Suggested Reads for May 2025

Millstadt Library
May 19
7 min read

Looking for some book inspiration? Here are some suggested reads for May!

These books have been on the New York Times Bestseller List and at the top of the Millstadt Library's most circulated list. At the end of these lists, Nichole picks a book or two that she personally recommends.

We just reviewed The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff and are reading The God of the Woods by Liz Moore for our next Senior Center Book Club meeting on Monday, June 16 at 11 a.m.

Without further ado, here are this month's picks!

Twelve Post-War Tales by Graham Swift

An exquisite new collection of stories from the Booker Prize– winning author, about lives shaped and haunted by war

Here are the soldiers and doctors and veterans, wives and lovers and children, who have been affected in ways both subtle and profound by the cataclysms of our times. In “Blushes,” a respiratory disease specialist comes out of retirement to help with COVID patients. In “Passport,” an elderly woman finds herself, in contemplation of her passport, sent back to her three-year-old self, orphaned by World War II.

These stories show history in the making, the reverberations across decades of each conflict. Rich with triumph and loss, grief and missed opportunities, moments of grace and contemplation, Twelve Post-War Tales is a collection of masterpieces in miniature.

Genres: Short Stories | Fiction

304 pages, Hardcover | First published May 6, 2025

The Man Made of Smoke by Alex North

The latest gripping serial killer thriller from the New York Times bestselling author Alex North.

Dan Garvie’s life has been haunted by the crime he witnessed as a child—narrowly escaping an encounter with a notorious serial killer. He has dedicated his life since to becoming a criminal profiler, eager to seek justice for innocent victims. So when his father passes away under suspicious circumstances, Dan revisits his small island community, determined to uncover the truth about his death. Is it possible that the monster he remembers from his childhood nightmares has returned after all these years?

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.

320 pages, Hardcover | First published May 13, 2025

The Amalfi Curse by Sarah Penner

Powerful witchcraft. A hunt for sunken treasure. Forbidden love on the high seas. Beware the Amalfi Curse…

Haven Ambrose, a trailblazing nautical archaeologist, has come to the sun-soaked village of Positano to investigate the mysterious shipwrecks along the Amalfi Coast. But Haven is hoping to find more than old artifacts beneath the azure waters; she is secretly on a quest to locate a trove of priceless gemstones her late father spotted on his final dive. Upon Haven’s arrival, strange maelstroms and misfortunes start plaguing the town. Is it nature or something more sinister at work?

As Haven searches for her father’s sunken treasure, she begins to unearth a centuries-old tale of ancient sorcery and one woman’s quest to save her lover and her village by using the legendary art of stregheria, a magical ability to harness the ocean. Could this magic be behind Positano’s latest calamities? Haven must unravel the Amalfi Curse before the region is destroyed forever…

Against the dazzling backdrop of the Amalfi Coast, this bewitching novel shimmers with mystery, romance and the untamed magic of the sea.

336 pages, Hardcover | First published April 29, 2025

Girl Anonymous: A Fast-Paced Psychological Suspense of Betrayal and Vigilante Justice in a Mafia Crime Family by Christina Dodd

The Godfather meets West Side Story in this twisty, darkly romantic thriller from New York Times bestselling author Christina Dodd. A dangerous blast sends a girl into hiding to escape a deadly family feud…

As a child, Maarja Daire saw her mother ignite an explosion that killed vengeful mob boss Benoit Arundel—and herself—to save Maarja’s life. Maarja’s been on the run ever since…fleeing from intimacy, from love, from consequences.

Now an adult, Maarja hides in plain sight as a fine arts mover, transporting priceless belongings. Work for a new client brings her to the mansion where the fateful blast from her childhood occurred. There she meets Dante, the ruthless, scarred and brooding Arundel family boss. He watches her with dark intent…but does he remember her? Will he use her to take revenge for his father’s death? A chance turn of events earns her his trust, when she courageously leaps into flames to rescue his mother. And what happens between them in the darkness sets their worlds on fire, as Maarja recklessly abandons her lifelong caution and self-imposed isolation.

Dante calls the urgency between them Fate. Maarja denies him, struggles against his domination and fights the slow erosion of her resistance. When he vows to end the ancient feud, his hidden enemies seize the opportunity to destroy him and the woman he will do anything to protect. Bound together by destruction, passion and destiny, Dante and Maarja must navigate uncharted depths of betrayal and loss, to create a new beginning…before the flames of the vendetta consume them.

