This Month in Adult Books: May 2022

Featured Title
Counterfeit by Kirstin Chen
Ava Wong is in a rut. Her marriage is on the rocks, her toddler perpetually cranky, and her career on hiatus. Her old friend Winnie, on the other hand is clearly doing well for herself. But her riches, it turns out, are the result of a scheme involving counterfeit handbags. A scheme Ava quickly gets involved in. It sounds like a straight forward narrative, but the story is split between both of their points of view, leaving the reader to wonder what the real story is. This is a clever and original mixture of motherhood, culture, and class summer readers won’t want to miss.
 
 



New & Upcoming
June brings an exciting selection of titles to start your summer off with a bang, including some new stories from the American west such as The Gun Barons: The Weapons That Transformed America and the Men Who Invented Them by John Bainbridge Jr. In We Refuse to Forget: A True Story of Black Creeks, American Identity and Power by Caleb Gayle tells the extraordinary story of the Creek Nation, a Native tribe that two centuries ago both owned slaves and accepted Black people as full members, tradition that was shredded in 1979.
If you’re interested in a summer escape, you may wish to check out More Than You’ll Ever Know, a debut thriller from Katie Gutierrez about a true crime writer obsessed with a banker who married two men in 2 different countries in the 1980’s. Or you could escape even further into the world of epic fantasy with Ordinary Monsters by JM Miro, the start of a new trilogy set in an alternate magical Victorian England.  
Check this Out!
Summer brings new books from big name authors, including some long-awaited returns of favorite characters.   
What We’re Reading
White Hot Hate by Dick Lehr
First up, a content warning: This book contains hate speech, racial slurs, threats of violence and more. It contains these elements because the book details the development of a white supremacist group in Kansas and its intent to commit violent acts of terror against local immigrants in 2016. The content is recounted from audio recordings and testimony against the group by an FBI informant. The content is not used gratuitously, but to illustrate the truth of the group. The informant is a community member who was on the fringes of the movement and brought the threat to the authorities, agreeing to risk his life in order to gather further intelligence. The deep dive into a domestic terrorist cell is absolutely chilling and incredibly revealing, especially in understanding how some in a group can go from words to action. True crime readers, narrative nonfiction readers, and those interested in knowing more about the threat of domestic terrorism would do well to pick this up.
 

For More Reading Suggestions:

• May 2022 Earphones Award winners from Audiofile
• All the New Science Fiction Books Arriving in May from Tor.com
• May’s most anticipated books from The Millions