⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The Edge of Belonging by Amanda Cox completely won me over. This is a dual-timeline novel that centers on Ivy Rose, who returns to her hometown to handle her grandmother Pearl’s estate. What begins as a simple estate sale slowly opens the door to long-buried truths about Ivy’s adoption and the circumstances surrounding her birth. Some answers heal. Others hurt. All of them matter. Running alongside Ivy’s story is one set twenty-four years earlier, when Harvey James—a homeless man living on the margins—finds an abandoned newborn in the woods. That baby gives Harvey purpose and connection for the first time in his life. His love for her is fierce and pure, but […]
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The Thursday Murder Club Does It Again—With Extra Heart and Extra Twists
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️½ If you’re already a fan of The Impossible Fortune, you can relax—you’re in very good hands. And if you’re new to Richard Osman, this is a lovely place to start. Life is humming along—wedding plans, personal worries, the usual business of growing older—when trouble shows up, as it always does, right on cue. A guest disappears, an uneasy romantic partner raises more questions than answers, and whispers begin to circulate about something extremely valuable that people might be willing to kill for. Before long, Joyce, Elizabeth, Ron, and Ibrahim find themselves knee-deep in cryptic clues, hidden motives, and a con that keeps shifting shape. Osman once again proves he’s a master […]
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Gripping and Gloomy, With a Few Rough Edges
⭐⭐⭐⭐ Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy is an intense, often gripping novel—but not one I’d personally put in starred-review territory. The story follows Dominic Salt and his three children, the last caretakers of Shearwater, a remote island near Antarctica that safeguards the world’s largest seed bank. Cut off from the rest of the world and battered by violent storms and rising seas, their fragile existence is upended when a mysterious woman named Rowan washes ashore. Her arrival brings hope, suspicion, and a cascade of unsettling revelations—sabotaged radios, buried grief, long-kept secrets, and a grave that raises more questions than answers. I’ll be honest: the climate change theme turned me off, and it’s […]
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A Big-Hearted Story About Faith, Belonging, and Everyday Miracles
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ I went into Life, and Death, and Giants not quite sure what to expect, and came out completely smitten. This is one of those books that doesn’t shout for attention. It just sits down beside you, tells its story, and somehow makes itself at home in your heart. Gabriel Fisher is born different—startlingly so—and the small town of Lakota, Wisconsin, has no idea what to make of him. After a devastating loss, he’s taken in by his devout Amish grandparents, who believe the safest path is a hidden one. But some things can’t stay tucked away forever, especially in a place where everyone knows everyone else. Ron Rindo writes about grief, […]
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A Tense Premise That Never Quite Heats Up
⭐️⭐️⭐️½ I’m a fan of Pam Jenoff, but I’ll be honest—her books tend to run hot and cold for me. Code Name Sapphire landed squarely in the middle. Lukewarm. Set in 1942, the novel follows Hannah Martel, a Jewish woman who escapes Nazi Germany after her fiancé is killed in a pogrom. When her ship to America is turned away, Hannah finds refuge with her cousin Lily and her family in Brussels. With no safe way out of occupied Europe, Hannah is drawn back into the resistance, joining the Sapphire Line. When a devastating mistake leads to Lily’s family being arrested and placed on a train bound for Auschwitz, Hannah faces an impossible […]
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A Quiet, Gritty Look at a Woman Who Refuses to Stay in Her Lane
⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Physician’s Daughter is set just after the Civil War, in a country struggling to move forward while still tethered to the past. Eighteen-year-old Vita Tenney dreams of becoming a country doctor like her father, only to be told that marriage—not medicine—is her future. Vita’s determination drives the novel, and Conway convincingly portrays how narrow a woman’s options were in 1865. Jacob Culhane, a war veteran weighed down by loss and trauma, becomes Vita’s unlikely ally. Their arrangement—part escape plan, part business partnership—feels rooted in the social and economic realities of the time. The novel shines in its atmosphere and introspection. Conway captures the loneliness of ambition and the disorientation […]
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A Brutally Honest Memoir That Hurts to Read
⭐⭐⭐⭐ In I’m Glad My Mom Died, Jennette McCurdy pulls zero punches. This is not a cozy celebrity memoir with amusing behind-the-scenes stories and a tidy redemption arc. It’s raw, uncomfortable, and often downright bleak. I went in expecting at least a few laughs, given the buzz and the cheeky title. Instead, I found myself wincing more than smiling. McCurdy details her childhood as a working actor with devastating clarity—from obsessive weigh-ins and “calorie restriction” to a level of parental control that’s hard to fathom. Her rise to fame on iCarly and later Sam & Cat doesn’t bring freedom, only deeper anxiety, addiction, and disordered eating. The material can be crass at times, and it’s definitely not […]
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A Tender, Sweeping Story of Love, Loss, and the Ties That Bind
⭐⭐⭐⭐½ Beyond That, the Sea by Laura Spence-Ash is a quiet, deeply moving novel that sneaks up on you and then stays put. Set during World War II, it follows eleven-year-old Beatrix Thompson, sent from London to live with a family in Massachusetts as part of the wartime evacuation of British children. What begins as a temporary arrangement stretches into years, and Bea grows up shaped by two homes, two families, and two very different versions of herself. Spence-Ash handles this emotional balancing act with real grace. Bea’s American host parents are kind, flawed, and loving in their own ways, while her mother back in England remains a powerful, aching presence—distant […]
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An Atmospheric Historical Novel, Even for Non-Gothic Readers
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I’m not usually drawn to gothic novels, so a four-star rating here surprised me. That said, Mrs. England won me over more with its historical insight and character work than its shadows and suspense. Ruby May, a newly trained Norland nurse, accepts a post caring for four children in a remote Yorkshire household in 1904. From the outset, the England home feels unsettled—Mrs. England seems oddly unaware of Ruby’s arrival, the servants are distant, and only Mr. England and the children offer warmth. Ruby is the book’s clear standout. She’s capable and intelligent, but also young, flattered by attention, and prone to mistakes that carry real consequences. As her unease deepens, […]
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An Uneven Gilded Age Story, Highlighted by the Titanic
⭐⭐⭐ The Second Mrs. Astor promises glittering Gilded Age drama, but it only truly comes alive when history does the heavy lifting. The strongest, most engaging portion of the novel is the section devoted to the sinking of the Titanic. Those chapters crackle with tension and urgency, finally giving the story some much-needed momentum and emotional weight. Unfortunately, everything before and after that pivotal event feels thin by comparison. Madeleine Astor should be a fascinating figure—a young woman navigating scandal, wealth, and rigid social expectations—but she never fully steps off the page. The marriage to John Jacob Astor IV is treated more as a plot device than a relationship worth exploring in […]
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