Desert Isle Keeper
The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey
(originally published on December 25, 2019) Despite being a family of non-believers, every year we pull out our holiday paraphernalia. We dress the tree, hanging with care the delicate glass…
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The Everlasting
The Everlasting begins where it ends: beneath a yew tree. Its first chapter, The First Death of Una Everlasting, reads like a eulogy written for a nation’s best. We’re told…
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We Are All Guilty Here
Karin Slaughter’s We Are All Guilty Here opens with a disappearance. Two teenage girls vanish during a Fourth of July celebration in North Falls, Georgia—a town that prides itself on…
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The Art of the Lie
Set in the ruthless, chaotic heart of 1749 London, this historical thriller is a masterclass in deception, survival, and the art of the long con. Hannah Cole, newly widowed and…
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Wild Dark Shore
Emily Dickinson wrote that hope was the thing with feathers. After reading Charlotte McConaghy’s phenomenal Wild Dark Shore, it seems to me that hope is a seed. I confess that,…
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Scotch on the Rocks
I love this book. It’s sexy, very funny, moving, grounded in its sense of place, and just—well—yummy. It’s easily the best contemporary romance I’ve read this year. Callum Macabe met…
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All the Missing Pieces
All the Missing Pieces is an excellent book—smart, sexy, and a blast to read. Julianna Keyes, in a break from her sharp, emotionally rich romances, has written a taut, knife-edged…
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Tell Me What You Did
Poe Webb built her podcast, Tell Me What You Did, on the premise that people want to confess. Every week, anonymous callers admit to crimes—some petty, some monstrous—and Poe listens….
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Never Love a Lawman
Jo Goodman is reissuing her Reidsville (Colorado) series, starting with Never Love a Lawman. It’s about time. These books have been too hard to find for too long. Goodman’s Westerns…
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Broken Country
At first, Broken Country sets the stage for a familiar kind of novel—a love triangle stretched across decades, a quiet life disrupted by the return of an old flame, an…
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Famous Last Words
Gillian McAllister’s Famous Last Words doesn’t start with a murder, a car chase, or an anonymous text—it starts with a husband who simply isn’t where he’s supposed to be. That’s…
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His Enemy’s Daughter
Terri Brisbin’s His Enemy’s Daughter is the third book in her Knights of Brittany trilogy, but it reads just fine on its own. Set in the time of William the…
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