Welcome to Owl Book World! I’m here talking about May 2025 book releases. Let me tell ya, a lot of books are being released in May, and quite a few seem interesting. Nearly all of these books I have on here have caught my attention, and I know if they catch my attention, they’ll probably catch yours too.
Are you excited about any of these books? Are there any authors on this list whom you have heard about before? I know there are only a couple of authors that I have heard about before on this list but I’m so excited to check out the authors that are new to me!
May 2025 book releases
I have a variety of May 2025 book releases here. Some of them are for adults, and some of them are for young adults. I didn’t add who is for who on here, so make sure if you prefer one over the other to pay attention to that when you check out the book!
The Tenant
I have to admit that the cover of this story is what caught my attention from the start. After reading the synopsis, I know I’m going to have to eventually get my hands on this book. This is probably one of my most anticipated May 2025 book releases!
Here is what The Tenant is about.
Blake is at the top of his game. That is, until he’s not. He’s the VP of marketing and was just fired from his job out of nowhere. Now, he’s not able to pay the mortgage on the new home he just bought with his fiancée. At this point, he’s very desperate to make ends meet.
Then there comes Whitney. She’s beautiful, charming, and down-to-earth, and she’s trying to find a room to rent. She’s what Blake is looking for. But is she really?
Something isn’t right with her. The neighbors are treating Blake differently. There’s a smell of decay that overwhelms his home, no matter how hard he tries to clean the house. There are weird noises that wake him up in the middle of the night. Soon, he’s worried that someone knows his deepest, darkest secrets…
He doesn’t realize that danger is right at his home, but when it hits him, it’s too late, and he’s already trapped inside.
My Friends
I know this is one of the May 2025 book releases that many of you guys are going to be excited about.
Here is what My Friends is about.
Three tiny people are sitting at the end of a long pier in a corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world, and most people don’t even notice them. Most just think it’s a part of the sea. Louisa, who just so happens to be an artist, knows, and she wants to find out the story of those three figures.
Twenty-five years ago, in a different town, a group of teenagers found a safe haven on a pier. All of them have difficult lives at home, and they use this time to laugh and be free. There’s Joar, he never backs down from a fight. There’s Ted, who is quiet, bookish, and mourning his father. Ali is the daughter of a man who can’t seem to stay in one place for long. Then there’s the artist. He’s the boy who collects sleeping pills and shies away from attention. He has a gift that might be his way to a better life. These four lost souls are each other’s reason to get up each morning and find ways to dream.
A great work of art comes out of that summer, and the painting is left in eighteen-year-old Louisa’s hands. She struggles with this request and is trying to decide what to do with it. In the meantime, she goes on a cross-country journey to learn how the painting came to be. As she gets closer to the painting’s birthplace, she starts to feel compelled to go on her artistic journey. But happy endings don’t always end in the way that we expect.
The Missing Half
I know I would not want Nic’s life. It seems like she has nearly everything against her. But I know many of you will enjoy this one!
Here is what The Missing Half is about.
Nicols, “Nic”, is twenty-four years old and is in a rut. Nic lives by herself in a crappy apartment in her hometown, Mishawaka, Indiana. She just got a DWI, and she is still working at the dead-end job that she has been at since high school. She only has this job because her boss is a friend to her family and feels sorry for her. But everyone felt sorry for her. They have felt sorry for her for the past several years when her older sister, Kasey, disappeared without a trace.
When Kasey went missing, her car was found hundreds of miles away from home. The car’s door was open, and her purse was untouched in the passenger seat. The only clue in her disappearance was Jules. She’s another young woman who disappeared in the same area and in the same way two weeks earlier. The police never had a lot to go on, so both of their cases wound up going cold.
Nic wants to move on from the disappearance and how it has left her. Then one day, Jules’s sister, Jenna, comes into her life and gives Nic something she hasn’t had in a long time… hope.
The Thrashers
The Thrashers is another one of the May 2025 book releases that I really want to get my hands on, too. The synopsis seems interesting and very attention-grabbing.
Here is what The Thrashers is about.
Welcome to the elite friend group at New Helvetia High, the Thrashers.
Everyone wants to be them.
Jodi wasn’t supposed to be one of them. Julian, Lucy, Paige, and famous Zach are rich. They also love attention. Jodi kind of feels out of place, but Zack is her childhood best friend, so she’s in.
But then Emily dies. She desperately wanted to be a Thrasher, and the rumors about them began. When Emily’s journal is found, detectives close in on it. Jodi is faced with an impossible choice. Should she betray her friends or protect herself?
