The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver

 

This is the story of Harrison Shepherd.  He is raised between the homes of his father and mother.  His father lives in the United States; his mother in Mexico.  His father is busy with business and when Harrison is with him he spends his time in boarding schools.  His mother flits from lover to lover and has no time for him and he is on his own.  Basically, he raises himself, learning to cook from the Mexican servants and doing that for his first work.

He finds himself in the home of Diego Rivera and Freida Kahlo.  He has little interest in painting but thinks he would like to write.  Through them he meets Leon Trotsky and his wife and spends time in their household as well.  He cooks for both households and is content to grow up there.  When Trotsky is killed and the Mexican government comes for Communists, he returns to the United States now a man.

He works for the government during the war and settles in Ashville, North Carolina.  The Biltmore House, the famous residence of the Vanderbilt family.  It was used during World War II to store many of the famous paintings of the museums in Washington, D.C. and New York.  After the war, Shepherd finally starts to write and writes a succession of best-selling novels that are focused on the history of Mexico.  

But this is also the time of Joseph McCarthy and his obsession with rooting out anyone with Communist ties or leanings.  When Shepherd is called in front of the committee and outed for his ties, his work is suddenly banned or just doesn't sell.  What comes next?

This is an earlier work of Barbara Kingsolver and I was delighted to find it on my shelves.  It isn't my favorite of her works but I never read one of her novels without learning so much about various topics.  This one filled in my understanding of Trotsky and his assassination, the relationship between Diego Rivera and Freida Kahlo and the time of the McCarthy committee.  I had not known about the connection between the Biltmore Estate and the saving of artwork during World War II and found that aspect fascinating.  This book is recommended for readers of historical and literary fiction. 

What Kind Of Paradise by Janelle Brown

 

Jane lives in a log cabin in the wilds of Montana with her father, who is a survivalist.  She doesn't go to school but reads the books, mostly classics and philosophy her father gives her.  She has one friend, a girl whose mother runs the nearest bookstore fifty miles away which they go to every month or so.  She can hunt and farm and could probably survive by herself for a pretty long time.  And Jane wants another life.

She knows that her father went to Harvard and started his working career in Silicon Valley.  But now he sees all technology as the evil that will destroy the world and has devoted his life to destroying it and the people who invent it.  He disappears for days at a time and Jane has no idea where he is.  But he always comes home.  Then one day he asks Jane to go with him on a trip.  He wants her to distract a security guard so he can get in and talk to an old friend who works in a secured location.   Jane agrees as she always does to his requests but while she is distracting the guard, her father goes in, commits murder and sets the facility on fire.

Now Jane must do the emergency routine.  She drives back to the cabin, packs her father's papers and money, blows up the cabin just ahead of the authorities and goes on the run.  Having looked a bit at the papers, she has found out that her mother who she was told died in a car accident is alive and that her father had kidnapped her and changed her name.  Jane heads to San Francisco where she finds a job and attempts to find her mother.  Will everything catch up with her?

Janelle Brown is an American author who worked in technology.  She helped start Wired, which is still the magazine for those who work in the industry and those who want to understand what is happening in technology and then for Salon, writing on technology subjects.  In this novel, she explores family relationships and what one owes a family member, especially when they are set on a bad path, maybe even delusional.  Jane is an independent, spunky girl who navigates the thickets of ignorance her father set up for her, deciding on her own what is right and what is wrong.  This book is recommended for literary fiction readers.  

Decomposition Book by Sarah Van Os

 

Savannah's life fell apart after a betrayal by her best friend.  Worse than losing her, the friend made herself the victim and Savannah lost all her friends and ended up with a breakdown.  Now out of the hospital, Savannah has convinced her family that what she needs is time by herself in the family's cabin in the woods, a quiet place where she can put herself back together with the help of her therapist.

But Savannah isn't putting herself back together.  She's drinking a lot of wine, taking her prescripted drugs willy-nilly and brooding over and over again about the friendship and what happened.  One night she drinks so much that she passes out in a clearing near the cabin.  

When she wakes the next morning and looks around, she isn't alone.  There is another girl there but she isn't alive.  Savannah can't see any injuries so she doesn't know what caused the girl's death.  There is a journal near her and she takes that back to the cabin to see if she can determine what has happened.

It turns out that the girl's name is Ava and she was lost for weeks in the forest along with two friends, a man and a woman.  Both of them died earlier from various causes and Ava made it this far.  If she had only survived one more day, she could have been rescued.  Savannah is fascinated with her and her first real experience of death.  She knows she should call the police and report the death but as she reads Ava's journal, she starts to feel that she and Ava would have been good friends and that Ava would have understood her as no one else could.  She decides to wait and report the death when Ava is just bones.

This book won't be for everyone.  It is a spiraling view into a mental breakdown plus there are graphic descriptions of how a body decomposes.  It is Sarah Van Os' debut novel.  She is a Mexican-American who lives in New York with her wife and raises pigeons and cats.  The reader is drawn downward and downward, watching Savannah become more entranced and delusional as the days go by and she observes Ava's body and imagines a whole life with them as friends.  It's impossible not to be drawn to Savannah's pain, especially when what the betrayal was is revealed and to wonder in what world did her parents think that leaving her alone in the woods was a great idea for recuperation.  This book is recommended for horror readers.  

Ten Minutes, 38 Seconds In This Strange World by Elif Shafek

 

Tequila Leila is dead, murdered in her job as a prostitute in Istanbul.  But her brain doesn't die when her body does.  It stays alive for ten minutes and thirty-eight seconds, long enough for Layla to look back over her life for one last time.  Her life was shaped by the culture she grew up in and it's insistence on women as second class citizens.  She remembers her childhood and how happy it was until the dark family secret that ruined her life.  More than anything, she remembers her five friends and how they became her family instead.

