Category: Uncategorized

This is not a romance, exactly. But it is absolutely a love story.

Wife & Wife begins in 1955 with Ruth Wolf, a young Jewish wife and mother living the kind of life women were expected to want. She is married to Nathan, they have two children, and Ruth is a devoted mother. Then she meets Sylvie Fein—another housewife, and eventually her best friend—and falls deeply in love with her.

What makes this book so powerful is that Ruth and Sylvie don’t have the language, freedom, or cultural framework that later generations would have for understanding themselves. Ruth especially has spent her life understanding love, marriage, motherhood, and family entirely through a heteronormative lens. She knows that she loves Sylvie. Figuring out what that means—and what she’s willing or able to do about it—is something else entirely.

The novel follows these characters across decades, through marriages and divorces, motherhood and estrangement, secrecy and enormous cultural change, eventually reaching 2011, when New York legalized same-sex marriage.

I loved the scope of this story. Harris allows us to see just how dramatically the world changes over the course of one person’s lifetime. The book moves through the history of gay rights in America and the AIDS crisis, including those terrifying early years when so little was understood about how HIV was transmitted and there was no effective treatment. The historical details never felt like they were being inserted simply to teach the reader something; instead, they shape the choices these characters are able to make at different points in their lives.

And those choices aren’t always good ones. There are secrets here—so many secrets—and sometimes keeping them only causes more pain. There are consequences to loving someone in a world that tells you that love is unacceptable, and those consequences don’t disappear simply because the world eventually changes.

I was also reminded of Sarah Goodman Confino’s historical fiction because Jewish identity is so naturally woven into the characters’ lives. The traditions, family dynamics, expectations, and culture aren’t incidental details; they’re part of who these people are and how they understand family.

For a story that contains so much sadness, though, Wife & Wife is surprisingly funny and ultimately incredibly hopeful. I laughed. I definitely cried. And I absolutely loved the ending.

Most of all, I loved these characters. There is something extraordinarily moving about following people who were born into one version of America and lived long enough to see possibilities that would have seemed unimaginable when they were young.

If you’re interested in LGBTQ+ history, particularly what the enormous cultural and legal changes of the second half of the twentieth century actually meant in the life of an ordinary person, I highly recommend this one. It’s a story about love and loyalty, but also about identity, family, secrecy, survival, and how profoundly the world can change within a single lifetime.

I’m really grateful I got to read it. Ruth and Sylvie are going to stay with me for a long time.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Publication date: February 23, 2027
Publisher: William Morrow
Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for the advanced reading copy.

Was it good? Not really. Was I entertained? Absolutely. (Credit:@shelfbytheshore, instagram)

And sometimes, that is exactly what I want from a thriller.

Mother Daughter Sister Stranger centers on Eliza Ramsey, a literary assistant working for an agent in Manhattan. Eleven years ago, Eliza and her sister, Bea, were the sole survivors of the plane crash that killed their parents. Every year, they mark the anniversary as Remembrance Day—so when Bea leaves her daughter, Piper, with Eliza and then mysteriously fails to return for her, Eliza immediately knows something is very wrong.

What follows is Eliza’s increasingly frantic search for her sister, and—as any seasoned thriller reader will suspect—the story of that plane crash and the Ramsey family is considerably more complicated than Eliza believes.

This is one of those thrillers where everything is eventually a plot point. A character who seems incidental? Remember them. A random piece of information? File it away. A strange conversation? Oh, we’re definitely coming back to that.

There are secrets upon secrets upon secrets.

Did I believe all of it? Absolutely not.

Did I keep listening? Absolutely yes.

My biggest issue was Eliza herself. There were moments when she was so slow to put things together that I was practically yelling the answers at my audiobook. And listen—I am NOT the reader who usually figures out thriller twists. Authors fool me constantly. So when I’m several steps ahead of our protagonist, we may have a problem. 😂

On the other hand, there is something strangely satisfying about feeling smarter than the main character for once.

Where this worked particularly well for me was on audio. Mysteries and thrillers are my favorite audiobook genre, and this one is very easy to follow. There’s enough repetition and reminding of important details that I never felt like I needed to rewind or keep track of an enormous cast of suspects. Stevi Incremona gives a strong performance, and the missing-sister setup kept me engaged throughout.

