Wondering what new releases you need to add to your TBR this May? Look no further.
I’ve selected ten of the most exciting new releases for the month of May 2025 and included a little bit about each one!
*links are Amazon affiliate links and I may get a small commission*
Left of Forever
Tarah Dewitt
Release date: May 20, 2025
An emotional, spicy, second-chance romance from USA Today bestselling author Tarah DeWitt.
This time, they’ll get it right.Wren and Ellis Byrd fell in love as kids, had their son Sam when they were only teenagers, and built a life together in the coastal town of Spunes, Oregon. They were made for one another…until they fell apart.
Now divorced and in their 30s, Wren runs the bakery in town, while Ellis works as a firefighter. They live separate lives, though they are hardly off each other’s minds.
When Sam gets accepted into college and the pair help him move in together, Ellis convinces Wren to take an extended road trip back to Spunes with him to see if they can give their relationship one last chance. Amid the gorgeous scenery of the California coastline, dreamy destinations, and a great deal of long-yearned-for proximity, Wren starts to think it just might be possible. But the two still have to contend with their tumultuous past in order to move forward. And when spoken words fail, sometimes the written word must bridge the gap.
Will they make the most of what’s left of forever? Or will they let each other go for good?Brimming with big feelings and packed with steam, Left of Forever is bestseller Tarah DeWitt at the top of her game.
Not Safe for Work
Nisha J. Tuli
Release date: May 20, 2025
Rival engineers dabble in personal chemistry while at a tropical company retreat in this smart, zippy romcom.
Engineer Trishara Malik once dreamed of being the first woman of color to smash the glass ceiling at WMC Purcell, but after years of dealing with white male privilege and blatant nepotism, she watches her hard-earned promotion go to her nemesis, Rafe Gallagher—the boss’s son. Teetering on the edge of burnout, Tris is stunned when she’s picked to attend WMC’s corporate leadership retreat in Hawaii. It’s a chance to revive her stalled career and compete for a coveted spot in an executive training program—plus, three weeks in paradise! The only downside? Rafe is her co-attendee.
Tris plans to avoid Rafe entirely, but when she arrives in Maui, a booking error has them stuck sharing the honeymoon suite. Sure, it’s not all torture. Rafe is a smoldering ten—okay fine, an eleven—but after years of competition, they can barely stand being in the same time zone. As they vie against each other during aptitude tests and team-building exercises, Tris begins to realize Rafe might not be the villain after all. With her dreams at stake, can she learn to trust the man who might have been standing in her corner all along?
Silver Elite
Dani Francis
Release date: May 6, 2025
In the first book of a searing new dystopian trilogy, a young woman must conceal her psychic powers—and her attraction to her handsome, infuriating commanding officer—as she works undercover to take down a brutal government from within.
The world is divided. On the Continent, you’re either a Prime—immune to the biotoxin that nearly wiped out the Earth’s population 150 years ago—or a Modified, one who was enhanced by the toxin, developing powerful psychic gifts.
As conflict rages between the two sides, Wren Darlington lives in hiding. Occasionally running the odd op for the rebel Uprising against the Primes’ oppressive rule, she must keep a low profile. After all, if the enemy finds out that she is a Mod with a staggering four psychic abilities, she won’t just be sent to the labor camps. She’ll be executed—immediately and without trial.
When a careless mistake puts Wren in the crosshairs of the Continent’s military, she is taken captive and forced to join their most elite Silver Block. Unwittingly, they’ve handed her the perfect opportunity for the Uprising to strike a devastating blow from inside their ranks. That is, if she can keep her powers hidden, survive training, and prove herself to Cross Redden, her maddeningly cocky commanding officer.
Despite the explosive chemistry between them, Cross doesn’t trust her—even as he seems determined to destroy the remaining shreds of Wren’s self-control. Yet as the war between Primes and Mods escalates, and as Wren and Cross find themselves unable to stay away from each other, they must decide how far they’re willing to go for their secrets—and how much of the Continent is worth saving.
