May 2021 New Book Releases

May is the month for all the fun summer reads to start releasing. The weather might be heating up with the sun regularly making an appearance, but that just means it’s time to leave the cozy indoor reading setups and head outside with all the new beach reads and summer romances.

Don’t worry if that’s not quite what you’re in the mood for though. There’s a couple other big releases in other categories. Starting off the month with some of the books I’m most excited for, we have another addition to the ever-growing genre of Greek Mythology retellings. I don’t personally know very much about Theseus and the Minotaur but I can’t wait to read about it from Ariadne’s perspective.

For the sci-fi crew, Andy Weir is back with a new space travel thriller. For those who loved The Martian, on paper or on screen, you won’t want to miss Project Hail Mary.

And if you don’t feel like waiting for these books to be released, check out the previous months that are already out!
February.
March.
April.

May 4th

Ariadne

by Jennifer Saint
bookshop.org // Kindle // Audiobook
A retelling of Theseus and the Minotaur. Ariadne is a princess of Crete who has grown up with the constant sound of her Minotaur brothers hoofbeats from below the palace. When Ariadne falls in the love with Theseus, a prince who has been sent to be the yearly sacrifice made to her brother, she must decide between love and family even if it means angering the Gods.
For Fans Of: Madeline Miller, Greek Mythology Retellings

Project Hail Mary

by Andy Weir
bookshop.org // Kindle // Audiobook
When Ryland Grace wakes up he doesn’t know his name, his assignment, or what he’s supposed to be doing. The only thing he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very long time and there’s two corpses on the spaceship with him. As his memories hazily come back it’s a race against time as he must finish his impossible task or else all of humanity and earth will end.
For Fans Of: Sci-Fi, The Martian

The Newcomer

by Mary Kay Andrews
bookshop.org // Kindle // Audiobook
When Letty finds her sister, Tanya, dead on the floor of her NYC townhouse, she remembers Tanya warning her that if anything bad happens it’s her ex. With that knowledge and a promise to take her niece and run Letty finds herself with one clue, a sleepy motel in a Florida beach town. As she settles in with a heartbroken 4 year-old and Tanya’s interestingly packed go-bag, Letty must figure out what the key is to her sister’s shady past.
For Fans Of: Jennifer Weiner, Beach Reads

The Secret Bridesmaid

by Katy Birchall
bookshop.org // Kindle // Audiobook
Sophie Breeze is a professional bridesmaid, posing as a friend on a bride’s big day but actually making sure everything goes off without a hitch. When she’s hired for the wedding for a former ‘It Girl’ it should be the achievement of her career. But a diva daughter, an attractive older brother, and the announcement of a rival wedding the same day all threaten to complicate the perfect day.
For Fans Of: Emily Henry, Chick Lit

Sorrowland

by Rivers Solomon
bookshop.org // Kindle // Audiobook
Vern is seven months pregnant and so desperate to escape the religous cult she was raised in that she runs into the woods. Able to make shelter and wait, she gives birth to twins and tries to make plans to raise them as far away as she can get. But the community isn’t willing to let her leave easily and Vern discovers she can push herself and change her body with brutality beyond comprehension.
For Fans Of: Fantasy, LGBTQ Fiction

The Siren

by Katherine St. John
bookshop.org // Kindle
Cole Powers, longtime Hollywood megastar, is on an idyllic Caribbean island to film a new movie. Three women head to the set with their own agenda. Stella is Cole’s ex-wife with hopes that starring next to him will fix the career she’s lost to unstable breakdowns. Taylor is a up-and-coming producer who needs this project to turn her career around after a previous job ended in scandal. Felicity is Stella’s new assistant with motives that could upend everyone else’s plans. But a storm heading towards the island will make them all have to move past mistrust for a common enemy.
For Fans Of: Taylor Jenkins Reid, Beach Reads

Firebreak

by Nicole Kornher-Stace
bookshop.org // Kindle // Audiobook
Mallory is just like everyone else, an orphan of the corporate war now living with eight other people all working multiple jobs to barely get by. Streaming the popular VR war game, made by the company that runs America, is the job she’s best at. It’s not about killing for her though, it’s finding the celebrity supersoldiers in game the world has come to worship. Until a chance meeting makes Mallory realize those aren’t operatives created for the game, but kids like her who had nothing and were stolen, tortured, and forced to become SpecOps operatives.
For Fans Of: Sci-Fi, Black Mirror

The Last Thing He Told Me

by Laura Dave
bookshop.org // Kindle // Audiobook
Hannah Hall got a note from her husband, Owen, right before he disappeared. ‘Protect Her’ can only be referring to his daughter, Bailey, who has so far wanted nothing to do with her new step-mom. But when Owen’s boss is arrested by the FBI and the US Marshals appear at her front door, Hannah realizes she has no idea who her husband really is . Hannah and Bailey are going to have to work together to figure out the truth of Owen’s past and what their future together might be.
For Fans Of: Mystery Thriller, Brianna Labuskes

The Bookshop of Second Chances

by Jackie Fraser
bookshop.org // Kindle // Audiobook
In one month Thea loses her husband of twenty years to a friend, and then her job on Valentine’s Day. When she receives notice of an inheritance from a distant great uncle, it seems like the perfect escape. A house and a large book collection greet her in a small coastal Scotland town and being somewhere no one knows her quickly becomes home. If only she could win over the bookshop owner who is more concerned with a family feud that the antique novels she was hoping to sell.
For Fans Of: Emma Lord, Contemporary Chick Lit

