May is simply bursting with books at Lovereading.co.uk! In the month which saw the birth of spy-creator Ian Fleming in 1908, we have an underground silo of sparkling titles to get you shaken, stirred and save you some moneypennies and lots of news on upcoming book festivals. Here’s what’s new this month.

Look No Further... May Books of the Month

As always, we have hand-picked the brightest stars of the month and put together a bookshelf bursting with brilliant titles for bookworms of all tastes. But one not to miss is The Yorkshire Shepherdess by Amanda Owen – A portrait of rural life, the idyllic and the backbreaking, by a mother of seven who left the city to become a shepherdess on a 2,000 acre farm.

Mixing in High Society - Daisy Goodwin this month's Guest Editor

Cambridge educated Daisy Goodwin stunned critics and public alike with her debut novel My Last Duchess – a gripping adventure among the ‘New Wealthy’ in America in the 1890s, aspiring to live like the stately-home-owning aristocrats of Great Britain. Now Daisy’s pulled it off again with her latest, hugely enjoyable novel, The Fortune Hunter. A sparkling, guilty pleasure of reckless love and duty in the high society hierarchy of 19th Century Europe. We are over the moon that Daisy has agreed to be May’s Guest Editor and you can read all about her and her own favourite reads, such as I Claudius by Robert Graves and Persuasion by Jane Eyre, in her special category.

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May the Firsts be With You! … Debuts of the Month

First-time titles as always, PLUS a MEGA debut, which was originally published by the author and was one of the hits of our Summer Reading 2013 selection and was then picked up by Penguin to get an exciting relaunch. Coincidence? We’d like to think not! One Step Too Far by Tina Seskis is a riveting, taut and hugely enjoyable psychological thriller with a gripping plot, vivid characters and a final twist that will make you fall off your sofa. And our other MEGA Debut, the creepy, compelling and scarily plausible The Book of You by Claire Kendal which is set against the backdrop of a trial where the lead character is a juror. And fans of literary historical fiction should try the WW1 novel The Cartographer of No-Man’s Land by P.S. Duffy. Set in France and Nova Scotia, it is a story about holding steady in the face of the unknown and the delicate balance between truth and lies.

Book Festivals Update

Fabulous literary festivals are blooming the length and breadth of the country now summer is beckoning. Scotland hosts the Borders Book Festival in Melrose, Wales welcomes visitors to Hay Festival again and in England there are children’s book festivals in Harrogate and Luton Hoo, whilst for lovers of crime fiction, Bristol is home once more to CrimeFest’s annual convention. See below for a shelf of ‘criminally’ good books, picked by Maxim Jakubowski the authors of which will be at Crimefest 15-18 May. Find out more about this year’s book festivals here.    

If you like, you’ll love ...

Many of you will be no stranger to our If You Like, You’ll Love section. We’re so proud of it, we thought we’d give it another plug! Basically, you tell us authors that you like and we suggest others that may just float your boat. Simples. A bit different as rather than an author – if you are a fan of Spiral, Salamander and Young Montalbano then one of our Debut’s of the Month, After the Silence by Jake Woodhouse will be one not to miss.  

The Final Bow from a Sci-Fi Giant …

The great Brian Aldiss has announced that Finches of Mars, his latest novel, is also his last. Fans will be well aware of Aldiss’s thematic and gripping style and this is a landmark novel by a much acclaimed author. If you’re a sci-fi fan and haven’t discovered his other work yet, give yourself a treat and click here now. Read on to see lots more hand-picked selections of books in the genres you have told us you are interested in. Click here to login and view and update those selections.   P. S. Just announced is the The Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction shortlist where, among others, Bridget Jones: Mad about the Boy by Helen Fielding and Jeeves and The Wedding Belles by Sebastian Faulks are battling it out. See more in our Book Awards category.