I did think the resolution felt strangely rushed, especially considering how many revelations are packed into the final stretch. Although I’ve started wondering if I say this about thrillers because I’m racing through the last 20% to find out what happens and then immediately sitting down to write a review. Maybe I’m the one rushing. 😂

This wasn’t one of my favorite mysteries of the month, and I wouldn’t examine the plot mechanics too closely afterward. But as a twisty, secret-filled popcorn thriller that kept me entertained for eleven hours? It did its job.

Sometimes that’s enough.

⭐️⭐️⭐️ 3/5 stars

🎧 Audiobook narrated by Stevi Incremona
📚 Publication date: September 1, 2026
🎧 Thank you to Macmillan Audio for the gifted advanced listening copy.

3.5 stars

I jumped at the opportunity to listen to Look What the Cat Dragged In because Jason Rekulak’s Hidden Pictures is an absolute classic of the supernatural thriller genre for me. This one didn’t quite reach those heights, but it has such a fresh and unusual setup, and the pacing is excellent.

Penny Padgett is a cartoonist who writes children’s books about the adventures of Penny and her beloved cat, Popcorn. Penny is exactly the kind of cat owner you would expect her to be: Popcorn is spoiled, adored, and absolutely central to her life. She’s also been dating her boyfriend, Dean, for about six months. Her agent would love for Penny to add a love interest to her books, but Penny isn’t sure she wants to put Dean into them. After all, once she does that, he becomes part of her fictional world forever—and that feels like a very big commitment.

Then Popcorn goes missing, and Penny is devastated.

Not long afterward, Penny gets the opportunity to cat-sit Godfrey, a peculiar cat belonging to a very bizarre older woman. Godfrey initially seems affectionate enough, but once he comes into Penny’s life, things begin getting increasingly strange.

And then increasingly disturbing.

And then increasingly gross.

This is a supernatural horror novel, and it eventually goes very firmly in that direction. There are demons and some fairly grotesque moments, so readers who prefer their horror grounded entirely in reality should know that going in.

What impressed me most was the pacing. This is a true slow burn, but I never found it boring. Rekulak creates that wonderful horror-novel sensation of sinking into quicksand: things are getting worse almost imperceptibly until suddenly Penny is in very, very deep.

I also really liked Penny as a protagonist. She changes considerably over the course of the story, and there is a genuine character journey underneath all of the supernatural chaos.

The ending is where things get VERY big. It is over the top. It is a little cheesy. But sometimes cheese tastes good! I was willing to go along for the ride even when it became completely bonkers.

I listened to the audiobook narrated by Stephanie Neméth-Parker, and her performance is fantastic. She has quite the assignment here because the voices aren’t limited to ordinary humans, and she handles the human, feline, and supernatural elements wonderfully. Even as the story becomes increasingly strange, the narration remains very easy to follow.

This probably won’t make my top ten books of the year, especially given how much I had been anticipating it after Hidden Pictures, but I definitely enjoyed it. For readers who like slow-burn supernatural horror—and particularly horror involving cats—this is a very fun addition to the spooky-season reading list.

Rating: 3.5/5 stars
Publication date: October 13, 2026
Format: Audiobook

Thank you to Macmillan Audio for the gifted advanced listening copy.

She’s a Doll is goofy, weird, funny, feminist horror—and somehow, despite beginning with a murder and involving a woman whose consciousness gets trapped inside a creepy old doll, it’s also surprisingly hopeful? I had such a good time with this.

Lucy is twenty years old and has just earned a certificate in business administration through a remote learning program. She should be proud of herself. She should celebrate. Instead, she feels embarrassed that it isn’t a bachelor’s degree and doesn’t even tell anyone. That tells you quite a bit about Lucy, but so does the fact that she shows up to a tea party dressed as the Mad Hatter while everyone else is wearing cute sundresses and pearls. 😂 She is unapologetically odd, and I loved her almost immediately.

Then Lucy is murdered by an idiot named Kyle, the twin brother of her best friend, Krissy.

Not a spoiler! It’s right there in the premise.

Lucy’s consciousness returns inside an old doll, and she eventually discovers that an acquaintance named Nicola can hear her. Naturally, Lucy recruits Nicola to help her take care of some unfinished business.

This is definitely horror, but if you hear “woman murdered and trapped inside a doll” and immediately picture blood-and-guts horror, that really isn’t what this is. It’s much more interested in female rage, friendship, grief, revenge, and the absurdity of its premise. It’s quirky and funny and genuinely fun—which is not a word I use particularly often to describe horror.