The Devils
Joe Abercrombie
Release date: May 13, 2025
A brand-new epic fantasy from New York Times bestselling author Joe Abercrombie, featuring a notorious band of anti-heroes on a delightfully bloody and raucous journey
Holy work sometimes requires unholy deeds.
Brother Diaz has been summoned to the Sacred City, where he is certain a commendation and grand holy assignment awaits him. But his new flock is made up of unrepentant murderers, practitioners of ghastly magic, and outright monsters. The mission he is tasked with will require bloody measures from them all in order to achieve its righteous ends.
Elves lurk at our borders and hunger for our flesh, while greedy princes care for nothing but their own ambitions and comfort. With a hellish journey before him, it’s a good thing Brother Diaz has the devils on his side.
The Knight and the Moth
Rachel Gillig
Release date: May 20, 2025
From BookTok sensation and NYT bestselling author Rachel Gillig, comes the next big romantasy phenomenon: a gothic, mist-cloaked tale of a prophetess who is forced beyond the safety of her cloister on an impossible quest to defeat the gods with the one knight whose future is beyond her sight.
Sybil Delling has spent nine years dreaming of having no dreams at all. Like the other foundling girls who traded a decade of service for a home in the great cathedral, Sybil is a Diviner. In her dreams she receives visions from six unearthly figures known as Omens. From them, she can predict terrible things before they occur, and lords and common folk alike travel across the kingdom of Traum’s windswept moors to learn their futures by her dreams.
Just as she and her sister Diviners near the end of their service, a mysterious knight arrives at the cathedral. Rude, heretical, and devilishly handsome, the knight Rodrick has no respect for Sybil’s visions. But when Sybil’s fellow Diviners begin to vanish one by one, she has no choice but to seek his help in finding them. For the world outside the cathedral’s cloister is wrought with peril. Only the gods have the answers she is seeking, and as much as she’d rather avoid Rodrick’s dark eyes and sharp tongue, only a heretic can defeat a god.
A Fate Forged in Blood
Hazel McBride
Release date: May 27, 2025
To become the first queen in centuries, a powerfully blessed blacksmith must use her wits and fire magic to overthrow the corrupt powers ruling her kingdom—while also fighting her growing desire for one of her dragon-riding adversaries—in the first book of a sizzling Celtic-inspired fantasy romance duology.
Once a territory built on matriarchal rule and values, Tìr Teine has since grown frail from a long line of fruitless kings. The most recent of which have ruled under the influence of the True Religion, an oppressive group who have steadily poisoned the region with their anti-magic teachings.
Born to rule and blessed by fire, Aemyra has begrudgingly lived in hiding rather than risk her life in court, waiting in anticipation for the current king’s death so she can bond to his dragon, claim her throne, and protect her people. But when the king dies and Aemyra is ready to take what is rightfully hers, her ambitious plan is foiled and she is thrust into a game of vicious politics and plots.
Her biggest adversary is Prince Fiorean, a dragon-rider and one of the most powerful fire wielders in the territory. Cold, arrogant, and blindly supportive of his corrupt family, he is everything Aemyra despises. But as chaos engulfs the court, they find themselves reluctantly entwined, forced to forge an uneasy alliance—one that quickly ignites into something more dangerous than either of them expected.
Behind enemy lines and slowly falling for her so-called adversary, Aemyra uncovers just how far the rot of corruption has spread, and what she may have to sacrifice to claim her throne.
Problematic Summer Romance
Ali Hazelwood
Release date: May 27, 2025
What is wrong meets what feels right in this romance set in Italy by the New York Times bestselling author of Deep End.
Maya Killgore is twenty-three and still in the process of figuring out her life.Conor Harkness is thirty-eight, and Maya cannot stop thinking about him.
