Desert Isle Keeper
Listen for the Lie
Five years ago, in the gleefully gossipy small town of Plumpton, Texas, Lucy Chase wandered out of the woods, covered in blood, unable to recall who killed her best friend…
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Compass and Blade
This world of sea and storm runs deep with bargains and blood. On the remote isle of Rosevear, Mira, like her mother before her, is a wrecker, one of the…
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Heat
Recently, while stuck on a plane for too many hours, I decided to reread Heat. Back in the day, I loved Smith’s complex, morally batshit books. Three of her works,…
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First Lie Wins
In the realm of storytelling, every now and then, a book emerges wielding a narrator so specific and wildly entertaining that all one wants to do is shut out the…
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The Frozen River
Ariel Lawhon’s latest work is my favorite book of 2023. This whopper of a novel delicately peels back the layers of history to reveal the intricate struggles and enduring resilience…
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Starling House
Alix Harrow’s latest offering, Starling House, transports readers to the heart of Eden, Kentucky, a town wrestling with the ghosts of its past—racism, environmental decay, and the decline of coal…
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Tom Lake
Set in the crucible of Spring 2020, as the pandemic’s grip tightened, Ann Patchett’s Tom Lake is a marvel. The narrative takes place over a few weeks on a family…
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Fortune Favors the Viscount
Caroline Linden is one of my favorite historical romance novelists. Her Scandalous series is one of my favorites in the genre–Love and Other Scandals is flat out fabulous–and I’ve enjoyed…
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Forever Your Rogue
In the author’s note of her debut novel, Forever Your Rogue, Erin Langston writes: I had been halfheartedly researching an entirely different plot for Forever Your Rogue when I stumbled…
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Homecoming
Toward the end of Kate Morton’s magnificent new novel, Homecoming, she writes: Reading shapes a person. The landscape of books is more real, in some ways, than the one outside…
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The Worst Woman in London
I am thrilled to see Julia Bennet again publishing historical romance. Her first two novels, The Madness of Miss Gray and The Ruin of Evangeline Jones, are four star reads…
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Hell Bent
Have you read Ninth House? Because if not–and you’re a loon if you haven’t–this review is a waste of your time. Hell Bent is the second book in Leigh Bardugo’s…
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