There is Sinan, her childhood friend.  He was her only friend growing up and his joy was found in seeing her joy.  Once Leila ran away from home, he made it a point to also end up in Istanbul where he searched until he found her.  Nalan was the next friend she made.  When she first met Nalan, it was as a male but she later got to know him after he had changed and become a woman.  Nalan had to work the streets as the bordellos wouldn't accept transgender women.  Jameelah was an African immigrant, antoher prostitute who Leila met in the common police sweeps of prostitutes.  Humeyra had also run away from a stifling family and was now a rock singer in the smoke filled bars and had even done a few pornography films to make a living without family.  Finally, Zaynab was a dwarf, a cleaner in the bordello who formed a fast friendship with Leila.

Together, these six outcasts formed a family that sustained them and provided love and friendship.  Now that Leila is dead, it will fall to them to make sure she rests in peace.  They plan to bury her beside her beloved D'Alia, a revolutionary who fell in love with Leila and with whom she shared a brief, joyous marriage. 

This book was a Booker nominee in 2019 and it is clear why.  The characters are colorful and clearly drawn.  The message is the oppression that the Muslim religion imposes on women and those who are different and the few choices available to those who are different.  Yet, with all the horrid things in her life, Leila manages to make a joyous life and be kind to those around her.  The style reminded me of  Salman Rushdie, one of my favorite authors.  This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction. 

The Winter Folk by Jen Julian

 

She grew up in a small mountain town, told stories about the creatures that abounded in the woods around them by her mother.  But she is not ready when Lo appears and offers her a job for the winter at a resort named Deerhaven.  Lo takes her for an interview with the master, Mr. Oslin.  He tells her that she will be a housekeeper, doing whatever is necessary to keep the guests happy.  If she successfully finishes her contract, she can have her wish.  She will be called Moth and one of the rules she must follow is that she can never tell anyone her other name.  Moth agrees and wildly asks for something she thought was impossible; a big four bedroom house with a scenic view and moonflowers always in bloom on the patio.  Mr. Oslin agrees and tells her that Lo will come to get her the week before Christmas and bring her back to Deerhaven to start her work.

Moth returns to be a housekeeper, both that year and several others.  She makes two friends, another housekeeper named Briar and Crow, Mr. Oslin's errand boy.  The guests at Deerhaven can be easy to work with or horrific and there are many adventures Moth and her friends have.  Eventually, they start to see the evil at Deerhaven under the glitz and Moth does something so out of character that she is sent away and banned from ever returning.  That despite the fact that she is madly in love with Mr. Oslin.  She never sees her friends again.

Now Moth has returned to her hometown, grown, married and with a daughter who is the same age she was when she was lured to Deerhaven.  Her daughter is remote, spending her time in her room and Moth can't get through to her.  Her husband is an optimist and just assumes that everything will eventually work out but Moth knows there is danger in the mountains and forest and will do anything to save her daughter from being a victim.

Jen Julian is an American author who writes in the fantasy/horror genre.  This is her second novel and I fell in love with it immediately.  She often sets her characters into dangerous surroundings and then sees how they escape them....or not.  She also writes about relationships and there are plenty of those in this novel, Moth and her Deerhaven friends, Moth and Mr. Oslin, Moth and her mother, Moth and her daughter and Moth and her husband.  How she relates to each one and how she faces tragedy and danger is fascinating and I'll definitely be reading more of her work.  This book is recommended for fantasy readers.  

Other Birds by Sarah Addison Allen

 

Off the coast of South Carolina, a small tourist island exists.  It's called Mallow Island and was the home to the marshmallow industry.  These days it specializes in candy shops that feature marshmallows in their treats.  This is where the Dellawisp Apartments can be found.  There are five apartments and every one has a resident with a story.

Two of the apartments are taken by the Lime sisters.  Lizbeth is a hoarder, her crammed apartment running off her son, Oliver.  Lucy is a recluse and no one has seen her in quite a while.  The sisters had a falling out decades ago and have not talked since.  Mac is a chef, born and raised on the island by a woman who took in and fed all the neighborhood children who needed food or love or both.  Charlotte is a henna artist who is running from her past.  The apartment manager is Frasier who has been there for decades as well.  

Into this collection coms Zoey.  Zoey's mother died when she was young and she has been growing up with her father, his second wife and their children, always feeling like an outcast.  Zoey's mother left her the apartment and now she has come there to live and go to college.  She makes friends with Charlotte and Mac and starts to unravel the stories of the Lime sisters.  Will Zoey be what the Dellawisp and its residents need?

Sarah Addison Allen is an American author who writes about relationships and love.  While her books tackle tough subjects, she manages to tread on the fine line between overly saccharine and interesting as her stories unfold.  This novel has plenty of twists and turns as well as educating the reader about local South Carolina history and the marshmallow industry which I found fascinating.  There are not perfect characters just people trying their best to carve out a life that brings them love and friendship.  My personal favorite was Mac who spent his life honoring the woman who raised him and using food as his love language.  This book is recommended for readers of women's fiction.  

What The Night Brings by Mark Billingham

 

It's one of the worst murders DI Tom Thorne has seen.  Police respond to a call where there has been a death.  As Thorne leaves the scene, he stops to talk to four officers who have been setting a perimeter and are now eating doughnuts.  Thorne is starving and slightly resents not being offered any.  But he is glad when all four police die within hours and the doughnuts are found to be poisoned.

It's just the beginning.  More police are targeted and murdered.  Worse, it appears that all were bad cops; cops who were using their position to steal and victimize women.  Now someone is fighting back.  Thorne, his partner Nicola Tanner and his old partner Dave Holland are all assigned to the case.  Upper administration is putting on the pressure and Thorne manages to get into it with a DCI from another station after he goes to his boss and convinces him that the investigation needs to be held closely with only a few trusted officers in the know.  That's because Thorne knows what the others aren't willing to admit; the killer has help from inside the police. 