Eerie messages and strange occurrences present themselves to her and start to escalate. It becomes clear that Emily isn’t done with them yet.
Dying to Meet You
Dying to Meet You is probably one of the May 2025 book releases that I’m not exactly dying to get my hands on. The book sounds really interesting, though, and I know many of you will probably enjoy it as well!
Here is what Dying to Meet You is about.
Rowan is a loving single mother. She’s also a very talented architect and has a job with a high-profile commission by restoring a historic mansion for a powerful family in Maine. Inside, she’s a mess. She’s been stalking her ex through an app on her phone, and she knows that it isn’t the best way to heal from their breakup. At this point, she’s out of ice cream, and she’s tired of watching rom-coms.
Watching what he does fascinates her, but it also infuriates her. He’s eating out and having fun while she’s constantly crying on the couch. It’s not until he parks in their favorite romantic spot that she breaks. During a time of weakness, she lets her dog “loose” and takes off to see who he has in the car.
Instead of catching him in a kiss, she becomes an up and close witness to his murder and, unfortunately, the primary suspect.
She’s not the only one with secrets, and as she digs for the truth, she finds he was stalking her too. On top of that he was gathering very intimate details on her past and job.
She’s having a hard time trying to clear her name, and because of that, Rowan is spiraling into the same story that killed her ex.
Whispers of Dead Girls
I know I’m not the only one who likes the cover of Whispers of Dead Girls! The synopsis sounds good, too.
Here is what Whispers of Dead Girls is about.
Ren is back to where she started. Ten years have passed, and she has accepted a job at her old high school. She wanted to make peace with her past, but now she’s being thrown back into it. Her sister was murdered here when they were teenagers, and she’s immortalized in town. Because the Ren sees her everywhere she goes. And to top of the cake, the people that live there won’t leave her alone about what happened in the past.
Things become a little bit easier when she meets physics teacher Bryson. He’s handsome and charismatic, and everyone in the school seems to worship him. But Ren could see right through him. She knows men like him can’t be trusted.
The longer she’s around him, the more she watches him, and the more suspicious she becomes of him. She eventually notices that he has a close relationship with a girl in one of his classes. This girl reminds Ren so much of her sister and she’s worried that history is going to repeat. But this time, she’s not going to sit back and watch another girl disappear.
She will do anything to save this girl, even if that means revealing her dark secrets.
The Last Ferry Out
This is another one of the May 2025 book releases you should be excited about! Andrea Bartz is a really good author and has become one of the few auto buys from me.
Here is what The Last Ferry Out is about.
Abby has decided to visit Isla Colel for closure. She’s not sure if she’ll be able to find anything but needs to visit the place where her fiance, Eszter, died. Her mind needs to wrap around what exactly happened.
The island isn’t anything like she was expecting. It used to be a popular tourist place, but when a hurricane came through a few years ago, it left the island as a shell of what it used to be. There even used to be a daily ferry to the mainland that now only runs maybe once every week.
While she’s there, she becomes friends with an alluring group. She doesn’t sense anything wrong until one of them tells her that he knows the truth about the last few days that Eszter was alive. Before she’s able to ask any questions, he disappears from the island. Hours turn into days, and she still has no idea where he is, and the others in the group don’t seem to be bothered by it.
The longer she’s there the more she tries to dig through the web of lies and the more determined she tries to figure out what happened to the love of her life. The longer she hangs out with the group, the more she starts to think that one of them is the killer.
Whistle
I’m going to be honest. When I first found out about this book, I didn’t pay attention to the cover (I know shocker right?), but I assumed that it was an Appalachian forest story. A lot of stories talking about not whistling while in the woods have popped up all over my TikTok feed.
It wasn’t until I read the synopsis that I realized Oh, it’s about a train. The story still sounds pretty interesting, though!
Here is what Whistle is about.
Annie has had a horrible year. For starters, her husband was killed in a hit and run accident, the one of the children’s books she did herself is in the middle of a major scandal. She wants to have a fresh start, so she moves to a small town in upstate New York with her son Charlie so they can heal.
But her year is about to get worse.
Charlie is bored and lonely in this small town. He has been isolated. So, when he finds a forgotten train set that was locked in a shed on their property, he is ecstatic. Annie is just glad to see that he’s happy. But there’s something strange about his new toy that she doesn’t notice at first. Weird sounds start to wake her up at night. She swears she hears a train, but there isn’t an active track for miles. Then, weird things start to happen in the neighborhood. What makes it worse is that Annie can’t stop drawing an alarming character that has no place in a children’s book.
