As May comes to an end, it’s time to share my May 2025 Book Haul. I never know how many books I will purchase in a given month. This month, I visited a local used bookstore and despite spending nearly two hours there, I walked out with very few books. It is exciting to add these books to my TBR and look forward to reading them.
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May 2025 Book Haul
Checked Out by Sharon St. George
When rodeo cowboy Cody O’Brien is found dead in his horse trailer, it appears that his horse, Game Boy, is the culprit. Aimee Machado, health sciences librarian at Timbergate Medical Center, has no reason to doubt the preliminary finding—at first. Cody had been in the hospital awaiting an operation the night he died, but he checked himself out. Had he reason to believe his surgeon, Dr. Phyllis Poole, was incompetent? Or is his death related to his complex relationship with his family? It turns out his father is dying, and four people other than Cody stood to inherit: his young trophy wife Echo, his son James, his daughter Keely, and her fiancé Tucker.
How does Dr. Poole fit into all this? Her surgical outcomes have not been the best. Not to mention that Laurie Popejoy, TMC nurse and Poole’s rival in the hospital’s blues combo, disappeared the night of Cody’s death. Aimee is highly motivated to investigate. She once had a crush on Cody’s brother James, who has now set his sights on her. The missing nurse, Laurie, left Aimee a desperate phone message the night she disappeared. Moreover, Aimee’s friend and co-worker Cleo has elicited her help to discredit Dr. Poole. Aimee is already confused romantically. Although it pains her, she is trying to keep Nick, the pilot she loves but does not trust, at arm’s length. But his help proves too invaluable to refuse. Can Aimee ferret out the truth without losing her job and her life?
The Badlands Trail by Ralph Compton
The drovers of Circle K ranch have to drive the herd of beautiful longhorn cattle five hundred miles northwest to Missouri if they hope to make it through the next year. Toby Bishop, a jack-of-all-trades and drifter, will have to work with the mixed group of drovers, whether they are white, black, Hispanic, lifelong cowboys, drifters, or shamed preachers. On the trail, drovers must set aside their differences in favor of a common goal.
As they go north, Bishop finds himself tested: physically by the rigors of the trail; and mentally, by the grim memories evoked by the violence necessary to protect the herd. But if they are to make it all the way to St. Louis, he’ll have to call on every skill and ounce of knowledge he’s acquired in his checkered and violent past to overcome the unexpected obstacles threatening the drive.
I hope you enjoyed my May 2025 Book Haul. What books did you buy in May?
