I know I say this every month but this time I really can not believe we are already in the last week of the month. I’m not sure if it’s the school holidays talking, we are only halfway through, but I am so far behind… I just want to curl up with a book for the rest of the month and hibernate.

Before I do that I better tell you about all the great reads we have coming up in May. The list isn’t quite as long as April’s but I think we have more actual books so hopefully a lot of happy readers.

Check out this bunch of book beauties.

With such an amazing selection coming up in May I really better get my head in the game, or a book (or 5), and get through April so I can sink my teeth into some of these babies.

A Country Mile – Mandy Magro
HarperCollinsAustralia – Harlequin Mira – Rural Romance

A heartfelt new rural romance about homecoming and forgiveness, from Australian author Mandy Magro.

Secrets.
Everyone has at least one…

When Sophie Copinni’s love life turns sour, a trip to her hometown in Far North Queensland is the perfect time for her to take stock of her future. There, two weeks before she turns thirty, she finds a bucket list from her teenage years. Most of the challenges are fun, although one thing on the list scares the hell out of her: she is to reveal a long–held family Secret – the very reason she ran away eight years ago.

A road trip home is Dylan Stone’s chance to escape the shady operations he has uncovered at the Sydney tattoo parlour he runs. Surrounded by the landscape and loved ones he’s missed so fiercely, Dylan starts to think that maybe it’s time to make his homecoming permanent. But there is still the unresolved matter of Sophie – the woman who broke his heart and skipped town so long ago.

Dylan and Sophie try to keep their distance but they can’t deny the intense chemistry between them. But if Sophie tackles the scariest challenge on her list, will it push Dylan away forever? And will her family ever be the same again?

A Perfect Marriage – Alison Booth
RedDoor Publishing – Contemporary Fiction

Sally Lachlan has a secret that has haunted her for a decade, although perhaps it is time to let it go. A chance meeting with the charismatic geneticist, Anthony Blake, reawakens her desire for love and, at the same time, her daughter Charlie shows signs of wishing to know more about her father. Both the past and the future are places Sally prefers not to think about, but if she wants to find happiness, she will first have to come to terms with her long-ago marriage. Only then will she be able to be honest with Charlie. And herself.

A story of love and loss, of enduring friendship and unreliable memory, A Perfect Marriage is an enthralling new book from the bestselling author of Stillwater Creek. The novel is also a tale of redemption, of new hopes and fresh beginnings

Ace of Shades – Amanda Foody
HarperCollins Australia – HQ Young Adult – Young Adult Fantasy

Welcome to the City of Sin, where casino families reign, gangs infest the streets…and secrets hide in every shadow.

Enne Salta was raised as a proper young lady, and no lady would willingly visit New Reynes, the so–called City of Sin. But when her mother goes missing, Enne must leave her finishing school – and her reputation – behind to follow her mother’s trail to the city where no one survives uncorrupted.

Frightened and alone, Enne has only one lead: the name Levi Glaisyer. Unfortunately, Levi is not the gentleman she expected – he’s a street lord and con man. Levi is also only one payment away from cleaning up a rapidly unravelling investment scam, so he doesn’t have time to investigate a woman leading a dangerous double life. Enne’s offer of compensation, however, could be the solution to all his problems.

Their search for clues leads them through glamorous casinos, illicit cabarets and into the clutches of a ruthless Mafia donna. As Enne unearths an impossible secret about her past, Levi’s enemies catch up to them, ensnaring him in a vicious execution game where the players always lose. To save him, Enne will need to surrender herself to the city…

And she’ll need to play.

Ash Princess – Laura Sebastian
Pan Macmillan – Pan Australia – Young Adult Fantasy

Princess. Prisoner. Orphan. Rebel.

Theodosia was six when her country was invaded and her mother, the Fire Queen, was murdered. On that day, the Kaiser took Theodosia’s land and her name. Theo was crowned Ash Princess – a title of shame to bear in her new life as a prisoner.

For ten years Theo has been a captive in her own palace. She’s endured the relentless abuse and ridicule of the Kaiser and his court. She is powerless, surviving in her new world only by burying the girl she was deep inside.

