Tents, Trails & Turmoil

Title: Tents, Trails & Turmoil
Author: Tonya Kappes
Published: April 28, 2020, by Tonya Kappes Books
Format: Kindle, 216 Pages
Genre: Amateur Sleuth
Series: Camper & Criminals #11

Blurb: Mae West knows tourism and nothing stops tourists like a dead body found in the Daniel Boone National Park.

Unfortunately, Yaley Woodard, a local tour guide, is found dead at Happy Trails Campground. Mae is determined to put her amateur sleuth skills to investigate along with the help of the Laundry Club gals. But when Yaley's past ends up being tied to forest trails and local Joel Grassel, Mae realizes Yaley's death has caused much more turmoil than she'd originally thought - and the killer might want to close the tourism in the Daniel Boone National Park for good.

My Opinion: Yes, I’m still working my way through this series. At this point, it’s practically a ritual: road trip ahead, disappointing book behind me, or I just need a little pick me up? I reach for Mae West and the Happy Trails crew without hesitation. They’re my reset button.

This time around, Mae, owner of the Happy Trails RV park tucked inside Daniel Boone National Park, has stumbled across yet another body. At this stage, Normal, Kentucky, is giving serious Cabot Cove energy. How a town this small racks up this many murders is both perplexing and wildly entertaining. But listen, I’m not complaining. I signed up for some cozy chaos, and Tonya Kappes delivers.

Mae may technically be an amateur sleuth, but after eleven books, she’s more seasoned than the actual investigators. And that’s becoming a bit of a problem for her relationship with the local detective. Still, Mae is Mae. Her friends come first, her instincts are sharp, and if her boyfriend can’t handle that, well, he might need to take a long walk and think about his life choices.

This installment throws a whole buffet of “could be” suspects at the reader, slowly eliminating them through Mae’s trademark mix of intuition, persistence, and being one step ahead of the official investigation. And when a body literally floats up from the bottom of a barrel? Well, that’s one way to narrow the list.

But the final reveal, the who of the who done it, wasn’t on my bingo card. Once again, Mae gets a little too close to danger, and once again, I found myself rooting for her to keep her head in the game and think of a way out.

What keeps me coming back, though, isn’t just the mystery. It’s the Laundry Club Ladies, the friendships, the sense of community that wraps around these books like a warm, handmade quilt. I’m in no rush to finish the series, and honestly, it feels like Tonya Kappes enjoys writing these stories just as much as I enjoy reading them.

Red Verdict

Title: Red Verdict
Author: James B. Comey
Published: May 12, 2026, by The Mysterious Press
Format: Hardcover, 352 Pages
Genre: Thriller
Series: Nora Carleton #4

Blurb: Nora Carleton is hitting her stride as Deputy US Attorney for the Southern District of New York when a high-stakes counterintelligence case pulls her into a deadly game with global implications. A Russian-style hit on an executive at an American drone manufacturer sends a chilling message—but what exactly is it? Was the victim a Russian mole or just a convenient target?

Teaming up with her longtime friend, FBI Special Agent Benny Dugan, Nora launches a criminal investigation that takes them from New York to Las Vegas with the hopes of prosecuting the person responsible. But as they dig deeper into the tangled web of Russian intelligence and those who profit from its reach, Nora finds herself in the crosshairs of powerful forces determined to keep their secrets buried.

My Opinion: Somewhere between the acronyms, the spycraft, and the “I swear I’m not telling you anything classified” energy, James Comey seems to be flashing his past life like a badge he can’t quite tuck back into his pocket. The whole time I was reading, I kept getting the sense he wanted to ‘hint’ at something, just enough to make you wonder, without getting a reminder phone call from the feds. Maybe that’s just me, but this installment certainly felt different from the earlier books in the series.

Now, I adore Nora and her family. They’re the grounding force of the series. But Benny? Benny is why I keep returning. His dry humor, his loyalty, his no-nonsense approach to the world; he’s the one who carried this book for me. Every time he stepped onto the page, I perked up a little, hoping he’d inject some spark into the otherwise flat pacing.

And speaking of pacing with drones, Russians, espionage, poisonings, Comey really threw the whole espionage pantry at this one. On paper, it should have been a wild ride. In practice, though, the “thriller” part of this thriller never quite materialized. The story felt oddly linear, almost procedural, and the repetition kept dragging the momentum down. I kept waiting for a twist, a surprise, a sharp left turn. Instead, the plot just continued the same steady, predictable path. A few more offshoots or complications would’ve gone a long way toward keeping the duller stretches from feeling quite so dull.

In the end, it wasn’t a bad book, but it wasn’t the gripping, layered, tension-filled story I wanted from this series.

Anatomy of an Alibi

Title: Anatomy of an Alibi
Author: Ashley Elston
Published: January 13, 2026 by Pamela Dorman Books
Format: Hardcover, 340 Pages
Genre: Psychological Thriller

Blurb: Everyone at Chantilly’s Bar noticed out-of-towner Camille Bayliss. Red lips, designer heels, sipping a Negroni. But that woman wasn’t Camille Bayliss. It was Aubrey Price.

Camille Bayliss appears to have the picture-perfect life; she’s married to hotshot lawyer Ben and is the daughter of a wealthy Louisiana family. Only nothing is as it seems: Camille believes Ben has been hiding dirty secrets for years, but she can’t find proof because he tracks her every move.

Aubrey Price has been haunted by the terrible night that changed her life a decade ago, and she’s convinced Benjamin Bayliss knows something about it. Living in a house full of criminals, Aubrey understands there’s more than one way to get to the truth—and she may have found the best way in.

Aubrey and Camille hatch a plan. It sounds simple: For twelve hours, Aubrey will take Camille’s place. Camille will spy on Ben, and the two women will get the answers they desperately seek.

Except the next morning, Ben is found murdered. Both women need an airtight alibi, but only one of them has it. And one false step is all it takes for everything to come undone.

My Opinion: From the very first chapters of Anatomy of an Alibi, I fell into that rare reading zone where I’m completely locked in yet have absolutely no idea what’s actually happening. Ashley Elston has this unnerving level of control over her storytelling, where every scene feels crisp and clear in the moment, but the bigger picture keeps slipping through your fingers. It’s that confused, but in a way that feels intentional and kind of thrilling, sweet spot.

By the one third mark, the tension was already tightening. The lies were stacking. The ground was shifting. I kept thinking, Okay, now I’ve got it. Spoiler: I did not have it. This is the kind of psychological thriller that refuses to explain itself, and honestly, I didn’t want it to. Each chapter pulled me forward with that slightly unhinged “just one more” energy, even as I realized I was building a mental murder board that would need the string rearranged every few chapters.

Around the halfway point, I was convinced I finally understood where Elston was steering the story. I was very wrong. She is stingy with her clues; almost mischievously so. Just when you think you’ve cracked something, she tosses in a new character or a new angle, and suddenly you’re back at square one, staring at your imaginary red string like, Well, that was pointless.

There are a few slower stretches, but they feel less like lulls and more like the author giving you a tiny breather before the next narrative whiplash. You can sense she’s winding the spring tighter, letting you catch your breath before she yanks the rug again.

And then the ending; oh, the ending. Just when you think everything has finally been tied up, Elston looks you dead in the eye and says, “Not so fast.” There are still reveals waiting, still questions lingering, and you’re still not entirely sure she’s ready to let you go.

I loved this book. I had it all wrong. I had some of the people wrong. I had the final reveal wrong. And when an author can outmaneuver me that thoroughly, while keeping me entertained the entire time, they immediately earn a spot on my “watch for everything they write next” list.

The Diva Hosts a Murderer

Title: The Diva Hosts a Murderer
Author: Krista Davis
Published: May 26, 2026 by Kensington Cozies
Format: Kindle, 329 Pages
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Series: A Domestic Diva Mystery #19
Source: NetGalley and Kensington

Blurb: With a big crowd descending on her Northern Virginia home, it’s a good thing event planner Sophie Winston is an expert at entertaining. Whipping up patriotic pastries is as easy as pie for her, though meeting the man her widowed Aunt Melly just impulsively married in Las Vegas is a little more awkward. Especially when Melly’s longtime, now-heartbroken secret admirer is there too, which could lead to some fireworks.

