

Review of Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo
In the second installment in Leigh Bardugo's Alex Stern series, Alex is as brave, scowling, and unapologetic as ever--and Darlington will...
Jul 26, 2023


Review of Ninth House (Alex Stern #1) by Leigh Bardugo
ICYMI: When tough, stubborn Alex Stern is offered a new start after surviving a mysterious multiple homicide, she becomes an unlikely...
Jul 25, 2023


Review of What Remains by Wendy Walker
Wendy Walker's thriller focuses on a detective, her stalker, and the lengths both will go to to try to get what they want. This is a...
Jul 13, 2023


Review of The Rachel Incident by Caroline O'Donoghue
Caroline O'Donoghue's coming-of-age story celebrates friendship, young love, and life-changing decisions and missteps that shape the...
Jul 11, 2023


Review of Will They or Won't They by Ava Wilder
Ava Wilder's rom-com takes us behind the scenes of a hit teen TV show whose lead characters once liked each other in real life but now...
Jul 4, 2023


Review of Lucky Red by Claudia Cravens
Claudia Cravens's story of a young brothel worker in late nineteenth-century Dodge City, Kansas, offers up a tough young heroine who...
Jun 29, 2023


Review of Beyond That, the Sea by Laura Spence-Ash
Beyond That, the Sea is a lovely character-driven historical fiction story about complicated relationships, found family, growing up, and...
Jun 28, 2023


Review of Boys I Know by Anna Gracia
Gracia's young adult debut digs into teenaged June's messy, sometimes disastrous, and ultimately heartwarming teen exploration of...
Jun 15, 2023


Review of Charm City Rocks: A Love Story by Matthew Norman
Charm City Rocks is sweet, interesting, and layered. I loved this story about relationships, complications, famous/everyday person...
Jun 14, 2023


Review of The Second Ending by Michelle Hoffman
Hoffman's novel is about facing dark realities, entering uncharted territory, leaning on music as a solace, and welcoming new beginnings....
Jun 13, 2023


Review of Yours Truly by Abby Jimenez
Jimenez's rom-com frequently had me laughing, made me tear up a little, and kept me hooked on the fake-dating, will-they-won't-they...
Jun 6, 2023


Review of The Celebrants by Steven Rowley
Rowley brings humor to this heartwarming--but never cloying--exploration of friendship, connection, messy relationships, heartbreak, and...
Jun 1, 2023


Review of This Time It's Real by Ann Liang
I was hooked by Liang's fake-dating, famous-everyday relationship duo setup, fantastically funny dialogue, and wonderfully imperfect...
May 31, 2023


Review of Silver in the Bone (Silver in the Bone #1) by Alexandra Bracken
Alternative Arthurian legends twist through this first in a young adult fantasy series, but what hooked me was the fearless, hardened,...
May 30, 2023


Review of The Light of the World: A Memoir by Elizabeth Alexander
ICYMI: Poet Elizabeth Alexander writes a gorgeous account of her love affair with her husband and the trauma of his sudden death in a...
May 25, 2023


Review of Dimestore: A Writer's Life by Lee Smith
ICYMI: Smith evokes a vivid sense of the regional South in her fiction, and in this memoir she traces her Appalachian youth, offering...
May 24, 2023


Review of Meet Me at the Lake by Carley Fortune
Summertime is the backdrop to Fortune's Meet Me at the Lake, light fiction with an anchor in deeper issues, some steamy scenes,...
May 18, 2023


Six of My Favorite Nonfiction Reads from the Past Year
Six Bossy Favorite Nonfiction Reads Fridays are for highlighting books I've loved! I thought these titles were fascinating, surprised me,...
May 5, 2023


Review of Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto
Sutanto's Vera Wong is playful, brusque, bossy, and connects an unlikely cast of characters, all murder suspects, into a heartwarming...
May 3, 2023


Review of The Trackers by Charles Frazier
Frazier offers an immersive story that morphs from a WPA-funded rural art commission to a leisurely country-wide search, an unlikely...
May 2, 2023
