Powers's novel is an exploration of the wonders of the ocean and also of the capacity of the human mind and imagination. The marching toward destruction of both of these makes for a nerve-racking, heartbreaking story. Playground 's final section held surprises I did not anticipate, and their exposure colors the entirety of the story that precedes them. We make things that we hope will be bigger than us, and then we’re desolate when that’s what they become. Four people are connected across time and geography in Richard Powers's sweeping story of their lives and unlikely interconnectedness. Evie Beaulieu becomes obsessed with marine life and diving when as a young girl she tests her father's invention, the first aqualung; Ina Aroita grows up moving from naval base to naval base in the Pacific, crafting art as her only constant; two friends at an elite Chicago high school, a privileged young man and a scholarship student, bond over an ancient game while one leans toward literature and one toward AI development. While tracking these characters' lives, Powers explores issues around technology, ecology, humanity, responsibility, and interconnectedness. The ocean and its creatures inspire wonder in Evie and in those whose passion she ultimately ignites, and humans' destruction of ocean habitats--and destruction of our own critical thinking and capacity for imagination through AI--is presented as an unending, heartbreaking march toward our own end. For every island is a canoe, and all the earth is an island, living by the grace of the immense and slowly turning blue creature. Each of the main characters drives the story in a different way, and I was invested in the struggles and settings for all of them. Their eventual, late intersection wasn't wholly satisfying: one of the characters, the one I was most intrigued by, is essential earlier in the book but served as only a minor force at the end (this is due to the surprise aspect of the story that ultimately shapes the book). The final section of Playground seemed headed toward a too-convenient ending, but instead brought clarity to the story that felt shocking within what had to that point felt like a novel exploring deep themes through a standard structure. I didn't anticipate the denouement and its vast implications, and I keep thinking about the way Powers achieved this story within a story and the punch that was packed in its reveal. I listened to this novel as a library audiobook for my book club. More Literary Fiction Favorites Richard Powers is also the author of The Overstory , Bewilderment , and other novels. For more literary fiction titles I've loved, please check out the titles at this link .

Anatomy of an Alibi pits privileged greed against savvy morally gray characters, and the women caught in the middle are left sorting out the truth. The bad guys are truly bad, and outsiders pay the price when those in power preserve outward appearances at any cost. I loved Ashley Elston's mystery First Lie Wins  (it was on my December favorites list ; it was one of my Bossy Fiction Ideas for Your Holiday Gift List ; and it was on my recent list of Four-Star Mysteries I Loved Reading Last Year ). So my hopes for Elston's recently published Anatomy of an Alibi were sky-high. Camille Bayliss is living a charmed life of wealth, prestige, beauty, and privilege in Louisiana, married to a handsome hotshot lawyer, Ben. Aubrey Price, a local bartender, was orphaned as a young woman when her parents were killed in a hit-and-run car accident, and she's been struggling and bending the rules to get by ever since. The two women become unlikely partners in sniffing out the truth about Camille's husband Ben's secrets. Aubrey takes Camille's place for twelve hours, and Camille attempts to spy on Ben to figure out what's going on. But it turns out that Ben is fully entrenched in situations more far-reaching than Camille could have imagined, and Aubrey's friends-like-family are drawn into the mess as well. Soon the women are facing a death, difficult truths, and a complicated web of destruction as their clever plan sets into motion a course of events will change each of them forever. Only one of the women has an alibi, and the security of both of their precarious lives is on the line. I enjoyed the morally gray characters--friends of Aubrey's--and the way they worked their savvy systems for their own benefit and to support each other. Yet they didn't feel like the "bad guys"; the greedy, privileged characters who manipulated the law and police investigations are the ones behaving despicably while seeming outwardly upstanding and respectable. I was obsessed with the premise of Elston's First Lie Wins (con woman possibly being double-crossed), and I enjoyed this mystery but wasn't quite as hooked by the setup, story, or characters. The ending of Anatomy of an Alibi introduces complications for the future of the surviving characters and calls into question yet another crime and alibi, which was entertaining. I listened to Anatomy of an Alibi  as an audiobook courtesy of Libro.fm and Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group. More Mystery Love I recently published Greedy Reading Lists of favorite mystery reads: Six Four-Star Mysteries I Loved Reading Last Year and Six More Mysteries I Loved Reading Last Year . And you can find my favorite mystery reads from the year before here .

This is gorgeous Niall Williams literary fiction, centering around an Irish country village, a young man searching for his path, and his unofficial mentor, zigzagging his way through life, embracing adventure, and bridging the gap between the old ways and modernity. Quiet connections and reflections make the story, with understated poignancy, humor, and heartbreaking moments that bring the book's world to life. We’re all, all the time, striving, and though that means there’s a more-or-less constant supply of failure, it’s not such a terrible thing if you think that we keep on trying. There’s something to consider for that. In the rural Irish village of Faha, in County Clare, the years-long rain (whether sprinkling, torrential, misting, steady dripping) is stopping, and electricity seems poised to finally move from "the notional" to "the actual," as Father Coffey proclaims. Young Noe (short for "Noel") has abandoned the seminary but is unsure of his next steps, and he takes refuge at his beloved grandparents' cottage in the village. A stranger, Christy, arrives to begin coordinating the installation of electricity in the area, and he boards with Noe at Ganga and Doady's home. He is older, kind, capable, yet somewhat lost, and he's bent on making amends for past mistakes. He and Noe begin going on periodic nighttime excursions quest to try to see a legendary but elusive Irish musician, and Christy reveals that he is on a greater mission to find and apologize to a woman in the village who he wronged long ago. That was one of the things about him. He walked this line between the comic and the poignant, between the certainly doomed and the hopelessly hopeful. In time I came to think it the common ground of all humanity. As their friendship begins, Noe feels privileged to exist within his new idol's world, but we witness Noe's emotional maturity grow during the course of story. He's simultaneously falling in love with a family of sisters, considering his future, witnessing his grandparents' heartbreaking aging (as well as their their somewhat inexplicable but undeniable loyalty to each other), and witnessing the change in the community forever as modernity pushes into their homes and businesses. This Is Happiness explores the small moments that make up a life worth living as well as explorations of the meaning of existence, religion, spirituality, reconciliation, commitment, and facing death. It was where, when darkness fell, it fell absolutely, and when you went outside the wind sometimes drew apart the clouds and you stood in the revelation of so many stars you could not credit the wonder and felt smaller in body as your soul felt enormous. I adore this novel and its countless gorgeous passages, its understated, poignant, heartbreaking elements, and its unexpected moments of connection and beauty. When I was almost finished reading my (overdue) library copy, I bought a copy for a friend's birthday gift and ordered another for myself so I could finish reading it at my leisure and keep it forever. Noe's character feels written as younger than his age, but I easily disregarded this disconnect as I immersed myself in the story. Story was the stuff of life, and to realise you were inside one allowed you to sometimes surrender to the plot, to bear a little easier the griefs and sufferings and to enjoy more fully the twists that came along the way. On my first venture out of the country, I traveled to London and to a small town in County Clare, Ireland, with my cousin and aunt and uncle, and while this story is set well before I ever visited, Williams's rich descriptions of the countryside evoked wonderfully nostalgic feelings for me. More Niall Williams Love For my review of Niall Williams's lovely Time of the Child , please click   this link . Williams is also the autho r of Four Letters of Love , As It Is In Heaven , The Fall of Light , Only Say the Word , Boy in the World, Boy and Man , John , and History of the Rain .

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading Paula McLain's newest historical fiction told in two timelines, Skylark ; I'm listening to the charming Violet Thistlewaite Is Not a Villain Anymore by Emily Krempholtz; and I'm reading the wonderful Catherine Newman's novel Wreck . What are you reading, bookworms? 01 Skylark by Paula McLain Paula McLain's Skylark is a historical fiction story set in Paris and told through dual timelines. In 1664, Alouette is the daughter of a master dyer at the famous Gobelin Tapestry Works. Certain dye colors are only available to the highest classes, and her father, striving to create a never-before-seen vibrant red, is constrained by longstanding rules and regulations. Alouette herself yearns for creative freedom, but as a woman with no standing, she is not allowed to express her artistic ideas. In 1939, Kristof is beginning his medical residency and living on the Rue de Gobelins. His neighbors are a Jewish family that fled Poland, and when the Nazis enter Paris, Kristof may, implausibly, be the only one who can help save the Jews under grave threat. McLain is also the author of When the Stars Go Dark , Circling the Sun  (a captivating account of the real-life Beryl Markham's adventures as an aviator in 1920s Kenya), and The Paris Wife (which I still haven't read).   I received a prepublication version of Skylark , published January 6, courtesy of NetGalley and Atria Books. 02 Violet Thistlewaite is Not a Villain Anymore by Emily Krempholtz The powerful dark lord Shadowfade is dead, and Violet Thistlewaite is determined to shed her identity as the Thornwitch, Shadowfade's right-hand woman, and start anew. She decides to settle in the nearby town of Dragon's Rest and open a flower shop, attempting to use her magical powers for good and to create beauty and inspire joy. But it's tough to tame her power when she's been trained since childhood to be expecting attacks and enacting dastardly deeds. And she's really distracted by the handsome, grumpy alchemist who's renting Violet the space for her shop. I'm listening to Violet Thistlewaite Is Not a Villain Anymore as an audiobook . The tone and the cozy-magical-mystery focus is so far reminding me of A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping . 03 Wreck by Catherine Newman Catherine Newman's novel Sandwich focused on a family and its menopausal matriarch Rocky on vacation as its members navigated close quarters, health issues, life changes, complicated dynamics, and messy love. Wreck picks up with the same family two years later at home, and life is just as unruly, complicated, and guided by love, good intentions, and missteps as ever. When a local young man dies suddenly, Rocky and her young-adult daughter Willa, temporarily living at home again, become fixated on the circumstances, loss, and blame. And Rocky is facing a mysterious, possibly grave, illness that doctors find difficult to diagnose. Catherine Newman is also the author of Sandwich (one of My Very Favorite Bossy 2024 Reads ), We All Want Impossible Things , the wonderful nonfiction Waiting for Birdy , and How to Be a Person: 65 Hugely Useful, Super-Important Skills to Learn Before You're Grown Up.

Six More Favorite Bossy Mystery Reads I love looking over my favorite reads from the past twelve months in every genre. Something about the post-holiday cold gray of January lends itself to stories that chug along and keep me guessing. I've been in a mystery-reading mood lately, and I thought you might be too, so I'm sharing more mystery reads I've enjoyed for you to check out. You can explore the twelve titles on My Very Favorite Bossy 2025 Reads to find out about my overall favorite reads from last year, you can read about Six Four-Star Mysteries I Loved Reading Last Year here , and you can find Bossy reviews of many other mysteries here . If you've read any of these titles, I'd love to hear what you think! What are some of your favorite mystery reads, whether from the past year or beyond? 01 Nine Liars (Truly Devious #5) by Maureen Johnson The fifth in Maureen Johnson's Truly Devious young adult mystery series showcases Stevie Bell's instincts, doggedness, and ability to uncover the truth, this time in London while she and her friends visit Stevie's long-distance boyfriend David and investigate a decades-old double murder in a group of Cambridge friends. In the fifth in Maureen Johnson's Truly Devious series, skilled amateur high school sleuth Stevie Bell is in denial about her senior-year to-do list. She is overwhelmed about applying to college, and she doesn't have the funds to imagine that next step as a realistic prospect. When she and her friends get an opportunity to visit their former classmate (and Stevie's long-distance boyfriend) David in London, they cook up detailed research plans and immersion in the history and culture so their headmaster will approve the plan . The mystery's resolution isn't too easy, and Stevie leans on procedure, dogged determination, and her intuitive hunches to force a dangerous confrontation and to offer revelations about who is to blame and why. Stevie relies upon her friends for emotional support and for sleuthing assistance, and I liked the continued focus on the tight, complementary group of friends. But the novel doesn't wrap up Stevie's situation regarding college plans nor her long-distance relationship with David. A cliffhanger leaves her furious with him, betrayed, and at a loss regarding her future yet again. Maureen Johnson is the author of the six-book Truly Devious young adult mystery series: Truly Devious , The Vanishing Stair , The Hand on the Wall ,  The Box in the Woods , this book, and The Velvet Knife . For my full review, please check out this link . 02 The Hallmarked Man (Cormoran Strike #8) by Robert Galbraith I feel compelled to see this series through to its end. The Robin-Strike tension is finally spoken aloud, although not resolved, and the mystery twists to involve personal histories, secrets, and, ultimately, dark, devastatingly horrifying characters. I was hooked for the 31 hours of the audiobook. In The Hallmarked Man , dismembered body and Freemason symbols are found in a silver vault. Cormoran and Robin's newest client wants them to figure out whether or not the corpse is the father of her newborn baby. Things are already messy. The silver shop is next to a Freemason's Lodge with a broad reach, law enforcement is trying to keep the agency from succeeding in solving the case, some of their witnesses are tied to Strike's ex-girlfriend Charlotte, and the more suspects they consider, the more nefarious plots they uncover. Regarding the mystery: The dismembered corpse mystery leads to a whole host of even more dark, disturbing crimes and collective mental illness and abuse. The reveal was truly horrifying. The book teases around Cormoran and Robin's star-crossed attraction (again), but ultimately the issue is brought up head-on (though not resolved) . You can click here to check out my reviews of Cormoran Strike books 1 through 4 , book 5 , book 6 , and book 7 . You can read my full review by clicking this link . I support transgender rights and therefore am uncomfortable with some of views expressed by J. K. Rowling (Robert Galbraith is the pen name she uses for the Cormoran Strike series). 03 Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy Mysteries abound within McConaghy's Wild Dark Shore , but the story is largely an atmospheric story of isolation and loss set against the drama of climate change, tragedy, and finding the will to trust again. The description of Charlotte McConaghy's Wild Dark Shore  immediately ticked several of my reading-interest boxes--the setting is an isolated island (Antarctica is the closest land mass), the climate is cold (check out these other Bossy reviews of titles with cold settings ), and climate change  and shifting weather patterns are bringing matters to a head. When a mysterious woman washes up half-dead on the remote island of Shearwater, home of the world's largest seed bank and formerly a research hub, she finds only Dominic Salt and his three children manning the lighthouse. The lonely, broken characters reach out to each other. Although hesitant because of past hurts, they begin to form intense bonds. There are mysteries at the center of the story, but for me this was a captivating, atmospheric dive into the pressures, pain, and hope within extreme isolation, the power of external forces, and the push to protect each other at all costs. I was intrigued throughout. For my full review of Wild Dark Shore , please check out this link . Charlotte McConaghy is also the author of Migrations and Once There Were Wolves Wild Dark Shore was one of My Very Favorite Bossy 2025 Reads . 04 We Are All Guilty Here (North Falls #1) by Karin Slaughter I like a story driven by a female investigaor of a main protagonist, and in this small-town mystery and tragedy, officer Emmy Clifton comes into her own. The situation quickly becomes dark and twisted, and Slaughter builds tension without red herrings or manipulation . In Karin Slaughter's We Are All Guilty Here , Emmy Clifton is a police officer for whom the job is all in the family--her aging father is the sheriff. It's the Fourth of July, and all hands are on deck with the police for the town's fireworks, crowd control, public nuisances, traffic snarls, and who knows what else. So when Emmy's best friend's teen daughter Madison brushes her off, then shows up, needy and asking for help, Emmy doesn't have time for the drama. But when Madison and her best friend go missing that night, Emmy realizes the girls have been keeping dark secrets and tangling with sinister figures . Slaughter doesn't rely on red herrings, and she adds in unexpected losses that complicate the truth-finding process. I didn't predict the identity of the bad guy, and while the interconnectedness of those at fault seemed like a little bit of a stretch, like calls to like, and it seems plausible that damaged, sick individuals would be drawn to each other . For my full review, please check out We Are All Guilty Here . 05 The Strange Case of Jane O. by Karen Thompson Walker Walker offers an unreliable main protagonist, her dedicated new psychiatrist, increasingly inexplicable and complicated occurrences, and speculation about unfathomable possibilities in this novel about memory, connection, love, and wonder. Jane is a young single mother and a librarian at the New York Public Library. She has a perfect memory: she's able to recall events, surroundings, and information down to the finest detail. But just after she visits a psychiatrist, Dr. Byrd, Jane goes missing. She is found face down and unconscious in Prospect Park, with no memory of what has occurred . Dr. Byrd begins to believe Jane is suffering from dissociative fugue, a rare condition that could account for her ability to act and function but recall no memory of doing so . The Dr. Byrd-Jane chaste yet deep connection made me feel uncomfortable because of their doctor-client relationship and even more so because of the complications of her intensely acted-out perceived mental illness. Yet the promise of their ongoing link is one of the only ways in which the novel's characters are satisfactorily "settled" for a future by the end of the novel. For my full review, please check out The Strange Case of Jane O . Please click here  for more Bossy reviews of books about memory. 06 Heartwood by Amity Gaige Amity Gaige's Appalachian Trail-set novel offers several of my favorite elements: a Maine setting, a missing-person storyline, an unforgiving wilderness, and a strong woman succeeding in a male-dominated field. This mystery hit the spot for me. But the nonbeliever is in a bind, because without God, who forgives? Human beings are pretty unforgiving. The law certainly isn’t forgiving. Forgiveness needs a messenger. Amity Gaige's Heartwood  offers the story of Beverly, a dedicated Maine State Game Warden who has fought for years for an amount of respect to match her commitment and ability, and Valerie, an Appalachian Trail hiker who has gone missing 200 miles from her final destination. Wheelchair-bound Lena, who is following the search from afar, Valerie, and Bev are inexorably connected, and Valerie's survival depends upon the other two women's bravery and relentlessness. Meanwhile, the novel explores imperfect parenting, compounding mistakes by clinging to fear or regret, and against-the-odds second chances. Forgiveness is a concept that emerges again and again here. I love a Maine setting, a missing-persons story, and a tale of brave women thriving in a traditionally male career. This story is so intriguing, I had trouble putting it down. Amity Gaige is also the author of O My Darling , The Folded World , Schroder , and Sea Wife . Check out the titles at the links here for more missing person stories  and for more books set in Maine . For my full review of this book please see Heartwood .

The corruption and dark underbellies throughout, the lurking folklore figure that seems to signal death and destruction, and the despairing community history of missing women set a brooding, ominous tone, yet Salt Bones often felt like a young-adult mystery. The reveal is immensely disturbing and makes various characters' sinister suspicions feel more than warranted. Jennifer Givhan's mystery-thriller-horror novel Salt Bones  made it onto multiple best-of lists for 2025, and I've been in a mystery-reading mood this month, so this novel went to the top of my library audiobook list. In Salt Bones , three generations of strong women in a dysfunctional Mexicali family struggle to come to terms with the disappearances and loss of beloved friends and family members, all women. The story is a dark, moody look at the underbelly of some dark business: mistreated cattle in a slaughterhouse; aggressive exposure of truth through environmental activism; and a series of women snatched from the area, seemingly never to be heard from again. A key character has existed on the outskirts of local society for decades, and a rich, evil legend has grown up around him, so that many in the community believe he is the woman-snatcher--and that he snatched his own daughter. But we find that our main protagonist Mal has been having a secret, fulfilling relationship with him for years, and that, unbeknown to Mal's daughters, he is their father. Yet strong-willed Mal, puzzlingly, doesn't speak up when his name is maligned throughout their town, and she has never revealed to her girls that he is family. Mal's life is made more complicated by her mother's dementia and verbal abuse around Mal's sister's long-ago disappearance, the lingering pain of her own loss, her daughters' secrets, the bro-like male power plays of the men who bring their game to her for butchering, and, ultimately, and more upsetting than any of the rest of these, by the disappearance of her youngest daughter partway through the story. Mal's younger brother/son (he is biologically her brother but she raised him as a son; her daughers call him "bruncle" because he is both a brother to them and their uncle) is a local cop, and her older brother is running for political office. Everyone pitches in to help try to find Mal's girl, but when Mal finds out what's actually happened to her and what's happened to the other missing women, the shocking reality of dark deeds layered throughout the commuity comes from multiple sources and shakes up everything. Some characters (Mal's twin niece and nephew, her browbeaten father, her mean-as-a-snake mother--to whom patient-as-a-saint Mal miraculously doesn't even mutter a telling-off) often felt like caricatures, and the novel largely felt like a young adult story to me. In multiple instances, a smell of rot on the breath is covered up by alcohol or other smells; this felt a little too on the nose for me as an alert to the dark undersides to the story. I was intrigued by the disturbing, mysterious magical realism imagery of the dark woman-horse, sometimes beheaded or skull-like, often chasing prey, which seems to refer to the legend of Siguanaba--although in this novel she seems aimed at guiding Mal to the difficult truths rather than luring her to her destruction. In Salt Bones , Givhan explores Latina culture, Indigenous issues, folklore, instinct, tough women, magical realism, horrifying betrayals, corruption due to wealth and power, and the strength of family. More Books from This Author Jennifer Givhan is also the author of River Woman, River Demon; Trinity Sight; Jubilee ; and other novels.