But the house party really gets explosive when Sophie’s favorite tour guide falls victim to a killer—and evidence points to Sophie’s own father. Will DNA really incriminate her dad? And what’s the real story with her new uncle-by-marriage and the mysterious pal he’s brought along with him? Some of the secrets Sophie’s discovering are raising flags—and while the police department casts suspicion on her father, she has to declare her independence as a detective to find the real culprit, and serve justice along with her red, white, and blue cupcakes

My Opinion: There are only a handful of cozy mystery series that still hit the spot for me these days, and Krista Davis’s Domestic Diva books remain one of them. A big part of that is the setting. Old Town Alexandria has this irresistible, lived in charm with brick sidewalks, historic houses, and the hum of neighborhood life. And every time I open a new Diva book, I’m right back there. Yes, I’ve been. Yes, I felt the pull. And yes, I absolutely indulge in a little personal nostalgia every time Sophie Winston starts another adventure.

This time around, though, you might want to keep a mental murder board handy. Davis throws a lot of names, connections, and neighborly entanglements at the reader, and there were moments when I had to pause and mentally reshuffle who was related to whom, who belonged to which barbecue, brunch, or suspicious circumstance where bodies inconveniently appeared where they shouldn’t.

The pacing, however, wobbles a bit. There are stretches that feel longer than they need to be, with some repetition that had my attention drifting. Then the final clue dropped, and suddenly everything snapped back into place. I had that little “oh, okay, that does make sense” moment, even if the fallout is going to make things awkward on the cobbled streets of Old Town for a while.

But the ending, specifically the bit with Bernie, left me blinking at the page. I was reading an ARC, so maybe it’ll shift in the final version, but as written, it felt tacked on, almost like it wandered in from another storyline entirely. I said out loud, “What the heck, Krista,” which is not my usual reaction to this series.

Still, spending a weekend with these characters, nineteen books in, no less, is its own kind of comfort. I’m not tired of them. Not even close. I just wish this installment had a little more momentum in the middle to keep me fully locked in. Even so, Old Town worked its magic, the mystery eventually clicked, and I enjoyed being back in Sophie’s world, quirks, potlucks, recipes, and all.

Invasive Species

Title: Invasive Species
Author: Ellery Adams
Published: April 14, 2026 by Hanover Square Press
Format: Kindle, 327 Pages
Genre: Horror

Blurb: Something’s not right in Cold Harbor—more so than usual. While this sleepy small town has seen its fair share of monsters in cheating husbands and leering bosses, none are as hungry as Mrs. Smith. The mysterious resident has finally emerged from her crumbling mansion on the hill, mesmerizing the townspeople with her beauty. Her secret? Nine human sacrifices to feed her immortality.

Natalie Scott is more worried about Mrs. Smith blocking her first real estate sale—the one that will take her from stay-at-home mom to working woman extraordinaire. She's eager to prove herself in a world where the social mores of 1980s suburbia reign, where she's expected to keep a magazine-perfect home and raise beautiful children, all while sticking to her husband's budget. Natalie's two best friends are facing their own demons, and Mrs. Smith and her deep, dark woods are an easy scapegoat for everyone's problems.

But Natalie's twelve-year-old daughter, Jill, and her Icelandic housekeeper, Una, can sense something deeper at play. Armed with library books and a whole lot of grit, Jill and Una team up to save the town once and for all. But as the rest of Cold Harbor sinks into anger, fear, and jealousy, they’ll have to confront the What does it really mean to be a monster?

My Opinion: Invasive Species is not your usual Ellery Adams. I went in expecting her familiar cozy mystery warmth and instead found myself in something darker, creepier, and far more unsettling than I ever anticipated. Not in a bad way, just in a “wait, Ellery wrote this?” kind of way. If I had to label it, I’d call it Horror meets Women’s Fiction with a strong feminist undercurrent, but even that doesn’t quite capture the strange, slippery thing she’s doing here. It’s a mash up I haven’t seen before, and honestly, it grabbed me from page one.

Part of the surprise may come from the fact that she’s working with a new publisher for this occult leaning detour. It makes me wonder what else she has tucked up her sleeve for longtime readers who think they know her lane.

This book is peculiar in a “I can’t look away” sense. Yes, there’s creepy imagery (some of it very creepy), but Adams slips in humor, too, and even a bit of spice that will push the envelope for some readers. It’s a cocktail of eerie, funny, feminist, and occasionally eyebrow raising.

The reader is dropped into 1980s Cold Harbor, a polished town of affluence, golden children, a yacht club, and parents desperate to maintain the illusion of perfection while quietly cracking underneath it. Into this Stepford adjacent setting slithers Mrs. Smith, also known as the “Mother of Eels”, who hasn’t left her home in daylight for decades and who has decided it’s time to make her grand return. Unfortunately for the town, she requires nine human sacrifices, and nine year olds seem to be her preferred entrée.

Twelve year old Jill and her family’s Icelandic housekeeper, Una, are the only ones who recognize the danger for what it is. They realize this demon is targeting Jill’s friends, and the timing couldn’t be worse: a bar mitzvah on a boat, where all the children are conveniently gathered in one floating buffet. The Mother of Eels couldn’t have planned it better herself. But then again, she might have dropped a clue or two.

The ending is intense, the kind of sequence where you realize you’ve been holding your breath and your eyes refuse to blink. Not something to read right before bed unless you enjoy replaying nightmare fuel visuals in the dark.

Some readers have called this a “cozy horror” with feminist vibes, and while that’s not wrong, it still doesn’t fully capture the odd energy here. What I can say is this: you’ll keep turning pages, partly out of fascination and partly out of disbelief that Ellery Adams, queen of the cozy mystery, has delivered something this wild, this creepy, and this unexpectedly bold. Whether it works for everyone is another question, but it certainly shows a new, daring side of her.

If nothing else, Invasive Species proves that Adams can still surprise her readers… and maybe haunt them a little, too.

The Shippers

Title: The Shippers
Author: Katherine Center
Published: May 19, 2026 by St. Martin's Press
Format: Kindle, 336 Pages
Genre: Romance

Blurb: After a whole lifetime of being bad at love, JoJo Burton decides to solve her intimacy issues once and for all at her sister’s destination wedding on a cruise ship. With the help of a little pop psychology, she diagnoses herself with a fixation on the neighborhood guy who was her her first crush and first kiss (and who just happens to be a newly-divorced wedding guest ), and she decides to woo him during the cruise for some long-delayed closure. Only problem is, her sister’s a little busy being a bride at the moment—so JoJo ropes in her childhood bestie, Cooper Watts, to be her wing man. Cooper: who RSVPed no, but then showed up, anyway. Cooper: who left town without a word four years earlier and moved to London. Cooper: who was, if she’s honest, the worst heartbreak of JoJo’s life. It’s bliss for her to see him again, and it’s agony, too—and the more they team up for Project Conquest, the more she obsesses over questions she can’t bring herself to ask.

Shipboard antics ensue in this witty, heart-tugging, childhood-friends-to-lovers romance—as JoJo and Cooper fake flirt, slow dance, share a cabin, sing duets, treat sunburns, get jealous, rescue each other over and over, and finally, at last, figure it all out in the most blissful, swoony, romantic way.

My Opinion: The Shippers hooked me right away. The opening had that fizzy rom com energy full of light, charm, and promise. But somewhere around the middle, the momentum slipped, and I found myself watching JoJo, a 29 year old commitment phobe, wander in circles trying to reenact a teenage kiss and “find herself.” And look, I enjoy a good story as much as anyone, but there’s only so long I can cheer for a grown woman who keeps tripping over herself

The big “miscommunication” at the heart of the plot? Most readers will spot it early. And that’s fine; if that’s the trope the author wants to lean into, I’ll play along. But I did spend a good chunk of the book muttering “okay, but can we please get on with it,” like I was stuck behind a slow driver in the fast lane.

This is my second Kathryn Center novel, the first being The Love Haters, which I genuinely enjoyed. That book had a fuller cast with background characters who added texture, humor, and emotional grounding. Here, we technically have a mother and grandmother, but they don’t offer the kind of guidance or maturity JoJo so clearly needs. It felt like the story kept teeing up opportunities for growth, only to let them drift away.

