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Continue reading →: Heartsick Misses the Mark
Authored by Kristina Forest; Published October 2025; Romance ⭐️⭐️ / 🏖️🏖️ Heartsick feels like a missed opportunity of a novel. Instead of seizing the chance to introduce teenagers to the idea that even painful emotions can teach us important lessons and help shape us, the author chooses a significantly more…
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Continue reading →: Neverwhere May Take You to a World You Would Rather Not Visit
Authored by Neil Gaiman; Published 1996; Fantasy ⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 🏖️🏖️🏖️ Neverwhere is a doorway to another world, but I’m not sure that it’s one I would like to revisit. Instead of a magically enchanting experience, it’s more of a grotesque and frightening one. In Neverwhere, Richard is living an exceedingly…
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Continue reading →: Murder Takes a Vacation Brings Coziness to New Heights in Europe
Authored by Laura Lippman; Published June 2025; Mystery ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 🏖️🏖️🏖️🏖️ What makes a mystery cozy? I don’t think I could quantify it precisely, but I do think Murder Takes a Vacation, with its charming if sometimes naive heroine, and its river cruise setting, qualifies. In Murder Takes a Vacation,…
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Continue reading →: Angel Down Gets into the Trenches of War
Authored by Daniel Kraus; Published July 2025; Historical Fiction ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Angel Down may have a thoroughly fantastical premise, but it is historical fiction to its core. The subject matter is as down to earth as it can get. In the middle of World War I, the under-achieving Private Bagger is…
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Continue reading →: Heartless Hunter Will Make for a Good Sequel
Authored by Kristen Ciccarelli; Published 2024; Fantasy/Romance ⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 🏖️🏖️🏖️🏖️ Heartless Hunter has all the ingredients for an excellent romantasy novel, but to me, it just felt like a set-up to a far more intriguing sequel. In Heartless Hunter, Rune Winters leads a double life: brainless heiress-socialite by day, loyal…
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Continue reading →: The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is Not the Love Story You’re Looking For
Authored by Kiran Desai; Published September 2025; Fiction ⭐️⭐️⭐️ The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny almost fooled me into thinking that it was a love story, but after six hundred pages, I came to the conclusion that romance, in its traditional form, is not the aim of this novel. The…
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Continue reading →: Fake Skating Addresses Actual Teen Issues
Authored by Lynn Painter; Published September 2025; Romance ⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 🏖️🏖️ When I read a teen-oriented romance, my expectations are moderate at best. Fake Skating managed to meet those tempered expectations, with some cute moments and surprisingly serious topics that teens may actually have to deal with. In Fake Skating,…
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Continue reading →: Call for the Dead Brings Back Memories of the Cold War
Authored by John LeCarre; Published 1961; Thriller ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 🏖️🏖️🏖️🏖️ I understand why John LeCarre’s George Smiley series is such a fixture among espionage thrillers. Call for the Dead has exactly the classic spycraft I expect to see from the Cold War era. In Call for the Dead, intelligence officer…
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Continue reading →: Buckeye Surprised Me
Authored by Patrick Ryan; Published September 2025; Historical Fiction ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ At first glance, Buckeye does not seem like it’s going to be all that compelling a read. A story about two typical families in Ohio in the second half of the twentieth century? Yawn. But somehow, it drew me in.…
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Continue reading →: Beings Might Not Be the Science Fiction Novel You Are Looking For
Authored by Ilana Masad; Published September 2025; Science Fiction ⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 🏖️ I’m not at all sure I should classify Beings as science fiction. The focus on aliens is definitively secondary to the societal reaction to the supposed abductees and to American LGBTQ history in the second half of the…
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