This May, we have lots of things to be excited about — and I’m not just talking about the weather finally turning! I’m of course talking about books! From weird girl shockers, translated crime thrillers, and queer heart-warmers, we’ve curated a collection of books that you won’t be able to put down — even for a picnic in the park!
Decomposition Book By Sarah Van OS
9781917792134 | Dead Ink | PB | £10.99 | OUT NOW
An emotional, electrifying, and darkly hilarious debut about a woman who finds a dead
body and can’t give up its ghost, for fans of Mona Awad, Yellowjackets, and weird girl
fiction.
Ava thought the great tragedy of her life would be getting stuck in a dead-end office
job, but reality looks even grimmer when she goes on an ill-fated hike with two of
her coworkers.
Meanwhile, spiraling from a disastrous falling-out with her mercurial best friend,
Savannah retreats to her parents’ empty lake house in upstate New York. Her days
blend together in a hazy swirl of clinically concerning overthinking and alcohol—until
she chases her nightly bottle of wine with an Ambien and wakes up in the woods
behind her house… next to a dead body.
Unfortunately, Savannah is so down bad that this well-preserved corpse offers
some compelling friend potential: after all, a dead person can’t judge you, they’re
amazing listeners, and they’re not going to leave. This particular dead person also
comes with a handy journal detailing her last six months lost in the woods!
Ava, as it turns out, is more than just a cold, lonely corpse. She was funny. She was
smart. And Savannah has finally found someone she can talk to… As Savannah
spends more time with both the Ava in front of her and the Ava of the journal, she
begins to feel something for Ava she hasn’t felt for anyone else—and there’s a good
chance letting go would haunt her for the rest of her life.
Is Savannah finally losing her grip? Or has she found what she’s needed all along?
Heap Earth Upon It by Chloe Michelle Howarth
9780857309471 | Verve Books | PB | £10.99 | OUT NOW
January 1965. The orphaned O’Leary siblings — Tom, Jack, Anna and Peggy — arrive in the village of Ballycrea, tight lipped about their troubled past and desperate for a fresh start.
After being met with suspicion from most of the locals, the family are thrilled when they’re taken under the wing of their well-respected neighbours, Bill and Betty Nevan, who offer them work, companionship and an opportunity to fit in.But for one of the O’Learys, this new friendship sparks an intense attachment that makes the dynamic dangerous for
all. It’s difficult to bury secrets, but almost impossible to bury feelings…
Crackling with suspense and intensity from start to finish, Heap Earth Upon It revisits the rural Ireland of Howarth’s critically acclaimed debut, delving into claustrophobic relationships and tangled identities, and leaving you wondering who to trust until the very last page.
Night Train by Xu Zechen
Translated by Jeremy Tiang
9781949641981 | Two Lines Press | PB | £16.99 | Out 12th May
How far would you go to get what you want? Chen Munian is about to find out in this translated novel.
Looking to take a vacation before settling in for to his PHD studies and hoping to swindle a little traveling money from his father, Chen Munian made up a story about killing someone and needing to flee. But now that lie has taken on a life of its own and everyone — the university, the police, the sprawling campus community — is convinced he’s a murderer.
Munian is barely holding on: his wages are meagre, he lives with a group of chaotic roommates, he drinks too much with his crazy artist neighbour who is obsessed with Van Gogh, and his bumbling attempts to woo the beautiful Qin Ke always end in heartache. His life keeps spiralling out of his control, and he can’t help but wonder if he was destined to be a murderer all along.
Xu Zechen’s Night Train, in Jeremy Tiang’s brash translation, follows characters who live on the precipice, where the foolish mistakes of young men can have devastating consequences.
Chiquitita by Pedro Carmona-Alvarez
Translated by Seán Aitken
9781836750079 | Akoya | PB | £12.99 | Out 14th May
When a military dictatorship takes hold of her home country, young Marisol flees
into the night with her family. Seeking refuge, the family resides in a refugee
camp in the hope of being granted asylum abroad and eventually moving to
Norway.
