Another month is coming to an end, along with another pile of satisfying reads. This May, there were new titles by familiar authors, stories from previously unknown writers, plus a cold-case treatment for the tragic betrayal of Anne Frank.

Book 1: Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey

Oh, this was a good one! When the author appears to give away the ending at the very beginning, you know you’re in for a ride. This particular ride was on a prized horse, ridden by a back-from-the-dead heir. Or was he?

Josephine Tey only wrote a handful of books. She’d been a physical education teacher when her father’s failing health drew her home. It was then she began writing her collection of crime novels, all worthy of an eventual re-read.

Book 2: Les Enfants Terribles by Jean Cocteau

Chances are you don’t need to be a French major to translate this book’s title. Although “the terrible children” is the literal translation, the book is also known as The Holy Terrors. And terrors they truly are!

It’s not a stretch to see how this disturbing story of unsupervised siblings would make for a good film – and even an opera. I think I’ll skip them, though. The book feeds the creepy details to the imagination well enough to last a lifetime.

Book 3: Five Children and It by E. Nesbit

A boxed set of children’s books by E. Nesbit was included in the 240 gallons of Folio Society books we inherited from Mom and Dad a few years back.

Five Children and It would have been a good bedtime book to read to our sons years ago, if only to repeatedly make the point “be careful what you wish for.”

The four older siblings in this book discover a “sand fairy” who will begrudgingly grant them one wish per day. Each chapter details the adventure that follows that day’s wish.

Nesbit’s tale was originally released in monthly magazine installments in 1902 and has never been out of print.

Book 4: Love Lies Bleeding by Edmund Crispin

Learned this month: Don’t judge a book by its … title.

When glancing through the “last chance to buy” page on the Folio Society‘s website, I don’t know how many times Love Lies Bleeding didn’t garner a second glance.

For some reason, judgmental me decided Love Lies Bleeding was an icky bodice-ripper romance novel.

I could not have been more wrong.

By chance, the cover’s artwork finally caught my eye. So perhaps this was a detective novel …

After reading the book’s description, Love Lies Bleeding couldn’t arrive soon enough. (I won’t spoil anything, but the book’s title means something very different from my lame assumption.)

And the doggie on the cover? Aged bloodhound Mr. Merrythought is a hero like none other.

Book 5: The Betrayal of Anne Frank by Rosemary Sullivan

Mom and Dad gave me a copy of Anne’s diary when I turned 12 in 1970. More than a half-century later, Gary gifted me with this latest volume as the world continues to search for answers about the Frank family.

Treating the question of “who turned them in?” as a cold case, a multi-national team spent years tracking down documents and interviewing descendants of the people who may have known who betrayed the Frank family, who’d hidden in the Secret Annex for 25 months.

The author traces the most probable betrayers, with each chapter dedicated to a specific theory. At the end of the book, an answer is proposed.

As with every account of dear Anne, this book is heart-wrenching.

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And how is Bleak House coming along? With this month’s installment of chapters eight through 10, all I can say is everyone should have a Growlery. Everyone.

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