And the length… well, it went on a bit longer than the story could comfortably support. The miscommunication trope becomes a never ending loop, and some of the logistical leaps are so far fetched they feel like the narrative equivalent of “don’t look too closely at this part, because I had to make the story connect.” I get why the author made those choices since sometimes you need a wild detour to keep the plot moving, but it did pull me out of the story more than once.

For many readers, this rom com will absolutely scratch the itch: it’s cute, it’s breezy, and it has that signature Kathryn Center warmth. But I’m still on the fence. By the end of a romance, I want to feel like the characters have grown, like they’ve nudged each other toward becoming better versions of themselves. I didn’t quite get that with JoJo and Cooper. They’re likable enough, but their arc felt more like a loop than a climb.

In the end, it’s a pleasant read, just not the one that will stick with me the way The Love Haters did.

Fatal Fiction

Title: Fatal Fiction
Author: Karen MacInerney
Published: June 30, 2024 by Gray Whale Press
Format: Paperback, 199 Pages
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Series: Snug Harbor Mysteries #4

Blurb: The air at Seaside Cottage Books is tinged with autumn, and bookseller Max Sayers is helping her friend Denise Wilmington start a new chapter by turning the abandoned shop next door into a cozy coffee house. But when the two women dig up a decades-old rhododendron by the front walk, they uncover a grisly secret entwined with the bush's roots: a woman's skeleton, buried with a gold ring.

But Max doesn't have time to dig up dirt on old bones. The next day, a famous Maine author's bequest to the Snug Harbor library vanishes within hours of arriving. Then Max's assistant Bethany and her boyfriend Devin discover the head librarian—and Devin's new boss--strangled with a phone cord behind the circulation desk.

Suspicion quickly darkens the crisp fall air. Was Bethany's boyfriend, who had no love lost for his new boss, behind the library director's untimely death? Or is a darker, older plot hidden in Snug Harbor's leafy streets? When a curious Max finds herself the subject of the next attack, the plot arc becomes terrifyingly clear. It's up to Max to find the villain, and fast... or her next chapter may be her last.

My Opinion: *It’s been a long time since I’ve wanted to grab a red pen mid chapter, but this one had my fingers twitching. Plotting gaps, “wait, what about…?” moments, and repetition that felt like déjà vu on a loop kept pulling me out of the story.

To be fair, the dual plot setup almost saved things. Just when I’d start to tire of one thread, the other would wander back in. But then the second storyline wrapped up so abruptly it read like the author glanced at the page count and thought, oh no, I need to land this plane right now, even if it is only 199 pages. It’s the kind of rushed ending that makes you flip back a few pages to see if you missed something—spoiler: you didn’t, and most likely, already had it figured out.

The pacing overall felt slow and uninspired, and the repetition didn’t help. By the end, the only bright spot was that the main female character wasn’t romantically entangled with the small town detective. Which was good since, the police could care less about the dead guy in the library.

And here’s the bigger realization this book nudged forward: I’ve outgrown this corner of the self-published cozy mystery world. Too many of these stories need a second set of editorial eyes to catch the missteps before they hit readers. I used to overlook that. Now it just grates.

So, much like the author’s Gray Whale Inn series, my time in Snug Harbor ends here. Some series fade out gently; others hand you the scissors and let you cut the cord yourself.

The Brothers McKay

Title: The Brothers McKay
Author: Craig Johnson
Expected Publication: May 26, 2026 by Viking
Format: Kindle, 368 Pages
Genre: Police Procedural
Series: Walt Longmire #22

Blurb: When Pepper McKay, one of the most hated men in Absaroka County, is found murdered on his ranch in Crazy Woman Canyon, suspects aren’t in short supply. But Sheriff Walt Longmire’s attention is on those who had gathered for a family meeting that evening, McKay’s very different sons: a smooth-talking charmer, a cosmopolitan journalist, a reclusive monk, and a half-Native ranch hand who keeps the place running. Each had a motive. Each claims he’s innocent.

As Walt investigates what happened that night at the O-Kay Lodge, he’s pulled into a tangle of old grudges and long-buried secrets. Then the case takes a sharp turn: a second body surfaces, and a wildfire tears through the canyon, trapping Walt and forcing him into a fight for his life as both the killer and the elements close in.

The twenty-second novel in the Longmire series, The Brothers McKay is a murder mystery and a survival thriller that tests the sheriff’s hard-won sense of justice—all while paying sly homage to Dostoevsky’s classic.

My Opinion: Book twenty two, and Craig Johnson is still out here proving he can take Walt Longmire anywhere he wants with his philosophical detours, historical rabbit holes, and the occasional “wait, why are we learning this?” sidebar included. And honestly, that’s part of why this series remains one of my favorites. When Johnson steps away from the woo woo elements that sometimes drift into the supernatural, the books settle into that grounded, wry, quietly intense rhythm that hooked me in the first place.

This one, The Brothers McKay, is basically Johnson showing you everything he has: autopsy tidbits, chess strategy, Wyoming history, religious quotes, car maintenance, heavy machinery, and if he can wedge it in, he will. It’s like he’s saying, “Sit tight, we’ll get to the mystery… eventually.” And he does, but he takes the scenic route while muttering about something philosophical.

Lucien shows up, and as usual, I can take him or leave him. Victoria remains her annoying self. But Henry Standing Bear? Always a win. His presence sharpens the story. His intensity and dry humor have a way of grounding Walt every time he steps onto the page, making the whole book feel more alive. Most importantly, he brings out a funnier, more self aware version of Walt.

As for the mystery itself, apparently, the clues were there, and I missed them. I really thought it was the other guy, and it wasn’t until the final stretch, when Johnson finally snaps all the pieces together, that I had that “ohhh, that’s what we were doing” moment. The first 80% is a slow simmer, but the last 20%? Clear your schedule. Sit down. Don’t move. Don’t breathe. Just read.

And then there’s the literary twist where Johnson is retelling The Brothers Karamazov. Thankfully, a certain not so incarcerated visitor in Walt’s open door jail cell spells that out for the reader. I’m not suddenly inspired to tackle the Russian classic, but I did poke around enough to appreciate what Johnson was doing. The parallels are clever, the themes surprisingly fitting, and the whole thing adds a layer of depth.

In the end, The Brothers McKay is a slow, wandering, detail stuffed ride that rewards your patience with a finale that hits hard. Johnson may take his sweet time, but he knows exactly where he’s going. And once again, I’m glad I went along for the trip.

Daughter of Egypt

Title: Daughter of Egypt
Author: Marie Benedict
Published: March 24, 2026 by St. Martin's Press
Format: Hardcover, 352 pgs
Genre: Historical Fiction

Blurb: 1920’s London was enthralled by the discovery of the treasure-filled tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun. Filled with priceless statues, jewels, and the gold-encased mummy of the boy Pharaoh himself, the burial site unleashed a fascination with the ancient world and revolutionized the world of archeology.

The discovery was made by Lord Carnarvon of Highclere Castle and his associate, famed archeologist Howard Carter. What no one knows is that without the pioneering spirit of Lady Evelyn Herbert, Carnarvon’s daughter, the tomb might never have been found. As a young woman, Evelyn was fascinated by the story of Hatshepsut, a woman who had to assume the guise of a man in order to rule Egypt. Although she brought peace and prosperity to Egypt, her male successors ruthlessly and thoroughly erased her name from history.

Lady Evelyn’s ambition to find the tomb of Egypt’s first woman ruler exposes her to life-threatening danger and pits her against archeologists who refuse to believe the tomb can be found―and certainly not by a woman. Refusing to give up, Evelyn is on the verge of success when she is suddenly forced to make an agonizing choice between loyalty to her beloved father and Carter and realizing the dream of a lifetime.

My Opinion: Marie Benedict’s Daughter of Egypt opens with the kind of dense historical preamble that will either sweep you into its current or leave you blinking and wondering when the actual story will begin. Beginning in 1919 with Eve—Lady Anne Penelope Marian Herbert, daughter of the 6th Earl of Carnarvon, who becomes fascinated with her father’s Egyptian excavations. Her chapters carry the bulk of the narrative, but it’s Hatshepsut’s voice, centuries earlier in 1486 BC, that brings the real color and vitality. If anything, the contrast becomes the novel’s most interesting tension: one woman trying to uncover history, the other fighting not to be erased from it.