The past and present storms added thrills and chills to the dual-timeline coastal Alabama story. Predicting a few elements of the mystery didn't diminish my enjoyment of the fast-paced tale in which a young woman digs to understand a suspicious death and ends up coming to terms with her legacy and her future. St. Medard's Bay, Alabama, seems to attract the strongest of hurricanes, and the only building that's withstood every storm for a century is the charming Rosalie Inn. But St. Medard's Bay was also the center of a media whirlwind in the early 1980s following the mysterious death of Landon Fitzroy, the governor's handsome son, in the midst of that year's hurricane. Married Landon was having a passionate affair with a beautiful, spunky local young woman, Lo Bailey, who was later accused of his murder but never convicted. Now Geneva Corliss is running the money pit Rosalie Inn, taking up the mantle of her family's business. When Lo Bailey and a handsome ghostwriter come to stay while crafting a book about the events around Landon's death, Geneva begins uncovering secrets that shake what she always believed to be true regarding the inn, her community, and even her own family. The small-town setting was great, and the pacing of The Storm moved along nicely. I felt equally invested in the past and present timelines, and while I predicted a few elements of the big reveal, I was intrigued by how Lo turned the demonization of the Oth er Woman on its head and gained power from the media slander and efforts to discredit her. Hawkins delivers a wrapped-up, satisfying ending although (as becomes apparent in relatively early foreshadowing) not every character survives the modern-day storm. I received a prepublication version of The Storm  courtesy of NetGalley and St. Martin's Press. More from Rachel Hawkins Rachel Hawkins is also the author of The Heiress , The Villa , Reckless Girls , and The Wife Upstairs .

I was surprised by how interested I was in the implosion of Burden's privileged life. She captures the universality of heartbreak; the chilling notion that a partner in a decades-long marriage could wake up and leave without warning or remorse; and her emergence from the trauma as a stronger version of herself. It was a great love story, one for the ages. The speed of our beginning and the speed of our ending felt like matching bookends. They both came out of nowhere. He wanted it, he wanted me. And then he didn’t.  Belle Burden, whose parents and grandparents were moneyed and well known in high society, grew up in a golden life of wealth and privilege. Burden was more than twenty years into her marriage, living between posh homes in Tribeca and Martha's Vineyard, raising three children (with her own Harvard law degree largely languishing unused), when her hedge-fund-manager husband abruptly disclosed a recent affair and, seemingly without remorse or struggle, left Belle, the children, the dog, the houses--their whole life. He offered no explanation and no apology, then he set about threatening to take everything from her and the kids. In Strangers , Burden recounts her shock, shame, and her reckoning; she had let her husband make too many of their decisions, handle all of their finances, shape the rhythms of the house, and force Belle to be quiet and small. As their lives crept along, she facilitated their uneven power structure by running their home lives and trusting him to look out for her and the kids through his side of the partnership--the salary-earning, financial planning, and, in what is eventually a pivotal point, legal ownership of essential assets she believed to be shared between them in a good-faith, love- and trust-based marriage. Her husband abruptly decides not to be emotionally (or financially) invested in his wife, children, or family life any longer, saying, "I feel like a switch has flipped. I'm done." He said, "You can have the house and the apartment. You can have custody of the kids. I don't want it. I don't want any of it." The family's extreme privilege could have felt offputting or could have made Burden's story feel unrelatable and remote, but I found the "lifestyles of the rich and famous" aspect of their situation fascinating. I was particularly struck by the universal heartbreak: their overflowing coffers and Burden's generational wealth surely cushioned their falls (while the fight for and splitting of significant assets added to their personal concerns during the split). Yet a forsaken marriage, an affair, and emotional abandonment like those Burden recounts causes turmoil and a broken heart regardless of other circumstances. A friend and I were talking recently about our younger days and our early perceptions of marriage, and we agreed that having heard nebulous "we just grew apart" divorce accounts had always been the most chilling, the most frightening, the most alarming. How did two people living in a home, sharing a life, and building a future grow apart? Could one person simply decide it was over, without the other person realizing they had been on shaky ground? Would it take one partner by surprise? Did it happen suddenly? Could it happen to us? As she sets up her part of the story, Burden delves into the backgrounds of her notable, famous, wealthy family members, their personalities, quirks, shortcomings, key histories, and often challenging family dynamics. At times their larger-than-life presences greatly overshadow Belle's own relatively small, quiet existence. But as she works through her personal trauma, she moves past others' legacies to retrace the stages of her own relationship; she begins to piece together how she and her husband got to where they are. As she sorts through the past and works to find support and to function more fully in the present, she decides to refuse to be shamed as the woman who was left, who is perceived as not enough to have kept her husband. She grows more bold, finds healing in speaking her mind, and becomes determined to write her story and share her perspective. Strangers grew out of a "Modern Love" essay and is her account of her pain, confusion, and reemergence as a truer version of herself. I could see that some people...were uncomfortable with me coming out of my lane, a place where women stayed quiet, where men are allowed to do what serves them, no matter what the wreckage.... To them, a woman writing about a man leaving is, somehow, worse than the man leaving. I was intrigued by this fast read; I finished it in a day and a half. I received a prepublication electronic version of Strangers , scheduled for publication today, courtesy of NetGalley and Random House. More More More Memoirs You can find other memoirs I've read and reviewed, including multiple lists of my favorites, here .

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading Belle Burden's upcoming memoir about the abrupt end of her marriage, Strangers ; I'm listening to Listen for the Lie author Ashley Elston's upcoming mystery Anatomy of an Alibi ; and I'm listening to Jennifer Givhan's mystery-thriller-horror story featuring Indigenous and Latina folklore, Salt Bones . What are you reading, bookworms? 01 Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage by Belle Burden It was a great love story, one for the ages. The speed of our beginning and the speed of our ending felt like matching bookends. They both came out of nowhere. He wanted it, he wanted me. And then he didn’t. Belle Burden, whose parents and grandparents were moneyed and well known in high society, grew up in a golden life of wealth and privilege. She was twenty-two years into her marriage, living between posh homes in Tribeca and Martha's Vineyard, raising three children, with her own Harvard law degree largely languishing unused, when her husband abruptly disclosed his recent affair and left Belle, the children, the dog, the houses--their whole life. He offered no explanation and no apology, then he set about threatening to take everything from her and the kids. In Strangers , Burden recounts her shock, shame, and her reckoning; she had let her husband make too many of their decisions, handle all of their finances, shape the rhythms of the house, and force Belle to be quiet and small. Then she decided to speak her mind, write her story, and share her stories. This is her story of her pain, confusion, and reemergence as a truer version of herself. I received a prepublication version of Strangers , scheduled for publication January 13, courtesy of NetGalley and Random House. 02 Anatomy of an Alibi by Ashley Elston I loved Ashley Elston's mystery First Lie Wins (it was on my December favorites list ; it was one of my Bossy Fiction Ideas for Your Holiday Gift List ; and it was on my recent list of Four-Star Mysteries I Loved Reading Last Year ). So I'll admit that my hopes for Elston's upcoming Anatomy of an Alibi are sky-high. Camille Bayliss is living a charmed life of wealth, prestige, beauty, and privilege in Louisiana, married to a handsome hotshot lawyer, Ben. Aubrey Price, a local bartender, was orphaned as a young woman when her parents were killed in a hit-and-run car accident, and she's been struggling and bending the rules to get by ever since. When the two women become unlikely partners in sniffing out the truth about Camille's husband Ben's secrets, they set into motion a course of events that will change each of them forever. I'm listening to Anatomy of an Alibi , to be published January 13, as an audiobook courtesy of Libro.fm and Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group. 03 Salt Bones by Jennifer Givhan Jennifer Givhan's mystery-thriller-horror novel Salt Bones made it onto multiple best-of lists for 2025, and I've been in a mystery-reading mood, so I'm diving into this story. Three generations of women in a dysfunctional Mexicali family struggle to come to terms with the disappearances and loss of beloved friends and family members, all women. Givhan explores Latina culture, Indigenous issues, folklore, instinct, tough women, magical realism, horrifying betrayals, corruption due to wealth and power, and the strength of family. Jennifer Givhan is also the author of River Woman, River Demon; Trinity Sight; Jubilee ; and other novels. I'm listening to Salt Bones as a library audiobook.

Six Four-Star Bossy Mystery Reads We've reached the point in the year--the very beginning--when I obsess over my favorite reads from the past twelve months in every genre and share them with you each Friday. Because I've been in a mystery-reading mood lately, I thought you might be too, so we're starting with six four-star mystery reads for you to check out. You can explore the twelve titles on My Very Favorite Bossy 2025 Reads to find out about my overall favorite reads from last year. And you can find Bossy reviews of many other mysteries here . If you've read any of these titles, I'd love to hear what you think! What are some of your favorite mystery reads, whether from the past year or beyond? 01 The Thursday Murder Club (Thursday Murder Club #1) by Richard Osman I was delighted by the poignancy, humor, and layers in the first installment of this series of stories about sharp, disparate septuagenarians who meet to resolve cold cases--then aim to solve the mysteries of murders occurring in their own community. In this first installment in Osman's mystery series (the second one also appears on this list), the story begins in medias res , as the reader witnesses our key characters--four septuagenarian--coming together for a weekly discussion of unsolved murders. Joyce is their newest member, and the four put their wits to the test to try to resolve cold cases. (They reserve their room as "Jigsaw Club" to discourage others' interest and interruption.) But when a slick local developer associated with their own retirement community is murdered, and other deaths follow, this sharp, funny, grumpy, big-hearted, underestimated group of friends becomes determined to solve the case. Then an event from decades earlier grows in importance and shapes the Club's search for answers . Justice isn't black and white, and motivations matter; the Club isn't set on following the letter of the law, as they appreciate how complicated life can be. I was surprised by how charming, intriguing, layered, and lovely this story was. Deanna Raybourn's Killers of a Certain Age is another series about capable, clever older protagonists who use their wits and significant life experience to solve crimes--and, in their case, evade their own murders. You can check out my reviews of the first two titles here  and here . For my full review, please check out this link . 02 First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston Elston's first adult novel ticked all of my mystery-reading boxes: a con artist, fake identity, dangerous boss, complicated mark, trusty sidekick, clever maneuvering, and non-manipulative twists. I can't wait to read her next mystery. Evie Porter is embracing her current fake identity and getting closer to her mark Ryan--who she's lured into being her boyfriend. Now she awaits her mysterious boss Mr. Smith's instructions about the information he needs her to obtain to take down Ryan or his associates, she's not sure which. After what happened on her last job, she can't afford to make mistakes. Mr. Smith could make life unpleasant--or abruptly shortened--if she fails. And he seems to be throwing curveballs at her on purpose. But Evie knows that since her desperate entry into this powerful, dangerous world, its tricky elements, its constant deception, and its hefty paycheck, she has always been one of the best. She expects to manage this job--whatever it may turn out to be--without much difficulty. But the situation isn't exactly what it seems, and when a woman comes to town using Evie's birth name, which only her boss was aware of, Evie isn't sure whether she's being tested or whether she's being set up for sabotage. I loved the key elements of this story: the capable con woman, the past coming back to haunt her, the complicated mark, the trusted sidekick, the tricky cross and double-cross, and Elston's non-manipulative, delightful twists. This was smart and intriguing, a fast and compelling read, with a main protagonist I was rooting for. You can read my full review by clicking this link . 03 The Man Who Died Twice (Thursday Murder Club #2) by Richard Osman Book two of the series sees our septuagenarian characters each trekking their own paths while working cooperatively to solve a new mystery. They show vulnerability and strength, use their instincts and smarts to outsmart criminals, and grow. I laughed while listening to this one; Osman's series has me hooked. This is the second installment in this mystery series to appear on this list of favorites from the past year. I was late to the series, but I'm fully committed now. Elizabeth, Joyce, Ron and Ibrahim are septuagenarians feeling let down after the thrills, danger, and success of their first solved mystery (related in The Thursday Murder Club ). But things start getting interesting when a piece of Elizabeth's past is illuminated. Her ex-husband shows up, under the protection of fellow MI-5 spies, suspected of having stolen 20 million dollars' worth of diamonds and professing to still be in love with her. And someone has it in for him, which means danger for all. Not everyone is who they seem, and someone the group trust's may have let greed and deception compromise everything. The main protagonists' tendencies and personalities have room to shine here, and Osman allows for vulnerabilities and also moments where the characters come into their own. Osman writes older characters with grace, not relying on archetypes but serving up poignancy, dialogue that made me laugh, and grand adventure that keeps his protagonists inspired and engaged. I listened to The Man Who Died Twice  as a library audiobook. For my full review, please check out the page at this link . For my review of the series' first book, The Thursday Murder Club , please click this link . 04 Kill for Me Kill for You by Steve Cavanagh I loved the twist, double-twist of my first Cavanagh mystery, and the story's revenge and renegade justice are layered with unexpected circumstances. I was hooked . In Steve Cavanagh's twisty mystery Kill for Me, Kill for You , two strangers, women bearing the brunt of two different violent tragedies--and struggling with a lack of justice for those responsible--make a Strangers on a Train -type of deal: If you kill the man responsible for my loss, I'll kill the one responsible for yours. Ruth, a young married woman living elsewhere in the city, is brutally attacked in her own home--and the intruder, who has piercing blue eyes but remains unidentified, is on the loose as Ruth reels from disastrous repercussions and mental illness. The ruthless trajectories toward revenge are simultaneously disturbing and satisfying, but the circumstances around the efforts to bring the guilty to justice are layered and shocking in their reveals. The intersection of the novel's victims who are bent on justice is unexpected and fascinating. Characters aren't who they seem, and there's a twist, double twist aspect that I loved. This is the first mystery I've read by Steve Cavanagh. I don't love the title--although it does indicate the dynamic--but I was hooked on the story. For my full review, please click this link . 05 Kills Well with Others (Killers of a Certain Age #2) by Deanna Raybourn Killers of a Certain Age  was darkly funny, action-packed, feminist, and friend-focused. I love the second installment's return to my favorite aging assassins and their quick-thinking, spry, deadly answers to those who have broken moral codes--and who have our protagonists in their sights. The first installment of Deanna Raybourn's Killers of a Certain Age series was a fun, darkly funny, feminist story about a retiring female team of elite assassins. It was the right book at the right time for me: entertainment in the perfect combination of action and suspense, loyal friendship, clever plotting, and the promise of love. Book two picks up when our main characters, having laid low  and lived their own lives for a year, are contacted by the Museum, the elite assassin organization they used to work for. An Eastern European gangster has obtained the names of agents who have stood in his way over the years, and our aging assassins seem likely to be next on his hit list. They must figure out who's turned traitor on the Museum and shared this information--and stay alive long enough to bring them to justice. Kills Well with Others sometimes feels a little bit as though Raybourn is gamely giving her readers what they want (more Billie, Helen, Mary Alice, Natalie--and Tanner!) rather than writing a book she felt compelled to put out into the world. But I'm one of those who are eager for more time with these clever, sometimes grumpy, often spontaneous, satisfyingly quick-thinking assassins who are loyal to each other above all. The mind-bending examinations of what other characters might be up to and the combat and narrow escapes keep the pacing lively and engaging. In between, Raybourn allows friendships and love to grow and change. If Raybourn keeps writing this series, I'll read every last installment. For my full review, please see Kills Well with Others . Raybourn is also the author of the wonderful   Killers of a Certain Age , which was the first in the Killers of a Certain Age series. And I loved A Curious Beginning , the first book in Deanna Raybourn's feisty Veronica Speedwell series of historical fiction mysteries, as well as the sequels A Perilous Undertaking , A Treacherous Curse , A Dangerous Collaboration , and A Murderous Relation . (There are currently nine books in the series.) 06 The Summer Guests (Martini Club #2) by Tess Gerritsen In the second installment of the series, retired CIA agents build stronger bonds with each other in rural Maine while assisting (and sometimes running over) the local police chief to try to find a missing teen and untangle past unsolved mysteries. In book two of the Martini Club, the mystery at hand--a missing teen--draws in local citizens as well as the wealthy summer residents, their murky pasts (which are uncomfortably, distantly related to the aging former agents' own histories), and unsolved disappearances from decades earlier. Multiple suspects capture the attention of the police as well as the Martini Club, and the former agents' unorthodox investigations are both intriguing to witness and lead to some valuable discoveries. The progression of the meal-focused relationship between Jo and the Club is fun, as are Jo's growing respect for the Club's hunches (which keep things interesting, as they aren't always correct), her growing confidence in her own instincts, and her ability to attempt to corral the Club into an appropriate lane for assisting behind the scenes without crossing quite so may procedural lines. A growing affection between two members of the ex-CIA crowd is a secondary element but is sweet to see. I liked this installment even more than the first book in the series. It was a fast read that kept me guessing. Please click here  for my full review of The Summer Guests. This is the second book in Tess Gerritsen's Martini Club series. The first is The Spy Coast . If you're interested in stories set in Maine, you might like the titles on my Greedy Reading List Six Fascinating Books Set in Maine .

Cate Kay is a bestselling author--and a pseudonym used by a woman who's been running from her past for decades. Cate is at times a young dreamer, a haunted lover with a hardened heart, a wildly successful author dipping her toe in the world of Hollywood, and an imperfectly healed friend ready to face the future. My friend Jenny mentioned this book to me, and I'd never heard of it but loved the premise. I was hooked the whole way through as I read. The reclusive author Cate Kay has written a bestselling postapocalyptic trilogy (which is about to be made into a series of movies; meeting the star is a key part of the story later on), but Cate's extensive fan base has never seen her or even heard her voice. That's because Cate Kay doesn't exist. When the writer was just out of high school, she was set for a big cross-country adventure and artist's life in LA with her best friend. But a tragedy the day before their planned departure changed everything--and led her to a newly imagined identity that she uses to shield herself from exposure and from vulnerability. Cate's stories aren't front and center in the book, but through key references to them we find that the secretive, haunted author has attempted to work through the pain and complications of her past by fictionalizing elements of her personal history and using real details of her life in her novels. She shapes thrilling postapocalyptic stories around pieces of her own young, small-town, everyday life and the events that sent her on a trajectory of hiding and suffering. The Three Lives of Cate Kay is built upon a gap in knowledge. It's necessary for the reader to sustain a suspension of disbelief so that this hole in our main protagonist's understanding feels at all plausible, and for the circumstances of the book and Cate's phases of identity to therefore exist and feel warranted. I typically strongly dislike a miscommunication plot point, particularly an extended one, but I didn't mind rolling with this one. Fagan thrusts Cate into new situations, focuses on her all-encompassing evolution and development as an author, a lover, or a friend, and holds her past love and trauma over her, preventing her from understanding the full scope of her actual situation. Then a shocking realization upends Cate's carefully curated life and shifts her understanding of all she has long known to be true. I love a novel about a novelist. Cate evolves through the book: at first she's a big-hearted dreamer, then a devastated young woman, an obsessive writer with a shielded heart, a heartbreakingly vulnerable girlfriend, and finally, a wrecked human who manages to repair herself like she's Japanese Kintsugi pottery, full of cracks but rejoined and wonderfully imperfect. I listened to The Three Lives of Cate Kay  as an audiobook. More about This Author Kate Fagan is a former professional basketball player and ESPN journalist who wrote What Made Maddy Run and other nonfiction titles.

Set in 2022 Ukraine as war begins to break out, this oddball, zigzagging story explores broad themes of interconnectedness as well as revenge fantasies made real and renegade ecology preservation. With dark humor and sobering truths, Reva presents it all through the lens of the scruffy Ukrainian marriage industry. It's 2022, and roving, passionate scientist Yeva is only dating in the Ukrainian marriage industry to earn money to rescue and preserve her precious snails. After all, dates with the desperate Westerners hoping to find docile Ukrainian wives to take home will fund her efforts more efficiently than her endless grant-writing and constant vying for just enough to get by. When Yeva runs across sisters posing as participants of the marriage industry in order to find their mother, a disappeared activist who always fought against the practice of matching Ukrainian women with outsiders, the three become entwined in a surprising journey across the country. Their connection involves attempts at revenge, a major kidnapping, and a last-ditch attempt to save a single snail. But when Russia invades Ukraine as they're traveling, it changes everything. Endling holds dark humor, sobering truths, and lots of gray area within a strange story. Reva layers mother-daughter yearning and broken bonds; desperate men with facile idealism and romantic hope; attempts at showy activism, the impact of which goes awry; the power in apparent feminine wiles--which mask other intentions; ecology and environmental destruction; and unlikely heroism in forms small and large. The extended kidnapping situation begins to feel interminable, but the stretching out of time and close quarters lead to unexpected realizations for the men. This was not the kidnappers' intention, but in yet another turn, an oddball series of heroes emerge, the men rethink life paths, and they form trauma bonds with each other. As it did in real life, a war breaks out in Ukraine within the novel as the Russians invade. In Reva's version of the situation, we see just the bare beginnings of the invasion, and much of it at a distance. In the war's single "close-up," a story-within-a-story pits propaganda-producing playacting against the actual victims and invaders in a meta swirl of confusion, creating life-and-death stakes for protagonists wondering what's real and what's for show. I was intrigued by Endling , even as it felt difficult to pin down the tone and the multiple stories being told, and I felt off kilter much of the time I was reading. Ultimately it felt as though so many elements were, rightfully, in play, that zigzagging through their messy interconnectedness felt appropriate. More about This Author Reva is a Ukrainian expat who has spent years keeping track of her family from outside the country. She is also the author of Good Citizens Need Not Fear: Stories .

