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Must-Read New Book Releases Coming in May 2025
May 2025 new book releases are bringing a fresh wave of exciting titles, just in time for the warmer days ahead. As we head into summer, publishers are rolling out some of the year’s most anticipated books, from pulse-pounding thrillers to sweeping literary fiction and everything in between.
This list spotlights the must-read May 2025 new book releases to add to your TBR. Whether you’re looking for the perfect vacation read or a gripping story to keep you up late, there’s something here for every kind of book lover.
Want to know which books I am predicting for Book of the Month and Aardvark Book Club? Check out my predictions lists!
Related: May 2025 Book of the Month Predictions and May 2025 Aardvark Book Club Predictions
Table of Contents
Mystery/Thriller May 2025 New Book Releases
The Missing Half by Ashley Flowers
Release Date: May 6, 2025
Two women haunted by their sisters’ unsolved disappearances band together in this captivating mystery from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of All Good People Here and host of the #1 true crime podcast Crime Junkie.
Parents Weekend by Alex Finlay
Release Date: May 6, 2025
From the bestselling author of If Something Happens to Me, comes one of the year’s most anticipated thrillers. Told through multiple points of view in past and present―and marking the return of FBI Special Agent Sarah Keller from Every Last Fear and The Night Shift―Parents Weekend explores the weight of expectation, family dysfunction, and those exhilarating first days we all remember in the dorms when our friends become our family.
Dying to Meet You by Sarina Bowen
Release Date: May 13, 2025
The acclaimed USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author returns with a twisty thriller that probes how well we actually know the men in our lives.
The Man Made of Smoke by Alex North
Release Date: May 13, 2025
With his signature shock and suspense, Alex North brings us The Man Made of Smoke. In turn emotional, introspective, and utterly terrifying, this is a story of fathers and sons, shadows and secrets, and the fight we all face to escape the trauma of the past.
The Doorman by Chris Pavone
Release Date: May 20, 2025
A pulse-pounding novel of class, privilege, sex, and murder, from the New York Times bestselling author of Two Nights in Lisbon and The Expats.
The Last Ferry Out by Andrea Bartz
Release Date: May 20, 2025
On a trip to the tropical paradise where her fiancée died, a young woman begins to suspect the death was no accident—and the killer’s still on the island—in this twisty thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of Reese’s Book Club pick We Were Never Here.
Tell Them You Lied by Laura Leffler
Release Date: May 27, 2025
Debut Author
Two New York artists’ tumultuous friendship gets turned on its head when one of them goes missing and the other may be to blame. A riveting debut novel for readers of Bunny, Luckiest Girl Alive, and “Who Is the Bad Art Friend?”
Romance May 2025 New Book Releases
One Golden Summer by Carley Fortune
Release Date: May 6, 2025
A radiant escape to the lake from #1 New York Times bestselling author Carley Fortune.
What Happens in Amsterdam by Rachel Lynn Solomon
Release Date: May 6, 2025
Falling in love with your husband is anything but convenient in this steamy romance from the New York Times bestselling author of Business or Pleasure.
Can’t Get Enough by Kennedy Ryan
Release Date: May 13, 2025
New York Times bestselling author and BookTok star Kennedy Ryan concludes the Skyland trilogy with an unapologetically ambitious businesswoman finally finding a soft place to land with a soulmate who wants nothing more than to make all her dreams come true…if she would only let him.
A Simple Twist of Fate by April Asher
Release Date: May 13, 2025
A witch and a shifter get a second chance at love in this new paranormal romantic comedy from USA Today Bestselling author April Asher.
What If It’s You by Jilly Gagnon
Release Date: May 13, 2025
Everyone wonders about the one that got away . . . and thanks to an alternate reality tech project, one woman will get the chance to actually find out.
Left of Forever by Tarah DeWitt
Release Date: May 20, 2025
An emotional, irresistible second-chance romance filled with sparkling humor, big feelings, and “melt your face off intimacy” (Jessica Joyce) from celebrated USA Today bestselling author Tarah DeWitt.
The Love Haters by Katherine Center
Release Date: May 20, 2025
It’s a thin line between love and love-hating in the newest laugh out loud, all the feels rom-com by New York Times bestselling author Katherine Center.