On my personal Weird Book Scale, this lives somewhere in the vicinity of Sky Daddy, and I mean that as a compliment. 😂 If you can roll with a woman falling in love with an airplane, you can probably roll with a dead woman bossing around the living from inside a creepy doll.

I tandem read this one, listening to the ALC while following along with my Aardvark hardcover, and honestly: what an Aardvark book. A pink-covered horror novel about female rage and female friendship that is simultaneously dark, funny, bizarre, and heartfelt? It feels like it was genetically engineered for an Aardvark box.

The audiobook was particularly impressive. The narrator has to distinguish between Nicola, Lucy when she was alive, and Lucy after her consciousness inhabits the doll. Lucy’s two voices need to be different enough to reflect what has happened to her while still sounding recognizably like the same person, and I thought the performance handled that brilliantly. I also loved that the Australian setting and voice of the novel came through so strongly.

For all its weirdness, there is also something unexpectedly tender underneath this story. Lucy is dead. That cannot be undone. And yet the book still manages to leave room for friendship, connection, and hope.

If you like your horror light on gore, heavy on female rage, and just a little unhinged, this is an absolute blast.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 4/5 stars
🎧 Tandem read: ALC + hardcover
📅 Publication date: September 15, 2026

Thank you to RBmedia and NetGalley for the advanced listening copy. I purchased my hardcover through Aardvark Book Club.

The Making of a Mad Woman is a dual-timeline blend of historical fiction, women’s fiction, and family drama, and for me, its strongest element was easily its look inside the golden age of advertising.

In Manhattan in 1962, Jo Carmichael is a model who returns to New York to succeed her father as CEO of a Madison Avenue advertising agency. Think Mad Men, but from the perspective of a woman trying to claim a seat at a table that was very much designed for men. (And despite the title, no, Jo isn’t actually “mad”—although trying to run a company as a woman in 1962 might have been enough to make anyone a little crazy.)

This was by far my favorite part of the novel. Cambron explores an interesting contradiction in advertising at the time: men were making the decisions about how products should be marketed, even though women controlled so many of the everyday purchasing decisions within American households. I loved getting a glimpse into how campaigns were created, who was allowed to have a voice in the room, and the ways women had to fight to be taken seriously in the business world. The Mad Men vibes are definitely there, but with a much more female-centered perspective.

In the present-day timeline, we meet Jo’s granddaughter Alex, who has spent much of her life living in the shadow of her formidable grandmother. Jo eventually walked away from Madison Avenue, but Alex doesn’t know the whole story of why. Now running a flower shop in Michigan, Alex finds herself drawn back into her grandmother’s past after Jo makes an unexpected request.

While I liked both timelines and thought the premise had a lot of potential, I never became quite as emotionally invested in the characters as I wanted to be. The characterization felt a little thin in places, particularly for a story centered so heavily on family history, identity, and the complicated relationships between generations of women. A little more depth there could have made the revelations and emotional moments land much harder for me.

Overall, I enjoyed The Making of a Mad Woman, but I’m not sure it will be one that sticks with me for very long. I’d recommend it especially to readers who enjoy historical fiction blended with contemporary women’s fiction, dual timelines, family secrets, and stories about women carving out space for themselves in male-dominated industries.

Thank you to Thomas Nelson Fiction and NetGalley for the advanced reading copy.

⭐️⭐️⭐️ 3/5 stars
📚 Publication date: February 9, 2027

★★★★☆

There are certain promises inherent in picking up a Denise Hunter novel, and Falling Into Us delivers exactly what I expected: a wholesome, low/no-spice romance, mature characters, a picturesque small-town setting, complicated family relationships, and faith woven naturally into the characters’ everyday lives.

Gabby Donaldson is grieving the death of her mother when she sets out to fulfill one of her final requests: deliver a letter to Rosemary, the grandmother Gabby has never met. Gabby has always known that Rosemary disapproved when her mother became pregnant as a teenager and that the relationship between them was severed. What she doesn’t know until after her mother’s death is that Rosemary had tried to reconnect over the years, sending letters that went unanswered.

So Gabby heads to a quaint mountain town in North Carolina to deliver her mother’s letter—and this is where things get delightfully Hallmark-y.

She rents an Airbnb. Naturally, said Airbnb is owned by Mason, a handsome widowed dad with a precocious 12-year-old daughter named Peyton. Naturally, Gabby makes jewelry for a living and can conveniently work from this charming mountain town. And naturally, when delivering the letter becomes more complicated than Gabby anticipated, Mason happens to be a reporter who may be able to help.