The first in Holland's ocean-focused young adult fantasy series leaves much of the story for later books, and I was left wanting more. I was intrigued by the curse, the ocean quest, and the explorations of moral quandaries around the use of the ocean's resources, but I was less interested in the extensive swooning over a likely enemy. The people of Kirkrell have always hunted magical whales--it's the only way to protect themselves from the finfolk, water fae who threaten their people an d sink their ships. Annie is nineteen and the heir to the Fairfax Whaling Company. But she has a secret: she's cursed. If they experience heartbreak, Fairfaxes are destined to slowly transform into seafaring, scaled monsters. And the devastating loss of her parents mean Annie's beginning to show signs of her future--possibly permanent--deadly form. When she realizes that her fiance August--who she hoped would be her savior from heartbreak--actually has his eye on taking over her family's company rather than falling in love with Annie (and that he may be planning to kill her, whoops!) the teenaged orphan makes a questionable deal with a ship captain of questionable trustworthiness from her past. She hopes to travel to the home of the fae (making out with her fiance and would-be assassin all the way) and try to shake off her curse once and for all. So many elements of this premise are favorites for me--a strong young female main protagonist, ship life, a quest, and magic. I tired of Annie's frequent and extensive swooning over August, despite her suspicions that he is actually going to kill her . This nonsensical obsession was the most young-adult-feeling aspect of the book to me, and for me it undermined how Annie is coming into her own during the story. I loved Annie's burgeoning attraction to and trust in Cyrus, despite their rough early bond (along with her fiance August, Annie and Cyrus were in a boat that survived the attack that killed her parents). Late in the book, it becomes clear that Cyrus and his motivations are not what they seem, and a surprising new layer begins to shape the story (but too late to carry significant emotional impact; Holland is setting up book two). Annie's reconsidering of the humaneness of the whaling that humans in her land have come to rely on is a powerful examination of hunting, resources, assumptions, scarcity, and new possibilities. She may so far be powerless to enact major change, and she is certainly dismissed by the men around her, but she is preparing to face difficult challenges (likely within later books in the series). The finfolk are fascinating but by the end are hardly explored, and I found this unsatisfying. Annie's frequent plucking out of scales that grow from her hands and arms is horrifying, but I was most interested in the monster-type transformation that threatens to overtake her in time. At the end of this book, that looming danger seems to be contained, which is good for Annie but tough for the need for conflict and tension in the book. Annie's heartbreaking bargain is by far the most poignant situation Holland has presented yet. I was left wanting more regarding most aspects of the story, and it felt as though Holland was saving major developments for subsequent books in the series. A very minor but distracting note: the smell of petrichor is mentioned thirteen times in the story. This felt like an odd detail and description to incorporate so frequently into the book. I received a prepublication version of this title courtesy of NetGalley and St. Martin's Press. More Fantasy Books Sara Holland is also the author of the Everless and Havenfall series. For other fantasy books I've reviewed, check out the titles at this link .

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading Rachel Hawkins's upcoming suspense novel, The Storm ; I'm listening to Kate Fagan's intriguing novel The Three Lives of Cate Kay ; and I'm reading Charlotte Wood's meditative novel set in Australia, Stone Yard Devotional . What are you reading, bookworms? 01 The Storm by Rachel Hawkins St. Medard's Bay, Alabama, seems to attract the strongest of hurricanes, and the only building that's withstood every storm for a century is the charming Rosalie Inn. But St. Medard's Bay was also the center of a media whirlwind in the early 1980s following the mysterious death of Landon Fitzroy, the governor's handsome son, in the midst of that year's hurricane. Married Landon was having a passionate affair with a beautiful, spunky local young woman, Lo Bailey, who was later accused of his murder but never convicted. Geneva Corliss is running the money pit Rosalie Inn, taking up the mantle of her family's business across generations. When Lo Bailey and a handsome ghostwriter come to stay while crafting a book about the events around Landon's death, Geneva begins uncovering secrets that shake what she believes to be true regarding the inn, her community, and even her own family. Rachel Hawkins is also the author of The Heiress , The Villa , Reckless Girls , and The Wife Upstairs . I received a prepublication version of The Storm , which is scheduled for publication January 6, courtesy of NetGalley and St. Martin's Press. 02 The Three Lives of Cate Kay by Kate Fagan I can't remember who recommended this book to me at a party over the holidays, but I'm reading and enjoying it while I try to recall my source. (If it's you, please let me know!) The reclusive author Cate Kay has written a bestselling trilogy (which is about to be made into a series of movies), but her extensive fan base has never seen her or even heard her voice. That's because Cate Kay doesn't exist. When the writer was just out of high school, she was set for a big cross-country adventure and artist's life in LA with her best friend. But a tragedy the day before their planned departure changed everything--and led her to a newly imagined identity. The secretive, haunted author has attempted to work through the pain and complications of her past by fictionalizing key elements of her personal history and using real details of her life in her novels. Then a shocking realization upends her carefully curated life and shifts her understanding of all she knows to be true. I'm listening to The Three Lives of Cate Kay as an audiobook. 03 Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood The main protagonist in Stone Yard Devotional is a middle-aged woman who leaves Sydney for some respite in her rural Australian hometown. Although both of her parents have passed away (they are buried nearby), she has little else to connect her to this place. She seeks out a small nearby religious community, although she does not believe in God and has not attended church. Despite her unbelief, she finds herself drawn to the structure of the nuns' days--prayer, church services, hymns, and a meditative life within simple surroundings. Without intentionally choosing to stay, she simply never returns to Sydney, thereby abandoning her former life--including her husband, who she had been growing apart from, her friends, and her work--for a life within the nuns' orbit. Yet she remains agnostic and therefore exists more adjacent to the nuns than fully entrenched in their world. Charlotte Wood is also the author of The Natural Way of Things , The Weekend , and other novels.

I feel Grinch-like panning this widely beloved story, but for me the sweetness was cloying; the tale slowed to a snail's pace as Allen explored every thought, possibility, and detail; and the twist felt jarring and was revealed too late to carry emotional weight. Theo, an elderly stranger, appears in the small town of Golden, Georgia, recognizing and appreciating locals' gifts and making them feel seen, sometimes for the first time. He admires the various portraits of locals decorating the coffee shop's walls, soon buying those that intrigue him and gifting to them to their subjects, welcoming the strangers' life stories and his connections with them. Significant page time was spent on matters that I found draining and that seemed to slow the story interminably. Theo worries at great length about whether those he is approaching will be suspicious or receptive to his offerings. Yet after so much buildup, his prompt assessment of each stranger's inner worth is taken as touching and true the vast majority of the time. Oddly, the characters often don't know their worth until a wise elderly stranger identifies it, at which point their lives are improved immeasurably. Theo's true identity is a secret, yet is shared off page with a powerful local consultant, a mover and shaker who puzzlingly exists within this small community and is conveniently perfect for knowing yet preserving Theo's cover and for serving as his high-level bag man. The good Theo does within the community is laudable: he is the most generous, the most giving, and the most quickly and intensely involved participant in their lives that anyone in need could hope for. His financial resources are endless, and it was satisfying to watch him throw money at issues and resolve much of the crush of them. One bad actor ruins the seamless run of meaningful connections, and the character is so purely evil and destructive, he is allowed no gray areas or complex motivation, and he ultimately upends the circumstances around the Most Kind Actions and Most Generous Impact Ever. Extra layers to the story are revealed too late for me to feel anything about them; his identity and past were rich but we learn only key elements, and without the benefit of significant portions of Theo's explanatory perspective. In an unsatisfying denouement, his connection to and interest in the town are revealed only after it is possible to explore the potentially complex and intriguing interpersonal implications raised by them. Heartwarming Titles You Might Like This book was originally self-published, then picked up by Atria Books for even more widespread success. For heartwarming books I've loved, please check out the titles at this link .

Bossy Excitement about Upcoming Books I’m looking forward to so many January books, I’m not sure I’ll have time to do anything else with all the greedy reading I have planned. If you were counting on me to do something besides sit and read in my January coziness, thank you in advance for understanding my priorities here. I've recently mismanaged my library holds so I picked up a stack of books yesterday. And I have advance copies of almost all of the titles I list here, so I need to get to work reading and sharing my favorite January reads with you. In the meantime, please check out some of my most-anticipated January publications. I've included the bare-bones details and publication dates below. Some of these upcoming titles are books by favorite authors and others are from authors new to me, but you'll find a mix of genres represented here, so I hope something looks promising for you. Are there any titles you’re especially excited to read this month?

My very favorite reads of 2025! It makes me so happy to survey the many books I've loved reading, thinking about, writing about, and talking about this year, and I adore highlighting my very favorite reads. Out of the 141 titles I read in 2025, these are the twelve I loved the most. Every month I post my favorite reads , and last spring I posted Ten Bossy Spring Favorites (all recently published titles at that time). In the summer I posted My Six Favorite Reads of the First Half of 2025 , and all six of those books appear on my final Favorites list here. If you've read any of these titles, I'd love to hear what you think! To check out my favorite reads from prior years, please take a look at: My Very Favorite Bossy 2024 Reads My Very Favorite Bossy 2023 Reads My Very Favorite Bossy 2022 Reads My Twelve Very Favorite 2021 Reads My Twelve Favorite 2020 Books What were some of your favorite reads of the year? Let's do some Bossy book talking! 01 Time of the Child by Niall Williams Time of the Child  feels like poetry in prose form, and Williams richly shapes a small-town Irish community's everyday and extraordinary events in this poignant, gorgeous literary fiction novel . In 1962 in the small Irish town of Faha, it's Christmastime, and Dr. Jack Troy and his oldest daughter Ronnie are coping with complicated family dynamics in their drafty, rural Irish home when an unexpected discovery turns everything upside down. During the annual, chaotic community fair preceding this holidays, which this year is a rainy business full of haggling, disappointments, and triumphs, an infant is left by the church gates. Young Jude and Faha's grown twins, Tim and Tom, bring the baby girl to Dr. Troy and Ronnie, believing her dead but not sure what else to do. And she does seem to have passed on to another realm, until Dr. Troy is able to revive her. In an impulsive pact, the four men agree not to share the news of the baby with anyone. What really shines in Time of the Child  is the power of the small-town Faha community--gossipy and desperate for dirt as its citizens may largely be. The miracle of unity brought about by a baby's presence is poignant without feeling too easy. This story is beautiful and powerful. Williams's writing feels like a poem in prose structure; no word is wasted, and I read this novel slowly in order to savor the world the author so gorgeously created. For my full review, check out Time of the Child . You can find Bossy reviews of other novels set in Ireland here  and more reviews of literary fiction titles here . 02 Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection by John Green Green's book is about tuberculosis, but it's also a view of our deep global interconnectedness, gross healthcare inequalities, the TB devastation that is still prevalent, and the possibility of both simple and comprehensive approaches that could eradicate the disease. In John Green's nonfiction book Everything Is Tuberculosis , he tells his story of befriending a young man, Henry, who was suffering from tuberculosis and living in a hospital in Sierra Leone. Green uses his tender eye and piercing analysis to explore the health care inequalities that allow the world's poorest citizens to disproportionately contract the incurable disease tuberculosis and to advocate for greater access to quality care and a search for a cure. John Green is also the author of the nonfiction collection of essays The Anthropocene Reviewed  (which was one of my six favorite nonfiction reads  the year I read it) as well as other novels. For my full review, please see Everything Is Tuberculosis . 03 Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy Mysteries abound within McConaghy's Wild Dark Shore , but the story is largely an atmospheric story of isolation and loss set against the drama of climate change, tragedy, and finding the will to trust again. The description of Charlotte McConaghy's Wild Dark Shore  immediately ticked several of my reading-interest boxes--the setting is an isolated island (Antarctica is the closest land mass), the climate is cold (check out these other Bossy reviews of titles with cold settings ), and climate change  and shifting weather patterns are bringing matters to a head. When a mysterious woman washes up half-dead on the remote island of Shearwater, home of the world's largest seed bank and formerly a research hub, she finds only Dominic Salt and his three children manning the lighthouse. The lonely, broken characters reach out to each other. Although hesitant because of past hurts, they begin to form intense bonds . There are mysteries at the center of the story, but for me this was a captivating, atmospheric dive into the pressures, pain, and hope within extreme isolation, the power of external forces, and the push to protect each other at all costs. I was intrigued throughout. For my full review of Wild Dark Shore , please check out this link . Charlotte McConaghy is also the author of Migrations and Once There Were Wolves . 04 The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow The Everlasting  involves jaunts through multiple versions of the same story, as our fantastic main protagonists shift and change, bravely outsmart those who would control them, dare to hope for a future together, and fight dark forces until the bitter end. This is adventure-heavy, sometimes tender, and always intriguing. I loved it. Centuries after the death of the legendary Sir Una Everlasting , spindly, awkward, cowardly historian Owen Mallory unearths her story--and becomes inexorably intertwined with the events of Una's life as they occur in the past. Harrow's tale involves multiple do-overs and attempts to shift events and alter reality--while the unlikely couple of Una and Owen fall in love again and again. The Everlasting  is filled with rich adventure; twisty jaunts through time; tragedy and loss; dark turns, boundless hope; messy, happy discoveries; outsmarting those in power; and noble victories. It ticked a million boxes for me as a reader. This is the type of romantic fantasy I adore. No swooning, childish behavior, or foolishness, just hard-won connections, deep character development, bravely defying expectations, and absolutely lovely love. This broke my heart and mended it over and over, in the best ways possible. For my full review, please check out The Everlasting . 05 This American Woman : A One-in-a-Million Memoir by Zarna Garg Comedian Zarna Garg lived several lives before falling into comedy in midlife and realizing it was where she'd belonged all along. Her memoir is candid, poignant, funny, and always entertaining. I loved this peek into her fascinating life. Zarna Garg fled her comfortable lifestyle and her widower father to avoid an unwanted arranged marriage at age 14. She begged places to stay from friends and acquaintances in Mumbai, homeless. She was on the verge of agreeing to be married off when her long-hoped-for visa to the US came through. She ran from home and began a dramatically different new life in Akron, Ohio. In midlife, she reimagined her future again and became a hard-working comedian who opened for Tina Fey and Amy Poehler and then warranted her own headliner spots. At the very beginning the pacing felt a little uneven to me, but then Garg hit her stride, and I was taken with her frank narrative, her relentless optimism and drive, her self-deprecating accounts of her imperfections, and her poignant reflections. . I love an honest memoir that lets a reader into the author's inner world, and Zarna has lived a fascinating life that I wanted to learn more about. I laughed out loud repeatedly while I was reading this charming memoir by this strong, funny woman. For more memoirs you might like, please check out these Bossy reviews as well as Greedy Reading Lists of my favorites . For my full review of this book, please see This American Woman . 06 The Correspondent by Virginia Evans This quiet, epistolary novel witnesses the creaky, sometimes difficult shifts and realizations that a septuagenarian achieves around her health, children, past secrets, friendship, romantic relationships, and previously unknown blood relatives near the end of her life. Sybil Van Antwerp has written letters her whole life--letters to dear friends and family, letters of complaint, letters of praise and wonder to authors of books she's loved, and more. She reflects, sorts out her thoughts and makes sense of the events of the world. Now Sybil is in her late 70s, she's set in her ways, she's sometimes out of step and old-fashioned, often grumpy--and she's facing immense changes. We find out early on that she faces the impending loss of her sight, that she is somewhat estranged from her daughter, that deep tragedy has shaped her life and closed off her heart, and that she may be stumbling into information about her biological parents. It's lovely to witness Sybil's slowly allowing herself to face the past, addressing difficult issues in the present, and allowing for surprising adventures in her life. The Correspondent  offers messy, imperfect characters in often difficult situations, and they find their way through having changed and grown. This was charming and I loved both reading this novel and listening to the audio version of this title. The Correspondent  was the right book at the right time for me. I received a prepublication version of this title courtesy of NetGalley and Crown Publishing. I do love a novel in letters. To find Bossy reviews of other books I've read, please check out the titles at this link . Click here   for my full review. 07 The Boy From the Sea by Garrett Carr Carr's newest novel is a captivating series of character studies within a tightly knit Irish seaside community in the late 1900s. While characters struggle to make ends meet, support each other, and avoid giving in to the least generous parts of themselves, tragedies and wonders shape their community in this lovely, heartbreaking and heart-wrenching tale. In a seaside Irish town in the 1970s, a baby is washed up on the shore. As the community wonders at his mysterious, whimsical appearance, they embrace Brendan, as he is ultimately named, as one of their own, yet hold him separate--and, for a time, credit him with the power of bestowing blessings upon them. But the world of the story is grounded in day-to-day stressors and challenges. The country is reeling from economic troubles; Brendan's older adoptive brother deeply resents his presence; and conflicts and complicated dynamics underscore friendships, family relationships, and the community as a whole. The story is a fascinating study of relationships, with heartwarming moments and heartbreaking developments alike. Brendan is not the main protagonist, despite the novel's title, yet he is central to the story in that his presence pushes others to determine what they're about. He remains steady in the face of external upheaval (and Declan's exceptionally poor treatment of him), until even Brendan begins to waver and to seem for a time unsure of who he is and what he is made of and made for. When Carr offers various measures of character growth and resolutions toward the end of the book, they are reassuring and lovely, sometimes heart-wrenching, and fittingly complicated. I listened to The Boy from the Sea  as an audiobook. Click here   for my full review of The Boy from the Sea . 08 Show Don't Tell: Stories by Curtis Sittenfeld In Curtis Sittenfeld's wonderful second short-story collection, we meet imperfect characters, often fortysomething women, in moments large and small that push them to determine what they're made of as they consider friendship, betrayal, fear of failure, the power of memory, art, parenthood, and more. In Curtis Sittenfeld's first short-story collection, You Think It, I'll Say It , she offered ten stories of fully realized, fascinating characters that stuck with me. I loved it and rated the collection five stars. In her second fantastic short-story collection, Curtis Sittenfeld explores middle age, fame, friendship, artistry--and "Lost but Not Forgotten" is a story featuring Lee Fiora, a character from Sittenfeld's novel Prep , in which Lee attends an alumni event at her boarding school. My favorite writing often turns expectations on their heads, and In Show Don't Tell , Sittenfeld draws us into crucial stages of faulted characters' lives, in which they figure out what they're made of . Throughout the book, characters, often middle-aged women, consider art, expression, love, respect, friendship, and limitations as they live their fascinatingly imperfect lives. This is more excellent Curtis Sittenfeld; I'm a forever fan. You can click here for my review of Sittenfeld's Romantic Comedy , here for my Bossy take on American Wife , and here  for You Think It, I'll Say It: Stories . If you enjoy short story collections, you might like to check out Six Short Story Collections to Wow You  and Six More Short Story Collections I Loved . Click here   for my full review of Show Don't Tell . 09 The Names by Florence Knapp Knapp's novel explores alternate life paths for a set of characters, each set into motion by the name bestowed upon the family's youngest child--whether whimsical, Mom's choice, or named for his cruel father. The trauma was difficult to read, but the various timelines were fascinating, as were the intersections of events and characters among them. In one timeline, an abused wife makes a stand for a whimsical name suggested by her daughter Maia, Bear; in a second, she makes a less aggressive but unsanctioned name choice that's her favorite, Julian; in a third, she registers her baby's name as "junior" to her brutal husband Gordon. In this sliding-doors story, the three paths diverge dramatically, and the whole family's destiny is shaped in different ways for each option. Each timeline produces a vastly different boy, a significantly shaped sister Maia, drastically different paths for mother Cora, and altered futures for father Gordon. Supporting characters make Easter-egg appearances in other timelines. None of the paths are too easy or perfect, but each offers varied satisfaction and challenge in the form of justice, tragedy, self-realization, fulfillment, confidence, and hope. The epilogue surprised me; I wasn't sure it was necessary or that I bought into the point of view and the version of a reckoning that it offered, but it was an interesting way to set up slight closure to the story. I found this novel fascinating. Please click here  for my full review of The Names. 10 Isola by Allegra Goodman Isola , based upon the story of a real-life sixteenth-century woman, shifts between details of a life of moneyed ease and an abandonment on an unforgiving, uninhabited island after our main protagonist falls in love with the wrong person. Marguerite is heir to a fortune, but after she is orphaned, she grows into a young lady while her guardian Roberval squanders her inheritance. As Marguerite enters into her early teens, she begins to fear that her cousin views her as a creepy match for himself. At the very least it becomes clear that he will pay no dowry in order to make another match for her. Instead, in a somewhat shocking turn of events, he forces her to sail with him to New France. But on the way, Marguerite falls for her guardian's servant . When their relationship is discovered, Roberval cruelly punishes them by abandoning them on an uninhabited island to perish. Marguerite, once a privileged, protected child of wealth and opportunity, must learn to survive in the wild. I was fascinated by each aspect of this tale, and Goodman transported me into the details and (often infuriating) dynamics of life at the time. Isola  is inspired by the story of the real-life sixteenth-century heroine, Marguerite de la Rocque de Roberval. For my full review of this book please see Isola . 11 Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid I love an astronaut story, and while Reid spent far more page time on relationships than on the astronaut or space aspects, there was plenty of each to go around in this novel that was the perfect book at the perfect time for me. I loved it. Joan has always been fascinated by the stars, and as a professor of physics and astronomy at Rice University, she teaches her passion to college students. On the side, she shows her beloved young niece the sky and serves as a second parent alongside her sometimes-trying single-mother sister. When she sees an ad seeking for the first women scientists to join NASA’s space shuttle program, Joan becomes obsessed with being part of the 1980s training and with becoming one of the first women in space. The complicated interpersonal situations added wonderful depth to the complexities of astronauts' training, stresses, competition, and life-and-death goals of entering space. The women's fights to fully be part of a traditionally male-dominated field and the various ways in which they navigated this were particularly captivating to me. The carelessness that partially leads to the crisis in space felt unrealistic to me, and the high drama and gasping reveal regarding the pivotal space scene toward the end could have felt over the top, but as usual, I was putty in Taylor Jenkins Reid's hands, ready to embrace every bit of it. This was exactly the right story for me at the right time, and I hugged it to my chest when I finished, then immediately began telling everyone how much I loved it. Taylor Jenkins Reid is also the author of Carrie Soto Is Back , The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo , Malibu Rising , and Daisy Jones & the Six . You might also want to check out these other Bossy reviews of books about astronauts  and space . 12 What We Can Know by Ian McEwan Ian McEwan's literary fiction looks back upon our present with a cutting 2119 eye. An enthused future academic and a contemporary poet's put-upon wife trade points of view to illuminate across two timelines a calculated rewriting of history, our brave and hubristic present-day existence, and fictional yet hauntingly plausible dangers. In What We Can Know , we're introduced to characters living in a 2119, post-global-warming, post-nuclear war existence in which the population has been cut by more than half, inland seas spread across the globe, and much of the world's variation, richness, and natural world no longer exist . Within this timeline, Tom Metcalfe, one of our main protagonists, is an academic fascinated by the past (the years surrounding our present day). In particular, he is obsessed with a famous poet named Blundy's ambitious 2014 poem, the single copy of which was read aloud for the (obtuse, grumpy, belligerent) poet's wife's birthday, then lost to time. Early on, I found the academic focus somewhat tedious, but then the story builds into unexpected, often dark layers. The tone of the book is quiet, shadowy, and reflective, but there are rich, sordid, often unexpected twists beneath the largely academic, intellectual exercises and discussions. Affairs, theft, lies, murder, negligence leading to death, drug-addled decision-making, and terrible mistakes are all essential components of the novel, yet the pacing does not charge along; this is a slow creep through the surface to often-wretched underbellies. Ian McEwan is also the author of Atonement , On Chesil Beach , Saturday , Amsterdam , and other books. You can click here   for my full review of What We Can Know .

