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

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

4/5 stars The Sentence, by Louise Erdrich (2021) "Louise Erdrich has made a career writing about the contemporary world in light of the history of indigenous people, how the past continues to impact the present." I've only read one of Erdrich's novels before, and it was ages ago - high school, I think! But my best friend is methodically going through all of them right now, and it made me want to have Erdrich's voice in my ear for a while. The novel starts in 2009-ish in Minne

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

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

1/5 star The Book of Love , by Kelly Link (2024) This should have been a short story. Instead it was SIX HUNDRED AND TWENTY FIVE PAGES. I enjoyed Link's quirky book of short stories, Magic for Beginners - creative little dramas about witches and zombies, and a lot of interesting interactions between the world of the living and the world of the dead. I was curious to see what her first full length novel would bring. It did bring a lot more of that fuzzy line between life and

4/5 stars Green Frog: Stories , by Gina Chung (2024) Short story collections can be tough for me. Often I feel like some are great while...

4/5 stars The Crane Husband , by Kelly Barnhill (2023) Barnhill does magical realism very well. I've read two other novels by her - The...

3/5 stars We Need No Wings , by Ann D á vila Cardinal (2024) Magical realism done quite well. Tere (short for Teresa), a Puerto...

5/5 stars The Book of Doors , by Gareth Brown (2024) Fantastic book for book-lovers! Cassie works at a bookstore in New York City. She...

3/5 stars Real Americans , by Rachel Khong (2024) This is a reluctant 3, but the book is better than a 2, so here we are. The story is...

3/5 stars Witch of Wild Things , by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland (2023) A fun little book of magical realism. Sage Flores has a special gift...

3/5 stars Self-Portrait with Nothing, by Aimee Pokwatka (2022) I really enjoyed Pokwatka's The Parliament, which I read last month, so I...

3/5 stars The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley, by Sean Lusk (2022) Zachary is born in London in 1754 to Abel Cloudesley, a renowned...

2/5 stars When Women Were Dragons, by Kelly Barnhill (2022) This would have been a fantastic short story! Like, really compelling and fun...

5/5 stars Ink Blood Sister Scribe, by Emma Törzs (2023) Fabulous. So fun! This is a fantasy-thriller with gothic libraries filled with...

4/5 stars Other Birds, by Sarah Addison Allen (2022) This book is a delight. It's somehow utterly fanciful and has its feet firmly...

2/5 stars The Cat Who Saved Books, by Sosuke Natsukawa (2017) Translated from the Japanese by Louise Heal Kawai A 2-star book with a...

2/5 stars The Last White Man, by Mohsin Hamid I'm having a really hard time writing about this one. I finished it almost 2 weeks ago and...

5/5 stars The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern (2011) I've read this twice before, and the third read was just as awesome. This time I...