The Whisper Man by Alex North (2019), 384 pages
The Whisper Man is creepy with some pretty unsettling rhymes and "imaginary" friends to keep you feeling a little off. It is also about families and relationships that were broken and are slowly being rebuilt. All this to say, that the novel has more emotional heft than you might expect from a thriller.
Our Infinite and Inevitable Ends by A.D. Sui, 312 pages.
Dr. Cassandra Barlowe is doing thankless, underfunded research on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in a world that is rapidly spiraling towards climate apocalypse. Partially because she cares about plastic-eating fungi, and partially to get as far away as possible from Dr. Yana Gulsvig, the brilliant scientist of an ex she had an intense lifetime relationship with. Part of the reason her funding is so non-existent is because of Yana's own research on deleria, a drug that lets people look into other timelines to deal with their grief or search other timelines for the perfect solutions to Earth's problems. When Yana calls Cas right before the center of deleria research explodes with her inside, she is called back to Canada for a domestic terrorism investigation, and once she's there her own grief for Yana pulls her into a desperate, drug-fueled, investigation into why she died.
This book has one of the coolest concepts I've heard recently. The deleria is a great idea, and the framing device sounds great for a high-tension thriller. Unfortunately, the execution left something to be desired. I think this book needed at least a couple more of rounds of edits. There were a whole lot of details that didn't really make any sense (getting internationally arrested as a terrorist after a 1-minute phone call with someone you haven't spoken to in years, threatening to frame someone for a crime in a world where everyone is wearing recording devices in their eyes at all times, etc.) that added up to something that didn't feel very cohesive. Which makes this the most disappointing kind of book, because I can clearly see the bones of a great book underneath, but it is not what I'm reading.
This book will be published on October 27th, 2026
The Flynn family becomes more unhinged by the day. Between Catherine and Bud's open marriage, Abigail's boyfriend "War Crimes Wes", Louise's online correspondence with a terrorist, and Harper's insistence in uncovering the town's mysteries, there is always trouble brewing in the household. This trouble is connected throughout the novel by the dark figure looming over the town, a billionaire named Paul Alabaster.
The writing of each character in this novel is unique and immersive, and although the plot is unbelievably insane, there is something so special about the Flynn family and the ways in which they love one another. At the beginning of the book, it is hard to imagine rooting for any of the characters, but at the end of the book I found myself smiling at the ways in which they had grown.
Engines of Reason by Adrian Tchaikovsky, 192 pages.
It has been 15 years Nyr and Lyn defeated the impossible demon and saved the world. The fairytale of the precocious princess and the reluctant wizard came to an end, and life got in the way, as rifts opened between people who were important to each other. But a new threat is emerging, a "sorcerer" with more power than he should have, and the only answers are in the secrets of the past.
Elder Race is one of my favorite novellas, and while I didn't think it particularly needed a sequel, I was still very excited when I saw it was getting one. Having now read it, I honestly still think it probably didn't need a sequel. I did enjoy this book, but I don't think it had the magic of the original, which would have been difficult to recapture. It did have some interesting things to say about identity within stories, and the end definitely feels like it might be setting up a longer series, which I'm sure I will continue to read. This book is great if you were invested in the characters of Elder Race, but not quite so exceptional if you were more interested in the structure.
Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart: And Other Stories by GennaRose Nethercott, 259 pages.
This is a collection of contemporary fairy tales; not retellings, but fairy tales for the modern world. I found myself very confused in almost every story, but nevertheless found them very compelling. They are very comfortable in metaphorical and ambiguous spaces, a trait that is often shared in traditional fairy tales. "The Thread Boy" was probably my favorite of the collection, but I've also found myself thinking of "A Lily is a Lily" frequently since finishing the collection. Dark and puzzling, but also entrancing, this collection is hard to look away from and even harder to make sense of.
Serial bridesmaid Arielle is sick of losing all of her best friends and closest cousins to marriages and coupled-up events where she doesn't really fit in. But she's also not really the type of woman to settle down. Orthodox wedding singer Judah is the opposite of that: he's determined to find a bride (and the right one, not just *a* wife), but he doesn't do hookups and ascribes to shomer negiah, a prohibition of touching the opposite sex that some Orthodox Jews follow. Yet Judah's gigs and Arielle's bridesmaid duties keep bringing them together, and to the surprise of both of them, sparks fly.
I was really excited to read this book, as I thought it would be great to see a romance that respects Orthodox Judaism's traditions and limitations. And to some degree, this one does that, with plenty of discussion about the wedding traditions, and shomer negiah. However, Judah's deeply held beliefs about remaining shomer negiah go right out the door and go straight to some pretty spicy situations RIDICULOUSLY FAST. That seemed really problematic to me, and distracted me from the connection between the two main characters. That may be a me issue while reading this, but it's definitely something to be aware of if you start reading this thinking the romance and sexual tension will simmer but never scald.
When her magnetic and free-spirited mother Babe dies, Didion is summoned to her late mom's home, forced to spend the weekend with her sister and two friends from childhood, all of whom she has avoided seeing for years. Babe has left the island home to the four "kids" to do with as they wish — the only stipulation is that they must spend the weekend in the house together, with no phones or internet access. The four grudgingly agree, thinking that it's only 48 hours, but something happens when the clock ticks past midnight, and they're stuck reliving the same day over and over and over and over... None of the outside world is aware of it, but the four of them are determined to figure out how to break out of their time loop, even if it means they have to learn some lessons along the way.
This is the second book of Harbison's that I've read, and the second one with a plot device lifted straight from Hollywood — the first was a Sliding Doors "what if" plot, and this one was Groundhog Day (if you didn't read the first paragraph and missed all of the blinking neon arrows that pointed to it). The devices work, but it doesn't show a lot of creativity. Yes, the characters in this book grew and learned, but I didn't particularly like the way it happened. Not a horrible book, but not my favorite by a long shot.
Stitched by Eli McCann (2026), 280 pages
This was a very endearing
story. I am an unskilled (but trying) quilter and very much enjoyed hearing
about their process. Even I, though, knew that their idea for the competition
quilt was a bit shaky. The novel really follows the friendship of the women who
have been quilting together for decades; how they have worked together, became
friends, irritated each other, but still managed to show-up. While the new
recruits for the association bring some humor, it is the long-lasting
friendship that really drives the novel. It was a fun, quick read.
ExtraOrdinary by V.E. Schwab and Enid Balám, 112 pages.
After a near-fatal bus crash, Charlotte Tills gains the ability to see people's deaths in their reflections. Her own reflection is haunted by a strange man, a man in a prison uniform named Eli Ever. Waiting for her fate is driving her crazy, as is seeing her family's deaths in every surface, so she decides to go hunting for him instead.
This comic falls between books one and two in Schwab's Villains series, and I'm afraid it just didn't work for me as well as Vicious. I liked what we saw of the new characters, but with so many in a very short book what we saw of them wasn't very much. I also didn't appreciate that we played a little loose with the events of the first book. I expect changes in a comic adaptation to make things shorter, but as there realistically wasn't a lot of point in rehashing the same scenes to start with, it felt like a weakness. There were a few cool concepts, but I wouldn't exactly call it a standout graphic novel.
