3/5 stars A Sunny Place for Shady People, by Mariana Enriquez (2024) Translated by Megan McDowell I wish I liked this more, because I freakin' love the title... Which, it turns out, is a quote from author W. Somerset Maugham in speaking about the French Riviera. * shrug * This is a story collection where each narrative focuses in some way on death or its aftermath, and body horror - "a subgenre of horror fiction where fear comes from the grotesque, unnatural, and unwanted tra

4 & 3 /5 stars An Absolutely Remarkable Thing and A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor, by Hank Green (2018 & 2020) An Absolutely Remarkable Thing - 4/5 stars Walking home from work in the wee hours in NYC, April May stumbles upon what initially appears to be an art installation - a ten-foot tall, metallic, robot/transformer-like statue in Samurai armor. Impressed with the piece, she calls her best friend Andy to come meet her there and record a video with the statue, which she nam

5/5 stars The Society of Unknowable Objects, by Gareth Brown (2025) Ooooh I enjoyed this almost as much as The Book of Doors! A very close second. You don't need to have read The Book of Doors to enjoy it - all different characters and magic - but there is a fun nod to the book at the end of Unknowable Objects that hints at, perhaps, a cross-over book on the way, which would be awesome. Where The Book of Doors has magical books that do different magical things, this novel is

3/5 stars Tantrum, by Rachel Eve Moulton (2025) TW: Violence, cannibalism, child abuse Part I is called Temper, and introduces the main character, Thea, who is a wife, mother of two boys - 5 and 3-years old - and of an infant girl, Lucia. They live off the grid in the New Mexico desert. She loves her husband and kids, but is beginning to feel trapped in her life, particularly because she just knows that something is not right with Lucia, and hasn't shared this with anyone els

4/5 stars The Last Hour Between Worlds and The Last Soul Among Wolves, by Melissa Caruso (2024 & 2025) Loved these books and I'm excited to read the third in the series... But I couldn't wait til then to review the first two! Sort of a Groundhog Day/Inception/locked-room-murder-mystery mashup, this book takes place at a fancy New Year's Eve party in a world where there are multiple layers, called Echoes, of reality. "Prime" is layer one, where the characters start out. The fu

5/5 stars The Girl with All the Gifts, by M.R. Carey (2014) You really need to go into this not knowing much, so this will be short. Melanie is a 10-year old girl who lives in a small cell underground, and is collected each day to be taken to class, strapped into a wheelchair at ankles, wrists and neck. Sergeant Parks and his men do the collecting - one or more strapping her in, while another keeps a gun aimed at her until she's completely immobilized. They all seem to truly

4/5 stars Breakfast at Tiffany's and Three Stories, by Truman Capote (1958) I feel like I need to say from the get-go that I have not seen the 1961 Audrey Hepburn Breakfast at Tiffany's movie... and I probably won't. I recently listened to an episode of the podcast What Went Wrong about the movie and book, which convinced me that I wanted to read it, but not that I needed to see it. The only other piece I've read by Capote is In Cold Blood, which I loved, but that is a non-fi

3/5 stars The Tattooist of Auschwitz, by Heather Morris (2018) This is a work of historical fiction, based on interviews Morris did with Lale Sokolov, a Slovakian Jew who spent two and a half years in the WWII concentration camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau. An educated man, Lale spoke many languages and was able to use this to his advantage in the camps, where becoming "useful" to the guards could save your life. Lale was assigned the task of tattooing the numbers on prisoners' ar

3/5 stars Shark Heart: A Love Story, by Emily Habeck (2023) Wren and Lewis have a sweet meet-cute in a restaurant, marry, and plan to live happily ever after... only, a few months into their marriage, Lewis is diagnosed with a rare form of mutation which means he will gradually morph into a great white shark. He's not alone - transforming into other animals seems to be a fairly common occurrence (in whatever version of reality Shark Heart is set in). It's just that turning in

2/5 stars A Guardian & a Thief, by Megha Majumdar (2025) Bleak. If you like a book where everything goes wrong (to the point where you're like, all of this happened to one family in one week??) and everyone ends up miserable, I guess this one's for you. I'm not someone who needs a happy ending for every story, but some modicum of hope, at least, is what gets the reader through the worst sorts of depravity, poverty, and desperation. A likable character or two also helps. I rea