May 2021 New Book Releases

May 11th

That Summer

by Jennifer Weiner
bookshop.org // Kindle // Audiobook
Daisy Shoemaker has a full schedule with her business, volunteer work, and family in a beautiful home. It should be enough though the discontent is making her unable to sleep. But with an email address just one punctuation mark difference she’s also getting emails for Diana Starling who’s single, glamourous life seems far more sophisticated. An apology leads to a meeting and slowly Daisy realizes their connection might not be accidental.
For Fans Of: Elin Hilderbrand, Book Club Chick Lit

Mary Jane

by Jessica Anya Blau
bookshop.org // Kindle // Audiobook
1970’s Baltimore- Mary Jane is 14 years old, bookish and shy but loves cooking and church. When she lands a respectable summer job, being a nanny for a local doctor, her mother is so pleased. The house is a mess though, full of impeachment stickers, clutter, and towers of takeout boxes. The doctor is a psychiatrist who will be spending the summer sobering up a Rockstar who will be moving in. By the end of summer Mary Jane will have introduced them all to dinner schedules and ironed clothing, but she’ll have been introduced to the world of rock & roll and the prospect of a not as respectable future.
For Fans Of: Taylor Jenkins Reid, Coming of Age fiction

People We Meet On Vacation

by Emily Henry
bookshop.org // Kindle // Audiobook
Poppy and Alex might be total opposites but they’ve been best friends ever since that shared ride home from college one summer. Despite their different personalities, different lives, and even different cities they’ve promised to spend one week every summer on vacation together. Until the one trip ruined everything. Two years later Poppy can’t seem to find happiness anywhere except the memories of time with Alex, so she convinces him to take one last trip and lay everything out on the table.
For Fans Of: Christina Lauren, Emma Straub

A Summer to Remember

by Erika Montgomery
bookshop.org // Kindle // Audiobook
Frankie is 34 years old and sells movie memorabilia in a store she opened with her late mother. It’s more than a shop, it’s the last connection she has to the only family she knew. The arrival of a package with a photograph of her mom with a bunch of Hollywood stars at a film festival, taken shortly before she was born, will unravel Frankie’s life as she knows it.
For Fans Of: Mary Kay Andrews, Catherine Ryan Hyde

May 2021 New Book Releases

May 18th

The Soulmate Equation

by Christina Lauren
bookshop.org // Kindle // Audiobook
Jess Davis is a single mom far more interested in data than dating. When she hears about a new app, GeneticAlly, which matches based on DNA she’s interested in a soulmate based on science. Then she get’s an unusually high 98% match with the app’s founder. The problem…she already knows Dr. River Pena as a stuck-up and selfish man, definitely not her soulmate. But GeneticAlly offers her money she can’t turn down to give it a try, they get a potential stock boost for a ‘Diamond’ pair and she might just realize there’s more to the doctor than she thought.
For Fans Of: Emily Henry, Contemporary Romance

Where the Grass Is Green and the Girls Are Pretty

by Lauren Weisberger
bookshop.org // Kindle // Audiobook
Peyton and Skye are sisters who have grown up to achieve the perfect lives they’d dreamed about as kids. Soon Peyton and her husband Isaac will send their daughter off to Dartmouth and Skye will open a home for underprivileged but gifted young girls, thanks to some help from Isaac’s business partners. When Isaac is arrested in an Ivy League admission sting the girls will be faced with the secrets of their posh world and whether the compromises they made to reach their dreams were worth it.
For Fans Of: The Devil Wears Prada, Jennifer Weiner

Last Chance Books

by Kelsey Rodkey
bookshop.org // Kindle // Audiobook
Madeline loves the bookstore her family has owned for generations. She has everything planned to come back after college and take it over from her aunt. When a chain bookstore opens across the street her beloved shop is suddenly threatened. Madeline is determined to crush the competition but Jasper, who works over at that terrible store, is determined to ruin her life, while daring to be extremely cute. All’s fair in love and book wars.
For Fans Of: Emma Lord, YA Contemporary Romance

The Summer Seekers

by Sarah Morgan
bookshop.org // Kindle // Audiobook
Kathleen is eighty years old. Her daughter, Liza, wants her to move into a residential home, Kathleen wants an adventure. Martha is having a quarter life crisis and the ad for a driver & companion for a summer road trip seems like the perfect escape. The three women take off on a road trip across America and discover that it’s never too late to start over.
For Fans Of: Beth O’Leary, road trip adventures

May 2021 New Book Releases

May 25th

The Cave Dwellers

by Christina McDowell
bookshop.org // Kindle // Audiobook
The exclusive Green Book is a diary with the listings of the most aristocratic families in Washington DC. They only socialize with each other, their families and generations woven into fabric of DC, long outlasting any of the politicians that come and go. The world is changing though and their gilded lives of power and privilege are called into question when one of their own is brutally murdered.
For Fans Of: Ruth Ware, Contemporary Thrillers

The Guncle

by Steven Rowley
bookshop.org // Kindle // Audiobook
Patrick has been happy to be the gay uncle to is niece and nephew, spending time with them on weekend visits back home or even when they come out to see him in Palm Springs. When tragedy strikes, they lose their mother and their father is laid up with health issues, Patrick will have to let go of his stalled career and not-so-kid-friendly lifestyle to learn what parenting and caretaking really means.
For Fans Of: LGBTQ fiction, Allison Winn Scotch