Reading Update: May 2026

The sunny summer reading begins (and hopefully returns)

Hallo, it's me, Laura King. Hard to believe in rainy June the absolutely stunning outdoor reading weather we got in May, which fuelled my reading experience for sure. I read some real belters in May and I'm excited to tell you about them!

Run Out and Read

Into the Blue by Emma Brodie

Into the Blue feels like Emma Brodie saw the hole left in my heart by Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, took some of that Taylor Jenkins Reid crack to properly get me addicted, and said "I heard you like to cry, bitch". Though at times its overwritten and cheesy, it's also immersive, exciting, PAINFUL, and an instant favourite book. AJ meets Noah at her summer job at a video shop in 2000 in Massachusetts. She's ready to hate the son of a family of famous actors turned delinquent Noah, until they bond over their favourite cult TV show and begin improv training. They become acting partners, then best friends, and then almost something more - and then nothing, until they meet again as costars of a reboot of their old favourite show, and their old bond crackles to life. Though they pull apart again and again over the years, they are brought back together more forcefully each time, despite everything that tries to keep them apart. At the time of writing, in early June, I have already started a reread!

The Red Mouth by Sheila Armstrong

Sheila Armstrong's second novel, The Red Mouth, is told from the point of view of four characters preoccupied in some way with two sets of discoveries generations apart from the same bog - a landmark discovery of "Belroe Woman" and later one stag, then a herd. The mastery of this novel sits not only in the incredible attention to detail and satisfying turns of phrase or keen observations, but in the ability to weave together disparate strands and offer a satisfying ending, even if it isn't the one we expect, or what a less ambitious writer felt they should give us. I was brought to tears in sitting with that uncertainty and wonder, and appreciating again the overwhelming power and beauty of Armstrong's writing.

The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout

Elizabeth Strout's new novel, The Things We Never Say, is an exploration of loneliness in contemporary life, on the precipice of the 2024 American election and against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine and the genocide in Gaza. The Things We Never Say is about new characters, a departure from Lucy and Olive, but it's definitely less hopeful than her other work. While there are moments of reconciliation and hope and real, heartwarming love, they are at an individual level only. Perhaps this is the solace Strout can offer us, as always, to live honestly and authentically and to connect with each other as people and neighbours, not polarised opposites or avatars.

Highly recommended

The Safe Keep by Yael Van Der Wouden

Isabel keeps her late mother's house preserved like a museum of their family in rural Holland. It is fifteen years since the Second World War ended and their mother brought Isabel, Louis and Hendrik to stay in an old country house acquired by their uncle, perfectly finished and ready and waiting for them. She is shaken up when Louis brings garish, gauche Eva to dinner, and outranged when it is decided that Eva will stay with Isabel when Louis is away. But something pulls Isabel to Eva, her polar opposite and a mystery to her, and opens up a mysterious side of herself too. The Safe Keep is a dream of a novel, but with an undercurrent of suspense as much as desire. The tension of the two propels the novel and the reader forward into a love story, a ghost story of sorts and ultimately reconciliation with the past, history and ourselves.

Recommended

The Bodyguard by Katherine Center

The Bodyguard by Katherine Center is silly, fluffy fun, but in the best way possible, about an unlikely, plucky bodyguard and the heartthrob actor she is sworn to protect. And if she has to pretend to be his girlfriend to not arouse suspicion, isn't that part of the job? Very overwritten but very sweet!

What Am I, A Deer? By Polly Barton

What Am I, A Deer? is a strange but compelling first novel by Polly Barton, an essayist and translator. The novel feels like autofiction, maybe just because the main character is also a translator working in Japanese, but also because of the highly specific level of detail as well as a slight remove from character building or other markers of a standard novel. I don't think I can say I liked it but I was intrigued by it and found so many passages startling in their really specific accuracy about being young and adrift somewhere new, and yet dreaming of something to come that is still out of reach.

Into the Wreck by Susannah Dickey

Susannah Dickey's Into the Wreck is a novel told in five parts, moving through the point of view of members of a family grieving their estranged father, ex husband and relative.I was really impressed by this compact, intelligent novel. Yvonne is by far the most interesting character and her voice is a real pleasure to read, and I enjoyed that the older the characters were the most rewarding their sections were. I found Gemma and Matthew's chapters, which bookend the novel lacked the insight I was looking for but I appreciated the distinction because of their age or awareness. It meant that I didn't love the novel but I certainly still recommend it and can see why it has so many fans already.

Go Gentle by Maria Semple

Go Gentle by Maria Semple is a quirky, feel good novel, about philosopher Adora who is very happily settling into middle age, freshly divorced and now living in New York with her daughter, Vi, who she will soon see off to college. She has successfully "hacked" being single in middle age, persuading some likeminded friends to buy apartments in her building and split resources and ensure security for them as they grow old alone, together. She is shocked out of that peaceful, gentle existence by a mysterious, handsome man dragging her into international intrigue and black market art deals, and she begins to wonder if she is really ready to go gentle into that good night afterall.

Thank you for reading, and I hope you join me again soon for another installment of LauraEatsBooks.