4/5 stars The Hounding, by Xenobe Purvis (2025) In the small English village of Little Nettlebed in the eighteenth century, everyone loves to hate the Mansfield sisters, who range in age from about six to seventeen. Having lost both of their parents, and, more recently, their grandmother too, they live with their aging grandfather, who is losing his sight. The sisters are Anne - the eldest, Elizabeth - the pretty one, Hester - the tomboy, Grace - the quiet one, and Mary - the

4/5 stars Guilty by Definition , by Susie Dent (2019) Martha is the newly appointed senior editor of the Clarendon English Dictionary in Oxford, England, working with fellow lexicographers Alex, Safi, and Simon. When they start receiving cryptic letters in the mail, at first they don't think much of it. But as they look closer and start to decipher some of the clues, it becomes apparent that the writer, who calls him or herself "Chorus," is dropping hints about the mysteriou

4/5 stars 1984 , by George Orwell (1949) I know I'm late to the game on this one. Most folks have already read this, I bet! In this post-apocalyptic future set in what may be 1984 (no one is really sure of the date anymore): Big Brother is always watching. War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. ... That last one, in particular, really got me, given the times we're living in now, and the way we, as a country, reward stupidity. The world is divided into three

3/5 stars The Blue Hour , by Paula Hawkins (2024) TW: Domestic violence When I picked up this book I couldn't remember what else Paula Hawkins had written, but thought I remembered liking her. As it turns out, I was half right. Hawkins wrote Girl on the Train , which I loved, but also Into the Water , which I was pretty luke-warm on. My biggest complaint with that book is that while I enjoyed the mystery while reading it, it was utterly forgettable. With Blue Hour I feel si

5/5 stars A Sorceress Comes to Call , by T. Kingfisher (2024) TW: Emotional/psychological abuse I didn't realize when I read this that it is sort of a re-telling of a Grimm's tale called "The Goose Girl," which I'm not familiar with. But having read a bit about that story, I can pretty confidently say that this is a very loose interpretation, and that for all that the Brothers Grimm fairytales are dark and often disturbing, I think A Sorceress Comes to Call takes the creepy

4/5 stars A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping , by Sangu Mandanna (2025) Having read and thoroughly enjoyed The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches last year, I was excited to read Mandanna's most recent witchy novel. The characters are all new, though the premise is similar - loner witch hiding from society finds community with other witches and misfits. But here, she owns a B&B! A special one that can only be found by people who are in need of a safe space. Sera Sw

4/5 stars An Academy for Liars , by Alexis Henderson (2024) A hidden school of magic in the heart of Savannah, GA, complete with lots of beautiful, atmospheric hanging moss and lots and lots of secrets. Protagonist Lennon has just run away from an ill-advised engagement, after having found her fiancé with another woman at their engagement party. She takes his car and hits the road, without any more direction than "away from here." When she pulls off the road, she gets a ver

3/5 stars The Everlasting , by Alix Harrow (2025) If you like the Arthurian legend then you'll either love this, because it's an homage, or you'll hate this, because it's derivative. The Everlasting is a time travel fantasy novel. Owen Mallory is a historian living in the nation of Dominion. His field of study is the legend of Una Everlasting, the Lady Knight (or the Red Knight), whose valiant stories of conquest in the name of the Queen form the very bedrock of the nation.

4/5 stars The Memory of Animals , by Claire Fuller (2023) I'm always surprised when a post-apocalyptic novel surprises me. There are so many ways to do and say and show the same things that others have already done and said and shown. The Memory of Animals doesn't escape all of this sort of repetition, but it is a unique take on the story. The main character is Neffy (Nefeli), a former marine biologist specializing in octopuses, who was let go and is now disgraced and stra

3/5 stars Play Nice , by Rachel Harrison (2025) I think I really like books about haunted houses - but I don't mean, like, a house that is haunted by a ghost. I mean like the house is haunted. The house wants things and does things and may hurt you. Play Nice is horror-lite, with a haunting and, even more so, a very dysfunctional family. Clio is a social media influencer living in NYC. Her two older sisters, Leda and Daphne, are also off living their lives, and they all h