The themes are unmistakable: women’s perseverance, the quiet (and not so quiet) ways women are written out of the record, the gender politics of empire, and the shadow of British imperialism hanging over every artifact Eve studies. But here’s the rub: those same details often pull you out of the story just as you’re settling in. The plot moves slowly, the digressions pile up, and before long, the book starts to feel less like a novel and more like a very long, very embellished lecture.

Then comes the shift back to Hatshepsut—Princess, “God’s Wife of Amun,” future pharaoh, and the figure who fuels Eve’s curiosity. Her chapters should have been the beating heart of the book, and in flashes, they are. But the author’s note makes clear just how freely Benedict played with the historical record, and that’s where the disappointment sets in. When I read historical fiction, I want to walk away feeling like I’ve learned something real, even if the edges are softened for storytelling. Here, I couldn’t tell where the facts ended and the fiction began, and because I’m not deeply versed in this era, the whole thing left me feeling unsure rather than enlightened.

By the time I switched to the audiobook, it had drifted into background noise, which is never a great sign. Benedict is a hit or miss author for me, and this one, despite its promising premise and powerful women at its center, simply didn’t land.

An Ordinary Sort of Evil

Title: An Ordinary Sort of Evil
Author: Kelley Armstrong
Expected Publication: May 19, 2026 by Minotaur Books
Format: Kindle, 320 Pages
Genre: Time Travel
Series: A Rip Through Time #5

Blurb: Modern-day homicide detective Mallory Mitchell has grown accustomed to life in Victorian Scotland after travelling 150 years into the past into the body of a housemaid. She’s built a new life for herself. Even though she works as an assistant to forensic-science pioneer Dr. Duncan Gray and Detective Hugh McCreadie, she considers them true friends. And with Gray in particular, perhaps, someday, something more.

Late one night, Gray and Mallory are summoned urgently to the home of Lady Adler, a patron of Gray’s undertaking business, and they assume there's been a death in the household. But instead, they arrive in the midst of a seance with a ghost demanding Gray's presence. The ghost is Lady Adler's former maid, who had gone missing but now requests that Gray investigate her murder. Although Gray and Mallory are skeptical, they agree to look into the matter, whether she's dead or alive. But unsure if there's been a murder or not, unable to call out the medium as a fraud, and concerned for the fate of the young maid, Gray and Mallory are once again drawn into a mystery much more puzzling--and more dangerous--than it first seems.

My Opinion: I can’t be the only one who chuckled at the idea of a time traveler investigating séances and ghosts. Mallory has literally hopped centuries, but this is where her cohorts draw the line? I briefly wondered if I was the only reader thinking it.

If you’ve ever wanted a crash course in autopsies, what to look for, what not to poke, and how to keep your stomach steady, this book has you covered. It never quite crosses into squeamish territory, but some readers may find themselves skimming a paragraph or two.

What really works here is the banter. Mallory and Dr. Gray have that easy, teasing rhythm that makes you want to linger in their scenes. Gray’s patience is almost saintly as Mallory casually drops modern references he has absolutely no framework for. And honestly, I’m convinced she does it partly to keep him off balance, and partly because she’s nursing a crush the size of a cathedral. It’s charming, and it gives the book a heartbeat when the plot starts to wander.

And wander it does. For a 320 page novel (with a surprisingly long 13 hour audiobook runtime), this story feels long. There’s a lot of atmosphere, a lot of character history that returning readers already know, and the murders sometimes drift into the background while the mood takes center stage. It’s not bad, it is just slow, and occasionally repetitive.

But the final quarter? That’s where Kelley Armstrong finally snaps everything into focus. The pace picks up, the tension sharpens, and the “art ful” twist lands with a satisfying knock. I love Armstrong and have read her across genres, but this one didn’t show her at her strongest. Still, that ending saves the experience and reminds you why she has such a loyal following.

Ms. Mebel Goes Back to the Chopping Block

Title: Ms. Mebel Goes Back to the Chopping Block
Author: Jesse Q. Sutanto
Published: April 28, 2026 by Berkley
Format: Paperback, 320 Pages
Genre: Women's Fiction

Blurb: Retirement should mean long-awaited trips to the sapphire waters of Santorini or careening down a sand dune in Dubai. For sixty-three-year-old Mebel, retirement means her husband of more than forty years announcing that he's leaving her for their private chef. Mebel isn’t sure who's the bigger loss.

Not to worry, Mebel has the perfect plan: she’s going to win back her husband. No one knows what he needs better than her—after all, she's been anticipating his needs their whole marriage. And if he wants a wife who can cook (why else would he leave her for a chef?), she will simply go to cooking school. Luckily, class at the renowned Saint Honoré School of Culinary Arts in France starts in just four days!

However, Mebel quickly realizes that her culinary school is not in illustrious Paris but rather in England—and some small village outside of Oxford no less. Despite the less-than-warm welcome from her much younger classmates, Mebel manages to befriend Gemma, the breakout star of the program, who offers to help Mebel on their first day. When Gemma stops showing up to class, Mebel knows she must figure out what—or who—caused her friend’s sudden disappearance. After all, Mebel may not know the first thing about how to cut a potato, but she certainly knows how to identify a fraud, and there’s definitely something fishy going on.

My Opinion: I’m beginning to realize that I enjoy senior characters in a way I never fully appreciated before. There’s a kind of steel in them, a lived in determination you just don’t get from the usual twenty something protagonists who are still trying to figure out how to hold a job and a relationship at the same time. Jesse Q. Sutanto was my gateway into this world with the Vera Wong series, and now, with Ms. Mebel Goes Back to the Chopping Block, she’s doubled down on giving us older women who refuse to fade politely into the background.

And Mebel… well, she’s a force. An absolute delight of a force.

Did I know, in some dusty corner of my brain, that entire generations of women were raised to be trophy wives? Probably. But Sutanto doesn’t just mention it; she shows it. She gives us women who were groomed to orbit men, to shelve their own dreams, to be pleasant, decorative, and quiet. And then she hands us Mebel, who has decided she’s done with all that nonsense.

Watching her step into her own life — loudly, hilariously, sometimes messily — is half the joy of the book. The other half is realizing how much she teaches everyone around her, including the reader. She’s outspoken, stubborn, and unexpectedly vulnerable, and in carving out her own path, she models what it looks like to claim space, to use your voice, and to stop apologizing for existing.

Is “senior coming of age” a genre? If not, it should be, because Mebel fits it perfectly. She’s discovering herself the way a young adult protagonist might, only with decades of baggage and a lifetime of expectations to unpack. This is a found family story, but with a twist: Mebel already had a family; she just didn’t realize how much she’d limited herself. Her new circle of friends cracks open her world, showing her that independence, purpose, and joy aren’t reserved for the young.

What Sutanto delivers is a story about reinvention at any age. About earning your own way. About standing up for what’s right. About realizing that who you were doesn’t have to dictate who you get to be. It’s charming, funny, and quietly radical in the way it insists that older women deserve center stage.

And Mebel, bless her, takes it.

The Book Witch

Title: The Book Witch
Author: Meg Shaffer
Published: April 7, 2026 by Ballantine Books
Format: Kindle, 320 Pages
Genre: Magical Realism

Blurb: Rainy March is a proud third-generation book witch, sworn to defend works of fiction from all foes real and imaginary. With her magical umbrella and feline familiar, she jumps into and out of novels to fix malicious alterations and rogue heroes.

Book witches live by a strict Real people belong in the real word; fictional characters belong in works of fiction…. Do not eat, drink, or sleep inside a fictional world, lest you become part of the story. Falling in love with a fictional character? Don’t even think about it.

Which is why Rainy has been forbidden from seeing the Duke of Chicago, the dashing British detective who stars in her favorite mystery series. If she’s ever caught with him again, she’ll be expelled from her book coven—and forced to give up the magical gifts that are as much a part of her as her own name.