Bossy Favorites of the Month These were my six favorite reads of December--a nonfiction wonder, a bonkers fever dream, a heartwarming tale, an intriguing mystery that ticked all of my boxes, a funny and poignant story about living fully into oneself, and a solid installment in a great mystery series. I hope you've been able to take some time for yourself this holiday break and read some great books. Have you read any of these titles? What were some of your favorite reads this month? 01 Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection by John Green Everything Is Tuberculosis is about tuberculosis, but it's also a view of our deep global interconnectedness, gross healthcare inequalities, the TB devastation that is still prevalent, and the possibility of both simple and comprehensive approaches that could eradicate the disease. In John Green's nonfiction book, he tells his story of befriending a young man, Henry, who was suffering from tuberculosis and living in a hospital in Sierra Leone. In Green's insightful hands, he illustrates how the modern-day fight against TB--with conflicts about pricing, tragically skewed accessibility, powerful perceptions of cultures' inability to adhere to protocols, and devastating gaps in care--is also a look at greater global issues. Green uses his tender eye and piercing analysis to explore the health care inequalities that allow the world's poorest citizens to disproportionately contract the incurable disease tuberculosis and to advocate for greater access to quality care and a search for a cure. Green makes the situation personal, following the cases of real people, tracking roadblocks to care, exploring potential simple and complex solutions, and challenging assumptions that hinder progress in each of these areas. The situation around TB is a public health travesty, and it's devastating and heartbreaking--and, Green poses, solvable. John Green is also the author of the nonfiction collection of essays The Anthropocene Reviewed  (which was one of my six favorite nonfiction reads  the year I read it) as well as other novels. For my full review, please see Everything Is Tuberculosis . 02 Bunny (Bunny #1) by Mona Awad Bunny begins with an outcast main protagonist in a MFA program who's infuriated by her twee fellow seminar students. It builds into an increasingly unhinged, intriguing phantasmagoria, equal parts dark nightmare and outrageously silly absurdity. Samantha is a scholarship MFA student at the progressive Warren University in New England. An outsider, a solitary type immersed in her own sometimes dark writing, she is disgusted by the rest of her cohort--childish women who call each other "Bunny," dress in twee outfits, speak in high voices, and, aside from their hilariously outrageous creations, seem to be of one unimaginative mind and to operate in a mindless echo chamber of nonsense. But then the Bunnies invite Samantha to their "Smut Salon" and into their hive mind of dottiness. She becomes oddly entrenched in their circle, then increasingly unsure of herself and vulnerable. She ditches her few true friends, also outsiders, and feels at a loss to determine the line between reality and richly imagined dark, seemingly impossible developments. Just as the novel felt as though it were lasting too long for me and began to teeter toward the tedious; just as I wondered if I could stand to listen to the Bunnies' perfectly horrible, put-on baby voices for another couple of hours (narrator Sophie Amoss deftly handles the voices in this novel to great effect), the story went in a truly unhinged direction that intrigued me. It's difficult to describe how bonkers this story is. I was surprised by how hooked I became on it. This is not a book I would universally recommend, but for an audience that appreciates cutting satire and a bananas story, this one will fit the bill. For my full review of this book please see Bunny . 03 The Sideways Life of Denny Voss by Holly Kennedy This bighearted novel holds a mystery, but its main focus is  neurodivergent main protagonist Denny and his dogged persistence, ambitious acts, decisiveness, wisdom, and loving kindness as he gets into increasing trouble, touches lives, faces loss, and establishes just who he is and wants to be. Denny lives a quiet life in small-town Minnesota, caring for his elderly mother with the companionship of his blind and deaf Saint Bernard, George. A developmental delay--caused by an accident at his birth--means that his options are limited, but Denny seems to keep finding himself in grave trouble. There was the time he kidnapped a neighbor's pet goose, the time he accidentally aided and abetted a bank robbery, and now he's under arrest for the murder of a candidate for mayor. As Denny's big personality, kindness, and discerning views become clear, the story tracks the lead-up to the recent death in the community and how Denny became a murder suspect. We see how he touches strangers' lives, frustrates neighbors, is ambitious in addressing societal wrongs, and we (and he) begin to understand previously unknown elements of his origin story--which he refuses to allow to define him. The Author's Note details how Kennedy's main character and some of the story's side plotlines were built from relatives and loved ones in her own life. The Sideways Life of Denny Voss  is a bighearted novel with an irresistible main protagonist and surrounding players, and the mystery keeps the story humming along. I loved this story. For my full review, please check out this link . 04 First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston Elston's first adult novel ticked all of my mystery-reading boxes: a con artist, fake identity, dangerous boss, complicated mark, trusty sidekick, clever maneuvering, and non-manipulative twists. I can't wait to read her next mystery. Evie Porter is embracing her current fake identity and getting closer to her mark Ryan--who she's lured into being her boyfriend. Now she awaits her mysterious boss Mr. Smith's instructions about the information he needs her to obtain to take down Ryan or his associates, she's not sure which. After what happened on her last job, she can't afford to make mistakes. Mr. Smith could make life unpleasant--or abruptly shortened--if she fails. And he seems to be throwing curveballs at her on purpose. But Evie knows that since her desperate entry into this powerful, dangerous world, its tricky elements, its constant deception, and its hefty paycheck, she has always been one of the best. She expects to manage this job--whatever it may turn out to be--without much difficulty. But the situation isn't exactly what it seems, and when a woman comes to town using Evie's birth name, which only her boss was aware of, Evie isn't sure whether she's being tested or whether she's being set up for sabotage. I loved the key elements of this story: the capable con woman, the past coming back to haunt her, the complicated mark, the trusted sidekick, the tricky cross and double-cross, and Elston's non-manipulative, delightful twists. This was smart and intriguing, a fast and compelling read, with a main protagonist I was rooting for. You can read my full review by clicking this link . 05 Woodworking by Emily St. James Woodworking explores interconnected transgender characters' experiences, fears, challenges, and joys as they work toward living true, fulfilling lives. Emily St. James's debut novel is poignant, funny, heartbreaking, often surprising, and heartwarming. Emily St. James crafts a tender, funny story with zing about a secretly trans high school teacher in a small town in South Dakota who befriends the only other transgender person she is aware of, one of her students . The novel flits between the stories of three women from disparate backgrounds, drastically different paths to becoming themselves, and poignant recognition among them of their struggles and victories, even as they diverge in their approaches to living fulfilling existences. The book title comes from the idea of trans people blending in and fading into the woodwork. The concept is mentioned in a conversation between a frightened young trans woman and a mentor of sorts; later in the novel the young woman realizes that "woodworking" wasn't meant to be a handbook, but a warning about hiding identity. I was most touched by the interconnectedness and love, the universal elements of the characters' experiences as well as their unique perspectives and circumstances, and the reimagined possibilities for their futures. Click here   for my full review. 06 The Man Who Died Twice (Thursday Murder Club #2) by Richard Osman Book two of the series sees our septuagenarian characters each trekking their own paths while working cooperatively to solve a new mystery. They show vulnerability and strength, use their instincts and smarts to outsmart criminals, and grow. I laughed while listening to this one; Osman's series has me hooked. Elizabeth, Joyce, Ron and Ibrahim are septuagenarians feeling let down after the thrills, danger, and success of their first solved mystery (related in The Thursday Murder Club ). But things start getting interesting when a piece of Elizabeth's past is illuminated. Her ex-husband shows up, under the protection of fellow MI-5 spies, suspected of having stolen 20 million dollars' worth of diamonds and professing to still be in love with her. And someone has it in for him, which means danger for all. Not everyone is who they seem, and someone the group trust's may have let greed and deception compromise everything. The main protagonists' tendencies and personalities have room to shine here, and Osman allows for vulnerabilities and also moments where the characters come into their own. Osman writes older characters with grace, not relying on archetypes but serving up poignancy, dialogue that made me laugh, and grand adventure that keeps his protagonists inspired and engaged. I listened to The Man Who Died Twice  as a library audiobook. For my full review, please check out the page at this link . For my review of the series' first book, The Thursday Murder Club , please check click this link .

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm listening to my book club's January read, Richard Powers's sweeping story Playground ; I'm reading and listening to Allen Levi's novel Theo of Golden ; and I'm savoring Niall Williams's gorgeous Irish tale This is Happiness . What are you reading, bookworms? 01 Playground by Richard Powers Four people are connected across time and geography in Richard Powers's sweeping story of their lives and unlikely interconnectedness. Evie Beaulieu becomes obsessed with marine life and diving when as a young girl she tests her father's invention, the first aqualung; Ina Aroita grows up moving from naval base to naval base in the Pacific, crafting art as her only constant; two friends at an elite Chicago high school, a privileged young man and a scholarship student, bond over an ancient game while one leans toward literature and one toward AI development. Powers explores issues around technology, ecology, humanity, responsibility, and interconnectedness. I'm listening to this novel as a library audiobook. 02 Theo of Golden by Allen Levi An elderly stranger appears in the small town of Golden, Georgia, recognizing and appreciating locals' gifts, making them feel seen, sometimes for the first time. He admires the various portraits of locals decorating the coffee shop's walls, soon buying those that intrigue him and gifting to them to their subjects, welcoming the strangers' life stories and connections with them. This book was originally self-published, then picked up by Atria Books. Many people have passionately recommended this heartwarming book to me this year. 03 This Is Happiness by Niall Williams In the rural Irish village of Faha, the years-long rain (whether sprinkling, torrential, misting, steady dripping) is stopping, and electricity seems poised to finally move from "the notional" to "the actual," as Father Coffey proclaims. Young Noe ("Noel" never really suited him) is running from the seminary but unsure of his next steps, and he takes refuge at his beloved grandparents'. A stranger arrives to begin installing the electricity, and he boards with Noe at Ganga and Doady's home--and he changes their lives forever. For my review of Niall Williams's wonderful Time of the Child , please click this link .

This is not my best graphic design work! :D Wishing you and yours very happy holidays—and great reading! I’m going to take a Bossy break from posting this week, but I hope to have time to read some books that have been staring me down from my bedside stack! Are there any books you’re excited to have time to read, or any books you’ve asked to receive as holiday gifts? 🎁 📚 If you're looking for last-minute gift ideas, please check out my book gift idea lists from this season. They each link to all of my past lists as well. Your local bookseller can direct you to tons of books sure to please your people!

Bossy Book Gift Ideas As I finish sharing my book gift idea lists for the season, I thought I'd offer a full list of giftable fiction published in 2025 that I've loved reading this year. I've also included additional book ideas within each genre or theme so you'll be stocked with plenty of ideas for your loved ones. The good news about book gifts and looming holiday deadlines: your local bookstore can get you set up with last-minute slam dunks for everyone on your list! You can also check my past Bossy gift idea lists (linked below) for quirky books, perennial classics, modern favorites, nonfiction must-haves, or other titles that might be perfect for the people on your holiday list. 2025 Bossy Book Gift Guides 2025 Bossy Book Ideas for Your Holiday Gift List More 2025 Bossy Book Ideas for Your Holiday Gift List 2024 Bossy Book Gift Guides Bossy Holiday Book Gift Ideas: Science and Nature Bossy Holiday Book Gift Ideas: Cookbooks Bossy Holiday Book Gift Ideas: Sports and Recreation Nonfiction Bossy Holiday Book Gift Ideas: Books about Music Bossy Holiday Gift Ideas: Novels for Everyone on Your List 2023 Bossy Book Gift Guides Shhh! Bossy Book Gift Ideas: Science and the Natural World Shhh! Bossy Book Gift Ideas: Sports Nonfiction Shhh! Bossy Book Gift Ideas: Cookbooks Shhh! Bossy Book Gift Ideas: Books about Media, Movies, and Music 2022 Bossy Book Gift Guides Shhh! Holiday Cookbook Gift Ideas   Shhh! Coffee Table Bossy Book Gift Ideas   Shhh! Science and Nature Bossy Book Gift Ideas   Shhh! Bossy Nonfiction Book Gift Ideas   2021 Bossy Book Gift Guides Shhh! Book Gift Ideas for the Holidays Shhh! Six More Book Gift Ideas for the Holidays Shhh! Nonfiction and Hobby Book Gift Ideas for the Holidays Shhh! Kid and Teen Book Gift Ideas for the Holidays 2020 Bossy Book Gift Guides Shhh! Books I'm Giving as Gifts This Holiday   Shhh! More Book Gift Ideas for the Holidays   Shhh! Book Gifts for Kids and Teens   Shhh! More Book Gifts for Kids and Teens   Bossy Independent Bookstore Love A Bossy book-buying note: If you're buying books this holiday season, please support your local independent bookstore. They need and appreciate our business! (The book covers on Bossy Bookworm link you to Bookshop, a site that supports the beloved indies that keep us swimming in thoughtful book recommendations and excellent customer service all year round.) I love my local independent bookstore, Park Road Books . They have a fantastic selection of titles, staff members offer spot-on recommendations (and sparkling personalities!), and they can order almost anything they don't have in stock. If you're local, please give them a try. A Twisty, Fast-Paced, Con-Artist Mystery 01 First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston Elston's first adult novel ticked all of my mystery-reading boxes: a con artist, fake identity, dangerous boss, complicated mark, trusty sidekick, clever maneuvering, and non-manipulative twists. I loved the key elements of this story: the capable con woman, the past coming back to haunt her, the complicated mark, the tricky cross and double-cross, and Elston's delightful twists. This was smart and intriguing, a fast and compelling read with a main protagonist I was rooting for. Elston has an upcoming mystery, Anatomy of an Alibi , scheduled for publication January 13. For my full review--I rated this mystery 4 stars--please check out this link . Other mysteries you might want to gift: Richard Osman's charming Thursday Murder Club series , Steve Cavanagh's twisty Kill for Me, Kill for You , or the most recent in Tess Gerritsen's retired-spies-in-Maine Martini Club series, The Summer Guests . A Captivating Historical Fiction Survival Story 02 Isola by Allegra Goodman Isola , based upon the story of a real-life sixteenth-century woman, shifts between details of a life of moneyed ease and an abandonment on an unforgiving, uninhabited island after our main protagonist falls in love with the wrong person. I was fascinated by each aspect of this tale, and Goodman transported me into the details and (often infuriating) dynamics of life at the time. Isola  is inspired by the story of the real-life Marguerite de la Rocque de Roberval. For my full review of this book, which I rated 4.5 Bossy stars, please see Isola . Other historical fiction titles published in 2025 that might also fit the bill: The Jackal's Mistress by Chris Bohjalian, Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall, Junie by Erin Crosby Eckstine, and There Are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak. A Rich Time-Travel Fantasy by a Favorite Author 03 The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow The Everlasting  involves jaunts through multiple versions of the same story, as our fantastic main protagonists shift and change, bravely outsmart those who would control them, dare to hope for a future together, and fight dark forces until the bitter end. This is adventure-heavy, sometimes tender, and always intriguing. I loved it. This is the type of romantic fantasy I adore. No swooning, childish behavior, or foolishness, just hard-won connections, deep character development, bravely defying expectations, and absolutely lovely love. This broke my heart and mended it over and over, in the best ways possible. For my full review of this 4.5-star read, please check out this link . Other fantasy novels you or your giftee might also enjoy: The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman, Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V. E. Schwab, and Katabasis by R. F. Kuang. An Intriguing Literary Fiction Standout 04 What We Can Know by Ian McEwan Ian McEwan's literary fiction What We Can Know looks back upon our present with a cutting 2119 eye. An enthused future academic and a contemporary poet's put-upon wife trade points of view to illuminate across two timelines a calculated rewriting of history, our brave and hubristic present-day existence, and fictional yet hauntingly plausible dangers. I was struck by the stacked surprises that became clear in What We Can Know , and I loved realizing the incorrect assumptions I made about certain characters' motivations and capabilities. For my full review of this novel, which I rated 4.5 Bossy stars, please check out What We Can Know . Other great literary fiction titles published this year: The Boy from the Sea by Garrett Carr, Buckeye by Patrick Ryan, and The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai. A Branching Narrative Novel 05 The Names by Florence Knapp Knapp's novel explores three life paths for a set of characters, all set into motion by the naming of the youngest child--whimsical, Mom's choice, or named for his cruel father. The trauma was difficult to read, but the various timelines were fascinating, as were the intersections of events and characters among them. Each timeline produces a vastly different boy, a significantly shaped sister Maia, drastically different paths for mother Cora, and altered futures for father Gordon. Supporting characters make easter-egg appearances in other timelines. None of the paths are too easy or perfect, but each offers varied satisfaction and challenge in the form of justice, tragedy, self-realization, fulfillment, confidence, and hope. For my full review of this novel, which I rated 4.5 Bossy stars, please check out The Names . Other captivating fiction titles published this year include: The Correspondent , A Guardian and a Thief , and The Book of Love . A Romantasy Without Excessive Swooning 06 Silver Elite by Dani Francis While I probably should stop reading "romantasy" because I prefer my fantasy and romance to remain separate, I was taken with the double-edged quest, elite training, magical abilities, and complex conflicts between classes in the first in this dystopian series. Francis explores issues of class and race through her characters' strongly held assumptions and prejudices surrounding Mods and Primes, and Wren's fierce loyalty to her kind is complicated by the secrets she's keeping about abilities that would make her even more feared, a deeper outcast, and a terrifyingly unknown quantity to both types of person in her world. This is the first in a series and I'm really looking forward to reading the next installment. For my full review of this title, which I rated 4 Bossy stars, please check out Silver Elite . Other great 2025 fantasy novels with some romance that are not swooning romantasy: Shield of Sparrows by Devney Perry, A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher, The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson, and The Knight and the Moth by Rachel Gillig.

This second and final installment of Faizal's young adult duology emphasizes on the power of found family over blood ties; reveals chilling, ambitious, ruthless plans for creating a horde of vampires; and pushes characters to sacrifice for love. The first installment in Hafsah Faizal's young adult Blood and Tea series offered intriguing secrets, a swirling mystery, terrible betrayal, heartwarming found family, steady action, and vampires. That book ended with the city reeling from a night of death and destruction. In this second and final book in the duology, grieving Arthie Casimir and her makeshift gang--Flick, Jin, and vampire leader Laith--are eager to upend Flick's mother's political stronghold and to set things to rights, achieving some justice. All sorts of dastardly plots are pursued, thwarted, renewed, and destroyed; terrifying torture and threats are acted upon; family ties are no match for the found-family bonds between friends; political machinations are upended; and some characters are prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice in order to save the others. An aspect of the story that comes into play in various forms is a revised understanding of the Other (vampires), pushing those who fear and assume that vampires are only about destruction to accept that they actually live nuanced, valuable, layered existences and illustrate a deep ability to care, fight for what's right, control themselves, and act nobly. I didn't love this installment quite as much as book one, but Faizal keeps the pace moving and progresses the bonds and affection between the main protagonists. The vampire element is expanded and the cutthroat plans for and potential power of an unleashed vampire horde looms over all. I listened to this novel as an audiobook. More from Hafsah Faizal For my review of the first book in this series, please see   A Tempest of Tea . Faizal is also the author of We Hunt the Flame .

This bighearted novel holds a mystery, but its main focus is  neurodivergent main protagonist Denny and his dogged persistence, ambitious acts, decisiveness, wisdom, and loving kindness as he gets into increasing trouble, touches lives, faces loss, and establishes just who he is and wants to be. “I guess that’s just how life works. Some days it’s like a fast-moving TV show and some days it’s not, and when things go sideways—like they usually do for me—you might find yourself going in a whole new direction, and when you’re doing life, going in that whole new direction, some things will change, but some things will stay a lot the same.” Denny lives a quiet life in small-town Minnesota, caring for his elderly mother with the companionship of his blind and deaf Saint Bernard, George. A developmental delay--caused by an accident at his birth--means that his options are limited, but Denny seems to keep finding himself in grave trouble. There was the time he kidnapped a neighbor's pet goose, the time he accidentally aided and abetted a bank robbery, and now he's under arrest for the murder of a candidate for mayor. Trying to do the right thing seems to not work out very well for Denny. To set the record straight, he'll have to stay the course, be brave, and uncover painful secrets about his family's past. A mystery buiilt upon a neurodivergent main protagonist's challenges with the surrounding world and thriving within them begs comparison to the main protagonists and their dilemmas in Molly Gray's The Maid and Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time . Denny's black-and-white consideration of circumstances around him allow the reader to see the unvarnished truth--or what the recognized truth should be. As Denny's big personality, kindness, and discerning views become clear, the story tracks the lead-up to the recent death in the community and how Denny became a murder suspect. We see how he touches strangers' lives, frustrates neighbors, is ambitious in addressing societal wrongs, and we (and he) begin to understand previously unknown elements of his origin story--which he refuses to allow to define him. The Author's Note details how Kennedy's character and some of the story's side plotlines were built from relatives and loved ones in her own life. The Sideways Life of Denny Voss is a bighearted novel with an irresistible main protagonist and surrounding players, and the mystery keeps the story humming along. I loved this story. More from This Author Holly Kennedy is also the author of The Tin Box , The Penny Tree , and The Silver Compass . For some other novels featuring neurodivergent characters, please check out the Bossy books at this link .

