02 | May | 2026 | Paroxysm of Giggles / Critical Mass

Carried Over from Last Month’s TBR

I actually read ALL of the books on my April TBR, so I don’t have anything for this section! Yay!

New Releases

I think for New Releases, I should put them on my TBR as ‘Possibles’ or ‘Bonus’ books, since while I intend to buy them, I may not, or they may not release in enough time for me to pick them up and read them.

Captain Steeeve's 13 Rules for Life by Steve Scheibner

One of my favorite topics to watch on YouTube is aviation, but in particular accidents and incidents. My nerdy brain loves the puzzle of figuring out what when wrong with the complex machinery, human factors, atmospheric influences, and other contributing factors, and the challenge of taking each story and seeing how it can be used to make flight safer. I wish this kind of investigation and self-reflection were a part of the culture for every industry, to be honest. In addition to Mentour Pilot, 74 Gear, Disaster Breakdown, Green Dot Aviation, Mayday: Air Disasters, and Pilot Debrief, I have been following Captain Steeeve for a while. Captain Steeeve’s 13 Rules for Life is marketed as a “flight plan for life.” I like to support the people that I spend so much time watching (there’s some kind of emotional connection created when you pay attention to someone’s story closely), so I’ll likely pick this up and give it a go. I have this marked as releasing on April 30, but it actually looks like it was published back on February 26.

Fury Bound is the sequel to Dire Bound, which was recommended to me by my friend, Kelly. I haven’t managed to read Dire Bound yet, so I’m trying not to spoil myself by reading the blurb of sequels too closely, if I haven’t read the preceding book. I think I will put Dire Bound on my TBR as a Possible. It is expected to release on May 5.

Also releasing on May 5 is Our Perfect Storm. This is a friends-to-lovers trope where the friends part seems like it’s pretty volatile. So much so that Frankie isn’t sure that George is going to show up as Best Man at her wedding. He does, and the next day she’s left at the altar. Hmmm…. Then, George convinces her to still go on her planned honeymoon… with him. I have enjoyed Carley Fortune’s books. Several of her previous ones have been set in Canada at cabins on the lake (which feels very much like summertime Michigan, so nostalgic, in a way, for me), while this one takes us to a new location of Tofino. Yes, I had to Google that. It’s a small town in the Vancouver Islands. It’s kind of fun that they are going to be honeymooning in the area where I got engaged. It’s not necessary for me to relate quite this hard to characters in order to appreciate a story, but I have to say, I don’t think it hurts!

Another May 5 release is Sweet Vengeance, which is Book 3 in The Calder Academy series. I binge-read the Crave series a few years ago, and this series is a spin-off from that. It’s kind of that guilty pleasure YA romance/thriller type of series that is entirely fluffy and enjoyable. I know that I’ve read Sweet Nightmare, which is Book 1, but somehow I missed Sweet Chaos, Book 2… Hmmm… Goodreads says that it’s expected publication date is November 3, 2026; Amazon says it’s November 2, 2027. I’m confused…. Book 3 is being published before Book 2???

Broken Dove is the sequel to Silver Elite, another book that I haven’t read yet. Ugh! I have a copy of Silver Elite, right? Somewhere? Now I have to search the house…. Yes! There it is! I got it as a Book of the Month selection, so it’s on my BOTM bookcase. You can get your copy of Broken Dove this Tuesday, May 5.

First and Forever! This book officially releases on May 12, but I was lucky enough to read an ARC version in February and loved it, 4.5 stars! After being harassed by a team mascot at a game and accidentally hurting him, Duffy is hated by the other fans, who only saw her being mean to the beloved mascot. On the other side, the team’s management is worried about the harassment part of the encounter and try to patch things up with Duffy by setting her up with a private meeting/date with one of the players.