This is the nineteenth Tom Thorne mystery and the author Mark Billingham says its the last.  I hope that isn't true and that the author will find he misses Tom too much to never bring him back.  But if it is the last, thanks to the author for writing such a memorable character and series.  I've loved every book in the series and been surprised and shocked over and over again.  This novel is recommended for mystery lovers.  

Sipsworth by Simon Van Booy

 

Helen Cartwright has moved back to her small home village after living her life overseas.  She has lost both her husband and her son and she has come home to mark time until her own death.  She stays in her cottage almost all the time, leaving only for absolute necessities and rarely speaks to anyone.  Then it happens.

Helen brings in a discarded fish tank only to discover she has also brought in a mouse.  At first she is appalled but then slowly decides to let him stay and starts to change her routine to accommodate him.  She starts to make friends as she ventures out to find items to feed and challenge him and to keep him healthy.  Eventually Sipsworth, as she names him, creates a new life for Helen with interest in other people and in having a pet.

Simon Van Booy spent his early life in North Wales but currently lives in the United States.  His books are known for their exploration of relationships and for their gentleness.  I loved this book as Helen's boring, quietly desperate life is turned into one of interest and joy.  This book is recommended for all readers but especially for those who enjoy literary fiction.

How Late It Was, How Late by James Kelman

 

Sammy is recently out of jail but he surely doesn't want to work.  He gets by living with his girlfriend in her apartment, doing whatever cons he can find and shoplifting when he's totally out of money.  One weekend he wakes up in a jail cell.  Thinking back, he remembers a fight with the girlfriend, a two day pub crawl and a fight with three soldiers.  He is in pain and he soon realizes, totally blind.

The police seem reluctant to set him loose as they suspect that he knows a lot about the Glasgow underworld.  Once free, Sammy makes his way home only to discover his girlfriend is missing.  He goes to the doctor and the welfare department only to get caught up in government bureaucracy and endless red tape.  It seems that Sammy can't catch a break but what does he really know and isn't saying?

James Kelman was born in the same kind of tenement background as Sammy, with a single mother and a father who occasionally was in the picture.  When he grew up, he wanted to write and his stories and novels had a huge influence on other Scottish writers who would follow him such as Irvine Walsh and Douglas Stuart.  This novel won the Booker Prize in 1994.  It is written entirely in a stream of consciousness format in the dialect of the Glasgow working poor and can be a challenging read for some.  Although I wouldn't want to hang out with Sammy, one can't but admire his ability to take life's hits and find a way to keep going.  This book is recommended for literary fiction readers.  

Stay Buried by Jennifer McMahon

 

Boone's Ferry, Vermont, is a small mountain town.  Those who lived there had ancestors who'd been there for decades and outsiders were not encouraged.  Back in 1919, a plague had hit the town.  The superstitious townsfolk had blamed it all on the local town pariah, the knackerman who dealt with the town's dead animals. The town's doctor and his protege, Frankie, tried to do what they could but both perished along with many others.

Present day, Ashley and Malcolm who are siblings, have just inherited a house in Boone's Ferry when their grandmother died.  She had come from one of the old families there but insists she has never been there.  Their mother had disappeared two years before when she went to visit the town so the siblings decide to go see their house and discover what they can about their mother.  

But things don't go well.  No one is welcoming and even go out of their ways to discourage the two from staying at all.  Their every attempt to discover the truth is thwarted by the locals and soon the two are even suspicious that their lives could be in danger.  They find out that far from never being there, that their grandmother had grown up in Boone's Ferry and had lived in the house they inherited, that of the town doctor from the plague time.  Can they find out what's going on?

Jennifer McMahon is an American author who grew up in Vermont.  She writes in the psychological suspense genre and this book is another one of these.  It balances on the edge of supernatural terror and explainable events and the suspense slowly builds throughout the novel.  Ashley is determined to find out what is going on while Malcolm is an optimist who refuses to see the danger they are in.  I would have liked to find out exactly what the plague was but that was never explained.  I listened to this novel and the narrator did an excellent job.  This book is recommended for psychological thriller readers.  

 

The Restaurant Of Lost Recipes by Hisashi Kashiwai

 

If you know exactly where to go on the backstreets of Kyoto, you'll find the Kamogawa Diner.  The diner is run by Chef Nagare and his daughter Koishi.  The restaurant is known only to a few and its mission is to recreate the meals that meant the world to someone and that they haven't been able to recreate.  If you find your way there, Chef Nagare will investigate the recipe, traveling to find the exact ingredients and recreate it for you to come back and try.  The price?  Whatever you think is right.

Various characters find their way to the Diner.  There is the young man who is about to become an Olympic swimmer for the nation who wants the bento boxes his father packed for him as a young boy.  A couple who lost their son want a Christmas cake as a neighbor made them one after their son's death.  Now they are deciding if a young man working at their bakery is the right one to take over from them and the cake will give them a clue.  A woman wants hamburger steak that her father made for her son.  On and on the list goes and each time Chef Nagare and his daughter hit the bullseye, making the dish that the customer had dreamed of.

Hisashi Kashiwai is a Japanese author who was born and raised in Kyoto.  He was trained and worked as a dentist for many years while also writing.  This novel is the second in a series of four about the food detectives.  It is a heartwarming tale that emphasizes the relationship between specific meals and our emotional wellbeing.  As with most things Japanese, the emphasis is on creating something perfect regardless of effort.  This book is recommended for multicultural readers.  

The Oxford Detective Society by Faith Martin

 

Lyssa Moore is a biographer, specializing in people whose families want their lives told.  She lives in Oxford in a nice apartment where she has made friends with the couple next door, Carter and Jason.  Her husband died unexpectedly and Lyssa is dealing with that grief and looking about for a new project when she is contacted by a woman who wants her past relative's life written, vindicating her from the press she got when she was alive.