The author of The God of Small Things recounts her path from life with her volatile, emotionally and verbally abusive, strong mother to her own artistic expression, romantic partnerships, activism, and fierce guarding of her creative space. In Mother Mary Comes to Me , the author of The God of Small Things shares a memoir that in part explores her fierce, tough mother, her verbal and emotional abuse, her admirable causes and passion for them, and their complicated relationship. Roy was shaped by the woman she calls "my shelter and my storm," and she tracks back to her childhood in Kerala, India, where her single mother founded a school, through Roy's young adulthood and rejection of her mother's presence in her life, to her romantic partners, her career in filmmaking, the publication of her novels, her political activism, her funding of other artists' projects, and her mother's 2022 death and Roy's surprisingly powerful, ongoing reactions to it. By the time she attended her mother's school along with her beloved brother, Roy had already adapted to cope with her mother's violent outbursts, her emotional blackmail, her volatile moods, and her verbal abuse. When she went away to boarding school and created space between her mother and herself, Roy recognized the destructive nature of their connection and largely severed ties with her. Emphasizing the distance she was forced to create, she refers to her mother as "Mrs. Roy" throughout the book. I was most intrigued hearing about Roy's relationships, her evolution as an artist, and her development of a fiercely guarded space in which she could exist and create, at great cost to her personal life. A significant amount of the book relates political upheaval and the activism Roy became impassioned about and deeply involved in. This activism somewhat mirrors her mother's years-long, public fight for women's rights in India against a range of antiquated, mysoginistic, powerful laws and standards. Only when Roy was in middle age did she seem to feel that the relationship could be more even and managed without emotional turmoil harmful to Roy herself. I listened to this as a library audiobook. More Memoirs, More India Arundhati Roy is the author of The God of Small Things and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness. For more Bossy reviews of memoirs please check out the titles at this link , and you can find Bossy reviews of more books set in India here .

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm listening to A Steeping of Blood , the second in Hafsah Faizal's supernatural fantasy Blood and Tea series; I'm reading Endling , Maria Reva's Ukraine-set darkly comic novel of an unlikely journey; and I'm reading Jo Harkin's Tudor-era historical fiction The Pretender . What are you reading, bookworms? 01 A Steeping of Blood (Blood and Tea #2) by Hafsah Faizal The first installment in Hafsah Faizal's Blood and Tea series offered intriguing secrets, a swirling mystery, terrible betrayal, heartwarming found family, steady action, and vampires. That book ended with the city reeling from a night of death and destruction. In this final book in the duology, grieving Arthie Casimir and her makeshift gang--Flick, Jin, and vampire leader Laith--are eager to upend Flick's mother's political stronghold and to set things to rights, achieving some justice. For my review of the first book in this series, please see A Tempest of Tea . Faizal is also the author of We Hunt the Flame . I'm listening to this novel as an audiobook. 02 Endling by Maria Reva Roving scientist Yeva is only dating in the Ukrainian marriage industry to earn money to rescue and preserve her precious snails. The desperate Westerners hoping to find docile wives to take home fund her efforts more efficiently than the endless grant-writing and vying for enough to get by. When Yeva runs across sisters posing as participants of the marriage industry in order to find their mother, a disappeared activist, the three become entwined in a surprising journey across the country. But when Russia invades Ukraine, it changes everything. Reva is a Ukrainian expat who has spent years keeping track of her family from outside the country. 03 The Pretender by Jo Harkin Harkin crafts a mid-1500s tale set during growing Tudor influence inpired by the real-life, little-known figure of Lambert Simnel. Here, Harkin builds a rich historical fiction story of John Collan, a ten-year-old who transforms from peasant to claimant to the throne after being told that his father is no farmer, but the Earl of Warwick. John is soon navigating the world of court, political machinations, and threats upon his life. He has two choices: he must become king or die in battle. He befriends a new ally, young Joan, who has similarly limited avenues: she must marry or become a nun. I received a prepublication edition of this title (published in April of this year, eeks) courtesy of Knopf and NetGalley. For my review of Jo Harkin's speculative fiction Tell Me an Ending , please click this link .

Bossy Book Gift Ideas Each year I offer lists of Bossy book gift ideas for the holidays, including a number of books I'll personally be giving as gifts (if you're on my gift list, please avert your eyes!). This is the only time I post about books I may not have read: promising reads for particular people in my family and circle of friends. As in my book list from last week, the books here were all published in 2025, so it's their first appearance on my site. I hope you find a book to delight someone you love--or to give to yourself! You can also check my past Bossy gift idea lists (linked below) for quirky books, perennial classics, modern favorites, nonfiction must-haves, or other titles that might be perfect for the people on your holiday list! 2025 Bossy Book Gift Guides 2025 Bossy Book Ideas for Your Holiday Gift List 2024 Bossy Book Gift Guides Bossy Holiday Book Gift Ideas: Science and Nature Bossy Holiday Book Gift Ideas: Cookbooks Bossy Holiday Book Gift Ideas: Sports and Recreation Nonfiction Bossy Holiday Book Gift Ideas: Books about Music Bossy Holiday Gift Ideas: Novels for Everyone on Your List 2023 Bossy Book Gift Guides Shhh! Bossy Book Gift Ideas: Science and the Natural World Shhh! Bossy Book Gift Ideas: Sports Nonfiction Shhh! Bossy Book Gift Ideas: Cookbooks Shhh! Bossy Book Gift Ideas: Books about Media, Movies, and Music 2022 Bossy Book Gift Guides Shhh! Holiday Cookbook Gift Ideas   Shhh! Coffee Table Bossy Book Gift Ideas   Shhh! Science and Nature Bossy Book Gift Ideas   Shhh! Bossy Nonfiction Book Gift Ideas   2021 Bossy Book Gift Guides Shhh! Book Gift Ideas for the Holidays Shhh! Six More Book Gift Ideas for the Holidays Shhh! Nonfiction and Hobby Book Gift Ideas for the Holidays Shhh! Kid and Teen Book Gift Ideas for the Holidays 2020 Bossy Book Gift Guides Shhh! Books I'm Giving as Gifts This Holiday   Shhh! More Book Gift Ideas for the Holidays   Shhh! Book Gifts for Kids and Teens   Shhh! More Book Gifts for Kids and Teens   Bossy Independent Bookstore Love A Bossy book-buying note: If you're buying books this holiday season, please support your local independent bookstore. They need and appreciate our business! (The book covers on Bossy Bookworm link you to Bookshop, a site that supports the beloved indies that keep us swimming in thoughtful book recommendations and excellent customer service all year round.) I love my local independent bookstore, Park Road Books . They have a fantastic selection of titles, staff members offer spot-on recommendations (and sparkling personalities!), and they can order almost anything they don't have in stock. If you're local, please give them a try. For the Info Geek 01 Phenomena: An Infographic Guide to Almost Everything by Camille Juzeau Colorful, contemporary illustrations on 124 topics shape this intriguing, modern version of an encyclopedia perfect for infographic fans. Anchored in scientific research, Phenomena explores a wide range of scientific, historical, and cultural subjects that overlap and blend into one another, creating a loose narrative around the visual representations. The striking book makes accessible topics ranging from dinosaur size to the wonder of fireflies, from the mysteries of the Big Bang to the anatomy of snowflakes, from permafrost to the history of yoga, and from magnificent maps of animal migrations to space pollution, Phenomena can be explored alone in short bursts or exclaimed over in a group. For the Empty Nesters or Grandparents 02 A Meal for Two: Recipes to Treat Your Favorite People by Emily Ezekiel Whether the cook is offering a nourishing meal to a best friend, parent, roommate, or partner, A Meal for Two 's offerings range from quick, 15-minute recipes ( Crispy Gnocchi with Corn, Ricotta & Spinach, or Cheeseburger Tacos) to a slightly more involved situation (Schnitzel with Kohlrabi Slaw or Vodka Gochujang pasta), to more fancy weekend endeavors ( Spicy Makhani Paneer Curry & Fresh Parathas), plus desserts and drinks for two, and tips for leftovers. The 95 recipes can inspire a reader learning to cook for a new person in their life, an empty nester reshaping mealtimes, or someone cozied in on a Saturday for an elaborate dinner. For the Janeite or Gilded Age Fan 03 Jane Austen's Fashion Bible by Ros Ballaster This year marks the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen's birth, and I've loved the many Jane tributes and renewed attention for the author. Jane Austen's Fashion Bible showcases color illustrations from Regency magazine La Belle Assemblée and are paired with passages from Austen's novels such as Pride and Prejudice , Mansfield Park , and Emma : " From elaborate evening gowns and elegant walking dresses to charming seaside outfits, Jane Austen's Fashion Bible brings to life the world of Jane Austen." Ros Ballaster is a writer and a professor at Oxford University who focuses on eighteenth-century literature and is an expert on Jane Austen. For the Coulda-Been-a-Marine-Biologist or Coffee Table Book Fanatic 04 Wild Ocean: A Journey to the Earth's Last Wild Coasts by Peter and Beverly Pickford I was recently at a Favorite Things party where a coffee table book was the focus of sanctioned stealing. It was a book of beautiful tennis courts around the world and a tennis-playing crowd, but I think a beautiful coffee table book is a widely coveted item. Beauty and luxury, thick pages, and the secrets another world inside--who could resist? The acclaimed photographers who created this startlingly beautiful book first spent four years researching, documenting, and exploring coastal habitats, capturing areas of largely untouched oceans and adjoining coastlines and between them, where most marine life exists. For the Mystery and Puzzle Lover 05 You are the Detective: The Creeping Hand Murder by Maureen Johnson and Jay Cooper November 1933. London. Seven people receive mysterious letters. Someone knows their terrible secrets. They are summoned to a posh townhouse where one is stabbed right in front of the others, but somehow no one saw a thing. Can you help Scotland Yard solve the mystery? This interactive locked-room mystery allows readers to identify the murderer in a grisly crime, after considering various suspects, reading police interviews, viewing crime scene illustrations, and studying newspaper clippings. Maureen Johnson is also the author of Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village (a book I mentioned in a previous gift list ), as well as the young adult Truly Devious mystery series (here's a link to my review of book five , with links to each of the prior installments) and other novels. For the Biology Major or Science Buff 06 Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy by Mary Roach Mary Roach is smart, curious, funny, and simply the best at taking a scientific topic and diving in, bringing a reader along for a strange, sometimes stomach-turning, always fascinating ride. In Replaceable You , Roach explores the evolving, advancing science of body part replacements, venturing into a burn unit in Boston, a xeno-pigsty in China, and a stem cell "hair nursery" in San Diego; spending time with an iron lung from the 1950s; and traveling across Mongolia with cataract surgeons. She interviews "researchers and surgeons, amputees and ostomates, printers of kidneys and designers of wearable organs." Mary Roach is also the author of other nonfiction works, including Grunt , Stiff , and, most recently, Fuzz .

Book two of the series sees our septuagenarian characters each trekking their own paths while working cooperatively to solve a new mystery. They show vulnerability and strength, use their instincts and smarts to outsmart criminals, and grow. I laughed while listening to this one; Osman's series has me hooked. Elizabeth, Joyce, Ron and Ibrahim are septuagenarians feeling let down after the thrills, danger, and success of their first solved mystery (related in The Thursday Murder Club ). But things start getting interesting when a piece of Elizabeth's past is illuminated. Her ex-husband shows up, under the protection of fellow MI-5 spies, suspected of having stolen 20 million dollars' worth of diamonds and professing to still be in love with her. And someone has it in for him, which means danger for all. Not everyone is who they seem, and someone the group trust's may have let greed and deception compromise everything. I love that Elizabeth and the crew each have somewhat of their own individual paths in this installment, yet work cooperatively as in book one. Ibrahim turns inward and needs his friends to push him back to full form; Ron soars as he playacts and explores his tough-guy tendencies; and Joyce is more self-assured and independent than ever. Meanwhile, Elizabeth almost outsmarts herself as she explores who is not who they say they are, considers others' various layered motivations, works creative angles, and helps set up a grand finale. The group's friendship with local police officers continues, and the officers' private lives are beefier in this book as well (I liked the peek into their private lives and potential love interests). Meanwhile, Bogdan continues to steal the show character-wise with his gruff kindness to and friendship with the crowd and particularly Stephen, who has dementia; his handyman prowess and ability to get done anything needed; his unshakeable demeanor; and his complete loyalty. The main protagonists' tendencies and personalities have room to shine in book two of the Thursday Murder Club series, and Osman allows for vulnerabilities and also moments where the characters come into their own. Osman writes older characters with grace, not relying on archetypes but serving up poignancy, dialogue that made me laugh, and grand adventure that keeps his protagonists inspired and engaged. I listened to The Man Who Died Twice  as a library audiobook. More about This Series Richard Osman is an author and also a producer and television presenter. The Thursday Murder Club is a five-book series, and there's a film based on the first book. For my review of the first book in this series, The Thursday Murder Club , please check click this link .

Elston's first adult novel ticked all of my mystery-reading boxes: a con artist, fake identity, dangerous boss, complicated mark, trusty sidekick, clever maneuvering, and non-manipulative twists. I can't wait to read her next mystery. Evie Porter is embracing her current fake identity and getting closer to her mark Ryan--who she's lured into being her boyfriend. Now she awaits her mysterious boss Mr. Smith's instructions about the information he needs her to obtain to take down Ryan or his associates, she's not sure which. After what happened on her last job, she can't afford to make mistakes. Mr. Smith could make life unpleasant--or abruptly shortened--if she fails. And he seems to be throwing curveballs at her on purpose. But Evie knows that since her desperate entry into this powerful, dangerous world, its tricky elements, its constant deception, and its hefty paycheck, she has always been one of the best. She expects to manage this job--whatever it may turn out to be--without much difficulty. But the situation isn't exactly what it seems, and when a woman comes to town using Evie's birth name, which only her boss was aware of, Evie isn't sure whether she's being tested or whether she's being set up for sabotage. I loved the key elements of this story: the capable con woman, the past coming back to haunt her, the complicated mark, the trusted sidekick, the tricky cross and double-cross, and Elston's non-manipulative, delightful twists. This was smart and intriguing, a fast and compelling read, with a main protagonist I was rooting for, and it ticked all of my mystery-reading boxes. I can't wait to read Elston's upcoming mystery, Anatomy of an Alibi , scheduled for publication January 13. More from Ashley Elston This is Ashley Elston's first adult novel. She is also the author of six young adult books, including The Lying Woods , This Is Our Story , The Rules for Disappearing , and The Rules for Breaking .

Seth Haddon's slim science fiction debut offers action and a risky space quest, revenge, and love, but it's also a poignant, lovely story about being seen for your true self, being vulnerable, and thinking beyond traditional standards. Wylla's ship has seen better days, and she's desperate for a break. When she catches wind of a valuable, mysterious piece of technology on another planet, she banks on her wiliness and speed to beat other treasure hunters to it. Wylla's own mask is outdated, and scavenging the cutting-edge mask would give her powers she couldn't have dreamed of. Masks bestow upon the wearers the instincts, abilities, and reaction times of the animals after which they're modeled. But the mask Wylla is after also turns out to be sentient, and if she's going to wear the mask, she'll need to work with the mask's creator and help it seek vengeance for past injustices. I love a ragtag crew on a quest (you can check out other titles with this theme that I've reviewed here ), and Volatile Memory is action-packed entertainment, but more importantly it's poignant, exploring issues of bodily autonomy, transgender characters, characters without bodies but with sentient selves, duty and loyalty, revenge and ruthlessness, and mercy and grace. This slim science fiction novel packs a punch. I can't wait to read more of this immersive world and of Haddon's compelling story. More Space Quests Volatile Memory  is Seth Haddon's science fiction debut. I love a story about a ragtag crew on a quest (you can check out other titles with this theme that I've reviewed here ).

The Books I'm Reading Now Library audiobook alert: I'm listening to the twisty mystery First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston; I'm listening to The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman; and I'm listening to author Arundhati Roy's memoir about her mother, Mother Mary Comes to Me . What are you reading, bookworms? 01 First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston Evie Porter is embracing her current fake identity and getting closer to her mark Ryan--who she's lured into being her boyfriend. Now she awaits her mysterious boss Mr. Smith's instructions on what information he needs her to obtain to take down Ryan or his associates. After what happened on her last job, she can't afford to make mistakes. But Evie is one of the best, and she expects to manage this job--whatever it may turn out to be--without much difficulty. But the situation isn't exactly what it seems, and when a woman comes to town using Evie's birth name, which only her boss knows, Evie isn't sure whether she's being tested or whether she's being set up for sabotage. 02 Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy The author of The God of Small Things shares a memoir around her fierce, tough mother and their complicated relationship. Roy was shaped by the woman she calls "my shelter and my storm," and she tracks back to her childhood in Kerala, India, and how her single mother founded a school, through to Roy as an award-winning author, to her mother's 2022 death and Roy's surprisingly powerful, ongoing reactions to it. I'm listening to this as a library audiobook. For more Bossy reviews of memoirs please check out the titles at this link . 03 The Man Who Died Twice (Thursday Murder Club #2) by Richard Osman Elizabeth, Joyce, Ron and Ibrahim are septuagenarians feeling let down after the thrills, danger, and success of their first solved mystery (related in The Thursday Murder Club ). But things start getting interesting when Elizabeth's ex-husband shows up, under the protection of fellow MI-5 spies, suspected of having stolen 20 million dollars' worth of diamonds. And someone has it in for him, which means danger for all. I'm listening to The Man Who Died Twice as a library audiobook. For my review of the first book in this series, The Thursday Murder Club , please check click this link .