It’s such a cliché, it almost makes her heart implode: older man and younger woman; successful biotech guy and struggling grad student; brother’s best friend and the girl he never even knew existed. As Conor loves to remind her, the power dynamic is too imbalanced. Any relationship between them would be problematic in too many ways to count, and Maya should just get over him. After all, he has made it clear that he wants her gone from his life.
But not everything is as it seems—and clichés sometimes become plot twists.
When Maya’s brother decides to get married in Taormina, she and Conor end up stuck together in a romantic Sicilian villa for over a week. There, on the beautiful Ionian coast, between ancient ruins, delicious foods, and natural caves, Maya realizes that Conor might be hiding something from her. And as the destination wedding begins to erupt out of control, she decides that a summer fling might be just what she needs—even if it’s a problematic one.
Releasing Ten
Chloe Walsh
Release date: May 27, 2025
Chloe Walsh’s BookTok sensation, the emotional, angsty Boys of Tommen series, continues with Releasing 10. Since childhood, Lizzie Young and Hughie Biggs shared a friendship that mirrored Gibsie and Claire’s…until everything fell apart. Now, they must figure out how to come back together.
A love that couldn’t be broken, except by the truth.
Lizzie Young has always felt she was too much everything. Diagnosed with bipolar disorder at a young age, she’s never fit in with her family, her friends, her community. Lizzie wants to be accepted and understood, but with few family or friends in her corner, she’s carries her burdens and her trauma on her own.
But when she meets a kind boy on the school bus, things start to look bright for the first time in her life…
Hugh Biggs has an old soul and the wisdom of someone far beyond his years. A young man with a sharp mind and a firm code of ethics, he sees something in Lizzie Young that he can’t resist. He wants to be her everything and shoulder her burden. And Lizzie wants that too.
Shield of Sparrows
Devney Perry
Release date: May 6, 2025
Shield of Sparrows is a slow-burn, high-stakes romantasy perfect for fans of Sarah J. Maas and Rebecca Yarros—where enemies become lovers, monsters stalk a cursed realm, and a forgotten princess finds the strength to tear off her crown and become the warrior she was never meant to be.
The gods sent monsters to the five kingdoms to remind mortals they must kneel.
I’ve spent my life kneeling—to their will and to my father’s. As a princess, my only duty is to wear the crown and obey the king.
I was never meant to rule. Never meant to fight. And I was never supposed to be the daughter who sealed an ancient treaty with her own blood.
But that changed the fateful day I stepped into my father’s throne room. The day a legendary monster hunter sailed to our shores. The day a prince ruined my life.
Now I’m crossing treacherous lands beside a warrior who despises me as much as I despise him—bound to a future I didn’t choose and a husband I barely know.
Everyone wants me to be something I’m not—a queen, a spy, a sacrifice.
But what if I refused the role chosen for me? What if I made my own rules? What if there’s power in being underestimated?
And what if—for the first time—I reached for it?
The Thrashers
Julie Soto
Release date: May 6, 2025
From bestselling author of Forget Me Not and Not Another Love Song Julie Soto comes a twisty and addictive thriller that will shock you until its final twist.
Either you’re in or you’re out.
Welcome to the Thrashers, the elite friend group at New Helvetia High.They’re everything everyone wants to be.
Jodi Dillon was never meant to be one of them. Julian, Lucy, Paige, and the infamous Zack Thrasher are rich, sophisticated, and love attention. Jodi feels out of place, but Zack’s her childhood best friend, so she’s in.
Then Emily Mills, who desperately wanted to be a Thrasher, dies—and the whispers about the Thrashers begin. As Emily’s journal surfaces, detectives close in, and Jodi faces an impossible choice: betray her friends or protect herself.
But as eerie messages and strange occurrences escalate, it becomes clear—Emily isn’t done with them yet.
A twisty thrill-ride of unforgettable drama and suspense that “encapsulates the vulnerability of adolescents playing adult games” (Ali Hazelwood) from USA Today bestselling author Julie Soto, The Thrashers will keep you up at night desperate to read just one more page.
What books are you most excited for this month?
Save for later!
