Peruse our plethora of Texas-connected new titles where MAYbe you will discover a new favorite author or MAYhap, a new gem from a go-to author. Whether you want to tumble into a twisty-turny mystery or get swept up in topsy-turvy romance, Lone Star Lit has you covered.
Hunting El Despiadado (A Cass Callahan Novel)
Chris Mullen
Fueled by a relentless determination to bring down the notorious Camargo Cartel, Cass allies with his hardened former partner, Lieutenant Ray Tucker, to hunt down the cartel's elusive leader and his ruthless sicario, El Despiadado. Together, they embark on a covert mission south of the border—where all bets are off should they get caught.
When El Despiadado cuts ties with the cartel, a storm of violence leads to Cass crossing paths with the infamous sicario. After a deadly betrayal threatens his mission, he becomes trapped in a web of danger, and, in a heart-pounding clash of gunfire and explosions, Cass is faced with an impossible choice—escape with his life or risk everything to continue hunting El Despiadado.
Marked (Morningstar Academy series, Book Three)
L. R. W. Lee
Fallen angel Gladriel, her new fallen friends, and her former celestial squadron mates have failed to shift a world ending prophecy and feel increasingly helpless as war, famine, and plague rage, killing millions of the humans they long to protect.
With conditions worsening on Earth, Kessien, Glad’s former squadron leader and romantic interest, is less available. At the same time, Morningstar Academy forces her to do increasingly heinous things to humans, and the distance stretches their relationship to the breaking point.
Glad and her fallen friends’ only hope for rescue is to throw themselves on the Almighty’s mercy and beg him to reverse their sentences. Trouble is, Glad will never be sorry for what caused her to fall and she can’t bear putting them in jeopardy.
Notorious in North Texas (Metroplex Mysteries, Volume III)
Published and Written by Sisters in Crime
The anthology is a collection of twelve short mystery / thriller stories by award-winning authors. All stories are set in North Texas and vary from scary to humorous, but all with a crime or mystery.
One of Four: World War One Through the Eyes of an Unknown Solider
Travis Davis
From New York Harbor to the battlefields of France, relive World War One through the eyes of an unknown soldier, as told through his diary. See how the 100-year-old diary brings a father and his estranged son back together by retracing his experiences fighting in the battlefields of France in 1917 - 1918 to his final resting place—the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery.
The Perfect Blend (Lost Creek, Texas Hill Country, Book One)
Alexa Aston
Braden Clark’s world crashes when his family’s vineyard is seized and his father is sent to prison. Event planner Harper Hart discovers her fiancé has been cheating on her with her best friend. She returns home to the Texas Hill Country to become an event planner at her family’s winery, meeting Braden, the new winemaker taking her father’s place.
Braden prefers to devote his time to his new job, but Harper proves a sexy distraction he can’t seem to avoid. Soon, their professional and personal lives intertwine, and friendship turns into love.
Can two people damaged almost beyond repair heal emotionally?
KB Brookins
By a prize-winning, young Black trans writer of outsized talent, a fierce and disciplined memoir about queerness, masculinity, and race.
Even as it shines light on the beauty and toxicity of Black masculinity from a transgender perspective—the tropes, the presumptions—Pretty is as much a powerful and tender love letter as it is a call for change.
“I should be able to define myself, but I am not. Not by any governmental or cultural body,” Brookins writes.
“Every day, I negotiate the space between who I am, how I’m perceived, and what I need to unlearn. People have assumed things about me, and I can’t change that. Every day, I am assumed to be a Black American man, though my ID says ‘female,’ and my heart says neither of the sort?"
Recipes from a Tasteless Machine: A Culinary Journey through Artificial Intelligence
Preston Lewis & Harriet Kocher Lewis
In Recipes from a Tasteless Machine: A Culinary Journey through Artificial Intelligence the authors put ChatGPT to the taste test, challenging it to develop recipes on a variety of themes. The result provides an amusing mix of recipes and a fascinating look into how artificial intelligence thinks in the kitchen.
Recipes from a Tasteless Machine is the third book in the Magic Machine Series from award winning authors Preston Lewis and Harriet Kocher Lewis. The book organizes recipes around themes based on the months of the year and related holidays.
From breakfast meals in January and to holiday fare at the end of the year, the authors provide a culinary calendar of dishes that'll bring a smile to the face, if not to the tastebuds.
The Sky King (Skyriders, Book Two)
Polly Holyoke
In this soaring adventure for fans of Skandar and the Unicorn Thief and Wings of Fire, a new kind of monster launches an attack on the empire of Prekalt. Who can Kiesandra and her skysteed turn to for help in this life-and-death battle?
E.M. Rensing
Daelia Hall has a problem.
Several, in fact.
