Tantalizing Tales — May 2026 — Part One

It’s already May! (and yes, you should definitely sing that in a ramen-haired Justin Timberlake voice, lol.) I’m not sure why, but the first ten days of May are always so hectic for me, between annual string performances, random selections (Jeopardy! last year and jury duty this year) and my beloved Arsenal entering their statistical best month of the season. And this year we really have a chance at winning so much, my friends! It’s actually overwhelming!

Anyway, to help (me) stay calm and avoid hyper-fixating, we have a whole slew of terrific books to enjoy, both upcoming and recently published. Our first book is a Young Adult novel that is very much up my alley, as our main character does everything in her power to find justice for her slain sister in Jennifer Pearson’s Drop Dead Famous.

International singing superstar Blair Baker is back in her hometown for a triumphant homecoming concert. The celebration quickly turns to chaos, however, when the crowd realizes that the figure rising on a platform for a grand stage entrance is, shockingly, very dead.

Blair’s younger sister Stevie is devastated, not only by Blair’s death but by the eerie echoes of powerlessness that continue to haunt the surviving Baker sibling. Years ago, Stevie had been denied the chance to find justice for someone else close to her. This time, she won’t let the opportunity slip through her fingers, as she relentlessly pursues the truth despite the discouragement of certain people around her.

The more she learns about her big sister’s glamorous life, tho, the more danger she unwittingly puts herself in. The monster of global stardom will go to great lengths to protect its dark underbelly from exposure, but is it a danger closer to home that Stevie should really be fearing?

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Another murder mystery launches the DC Smith/Kings Lake Investigation series, with the American debut of prolific author Peter Grainger’s An Accidental Death.

Detective Sergeant Smith used to be a Detective Chief Inspector, and could have retired by now. In fact, some of his superiors in the Kings Lake area of Norfolk rather wish he would. But DS Smith is determined to do his job, no matter his title or lack of popularity for his willingness to resort to unorthodox methods to ensure that justice is served.

When a sixth form student named Wayne Fletcher accidentally drowns in the countryside, DS Smith is assigned to what seems to be a fairly routine case. With a trainee detective — the son of a member of his former team — in tow, he goes to tick all the boxes… only to find discrepancies that put the lie to the idea of Fletcher’s death being an accident. As various people show either too much or not enough interest in the case, Smith will find himself working solo, in an attempt to protect his new assistant from the fallout of his own straying far outside of standard procedures. Putting his own life in danger is one thing. But when he discovers that he hasn’t been as careful with the life of his trainee as he thought, will he be forced to finally reevaluate the cost of getting to the truth?

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Next up, we have four shorter reads from 2025 that I’m still trying to fit into my reading schedule. The first is a novelization of a movie that I’m almost too scared to watch! Hopefully, I’ll be able to handle the book a little better, when I finally get to it.

Christian Francis takes on the official novelization of The Descent with aplomb. In the 2005 movie, six women went on a spelunking trip, a year after a devastating accident upended Sarah’s life. Now Sarah, her thrill-seeking friends Juno and Beth, sisters Sam and Rebecca, and newcomer Holly are embarking on a caving adventure in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina.

Things start to go bad when Sarah accidentally collapses a narrow tunnel, blocking their way back. Juno admits that she brought the group to an uncharted cave system, rendering the plans they filed with local authorities useless should anyone mount a rescue for them. As the women attempt to navigate the dark caves in search of a way out, their friendships begin to deteriorate, even as something deadly lurks in the shadows, waiting to pounce. Will the women be able to find their way to freedom with their lives?

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Next up is an engrossing non-fiction collaboration between Palestinian authors Raja Shehadeh and Penny Johnson, Forgotten: Searching for Palestine’s Hidden Places and Lost Memorials.

From the publicity materials:

“Forgotten uncovers the hidden or neglected memorials and places in historic Palestine—now Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories—and what they might tell us about the land and the people who live on the small slip of earth between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.

“From ancient city ruins to the Nabi ‘Ukkasha mosque and tomb, acclaimed writers and researchers Raja Shehadeh and Penny Johnson ask: what has been memorialized, and what lies unseen, abandoned, or erased—and why? Whether standing on a high cliff overlooking Lebanon or at the lowest land-based elevation on earth at the Dead Sea, they explore lost connections in a fragmented land.

“In elegiac, elegant prose, Shehadeh and Johnson grapple not only with questions of Israeli resistance to acknowledging the Nakba—the 1948 catastrophe for Palestinians—but also with the complicated history of Palestinian commemoration today.”

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Our next book explores France’s brutal colonial history, in Mathieu Belezi’s English-language debut (as translated by Lara Vergnaud) Attacking Earth And Sun. It’s already won several literary prizes in its original language, and is now available to a wider reading audience.

Seraphine and her family are part of the first cohort of French settlers to travel to Algeria in search of the better life promised to them by their government. The journey is dangerous but their new home even more so. Shelter is inadequate and disease runs rampant through the small community, even as they face threats from both the harsh weather and a desperate native population on the constant verge of violence.

Even as the settlers establish themselves and their church, the French army wreaks devastation on the nearby Algerian villages and its inhabitants. The soldiers are constantly urged to give into their worse natures as they use violence to quell any form of rebellion, in this vivid expose of the lies that underpin Western colonization.

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Finally, we have a fiercely feminist novella from one of my favorite fantasy writers of all time. A G Slatter’s The Cold House is a folk horror-leaning tonal departure from her Gothic Sourdough Universe, as a grieving woman discovers that her late husband had secrets that could now claim her life too.

When Everly Bainbridge’s husband and daughter die in a car accident, it feels like her world has ended with them. But a lawyer soon appears at her Notting Hill flat, letting her know that her husband was actually a very wealthy man who’s left her a secluded house in the countryside, among other unexpected things.

Deciding to escape the memories that haunt the home she shared with Nick and Ruby, Everly flees to her new property, which turns out to be a mansion with a well in the cellar, and a very cold room. After Everly wakes one night with one foot in the well and Ruby’s voice echoing in her ears, she realizes she’s in danger. Will she be able to uncover the house’s secrets and save herself, before she joins her loved ones on the other side of the mortal veil?

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All of these books are either available or available for pre-order now, so let me know if you’re able to get to them before I do, dear readers! I’d love to hear your opinions, and see if that will 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!