The wicked stepmother has been a mainstay in fiction since before the Brothers Grimm became grim. No fairy tale was complete without one, but the one in Cinderella was particularly vicious and cruel. So easy to hate. Maybe too easy? Author Rachel Hochhauser decides to remedy that in her novel, Lady Tremaine. This is not a modernization of the original story, but a recasting, a ... Read More...
More Than Enough by Anna Quindlen
Open Anna Quindlen’s new novel More Than Enough and you’ll meet Polly, a happy middle-aged woman. Her husband adores her and she him, she’s an English teacher at all girls’ school, and she has three stalwart, loving friends. Friends who give her a DNA test kit as a gag gift. When there’s a match for a family member she has no knowledge of it tilts the playing board of her life ... Read More...
Good People by Pameena Sabit
When the Sharaf family emigrated from Afghanistan to the United States in the 1980s they were met by an Afghan community that understood not only the terrors of war they’d escaped, but the hardships they would face in building a new life in a foreign country. They were welcomed and aided in their early years of extreme poverty. It’s startling then that when tragedy befalls the ... Read More...
Lucky Girl
What is life like when you have an extraordinary gift? When you’re a child with an ability that goes far beyond your years and you have the determination to see it grow? For Lucy, the ability was dance and her ambition so fierce it takes her to the heights of commercial success in Lucky Girl, an insightful novel about coming-of-age and what happens after dreams come ... Read More...
Missing Sam by Thrity Umrigar
It’s the July 4th weekend when Ali‘s wife Sam goes missing on her early morning run in their upscale Cleveland Heights neighborhood. Her disappearance sets in motion events that keep Thrity Umrigar’s new novel, Missing Sam, at a slow burn over the mystery, but ignites a blaze in the response the community has to the situation. Aliyah Mirza is a U.S. citizen, a Muslim whose ... Read More...
2025 Best Backlist
I couldn’t exit the year without an acknowledgement of the backlist books that kept me afloat in 2025. While there were excellent new books released in 2025 these six special novels, all published in previous years found me when I needed books to provide an escape, thrill me, make me laugh, and even break my heart a little. Fantastic ... Read More...