Amelia Montrose, known as Monty to her friends, was a rebellious child of the 60's.  She grew up in a wealthy family but rebelled against the expectation that she would attend university to find a wealthy husband.  Instead, she ran away at eighteen and went to Oxford where she met and fell in love with Glen Bannister, the lead singer of the Lucky Cuckoos.  They never married but lived together much to the delight of the press who labeled Monty as a sleazy woman.  Before the band could make their big break to the top, Glen died of a drug overdose.  The band basically dissolved after that and everyone blamed Monty, especially after it came out that he left her his estate while his family remained in council housing.  She was roundly reviled and held up as a siren who lured Glen to his death.  Now Monty's descendant, Elizabeth Grainger, wants Lyssa to look into Monty's life and death and see if she can rescue Monty's reputation.

But as Lyssa works, she starts to sense that things are happening around her.  She feels that she is being followed and someone breaks into her apartment and bugs her computer while setting up cameras and bugs.  Then there is Neville, who has lived downstairs for several years but never made friends with anyone in the building and is mysterious about his past.  It seems that wherever Lyssa goes, he is there.  Is he an evil presence?  Is Lyssa in danger?

Faith Martin is a well-known English author who has been writing for over thirty years and uses at least four pen names.  This is the beginning book of yet another series.  I had thought that she was a romance writer and had never explored her mysteries and was pleasantly surprised.  The mystery was complex enough to satisfy yet easy to follow.  It had an interesting plot and lots of characters who were interesting in their own right.  I especially enjoyed the insight into how a biographer does their research and how they convince people to talk with them.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.  

North Sun by Ethan Rutherford

 

In the late 1800's, whaling was an industry that employed hundreds of men.  In New Bedford, no family is more prominent than the Ashleys.  Captain Arnold Lovejoy has just returned to New Bedford after an unsuccessful whaling trip.  He is more than ready to be employed by the Ashleys to take their ship, the Esther, on a journey that will end in the Chukchi Sea.  The Ashley's son-in-law had gone there on a whaling expedition and never returned although the family had received a letter from him.  They want Lovejoy to go, find him and bring him home.  Any whales he finds along the way will be bonus money.

The captain hires a crew and sets off.  The go down along the Atlantic Coast, around the Cape, and back up the Pacific side.  At first they find no whales but as they near their destination, whales are found in plenty.   The sailors are happy with their finds but once they get to their destination, they worry that they will get iced in and have to spend the winter on land.  The captain and an Ashley family friend leave the boat and the crew and head out to find the Ashley's son-in-law.

Things are not all rosy.  Two young boys, brothers, are targeted as the prey of a huge man on board who is a pedophile.  The boys are the only ones who see a strange figure arrive,  This figure is half man, half bird and known as the Sorrel.  He tells the boys stories of the sea, how to be safe and generally helps them while refusing to disclose his own mission.  What will happen?

This is Ethan Rutherford's debut novel and it was listed as a finalist for the National Book Awards for Fiction.  Prior to that, he wrote stories that were published in various magazines.  The book is written in short chapters and has a strange, mystic feel to it.  It explores the themes of environmentalism, man's disregard for his exploitation of the environment, man's cruelty and the love between brothers.  This book won't be for everyone as there is a lot of violence, both against the various animals the crew encounters, and against other men and the boys.  The ending will leave the reader wondering if it is an allegory for what can befall humanity in the coming years.  This book is recommended for literary fiction readers.  

Helen Of Nowhere by Makenna Goodman

 

This novel is laid out in six acts.  The action begins when a man goes to visit a house on the market.  He is a professor and has been released from the university at which he taught and from his marriage so will need a place to live.  Hinted at but never defined, it seems that the man was dismissed for questionable acts with female students and from his marriage for the same reasons along with the wives' thoughts that he was not a man she wanted to stay married to.  The acts are named for the various characters so there is one for the man, his wife, the realtor and Helen although she is only briefly mentioned and defined. 

Makenna Goodman is an American author who has also worked as an editor for a literary magazine and for a major publishing house.  In this book, she explores such themes as male misogyny, retribution for former misdeeds and the way to move forward after a devasting event in one's life.  Although Helen is the title character, she remains a mystery with very little input, although she is represented as woman with immaculate taste and the house as a showpiece of her input.  The man who has lost his job and marriage still seems to be totally clueless as to what he has done wrong in his life and there is little real expectation that he will be changing as a result of what has occurred.  There is also a dog that plays a pivotal role in the novel although he doesn't show up until late in the action.  This book was nominated for the Booker Prize and is on the longlist for 2026.  It is recommended for literary fiction readers.  

Between Two Kingdoms by Suleika Jaouad

 

Suleika Jaouad was living her dreams.  She had recently graduated university and landed a job in Paris.  Everything would be great except that she was constantly exhausted.  When she finally she was twenty-two and was handed the news that she had acute myeloid leukemia, a blood cancer.  Her case was already so severe that the doctors in France suggested that she return home to the United States to get treatment.

Thus started three years of surgery, chemo and eventually, the only hope for healing, a bone marrow transplant from her brother.  Suleika's life basically stopped for those three years, as she was in the hospital most of the time and when she wasn't, her doctors didn't allow her to mingle freely in society as she had almost no immune system.  She had just started a relationship before her diagnosis with Will.  He immediately came to her side and stayed there, focusing his entire life around her health and needs and putting his own life on hold.  Eventually the strain was too much and the two broke up after three years of her treatment.

