Back After This

 

Back After This by Linda Holmes (2025) 304 pages

Cecily is a producer of audio podcasts for a company that sees its business model failing. Her boss, Toby, sees an opportunity to bring out a series that will help right the sinking ship. Cecily hasn't had a relationship since her last boyfriend dumped her, taking their shared podcast with him. She is being asked to work with relationship coach Eliza Cassidy on a series that will have Eliza setting Cecily up with 20 dates in order to find her a husband. Advertisers are lined up to support this program. It is not what Cecily really wants to do, but she agrees because she will be hosting, it will help save the job of one of her colleagues, and Toby has agreed to let her make a pilot for her own project after this is done.

As the series gets underway, Cecily runs into a guy she doesn't know, and helps him corral a Great Dane who had gotten away from his owner. Later she sees this guy, Will, again and again. He has had his own relationship woes, but he's funny and thoughtful and she is drawn to him, but knows that she needs to take the dating project seriously.

The characterizations are good and the dialogue feels real and is often funny. Readers get the inside scoop on audio project details from the author, who works for NPR. I liked the novel a lot, just as I liked a previous novel of Holmes', Evvie Drake Starts Over.

How To Seal Your Own Fate

How To Seal Your Own Fate by Kristen Perrin (2025) 309 pages

Like the first book in the Castle Knoll Murder Mystery series, How to Solve Your Own Murder, this book alternates between the past (1960s) and the present day. In the first book, Annie solved the murder of her mother's aunt Frances, a woman Annie never met, and was bequeathed the estate that Frances and her husband had lived on, Gravesdown Hall.

Annie is now trying to figure out how to fit into the village better, and is approached by Peony Lane, an old woman who had given Frances a fateful fortune years ago. When Peony Lane is later found murdered in Gravesdown Hall, Annie and her friend from London try to solve this case too. Meanwhile, Annie is learning from Frances's diaries about another murder that happened in the past, one which has some connections to the present.

The characterizations are mostly good, although a few are a bit stereotypical. Also, the wrap-up of the murder was a bit too drawn out for my taste. 

There is another book in this series now and I'm a bit torn whether to read it. However, some ureconciled tidbits in Annie's life are tempting me, so it'll probably happen eventually.

The Woman Who Wouldn't Die Quietly

 

The Woman Who Wouldn't Die Quietly by Katarina Bivald (2026)  344 pages

Berit Gardner, a Swedish novelist who usually stays in England, has decided to spend the fall and winter in a cottage her grandparents had owned on an island off Sweden. She ends up inviting police detective Ian Ahmed, whom she met during the course of the first book in this series, The Murders in Great Diddling, to join her. He's off duty and a bit stir-crazy because of a broken leg. He spends his time with binoculars, obsessed with a large home built on a nearby island. The woman who owns it is Margrethe Cullberg-Frantzen, a wealthy, opinionated, and abrasive owner of art galleries in three countries. 

Berit and Ian are invited to celebrate her 80th birthday. The atmosphere is tense as Margrethe belittles her adult children. Later, she falls off a cliff to her death, and it's not clear whether it was an accident or murder. The Swedish police would call it an accident except that Margrethe had told Ian that she feared for her life.

The weeks pass by, and as it gets colder and more desolate (yet beautiful), pieces of information come to light that help Berit finally piece together the mystery. But the novel is more than a mystery as it delves deeper into Berit and Ian's friendship, Berit's background, and the physical world around them on this Swedish archipelago. Highly recommended.

Whistler

Whistler by Ann Patchett (2026) 295 pages

Daphne and her sister Leda are extremely close. They have careers and husbands they love. When Daphne and her husband chance upon their mother's second husband Eddie in a New York City museum, all sorts of feelings come flooding back to Daphne after 40-something years apart. What follows is a series of visits and conversations mostly about how special Eddie was to the girls for the couple of years that Eddie and their mother were together. Eddie and Daphne were in a car accident when she was nine, which seemed to result in the end of their mother and Eddie's marriage, but why? The various relationships between the family members, including Daphne and Leda's mother and father, as well as Daphne's stepdaughters and Leda's son, all mesh beautifully into a book that is hard to set down. And why is there a horse on the book's cover. Read and find out! Highly recommended.

