May 2026 Reading Round Up – Book Reviews & Goals

Highland Getaway by Amber Eve

I love love loved this book! Such a sweet story with plenty of fantastic, and believable, comedy twists.

My full review of Highland Getaway by Amber Eve will be on the blog in a few days!

The Hot Honey Hideaway by Harper Graham (Maple Falls #4)

A gorgeous hot summer read in a vibrantly imagined small town setting.

My full review of The Hot Honey Hideaway by Harper Graham will be on the blog in a few days!

Signals: The Inside Story of our Hormones by Dr Saira Hameed

A really insightful, well written read.

I try to read one non-fiction book per month, and these are often health focused ones. While I always really enjoy them, they’re hardly gripping “just one more chapter” kind of reads. But weirdly, this one was?! I struggled to put it down.

My full review of Signals: The Inside Story of our Hormones by Dr Saira Hameed will be on the blog in a few days!

Maiden by Georgia Leighton

A gorgeous, fairytale-esque story that was gripping and gorgeous.

My full review of Maiden by Georgia Leighton will be on the blog in a few days!

The Last to Know by Laura Jane Williams

Within just a few pages, I could already tell that the author had a very distinctive voice. I wasn’t sure at first that I was going to click with the way the story was told, but 3 solid hours of reading and a finished book later, I was proved wrong! It had something of a chick-flick movie kind of feel – I could imagine the narrative being read out as a voiceover at the start of a movie from the 00s. And fortunately, it turns out I really enjoy that.

My full review of The Last to Know by Laura Jane Williams will be on the blog when it publishes later this month.

One of the Family by Mark Edwards

This was such a gripping, addictive read with creepy vibes!

My full review of One of the Family by Mark Edwards will be on the blog later this month when it publishes.

Mead Cute by Sam Parks

The chemistry is CHEMISTRYING!

My full review of Mead Cute by Sam Parks will be on the blog later this month when it publishes.

Wild: From Lost to Found by Cheryl Strayed

This was my non-fiction book for the month, and I loved the memoir style that had more of a storyline to it than most.

I’m sort of quietly obsessed with this book. I really enjoyed it while reading; for something that should be somewhat monotonous, it kept me very engaged. I liked the way it interspersed present time with passages about the author’s past, often triggered by something she was seeing or doing so that they linked together well.

And thanks to this book, I have a new somewhat toxic idea that I could definitely do one of these backpacking treks like the Pacific Crest Trail – despite how much the author suffered and wasn’t prepared. And despite the fact that I have never so much as slept in a tent once in my entire life!

The goal of the book isn’t to convince the reader to take on their own personal challenge to hike and camp. In fact, written so many years later, it’s more of a memoir of a pivotal moment in her life that could have been anything, but for her, it was hiking and camping alone.

I would recommend this book. It didn’t absolutely blow me away, but I really liked it.

Space Vampire by Ruby Dixon

Honestly, this is the type of book that I feel a bit conflicted about saying I enjoyed it, but you know what, I kind of did.

Dana is a human pet on a space station; she wakes up one day to find that everyone has left because they’ve accidentally created a monster, and now she’s alone with him. But maybe the monster isn’t as bad as he seems, so the two start to make plans to escape the station before the aliens return.

Compared to other paranormal type romances I’ve read, this one reads a little more like an amateur fanfic – which isn’t in itself a bad thing. For me, as a quick read on a lunchbreak, this was the perfect length, although with the subject matter, you wouldn’t want anyone reading over your shoulder! It’s a vampire alien romance, and that sounds weird, I know. But it was fun!

I haven’t read anything else by the author but have had her on my list to try out for a while. Her writing style was engaging and pretty funny, so even though this book didn’t blow me away (I don’t think this type of story as a novella will ever blow you away, to be honest – there’s too little time for character growth and for the story to develop), it’s been enough of a taster book to decide that I will read more by her.

Spicy Little Curses by J. T. Geissinger

I love the concept – this could have been a whole regular book, not just a little novella. It being so short took away all the fun for me where we could have been figuring things out rather than characters jumping straight to correct conclusions or having them explained to them. It also didn’t give the chance to let the heat develop between the characters – insta-love and insta-lust without the chemistry unfortunately. I wish there was more of an opportunity to build tension and suspense not just in the romance, but the overall storyline – it could have been really spooky and eerie in places, rather than just a jumpscare.

As I said, I did like the concept, and I liked a few parts like the way he teased her with the nickname “Notebook”. And I liked how she was somewhat disparaging and disbelieving of what was going on – calling love indigestion, for example!

Overall, it was fun to read as a quick lunch break book but felt more like a detailed outline than a full book – and I think it has potential for more!

House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J. Maas

I finally made it to Crescent City! I’m powering through the remainder of Maasverse so that I can do a reread of ACOTAR before the new books, and I just got hold of these ones from the library.