Also coming out on May 12 is Hart’s Landing by Melanie Harlow. Melanie is a local author that I’ve had the privilege of meeting in person. I’ve read her Cherry Tree Harbor series (5 books) and enjoyed them, so I am looking forward to this new book. This book will be offered on Kindle Unlimited, so I could read for free, but I will likely pick up a physical copy – the sprayed edges look so cute on it! The story follows Mila and Everett. Mila left town after a huge fire, leaving behind a lot of suspicion and her former crush. Everett, now the mayor of the small town, runs into the girl that got away, but there are still questions remaining about the reason she left in the first place. So, maybe a bit of mystery with our romance in this one.

The Ballad of Falling Dragons – what is it with the new releases this month?! Why are they all calling me out with sequels to books I have not read yet (but meant to)?! This book is the sequel to When the Moon Hatched, which I own and which has a lot of great reviews, but also which I have not yet managed to read.

Sigh. It’s looking more and more that my TBR will be filled with a lot of backlist titles – probably as ‘Possibles’ instead of actually fully committing to reading them. I’d rather be pleasantly pleased that I made progress on my list of Bonus books than disappointed in myself for not accomplishing a goal. Thankfully, this is just my personal TBR and I will not be graded on it and it’s not cheating if I architect it to my advantage!

Book Club Picks

For my brother’s Moon Lit Bookclub selection for May, we will be reading The Inadequate Heir by Danielle L. Jensen. Last month was the first time that his book club had selected a sequel as the monthly choice, and this month is the first time we have selected a third book in a series! I started reading it as soon as I finished The Traitor Queen, but have only made it to page 14 so far. In this sequel, we leave Lara and Aren behind and follow her brother, Keris, and Zarrah, who is the General of the country his people are at war with. I think this book is mainly a prequel to the first two books in the series, but it may go up to current events or beyond. It’s always questionable for me when a series changes focus from one set of protagonists to another set. I get invested in the original characters, and for me, if I’m not attached to the characters, I will not generally enjoy the book.

For my brother’s Welcome to the Apocalypse book club, we will be reading Resistance by Mark Tufo, which is the sequel to last month’s Reset from the After the Pulse series. I also started reading this one in April, and am 42 pages/11% in. It starts out 3 years from the events in Book 1 and is narrated like you know what’s been going on the whole time, so it’s a bit jarring and confusing at the beginning. But through the device of a journalist doing interviews with the characters, we start to learn what happened in the intervening years. Apparently, there are now aliens who have invaded. I swear I just finished Reset and I do not recall this from the end of the book. Did I miss it?

(Overdue) Library Books

Okay, I don’t have any overdue library books at the moment, but I did place a couple holds last month. I read Star Shipped last month. The other is for Our Perfect Storm by Carley Fortune. I didn’t realize it when I put in the hold, but the Carley Fortune’s book isn’t going to be released until May 5. I’ll add it as a ‘Possible’ for the TBR, because I don’t know if I’ll get ahold of a copy this month due to the sheer number of people who are in the hold queue ahead of me.

Our Perfect Storm by Carley Fortune – I think this is a standalone book. It features Frankie and George, childhood friends who have always had a volatile on/off relationship. Frankie invites George to be her best man at her wedding, not knowing if he will actually make an appearance. He does, but then her fiancé calls it off the next morning. Confused and heartbroken, she agrees to George’s request to go on her planned honeymoon with him, as a last chance to repair their friendship.

Random Selections

Everybody’s Favorite Guy by Katherine Center – Lily fell in love with her childhood friend, Walker, who ended up rejecting her. Seven years later, they are trapped together in a snowed in cabin in the Rockies.

Books Ahoy Readathon

My friend, Monica, is hosting the Books Ahoy Readathon in her Facebook group, Let’s Peanut Butter Taco ‘Bout Books. It will take place from Monday, May 25 – Sunday, May 31, 2026. The prompts are:

Bon Voyage (a great first line)
Sailor’s Delight (bestseller’s list)
All Aboard (includes a boat)
Make Waves (water on cover)
Anchor (main character returns to hometown)
Whatever Floats Your Boat (favorite genre)
Smooth Sailing (a book you can sail through)

As a Navy veteran, how could I not participate in this readathon?! (I mean, obvs, I would participate anyway….)