When she was finally released, she wasn't sure how to get her life back.  While in the hospital, she had written a column that was widely distributed about what it was like to be so sick when young.  Much to her surprise, she got letters and feedback from all over the country and from others who had either shared her experience or had another life-changing event.  She decided to make a pilgrimage and drive across the United States solo even though she had never learned to drive.  But she learned and off she went, learning lessons from others and finding sharing and companionship that would sustain her going forward.

Suleika Jaouad is an American author.  She went on in her life to marry Jon Batiste, a musician she had met at a summer camp in her teen years.  Her life has not been easy after this treatment; she was left infertile and her cancer has returned again and again.  She entered the hospital in September 2026 for her third blood marrow transplant.  Suleika has been an adovate for those struck down by illness, helping them to learn to live the fullest life they are able.  This book is recommended for those who are ill or who are supporting someone who is ill.   

The Doloriad by Missouri Williams

 

This dystopian novel is not for the weak-hearted.  It contains scenes that could trigger survivors of violence and sexual abuse.  

After the disaster, the Matriarch had gathered her family around her and they inhabited the ruins of a city, specifically a hospital.  Her brother came with her and her other children but she knew that wasn't enough to reinhabit the world so she began having children with her brother.  As those children grew, they also began having relations with their siblings and more children were born.  As might be expected, physical anomalies began to appear such as limbs missing.

When the Matriarch had a vision that there were other survivors, she sent Dolores, one of her daughters who didn't have legs and was mentally challenged, to wait in the forest to become a wife to one of the survivors.  No one came and when Dolores crawled home, it caused the beginning of a revolt against the Matriarch who had been proved not to be right all the time.  What will happen next?

Missouri Williams is an English author who now lives in Prague. This was her debut novel.  I chose to read it because her next novel, The Vivisectors, made the longlist for the Booker Prize in 2026.  It was not immediately available in the United States, so I chose to read this novel to get a feel for her writing until I could read it.  I'm not really sure what point she was trying to make with this violent and bleak vision of the future.  Readers won't find anyone to champion in the characters who are all either mentally challenged or violent.  As someone who tends to be optimistic, I hate to think that humanity would devolve this quickly into such bleakness.  This book would be recommended for literary fiction and dystopian fiction readers.  

The Knave And The Moon by Rachel Gillig

 

Things are very different now in the Stone Kingdom.  The Cathedral which supplied the power to the kingdom and the king through divinations is shattered, nothing more than ruins.  Roderick Myndacious, the king's bodyguard, Bartholomew the gargoyle and Maude Bauer who trains the knights are rumored to be dead.  Benji has been named king and to secure his throne, has forced a marriage on Sybil Delling, the last surviving divinator.  To further secure his throne, Benji creates a plan to hold a series of tournaments in which he will be the winner and replenish the royal treasury while tightening bonds with various sections of the country.

But not all plans go as they are visualized.  A masked man rises in the tournament and wins the prize instead.  His compatriots win others of the tournaments.  He is known as The Knave but in reality, he is Roderick, come back to claim his love, Sybil and pay back the king who stabbed him and left him for dead.  Can he do what he wants?

This is the second book in the Stone Kingdom and I thought it was a fitting followup to the The Knight And The Moth where the reader meets all of these characters.  The romance between Roderick and Sybil is both erotic and compelling while the machinations of the king and the religious administration that have kept the power in the kingdom for centuries are fascinating.  Rachel Gillig is one of my new finds for the year and I think she has made it to the must-read list for anything she writes.  I absolutely was drawn into the world of the Stone Kingdom and this will be a fantasy series that I read more than once.  This book is recommended for fantasy readers.  

May We Feed The King by Rebecca Perry

 

A female curator spends her days recreating the past by staging scenarios in museums and exhibits.  She sources and arranges artifacts such as food, costume, furniture to create historically accurate scenes.  She has just accepted a commission to recreate in a castle a barely known king's life.

The king had never expected to rule.  He was the third son, not even the spare but when both his older brothers die, he is crowned the ruler.  His is not a ruling temperament.  He is a mild man who would rather contemplate nature than make plans to conquer neighboring kingdoms.  His queen, whom he loves dearly, is in a long-term relationship with another man and the king allows this to continue if it makes her happy.  The counselors don't know what to make of him as he seems little interested in their plans and warnings.  Even the servants are bemused as the king prefers to eat plainly and rarely asks them to do anything.  Can such a man rule a kingdom?

Rebecca Perry is an English author who started her career as a poet.  This is her debut novel and what a novel it is!  It has been chosen as a Booker Prize shortlist nominee and it also won the Waterstones Debut Fiction prize.  She wanted to explore the issues of authority and imagination.  Can someone without the desire to rule others be the steward of power?  How much authority does the curator have in her choices and timelines to create her art?  I will be closely following this author as she continues her career and look forward to seeing what she next produces.  This book is recommended for literary fiction readers and historical fiction readers of alternate histories.   

The Tax Inspector by Peter Carey

 

The Catchprices run a car dealership in Australia.  It was started by Albert and Granny Catchprice.  They had three children.  Mort still works at the dealership.  Cathy does also but wants to go on the road with her husband and their country western band.  Jack left the business and is now a prosperous real estate developer.  Mort had two children.  Johnny has left and is now a Hare Kristna although he leaves the commune periodically to try to straighten out things at home.  Benny is only sixteen and wants nothing more than to turn the dealership into what he just knows could be a business that could make them all rich.

Everything is put in jeopardy when Maria, a heavily pregnant tax inspector from the government comes to the business.  There are suspicions that Catchprice Automotive hasn't been on the straight and narrow with their tax payments and those suspicions are right on target.  Granny says she just signs what the others give her to sign while the children say that Granny is firmly in charge.  Things get even more complicated when Jack meets Maria and falls in love with her.