Told through fragments from Marisol’s childhood and adult years, Chiquitita
is loosely based on Pedro Carmona-Alvarez’s own experience of fleeing Chile.
A haunting story of displacement and trauma, but equally of hope and love in
spite of adversity.
We Live Here Now by C.D. Rose
9781911545897 | Melville House | PB | £10.99 | Out 14th May
Winner of The Goldsmiths Prize 2025!
When visitors to a famous conceptual artist’s installation start mysteriously disappearing, the aftershocks radiate outwards through twelve people who were involved in the project, changing all of their lives, and launching them on a crazy-quilt trajectory that will end with them all together at one final, apocalyptic bacchanal.
Mixing illusion and reality, simulacra and replicants, sound artists and death artists, performers and filmmakers and theorists and journalists, We Live Here Now ranges across the world of weapons dealers and international shipping to the galleries and studios on the cutting edge of hyper-contemporary art. It spins a dazzling web that conveys, with eerie precision, the sheer strangeness of what it is like to be alive today.
Mayfly Season by Matthias Jügler
Translated by Jo Heinrich
9781917378154 | Indigo | PB | £12.99 | Out 14th May
What if the child you mourned had never died?
A harrowing family story about forced adoption, a sinister chapterin East German history, and father-son relationships expressed through a shared love of nature and fishing.
1978, near Leipzig, East Germany. For Katrin and Hans, every parent’s worst nightmare comes true when they are told that their newborn baby Daniel has died. Amidst the shock and horror of the news, Katrin doubts what the doctors have told her, feeling that they are lying and that Daniel is still alive: doubts which Hans refuses to acknowledge, and which lead to the end of their marriage.
After the collapse of the GDR, happy in a new relationship, Hans receives an unexpected phone call which prompts him to investigate the past. His research, which takes him deep into recent history, is met with resistance and silence at every turn, until at last a fishing expedition enables the family to start healing from their trauma.
Mayfly Season is an extraordinary portrait of totalitarian state cruelty, the promise of a new beginning and the infinite healing capacity shared by humanity and nature.
Woodworking by Emily St. James
9781638934172 | Crooked Media | PB | £15.99 | Out 26th May 2026
An unforgettable and heart-warming debut following a trans high school teacher from a small town in South Dakota who befriends the only other trans woman she knows: one of her students.
Erica Skyberg is thirty-five years old, recently divorced — and trans. Not that she’s told anyone yet. Mitchell, South Dakota, isn’t exactly bursting with other trans women. Instead, she keeps to herself, teaching by day and directing community theatre by night. That is, until Abigail Hawkes enters her orbit.
Abigail is seventeen, Mitchell High’s resident political dissident and Only Trans Girl. It’s a role she plays faultlessly, albeit a little reluctantly. She’s also annoyed by the idea of spending her senior year secretly guiding her English teacher through her transition. But Abigail remembers the uncertainty — and loneliness — that comes with it. Besides, Erica isn’t the only one struggling to shed the weight of others’ expectations.
As their unlikely friendship evolves, it comes under the scrutiny of their community. And soon, both women — and those closest to them — are forced to ask: Who are we if we choose to hide ourselves? What happens once we disappear into the woodwork?
Detransition Baby meets Fleishman is in Trouble in this remarkable debut novel from an incisive contemporary voice. A story about the awkwardness of growing up and the greatest love story of all, that between us and our friends, Woodworking is a tonic for the moment and a celebration of womanhood in all its multifaceted joy.
The Wildness by Anne Keer
9781916821439 | Honno Publishing | PB | £10.99 | Out 28th May 2026
An eco-historical novel of love, land and resistance!
As the Enlightenment dawns, Hannah Sentancefinds herself increasingly disturbed by her husband Walter’s unyielding desire to transform the land around their estate into an elite Gentleman’s Park. Local people will be evicted, an old way of life lost and an ancient oak
tree felled. A symbol of resistance, wildness and a young woman’s love affair with nature, the tree embodies Hannah’s struggle for a way of belonging. But how can she — and it — survive?