The Daisy Chain Flower Shop

The Daisy Chain Flower Shop by Laurie Gilmore (2026) 364 pages

A florist in a small resort town is considered by her townspeople to be cursed because of bad luck in her lovelife: a broken marriage and more recently, a broken engagement. She loses the biggest money-making part of her business‒weddings‒because no one wants to have her curse ruin their marriage. (Mind you, the story is set in modern times.) This florist, Daisy, is from a line of Daisies working in this shop: her mother, her grandmother, and so on. She's afraid her buisness will not survive.

Enter Elliot, a shy man who has moved to this town to get away from New York, where he had lived with his wife until she abruptly left him. His self confidence is shot. His mother and brother are worried and constantly checking up on him, even a couple of years later. If he had a relationship with someone else, his family would not fret so much.

Daisy, who is also fearful of another bad relationship, comes up with the idea of them having a fake relationship, thinking that the townspeople might think her curse is over and that they can trust her with their weddings again. All of this lead-up feels so contrived. But. If you want a light read and can just accept the implausible, it's not a bad story, even if its outcome seems obvious.

The Grandmother Plot

The Grandmother Plot by Caroline Cooney (2021) 269 pages

Freddy lives in his grandmother's house and visits her frequently in the memory care facility where she now lives. She doesn't always call him by the correct name, but she seems to recognize him and she likes it when he pushes her in her wheelchair on walks. He's solicitous of her wellbeing. But he also smokes a lot of weed when he's not with her. He barely makes a living creating glass beads and glass bongs. To complicate everything, somehow he has gotten himself on the wrong side of a crook who has sent his muscle to find Freddy.

Meanwhile, a woman who lives in the memory center with Freddy's grandmother has died, and the police say it was murder by smothering. Freddy's sisters, who are all out of town, are after him to get Grandma out of the center, but they can't help and they don't realize that Grandma couldn't safely live in her house anymore. Freddy's in a panic about what to do about his grandma and he is also worried about a couple of his friends who were arrested after being set up. Could he be next?

Although this novel is somewhat depressing, there are enough characters who grabbed my interest, including a dog named Snap, who has a reputation for biting, and Mrs. Maple, whose aunt is in the same facility. Freddy is likeable, even as he makes questionable choices. A final thought: the author really knows people who live with dementia and what it's like inside a memory care facility.

No Matter What

No Matter What by Cara Bastone (2026) 312 pages

Roz, her husband Vin, and Vin's brother were all in a terrible accident about a year ago. They all lived together after the accident because Roz and Vin felt that Vin's brother shouldn't be alone while recovering. Ultimately, the brother‒who is Roz's best friend, by the way‒moved out on his own, but Roz and Vin no longer connect. Roz gets hints that Vin wants to leave her and she's desperately sad, but she can't tell him, and she won't tell his brother, either. She ends up taking up figure drawing, which brings her new friends, new confidence, and a great distraction from her worries and her PTSD.

As often happens, I can't figure out why no one is really communicating what they've thinking, even to the people they love the most. Maybe that's why the book worked for me: far too often that's what happens in real life. I wanted to see what was going to happen.

Meeting New People

Meeting New People by Daniel M Lavery (2026) 268 pages

If one is content to read a novel with most of the action happening in a woman's head or in her past, you might want to pick this one up. Barbara lives in a small apartment on the top floor of a six floor walk-up in Brooklyn. Recently her best friend broke up with her and she really doesn't know why, and she is distraught. She spends much time considering the best friends she has had in the past, not knowing exactly what went wrong in these relationships, either. Along the way, Barbara contemplates her two marriages and divorces. She also delves into the relationship she has with her adult son, Ezra, wondering how it could be made less contentious.

She doubts she'll ever remarry, and knowing how friends can help each other get through life's trials, she wonders how she can find a friend at her age (almost 58). Meanwhile, she goes through her life's motions, working in an upscale food market while managing the staff. She also considers what religion means to her.

