading about the subject from the perspective of an over-worked parent, now that I am one myself.

When Vivian’s six year-old daughter Aria is bitten by a werewolf, they’re plunged into the previously hidden world of paranormal education. Back-to-school shopping is always a little disorienting, but Vivian soon finds herself in the unexpected position of having to make sure Aria has things like just the right sacrificial dagger and chew toys to fit in.

Meanwhile, Vivian also has to navigate PTA politics, with sirens and chthonic nymphs and people who can literally set her hair on fire. The biggest challenge of all, however, might be dealing with a prophecy of doom that sounds suspiciously like it’s about Aria. Every parent thinks their kid is special but this is way more than Vivian ever anticipated.

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Our next title comes from one of my favorite authors, as Jesse Q Sutanto updates the legend of Mulan for the 21st century in Worth Fighting For.

As the right hand person of her father’s hedge fund company, Fa Mulan knows what it takes to succeed as a woman in a man’s world: work twice as hard, be twice as smart, and burp twice as loudly as any of the other finance bros she works with. So when her father unexpectedly falls ill in the middle of a critical acquisition, she’s determined to see it through herself.

There’s just one problem. The family-run company that she’s trying to purchase is known for its ultra-masculine whiskey brand. The brood of old-fashioned aunts, uncles and cousins who run it — led by the dedicated but overworked Shang — will only trust Mulan’s father, Fa Zhou, with the future of their business.

Rather than fail the deal and her father, Mulan decides to pretend that she’s Fa Zhou. Since they’ve only ever corresponded over email, how hard could it be to keep things moving in his absence?

But the email leads to a face-to-face meeting, which leads to an invitation to a week long retreat at Shang’s family ranch. One meeting she can handle, but a whole week of cattle wrangling, axe-throwing and learning proper butchering techniques, all while trying to convince Shang’s dubious family that this young woman is the powerful hedge fund CEO they’ve been negotiating with? Not so much, especially as she finds it harder and harder to ignore the undeniable spark between her and Shang.

Can she keep her head in the game and make her father proud, all while trying not to fall into a trough or, potentially worse, in love with Shang?

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Other Asian legends are the inspiration for the next book on our list, Roselle Lim’s YA fantasy debut Celestial Banquet. Iron Chef meets The Hunger Games in a delectable adventure of mythology and food, with a sizzling love triangle too!

Once every decade, the Major Gods host the Celestial Banquet, inviting chefs from across the empire to compete in a perilous contest to please their divine palates. Each decade, dozens of chefs willingly put their lives in the hands of these fickle and cruel Gods, as the winner will receive the invaluable Peaches of Immortality.

Cai, an ambitious noodle chef from the humble Peninsula province, is eager to not only prove her homeland’s merit but to also live out her father’s dream and open her own restaurant. Alongside the drunken Minor God Kama, her childhood crush-turned-friend Bo and the dreamy nobleman Seon, Cai must compete against the Continent’s finest culinary masters. With the help of her underdog crew, Cai hunts mystical creatures, climbs a snowy mountain while temporarily blind, and watches as her fellow competitors face the steepest consequences.

These high-stakes trials are punctuated by mouthwatering descriptions of garlicky congee, seared sea serpent, simmering chicken hotpot, honey nectar tea with white peach boba, golden omurice from the eggs of the legendary Jian bird and so much more. Gosh, I’m getting hungry just thinking about it!

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We stay in Asia for the reprint of a Japanese classic, Tetsuya Ayukawa’s award-winning The Black Swan Mystery (translated into English by Bryan Karetnyk.)

Early one morning, the owner of a local mill is found lying next to the railway tracks just outside of Kuki Station. Suspicion initially falls on the workers’ union, with whom the man had been embroiled in a labour dispute, then on a new religious sect that has been recently gaining a devoted following.

Chief Inspector Onitsura and his assistant Tanna are called in to investigate, and soon set off in a journey across Japan, from Tokyo to Kyoto and Osaka, and finally to the island of Kyūshu, in a hunt for the cunning killer.

But as they investigate, the murderer strikes again, and again. Will they be able to catch the killer before even more people are slain?

Full of devious twists and turns, this brilliant puzzle mystery is considered to be one of the greatest alibi deconstruction mysteries ever written in any language. I’m so glad it’s finally available for us English-readers!

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Our next selection is a whodunnit with a twist. Noah Kumin’s Stop All The Clocks is a literary thriller where the conspiracy of crime lies within the dark magic of digital technology — the ones and zeroes to which everyone is beholden — and where motive lies in the beguiling power of words on the page.

Mona Veigh was feeling burnt out from the tech world and from life in general. Following the death of her unconventional colleague Avram Parr and the collapse of her AI company, Mona took her hefty cash-out and retreated to her home on Roosevelt Island, free to toss her phone into the East River and curl up with a good book, forever.

But strange occurrences keep intruding on Mona’s permanent vacation, threatening to thrust her right back into the real and modern world. Colleagues from her former company begin to track her down, hinting that there may have been more to Avram’s death than meets the eye. They all seem to believe that Mona possesses the crucial information about Avram that they’re looking for. Or, if not Mona, then her creation: Hildegard, an oracle-like bot that produces eerily prophetic poetry that could be the key to just about everything.

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Finally, we close out our column with Death At The White Hart, the debut novel from Chris Chibnall, creator of the BAFTA-winning phenomenon Broadchurch. Much like that international television hit, this propulsive and atmospheric murder mystery features a pair of detectives in a picturesque village on the English coast, tho with a gruesome and seemingly ritualistic twist.

In the early hours of the morning, the body of Jim Tiernan is discovered in the middle of the road outside the small village of Fleetcombe, tied to a chair with stag antlers fastened to his head. Veteran detective Nicola Bridge, a Fleetcombe native who has just moved back with her family after a life away in Liverpool, catches the case and is partnered with an eager rookie, DC Harry Ward.

Tiernan ran the local pub, The White Hart. As English pub culture began to wane and a trendier pub opened nearby, business declined. Tiernan, it seemed, was in over his head. But as they investigate, Nicole and Harry discover a tangled web of secrets, lies and grudges that can only be found in a small storybook town like their own.

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Let me know if you’re able to get to any of these books before I do, dear readers! I’d love to hear your opinions, and see if that will help spur me to push any of them higher up the mountain range that is my To Be Read pile.

And, as always, you can check out the list of my favorite books in my Bookshop storefront linked below!