You know where this train is headed. And you know what? Sometimes that’s exactly what you want.

The romance between Gabby and Mason is pleasant rather than swoony or particularly surprising, and Gabby felt like the more developed of the two characters. Peyton falls somewhere between genuinely endearing and “precocious fictional 12-year-old,” but she adds some sweetness to the story. The real emotional weight comes from Gabby’s family history and the questions surrounding her mother and grandmother.

I also appreciate the way Hunter incorporates Christianity into her books. The characters pray, attend church, and openly reference their faith, but faith isn’t used as a heavy-handed plot device or turned into a sermon. It’s simply part of who these people are and how they move through the world, which feels natural.

Despite the cozy romance packaging, there are some heavier themes here, including grief, estranged family relationships, regret, aging, and health concerns. Still, this remains firmly in comforting-read territory. It wasn’t a book that had me frantically turning pages, nor is it doing anything particularly groundbreaking. It’s familiar, predictable, and very well executed—and sometimes there is real pleasure in getting exactly the book you expected.

Existing Denise Hunter readers should feel right at home, but I also think Falling Into Us would be a lovely entry point for someone curious about Christian or wholesome romance. It’s basically a Hallmark movie in book form, with a little more emotional weight and a gorgeous North Carolina mountain setting that had me ready to book an Airbnb of my own.

Another successful story from an author who clearly knows her audience—and knows how to deliver for them.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 4/5

Thank you to Thomas Nelson for the advanced reading copy.

Falling Into Us will be published October 1, 2026.

They had me at “FBI agent turned Catholic priest.” I mean, come on. That is a premise.

We Are for the Dark follows Father Shane Ryann, whose past in law enforcement comes to the attention of his bishop despite being something Shane hasn’t exactly advertised. That particular skill set suddenly becomes useful when he is sent on a very unusual assignment: travel to a remote island off Newfoundland and assist local constable Miriam Rideout with a missing-person case.

And then things get weird.

What begins as a fairly intriguing mystery quickly veers into supernatural territory before eventually going full Gothic horror—and honestly, that’s when I had the most fun with it. The isolated island setting is wonderfully creepy, and Gretchen McNeil does a great job creating the sense that something is deeply, deeply wrong. The atmosphere was easily one of the strongest parts of the book.

The increasingly elaborate supernatural mythology reminded me a little of the later seasons of Supernatural. Remember when Sam and Dean stopped dealing with the monster of the week and suddenly they were battling over the fate of Heaven, Hell, Lucifer, and basically all of creation? 😂 The stakes here similarly keep expanding, and there were moments when I thought the story might have worked better if it had stayed a little smaller and more contained. Still, once I accepted where it was going, there was a lot to enjoy.

My biggest hesitation was the romantic connection between Ryann and Rideout. Considering that he is a Catholic priest, it felt uncomfortable and somewhat inappropriate to me, and I’m not convinced the story needed it. I was much more invested in their alliance as two people trying to figure out an increasingly bizarre and dangerous situation.

Overall, this wasn’t one of my favorite horror reads of the summer, but I liked it. The mystery is unusual, the setting is terrific, and the Gothic horror elements deliver some genuinely creepy moments. If you enjoy horror/thriller hybrids with supernatural mythology, isolated settings, and books in the general orbit of authors like Nat Cassidy or Monica Kim, this one is worth checking out.

⭐️⭐️⭐️ 3/5 stars

Thank you to DAW for the advanced reading copy. We Are for the Dark will be published September 1, 2026.

I found Faithfully Dissident: Reclaiming Christian Womanhood Beyond Patriarchy to be a thoughtful blend of memoir, theology, psychology, and personal reflection. Chelsea Kim Long chronicles her journey out of white evangelical culture while holding tightly to her Christian faith, and I think that’s what makes this book stand out. This isn’t a memoir about abandoning Christianity—it’s about wrestling honestly with it and ultimately finding a different way to inhabit it.

Long writes candidly about growing up as a rule-following Enneagram One, marrying young, becoming a mother, and slowly realizing that many of the assumptions she had inherited about gender, faith, and Scripture no longer aligned with either her lived experience or her understanding of Jesus. She describes the grief of leaving a community that once shaped her identity while also discovering a deeper, more authentic faith on the other side.

