On the Shelf: May 2026

I read a whopping 29 stories in May—or 25, if you count a bunch of novellas in a multiauthor anthology as one title. Most of that debatable number is made up of rereads of old favorites. Whether it was the intimate contemporary communities built by Molly O'Keefe and Alisha Rai, or the lush, richly-drawn Tang Dynasty China of Jeannie Lin's historical romances, or the dark and compelling alternate evolution of Earth in Anne Bishop's Others series, I found immense comfort in the journeys. It's like going to visit friends without ever leaving the house!

That's not to say I didn't enjoy meeting some new people this past month. Because Elizabeth May's dark romantasy The Wolf and the Crown of Blood was a great time. I am always here for a stabby female protagonist whose stabbiness is encouraged by her love interest. Plus, it was entirely possible that Evander would stab Bryony right back at any given opportunity. That was part of the tension of the book that I really appreciated. It was genuinely enemies-to-lovers with a believable emotional payoff. "Morally grey" as a descriptor has become almost a cliché, but May's god-kings actually embody it and take it a step further—in terms of their moral makeup being built different than that of humans. And so there's conflict inherent in how to reconcile different value systems as they fall in love. (This is something Anne Bishop does exquisitely in The Others books.) I can't wait for Theo and Bastien's book. They have a very different dynamic than Evander and Bryony's, and I'm excited to see where it goes.

The Reading Rundown
The Storm by Rachel Hawkins (suspense)
[Redacted] by TK (suspense/crime, horror, for professional review purposes)
The Wolf and the Crown of Blood by Elizabeth May (romantasy, dark fantasy)
Enemy of My Enemy by Alex Segura (suspense, noir, Marvel Comics tie-in)
The Starter Ex by Mia Sosa (contemporary romance)

Backlist titles & rereads: I tore through rereads of Molly O'Keefe's Everything I Left Unsaid, The Truth About Him, Burn Down the Night, and Wait for It. Then it was on to Alisha Rai's Forbidden Hearts trilogy, Hate to Want You, Wrong to Need You, and Hurts to Love You. I kept going with the beloved backlists and immersed myself in The Lotus Palace and The Jade Temptress, by Jeannie Lin— two of my most favorite historical romances. Naturally, I had to read three more stories in the series after that. Somewhere in there, I also fit in return trips to The Obsession, by Lin writing as Liliana Lee, and Sarah Mayberry's Her Best Worst Mistake. During my Lotus Palace residency, I realized that The Liar's Dice was somehow the only story I'd read in the Gambled Away anthology—which also features novellas by Rose Lerner, Isabel Cooper, Molly O'Keefe, and Joanna Bourne. I promptly fixed that oversight. I ended the month with another series reread—the five books in Anne Bishop's Others series. I closed out the month with Cold as Ice by Anne Stuart and another go-round of My Season of Scandal by Julie Anne Long. Oh, how I love Keating and Kirke!