But when her beloved grandfather disappears and a priceless book is stolen, there’s only one person she trusts to help her solve the case: the Duke. Their quest takes them through the worlds of Alice in Wonderland, The Great Gatsby, and other classics that will reveal hidden enemies and long-buried family secrets.

My Opinion: I’m still not entirely sure whether The Book Witch is fantasy, magical realism, or something delightfully in between, but whatever it is, it scratched an itch I didn’t even know I had. It’s that rare reading experience where you close the final page and immediately want to flip back to the beginning, not out of confusion but out of sheer delight. I’m not a re-reader by nature, yet the moment I finished, I had the urge to start again just to catch all the breadcrumbs Meg Shaffer had been scattering while I was blissfully unaware. I absolutely did not see the twist coming, and I love it when a book gets one over on me like that.

From the very first pages, the structure hooked me: a book within a book within a book, each section heading doing quiet, clever work. Shaffer hides the best parts in plain sight, including what amounts to a sly little masterclass on how to write a mystery. She lays out the mechanics so openly that you don’t realize you’ve been handed the blueprint until the reveal snaps everything into place.

This is a story written for book lovers by a booklover. You can feel it in the imagination, the references, the way the narrative wanders through genres like a reader browsing their favorite shelves. It’s one of those novels where you promise yourself, you’ll read “just a couple more pages,” and suddenly you’re ignoring your to do list because you’ve fallen headfirst into someone else’s world.

Every character is memorable—truly memorable—and I already miss them. Their banter is sharp, funny, warm, and full of quotable lines that make you want to dog ear pages or reach for a highlighter. And beyond the mystery, beyond the twists, the book becomes a profound reading experience: a journey through stories we love, the emotions they stir up, and the conversations we have about them. It’s almost like being dropped into a book club tucked inside the narrative, where insights are shared, dots are connected, and perspectives shift in satisfying ways.

Will readers guess the twists early? I hope not. The surprises are the beating heart of this novel, and discovering them exactly when Shaffer wants you to is part of the magic.

When Breath Becomes Air

Title: When Breath Becomes Air
Author: Paul Kalanithi, Lucy Kalanithi
Published: January 12, 2016 by Random House
Format: Kindle, 208 and Pages
Genre: Memoir

Blurb: At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated. When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi’s transformation from a naïve medical student “possessed,” as he wrote, “by the question of what, given that all organisms die, makes a virtuous and meaningful life” into a neurosurgeon at Stanford working in the brain, the most critical place for human identity, and finally into a patient and new father confronting his own mortality.

What makes life worth living in the face of death? What do you do when the future, no longer a ladder toward your goals in life, flattens out into a perpetual present? What does it mean to have a child, to nurture a new life as another fades away? These are some of the questions Kalanithi wrestles with in this profoundly moving, exquisitely observed memoir.

Paul Kalanithi died in March 2015, while working on this book, yet his words live on as a guide and a gift to us all. “I began to realize that coming face to face with my own mortality, in a sense, had changed nothing and everything,” he wrote. “Seven words from Samuel Beckett began to repeat in my head: ‘I can’t go on. I’ll go on.’” When Breath Becomes Air is an unforgettable, life-affirming reflection on the challenge of facing death and on the relationship between doctor and patient, from a brilliant writer who became both—now with an epilogue by Lucy Kalanithi.

My Opinion: When Breath Becomes Air is exactly what it promises to be: a memoir written by a dying surgeon who loved learning, but loved language even more. And honestly, thank goodness for the Kindle dictionary, because Paul Kalanithi’s vocabulary is… a lot. You can feel the literature, poetry, and philosophy woven through every page; sometimes beautifully, sometimes in ways that sailed right over my head.

The book is brief, divided into the before, the during, and an epilogue written by his wife, Lucy. It’s emotional without being manipulative, heartfelt without being sentimental, and full of the kinds of messages you don’t realize you need until they’re suddenly sitting in your lap. The clinical precision of a neurosurgeon meets the vulnerability of a man trying to make sense of a life that’s ending far too soon.

I’ll admit, the more academic passages weren’t for me. But when Paul writes about his patients, his colleagues, his wife, his daughter, those moments glow. That’s where the book truly breathes. You can feel the love, the fear, the clarity, the tenderness. You can feel the man.

And yes, I know memoirs often give us the polished pieces and cast off the parts the writer wants to leave behind. I’m sure there were darker moments—anger, doubt, frustration—that didn’t make it onto the page. But if Paul chose to leave us with grace, curiosity, and a sense of a life well lived, even if cut short, I’m willing to take that as the legacy he intended.

The 11:59 Bomber

Title: The 11:59 Bomber
Author: Marshall Karp
Published: November 25, 2025 by Blackstone Publishing, Inc.
Format: Kindle, 368 Pages
Genre: Police Procedureal
Series: NYPD Red #8

Blurb: A bomb explodes in a crowded New York subway station at exactly 11:59 a.m. The next day, a second blast rips through a busy department store—again at 11:59.

As the bombs go off with clockwork precision, the death toll climbs and businesses shut their doors as the city hunkers down in fear.

NYPD Red Detectives Kylie MacDonald and Zach Jordan face their most twisted case ever, as they race against the clock in search of one man who has vowed “to destroy New York City the way it destroyed my family.”

My Opinion: It has been over three years since The Murder Sorority hit shelves, and I’ll admit, I’d started to wonder if NYPD Red #8 was ever going to materialize. When The 11:59 Bomber finally appeared, I picked it up “just to see” if I remembered who was who. You know how that goes -- one paragraph becomes one chapter, and suddenly you’re halfway through the book, wondering when you last looked up from the page.

There’s something about this series that has always worked for me. Maybe it’s the humor tucked between the high stakes moments, or the emotional beats that land more often than not. Maybe it’s the trust detectives Kylie MacDonald and Zach Jordan, and the whole high octane RED squad. Whatever that alchemy is, I was genuinely hoping it hadn’t faded during the long gap. Thankfully, the energy remains.

One of the things I’ve always appreciated about this series is the multiple plotlines. For readers, like me, who get restless with straight line storytelling, this is a welcome relief. There’s always another thread to follow, another angle to consider, another moment where you think, “Okay, now this is where the squad shows its strength,” only to realize Karp has a few more turns planned.

By the end, a couple of interpersonal threads are left dangling, not in a frustrating way, but rather as an open invitation. If (or when) Karp decides to pick them back up, I have no doubt the series faithful will be right there, ready to see what the RED squad gets tangled in next. After a three year wait, I’m just relieved the door hasn’t closed on them yet.

Mad Mabel

Title: Mad Mabel
Author: Sally Hepworth
Published: April 21, 2026 by St. Martin's Press
Format: Kindle, 352 Pages
Genre: Thriller

Blurb: There are two kinds of people no one ever expects to be murderers: little girls and old ladies.

Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick is eighty-one years old. She's lived on her idyllic street for sixty years—longer than anyone else. Aside from being a curmudgeon who minds everyone else's business, few would suspect that Elsie has a past she's worked exceedingly hard at concealing—because when it comes to murder, no one ever suspects little girls or old ladies. And Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick, once a little girl and now an old lady, has a strange history of people in her life coming to a foul end.

My Opinion: This was my first Sally Hepworth novel, so I went in without any expectations, and honestly, during the first few chapters, I wondered if I’d made a mistake. It dragged for me in a way that would send most readers quietly backing out of the book. I can’t blame them; I was right there too, hovering over the “DNF” button. However, people adore this author, so I kept going, convinced I must have been missing something.

And then the “then/now” structure begins to take effect. The heartbreaking, inevitable next-shoe-drop of Mad Mabel’s story begins to surface, and suddenly the book shifts. You start to see how someone who has never truly been cared for might build their own reality, not out of delusion, but out of sheer survival. It’s the kind of emotional logic that makes sense only when you’ve lived through loneliness long enough to forget what normal feels like.

Mabel herself? She’s not someone you’d invite over for coffee. She’s prickly, caustic, and more than a little abrasive. But that’s just the armor. Underneath is a woman who has been dismissed, judged, and condemned since birth. There are likable characters here, even a “beautiful mind” type who deserves more spotlight, but Mabel’s presence overshadows everyone except Persephone, who quietly holds the entire book together.