This was not an action-filled novel, but I felt that I really was inside Barbara's head. I enjoyed her history, her life now, and the incremental changes that make a difference.

Lost Lake

Lost Lake by Sarah Addison Allen (2014) 296 pages

The cast of characters include Eby, an older widow who owns a lakeside resort that is in disrepair, just outside a little town in Georgia; Lisette, a mute woman whom Eby and her late husband had met in Paris and who has now been with Eby for most of her life; Kate, a young woman who has been a zombie since her husband died a year ago; Devin, Kate's eight-year-old daughter who has a most lively imagination; Cricket, Kate's mother-in-law, a controlling woman who is planning to run for a political office in Atlanta; and several others, all with engaging backstories.

Kate feels as if she has literally woken up after a year lost when her husband died. She sees her mother-in-law planning out her life, selling her house, moving her to the mother-in-law's house, and planning for her to work in her mother-in-law's office. The mother-in-law also wants to send Kate's daughter to a private school and train her to wear proper clothing, instead of letting her choose the fairy wings and cowboy boots and other garb that Devin likes so well.

 On their moving day, Kate finds Devin wearing clothing from a dress-up trunk in the attic and Devin shows her a postcard she found in the trunk from Kate's great-aunt Eby, which has a picture of Eby's resort. They make a split second decision to go to the resort to see if it still exists.

Eby has just agreed to sell the resort to a man who wants to redevelop it. The past keeps poking up its head. There just might be a ghost or two. As well as people who are looking for meaning. I liked this novel very much.

A Zoom with a View

 

A Zoom with a View by Jess Cannon (2026) 370 pages

Leo (short for Leonora) has reluctantly moved back to her hometown, a small city just south of Austin, Texas. Reluctant because she has most often felt that her mother is standoff-ish and doesn't want her to come back. Reluctant, too, because moving back is an admission that after her multiple post-doc years, she can't get a permanent job as an English professor. However, she accepts a summer job taking photos of new listings with a realtor (Kay) who happens to be her mother's best friend as well as the mother of Leo's best friend.

At the town's 4th of July parade, there is an altercation between Kay and another realtor, Chaz.  Chaz and his girlfriend have been spotted sabotaging Kay's float for the parade. Just hours later, Chaz is dead and Kay is arrested for his murder. On the surface, this story looks to be a standard whodunnit. However, there are hints early on that something more nefarious is going on, something which started way before this murder. This is the hook that led to this book being finished in a day, which does not happen often anymore.

Social media skills come into play while collecting evidence; Leo knows her stuff and finds herself helping the local detective. Are the characters believable? Mostly. Is the storyline solid? Reasonably. Is Leo a protagonist we can get behind? Most definitely. She's smart, measured, and takes time to think.  The only negative might be a positive: the book is calling for a sequel.

The First Date Prophecy

The First Date Prophecy by Kate and Danny Tamberelli (2023) 327 pages

Lucy and Rudy are both in their early thirties and living month to month without great jobs and definitely not finding partners. When Lucy gets back onto the dating website HeartThrobs after a particularly bad first date, she sees Rudy's profile and recognizes him as a child star from a TV series and decides to give him a chance. Rudy, meanwhile, gets onto the same site after his own annoying date: someone who approached him after one of his music gigs in a bar. He finds Lucy's profile. They end up meeting in a restaurant featuring Elvira, the oldest psychic in New York. The date ends up etched in their memories because of the old woman's prophecy for them, which seems like it's positive. However, the old woman is unable to finish before she collapses.

After that unsettling experience, Lucy and Rudy decide to hang out with each other to see if their relationship has a chance of success. They go to each other's job gigs and meet each other's friends. They like each other a lot, but they are each reluctant to take the relationship to a physical level, fearful of possible heartbreak.

Watching them as their friendship and job prospects progress, waiting to see if they can be successful together, is a fun trip, complete with eccentric secondary characters, weird situations, and of course, a crisis point.