Saddness can do weird things to a person’s mind, but Annie is starting to think she walked out of one nightmare and into another that seems a lot scarier.
We Live Here Now
I love, love, love creepy supernatural stories, so I know this is one of the May 2025 book releases that I’m going to have to try and get my hands on soon.
I don’t know what it is about paranormal books that always seems to catch my attention, but We Live Here Now is one of those books.
Here is what We Live Here Now is about.
Emily had an accident that almost killed her. Now, she and her family need a fresh start. So, they moved from London to a house that is called Larkin Lodge. The house is beautiful but Emily feels like there is something wrong with it. The house makes noises at night, and books fall off the shelves. All of it is coming from a terrible force she can feel in the third-floor room.
All of this stuff only happens when she’s alone. Are they even happening at all? She is still fragile after her accident, and her condition can cause hallucinations. That just tells her that she can’t completely trust her senses. Her husband, Freddie, doesn’t notice anything weird and he’s happy that they are given the chance of a fresh start. She believes that the house is haunted by someone who has been murdered. She has done her research but can’t find any evidence. When things start to pile up and her marriage goes down, she starts to become obsessed with finding out the truth. But the house has secrets and so do Emily and her husband.
Murder Land
I don’t know what it is about books that revolve around theme parks that always seems to catch my attention, but Murder Land caught my attention. I blame R. L. Stine and the horrorland books.
Here is what Murder Land is about.
Billie feels like she’s on the top of the world. She’s spending the entire summer with her best friend, things are going great with her crush, and she has gotten a promotion to ride operator at the most talked about ride at the theme park she works at. The first night there takes a dark turn when her creepy coworker dies on her ride, and as of right now, she isn’t approved to be running it.
She thinks that he died by having a heart attack, but when she returns with help, it looks like he may have a broken neck. Did she see him sitting up a few minutes ago? Is someone trying to pin this on her? She needs to figure out what happened and who is responsible before she gets blamed for his death.
She gets the help of her friends to sneak around the par after hours to find out the truth. As the night goes on and more people wind up dead, she realizes that she might not make it out of Murder Land. At least not make it out alive. Her friends might know more than they are telling her.
The Whisperwood Legacy
This is another one that I want to get my hands on! Considering it takes place in the Appalachian Mountains I just know I want to at least try it.
Like I said before, Appalachian horror has been popping up all over my TikTok feed, and I have been hooked! So, hopefully, I can try this one soon.
Here is what The Whisperwood Legacy is about.
Deep in the woods of the Appalachian mountains is a theme park called Whisperwood. It has the most thrilling rides, and it is the most picture perfect place to bring the fairy tales to life. At least it did until eighteen months ago when it was shut down to wither away along with the owner’s dwindling fortune.
Seventeen-year-old Frankie thinks that the closure is a blessing. For three generations, the owners have had corrupting influence.
When Virginia goes missing, Frankie thinks that her family may be guilty of something worse than family dysfunction. She gets the help of the handsome groundskeeper, Jem, to figure out what is true and outright lies. Instead, they uncover a reality where nothing is what it seems. Along with that, fairy tales aren’t just real but they’re also deadly.
When we go missing
May is one of the months that are letting out a lot of bangers when it comes to book releases. I know this one is going to be one of the May 2025 book releases that is going to catch a lot of people’s attention.
Here is what When We Go Missing is about.
Willow is seventeen years old and always has a camera around her neck. She is a volunteer at the Find Home animal shelter where she works as a photographer. At some point, she finds a memory card that she assumes someone has lost. It has tons of photos of teenage girls; some are smiling, while others don’t know they are having their picture taken, then there are some seem scared.
When she takes it to the police, they tell her that taking photos in public isn’t a crime. She can’t let it go, though. It doesn’t help that she finds her photo on the card. Willow teams up with the new volunteer to try and figure out what exactly happened to the girls. As the investigation slowly starts to heat up, so does their chemistry. Everyone around her has a secret, and when she finds out that some of the girls on the camera have disappeared, she realizes that she might have a serial killer on her hands. Can she figure out who it is before he finds her?
What books are you most looking forward to next month? Make sure to subscribe to our newsletter so you never miss a post like this again! I’m looking forward to seeing you guys here again! While you’re here, be sure to check out last month’s book releases here.