KUOW Book Club's May pick: Emiko Jean's atmospheric mystery set in Washington

The KUOW Book Club is reading "The Return of Ellie Black" by Emiko Jean this month.

"The Return of Ellie Black" is Jean's debut thriller after making a name for herself mainly as a New York Times bestselling author of young adult fiction. And based on reviews for her latest, Jean's success has continued with her entry into the world of psychological thrillers.

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Detective Chelsey Calhoun’s sister vanished when they were teenagers, and ever since she’s been searching: for signs, for closure, for other missing girls. Then, her life is turned upside down when local teenager Ellie Black is found alive in the woods of Washington state — two years after she disappeared without a trace.

The mystery drips with Pacific Northwest vibes as the Washington woods set a moody, even sinister tone.

"The Return of Ellie Black" made the 2024 NPR "Books We Love" list, which I'd say bodes well for us readers — but maybe not so well for the characters at Jean's mercy.

RELATED: NPR's 'Books We Love' returns. 5 books for your Pacific Northwest reading list

Here's the reading schedule:

• Read through chapter 16 by May 12.
• Finish the book by May 26.

Jean has kindly signed on for an interview at the end of our reading. As per usual, I’ll send out a newsletter at the halfway point and when we finish the book to share our conversation.

Subscribe to the book club newsletter here, and join the conversation by emailing me directly at kcampbell@kuow.org.

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Spoiler alert: For those of you who like to plan ahead, I'm happy to share I've picked what we'll be reading in June, too — and it's a two-fer!

We're celebrating Pride Month with Corinne Manning's "We Had No Rules" and Ijeoma Oluo's "Be a Revolution: How Everyday People Are Fighting Oppression and Changing the World — And How You Can, Too."

"Be A Revolution" is the fresh new book from Oluo, the Seattle author who wrote the #1 New York Times bestseller "So You Want To Talk About Race." Oluo continues her critical work with "Be A Revolution," which aims to educate and inspire readers to create positive change in the systems around them. As HarperCollins puts it, "Oluo wishes to take our conversations on race and racism out of a place of pure pain and trauma, and into a place of loving action." That just feels right for Pride.

And we're pairing it with a short story collection that explores queerness in contemporary life. In "We Had No Rules," Manning centers characters faced with a choice: assimilate or rebel. The stories remind us that no two people's experiences are the same, and that there's something powerful in that. Paul Lisicky, author of "Later" and "The Narrow Door" described it this way: "Expansive, soulful, vulnerable, sexy, funny, and broken, 'We Had No Rules' is queer all the way down to its bones."