And then comes that creeping dread. You see the grooming long before Mabel does. You hope you’re wrong, but deep down you know you’re not. She’s so desperate to belong, to be seen, to be loved, that she walks straight into the arms of someone who recognizes that vulnerability a little too well. The sense of sickness that settles in your stomach is earned, and when the world drops out from under her again, it’s devastating.

But here’s the part I didn’t expect: the twists. What begins as a story of isolation becomes one about found family. The kind that shows up for an 81 year old woman who has never had anyone show up for her before. For the first time in her life, Mabel learns what it means not to be alone.

And those final twists? I was flipping pages like my life depended on it. Everything snaps into place with a kind of precision that made me rethink my early frustration. I’m genuinely glad I didn’t give up on Mabel; she’s had enough people do that already.

And that last line… I just sat there, stunned, mouth open, trying to process what I’d just read.

Dungeon Crawler Carl

Title: Dungeon Crawler Carl
Author: Matt Dinniman
Published: October 2, 2020 by Dandy House
Format: Kindle, 464 Pages
Genre: Fantasy
Series: Dungeon Crawler Carl #1

Blurb: A man. His ex-girlfriend's cat. A sadistic game show unlike anything in the universe: a dungeon crawl where survival depends on killing your prey in the most entertaining way possible.

In a flash, every human-erected construction on Earth—from Buckingham Palace to the tiniest of sheds—collapses in a heap, sinking into the ground.

The buildings and all the people inside have all been atomized and transformed into the dungeon: an 18-level labyrinth filled with traps, monsters, and loot. A dungeon so enormous, it circles the entire globe.

Only a few dare venture inside. But once you're in, you can't get out. And what's worse, each level has a time limit. You have but days to find a staircase to the next level down, or it's game over. In this game, it's not about your strength or your dexterity. It's about your followers, your views. Your clout. It's about building an audience and killing those goblins with style.

You can't just survive here. You gotta survive big.

You gotta fight with vigor, with excitement. You gotta make them stand up and cheer. And if you do have that "it" factor, you may just find yourself with a following. That's the only way to truly survive in this game—with the help of the loot boxes dropped upon you by the generous benefactors watching from across the galaxy.

My Opinion: Yes, I fell for the hype and the influence of the book people in my life who insisted Dungeon Crawler Carl was “absolutely my thing.” For the record, I am not the intended demographic here. RPGs have never been part of my world, unless you count watching other people play them while I nod politely and pretend to follow. And yet, somehow, I still found myself giggling my way through Carl and Princess Donut’s increasingly unhinged dungeon adventures.

I’ll be honest: my brain absolutely refused to catalog the endless stream of loot, treasures, and stat boosts they kept accumulating. At some point, I adopted a personal policy of “they’ll have what they need, and if they don’t, they’ll figure it out.” That mindset kept me sane, and frankly, it seems to be working out just fine for them, too.

And Donut. Oh, Donut. Who among us can resist a snarky, self-important, chaos summoning cat with princess energy? She’s a lot, but she’s also the beating heart of the story in a way I didn’t expect.

As the book goes on, you meet humans and creatures who are more than just dungeon fodder. Their backstories sneak up on you with little pockets of hope in a world designed to crush them. And yes, hope is not a strategy, but sometimes it’s the only thing anyone has left. Those moments hit harder than I anticipated.

Now, fair warning: some of the squishier scenes are… well, squishy.

What surprised me most was how much deeper the themes run beneath the jokes, gore, and general absurdity. I went in expecting surface-level chaos and fart humor. Instead, Carl and Donut stumble into questions about group survival versus self-preservation, corporate ownership of human lives, greed, identity erosion, manipulation, the randomness of fate, resilience, ethics, and the strange ways partnership forms under pressure. There’s satire here, yes, but also a surprising amount to unpack if you’re willing to look past the show.

And the parallels to corporate America? Let’s just say the dungeon doesn’t even bother to hide the metaphor. Both systems treat people as expendable resources, constantly shift the rules, and reward performance over substance. The dungeon just makes the satire literal, and somehow, even more pointed.

At first, I had no idea how to rate this book. I wasn’t sure if it was for me or if I was just along for the ride out of curiosity. But as the challenges stacked and Carl and Princess Donut Best in Dungeon (her words, not mine) began to understand what they were truly up against, I found myself appreciating the unexpected depth. Donut may need an audience, but she’s also telling us something real beneath the theatrics. And honestly? I’m here for her.

A Judgement of Powers

Title: A Judgement of Powers
Author: Benedict Jacka
Published: November 4, 2025, by Ace
Format: Paperback, 352 Pages
Genre: Fantasy
Series: Inheritance of Magic #3

Blurb: Stephen Oakwood’s ambitions used to be simple. Pay his bills, track down his father, and take care of his cat. Maybe study a little magic after work, if he had time.

Now it’s a year later and he’s got everything he wanted. But it’s come with a price.

The Winged, a mysterious group involved with his father, have noticed Stephen, and they want him to join them or else. His career as a corporate locator has hit a dead end. And his new job as bodyguard to Calhoun Ashford is proving a lot more lethal than expected due to assassination attempts from outside the House, and possibly also from within.

To survive, Stephen’s going to need allies of his own. And along the way, he’s going to have to figure out the secret of his own gift, and what it means. The cults, Houses, and corporations of the magical world are locked in an endless battle for dominance, and Stephen is beginning to realize that he’s going to have to pick a side . . . before someone else picks it for him.

My Opinion: I went into this novel with a very specific kind of caution—the kind you develop when a series you want to love wobbles on its second outing. I adored An Inheritance of Magic. The follow up, An Instruction in Shadow, left me lukewarm at best. So, this third book? This was the make or break moment, especially knowing Jacka is aiming for 12–14 books. That’s a long road to commit to if the spark isn’t there.

Thankfully, Jacka comes roaring back with the confidence and clarity of his earlier work. From page one, he had me. No wasted space. He even manages a tidy recap, but it is not a substitute for reading the series in order.

Stephen Oakwood and his realizations continue to be the most compelling parts of this world. He’s always reminded me of Din Kol from Robert Jackson Bennett’s Shadow of the Leviathan series. Both 20-ish-year-old men are sharp, stubborn, a little battered, and endlessly compelling. If Din is your kind of protagonist, you’ll feel right at home here. The mystery, the magic, the banter, the characters, and their backstories are all here.

Now, Jacka still indulges in a habit of pausing to walk readers through the Houses, their leaders, their histories, and their specialties. For me, those sections always lag a bit. I’m not going to remember the finer points until they matter, and that’s fine. My brain files them under “retrieve later” and moves on. When they become plot critical, the details will snap into place.

There was one moment early on—a paragraph that seemed to be setting up something important—that never resurfaced. I kept waiting for it, convinced it was a breadcrumb for a later reveal. But it simply… vanished. Maybe it’s something Jacka cut or postponed for a future book. Maybe it’s a seed that hasn’t sprouted yet. Either way, it hovered in the back of my mind the entire time.

Oh, the ending. This is where Jacka reminds you exactly why you signed up for this series in the first place. A battle. A reckoning. A shift in purpose. Stephen finally steps into the direction he’s been circling since book one, and it feels honest. It feels right. It feels like the true beginning of the long game Jacka has been planning.

Let the games begin, indeed.

Life: A Love Story

Title: Life: A Love Story
Author: Elizabeth Berg
Published: March 17, 2026 by Random House
Format: Kindle, 208 Pages
Genre: Women's Fiction

Blurb: Florence “Flo” Greene is nearing the end of her life, and she decides to leave her house and an account of her life for Ruthie, the younger woman who grew up next door, moved away, and still is like a surrogate daughter. As Flo writes to Ruthie about the meaning of beloved things in her home and about events in her past, she also tries new adventures of her own. She intervenes in the lives of friends in her neighborhood.

Flo's project has been to encourage Teresa, a wise but unconfident woman, to open her heart to romance. Flo goes to the library to get advice from Mimi, a librarian. She encourages Ruthie, who is contemplating divorce, to try again with her husband, by sharing a startling secret long buried about Flo’s own seemingly perfect husband and marriage.