Her academic advisor won’t get off her back. Her dad is pushing her to leave her doctoral program and work for him. The new pilot up at the squadron almost just crashed her favorite AI-enabled airplane, one of the fabled emergent abiota. Oh yeah, and an unidentified object just crashed into a nearby park, and the Air Guard wants to know what is going on. Because there’s something alive inside this thing, something that seems to be driving every military abiota on the airfield absolutely insane.
With the annual air show on and a power struggle brewing, it’s up to Daelia to uncover the true nature of the object, before the consequences turn deadly.
Wheeling and Dealing (The Sisters, Texas Mystery Series, Book 18)
Becki Willis
When Chief of Police Brash deCordova is hurt in the line of duty, a new threat rolls into The Sisters.
With Otis Perry temporarily at the helm, the police department is thwarted by the man’s inflated ego. Newly appointed Deputy Nate Stone does his best to serve justice, but ‘his best’ turns out to be hiring Madison and In a Pinch to investigate what Perry won’t.
Madison has a bad habit of finding danger, and this time is no different.
Read the latest from the award-winning The Sisters, Texas Mystery Series!
The Brigands (The Texicans Series, Volume I)
Parris Afton Bonds
Before there was New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, California, or Utah, there was Texas. Molded by Old Mexico and a new rough-and-ready breed of hearty settlers from around the world, The Lone Star Republic was the thing of dreams—land, riches, liberty, home. For the Paladín family, it is all of those things and so much more.
Detectives, Sleuths, and Nosy Neighbors
Anthology (edited by A. Balsamo)
Do you need to know who done it?
Detectives, Sleuths, and Nosy Neighbors is a mystery anthology with short stories which range between the classic nosy neighbor and detective to a space sleuth.
Curated and edited by A. Balsamo, these tales twist and turn until the very end.
Many of the authors have published books available, so you might just find a new favorite to read.
Stories by A.R.R. Ash, Mark Beard, L.N. Hunter, Mary Sophie Filicetti, Tiffany Seitz, J.F. Benedetto, N.M. Cedeño, Cassondra Windwalker, Joe Giordano, Kay Hanifen, Robert Richter, Tracy Falenwolfe, Veronica Leigh, Michelle Kaseler, Kevin A Davis
Carmen Calatayud
This Tangled Body by Carmen Calatayud reads as surreal poetic memoir, navigating family history, war, migration and the grit of relationships. Through lyrical language, she searches for ways to rescue a body that knows pain, addiction and generational trauma.
Elegies, love letters and concussions cross paths here, along with planets and stars, demonstrating that the potential to heal is possible when raw truth and grace are present. Calatayud’s willingness to face the land of the dead and cross all borders is on full display. As she invites us to “leave this continent and/light the path behind us on fire,” her poetry insists we return to love, and love hard.
BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!
There are so many Texas-connected books publishing this month that we couldn’t feature all of them. The following books also publish in May:
CHILDREN'S, MIDDLE GRADE, & YOUNG ADULT BOOKS
Ace by Heather Black
Charlotte & Penelope and their Magical Menagerie by Teresa Argenbright
Fun with Three Suns in the Sky by Manfred Cuntz
Grace Notes by Naomi Shibab Nye
Hot Boy Summer by Joe Jimenez
Hurdles in the Dark by Elvira K. Gonzalez
Los Monstruos #2: Rooster and the Dancing Diablo by Diana Lopez
The Lost Empress by Sarah Noffke & Michael Anderle
The Redemption of Daya Keane by Gia Gordon
Road Home by Rex Ogle
Shaper by Angelo Bowles
The Shield of the Vanier by William R. Humble
The Silver Dragon by Ellis Colton
Something Maybe Magnificent by R.L. Toalson
Sweet Nightmare by Tracy Wolff
They Built Me For Freedom by Tonya Duncan Ellis
Water Stone Secret by A.C. Castillo
NONFICTION
The Ahern Home of Texarkana by Doris Douglas Davis
Aroma of Czech Cuisine by Denise Mazal Resnerova
A Baseball Gaijin: Chasing a Dream to Japan and Back by Aaron Fischman
Bringing Davy Home by Sherri Steward
The Call to Serve by Jon Meacham
Corsicana / Evanston Salt Costs Climbing by Will Arbery
The Day My Mother Never Came Home by Reginald L. Reed, Jr.
