A teenage girl in fear for her life steals both money and a passport to get out of the U.S. and into Ireland in the 1990s. This is the beginning of the novel Saoirse, but it’s nowhere near the beginning of the life of Sarah, the main character. That unspools slowly throughout the book as the years pass and Sarah morphs into Saoirse. She goes from a toxic childhood to a woman ... Read More...
Family of Spies
Here we are nearing the end of March and this is my first nonfiction review. That’s a pretty good summation of my 2026 nonfiction reading so far. I’m staying as far away from reality as possible. However, when I saw Family of Spies by Christine Kuehn at the library it looked intriguing enough that I picked it up. Once home, I jumped in and read the book straight ... Read More...
Best Offer Wins
For anyone who’s purchased a house in a competitive market the subject of Marisa Kashino’s novel Best Offer Wins won’t come as a surprise: the lengths a buyer will go to win the house of their dreams. Think buying a home is just about paying the price the owners are asking for it? Then you’ve been lucky to miss the hoops that prospective buyers have to jump through in ... Read More...
May Reading Recap
May turned into quite a month for my reading and beyond. There’s plenty to share, but for now, I’ll stick with some of the books that stuck with me (and a couple that missed the mark). Daniel is a criminal profiler who works finding serial killers. He’s chosen this line of work because he’s haunted by having seen an abducted boy at a highway rest stop when he was ... Read More...
Penitence: A Novel
When Penitence begins 13-year-old Nora is alone in a jail cell after turning herself in for killing her 14-year-old brother. An opening like this has the heft to carry a traditional thriller/mystery whether as a police procedural (solving the crime) or a courtroom drama (Nora on trial). Instead, debut author Kristin Koval forges a completely different path in what becomes a ... Read More...
The Sequel by Jean Hanff Korelitz
More devious, delicious, escape reading! The Sequel is just that, the sequel to Jean Hanff Korelitz’s novel The Plot. Anna Williams-Bonner is the widow of critically acclaimed author Jacob Bonner. Only she’s not happy about her husband’s success as his novel cuts a bit too close to her own life. She’s aggrieved by this as she is by most things. Her most fervent wish is to be ... Read More...