Peter Carey is one of my favorite Australian authors.  He has won the Booker Prize twice; once for The True History Of The Kelly Gang and the other time for Oscar and Lucinda.  He has written many other novels that illustrate life in Australia, always with an undercurrent of humor and a nod to the fact that Australia was settled by English convicts.  This book discusses sexual abuse of children by their fathers, another thing that has been handed down in the Catchprice family.  How it plays out across the generations is the dirty secret that fuels the family as the need to keep it secret binds them together.  This book is recommended for literary fiction readers.  

The Red Tent by Anita Diamant

 

This novel retells the Biblical story of Jacob who was born to Isaac.  Jacob had a twin brother, Esau, whose birthright he stole.  Fearing retribution, he fled his childhood home and ended up at the home of another man who was a shepherd.  Jacob ended up marrying the four daughters of his employer, although he did not claim the last two, who were illegitimate, as open wives.  Jacob had twelve sons by these wives who later headed up the twelves tribes of Israel.  He also had one daughter, Dina.

The red tent was the place where all the women went monthly when the new moon appeared to have their monthly cycles.  While there, they rested, talked and sang, and became closer to the other women of the encampment.  As Dina grew, the skills of the women such as cooking and spinning cloth, were passed on along with the stories of their family and their relatives.

Dina ended up living far from her family as a woman as she first fell in love with the prince of another country and then after his death, went with his household to other countries.  She was skilled as a healer and midwife.  

Anita Diamant is an American author.  There is only a brief mention of Dina in the Bible but Diamant makes up an entire life story for her, while explaining the creation of the twelve tribes of Israel and the story of Jacob and Esau.  The emphasis is on the relationship between various women as they all pull together to make their families strong and on the love between them.  The tent was the place where the women had power as opposed to the rest of the month when they were expected to obey the men of the family.  It was an interesting and informative novel and I enjoyed reading it.  This book is recommended for women's and literary fiction readers.   

The People We Keep by Allison Larkin

 

April Sawicki is definitely not living the good life.  Her mother left years ago and now her father has moved in with his girlfriend who doesn't want April and left her to live in a motorhome by herself, only stopping by occasionally to check on her.  April works shifts in the local diner when she can get them with the diner's owner the only adult who seems to care about her.  She is quitting high school because she just doesn't see the point.  The only thing she has going for her is that the most popular boy at school has picked her for his girlfriend but that's probably because she will sleep with him.  Now he is putting pressure on her to maybe get married and she knows that isn't in the cards.

The only thing she enjoys is playing her guitar.  When she goes to an open mic night at a local bar, the applause she gets tells her the next step.  She takes a neighbor's car and hits the road.  She ends up in Ithaca and finds a job at a local coffee shop.  She makes a set of friends but as time goes by, she knows this isn't what she needs and hits the road again. 

Now April's life is moving from town to town, bar to bar, singing at a gig.  If she needs to, she busks in a local park during the day.  She knows people up and down the East Coast and often spends the winter in Florida, staying in unrented places.  She knows enough men that she can find affection when she needs it but under it all, she knows she needs to go back and resolve her childhood before she can hope for success as an adult.

Allison Larkin is an American author who has written several novels.  April is a forlorn character when we meet her with it seems no one to care about her as she makes her way on her own.  When she makes friends, she always still moves on when she thinks they want too much.  Watching April grow and make a satisfactory life for herself while continuing to care about others is a good way to spend a couple of afternoons and I enjoyed this book of discovery.  This novel is recommended for women's and literary fiction readers.  

The Other Half by Charlotte Vassell

 

This debut mystery investigates the upper class of England along with deaths.  I actually came across the second in the series and read and loved it and went back to see where everything started.  The main character is DI Casius Beauchamp whose team consists of Matt and Amy.  Casius is at loose ends as his girlfriend of three years has just ended their relationship.  He is determined to focus on work but didn't plan on finding a body on his morning jog.

The victim is Clemmey who runs with a group of Cambridge graduates she has known since university.  Chief among these is her boyfriend, Rupert Beauchamp who is about to come into his title.  He and Clemmey have been together for ten years although together has a different meaning for Rupert.  He cheats on her with anyone who catches his eye.  His best friend is Alex and they both studied the classics for their degree along with Nell who they both love but who is unattached at the moment.  

As the murders mount, Casius and his team realize that the answers go back for years and that love is very different in the entitled classes.

This was Charlotte Vassell's debut novel.  She is an English author who studied history and art and trained as an actor before starting her writing career.  Her second novel won the Mystery Writers Edgar Allen Award as Best Novel of 2025.  It was interesting to view the relationship between the average person and the entitled (sometimes literally) upper crust in England and how investigating a murder which involved them carries its own issues.  The characters become more polished as the series progresses and it's also interesting to view love and relationships in modern England.  There isn't a lot of mystery about who is the villain but the interest lies in the investigation.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.  

The Midnight Show by Lee Kelly & Jennifer Thorne

 

After seeing a college group do improv comedy, a television producer in the 1980's decides that this might be the idea he is looking for.  What if he created a show, airing late in case the material got risque, and gave a bunch of comedians their heads to write and perform what they wanted?  The original four are Lillian Martin and her friends Sam, Stevie and Kent.  Add in Gina whose career seemed bright before she froze on a late night talk show, a Broadway star to add pizazz and a male heartthrob and the formula seems unstoppable.

At first it is.  Showrunner Sally Schumacher keeps things in balance while the show finds its place.  Soon it is all anyone is talking about and the stars are becoming famous.  Lillian dates Bobby Everett who is the heartthrob and their romance is feted everywhere.  The stars party after every show and other nights as well and soon rumors of drugs and addiction start to grow.  Can the show continue to exist?

In its third year, after a summer break, the stars return.  Several of them spent the summer trying out their careers in movies while others just drank and drugged the time away.  Lillian in particular seems out of things, barely balancing her life and career.  When she disappears after a show, the rumors start to fly.  Did she and Bobby break up?  Was it a suicide as she was last seen near the Brooklyn bridge?  Where is she?

