What I Read Last Month (May 2025)

Sometimes I look back at a month’s worth of reading and am surprised by how much (and what) I read. May was certainly one of those months! I read six novels, including a truly chonky one. A couple were buzzy new books, and one was a truly epic, sweeping novel about London.

Here are the books!

Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy

I have seen this book popping up all over book reviewing sites, and I was intrigued by the climate crisis novel / isolation thread that seemed to run through it. What I found was a beautifully written novel about a family living on an isolated and soon-to-be abandoned research island whose lives are changed when a woman washes up on shore. Although a slow burning start for me, I found myself racing to the end to find out what happened to this fascinating cast of characters.

Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry

I’m a fan of Emily Henry’s romance novels, so I was curious when I heard that readers seem a little divided about her latest, Great Big Beautiful Life. It tells the story of two authors pitted against one another to win the privilege of writing the authorized biography of a legendary socialite. This novel also features a book within a book telling that socialite’s story—although both you and the characters quickly realize that the woman telling the story might not be the most reliable source. For me, the book balanced very nicely between the budding love story between the journalists and the socialite’s life. I definitely recommend this one!

The Homemade God by Rachel Joyce

Wooed by the beautiful cover on the UK edition, I picked this book up on a whim. It follows closely the adult children of a commercially successful but critically derided artist who announces that he intends to marry a woman none of his kids have ever met. When he dies in the family’s Italian villa, the children descend to try to protect their father’s legacy—and perhaps their inheritance—which includes his rumored last painting. If you like deeply complex family dynamics about people with lots of baggage, this is going to be your jam—even more so if you enjoy authors throwing a ticking time bomb of a missing will into the mix. I love both of those elements, so I was a very happy reader indeed.

Caledonian Road by Andrew O’Hagan

I’ll be honest, I don’t entirely know how to describe this epic novel. Ostensibly it’s about a sort of academic sort of cultural commentator who experiences what I can only describe as the most self-destructive of midlife crises when he begins to allow a student of his into his life, however that description would discount all of the many other storylines that weave together to give a sweeping and often condemning look at modern London. It’s probably not a surprise that the book is long, but I think it is well worth your time.

The Rose Bargain by Sasha Peyton Smith

After Caledonian Road I was looking for something completely different. I don’t usually read fantasy novels but when the author of The Notorious Vices, Alwyn Hamilton, described The Rose Bargain in her newsletter I thought it could be just the right fit for me. It turns out this book is a blast, combining the familiar (high society debutantes being presented at a court that looks an awful lot like Queen Victoria’s) with a smattering of magic (a fairy queen who grants each person in England one wish so long as they are willing to pay her often steep price). Throw in a fairy prince’s search for a bride and some sparky tension between our heroine and the prince’s mortal step-brother, and I was in for a fun ride that I sped right through.

The Ivory City by Emily Bain Murphy

This is a late edition (hence why it is missing from the above graphic), but I just snuck under the wire finishing this book before the end of the month and I couldn’t leave it out! I read this one for an early endorsement, and I really enjoyed it! Here’s what I had to say:

Grace Covington is the perfect amateur detective mixing charm and ingenuity in this richly detailed murder mystery set against the vibrant backdrop of the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. A delightful read!

What are you reading right now? Leave me a comment to let me know!