Voted Most Likely to Murder

Voted Most Likely to Murder by Lacey Moone (2026) 294 pages

Belinda Bishop is an outspoken daughter of a cop and a real estate agent. Her parents now run a small cottage rental and RV park in their small town in Nova Scotia. Belinda is back home working with them after her attempts to make a living by journalism haven't worked out. She reluctantly goes to her class reunion and catches up with both good friends and her former best friend—now enemy—Jolene. 

They are not the only ones with issues. There's a moment when things get heated on the dance floor, when classmate Andy, a big flirt, starts lecturing Trawler about his treatment of Trawler's wife, Jolene. It's awkward, and even more so when Belinda and her friend Stevie stumble onto Andy's dead body later. When Jolene is deemed a person of interest in the murder, Belinda and Stevie try to help clear Jolene's name, which is tricky because of Belinda and Jolene's rocky relationship.

The murder investigation by the three women has a solid foundation, but they keep getting in the way of the real investigators in the police force. The story flowed well, but the outspokenness and sometimes impulsiveness of Belinda was a bit much at times. Enjoyable in spite of that.

Beyond Magenta

Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out by Susan Kuklin (2014) 182 pages

This book was published over 12 years ago, but the information still seems fresh. The author interviews six teens, going into their lives and when they became aware that they didn't match up with their assigned-at-birth gender, and how they and their families navigated after that. Some of the young people are male-to-female, some are female-to-male, one was determined to be intersex. Some have families that accept them, some do not. The soul-searching that these young people go through to try to figure out who they are is difficult.

Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 [graphic novel]

 

Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 The Authorized Adaptation by Tim Hamilton (2009) 149 pages

Somehow I'd missed reading Ray Bradbury's dystopian novel from 1953. This graphic novel version caught me up in no time. It's a timely subject for those reeling from book bans. Guy Montag is a fireman, but fireman means something quite different in his time: he helps burn books of those who are found to have them. He meets a young woman in his neighborhood while walking home one night, and his conversations with her make him start questioning everything he sees and knows. Good book, which makes me want to read the original. 

That's What Friends Are For

That's What Friends Are For by Wade Rouse (2026) 344 pages

Four gay men, ranging in age from their sixties to early eighties, are living together in Palm Springs in a pink house once owned by Zsa Zsa Gabor. They came out as gay in times when people were even less tolerant than they are today, and each of the men has been wounded along the way. They call themselves the Golden Gays, and they even put on shows regularly, modeling them after the Golden Girls TV show that aired from the late 80s to the early 90s. Teddy, who runs a vintage clothing shop, plays the role of Dorothy. Barry, who is an actor who never made it big, writes the shows for the Golden Gays and plays the role of Blanche. Sid, the oldest at eighty-one, is still working ten hours a week as an attorney. He was once married to a woman and has adult children and now grandchildren. He plays the role of Sophia. Ron keeps the house running and the others fed, as well as tends to various civic boards in the city. He plays the role of Rose.

Even now, as best friends and housemates, they have secrets from each other. The novel sets them in motion, and as we see their lives unspool, it's hard not to care about them a whole lot. I highly recommend this book.

Wreck

 

Wreck by Catherine Newman (2025) 215 pages

Wreck is the perfect title for this short novel, which follows Rocky's family, the same family that was highlighted in Sandwich. Wreck empasses the emotional aftermath of a train wreck, but also the deep concern with a health blip that turns into a full-fledged health scare. Rocky's widowed father is living in a separate building on Rocky and her husband Nick's property in Western Massachusetts. Their daughter Willa is with them as well, not having moved out post college yet. Their son Jamie is married and living in New York City, but in spite of his distance, he is a key player in this story, as well.

This story has it all - realistic, close famiy relationships, frustration that sometimes comes with such close relationships, health concerns, as well as moral concerns: do we really know the people we think we know. One does not have to have read Sandwich to enjoy this book, but having read Sandwich gave me the chance to feel that I was coming home to a family that I hadn't seen for a bit, and didn't realize how much I missed them.