Honestly, the first 40-50%, as most people say, it’s a bit a slog. There’s a lot of world building and I didn’t think I was connecting with the characters or the setting. It’s quite different to the other SJM series, being a modern world with technology and magic woven together. The factions of the world are also split – fae, shifters, angels, humans and more, some of them working together; others against each other. There’s a historic rebellion that’s impacting characters with long life spans that we meet in the book, and there’s a current war taking place. It’s a lot of politics to absorb pretty quickly.

But once I got it, I GOT it. It was pretty tricky as I wanted to Google some bits to get more context or to make sure I was understanding things (I actually ended up chatting with Gemini about it, making sure it gave me no spoilers – this was quite a fun way to think over my theories and not have them ruined!).

As is typical with an SJM book, there was a huge climax towards the end where the pace suddenly picks up and everything seems to be happening at once. I’ve been known to gasp aloud at these parts and once had to grab Ben’s hand!

I loved that there are little connections between the TOG and ACOTAR worlds here. I already knew that there were connections, but I didn’t know what that was going to look like, whether they were just cute little Easters eggs (occasionally) or wider world things (also sometimes). I’m enjoying spotting them and trying to figure out what they mean towards the wider series – it’s very fun.

I’ve already jumped a few books in my queue to start the next in the series. They’re certainly not a light, easy read, but it seems like they’ll be rewarding!

The Million Pieces of Neena Gill

This was a heart-wrenching read of a YA novel that felt so true of the time it was written in.

Neena’s brother left nearly a year ago, and slowly her life is falling apart. Her parents want to protect her, but Neena wants to experience the world. She takes risks that she wouldn’t have done before, leaves behind one friend in favour of another, starts seeing a boy forbidden by her parents, her grades start to slip. And big news from her parents means she feels even more isolated.

This book approaches mental health from a very interesting perspective. Seeing it all through Neena’s eyes means that we don’t quite follow the descent in a linear fashion – I guess like much mental illness.

It wasn’t an entirely new story, and it didn’t do anything hugely different to others out there in the same genre. YA books in this niche are full of very similar stories, but this was a good one. The cultural aspect of it added to the story so that it didn’t feel too cookie cutter and it felt well done to me.

As a young adult, I would have enjoyed it. And fortunately I don’t think this book romanticised mental health issues as some can easily do, a trap I probably fell prey to several times, so I wouldn’t worry too much about recommending it to an older teen.

As a parent, the read is so heartbreaking. It’s weird to be on the other side of the coin, although my children aren’t anywhere near old enough for it to resonate with me yet. But if I’d read it as a teen or young adult, I would have only felt concern about Neena; now, despite it being through her perspective, I’m watching the parents too and feeling their fear.

Thank you to Netgalley, the author and publishers for an ARC of this book.

The Revealed by Jessica Hickam

This was such a great example of the dystopian world with strange new powers genre. I enjoyed the read, the characters were great, and the way the plot moved was really fun. It had a gritty survival feel without being too terrifying or too deep – there’s always a sense of hope.

Lily is an 18 year old who is confined to her home in a version of the US that’s rebuilding after a huge war. In the wake of the destruction, The Revealed are a group who pluck 18 year olds from their lives and make them disappear – no one knows how or why. But Lily has it different, as her father is campaigning to be the first President of the new world and she’s receiving letters to warn her about her impending kidnap. She’s not going down without a fight though, and she’s not willing to stay confined in her home.

This type of book was my absolute world as a teen reader – a dystopian world that is rebuilding, and something strange going on with a hint of the supernatural, plus a YA romance.

I have always, and probably will always, love YA books, but I moved away from them as my primary genre a few years ago, and looking at it now, I think that’s potentially because a lot of the ones I enjoyed were dystopian world novels, and suddenly in 2020, that was all a bit too real!

It’s a bit strange to me reading a book set in a dystopian world ravaged by war that was written before 2020. While we are hardly in the same situation as the book, there’s just something weirdly nostalgic about a time where we would read and write books about the big “what if”, but then there was a real “what if” situation that makes us look strangely naive. It’s also weird that the world was set in a dystopian near future North America that they’re trying to “make great” again…without going too much into politics that I don’t know enough to talk about comprehensively on a book review, it felt odd to read!

Anyway, this is little to do with the book really and more of a commentary on if you were to pick up the book now, how the wider context of it has changed.

I found the writing really engaging for young adult readers – it certainly kept me hooked as I read it in two quick sittings.

I just have one issue: in the back of the book, the next in the series is teased with a cover and blurb…but that book never seems to have come to fruition – I can’t find it anywhere! This is one of my old Netgalley books that I never had a chance to review around 10 years ago, so that’s my fault really for not checking before I read it (and I would have read it anyway as I feel like I still have the responsibility to do so), but now I’m sad that I may not ever find out what happens to Lily and Kai!

Thank you to Netgalley, the author and the publishers for an ARC of this book (and apologies for my very late review!).

Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry

A love story with an extra emotional depth and a generational story told through another character that added a little mystery into the mix.