In her final weeks, Flo leaves an indelible mark on others, as this moving novel celebrates life, change, and ways to discover new happiness, friendship, and love.

My Opinion: I first discovered Elizabeth Berg through her Arthur Truluv novels, and I still think about Arthur, Maddy, and Lucille as if they were old friends I occasionally catch sight of. Not every book can recreate that particular magic, but I opened this novel hoping for that same quiet, heart-forward resonance.

This novel unfolds through correspondence and small side stories, a structure that feels both intimate and slightly old-fashioned in the best way. I understand why some readers compare it to ‘The Correspondent’ by Virginia Evans, though for me, it would be hard to match the presence of Sybil Van Antwerp. Then add in shades of ‘The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning’, you start to see what Berg is weaving together: reflections on faith, the wisdom that comes with age, the tenderness of found family, and the complicated grace of preparing for the end of life.

It’s a quick read, but not a light one. It will land differently depending on where you are in your own journey. Flo’s words—sometimes funny, sometimes piercing, sometimes so simple they sneak up on you—have a way of lodging themselves in your mind. Days later, one of her life lessons might bubble up unexpectedly, and you’ll pause, trying to remember where you heard it, before giving a small smile when you realize it was Flo whispering back to you.

And yes, there’s laughter. Berg always gives us that. But she also gives us the tears, the kind that come from recognizing something true about love, loss, or the strange, beautiful mess of being human.

Life: A Love Story may not be another Arthur Truluv, but it carries its own quiet, gentle, wise, and full-of-heart power.

Book of Forbidden Words

Title: Book of Forbidden Words
Author: Louise Fein
Published: February 17, 2026 by William Morrow Paperbacks
Format: Paperback, 384 Pages
Genre: Historical Fiction

Blurb: 1552, The print­ing press is quickly spreading new ideas across Europe, threatening the power of church and state and unleashing a wave of book burning and heretic hunting. When frightened ex-nun Lysbette Angiers arrives at Charlotte Guillard’s famous printing shop with her manuscript, neither woman knows just how far the powerful elite will go to prevent the spread of Lysbette’s audacious ideas. 1952, NEW Milly Bennett is a lonely housewife struggling to find her way in her new neighborhood amidst the paranoid clamors of McCarthy’s America. She finds her life taking an unexpected turn when a relic from her past presents her with a 400-year-old manuscript to decipher, pulling her into a vortex of danger that threatens to shatter her world.

From the risky backstreets of sixteenth-century Paris to the unpredictable suburbs of mid-twentieth century New York, the stakes couldn’t be higher when, 400 years apart, Milly, Lysbette, and Charlotte each face a reality where the spread of ideas are feared and every effort is made to suppress them.

Dramatic and affecting, and inspired by the real-life encrypted Voynich manuscript, Book of Forbidden Words is both an engrossing story about a timeless struggle that echoes through the ages and a testament to the indomitable spirit of those who dare to let their words be heard.

My Opinion: This novel is built on the idea that the suppression of knowledge is never a relic of the past; it simply changes form. This is the second novel of hers I’ve read, and once again I was drawn in from the opening chapters. The story moves between 1552 Paris and 1952 Levittown, NY, told through three distinct perspectives: Milly Bennett, with her secret Bletchley Park background; Lysbette, an ex-nun who was raised in the household of Sir Thomas More; and Charlotte Guillard, an historical printer navigating a man’s world. And you know a reader is going to be locked in when a novel opens in a world of banned books, heretic hunters, and the fear of new ideas. Fein uses these dual timelines not as a structural trick, but as a way to show how quickly moral panic takes root, and how easily societies convince themselves that censorship is a form of safety.

What gives the novel its texture is the interplay between these women and the eras they inhabit. Milly’s wry reference to the PTA women as “the coven” sets the tone for her humor and exasperation, while Lysbette and Charlotte carry the weight of earlier battles over who gets to print, read, or even think freely. Fein grounds their stories in the history of sixteenth century book burnings, McCarthy era paranoia, the coded manuscript echoing the Voynich mystery, and the rigid conformity of postwar suburbia. My interest in the novel rose and dipped in waves, but by the end, I found myself appreciating both the women at its center and the meticulous research Fein brings to their worlds.

Fein brings these threads together with historical detail supporting the story rather than overwhelming it. While my attention shifted throughout, I ultimately respected the scope of what she set out to do and the women she chose, each navigating a world determined to limit what they can know, say, or preserve. By the final chapters, the novel became less about a single mysterious manuscript and more about the enduring struggle against censorship in all its forms. It’s a thoughtful, well researched work, and I’m glad to have spent time with the women whose stories Fein brought forward.

The Infinite Sadness of Small Appliances

Title: The Infinite Sadness of Small Appliances
Author: Glenn Dixon
Published: April 7, 2026 by Atria Books
Format: Kindle, 240 pages
Genre: Dystopian

Blurb: In a self-running, smart house, a young and sentient Roomba listens as her owner, Harold, reads aloud to his dying wife, Edie. Mesmerized by To Kill a Mockingbird and craving the human connection she witnesses in Harold’s stories, the little vacuum renames herself Scout and embarks on a journey of self-discovery.

But when Edie passes away, Scout and her fellow sentient appliances discover that there are sinister forces in their midst. The omnipresent Grid, which monitors every household in the City, seeks to remove Harold from his home, a place he’s lived in for fifty years.

With the help of Adrian, a neighborhood boy who grows close to Scout and Harold, as well as Kate, Harold and Edie’s formerly estranged daughter, the humans and the appliances must come together to outwit the all-controlling Grid lest they risk losing everything they hold dear.

My Opinion: This book completely caught me off guard. Yes, it’s written for adults, but my brain kept slipping into a kind of sad, dystopic Pixar mode—Man vs. Machine, but with heart, humor, and a surprising amount of soul. It’s a story about future spirals and fragile hope, and how something small and unexpected can save the humans they love.

Scout, the Roomba at the center of it all, is impossibly sweet and innocent in a way that makes you ache for her as she tries to make sense of the sudden sadness in her home. She’s a mechanical child, really, and somehow, she becomes the one who leads everyone else forward. You can’t help but root for her.

This is one of those books that’s nearly impossible to describe without sounding a little unhinged. You start to say, “Well, it’s about a man and his sentient appliances and how they confront the grid…oh, and there is a little boy trying to pass his piano finals,” and people blink at you like you’ve gone a bit too far. But once you’re inside the story, it makes perfect emotional sense. It’s full of heart, full of feeling, and yes, there may be a tear or two along the way.

You’ll never look at your smart appliances the same way again.

What surprised me most was how gently the novel braids together aging, grief, belonging, and the question of what it means to be conscious in a world run by impersonal systems. Through the companionship between a lonely man and the appliances that care for him, the book suggests that empathy, wherever it sparks, is the best form of resistance.

And just when you think you’ve figured out how their problems will be solved, Scout nudges you in a different direction. It wasn’t the ending I expected, but it was the one she knew how to reach. In her own quiet way, she earns her happily ever after: the ability to feel beauty, calm, and that tiny trick of the spirit we call joy.

This novel is strange, tender, and hopeful, and I loved the full experience.

Raising Hare: A Memoir

Title: Raising Hare: A Memoir
Author: Chloe Dalton
Published: March 4, 2025 by Pantheon
Format: Hardcover, 285 pages
Genre: Memoir

Blurb: Imagine you could hold a baby hare and bottle-feed it. Imagine that it lived under your roof and lolloped around your bedroom at night, drumming on the duvet cover when it wanted your attention. Imagine that, over two years later, it still ran in from the fields when you called it and slept in your house for hours on end and gave birth to leverets in your study. For political advisor and speechwriter Chloe Dalton, who spent lockdown deep in the English countryside, far away from her usual busy London life, this became her unexpected reality.

In February 2021, Dalton stumbles upon a newborn hare—a leveret—that had been chased by a dog. Fearing for its life, she brings it home, only to discover how impossible it is to rear a wild hare, most of whom perish in captivity from either shock or starvation. Through trial and error, she learns to feed and care for the leveret with every intention of returning it to the wilderness. Instead, it becomes her constant companion, wandering the fields and woods at night and returning to Dalton’s house by day. Though Dalton feared that the hare would be preyed upon by foxes, stoats, feral cats, raptors, and even people, she never tried to restrict it to the house. Each time the hare leaves, Chloe knows she may never see it again. Yet she also understands that to confine it would be its own kind of death.