The Edge Rover by Timothy E. Green
Fiestas in Laredo by Norma E. Cantu
Framing Oak Cliff by Richard Doherty
From the Courtroom to the Boardroom by Deena Varner
Galveston's Tremont House Hotel by Katherine Shanahan Maca
Home, Heat, Money, God: Texas and Modern Architecture by Kathryn E. O'Rourke and Ben Koush
Landmark Maps of Texas by Frank H. Holcomb
Making the Unknown Known edited by Victoria H. Cummins and Light Townsend Cummins
Oil Cities by Henry Alexander Wiencek
One Year in Uvalde: A Story of Hope and Resilience by John Quiñones & María Elena Salinas
Outlaw Country Reporter by Sam Kindrick
A Passion for Places by Roy R. Pachecano
Physicians of the Future, UT Press
Reflections on Wright: Essays on the Career of Speaker Jim Wright edited by James W. Riddlesperger & Anthony Champagne
Restore by Jim Donnelly and Steve Welch
Rick Perry by Brandon Rottinghaus
SFA: 100 Years of Excellence edited by Kimberly Verhines
Shrimping West Texas by Bart Reid
Spirit in a Bottle by Tito's Handmade Vodka
They Came for the Schools by Michael Hixenbaugh
Unbuild Walls: Why Immigrant Justice Needs Abolition by Silky Shah
Undefeated by Shaunie Henderson
The Whole Story by John Mackey
William Hanson and the Texas-Mexico Border by John Weber
POETRY
Watcha by Stalina Emmanuelle Villarreal
MYSTERY / HORROR
Baskets and Beignets by Jana DeLeon
Black Mass by Mark A. Daniel
Blond Hair, Blue Eyes by Chris Kelsey
Clover Covered Corpse by Jackie Layton
Death by Matchmaker by Brittany E. Brinegar
Firearms and Foxes by Verena DeLuca
Five Tries to Get It Right by Kathryn Dodson
Fluffy, Flip Flops, and Foul Play by Leanne Leeds
The Last to Know by Mary Alford
Liars Point by Laura Griffin
Lost Time by J.T. Bishop
Midlife Gumbo by Reggi Dupree
One Big Lie by L.J. Breedlove
One Desperate Life by D.J. Maughan
Wicked Awake by Merrill David
ROMANCE
Alpha Wolf Need Not Apply by Terry Spear
The Billionaire's Auction by Barb Shuler
Chasing Time by Tess St. John
Courageous Demands by Ginny Sterling
Courageous Yearnings by Ginny Sterling
Cowboy Homecoming by Peggy McKenzie writing as Nikki Malone
Deal with the Cowboy by Annee Jones
Falling for the Marquess by Alexa Aston
Flaming Her Affection by Jenna Brandt
Forever the One.Com by Connie Y. Harris
Guarding the Target by Liz Shoaf and Hope White
Hill Country Hero by Kit Hawthorne
Home to Her Cowboy by Sasha Summers
Inevitable by Erin Rose
It Would Have Been A Great Story by Emma Hill
Just One Surprise by Chris Keniston
Little Heart of Stone by Clio Evans
A Little Kissing Between Friends by Chencia C. Higgins
Lovers and Liars by Amanda Eyre Ward
Mail Order Madhouse by Kirsten Osbourne
Mail Order Magpie by Kirsten Osbourne
Malone's Fate by Laylah Roberts
A Match Made in Heaven by Kimberly Smith
Mountain Man Protector by Natasha L. Black
The Mummy Effect by Lori Wilde
My Wild Horse King by Bridget E. Baker
Outplayed by Courtney W. Dixon
Resisting Love by Katrina Marie
Resolute Bodyguard by Leslie Marshman
Ride a Cowboy by Mari Carr
Rising From the Ashes by Darlene Tallman
Rocco by Angel Vane
Shot in the Dark by Mary Dublin & Anne Kendsley
Sisters in Paradise by Carolyn Brown
Smooth as Whiskey by Lyra Parish
Strong Loving Cowboy by Debra Clopton
Texas Forsaken by Sherry Shindelar
Treasure & Trouble by Betty Woods
Wallflower Gone Wild by Cecilia Rene
Whispers of Love by Darlene Tallman
Worth a Fortune by Nancy Robards Thompson
OTHER FICTION
Bloodwoven by G.J. Terral
A Comedy of Nobodies by Baron Ryan
Flightless Falcon by James Charles Smith
Frozen Girl of Spirit Lake by Meg Lelvis
Lady of Basilikas by Ronie Kendig
The Lake by Chandler McGrew
The Medicine Woman of Galveston by Amanda Skenandore
Messengers Rising by Relvin Gonzalez
On Wahoo Reef by Tim W. Jackson
Price of Magic by Martha Carr & Michael Anderle
The Runners Acts of the Adherents by Matthew Normand
We Were the Universe by Kimberly King Parsons
Wolf Chosen by Tim Frankovich
Women and Children First by Alina Grabowski
The Worst Traitors in the Confederacy by Skyler Ramirez
Want to make sure your forthcoming Texas-connected titles are included in our feature? Email us at Publicity@LoneStarLiterary.