It’s a Love Story by Annabel Monaghan
Release Date: May 27, 2025
From the USA Today bestselling author of Nora Goes Off Script, a novel about a former adolescent TV actress-turned-Hollywood producer whose “fake it till you make it” mantra sets her on a crash course with her past, forcing her to spend a week on Long Island with the last man she thinks might make her believe in love.
Contemporary Fiction May 2025 New Book Releases
Home of the American Circus by Allison Larkin
Release Date: May 6, 2025
After an emergency leaves her short on rent, thirty-year-old Freya Arnalds bails on her lackluster life as bartender in Maine and returns to her suburban hometown of Somers, New York, to live in the house she inherited from her estranged parents. Despite attempts to lay low, Freya encounters childhood friends, familial enemies, and old flames—as well as her fifteen-year-old niece, Aubrey, who is secretly living in the derelict home. As they reconnect, Freya and Aubrey lean on each other, working to restore the house and come to terms with the devastating events that pulled them apart years ago.
My Friends by Fredrik Backman
Release Date: May 6, 2025
#1 New York Times bestselling author Fredrik Backman returns with an unforgettably funny, deeply moving tale of four teenagers whose friendship creates a bond so powerful that it changes a complete stranger’s life twenty-five years later.
Maine Characters by Hannah Orenstein
Release Date: May 13, 2025
From beloved author Hannah Orenstein, this love letter to lake life is “the Parent Trap for adults,” the story of two half-sisters who meet for the first time at their father’s cabin in Maine after his unexpected death.
Speak to Me of Home by Jeanine Cummins
Release Date: May 13, 2025
A striking, resonant examination of marriage, family, and identity, Speak to Me of Home is ultimately a story of mothers and daughters that asks: How can three women who share geography and genetics have such wildly different ideas of where they come from? And, more important, can they discover a common language to find their way back home?
What Will People Think? by Sara Hamdan
Release Date: May 20, 2025
Mia’s secret comedy career, forbidden office crush, and a long-guarded family secret take center stage, threatening her newfound confidence and her one shot at fame in this hilarious, heartfelt coming-of-age story perfect for fans of Curtis Sittenfeld and Etaf Rum.
The Busybody Book Club by Freya Sampson
Release Date: May 27, 2025
Having recently moved from London to a small Cornish seaside village, Nova Davies started a book club at the local community center, but so far it’s a disaster. The five members disagree on everything, and to make matters worse, a significant sum of money is stolen during one of the meetings, putting the much-loved community center at risk.
Literary Fiction May 2025 New Book Releases
The Names by Florence Knapp
Release Date: May 6, 2025
Debut Author
With exceptional sensitivity and depth, Knapp draws us into the story of one family, told through a prism of what-ifs, causing us to consider the “one . . . precious life” we are given. The book’s brilliantly imaginative structure, propulsive storytelling, and emotional, gut-wrenching power are certain to make The Names a modern classic.
The Original Daughter by Jemimah Wei
Release Date: May 6, 2025
Debut Author
In this dazzling debut, Stegner Fellow Jemimah Wei explores the formation and dissolution of family bonds in a story of ambition and sisterhood in turn-of-the-millennium Singapore.
The Devil Three Times by Rickey Fayne
Release Date: May 13, 2025
Debut Author
“A debut of enormous ambition” spanning eight generations of a Black family in West Tennessee as they are repeatedly visited by the Devil (Nathan Harris, New York Times bestselling author of The Sweetness of Water)
Historical Fiction May 2025 New Book Releases
My Name Is Emilia del Valle by Isabel Allende
Release Date: May 6, 2025
In this spellbinding historical novel from the New York Times bestselling author of A Long Petal of the Sea and The Wind Knows My Name, a young writer journeys to South America to uncover the truth about her father—and herself.
The Martha’s Vineyard Beach and Book Club by Martha Hall Kelly
Release Date: May 27, 2025
Two sisters living on Martha’s Vineyard during World War II find hope in the power of storytelling when they start a wartime book club for women in this spectacular novel inspired by true events, from the New York Times bestselling author of Lilac Girls.