Bossy Book Gift Ideas Each year I offer lists of Bossy book gift ideas for the holidays, including a number of books I'll personally be giving as gifts (if you're on my gift list, please avert your eyes!). This is the only time I post about books I may not have read: promising reads for particular people in my family and circle of friends. The books here were all published in 2025, so it's their first appearance on my site. I hope you find a book or two in these lists to delight someone you love--or to give to yourself! You can also check my past Bossy gift idea lists (linked below) for quirky books, perennial classics, modern favorites, nonfiction must-haves, or other titles that might be perfect for the people on your holiday list! 2024 Bossy Book Gift Guides Bossy Holiday Book Gift Ideas: Science and Nature Bossy Holiday Book Gift Ideas: Cookbooks Bossy Holiday Book Gift Ideas: Sports and Recreation Nonfiction Bossy Holiday Book Gift Ideas: Books about Music Bossy Holiday Gift Ideas: Novels for Everyone on Your List 2023 Bossy Book Gift Guides Shhh! Bossy Book Gift Ideas: Science and the Natural World Shhh! Bossy Book Gift Ideas: Sports Nonfiction Shhh! Bossy Book Gift Ideas: Cookbooks Shhh! Bossy Book Gift Ideas: Books about Media, Movies, and Music 2022 Bossy Book Gift Guides Shhh! Holiday Cookbook Gift Ideas   Shhh! Coffee Table Bossy Book Gift Ideas   Shhh! Science and Nature Bossy Book Gift Ideas   Shhh! Bossy Nonfiction Book Gift Ideas   2021 Bossy Book Gift Guides Shhh! Book Gift Ideas for the Holidays Shhh! Six More Book Gift Ideas for the Holidays Shhh! Nonfiction and Hobby Book Gift Ideas for the Holidays Shhh! Kid and Teen Book Gift Ideas for the Holidays 2020 Bossy Book Gift Guides Shhh! Books I'm Giving as Gifts This Holiday   Shhh! More Book Gift Ideas for the Holidays   Shhh! Book Gifts for Kids and Teens   Shhh! More Book Gifts for Kids and Teens   Bossy Independent Bookstore Love A Bossy book-buying note: If you're buying books this holiday season, please support your local independent bookstore. They need and appreciate our business! (The book covers on Bossy Bookworm link you to Bookshop, a site that supports the beloved indies that keep us swimming in thoughtful book recommendations and excellent customer service all year round.) I love my local independent bookstore, Park Road Books . They have a fantastic selection of titles, staff members offer spot-on recommendations (and sparkling personalities!), and they can order almost anything they don't have in stock. If you're local, please give them a try. For the Bird Lover 01 Bird Talk: Hilariously Accurate Ways to Identify Birds by the Sounds They Make by Becca Rowland I have multiple bird lovers on my gift list--and if you look through past Bossy gift lists you'll find other great bird-related titles. Bird Talk offers 101 bird songs accompanied by fun, informative ways to link a sound to a specific bird and remember it. Whether a bird sounds like a kettle whistling, a truck beeping as it backs up, or as though it is calling "cheeseburger, cheeseburger," Rowland lets you know which common or rare bird you're hearing. Author Becca Rowland is also the book's illustrator. Bonus: I'm also giving this book recipient the game Bird Call , which is described as a lively and delightfully absurd five-minute party game for three to eight players. For the Fan of Five-Star Novels 02 The Correspondent by Virginia Evans This quiet, epistolary novel witnesses the creaky, sometimes difficult shifts and realizations that a septuagenarian achieves around her health, children, past secrets, friendship, romantic relationships, and previously unknown blood relatives near the end of her life. It's lovely to witness main protagonist Sybil as she slowly allows herself to face the past, addressing difficult issues in the present, and allowing for surprising adventures in her life. The Correspondent  offers messy, imperfect characters in often difficult situations, and they find their way through by changing and growing. This was a rare five-star Bossy read for me. You can find my full review here , and you can find other five-star Bossy reviews here . For the Teen (or Grown) Sports Fan 03 Expensive Basketball by Shea Serrano I mentioned Shea Serrano's book Basketball (And Other Things) in a past gift list, and it's a title my teens have loved, along with Movies (And Other Things) and Hip-Hop (And Other Things) , which are all big hits around here. Serrano's Expensive Basketball explores iconic moments from the world of basketball, particularly those that can't be quantified or expressed through statistics. From "The Final 196 seconds of Kobe Bryant's Career" to "Shaq's Three-Year Path of Destruction"; and from "The Sue Bird Backpedal" to "The Twelve Iconic Game 7s" and much more, Serrano uses wit and helpful obsession to explore pivotal players and points in history. I noticed that one review claimed "all of the chapters are bangers," so I think this is going to be a success. The book features original illustrations by Ian Klarer. For the Tween Mystery Fan 04 The Midwatch Institute for Wayward Girls by Judith Rossell Along with The Egypt Game and The Westing Game , two classic favorites from my own childhood that I push on preteen readers whenever I get the chance, I'll be giving a certain someone this 2025 title, described as " a whimsical, adventure-filled mystery about a young orphan at the edge of society who finds herself at the center of a city's secrets." Maggie Fishbone finds herself at The Midwatch Institute, an orphanage where she expects to meet a bleak existence. But the place is filled with young ladies solving mysteries, protecting the city, and fighting bad guys. Judith Rossell is also the author of the Stella Montgomery series. For the History Lover 05 Embers of the Hands: Hidden Histories of the Viking Age by Eleanor Barraclough I have a personal interest in Viking stories, so I was intrigued by the sound of Eleanor Barraclough's nonfiction Embers of the Hands . Barraclough examines artifacts such as " remnants of wooden gaming boards, elegant antler combs, doodles by imaginative children and bored teenagers, and runes that reveal hidden loves, furious curses, and drunken spouses summoned home from the pub" to extrapolate about everyday life in medieval Nordic lands, asserting that our idea of ruthless, roaming warriors is that of a minority of Vikings. Barraclough is also the author of Imagining the Spiritual North and Beyond the Northlands: Viking Voyages and the Old Norse Sagas . For the Music Lover 06 Heartbreaker: A Memoir by Mike Campbell I'm a fan of memoirs, particularly musicians' memoirs, and I'm excited to read Mike Campbell's Heartbreaker --and to give it to a music lover on my gift list. Heartbreaker is described as " a fast-paced, tender-hearted rock ’n’ roll memoir for the ages, Mike Campbell’s  Heartbreaker  is part rags-to-riches story and part raucous, seat-of-the-pants adventure, recounting Campbell’s life and times as lead guitarist of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. " For what it's worth, this title currently has 4.7 of 5 stars on Goodreads, one of the highest ratings I've seen. For more musicians' memoirs, please check out the books at this link and this one as well.

Culpability shapes questions around artificial intelligence--and societal and individual responsibility for it--around imperfect characters who have drifted apart and must now recognize each other's fallibility, whether through sacrificing or trying to protect each other. The Cassidy-Shaws are riding in their family's autonomous minivan when it crashes into another vehicle. Seventeen-year-old Charlie, the twins, their father Noah, and their mother Lorelei, an AI leader, are all shaken by the accident. But they're also all harboring secrets, and there's more to the circumstances surrounding the accident than meets the eye. Charlie, a promising lacrosse player headed to UNC in the fall, who was behind the wheel, tries to navigate a police investigation, guided by his father. Then, oddly, a tech mogul enters the story whose past intersected with Lorelei's, and they're both behaving oddly. Meanwhile the twins aren't sharing all they know. As each of the characters copes with feelings of guilt and responsibility, their family is shaken to the core. Culpability explores accountability and questions around the use of AI, making them personal, life-and-death, and far-reaching. Faulted characters reckon with their own imperfect motivations alongside the repercussions of human-created--but complicated, self-evolving--AI. Mistakes are made in life, Holsinger reminds us, and we must cope with the consequences of decisions, carelessness, overconfidence, or merely chance. But inserting a layer of artificial intelligence on top of this dramatically complicates things. Here, AI-directed decision-making and results call into question stark black-and-white senses of situations that are often far more gray. The relationship between Noah and Lorelei seemed to have spiraled away from them before we enter their story. Their dynamic showed itself to be more tangled and nuanced than it felt originally, and I was intrigued by watching their shifts, accommodations, and grace for each other. I didn't care deeply about the characters in Culpability , but I was interested in the lavish setting for the tech mogul, the family's attempt to circle up at the waterfront rental, the exploration of wealth and its ability to shape a narrative, and the protagonists' sometimes misguided attempts to protect each other. The pace of the story is swift, and Holsinger keeps the reader uncomfortable as the story draws to a close, with plenty of messy, imperfect resolutions shaped by money, politics, carefully crafted realities, and legal punch. More from This Author Bruce Holsinger is also the author of The Gifted School, The Displacements , and works of nonfiction. You might also be interested in my Bossy reviews of these other novels about AI .

Bunny begins with an outcast main protagonist in a MFA program who's infuriated by her twee fellow seminar students. It builds into an increasingly unhinged, intriguing phantasmagoria, equal parts dark nightmare and outrageously silly absurdity. I was intrigued by the sound of We Love You, Bunny , the sequel to Mona Awad's novel Bunny , so I went back to first read this book. Samantha is a scholarship MFA student at the progressive Warren University in New England. An outsider, a solitary type immersed in her own sometimes dark writing, she is disgusted by the rest of her cohort--childish women who call each other "Bunny," dress in twee outfits, speak in high voices, and, aside from their hilariously outrageous creations (one writes what she calls proems, “etched on panes of glass using a dagger-shaped diamond she wears around her neck; another presents "a series of unpunctuated vignettes about a woman named Z who pukes up soup while thinking nihilistic thoughts, then has anal sex in a trailer") , seem to be of one unimaginative mind and to operate in a mindless echo chamber of nonsense. But when the Bunnies invite Samantha to their "Smut Salon," and into their hive mind of dottiness. She becomes oddly entrenched in their circle, then increasingly unsure of herself and vulnerable. She ditches her few true friends, also outsiders, and feels at a loss to determine the line between reality and richly imagined dark, seemingly impossible developments. The Bunnies are vapid, petty, entitled, and aggressively manipulative. They feel shocking in their existence, partially because they managed to secure spots in a graduate writing program yet seemingly have almost nothing to say. When they draw Samantha into their circle, they are maddeningly underhanded and scheming as they work her over and force her into a cultlike assimilation--and Samantha is infuriating in her simpering, inexplicable, growing desire for their approval. But they are surprisingly powerful; their true "work" ("the work" is referenced ad nauseam in the seminar the Bunnies and Samantha share) is ambitious, outrageous, horrifying, and powerful, taking on a life of its own. Bunny feels like an excoriation of MFA programs and wealthy attendees; a harsh take on conformity; and a dark take on the consequences of wanting too much. But just as the novel felt as though it were lasting too long for me and began to teeter toward the tedious; just as I wondered if I could stand to listen to the Bunnies' perfectly horrible, put-on baby voices for another couple of hours (narrator Sophie Amoss deftly handles the voices in this novel to great effect), the story went in a truly unhinged direction that intrigued me. My friend Amy described this novel perfectly as a fever dream. Reality, dream, desire, memory, and guilt all become intertwined, and it's difficult for Samantha--and for the reader--to discern what is true, what occurred, what is allegory, what is the stuff of nightmares. A couple of scenes are horrifying, some are darkly hilarious, and Awad clearly delights in the absurd. It's difficult to describe how bonkers this story is. I was surprised by how hooked I became on it. This is not a book I would universally recommend, but for an audience that appreciates cutting satire and a bananas story, this one will fit the bill. I listened to Bunny  as a library audiobook. More from this Author and More Oddball Novels Mona Awad is also the author of Rouge , All's Well , and 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl . You might also be interested in these Bossy reviews of oddball or offbeat novels.

Woodworking explores interconnected transgender characters' experiences, fears, challenges, and joys as they work toward living true, fulfilling lives. Emily St. James's debut novel is poignant, funny, heartbreaking, often surprising, and heartwarming. It's called woodworking. Someday they will wake up and you will be gone. To have a future, you cannot have a past. You will have to disappear into the woodwork to finally be seen. Emily St. James crafts a tender, funny story with zing about a secretly trans high school teacher in a small town in South Dakota who befriends the only other transgender person she is aware of, one of her students. Erica Skyberg is recently divorced and feeling adrift...except that now she is positioned to live into her true self more fully than ever. (When her given male name is referenced in the audiobook, it sounds like static, as she does not relate to it and it's a dead name for her.) Young Abigail has her own issues; she has fled her fundamentally Christian (and abusive) parents and lives with her older sister and her boyfriend. She's annoyed at first at the prospect of shepherding her teacher through her own self-discovery, but the two develop a friendship that ultimately goes deeper than the One Big Thing they have in common, and soon others are taking notice, criticizing their bond, and asking probing questions. The novel flits between the stories of three women from disparate backgrounds, drastically different paths to becoming themselves, and poignant recognition among them of their struggles and victories, even as they diverge in their approaches to living fulfilling existences. The book title comes from the idea of trans people blending in and fading into the woodwork. The quote at the start of this review references a conversation between a frightened young trans woman and a mentor of sorts; later in the novel the young woman realizes that the mention of "woodworking" wasn't meant to be a handbook, but a warning about hiding identity. I was most touched by the interconnectedness and love, the universal elements of the characters' experiences as well as their unique perspectives and circumstances, and the reimagined possibilities for their futures. Woodworking offers funny moments and touching bonds. St. James doesn't lay out neat endings tied up with bows, but there is promise and hope for each main protagonist. I received a prepublication audiobook edition of this spring 2025 title courtesy of Libro.fm and Penguin Random House Audio. Other Titles You Might Like Woodworking is Emily St. James's first novel. You might also want to check out Bossy reviews of a few more books with transgender characters and protagonists.

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading I, Medusa , Ayana Gray's recently published story from the perspective of the fabled villainess; I'm reading The Sideways Life of Denny Voss by Holly Kennedy; and I'm listening to the bizarre novel Bunny by Mona Awad. What are you reading, bookworms? 01 I, Medusa by Ayana Gray I love an exploration of a villain's own version of events ( Wicked , anyone?). In Ayana Gray's I, Medusa , Meddy feels like an outcast in her own family. Her parents are (minor) gods, her siblings are beautiful and immortal, and Meddy simply wants an escape from isolated island life and to find her own adventure. When Athena takes her under her wing, Meddy trains as a priestess in her temple. But she catches the eye of Poseidon, which turns the tides (see what I did there?) of her fortune forever. I received a prepublication version of I, Medusa courtesy of NetGalley and Random House. If you're interested in or enjoyed this book, you might want to check out a favorite book of mine, Madeline Miller's Circe , which I mentioned in the Greedy Reading List Six Wonderfully Witchy Stories to Charm You , and again in my review of Natalie Haynes's A Thousand Ships , a woman-centered retelling of events surrounding the Trojan War. 02 The Sideways Life of Denny Voss by Holly Kennedy Denny lives a quiet life in small-town Minnesota, caring for his elderly mother with the companionship of his blind and deaf Saint Bernard, George. A developmental delay--caused by an accident at his birth--means that his options are limited, but Denny seems to keep finding himself in grave trouble. There was the time he kidnapped a neighbor's pet goose, the time he accidentally aided and abetted a bank robbery, and now he's under arrest for the murder of a candidate for mayor. Trying to do the right thing seems not to work out very well for Denny. To set the record straight, he'll have to uncover painful secrets about his family's past. 03 Bunny by Mona Awad I was intrigued by the sound of We Love You, Bunny , the sequel to Mona Awad's novel Bunny , so I went back to first read this first book. Samantha is a scholarship MFA student at the progressive Warren University in New England. A solitary type immersed in her own sometimes dark writing, she is disgusted by the rest of her cohort--childish women who call each other "Bunny," dress in twee outfits, speak in high voices, and seem to be of one unimaginative mind in a mindless echo chamber of nonsense. But when the Bunnies invite Samantha to their "Smut Salon," she becomes oddly entrenched in their circle, then increasingly unsure of herself and vulnerable. She ditches her few true friends and feels at a loss as to the line between reality and richly imagined dark, seemingly impossible developments. I'm listening to Bunny as a library audiobook.

Bossy Favorites of the Month Here are my six favorite reads of November. I hope if you're heading into a long weekend that you find time to cozy in and read something wonderful. What were some of your favorite reads this month? 01 A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar I can't stop thinking about this fascinating near-future climate-change story of desperation, loyalty, and determination in Kolkata, India, and how a tiny bit of empathy might have unraveled the increasingly devastating whirlwind of conflict between the two main protagonists, who are each both hero and villain. In a near-future Kolkata, India, Ma is the manager of a food pantry for those in need. She's days away from bringing her daughter and aging father to meet her husband in Michigan. But the famine is devastating in Kolkata, and Ma has been skimming food supplies for her own household. She justifies this to herself as a temporary measure before her departure. But a desperate client of the food pantry has noticed her theft and becomes determined to strike back. And by happenstance, this revenge also threatens Ma's family's ability to travel to a land of plenty. Majumdar twists the situation between thief and mother, continually shifting the reader's loyalties as each character makes decisions that spin off into increasingly destructive consequences. The more each digs in--bitter, resentful, greedy, desperate--the worse each of their situations become. I can't stop thinking about this book and the mirror it holds to a reader, forcing an uncomfortable examination of excess, generosity, empathy, loyalty, but also greed, grasping, scarcity, and, in the end, encouraging a critical look at what we feel is our duty to one other in this world. This was stressful, often claustrophobic, and fascinating. I received a prepublication version of this title courtesy of NetGalley and Knopf. For my full review of this book please see A Guardian and a Thief . Megha Majumdar is also the author of A Burning . 02 Hemlock & Silver by T. Kingfisher Based on my two Bossy reads so far, T. Kingfisher writes my favorite kind of fantasy novel: a wonderfully oddball main protagonist, a strange adventure, a mystery to be solved, and simmering romance with No Swooning or Annoying Drama whatsoever. I loved this story about an expert in poisons, with banter and clever deduction in an imagined world. In Hemlock & Silver , Anja is a healer who since her young cousin's preventable death has obsessively focused on learning about, combating, and teaching others about poisons. To determine antidotes and treatments, she must regularly ingest deadly substances, but duty calls. She's somewhat of a loner, part of a beloved family, and a merchant's daughter, but she's plainly dressed, tall, work-driven, and uninterested in social niceties, so she spends her time exhaustively researching and trying to help those who have ingested a potentially harmful substance. But when the king personally arrives at her workshop, desperate for help with his sole surviving daughter, who he suspects is being poisoned, Anja must not only navigate the ins and outs of royal customs, adjust her practical wardrobe, and leave her personal research behind to travel to the king's distant palace. I am allllll in on Kingfisher's novels. Everyone who recommended this author's work to me was correct, and I have no one to blame but myself for the delay in diving in. Kingfisher imagines richly imagined fantasy worlds, and within them she slots fantastically imperfect and wondrous main protagonists whose thoughts, dialogue, motivations, and actions have me completely hooked. Romantic undercurrents are wonderful, and there is No Swooning or Ridiculousness. This is my fantasy sweet spot. For my full review of this book please see Hemlock & Silver . 03 Awake: A Memoir by Jen Hatmaker Jen Hatmaker's memoir explores her shock, grief, then growth after the end of her marriage, which she tells in her signature bold, frank, lionhearted manner while always displaying her deep love for her family and friends. Jen Hatmaker, who was married before she could legally have a drink and who built her identity as a woman dedicated to her family, her religion, and her community, found her world turned upside down when she discovered in 2020 that her husband of over 25 years, the father of their five children, was having an affair. Hatmaker's frank, sassy, conversational tone and her focus on authenticity, joy, and enthusiastic growth are evident here. She doesn't shy away from exploring heartbreak, betrayal, and shock, nor does she mine those experiences for drama or sit in them for a gratuitously long time. She protects her children's privacy. While sharing what she learns was her husband's extended infidelity and her world-stopping surprise at discovering it, she doesn't excoriate him, and she acknowledges the weaknesses in their marriage that existed prior to their split. I love reading the stories of lives lived, so I frequently read memoirs. If you're interested in the stories of famous or little-known people's lives, you might want to check out these Bossy reviews of memoirs . For my full review, please check out Awake . 04 The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai Desai's first novel in decades is a 688-page tale that meanders through India, New York, family and romantic relationships, and career false starts, with missteps, mysterious, powerful magical realism elements, and an undercurrent of darkness and despair. The messy resolutions felt appropriately hard-fought after the characters' extended struggles. Sonia is living away from her Indian family while she studies writing in Vermont, and after growing up used to having multiple family members around, feeding and speaking to her constantly, Sonia is still adjusting to the quiet of college, only having one housemate, and the cold and snow. Sunny is a journalist in New York City, eager to escape his overbearing family home in India. This is not a straightforward novel. Desai offers an ambitiously meandering tale in which many issues stretch out, increasingly twisted and unresolved, for much (sometimes all) of the book, often with little sense of progress for our characters. Desai weaves darkness, powerful superstition, and magical realism through a wide-ranging story about family, tradition, fear, missteps, danger, and obtuse elements whose significance only in the end become clear(er) to our main protagonists. The situations around relationships and life choices are often messy, complex, mystifying, and frustrating. Current-day conflicts link to generational trauma, storytelling, and mysterious power. Kiran Desai is also the author of The Inheritance of Loss . I listened to the 688-page The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny  as a 25.5-hour audiobook. You can read my full review by clicking this link . 05 The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman Grossman's reimagined Arthurian legend gives center stage to a ragtag band of misfits, celebrates diversity, and builds a patchwork of adventures, discovery, and widened horizons culminating in a satisfying new, reimagined path forward. Collum is an instinctually gifted, strong knight who has literally fought for sword training as a lowly ward; his family has little use for him; and his heart is set upon joining King Arthur's court. But when he finally makes his way to the Round Table, only elderly, impaired, has-been knights are left, and he learns that Arthur was killed weeks earlier. But Collum refuses to believe that a life as a knight is no longer possible for him. Along with Merlin's apprentice, Nimue, he becomes determined to usher in a new age, where Excalibur will be reclaimed, Camelot will be secure from would-be usurpers, and the kingdom will be inspired again by bravery and might . I appreciated the epic length of the book (688 pages), in which each remaining knight gets page time and a recounting of key adventures. But the many points of view and meandering stories also felt a little broad at times, and I wished for more focus on Collum, while understanding that his early-days position didn't warrant the majority of the storytelling. Grossman addresses issues of diversity in satisfying fashion; a transgender knight, a Muslim knight, and a gay knight are all represented. The full roster of knights--and the women who hold important roles in the tale--are all misfits who don't inspire great confidence, but collectively, they fight to find a path forward in a world that is changing around them. I listened to The Bright Sword  as an audiobook (it was twenty-three hours long). Click here   for my full review. 06 In the Wild Light by Jeff Zentner Zentner's wonderful young adult story of two Appalachian-born teen best friends plunged into an elite Northeastern boarding school allows for missteps and struggles as well as a satisfying boatload of self-discovery, growth, soaring success, and a path to a fulfilling future. In rural Sawyer, Tennessee, teenaged Cash mows lawns and lives with his beloved grandparents since his mother's death from an opioid overdose. He loves the river, the wilderness, and the quiet of his Appalachian hometown, but he doesn't dare imagine a bright future for himself, here or anywhere else . Cash's best friend Delaney is a genius who daydreams while working at Dairy Queen, and she's always braced for her mother's drug-addled, erratic behavior. Zentner allows complex scenarios to wriggle and twist into something new. Characters stumble, struggle, grieve, and feel alone. They fight, find their inner strength, buck up, and go on. And they care for each other, dare to imagine alternate futures, take big swings, and allow for unanticipated joys and developments. This ticked all of my boxes for a favorite young adult read. I listened to In the Wild Light  as an audiobook. For my full review, please check out the page at this link .