Monica also sells coordinating stickers for the readathon via her Etsy shop, PeanutButterTaco, so I will be certain to pop over there and place an order.

Here are some nautical considerations:

Love Overboard by Kandi Steiner – This is a book that can be read for free via Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited subscription. It is a second-chance romance between Ember and Finn, who end up working together on the same yacht. To complicate things, Ember is starring in a reality TV show, so their interactions will be on the air for the masses.

Return to Me by Kelly Moran – A second-chance romance that starts out the way that so many of them do: two kids, one rich (the other presumably not), fall in love, some catastrophic event occurs that breaks them apart, fast-forward to present day. Now, Cole is back from the military and Mia returns to their small, coastal town as a private nurse in charge of Cole’s care.

Blue Jeans and Coffee Beans by Joanne DeMaio – Maris leaves her life in Chicago’s denim fashion industry for a coastal New England experience where she reconnects with old friends and savors a different pace of life while she settles her father’s estate.

Breathe by Abbi Glines – Forced to stand in for her pregnant mother as a domestic servant for the summer, Sadie is surprised to find her new boss is Jax, one of the hottest teen rockers in the world.

The Little Bookshop by the Sea by Eliza J. Scott – Florrie lives an idyllic life by the sea as a bookseller, until tragedy strikes and she has to work with her bookstore owner’s grandson, Ed to try to save it. She finds some mysterious, yellowed letters in the back room, but these are not the only secrets she has to contend with.

Summer on Lilac Island by Lindsay MacMillan – Newly unemployed Gigi finds herself living with her mother on Mackinac Island. Summer resident James works as an author, but Gigi swears his main job is irritating her. This is as much a story about Gigi’s relationship with her mother, as it is a romance.

My Greek Island Summer by Mandy Baggot – House-sitter Becky and Businessman Elias are thrown together when their plane to Greece has an emergency landing. They are more surprised when they run into each other again at the same villa.

Hearts Overboard by Becky Dean – STEM-loving Savannah is dumped by her boyfriend for being too boring, so she embarks on an Alaskan adventure to prove that she knows how to have fun… except, she kind of doesn’t. Insert Tanner, her long-time nemesis, who agrees to help her expand her horizons.

Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant – What if mermaids are real? What if they hate humans? After some filmmakers go missing at sea while making a “mockumentary” about legendary sea creatures, one of the crew’s sister returns to find out exactly what happened.

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty – Amina is a famous Indian Ocean pirate who is looking forward to retirement and the good life, when a colleague’s mother asks her to retrieve her granddaughter for a princely sum. However, the girl’s disappearance is more complicated than first anticipated.

The “Possibles” List

The Replacement by Liv Constantine – The Amazon First Reads program (where Amazon Prime members get a free Kindle book every month) has recently been offering a bonus short story as well. There’s no downside to also selecting the bonus, so I pick it up every month. A Hollywood A-lister, who has fallen out of the limelight, but is trying to make her way back falls in with an up-and-coming costar who becomes her protege. But, this is a thriller, so bad things are coming…

Two Lives with You by Lauren Ho – This follows Dana and Nigel, a couple each struggling with their work situations, who receive a magical reprieve from their lives to explore what might have been if they had not married. What will happen when they run into each other in this alternate reality? And what does it mean when their magical wish has a catch?

Seek the Traitor’s Son by Veronica Roth – Elegy is a soldier fighting against the Talusar. One day, she is brought together with one of the Talusar’s generals to hear a prophecy: one of them will lead their people to victory over the other, but they don’t know which. Also, there is a man central to both of them whom Elegy is told that she will fall in love with.