Then, one night, the Kaiser forces her to do the unthinkable. With blood on her hands and all hope of reclaiming her throne lost, she realizes that surviving is no longer enough. But she does have a weapon: her mind is sharper than any sword.

And power isn’t always won on the battlefield.

Bloodtree River – Sarah Barrie
HarperCollins Australia – HQ Fiction – Thriller

From the author of the bestselling Hunters Ridge series comes this stand-alone twisty rural suspense, this time set against the dark backdrop of Tasmanian mountains.

The highly anticipated new thriller from the author of the Hunters Ridge trilogy…

Indiana O’Meara is no stranger to the forces of evil. Her own past is full of violence. Now a policewoman, Indy is always fighting to redeem herself and defeat the dark. So when girls begin to go missing at a remote cattle station in Tasmania, she is quick to agree to go undercover to investigate chief suspect Logan Atherton, the owner of Calico Mountain Lodge, even though last time she went undercover it came to a bloody end.

But her early encounter with Logan reveals a man full of contradictions. His deep empathy for horses and those he cares for is obvious but he is also taciturn to the point of rudeness, and there is a strange atmosphere at the lodge. It doesn’t add up.

As Indy begins to dig deeper into the secrets at the lodge, she finds herself embroiled in a murderous web more complex and terrifying than she could ever have imagined…one that is linked to her own past.

Eleanor’s Secret – Caroline Beecham
Allen & Unwin – Allen & Unwin – General Fiction, historical elements

London, 1942
When art school graduate, Eleanor Roy, is recruited by the War Artists Advisory Committee, she comes one step closer to realising her dream of becoming one of the few female war artists. But breaking into the art establishment proves difficult until Eleanor meets a painter, Jack Valante, only to be separated by his sudden posting overseas.

Melbourne, 2010
Although reluctant to leave her family at home, Kathryn can’t refuse her grandmother Eleanor’s request to travel to London to help her return a precious painting to its artist. But when the search uncovers a long-held family secret, Kathryn has to make a choice to return home or risk her family’s future, as Eleanor shows her that safeguarding the future is sometimes worth more than protecting the past.

Eleanor’s Secret is at once a surprising mystery and compelling love story.

Someone Like You – Karly Lane
Allen & Unwin – Allen & Unwin – General Fiction, Romance

When bestselling author, twenty-nine-year-old Hayley Stevens, walked in on her husband, Paul, and her best friend in bed together, she knew her life would never be the same again.

One year later, Hayley stowed her last bag in her much-loved Audi Coupe and said goodbye to the city. She was excited to be heading west to Lochway, a small colonial village sitting on the beautiful Macdonald River. Wanting peace and quiet, Hayley had impulsively bought a cosy sandstone cottage there surrounded by lush rose gardens, with a small overseer’s cottage – ideal for a writer’s retreat.

What she didn’t expect was the almost immediate ‘gift’ of a very noisy donkey named Errol. Nor did Hayley expect to meet her handsome new neighbour, Luke Mason, when she was covered in mud trying to drag Errol out of Luke’s dam. The strange thing was though that Luke seemed very familiar to her.

As Hayley slowly gains acceptance into her small community and starts writing again she becomes almost afraid of the inexplicable visions she sees. What does it all mean? And why does Luke refuse to listen to her?

Written with warmth and humour, Someone Like You is an intriguing, funny and romantic story about past lives and new beginnings.

The Art of Friendship – Lisa Ireland
Pan Macmillan -Macmillan Australia – Contemporary Fiction

We all expect our friendships from childhood to last forever…

Libby and Kit have been best friends ever since the day 11-year-old Kit bounded up to Libby’s bedroom window. They’ve seen each other through first kisses, bad break-ups and everything in-between. It’s almost 20 years since Libby moved to Sydney, but they’ve remained close, despite the distance and the different paths their lives have taken.

So when Libby announces she’s moving back to Melbourne, Kit is overjoyed. They’re best friends – practically family – so it doesn’t matter that she and Libby now have different…well, different everything, actually, or so it seems when they’re finally living in the same city again.

