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o, theoretically, it’s supposed to be nearly summer, even though the weather we’ve been having here in the UK recently does tend to make one wonder whether it’ll happen this year. But either way, it’s nearly summer, the season of reading books out in the fresh air. At least when we’re not busy doing millions of other things or when the weather’s not cold and rainy.

While our opportunities to enjoy books in the sun may be inconsistent, our authors are not. So as usual, we have a whole range of books to be looking forward to this May, even if we actually end up reading them late at night curled beneath a pile of blankets.

1. The View from the Cheap Seats: Selected Non-fiction by Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman is a famous author of much loved fiction in addition to having been involved in other areas of the arts such as poetry, film and journalism. In this collection of nonfiction , Neil Gaiman covers a range of themes, from those relating to the arts to a whole range of other things important in people’s’ lives.

2. Summer Days and Summer Nights: Twelve Love Stories edited by Stephanie Perkins

Stephanie Perkins, author of the popular Anna and the French Kiss series, has teamed up with 11 other famous writers of young adult fiction to write a collection of love stories. Featured in Summer Days and Summer Nights: Twelve Love Stories we have stories by:

– Stephanie Perkins, author of the Anna and the French Kiss series.

– Veronica Roth, author of the Divergent Trilogy.

– Lev Grossman, author of The Magicians series.

– Leiph Bardugo, author of The Grisha Trilogy.

– Cassandra Clare author of The Mortal Instruments series, The Infernal Devices series and The Dark Artifices series.

– Brandy Colbert, author of Point and Little and Lions.

– Livva Bray, author of The Gemma Doyle Trilogy and The Diviners books.

– Francesca Lia Block, author of the Weetzie Bat series, The Rose and the Beast: Fairytales Retold and I Was a Teenage Fairy.

– John Skovron, author of Man Made Boy and Misfit.

– Jenifer E. Smith, author of The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight.

– Tim Federle, author of Five Six Seven Nate and Better Nate Than Never.

So watch out for this bunch who will be cooking up some summery love stories this May.

3. The Hidden Oracle (The Trials of Apollo Series Book 1) by Rick Riordan

Rick Riordan is best known for his books about Percy Jackson, a half-human, half-Greek-god from America. Rick Riordan has a reputation for his ambition to engage people in modern stories, which contain accurate mythological knowledge to engage readers with the classics. So here, with the start of his fourth series, he is following Apollo.

In The Hidden Oracle , Apollo has been stripped of his immortal powers by Zeus and is left in modern day America. He must adapt to modern mortal life. He also takes a trip to Camp Half Blood, the camp for demigods that Rick Riordan writes about in his other series about Greek gods.

4. The Mirror Thief by Martin Seay

Martin Seay’s debut novel, The Mirror Thief , is a mystery about mirrors. It is an intertwining of three tales, set in three different cities and three different time periods. The main story line is in Venice in the 1700s where mirrors have just been invented and are a fascination. The creators of mirrors are not allowed to leave the city, but one man decides to try. In 1958 on Venice Bench and in the present day in Venice Casino Las Vegas, two other men are up to dangerous plans. The story tells these three tales which are interlinked.

5. The Crown’s Game by Evelyn Skye

In yet another debut this May, Evelyn Skye takes us to a fantasy version of historical Russia in her much-awaited The Crown’s Game . Enchanters Vika and Nicolai, are the only enchanters. They must fight each other in The Crown’s Game, to become enchanter to the Tsar, but to be successful, the winner must kill the other. But can one kill the other?