My favorite aspect of the book was her engagement with Scripture. Even when I didn’t completely agree with every conclusion, I appreciated that her arguments were rooted in careful biblical reflection rather than simply reacting against evangelicalism. It’s clear she has spent years reading, studying, and listening to voices that have helped shape her thinking. She frequently references authors such as Jen Hatmaker, Beth Moore, Rachel Held Evans, Glennon Doyle, and Beth Allison Barr, whose work I immediately added to my ever-growing TBR. Those literary conversations enrich the book and make it feel like part of a much larger discussion about faith, womanhood, and belonging.

I also appreciated that Long leaves room for readers to arrive at different conclusions. While she shares deeply personal experiences—including the role therapy, motherhood, and community have played in her deconstruction—she never insists that everyone else’s journey must look like hers. That generosity made the book feel welcoming rather than prescriptive.

I do think the writing itself is the weakest part of the book. The ideas are compelling, but the prose often feels somewhat clunky and repetitive. At times it reads more like an extended reflection or book report than a polished narrative, and I found myself wishing the structure and sentence-level writing had matched the strength of the material. Even so, I never doubted the sincerity behind the words. Long has an important story to tell, and I genuinely hope she continues writing because I think she’ll only grow stronger as an author.

This book won’t be for everyone. If you’re firmly committed to traditional evangelical theology or have never wrestled with questions surrounding patriarchy in the church, it may not resonate with you. But if you’ve experienced deconstruction, are somewhere in the middle of that journey, or simply enjoy memoirs that thoughtfully explore faith and identity, I think you’ll find much to reflect on here.

Thank you to NetGalley and Westminster John Knox Press for providing me with an advanced reading copy in exchange for an honest review.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ (4/5)

Publication Date: September 8, 2026

Malcolm Gladwell is one of a kind. He writes sociology about real life cultural issues and— every time— he has a way of making me see something in a completely different way. This book is compelling and important. While most of us agree that gun violence is tragic and a huge problem in America, often no one has any solutions for it. And while he isn’t a policymaker, Gladwell is going to challenge all of your assumptions and show you big correlations that you have been missing. My mouth just dropped open, several times. And this is a problem I feel very strongly about. I don’t want to spoil any of his data for you, because I truly want you to have the same jaw dropping moments as you read. I have to say, this book changed my worldview.

I’ve always had a soft spot for Daisy Buchanan.

Maybe that’s because I’ve long suspected there was more of Zelda Fitzgerald’s voice in The Great Gatsby than history gives her credit for. Whether that’s true or not, Daisy has always struck me as a far more complicated character than she’s often given credit for. So when I heard someone had imagined what her life might look like a century later, I couldn’t resist.

First, a disclaimer: this is not a 1920s historical novel. It’s a modern-day psychological suspense novel that asks, What if Daisy Buchanan lived today? Think of it as fan fiction in the very best sense of the word—an imaginative reworking of beloved characters rather than a retelling of Fitzgerald’s original novel.

And yes…there are unavoidable spoilers for The Great Gatsby. But it’s been 100 years. I feel okay talking about them.

In this version, Daisy is a wealthy Long Island socialite trapped in an unhappy marriage, struggling with depression while trying to uncover what really happened to her best friend, Jordan Baker, after Jordan is found dead. The mystery moves quickly, the twists keep coming, and I found myself flying through the pages.

I also appreciated that Katie Cotugno doesn’t simply borrow Fitzgerald’s characters—she uses them to explore modern ideas about privilege, image, marriage, and the roles women are expected to play. Those themes are woven naturally into the suspense, giving the novel more substance than I expected.

Now, I already know this book is going to divide readers.

Some people are going to roll their eyes and call it cheesy.

To which I say…sometimes cheese is exactly what you’re craving.

Not every thriller needs to be an imported French cheese served on a charcuterie board. Sometimes you just want Cheez Whiz on a cracker, and you know what, friends? Cheez Whiz is delicious. This book embraces its big twists and dramatic reveals without apology, and I had an absolute blast with it.

The modern setting took me a little while to adjust to, but once I accepted that this wasn’t trying to recreate Fitzgerald’s novel, I was completely on board. And that ending? I genuinely did not see it coming.

If you love The Great Gatsby, enjoy psychological suspense, and are willing to have a little fun watching classic literary characters dropped into a contemporary thriller, I think you’ll have a great time with this one.

Now someone else needs to read it so I have people to discuss that ending with.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐✨ (4.5/5)

Expected publication: January 5, 2027.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.