First published March 11, 2025 | 368 pages, Hardcover

Climbing in Heels by Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas

Climbing in Heels, Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas's debut novel, is a fictional tale of the rise of three secretaries at the hottest agency in 1980's Hollywood, giving you a glimpse into the boys-will-be-boys club and the women who wanted a seat at a table where they were expected to serve. It's the story of friendship, betrayal, survival, standing up when they pass you by, and saying I won't go when they want you gone. And it's also a story about how some of those women became very much like the monsters who trained them.

Meet Beanie Rosen, the fast-talking and even faster-thinking Valley girl who knows where she wants to go, and doesn’t care if she doesn’t look the part.

Mercedes Baxter, who learned early on how to leverage the monied friends of her monied friends' parents until she found a foothold in Hollywood.

And Ella Gaddy, a sexy free-spirit anti-debutante from a white-glove Kentucky home who shakes up any room she walks into.

Read Climbing in Heels and watch these women meet, meld, fight, strategize and climb their way into your heart.

A rollicking tale of sex, drugs, and power – in heels.

384 pages, Hardcover | Published April 29, 2025

My Friends by Fredrik Backman

"The world is full of miracles, but none greater than how far a young person can be carried by someone else's belief in them."

Most people don’t even notice them—three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. Most people think it’s just a depiction of a wide expanse of sea. But Louisa, soon to be eighteen years old and an aspiring artist herself, knows otherwise. She is determined to find out the story behind these three enigmatic figures.

More than two decades before, in a distant seaside town, a group of teenagers find refuge from their bruising home lives by spending long summer days on an abandoned pier telling silly jokes, sharing secrets, and committing small acts of rebellion. These lost souls find in each other a reason to get up every morning, a reason to dream, a reason to love.

Out of that summer emerges a transcendent work of art, a painting that, after a chance encounter in an alleyway, will unexpectedly be placed into Louisa’s care. She embarks on a surprise-filled cross-country journey to discover how the painting came to be and to decide what to do with it. The closer she gets to the painting’s birthplace, the more anxious she becomes about what she'll find. Louisa's complicated life is proof that happy endings are sometimes possible, but they don't always take the form we expect them to.

Fredrik Backman's signature charm, humor, and attention to the poignant details of everyday life are on full display in this funny, moving novel. His most heartfelt and personal tale yet, My Friends is a stunning testament to the transformative, timeless power of art and friendship.

436 pages, Hardcover | First published May 6, 2025

NICHOLE'S RECOMMENDATIONS

Sometimes, you hit a wall and have a hard time getting back into reading. A good way to ease back into the habit is to try some short format books. The True Crime File is just that, a collection of short stories about interesting true crimes.

It's not a fantastic book by any means, but it's got enough interesting information to keep you reading and to maybe get you interested in other books, like the one I am going to look into called, Headless Body in Topless Bar: The Best Headlines from America's Favorite Newspaper by The New York Times.

This book is readily available on CloudLibrary and can be finished in a few days with sporadic reading time.

The True Crime File: Serial Killings, Famous Kidnappings, Great Cons, Survivors and Their Stories, Forensics, and More by Kim Daly

Perfect for newcomers and hardened crime junkies alike, The True Crime File is an impulse gift book designed to deliver the mixed pleasures of true crime across more than 200 stories of mayhem, madness, and survival. Adapted from the perennially popular A Year of True Crime Page-A-Day® Calendar, here is a full celebration of the genre, more than 400 pages packed with tales of slashers and serial killers, grifters and con men, dogged investigators and miraculous survivors, and of course the story behind the immortal New York Post headline “Headless Body in Topless Bar.”

And so very much more, including: Ted Bundy’s prison escape, mini-rampage, and eventual capture; the tragic litany of missed early chances to capture Jeffrey Dahmer; and the fascinating puzzle of the Zodiac Killer. Also: celebrity stories, like the murder of Tupac Shakur, and old-yet-still-chilling tales such as the Lindbergh kidnapping, the Black Dahlia murder, the drowning at Chappaquiddick. Readers will learn about DNA profiling and tattoo analysis, get a smattering of cartel drug lingo, and take quizzes like “Where Did They Hide?” Compulsively readable, illustrated throughout, and animated with the frisson that comes with discovering there are real monsters under the bed, The True Crime File is a little book that delivers big to true crime fans of all stripes.

391 pages, Kindle Edition | Published May 10, 2022

*all descriptions of the novels and the book covers are from GoodReads.com

Suggested Reads for May 2025

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