The Bodyguard

 

The Bodyguard by Katherine Center (2022) 302 pages

When you think of a bodyguard, you may not visualize a five foot five inch woman, but that's what Hannah is. Her company has been hired to protect an especially popular and good-looking actor, Jack Stapleton, who has a stalker. When Jack needs to temporarily relocate to Texas to be near his mother, who has been diagnosed with cancer, Hannah is the primary bodyguard for Jack. Because Jack doesn't want his family to worry about his stalker, he insists that Hannah pose as his girlfriend, rather than as a more traditional type of bodyguard.

A few complications are that Hannah had been dating another bodyguard in her company, who has broken up with her (and right after her mother has died), but she still needs to work with him. Jack's complication is that one of his brothers - Drew - died in a car accident two years ago, and Jack's older brother Hank still blames Jack, because Jack was in the car with Drew. Jack survived, but Drew did not.

Hanging out with Jack and his family - not the standard operation for a bodyguard - is making Hannah appreciate the relationships within Jack's family (with the exception of Hank) even as she works to convince herself that Jack is acting, not really interested in her. I really enjoyed this page turner.

Love By the Book

Love By the Book by Jessica George (2026) 326 pages

Remy has written her first book, a best-seller based on a decade-long friendship with three other friends. Her agent is after her to get her next book underway, but Remy is suffering from writer's block, partly because her friends have gone different directions - one is expecting her first child and has moved outside London, one is making a move across the ocean to New York City, and the third has gone back to the boyfriend that the rest of them feel is not a good match for her. As Remy's finances tank, she makes a move back into her mother's home. But worse than the financial part, she is feeling a drought of friendship.

This book explores her attempts to nurture a relationship with Simone, who had gone to Remy's high school. Simone is smart, but prickly with regard to whom she gets close to. Simone's family, who had provided her with all the nurturing she needed, has walled her off because of a side job of Simone's that they learn about and disapprove of.

The friendship with the original group of four young women feels genuine, as does Remy's attempts to reach out to Simone. The novel has a few other storylines that add conflicts to make it even more real. Recommend.

Emma

 

Emma by Jane Austen (1816) 484 pages

Until recently, the only book of Austen's which I had read was Pride and Prejudice, along with many take-offs using the Bennett family as a starting point. I have been thirsting for something substantial to read, something that would be a sure winner, and Emma was that sure winner.

Possibly everyone reading has long been aware of the plot of this novel: Emma is a twenty-one-year-old woman from a family of means, determined to care for her elderly father rather than to marry. She does relish the idea of trying to match up other available young people and she takes credit for the successful marriage of her former governess and a local widower. When Emma meets Harriet Smith, a young woman of unknown parentage, Emma is determined to keep her from marrying a farmer who has caught her eye, but instead wants to match her up with a man who is higher up in society. Things don't always work out the way she expects.

The reader meets all sorts of people in the small town of Highbury, some 16 miles outside of London, many of whom are just regular folks, and some who are more in the "gentleman's" class of people, such as her neighbor, Mr. Knightley, who is the brother of Emma's sister's husband. Sometimes Emma has a streak of classism and other times we see a more humanitarian side of her. Her inclinations evolve as time goes on and as she tries to assuage her father's negativity. This work is a fine, classic story.

Lucky Day

Lucky Day by Chuck Tingle (2025) 228 pages

Vera just received her advanced degree in statistics and probability, and has gathered with her mother and her friends to celebrate at a restaurant when a low-probability event occurs. This may sound innocuous, but what occurred in Chicago, where they were, was a horrible series of disasters, which ended up killing and horribly injuring scads of people. Vera's mother and a good friend died. World-wide, almost 8 million people died on this one day.

Vera flees to her mother's home in Wisconsin and does very little besides lie on the couch for four years. One day a man knocks at her door, whom she ignores, but he walks in anyway, trying to get her, with her statistical knowledge, to help solve the problem with these low-probablity events, which are apparently ongoing, although not at the scale as that one day. The man, Special Agent Layne, indicates that a casino in Nevada, might be involved somehow. Vera is well aware of the casino's reputation and knew their stats.

What follows is their trip to Nevada to the casino and their quest to put an end to what is making these low-probability events continue. The story reminds me a bit of Grady Hendrix's works, quick and action packed, with a bit of mental chess going on.