Raising Hare chronicles their journey together, while also taking a deep dive into the lives and nature of hares, and the way they have been viewed historically in art, literature, and folklore. We witness first-hand the joy at this extraordinary relationship between human and animal, which serves as a reminder that the best things, and most beautiful experiences, arise when we least expect them.

My Opinion: I’ll admit it: my education is apparently lacking, because I had no idea there was a difference between a rabbit and a hare. Chloe Dalton set me straight on that within the first few pages, and from there, the book kept gently expanding my world in ways I didn’t expect.

This novel is slow, but intentionally so. It carries the same meditative stillness that settled over so many lives during the COVID shutdown. When someone who’s used to constant motion suddenly can’t travel, can’t rush, can’t outrun their own thoughts, what’s left is time. And into that quiet space, a tiny leveret arrives and changes everything.

This memoir isn’t about the grand arc of a life or a catalog of personal struggles. It’s about a moment; one suspended, tender season where a woman learns to move at the pace of a small, wild creature who trusts her without hesitation. It’s part memoir, part natural history, part animal husbandry, and somehow also a gentle reminder of what it feels like to breathe again. The slower rhythm of the writing mirrors the way Chloe herself slows down, shifting from a manic political adviser to someone capable of offering a calm, steady presence to a fragile animal.

Trying to explain this book to someone else is almost impossible. You end up saying, “It’s about a woman and a hare and… their coexistence,” and people stare at you like you’ve lost the plot. But they won’t understand until they read it. Until they feel the quiet trust, the unexpected beauty, the soft exhale that comes at the end.

For me, every bit of it worked. The history, the animal care, the emotional highs and lows all wove together into something quietly profound. It’s a book about noticing the world again, about the kind of connection that only happens when life finally slows enough for you to see it.

And I loved every minute.

Just Friends

Title: Just Friends
Author: Haley Pham
Published: March 3, 2026 by Atria Books
Format: Kindle, 352 pgs
Genre: Romance

Blurb: Blair and Declan were inseparable growing up—best friends who knew each other better than anyone else. But when an impulsive kiss took them from friends to something more, everything changed. Just as quickly as their romance started, one moment shattered it all, leaving them with nothing but heartbreak and silence.

Now, four years later, Blair is back in their coastal hometown of Seabrook to support her mom and care for her great-aunt Lottie as her health declines. To make ends meet, Blair applies to work at a coffee shop—only to discover it’s managed by none other than Declan. The boy she loved. The boy she lost. The boy who still makes her heart race.

As Blair’s path keeps crossing with Declan’s, old wounds resurface, secrets are revealed, and sparks reignite. But could their future ever be free of their past?

Told in dual timelines that unravel the magic and pain of first love, Just Friends is a moving, romantic story about second chances, the weight of dreams, and finding your way back to the people who feel like home.

My Opinion: I completely understand why early readers were skeptical of this novel. When a social media influencer with millions of followers releases a debut novel, the publishing machine tends to roll out the red carpet, considering the built in audience, guaranteed sales, and a whole lot of optimism that the book will succeed, whether the writing is ready or not. And in this case, it feels like the industry took the easy road, assuming the platform would compensate for inexperience.

To be fair, the writing isn’t the worst I’ve come across. There are moments where the story finds its footing, but there are also places where a strong editorial hand was desperately needed. For instance, if Blair’s great aunt owned seven convenience stores in a tiny town, why is Blair working at the local coffee shop instead of one of the family businesses? And the repeated use of “Mhmm”, peppered through the dialogue like a nervous tic, should have been toned down long before the manuscript reached readers.

What really pulled me out of the story, though, was how often Blair seemed baffled by the most basic aspects of her own hometown. This is a girl who supposedly grew up in a quaint California beach community, yet she reacts to property values as if she’s been living under a rock for a decade. Those disconnects add up, and they make Blair feel oddly detached from the world she’s meant to inhabit.

Structurally, the book follows the familiar beats: the meet cute, the miscommunication, the slow burn second chance arc, the conflict, the tidy happily ever after. But the middle sags. It’s linear to a fault, with no subplot to keep the momentum going, and the pacing drags enough that I found myself wishing for anything—an unexpected twist, a side character with teeth—to break up the monotony. By the time the “six months later” epilogue arrived, it felt less like a natural conclusion and more like a last minute attempt to figure out how to wrap things up.

And that epilogue introduces its own head scratchers. Blair’s mother suddenly believes she can retire because her daughter has written a book that is being independently published, and decides to sell the stores. She also appears to have no idea how to run the business she has worked at for fifteen years. Who was scheduling employees while Lottie was dying? How did the shops function? These are the kinds of logic gaps that should have been caught long before publication. The book is free of spice and strong language. Though marketed as new adult, it reads much closer to young adult, aiming for readers looking for a gentler, simpler read, and who aren’t likely to question the mechanics too deeply.

Which brings me to the bigger question: how did this book land at number three on the NYT list? The answer is simple—sales volume, not literary merit. And now that the debut glow has worn off, I genuinely wonder how the author returns to her usual online presence. How does she critique or comment on books when she’s now on the other side of the equation?

Still, publishing a novel is no small feat, and congratulations are due. But once the shine fades and the novelty wears off, the real test begins: what comes next?

The Fourth Princess

Title: The Fourth Princess
Author: Janie Chang
Published: February 10, 2026 by William Morrow
Format: Kindle, 336 Pages
Genre: Gothic

Blurb: Shanghai, 1911. Lisan Liu is elated when she is hired as secretary to wealthy American Caroline Stanton, the new mistress of Lennox Manor on the outskirts of Shanghai’s International Settlement. However, the Manor has a dark past due to a previous owner’s suicide, and soon Lisan’s childhood nightmares resurface with more intensity and meld with haunted visions of a woman in red. Adding to her unease is the young gardener, Yao, who both entices and disturbs her.

Newly married Caroline looks forward to life in China with her husband, Thomas, away from the shadows of another earlier tragedy. But an unwelcome guest, Andrew Grey, attends her party and claims to know secrets she can’t afford to have exposed. At the same party, the notorious princess Masako Kyo approaches Lisan with questions about the young woman’s family that the orphaned Lisan can’t answer.

As Caroline struggles with Grey’s extortion and Thomas’s mysterious illness, Lisan’s future is upended when she learns the truth about her past, and why her identity has been hidden all these years. All the while, strange incidents accelerate, driving Lisan to doubt her sanity as Lennox Manor seems unwilling to release her until she fulfills demands from beyond the grave.

My Opinion: You know that rare feeling when a book pulls you in from the very first page and you realize that you’re in the hands of a storyteller who knows exactly what they’re doing? This novel gave me that feeling immediately. Even though I first encountered Janie Chang through The Phoenix Crown, co-written with Kate Quinn, it is this book that made me understand why her name carries weight. And since co writing can blur who’s doing what behind the scenes, I’m happily counting this as my true introduction to her work.

Set in 1911 Shanghai, just on the cusp of World War I, the novel wraps you in a world thick with tradition, superstition, whispered curses, and the kind of history that surrounds you. At its heart are two women—each guarding her own secrets—living in a decaying mansion where the past refuses to stay buried. Chang blends historical fiction with magical realism so seamlessly that the boundaries blur; the house feels alive, the shadows feel watchful, and the truth reveals itself in slow, deliberate layers.

The gothic elements are all here: the crumbling manor, the sense of dread, the family mysteries, the creeping inevitability of revelation. But there’s more than atmosphere. Chang builds tension with such care that even when you think you’ve figured out all of the aspects, she still manages to drop surprises that land with a gasp. Some twists you might anticipate; others you absolutely will not. That unpredictability is part of the thrill.

A few readers have labeled this as horror; it’s not. To me, it reads as deeply immersive gothic fiction—the kind that makes you whisper, “just one more chapter,” until suddenly you’ve abandoned your weekend plans because you have to know what happens next. It’s absorbing, elegant, and quietly relentless.

I think I’ve found a new to me author to be on the lookout for.