Thankful for Five-Star Bossy Favorites I'm always thankful for books and reading, so I wanted to reshare some of my five-star reads from the past in case you need a great long-weekend read or a book gift idea for the holidays. I always hope to love a book, but a five-star Bossy read is fairly rare. A book I rate five stars often makes me feel all the feelings, it's typically intriguing and makes me think, and it's usually tough for me to put down. You might also like the books on my past Greedy Reading Lists Thankful for Five-Star Bossy Reads and Six Five-Star Bossy Reads to Check Out . Or you can search the site for my Five-Star B ook Reviews . Which books have been standouts for you? Do you have all-time favorite reads that you steadily recommend to others? 01 The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot by Marianne Cronin Cronin's debut novel explores mortality, vulnerability, surprising moments of joy and reflection, an irresistible young protagonist, and a wonderful array of friends who are like family. Lenni and Margot  was one of my top twelve reads the year I read it. Seventeen-year-old Lenni Pettersson lives in the terminal ward at the Glasgow Princess Royal Hospital. Her life expectancy isn't long, but Lenni still has a lot she wants to do and be. In the hospital's arts and crafts class, she meets 83-year-old Margot, a spirited, rebellious new friend. Collectively they've been around 100 years, but this just doesn't feel like enough, and they each want to leave their mark on the world. With the help of Father Arthur, the hospital chaplain, and a kind palliative care nurse, the friends make a plan to create one hundred paintings, one to represent each of their years of life. This goal adds structure to the novel, but the story is far richer than the characters' mission to create art. I don’t usually read books again, but I could use a copy of my own to highlight upon rereading. The Sparrow took a little time to get going for me, but then I was blown away. If you're interested in books that explore mortality, you might want to check out Six Powerful Memoirs about Facing Mortality . Another novel I loved that involves a precocious, wise, reflective, tough young protagonist is This Is All He Asks of You . For my full review of this book, please see The One Hundred Years of Lennie and Margot . Marianne Cronin has a new book coming out in December 2024, Eddie Winston Is Looking for Love . 02 White Houses by Amy Bloom White Houses  is gorgeously written, exhaustingly researched historical fiction about Eleanor Roosevelt and her love, Lorena Hickock, and it was a five-star read for me. Oh, this book! Bloom’s writing is exquisite. The characters in White Houses  are funny, heartbreaking, and feel alive. I loved the behind-the-scenes peeks at the residential rooms of the Roosevelt White House (which, Bloom recounts in interviews, functioned more like a not-very-fancy boarding house at the time). The dialogue is incredible, and the faulted main players are irresistible. The final paragraphs of the book in "first friend" Lorena Hickock’s voice were so gorgeous, they made me want to weep. What a satisfyingly rich world and story. Bloom is also the author of the heartbreakingly beautiful In Love: A Memoir of Love and Loss , Away , Lucky Us , Come to Me: Stories , and A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You: Stories . Click here for my full review of White Houses . 03 The Winter Soldier by Daniel Mason The Winter Soldier  is a World War I tale full of medical details and lovely, unlikely bonds. This is a five-star read from the author of North Woods . Lucius is a young medical student when World War I sweeps across Europe. With romantic notions in his head about noble work in a field hospital filled with brilliant surgeons, he enlists and heads to his post in the remote Carpathian Mountains. But there he finds one solitary nurse, Sister Margarite, bravely keeping together the makeshift clinic, which has been decimated by typhus. The other doctors have all left. Lucius is surrounded by grave injuries but has never even wielded a scalpel He'll learn more from Sister Margarite--who he's falling for--than he ever could have in his classes. She's been building an immense wealth of practical knowledge while trying to save the broken soldiers. This was wonderful. The details of World War I injuries and methods of treatment were fittingly grim and sometimes gruesome, but Mason's writing is beautiful and evocative, conveying the cold and brutal nature of war and loss, the chilling nature of acts done in coldhearted necessity, and the warm, promising hope of love. For my full review, please see The Winter Soldier . You might also be interested in other reads with World War I settings . 04 Don't Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You by Lucinda Williams Lucinda Williams offers a gritty, honest, captivating, spare yet fully developed memoir in which she explores her musical influences and influential high and low moments in her personal life. In Don't Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You , songwriter, singer, and musician Lucinda Williams shares stories of her childhood, her musical influences, and pivotal moments in her career and personal life. Williams takes us along as she digs into her life's trajectory and the various conflicts, explorations, realizations, and challenges that have shaped her. Her insights into her mindset and her creativity are often offbeat, and they always feel thoughtful. She writes songs about "sex, love, and the state of the world," and in one instance describes musical freedom as feeling like everything is “uncorked." As she digs into the inspirations for her music she quotes her own lyrics--along with, occasionally, others' poems--and it all feels like truth-telling poetry--in her case, often set to music. Don't Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You  was wonderful--spare yet fully developed, often surprising, and always intriguing. For my full review, please click here . You can also check out other memoirs I've read --and more musicians' memoirs . 05 Wrong Place, Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister McAllister offers a smart, intriguing, twisty story that plays with time and offers second chances, revelations, betrayals, deep connections, and an unusual route to uncovering the truth. I loved it. Gillian McAllister's twisty mystery Wrong Place Wrong Time  plays with time, and I love books that play with time. The story begins with a mother awaiting her teenage son's return home late one night. She peers out the window to see him walking down the street--then she sees that he is armed, and to her horror, she sees him kill another man on the street. But when she awakens the next morning bracing to face the living nightmare her family has begun living in, she's relieved to find that her son hasn't killed anyone, he hasn't been arrested, and in fact, none of last night's events have happened after all. She must be losing her mind. But she knows that last night was real. Somehow she's reliving yesterday again. She really and truly is. She can't explain what's happened, but she quickly realizes that now she may be able to stop the murder before it occurs. Can she shift the future by changing the past? The story was fascinating and touching and chilling and sweet. I absolutely loved it. Please click here for my full review of Wrong Place, Wrong Time . And for more books I've reviewed that play with time, check out these titles . 06 You Think It, I'll Say It by Curtis Sittenfeld Sittenfeld shapes fully realized, fascinating characters that stuck with me in the ten stories of You Think It, I'll Say It . I loved it and rated the collection five stars. At the start of this collection I was concerned that this was going to be a short story collection about people making poor choices, and I have loooots of trouble and get verrrry nervous reading those situations. But Sittenfeld has a fascinating way of turning situations on their heads and making the reader sympathetic to absurd, heartbreaking, sometimes dramatic everyday situations, as she does here. The ten stories in You Think It, I'll Say It explore expectations related to gender and relationships while Sittenfeld builds characters whose lives are shaped by missed connections, coincidences--and the aforementioned faulty decision-making. After I finished reading, I kept thinking about the characters and their realizations, compromises, and sometimes their resignation in the face of imperfect circumstances. For my full review, please see You Think It, I'll Say It . You can click here for my review of Sittenfeld's Romantic Comedy , here for my Bossy take on American Wife , and here  for Show Don't Tell: Stories . If you enjoy short story collections, you might like to check out Six Short Story Collections to Wow You  and Six More Short Story Collections I Loved .

The uneven pacing and tangents into bizarre scenarios in Trip made me feel somewhat disconnected from the story, but the moments of dark humor and the promise of an unorthodox payoff kept me reading and consistently curious. Sandra is a documentary producer at a death conference in Nepal when she dies in an unlikely, mundane accident. The majority of the speakers milling around talking at each other and preparing for their presentations are insufferable hacks, but after Sandra's death, it becomes clear that some of the least believable are actually able to communicate with the dead through previously insane-seeming methods. This was one of my favorite elements of the book. Sandra is presented in life as a relatively unsympathetic character, overly sure of herself and often selfish, unwilling to entertain others' ideas or viewpoints. (Her ex-husband Vic is truly insufferable, talking in circles, revoltingly apologetic, and so average as to feel like a gray, humdrum, forgettable human being.) In death, she persists in obtuse behavior before eventually becoming consumed with purpose and trying to get to her son Trip. Sandra is caught in the bardo, a limbo between life and death, and she encounters other stuck characters in strange states; she learns how to temporarily take over a living person's body (just before the dead person advising her transforms into a crow); and although she can't speak or be heard (except by select, inept individuals), she attempts to save her autistic teenaged son Trip, who, through an unlikely series of events, has hitchiked from a therapy school in the Northeast to the center of a hurricane off the coast of Florida and onto a sailboat with a relapsed alcoholic seemingly incapable of ushering them to safety. Trip is Sandra's son, who journeys during the novel (as does Sandra), but the psychedelic cover and zigzagging story of Trip also bring to mind a drug-induced trip and elements that defy logic and traditional structure and understanding. The irregular pacing and abrupt entrance of edgy scenes made the novel feel meandering. There's a scene made up of strange dynamics in which Sandra is perilously stuck in a cave tunnel during an expedition in Nepal and rather than fearing for her life, she is panicked about others touching her feet as they try to extract her. A surreal, extended series of sexual fetish vignettes pop up regarding dead-spirit Sandra and a man from the conference...also, spirit Sandra takes over this man's body and forces him to animate in a bizarre set of darkly funny scenes that feel like Barrodale's Weekend with Bernie . I considered crying uncle on this book early on because I felt whiplashed and steadily confused about what the heck was going on, but I pushed through on this bizarre story in hopes that I could find out. Parts of the novel gelled for me while other scenes and elements headed off metaphorical cliffs, but Trip kept me consistently curious, and the darkly funny moments kept me reading. More from Amie Barrodale Amie Barrodale is also the author of You Are Having a Good Time and William Wei . You might also want to check out my reviews of these offbeat books.

Zentner's wonderful young adult story of two Appalachian-born teen best friends plunged into an elite Northeastern boarding school allows for missteps and struggles as well as a satisfying boatload of self-discovery, growth, soaring success, and a path to a fulfilling future. “You’ll never regret a decision more than the one you make out of fear. Fear tells you to make your life small. Fear tells you to think small. Fear tells you to be small-hearted. Fear seeks to preserve itself, and the bigger you let your life and perspective and heart get, the less air you give fear to survive.” I recently posted about some of my very favorite young adult books, and I just mentally added In the Wild Light to a future list. In rural Sawyer, Tennessee, teenaged Cash mows lawns and lives with his beloved grandparents since his mother's death from an opioid overdose. He loves the river, the wilderness, and the quiet of his Appalachian hometown, but he doesn't dare imagine a bright future for himself, here or anywhere else. This is what you remember of the people you love when they're gone—the ways they knew you that no one else did—even you. In that way, their passing is a death of a piece of yourself. Cash's best friend Delaney is a genius who daydreams while working at Dairy Queen, and she's always braced for her mother's drug-addled, erratic behavior. Before the story starts, Delaney's relentless quest for discovery and Cash's knowledge of the outdoors led to an incredible discovery: in a remote cave Cash directed her to, Delaney found a new strain of mold, and it seems capable of killing antibiotic-resistant bacteria. When Delaney uses this feat to secure full scholarships for her and Cash to attend a boarding school in Connecticut, first she has to convince Cash to go--with the help of his grandparents, his wise aunt, the pull of their deep bond to each other, and her ability to break through his imposter syndrome. Once at the swanky school, they must cope with culture shock, strains on their friendship, and endless new avenues of book knowledge and life experiences. Cash finds himself well outside his comfort zone, wearing Old Navy versions of the uniform, lost in poetry class, unable to afford to zip home to check on his gravely ill grandfather, with an insufferable roommate who won't let Cash forget that his father is an elected representative and powerful enough to crush someone from nowhere like Cash. Zentner teeters on the edge of too-good-to-be-true and too-sweet-to-stand, yet he never steps over the line, staying in satisfying-resolution territory. I loved Cash's innocent first crush, his burgeoning love for poetry, and his bonding with his showstopper of a professor. Zentner allows almost all of the developments I was cheering for to occur without presenting any saccharine scenes or too-easy fixes. Cash's imagery and metaphorical way of seeing the world feels somewhat incongruous with his humble beginnings, but as he dives awkwardly into appreciating and then writing poetry, the poet's eye fits. I hold every memory of him like a match I let burn down to the end, singeing my fingers until it hurts too much to hold. Zentner allows complex scenarios to wriggle and twist into something new. Characters stumble, struggle, grieve, and feel alone. They fight, find their inner strength, buck up, and go on. And they care for each other, dare to imagine alternate futures, take big swings, and allow for unanticipated joys and developments. This ticked all of my boxes for a favorite young adult read. I listened to In the Wild Light  as an audiobook. More Books from This Author Jeff Zentner is also the author of Goodbye Days , a book I listed in the Greedy Reading List Six Fantastic Stand-Alone Young Adult Books , The Serpent King , and he has two books scheduled for publication in 2026, Wayfarers and Love, Like Apples .

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm listening to Jeff Zentner's endearing young adult story of friendship, In the Wild Light ; I'm reading Amie Barrodale's bizarre, darkly funny novel Trip ; and I'm listening to Woodworking , a story of friendship between a spirited rural South Dakota high school transgender student and her closeted transgender teacher. What are you reading, bookworms? 01 In the Wild Light by Jeff Zentner I recently posted about some of my very favorite young adult books, and so far, In the Wild Light seems positioned to be added to that list. In rural Sawyer, Tennessee, teenaged Cash mows lawns and lives with his grandparents since his mother's death from an opioid overdose. His best friend Delaney is a genius daydreaming while working at Dairy Queen, and she's always braced for her mother's drug-addled, erratic behavior. When Delaney secures full scholarships for both of them to attend a boarding school in Connecticut, they must cope with culture shock, strains on their friendship, and endless new avenues of book knowledge and life experiences. I'm listening to In the Wild Light as an audiobook. 02 Trip by Amie Barrodale I considered crying uncle on this book early on because I felt whiplashed and steadily confused about what the heck was going on, but the darkly funny moments kept me hooked. I'm pushing through on this bizarre story in hopes that I can find out. Sandra is a documentary producer at a death conference in Nepal when she dies in a freak accident. The majority of the speakers are insufferable hacks, but after Sandra's death, it becomes clear that some of the least believable are actually able to communicate with the dead through previously seemingly insane methods. Sandra is caught in the bardo, a limbo between life and death, and she encounters other limbo characters in strange states; learns how to temporarily take over a living person's body (just before the dead person advising her transforms into a crow); and although she can't speak or be heard (except by select, inept individuals), she attempts to save her autistic teenaged son, who, through an unlikely series of events, has hitchiked from a therapy school in the Northeast to the center of a hurricane off the coast of Florida and onto a sailboat with a relapsed alcoholic seemingly incapable of ushering them to safety. 03 Woodworking by Emily St. James Emily St. James crafts a tender, funny story with zing about a secretly trans high school teacher in a small town in South Dakota who befriends the only other transgender person she is aware of, one of her students. Erica Skyberg is recently divorced and feeling adrift...except that now she is positioned to live into her true self better than she ever has been. (When her given male name is referenced in the audiobook, it sounds like static, as she does not relate to it.) Abigail is annoyed at first at the prospect of shepherding her teacher through her self-discovery, but the two develop a friendship that goes deeper than the One Big Thing they have in common, and soon others are taking notice, criticizing their bond, and asking probing questions. The book title comes from the idea of trans people blending in and fading into the woodwork. I received a prepublication audiobook edition of this spring 2025 title courtesy of Libro.fm and Penguin Random House Audio.

Powerful Books about the Experiences of Immigrants We've had violent Border Patrol activity in our city this week, with people snatched from places of work and off the street because of the color of their skin. Many are suffering and afraid in the face of this discriminatory kidnaping, and tens of thousands of children have been absent from public school, too frightened to attend. So it feels like an opportune time to highlight just a few powerful stories about or by immigrants. These four fiction works and two nonfiction titles resonated deeply with me. Each offers glimpses into the challenges and triumphs of leaving one land and tackling another; striving to hold on to culture while navigating unfamiliar pitfalls; and facing the fears and joys of seeking a new life in a new place. 01 Pachinko by Min Jin Lee In the early 1900s, a teenager falls for a silver-tongued stranger on the coast of Korea. But when the relationship falters, she flees into a marriage with a sickly traveling minister and escapes to Japan, setting in motion the events that will shape the generations to come. Noa didn’t care about being Korean when he was with her; in fact, he didn’t care about being Korean or Japanese with anyone. He wanted to be, to be just himself, whatever that meant; he wanted to forget himself sometimes. Pachinko is a sweeping generational story of hardship, sacrifice, and fifty years of Korean-Japanese cultural conflict beginning in the early twentieth century, as seen through the experiences of one family. The many details of daily life (food, dress, tradition) in Korea and Japan made the almost-500-page story come alive for me. 02 The Girl Who Smiled Beads by Clemantine Wamariya Wow. Wamariya writes beautifully and brutally honestly about her journey of fleeing from Rwanda and through six other African countries—with her tough, hustling older sister Claire—during and after the Rwandan genocide. In The Girl Who Smiled Beads: A Story of War and What Comes After , Wamariya recalls her experiences through her childlike point of view, which allows for a painfully pure set of painful memories, betrayals, horrors, and sometimes a steeled numbness. Wamariya shares her views of the world, her often jarring experiences in the US—with her sister and family on weekends in inner city Chicago and her weekday life and schooling in wealthy Kenilworth, then Hotchkiss and Yale and beyond—and her search to help other refugees’ stories be known and for her own peace. The author's tone and voice is like poetry at times, raw and spare and true. 03 In the Country We Love: My Family Divided by Diane Guerrero The heart of Diane Guerrero's story is powerful: a hardworking family is preyed upon by criminals' financially ruinous scams against undocumented workers; the family members experience years of constant fears of deportation; and then they must face the shocking potential reality of deportation itself. Guerrero's interest in drama and her later fame ultimately help buoy her up despite her personal agony and family heartbreak, and she ultimately becomes an activist for immigration reform. Meanwhile, Guerrero is young and often sounds like it as she flits from topic to topic in her account of her life and especially her experiences as an actress in Orange Is the New Black . The details of her immigrant family's challenges, struggles, and strength were the elements I found most affecting about In the Country We Love . 04 The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing by Mira Jacob When practical surgeon Thomas begins speaking aloud and at length to his long-dead Indian relatives, his daughter Amina is called home to try to soothe him and help her mother figure out what's going on. In The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing , Jacob alternates between the past and present, India and Seattle, shaping the stories of each of the family members Thomas is conversing with and ultimately telling the story of an extended family and its many ups and downs. The title may be a little self-conscious, but the book itself is darkly funny, with wonderfully paced dialogue and compelling characters' lives you can get lost in. The title may be a little self-conscious, but the book itself is darkly funny, with wonderfully paced dialogue and compelling characters' lives you can get lost in. Jacob writes beautiful meditations on allowing oneself to either be haunted by the past or embrace its everyday presence in your life; accepting fateful choices and their ongoing impact; carving out an identity that both encompasses and is separate from a family's immigration, ethnicity, and familial ties; and letting go. 05 Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions by Valeria Luiselli Because—how do you explain that it is never inspiration that drives you to tell a story, but rather a combination of anger and clarity? How do you say: No, we do not find inspiration here, but we find a country that is as beautiful as it is broken, and we are somehow now part of it, so we are also broken with it, and feel ashamed, confused, and sometimes hopeless, and are trying to figure out how to do something about all that. This is a long essay (but a short book) illustrating the complex behind-the-scenes challenges and tragedies surrounding the child migration crisis in the US. Luiselli structures Tell Me How It Ends around the forty questions interpreters ask of undocumented children during their intake interviews upon arrival in the country. She explores the contradictions between potential safety and a future for immigrants and a reality that is more brutal and uncertain than the children and their parents may have feared. ​ 6 A Woman Is No Man by Etaf Rum In A Woman Is No Man , Etaf Rum explores the often powerless and essentially voiceless statuses of her female characters within their conservative Arab culture, both in Palestine and as immigrants and first-generation Americans in New York. Much of this is dark. Yet there are bright points: some rare friendships emerge, sisters build intense loyalty to each other, girls and women find joy in secret reading and in books, women find strength and demand truth rather than secrecy, and there are occasional breaks to freedom. The details Rum provides as a thread throughout the book of the food, spices, and meals that create much of the structure of the women’s days are wonderful. A Woman Is No Man ultimately explores the superhuman drive and bravery required by Rum's female characters--but also many other real-life women in comparable situations--to write a new history, one in which they enjoy basic freedoms and a voice. For my full review of this book, please see A Woman Is No Man .

Saunders's strange, fascinating novel involves griping, sniping characters in limbo between life and death near the start of the Civil War, often in denial about their circumstances, with Abraham Lincoln's young son Willie at the center of a struggle for control of his soul. “Only then (nearly out the door, so to speak) did I realize how unspeakably beautiful all of this was, how precisely engineered for our pleasure, and saw that I was on the brink of squandering a wondrous gift, the gift of being allowed, every day, to wander this vast sensual paradise, this grand marketplace lovingly stocked with every sublime thing.” The word bardo refers to an existence between life and death, the length of which is determined by the person's behavior before dying. The premise of Lincoln in the Bardo is that the story's characters are caught in limbo, somehow unaware of and in denial about their earthly demises, and they repeat their patterns and manipulations while making mental excuses for their diminished or changed states, all the while waiting for (impossible) opportunities to "feel better" and return to their lives. The construction (short, often one-line passages followed by the speaker's name) of Lincoln in the Bardo could've been clunky, but the characters' voices were distinct enough to work. This is twisted, base, and funny, but sometimes also sentimental and poignant, with peeks into deceased characters' pivotal life moments as well as hypothetical looks into Lincoln's frame of mind and motivation as he struggled with his personal losses and feelings of responsibility for the significant loss of life on both sides during the Civil War. The character growth surprised me and felt in line with the tone and pacing of the story. This was unusual and fascinating all around. I read this in 2017 and still think of this strange novel. I was recently talking with a friend about this novel and other books with characters in limbo at the times of their death. I included Lincoln in the Bardo in the Greedy Reading List Six Fascinating Historical Fiction Stories about the Civil War . More from This Author George Saunders is also the author of Tenth of December , A Swim in the Pond in the Rain , Fox 8 , and other books. I'm excited to read my prepublication edition of Saunders's upcoming novel Vigil , to be published in January 2026.