Or does it?

The Greek Escape – Karen Swan
Pan Macmillan – Macmillan – Contemporary Fiction

Before every new beginning, there must be an ending

Running from heartbreak, Chloe Marston leaves her old life in London for a fresh start in New York. Working at a luxury concierge company, she makes other people’s lives run perfectly, even if her own has ground to a halt. But a terrible accident forces her to step into a new role, up close and personal with the company’s most esteemed and powerful clients. Charismatic Joe Lincoln is one of them and his every wish is her command, so when he asks her to find him a secluded holiday home in the Greek Islands, she sets about sourcing the perfect retreat.

But when Tom, her ex, unexpectedly shows up in Manhattan and the stability of her new life is thrown off-balance again, she jumps at the chance to help Joe inspect the holiday house; escaping to Greece will give her the time and space to decide where her future truly lies. Tom is the man she has loved for so long but he has hurt her before – can she give him another chance? And as she draws closer to Joe, does she even want to? As magnetic as he is mysterious, there’s an undeniable chemistry between them that she can’t resist.

But whatever her heart is telling her, she’s in over her head – another client’s wife has mysteriously disappeared and serious allegations about Joe threaten more than just her happiness. Who can she trust? And will Chloe uncover the truth in time?

The Juliet Code – Christine Wells
Penguin Randomhouse – Michael Joseph – Historical Fiction

It’s 1947 and the war is over, but Juliet Barnard is still tormented by secrets. She was a British agent and wireless operator in occupied Paris until her mission went critically wrong. Juliet was caught by the Germans, imprisoned and tortured in a mansion in Paris’s Avenue Foch.

Now that she’s home, Juliet can’t – or won’t – relive the horrors that occurred in that place. Nor will she speak about Sturmbannführer Strasser, the manipulative Nazi who held her captive. . .

Haunted by the guilt of betrayal, the last thing Juliet wants is to return to Paris. But when Mac, a SAS officer turned Nazi-hunter, demands her help searching for his sister, Denise, she can’t refuse. Denise and Juliet trained together before being dropped behind enemy lines. Unlike Juliet, Denise never made it home. Certain Strasser is the key to discovering what happened to his sister, Mac is determined to find answers – but will the truth destroy Juliet?

The Whispering Room – Dean Koontz
Harper Collins – HarperCollins – Thriller

Jane Hawk–fiction’s most relentless, resourceful, stunning new heroine–continues her battle against a murderous conspiracy in the riveting sequel to The Silent Corner.

“No time to delay. Do what you were born to do. Fame will be yours when you do this.”

These are the words that ring in the mind of mild-mannered, beloved schoolteacher Cora Gundersun–just before she takes her own life, and many others’, in a shocking act of carnage. When the disturbing contents of her secret journal are discovered, it seems certain that she must have been insane. But Jane Hawk knows better.

In the wake of her husband’s inexplicable suicide–and the equally mysterious deaths of scores of other exemplary individuals–Jane picks up the trail of a secret cabal of powerful players who think themselves above the law and beyond punishment. But these ruthless people bent on hijacking America’s future for their own monstrous ends never banked on a highly trained FBI agent willing to go rogue–and become the nation’s most wanted fugitive–in order to derail their insidious plans to gain absolute power with a terrifying technological breakthrough.

Driven by love for her lost husband and by fear for the five-year-old son she has sent into hiding, Jane Hawk has become an unstoppable predator. Those she is hunting will have nowhere to run when her shadow falls across them.

A huge thanks goes out to the publishers without whom we could not offer such great reads. Allen and Unwin, Harlequin, HarperCollins, Pan Macmillan, Penguin RandomHouse and RedDoor Publishing. We are so grateful for the support you show us, we couldn’t do it without you.

If you aren’t yet a member of the Beauty and Lace Club there is still time to join, head over to the signup page and take a look: yoursay.beautyandlace.net.

Happy Reading, have fun selecting preferences and we look forward to hearing what you think.