The month of May is filled with suspense! Here are five popular adult titles that are hitting the shelves during the month of May. To find more new titles, check out the booklist New May 2018 Books You'll Want to Read and our New Titles page.
An unspeakable crime and a confounding investigation in The Outsider, by Stephen King.
An 11-year-old boy's violated corpse is found in a town park. Eyewitnesses and fingerprints point unmistakably to one of Flint City's most popular citizens. He is Terry Maitland, Little League coach, English teacher, husband, and father of two girls. Detective Ralph Anderson, whose son Maitland once coached, orders a quick and very public arrest. Maitland has an alibi, but Anderson and the district attorney soon add DNA evidence to go with the fingerprints and witnesses. Their case seems ironclad. As the investigation expands and horrifying answers begin to emerge, King's propulsive story kicks into high gear, generating strong tension and almost unbearable suspense. Terry Maitland seems like a nice guy, but is he wearing another face? When the answer comes, it will shock you as only Stephen King can. (from the publisher)
A night out. A few hours of fun. That's all it was meant to be in The Perfect Mother, by Aimee Molloy.
They call themselves the May Mothers - a group of new moms whose babies were born in the same month. Twice a week, they get together in Brooklyn's Prospect Park for some much-needed adult time. When the women go out for drinks at the hip neighborhood bar, they want a fun break from their daily routine. But on this hot Fourth of July night, something goes terrifyingly wrong: one of the babies is taken from his crib. Winnie, a single mom, was reluctant to leave six-week-old Midas with a babysitter, but her fellow May Mothers insisted everything would be fine. Now he is missing. What follows is a heart-pounding race to find Midas, during which secrets are exposed, marriages are tested, and friendships are destroyed. Thirteen days. An unexpected twist. The Perfect Mother is a true page-turner. (from the publisher)
Love and Ruin: A Novel by Paula McLain, is about a woman who will risk absolutely everything to find her own voice.
In 1937, 28-year-old Martha Gellhorn travels alone to Madrid to report on the atrocities of the Spanish Civil War and becomes drawn to the stories of ordinary people caught in the devastating conflict. It's the adventure she's been looking for and her chance to prove herself a worthy journalist in a field dominated by men. But she also finds herself unexpectedly - and uncontrollably - falling in love with Hemingway, a man on his way to becoming a legend. In the shadow of the impending Second World War and set against the turbulent backdrops of Madrid and Cuba, Martha and Ernest's relationship and their professional careers ignite. But when Ernest publishes the biggest literary success of his career, For Whom the Bell Tolls, they are no longer equals, and Martha must make a choice: surrender to the confining demands of being a famous man's wife or risk losing Ernest by forging a path as her own woman and writer. It is a dilemma that could force her to break his heart - hers. (from the publisher)
A gripping story of a serial killer who may not know he is one in Paper Ghosts: A Novel of Suspense, by Julia Heaberlin.
An obsessive young woman has been waiting for half of her life for this moment. She has planned. Researched. Trained. Imagined every scenario. Now she is almost certain the man who kidnapped and murdered her sister sits in the passenger seat beside her. Carl Louis Feldman is a documentary photographer. He claims no memory of murdering girls across Texas, in a string of places where he shot eerie pictures. But, she doesn't believe him. Determined to find the truth, she lures him out of a halfway house and proposes a dangerous idea: a ten-day road trip, just the two of them, to examine cold cases linked to his haunting photographs. Is he a liar or a broken old man? Is he a pathological con artist? Or, is she? (from the publisher)
The story of a quaint seaside town, filled with burning secrets in The Other Lady Vanishes, by Amanda Quick.
After escaping from a private sanitarium, Adelaide Blake arrives in Burning Cove, California, desperate to start over. Working at an herbal tea shop puts her on the radar of those who frequent the seaside resort town: Hollywood movers and shakers always in need of hangover cures and tonics. One such customer is Jake Truett, a recently widowed businessman in town for a therapeutic rest. But unbeknownst to Adelaide, his exhaustion is just a cover. In Burning Cove, no one is who they seem. Behind facades of glamour and power hide drug dealers, gangsters, and grifters. Into this make-believe world comes psychic to the stars Madame Zolanda. Adelaide and Jake know better than to fall for her kind of con. But when the medium becomes a victim of her own dire prediction and is killed, they'll be drawn into a murky world of duplicity and misdirection. Neither Adelaide nor Jake can predict that in the shadowy underground they'll find connections to the woman Adelaide used to be - and uncover the specter of a killer who's been real all along. (from the publisher)