Alice is a celebrity journalist with the opportunity of a lifetime: she’s tracked down the elusive heiress and tabloid princess Margaret Ives and is in the running to write her life story. The only problem is that she’s up against Hayden, a serious music journalist who is already a prize winning writer. They have a month to prove their skills, but they are under an NDA not to speak to anyone about her story, including each other.

This book had The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo vibes, with a story of a lifetime told through another. I wasn’t expecting this when I went into it – I was thinking it was going to be a more fluffy, light romance but it had so much more depth than that. I’ve read a few of this type of storytelling books and this one did it very well. It wasn’t too heavy on losing the thread of either story.

Alice has such a different personality to me – she’s outgoing and thrives on social situations (CHOOSING the seat between 2 parties at the bar, rather than avoiding it?!). But yet she was still relatable and realistic. In fact, it’s fun to see life through someone else’s perspective that’s very different to my own.

The relationship with Hayden was spot on. He was such an unlikeable character at first, and the flip wasn’t instant. It’s enemies to lovers and forced proximity (small island) without feeling too cliche or leaning on the tropes too much. The tension played out so well – their own enforced rules that were near impossible to stick to made it all the more fun.

I’ve only not given it 5 stars as it didn’t blow me away, but I loved it and would absolutely recommend it.

The Cosmos Keys by Glenn Cooper

This was a very enjoyable thriller set in a world that was very interesting to me.

David is an archaeologist exploring a network of ancient tunnels in Turkey. When they come across deeper levels where they find an artifact that goes against everything they know about the time period, David seizes his opportunity to find out more and takes the device to Eleni, a Greek historian whose speciality is a similar device, the Antikythera mechanism. This discovery sets off a race against time to find more parts of this device that are spread across the world, to unite them and to uncover a whole new mystery.

Look, I’m always going to enjoy a book that uses archaeology and the mysteries of Ancient Greece as its base. It’s kind of my special topic. This one having the Antikythera mechanism as a big feature in the story was super fun to me. I loved that it spun off real topics to make it feel more realistic and believable.

The book felt like it was told in 3 parts: the archaeological dig and initial discoveries; the adventures to find the other parts of the destiny machine; and the aftermath – the big reveal, the truth and what comes afterwards. The first couple of parts felt very Dan Brown-esque – I would have previously said like a budget Dan Brown book, but his most recent one didn’t hit all that well for me and I definitely enjoyed this one more than that. I enjoyed all the parts of the story, although I think the final part might be a bit farfetched for some, tending more towards sci-fi. Fortunately I really like this so it gave that usual thriller niche an extra bit of fun!

The only thing that felt a little off to me was the romantic relationship between the two main characters. I’m all for a romance in any type of book I read – in fact, I think most books are better for them – but this one just didn’t hit right for me. It felt a bit like a romance of convenience with not much build up, although I can see how it was important for the story. It just felt a little out of place in this story for me.

Origins of an Academy Bully by Caroline Peckham and Susanne Valenti

Finally back to the OG Zodiac series after the little foray into Ruthless Boys! This was a quick read which gave some great additional context to the relationship between Darius and Lionel, as well as serving to increase the issues that we all have with Lionel.

It wasn’t hugely exciting and enlightening, but a good read. I feel like this was the right place in the series to read this as it was a gentle invitation back into the main series before diving back in to the longer books. Reading this as a prequel would probably be quite confusing, even though the events took place before the main storyline.

The Trad Wife’s Secret by Liane Child

This was a feisty thriller! It really took me for a ride that I enjoyed.

Madison is the queen of the tradwives movement on social media – she has cultivated the perfect image of mother, homemaker and wife. But when Cally, the new tutor moves in, the lies start being revealed when she’s made to sign an NDA and meets the wider team behind the posts. We also meet Brianna, who idolises tradwives and dreams of being one, but is struggling as a young woman on a homestead that’s not what she expected it to be.

The book feels instantly eerie. While Madison lives her life online and in the spotlight, she and her family are also weirdly isolated on their homestead. Cally joins this weird little group of people and isn’t allowed to leave for a year without losing her bonus. It’s creepy right from the get go. While the story is sort of swirly to start with, that eerie vibe carries it until you get to the real meat.

This book opens up a WHOLE can of worms about not only the tradwives movement, but presenting an image of yourself on social media, feminism, misogyny and more. It’s well told as a thriller without being a complete discourse on these topics, but it certainly gives you a lot to think about alongside the twisty storyline. As someone who works in social media for businesses, but who has also worked as a manager for an influencer (no NDAs and secrets there though!), there were plenty of things that felt very realistic about this type of lifestyle to me (the work, the publicity, the teams that go into building a brand). Of course, this is meant as an extreme example and something of a caricature of that life.

The story itself is somewhat convoluted with a few different threads which do all wrap up nicely towards the end. There were a couple of big twists that were expected, not “easy” to see coming necessarily, but you certainly know there’s something brewing – and I did figure them out just in time!