Grossman's reimagined Arthurian legend gives center stage to a ragtag band of misfits, celebrates diversity, and builds a patchwork of adventures, discovery, and widened horizons culminating in a satisfying new, reimagined path forward. Collum is an instinctually gifted, strong knight who has literally fought for sword training as a lowly ward; his family has little use for him; and his heart is set upon joining King Arthur's court. But when he finally makes his way to the Round Table, only elderly, impaired, has-been knights are left, and he learns that Arthur was killed weeks earlier. But Collum refuses to believe that a life as a knight is no longer possible for him. Along with Merlin's apprentice, Nimue, he becomes determined to usher in a new age, where Excalibur will be reclaimed, Camelot will be secure from would-be usurpers, and the kingdom will be inspired again by bravery and might. I loved the twist on Arthurian legends, in which an unlikely young upstart and a ragtag group of aging, grumbling, disillusioned knights try to do right by Camelot and by their idol, Arthur. I appreciated the epic length of the book (688 pages), in which each remaining knight gets page time and a recounting of key adventures. But the many points of view and meandering stories also felt a little broad at times, and I wished for more focus on Collum, while understanding that his early-days position didn't warrant the majority of the storytelling. The Nimue-Merlin-Morgan le Fay conflicts were an intriguing side plot, and I enjoyed Grossman's unexpected take on the (misunderstood) Lancelot-Guinevere dynamic--and Guinevere's own power and promise as a leader. Grossman addresses issues of diversity in satisfying fashion; a transgender knight, a Muslim knight, and a gay knight are all represented. The full roster of knights--and the women who hold important roles in the tale--are all misfits who don't inspire great confidence, but collectively, they fight to find a path forward in a world that is changing around them. I listened to The Bright Sword  as an audiobook (it was twenty-three hours long). More from Lev Grossman Lev Grossman is also the author of the Magicians trilogy. I read the first in that series, The Magicians , for but me it was short on magic and fantastical elements and long on unsympathetic characters' entitlement and malaise.

Jen Hatmaker's memoir explores her shock, grief, then growth after the end of her marriage, which she tells in her signature bold, frank, lionhearted manner while always displaying her deep love for her family and friends. Jen Hatmaker, who was married before she could legally have a drink and who built her identity as a woman dedicated to her family, her religion, and her community, found her world turned upside down when she discovered in 2020 that her husband of over 25 years, the father of their five children, was having an affair. Having inspired women for years as a leader in authenticity and a proponent of healthy relationships, Hatmaker found herself clinically depressed and feeling like an imposter, feeling everything she had counted on shaken to its core. Hatmaker recounts her rock bottom, her reliance on family and friends, her discovery of her own strength, and the midlife renaissance she experienced after all she knew imploded. By tracking back to her youth and young-adult years and alternating with scenes from more recent life, she explores pivotal moments of her life, including the evolution of her religious discovery. Hatmaker's frank, sassy, conversational tone and her focus on authenticity, joy, and enthusiastic growth are evident here. She doesn't shy away from exploring heartbreak, betrayal, and shock, nor does she mine those experiences for drama or sit in them for a gratuitously long time. She protects her children's privacy. While sharing what she learns was her husband's extended infidelity and her world-stopping surprise at discovering it, she doesn't excoriate him, and she acknowledges the weaknesses in their marriage that existed prior to their split. Awake illustrates Hatmaker's vulnerability as she searches for a way out of grief, fights to simply function, then travels different paths of discovery and healing in order to come through her devastation like a phoenix from the fire. If you've read any of Jen Hatmaker's writing, you're likely familiar with her passionate loyalty to and love for her family and her friends; this is apparent throughout Awake as she leans on those she trusts, stretches herself to be open to new things, and confirms that she has a soft landing place should she fall. I listened to Awake as a library audiobook. More More More Memoirs! I love reading the stories of lives lived, so I frequently read memoirs. If you're interested in the stories of famous or little-known people's lives, you might want to check out these Bossy reviews of memoirs .

Based on my two Bossy reads so far, T. Kingfisher writes my favorite kind of fantasy novel: a wonderfully oddball main protagonist, a strange adventure, a mystery to be solved, and simmering romance with No Swooning or Annoying Drama whatsoever. I loved this story about an expert in poisons, with banter and clever deduction in an imagined world. In Hemlock & Silver , Anja is a healer who since her young cousin's preventable death has obsessively focused on learning about, combating, and teaching others about poisons. To determine antidotes and treatments, she must regularly ingest deadly substances, but duty calls. She's somewhat of a loner, part of a beloved family, and a merchant's daughter, but she's plainly dressed, tall, work-driven, and uninterested in social niceties, so she spends her time exhaustively researching and trying to help those who have ingested a potentially harmful substance. But when the king personally arrives at her workshop, desperate for help with his sole surviving daughter, who he suspects is being poisoned, Anja must not only navigate the ins and outs of royal customs, adjust her practical wardrobe, and leave her personal research behind to travel to the king's distant palace. She must also face a likely reality in which she cannot save the princess and will ultimately be held responsible for her death. But she'll bring her fearsome adder along in case she needs its venom...and she's also going to need someone to find a medium-sized rooster. Her bodyguard is a surprisingly sympathetic strong, silent type (cue: simmering hints of romance with zero swooning and the promise of a perfect payoff at the end). So when things start seeming eerily strange in the remote palace and the images she glimpses in the home's many mirrors begin to seem to have lives of their own, she's got a trusted ally in trying to discover what the heck is going on. I am allllll in on Kingfisher's novels. Everyone who recommended this author's work to me was correct, and I have no one to blame but myself for the delay in diving in. Kingfisher imagines richly imagined fantasy worlds, and within them she slots fantastically imperfect and wondrous main protagonists whose thoughts, dialogue, motivations, and actions have me completely hooked. Romantic undercurrents are wonderful, and there is No Swooning or Ridiculousness. This is my fantasy sweet spot. More Kingfisher and other Fantasy Novels T. Kingfisher is also the author of many other novels. You can find my Bossy review of A Sorceress Comes to Call   here and reviews of other fantasy titles here .

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading Iida Turpeinin's upcoming historical fiction novel Beasts of the Sea ; I'm listening to Jen Hatmaker's memoir Awake ; and I'm listening to my newly discovered favorite fantasy author T. Kingfisher's novel Hemlock & Silver . What are you reading, bookworms? 01 Beasts of the Sea by Iida Turpeinin Turpeinin's novel Beasts of the Sea spans three centuries, through continents and across oceans. In 1741, Georg Wilhelm Steller journeys with Captain Bering’s Great Northern Expedition, searching for a sea route from Asia to America. Along the way, they discover a giant, gentle creature they name Steller's sea cow. In 1859, the governor of the Russian territory of Alaska sets his men the task of recovering the skeleton of a creature not seen for a hundred years in a tragic example of human-induced extinction. In 1952, a museum scholar aims to form the recovered bones into a refurbished skeleton to educate and inspire the public. I received a prepublication version of this title, scheduled for publication November 18, courtesy of NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company. 02 Awake: A Memoir by Jen Hatmaker Jen Hatmaker, married before she could legally have a drink, dedicated to her family, her religion, and her community, found her world turned upside down when she discovered in 2020 that her husband was having an affair. Having inspired women for years as a leader in authenticity and a proponent of healthy relationships, Hatmaker found herself clinically depressed and feeling like an imposter, with everything she had counted on shaken to its core. Hatmaker recounts her rock bottom, her reliance on family and friends, her discovery of her own strength, and the midlife renaissance she experienced after all she knew imploded. 03 Hemlock & Silver by T. Kingfisher In Hemlock & Silver , Anja is a healer focused on poisons, and to determine antidotes and treatments, she must regularly ingest deadly substances. But when the king personally arrives at her workshop, desperate for help with his sole surviving daughter, who he suspects is being poisoned, Anja must not only navigate the ins and outs of royal customs, adjust her practical wardrobe, and leave her personal research behind to travel to the king's distant palace. She must also face a likely reality in which she cannot save the princess and is ultimately held responsible for her death. But she'll bring her adder along in case she needs its venom...and she's also going to need someone to find a medium-sized rooster. I am allllll in on Kingfisher's novels. Everyone who recommended this author's work to me was correct, and I have no one to blame but myself for the delay in diving in. Kingfisher imagines richly imagined fantasy worlds, and within them slots fantastically imperfect and wondrous main protagonists whose thoughts, dialogue, motivations, and actions have me completely hooked. Romantic undercurrents are wonderful, and there is No Swooning or Ridiculousness. This is my fantasy sweet spot. T. Kingfisher is also the author of many other novels. You can find my Bossy review of A Sorceress Comes to Call here .

Six Great Australian Reads Fridays are for highlighting books I've loved, and I have a thing for books set in Australia (this is illustrated by my demonstrated Jane Harper obsession alone; two of her books are listed here and I stand by this wholeheartedly). Side note: Am I using "fair dinkum" correctly? I have a feeling someone will correct me if I'm wildly off base here. If you've read any of the books mentioned here, I'd love to hear what you think! Do you have any favorite reads set in Australia? 01 Exiles (Aaron Falk #3) by Jane Harper The third in Jane Harper's Aaron Falk series offers procedural detail, a lush Australian setting, and character development I found heartwarming and immensely satisfying. I love Aaron Falk stories and I loved the twisty interconnectedness of the characters in Exiles . Harper allows for Falk to develop more fully as a character--as a friend, a romantic interest, a father figure, and a detective. Yet she allows for new opportunities for him that felt real and possible, which I again loved. I wasn't ever sure who was responsible for the multiple tragedies at the heart of the story, and the resolutions make sense. Meanwhile Harper explores loyalty, procedural details related to the past and near past, beginnings and endings, and looooove. Jane Harper's The Dry (Aaron Falk #1) is set in small-town Australia with dark secrets and twists and turns, and she offers more of her excellent pacing in Force of Nature (Aaron Falk #2). I'm in for all Jane Harper and all Aaron Falk stories! Exiles was the right mystery at the right time for me. For my full review, check out Exiles . You can find my other Jane Harper reviews here . 02 The Wife and the Widow by Christian White White's twisty mystery is set against the backdrop of an unforgiving winter on an Australian island, with two women attempting to piece together their husbands' secrets and lies. Christian White's The Wife and the Widow offers two intersecting storylines centering around female protagonists, family secrets, shame, and hidden selves. The tone of the story is shaped by its setting: an unforgiving winter on an Australian island. The perspectives alternate by chapter: Kate is a widow who uncovers her dead husband's secret life and must come to terms with it, while Abby is an island local whose husband has hidden something significant, and she fears it is his guilt. Only when the two women's worlds intersect can they piece together the full stories of their husbands' lives and understand the impact of their lies. White offers cleverness with timelines that create an intriguing twist, and I didn’t predict the denouement. The amateur taxidermy was fascinating and horrifying. For my full review, check out The Wife and the Widow . 03 The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton Morton offers a Secret Garden -type tale for grown-ups, with twisty stories connected across time. Cassandra is devastated. Her beloved grandmother Nell has just died, and Cassandra's life has felt shaky since a terrible accident a decade earlier. When Cassandra learns that she has inherited a book of dark fairy tales from Eliza Makepeace—the Victorian authoress who disappeared mysteriously in the early twentieth century—she begins a quest to discover the truth about her history, her family, and everything she thought she knew about her life. The Forgotten Garden was over 500 pages and I was engrossed the whole way through. This was like a Secret Garden for grown-ups, with intertwined, mysterious stories from 1900, 1975, and 2005 and a vivid setting, interesting characters, and enough twists to keep you guessing. Morton is also the author of The House at Riverton, The Forgotten Garden, The Distant Hours, The Secret Keeper, The Lake House, The Clockmaker's Daughter , and Homecoming. 04 Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton The emotions and drives of the story feel real, but the tone is darkly playful. I loved spending time with main protagonist Eli as he navigated tough situations and emerged with hope. Eli Bell is a young man in a tough spot. His father's out of the picture, his mother's in jail, his stepfather is gone, and his best friend and most solid source of advice is a convicted felon and legendary prison escapee, Slim. Eli's beloved older brother August is brilliant, but he never speaks. Things are complicated. Oh, and there's a secret panel in the back of the wardrobe at Eli's house. Behind the panel is a tunnel, and at the end of the tunnel is a room. In the room is a red telephone, and the male voice on the line gives Eli advice. Who is the man? Can he be trusted? Is any of this even real? Eli lives in a bleak, distant suburb of Brisbane, Australia. He wants to grow up and become a journalist, but for now his main goal is trying not to attract too much attention or bring any trouble down on himself or his brother. Trent's debut novel sifts through everyday brutality, corruption, and the general neglect of people and possessions and reveals imperfect goodness and hope. Boy Swallows Universe has many larger-than-life characters, especially its villains. Despite the desperate behaviors of the adults in Eli's life (and the terrible consequences he suffers because of them), he emerges as a fantastic, oddball, singularly heroic character I loved spending time with. For my full review, check out Boy Swallows Universe . 05 Only Killers and Thieves by Paul Howarth This story was often brutal to read, but it was beautifully written, in a style that felt perfectly suited for the stark Australian outback setting. Only Killers and Thieves is set in the Australian outback at the end of the 19th century. It centers around one family’s conflicts with crooked and powerful neighbors; cruel and aggressive Native Police aiming to eradicate the aboriginal people; the killing drought; and each other. One poor judgment leads to another, foolish choices end in bloodshed, and one brother makes justifications for his actions and feels no remorse, while the other brother feels crushed by it all. Howarth explores questions such as: Can people really change? Is remorse useful, and does it make a person more redeemable? Can a person’s character or morality be decided in a moment, or in a series of defining moments? Toward the end of Only Killers and Thieves , we see messy second chances take shape, a little retribution, and an attempt at a changed existence—but the haunting memories of the past creep in relentlessly. For my full review, check out Only Killers and Thieves . 06 The Lost Man by Jane Harper Harper's mysteries read like twisty character-driven Westerns set in Australia, and things aren’t always what they seem. Nathan and Bub have always had their differences, but they come together to grieve the loss of their brother Cam. Cam had been bothered by something before he died unexpectedly in the Australian outback desert, but was his death really the out-of-character suicide it was meant to look like--or did someone kill him? Nathan is no detective, but he owes it to Cam not to give up until he figures out what happened. Harper skillfully builds the pool of potential culprits for Nathan to examine in this story of uncovering truths, family history, loyalty, stubbornness, and love. Her books read like Westerns to me, and her sometimes spare tone suits the setting, the stark situations in which she places her characters, and the straightforward characters themselves. Things aren’t what they seem in The Lost Man , but Harper isn’t manipulative or tricky, either. I thought this was great. For my full review, check out The Lost Man . You can find my other Jane Harper reviews here . I listed this book in the Greedy Reading List The Six Best Mysteries I Read Last Year .

Desai's first novel in decades is a 688-page tale that meanders through India, New York, family and romantic relationships, and career false starts, with missteps, mysterious, powerful magical realism elements, and an undercurrent of darkness and despair. The messy resolutions felt appropriately hard-fought after the characters' extended struggles. Sonia is living away from her Indian family while she studies writing in Vermont, and after growing up used to having multiple family members around, feeding and speaking to her constantly, Sonia is still adjusting to the quiet of college, only having one housemate, and the cold and snow. Sunny is a journalist in New York City, eager to escape his overbearing family home in India. Sonia falls into a destructive relationship with a volatile older artist, while Sunny is living with an American woman and struggling to reconcile their differences. Sunny and Sonia are both ambitious but are struggling to envision their career paths. Sunny and Sonia were briefly the subjects of a matchmaking effort by their families. And now their destinies seem to be circling each other, although Desai doesn't assure the reader that any satisfying resolution will occur around this--or, really, anything else--by the finish of the novel. I wasn't sure what to expect from this hefty book, and it's not a straightforward novel. Desai offers an ambitiously meandering tale in which many issues stretch out, increasingly twisted and unresolved, for much (sometimes all) of the book, often with little sense of progress for our characters. Desai weaves darkness, powerful superstition, and magical realism through a wide-ranging story about family, tradition, fear, missteps, danger, and obtuse elements whose significance only in the end become clear(er) to our main protagonists. The situations around relationships and life choices are often messy, complex, mystifying, and frustrating. Current-day conflicts link to generational trauma, storytelling, and mysterious power. Eventually The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny offers hard-won, somewhat settled existences for its main players, who have each come into their own via zigzagging, imperfect paths, and Desai allows formerly unthinkable bonds to form in and among them. When characters' mettle and their desires became clear to themselves in key moments, I celebrated all the more for having stuttered along with them as they struggled, worried, denied, and suffered for much of the novel. In the end, loyalty, resolve, and belief in the power of darkness and the inexplicable clear the way for connection, creativity, and love. Kiran Desai is also the author of The Inheritance of Loss . I listened to the 688-page The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny  as a 25.5-hour audiobook. Kiran Desai is also the author of The Inheritance of Loss . More Books You Might Like If you're interested in long books, check out this short list of Bossy favorites. For other books about India, you might try these titles . And for second-chance stories, take a look at these options .

I can't stop thinking about this fascinating near-future climate-change story of desperation, loyalty, and determination in Kolkata, India, and how a tiny bit of empathy might have unraveled the increasingly devastating whirlwind of conflict between the two main protagonists, who are each both hero and villain. It was her duty, as a guardian, to put into action the beautiful ideal of hope. Ma thought harshly: This was what it looked like. Hope for the future was no shy bloom but a blood-maddened creature, fanged and toothed.... Hope wasn't soft or tender. It was mean. It snarled. It fought. It deceived. In a near-future Kolkata, India, Ma is the manager of a food pantry for those in need. She's days away from bringing her daughter and aging father to meet her husband in Michigan. But the famine is devastating in Kolkata, and Ma has been skimming food supplies for her own household. She justifies this to herself as a temporary measure before her departure. But a desperate client of the food pantry has noticed her theft and becomes determined to strike back. And by happenstance, this revenge also threatens Ma's family's ability to travel to a land of plenty. Majumdar twists the situation between thief and mother, continually shifting the reader's loyalties as each character makes decisions that spin off into increasingly destructive consequences. The more each digs in--bitter, resentful, greedy, desperate--the worse each of their situations become. If they were for a moment patient with one another, or generous, or empathetic, the course of the story could divert from its disastrous course. It feels as though Majumdar tempts us at key points with a shimmer of hope that a revolutionary understanding could bloom between our two main protagonists. The thief comes from devastating poverty and has clawed for survival and in hopes of helping his family. The mother has taken from others to preserve her daughter's life and her own. Hero and villain roles are too muddied to set one character above the other; both are grasping at the other's expense, and each is unwilling to concede, instead increasing the fervor with which they battle the other. "...What have you done with your life?" If his mother had voice left in her, she would have said that she had kept a home and raised a son whose words, now punishing, were, after all, fulfillment. Here was her son, capable of battling his mother--and so capable of fighting his way in the world all alone, as he would have to do one day. This was the destructive attainment of a mother's life's work. As the time for departure from India nears for Ma, her elderly father, and her small daughter, a few elements slot into place and offer hope before Ma realizes that none of it matters and that the future she imagined is compromised, possibly for good. It felt conceivable that an unorthodox melding of priorities and futures could occur between the warring parties, so that they could coexist in a fashion. But their cemented roles in the escalating the conflict ensure that the situation comes to a disastrous head. Ultimately, the main protagonists' roles shift yet again, so that "guardian" and "thief" labels are muddied, characters' histories (and, in one case, even a name) are lost forever, and death shakes the interwoven parties to their cores. Solo men like him were suspect entities. But a man accompanying a child--such a man was a different species. In the eyes of others, such a man was the most kingly of beings, a guardian. I can't stop thinking about this book and the mirror it holds to a reader, forcing an uncomfortable examination of excess, generosity, empathy, loyalty, but also greed, grasping, scarcity, and, in the end, encouraging a critical look at what we feel is our duty to one other in this world. This was stressful, often claustrophobic, and fascinating. I received a prepublication version of this title courtesy of NetGalley and Knopf. Another Title from Megha Majumdar Megha Majumdar is also the author of A Burning . You might also be interested in these books, which involve shifting loyalties .

Kauffman's story about childhood friends brought together by a tragedy in their circle inspires each of them to consider the past, their secrets, and their bonds to each other. Kauffman deftly shapes what could have been a treacly story about old friends reliving the past and coming back together after many years, inspired to be together by a tragedy in their group. As we witness memories from childhood and adulthood, each character considers how they might have remained more connected to each other or helped to avert their loss. Some of main protagonist Mikey's revelations and growth aren't completely satisfying, but the tone and his slow change rang true. The scene late in the book with Corinne was heartwrenching but clumsy and unfinished and felt just right. There were a few small moments that felt too easy and therefore took me out of the story. One example that stood out: the friends' falling asleep in each others' arms at the lake house, which was mentioned multiple times but which felt like a cheesy movie element that didn't ring true. It's a minor thing, but in any case, it was impossible to imagine that the very-much-set-in-their-ways Mikey and Alice would have been comfortable with the situation, even if passed out. (Mikey had mentioned it had been so long since anyone had even touched him before this weekend, and doesn't Alice say in the motel room that she can't sleep with someone touching her?) If Mikey were internally analyzing or immensely treasuring the situation while acting as though it were normal, or if he were otherwise showing us how desperately he seeks human connection, the moment wouldn't have stopped me so abruptly. I also felt that the meat processing scene went on for longer than felt necessary to make Kauffman's point. But nitpicks aside, in this story about facing the past, forgiveness, and revisiting how shaped we can be by our youth and youthful connections, Kauffman weaves in some minor mystery, self-actualization, messy steps forward and backward in relationships, and a bit of funny dialogue to make this story immensely appealing and satisfying without feeling pat. More Rebecca Kauffman Books Kauffman is also the author of Another Place You've Never Been , I'll Come to You , The Reservation , and other books.