May Roundup

It’s my understanding that May has 31 days most years, but it seemed to me that the 2025 edition was short by a few weeks. It felt closer to about 12 days to me, and I’m not entirely sure where the missing time went. May is a month that feels like a headlong rush to summer, the last gasp of both schools and writers before settling into the more relaxed rhythm of the long summer days.

The vast majority of May went into writing. With this being the last full month of school in my neighborhood, I’m well aware that June, July, and August will see a slowdown in the amount of work I can get done. An enormous amount of effort went into the release of Of Blood and Broken Dreams, which debuted right at the end of the month. You can find it on all major retailers, or you can purchase it (and a bonus novella as a free bonus) direct from my shop. All the details are here:

https://www.waterstonemedia.net/release-day/

Beyond that, I’ve also been working on the conclusion of the Adani series for OHB. Combined with my usual short stories for members and my work editing the Ashes of the Ascended series with Taylor, and it’s no wonder it feels as though the world is passing me quickly by.

May was, thankfully, a fantastic month for reading—not quite so much in terms of quantity, but in terms of quality. Five completed novels and one anthology added up to six books totaling about 2500 pages. I didn’t DNF a single book in May, which is becoming more common as I get a bit more picky about what I read. I started my month with the little novella An Inkling of Flame by Z.B. Steele. I’ve really been enjoying watching the growth of novellas in the indie fantasy space. Seems more authors are writing them every month, and I like that they’re short doses of new worlds.

Once again Janny Wurts was the highlight of the month with The Ships of Merior. This series continues to delight, and I’ve written a whole review of the book over on FanFiAddict. Keeping pace with the majesty of The Ships of Merior was the Arthurian reimagining Lancelot, which left me stunned and in awe with its tale and powerful prose.

I ended the month doing a genre switch and reading the thriller Trophy Hunt, which is the fourth book of C.J. Box’s smash-bestselling Joe Pickett series. Being a midwesterner at heart, I don’t think I’ve encountered a more faithful description of the modern American west, and the books are just a blast to read.

I did read 8 short stories in May (as well as the anthology, which I’m not counting here), but I’ll confess that there wasn’t really one that stood out to me. Over the course of the past year of reading shorts, I think I’m starting to get a sense of what I personally like, and what editors out there have similar tastes.

And I think that’s it for now. Didn’t see any TV shows or movies, but that’s not that unusual these days, and didn’t do much manga this month. The novels really sucked me in, and you’ll hear no complaints here.

Now on to June! Hoping to get a fair amount of writing done in the last few days of school, and then we transition to the summer schedule. We’ll see how it goes.