Lee Kelly and Jennifer Thorne have written a novel that is attention grabbing for anyone who ever watched Saturday Night Live.  The authors are both American although Thorne now lives in England.  Both are authors separately and this novel is the fourth one that they have written together.  Readers will enjoy the nostalgia of the book looking back at the 1980's while they guess which character is a stand-in for the original cast of Saturday Night Live.  This book is recommended for those who love entertainment novels and mysterious happenings.  

Nomad Century by Gaia Vince

 

The main tenet of this book is that climate change will necessitate the migration of up to three billion people in the coming decades.  The entire earth's geography will be redrawn and those areas which are tropical or warm such as the Caribbean, Africa and Central and South America will not longer be able to sustain life.  This will have their inhabitants moving to areas that can be lived in.  But how would this work?

The author believes that the only way for humanity to survive is for those currently living in areas that will be sustainable will have to completely change their ideas about immigration.  They must welcome those seeking new homes, whether it is former farmers from their own country or people from other countries who are totally different in their culture, language and appearance.  Governments must support the immigrants with food, child care, shelter, health care and job training.  

Food will be totally different.  Humans will move to a plant-based diet and entire industries such as cattle and chicken production and fishing will disappear.  This will free up more land for farming plant crops. Humans will get their protein from eating such things as insects or lab grown food.  Many current occupations will disappear while new ones will be developed.  

Gaia Vince is a science writer and broadcaster.  While she provides many novel ideas, I find it difficult to believe that humanity will change their attitudes, occupations, diets and energy production as quickly as she sees it happening.  She believes that all energy production must be green energy by the 2030's.  I can't imagine humanity being happy with a insect-based diet.  Most importantly, I find it difficult to believe that attitudes towards immigrants will change as rapidly or thoroughly as the author believes is necessary.  Countries around the world are becoming less welcoming of immigration rather than more welcoming as more and more countries are moving towards the far right in terms of immigration.  Still, these are interesting and provocative ideas.  I listened to this book and the author was the narrator.  Her voice added to the mix as it was calm yet definitive in her suggestions.  This book is recommended for nonfiction and science readers.   

The Other Woman's House by Sophie Hannah

 Charlie Zailer and Simon Waterhouse have finally gotten married, something Charlie thought would never happen.  They are on their honeymoon overseas in a gorgeous villa far from police troubles. But crimes are still occurring and some are the strange kind that Simon specializes in.

Connie and Kit Bowskill have been married for years and Connie thought it was a great marriage, except for the fact that they are stuck in a small village where her family lives and feels comfortable poking their noses into every smidgen of Connie's life.  The two run a successful business and have a beautiful house they have spent years renovating.  But if their marriage is so good, why does Kit have a house in Cambridge as his home address in his GPS in his car?

Kit swears he didn't enter that address so now Connie also suspects him of lying.  Is he having an affair?  Connie starts to spend entire days traveling to Cambridge and watching outside the address, trying to catch Simon visiting there but never does.  Their marriage becomes a series of recriminations.  One night, while Connie in online looking at a house tour of the property, which has recently hit the market, she sees a woman's body lying in a pool of blood.  Shocked, she runs to get Kit but when he comes and looks at the tour there is nothing there.  Has Connie gone mad or is someone dead at the address?  The mystery is more than the local policemen can handle and Simon and Charlie end up returning early from their honeymoon to investigate.

This is the sixth book in the Zailer/Waterhouse series.  As always, Hannah's imagination takes the reader far further than their own mind would.  I was completely at sea and very surprised at the ending.  Simon is the strange case specialist and although he isn't really liked at work, everyone realizes that he can solve cases that no one else can.  The relationship between Simon and Charlie is still offbeat even with the marriage.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.  

The Mad Wife by Megan Church

 

Lulu Mayfield counts herself lucky.  She has her son, a husband she loves and who works to support them and friends in her neighborhood.  She is known as The Queen Of The Mold for her jello salads.  She has tons of friends as none of the wives work, here in the 1950's.  They stay home, clean, cook and raise the children while supporting their working husbands emotionally.  Then Megan becomes pregnant again and soon her family will be complete.

But something isn't right.  A new couple has moved into the neighborhood and the wife doesn't seem to be the same as the rest.  Her speech is strangely disconnected at times and she seems to be keeping secrets.  Lulu is slipping as well.  Her pregnancy is a difficult one and the housekeeping starts to slip a bit.  When the husband of the new couple goes after the same job as Lulu's husband, the strain starts to mount.  

After the birth of her baby, Lulu doesn't recover quickly.  She has a terrible case of insomnia and rarely sleeps.  She forgets things, including getting dressed or cooking for the family.  She and her husband become estranged as Lulu starts to accuse him of various things.  What has gone wrong?

Megan Church is an American author who writes in the woman's fiction genre.  Her stories focus on the emotional lives of women faced with extraordinary events in their lives.  Lulu is the perfect 1950's wife until she isn't and the reader is taken along on her journey as she strays from the perfect housewife to a woman unsure of everything she knows.  This was my mother's generation and much of what I read in Lulu's story I could recognize as things my mother was living as I grew up.  This book is recommended for women's fiction readers.

The Decagon House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji

 

A group of Japanese university students have created a mystery club, where they meet to discuss mystery books and authors.  They call each other by famous detective's names such as Agatha, Poe and Ellery.  The club decides to go on an outing over their school break.  One of the students has an uncle who has just bought an island where six months ago, four grisly murders occurred over a week, then the house of the perpetrator burned down with the bodies of all the victims.  There is still a guest house on the property and it is built in the shape of a decagon.  There are seven club members who want to go so there is plenty of room for everyone as the house has ten rooms like its name.