Sci-Fi May 2025 New Book Releases
The Memory Collectors by Dete Meserve
Release Date: May 20, 2025
Four strangers time travel to the past and find themselves stuck on the day all their lives were changed in this stunning speculative mystery from award-winning film and television producer Dete Meserve, perfect for fans of Before the Coffee Gets Cold, Wrong Place Wrong Time and The Paradox Hotel.
Horror May 2025 New Book Releases
The Manor of Dreams by Christina Li
Release Date: May 6, 2025
Mexican Gothic meets The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo in Christina Li’s haunting novel about the secrets that lie in wait in the crumbling mansion of a former Hollywood starlet, and the intertwined fates of the two Chinese American families fighting to inherit it.
The Night Birds by Christopher Golden
Release Date: May 6, 2025
The next gripping, atmospheric horror novel from New York Times bestselling author Christopher Golden, set in a deteriorated, half-sunken freighter ship off the coast of Galveston, TX.
Overgrowth by Mira Grant
Release Date: May 6, 2025
Since she was three years old, Anastasia Miller has been telling anyone who would listen that she’s an alien disguised as a human being, and that the armada that left her on Earth is coming for her. Since she was three years old, no one has believed her.
Now, with an alien signal from the stars being broadcast around the world, humanity is finally starting to realize that it’s already been warned, and it may be too late. The invasion is coming, Stasia’s biological family is on the way to bring her home, and very few family reunions are willing to cross the gulf of space for just one misplaced child.
The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling
Release Date: May 20, 2025
From the nationally bestselling author of The Luminous Dead and The Death of Jane Lawrence, a transfixing fever dream of medieval horror following three women in a besieged castle that descends ravenously into madness under the spell of mysterious, godlike visitors.
We Live Here Now by Sarah Pinborough
Release Date: May 20, 2025
Award-winning author of New York Times bestselling breakout novel (and hit Netflix show) Behind Her Eyes returns with a haunting Gothic novel about a house―and a marriage―gone terribly wrong.
Whistle by Linwood Barclay
Release Date: May 20, 2025
New York Times bestselling author Linwood Barclay enters new territory with a supernatural chiller in which a woman and her young son move to a small town looking for a fresh start, only to be haunted by disturbing events and strange visions when they find a mysterious train set in a storage shed.
Magical Realism/Fantasy May 2025 New Book Releases
Disco Witches of Fire Island by Blair Fell
Release Date: May 6, 2025
Hit the dance floor with a coven of queer witches on 1980s Fire Island in this gay fantasy romance about finding magic, love, and family in the face of tragedy.
The Sun Blessed Prince by Lindsey Byrd
Release Date: May 6, 2025
A battle-weary prince meets a reluctant assassin. But could their bond end their war?
A Curse Carved in Bone by Danielle L. Jensen
Release Date: May 13, 2025
Second book in a Series
A shield maiden fights to break the shackles of prophecy—and to overcome the betrayal of the man who broke her heart—in this searing conclusion to the Norse-inspired fantasy romance duology that began with the bestselling A Fate Inked in Blood.
The Devils by Joe Abercrombie
Release Date: May 13, 2025
First book in a Series
A brand-new epic fantasy from New York Times bestselling author Joe Abercrombie, featuring a notorious band of anti-heroes on a delightfully bloody and raucous journey.
The Incandescent by Emily Tesh
Release Date: May 13, 2025
Naomi Novik’s Scholomance series meets Plain Bad Heroines in this sapphic dark academia fantasy by instant national and international bestselling author Emily Tesh, winner of the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards.
Aftertaste by Daria Lavelle
Release Date: May 20, 2025
What if you could have one last meal with someone you’ve loved, someone you’ve lost? Combining the magic of Under the Whispering Door with the high-stakes culinary world of Sweetbitter, Aftertaste is an epic love story, a dark comedy, and a synesthetic adventure through food and grief.
The Knight and the Moth by Rachel Gillig
Release Date: May 20, 2025
First book in a Series
From NYT bestselling author Rachel Gillig comes the next big romantasy sensation, a gothic, mist-cloaked tale of a young prophetess forced on an impossible quest with the one knight whose future is beyond her sight. Perfect for fans of Jennifer L. Armentrout and Leigh Bardugo.
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