The week comes and the students are taken to the island.  There will be no way off for a week until the boat comes back and no telephone service or electricity.  The group will be totally on their own.  Their first night is fine but they awake to find tiles that have been labeled The First Victim, The Second Victim, etc.  and a note saying that each of them will be murdered.  Surely someone is playing a joke.  But slowly the prediction starts to come true and one by one the group is murdered.  

The group attempts to solve the murders as they happen as they attempted to solve the prior murders.  Back on land, there are also people interested in the first murders and when they realize the students are on the location, fear for their safety.  But when they get to the island to persuade them to leave, all the students are dead.  Who was the murderer?

This book is famous in Japan for launching the new traditional or classic detective novel in the genre there.  Yukito Ayatsuji writes in the genres of horror and mystery and was one of the founders of the Japanese Mystery Writers Club.  I've seen this book in various lists of the best of various genres over the years and so I jumped at the chance to read it.  The mystery was fascinating as it used the example of Christie's And Then There Were None to slowly take away character after character.  The prior murders on the island added even more mystery and chances to play the detective.  This book is recommended for mystery fans.  

The Night Of Many Endings by Melissa Payne

 

When a blizzard sweeps through Silver Ridge, Colorado, a group of people are trapped there.  Nora Martinez is the librarian, a young woman whose life has been defined by trying to help her brother who is caught in the throes of drug addiction.  Jasmine is a teenager who spends most of her spare time in the library, reading and grateful for a sanctuary.  There's Marlene who has been a customer of the library for many years and who tends to push people away verbally as she mourns the death of her husband.  Vlado is the security guard who has immigrated to the United States and is working on creating a new life for himself.  Finally, there is Lewis.  He is a homeless man who had planned on riding out the storm outside but had been brought in by the group as the storm worsened.  

As the hours go by and the group tries to survive the cold, lack of power and hunger, they start to coalesce as a group.  Secrets are shared and tactics for getting through the challenges life throws at one are discussed.  The group starts to grow closer as they give attention at various times to different members as they need help and survival tactics.  Will this closeness survive after the storm?

Melissa Payne is an American author who lives in the same type of small Colorado town she writes about.  Her books tend to focus on those in need of second chances and the realization that those chances are available for those who need them.  My favorite character was Vlado who doesn't complain about his need to immigrate and start all over again in his professional life but who just gets on with it while helping those around him whenever he can.  He loves Nora but has always been too shy to take his feelings forward.  I loved the small town feeling where everyone pretty much knows everyone else and chips in to help when necessary as that's the kind of town I grew up in.  This book is recommended for women's fiction readers.   

The Investigator by John Sandford

 

Letty Davenport, adopted daughter of Lucas Davenport is bored with her job.  She has been working in research for a Senator with her master's in economics but she is used to action as she helped her father work his cases as a lead investigator for the state of Minnesota.  About to quit, she agrees to stay when the Senator offers her a different job.  She will an active investigator aligned with Homeland Security.

Her first job is in Texas.  Someone has been stealing oil from the pipelines.  That's bad enough but Homeland Security suspects it might be a criminal gang who need the money to finance their plans.  Letty is joined by John Kaiser, an ex-military man who now works for Homeland Security.

They discover that what was suspected is true.  A right-wing militia group headed by a woman is behind the thefts.  They want to stop illegal immigration from across the border and plan a big demonstration of their power when the latest caravan of immigrants heads for Texas.  Can Letty and Kaiser stop their plans?

Fans of John Sandford have watched Letty grow up from her time as a poor girl from a dysfunctional family to a whip-smart young woman with lots of investigative experience once she is adopted by Davenport and his wife when she is orphaned.  Letty is whip-smart, a sharpshooter and unafraid to use her gun in a crisis, as she had to save her adopted family from certain death when a pair of men broke into the home to get revenge on Lucas when Letty was still in high school.  Now she is able to think clearly on the ground, is unafraid of action and ready to put an end to the group willing to kill to get their idea of immigration across.  I can't wait to read more about Letty and her adventures.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.  

Exit by Belinda Bauer

 

The advice for retired folks is to develop a hobby.  Felix's is to be an Exiteer.  The Exiteer is there to assist terminally ill patients choose their own death.  He supplies the materials, stays there with the patient until they pass, then removes all evidence.  Felix hopes one day someone will be there for him if he makes the decision to go sooner than life wants him to.

This should be a routine case except that Felix will be working with a new partner.  She is introduced to him as John and gives her name as Amanda.  No one knows an Exiteer's real name except the man who runs the entire operation.  The man they have come to assist is upstairs in bed, not able to speak but able to perform the tasks he needs to.  As John and Amanda are about to leave after the death, they hear someone down the hall.  They check and find an even older, sicker man in that bedroom.  They have assisted the wrong man!  Is this murder?

The police are brought in but they aren't sure at first what they are seeing.  They soon find Felix, however, as he and Amanda are captured on cameras entering and leaving the house.  It turns out that three generations were living in the house, grandfather, father and son.  The Exiteers had contracted with the grandfather but had mistakenly assisted the father.  Was it a set up?  Did the son use them to kill his father so he could inherit everything when his sick grandfather died?  Felix is horrified and even more so when he sees Amanda of all people meeting and having tea with the son.  Was she part of the set-up?

Belinda Bauer is one of my favorite mystery authors.  She is English and now lives in Wales.  Bauer worked as a journalist until she wrote a book, Badlands, to appease her mother.  To everyone's amazement, it won the CWA Gold Dagger for Crime Novel Of The Year.  Another of her novels, Snap, was longlisted for the Booker Prize.  She writes complex mysteries that feature an everyday person caught up in something they never expected but that their goodness and humanity help them negotiate.  In this novel, the reader watches Felix emerge from his cocoon as he tries to determine what really happened and what responsibility he and Amanda bear.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.