In this uneven debut from YA author Nunnery (The Next Best Thing), a girl goes on a crusade to save the family business. Twelve-year-old Eleanor Black has been raised by her father since she was six and her mother vanished after a day of work at the family’s small-town Georgia bookstore. Eleanor’s lonely life gets a boost with the arrival of Maggie, who’s visiting her reclusive aunt, Ruby, while her parents are settling their divorce. The girls become friends and Eleanor confesses to Maggie that she learned from “foreboding letters” found in her father’s desk that they’re about to lose the bookstore. The girls start scheming ways to save it, and as Eleanor spends time at Ruby’s mansion, the two form a kinship based on the fact that Ruby also lost her mother when she was young. When Eleanor discovers an old manuscript in a desk’s hidden compartment at the bookstore, she hopes it’s valuable enough to save the shop. Researching the book and its author, however, leads her down an unexpected path with supernatural implications. The fantasy elements are a jarring shift from the thoughtful character-driven story. Still, this tenderhearted tale has its moments. (Self-published)

Reviewed on 10/03/2025 | Details & Permalink

Parsons kicks off her Stranded in Leavenworth series with this wilderness-set charmer. Lucy O’Malley is happily planning a romantic outdoorsy vacation in the quaint town of Leavenworth with her workaholic, somewhat emotionally distant boyfriend, Brodan—until he dumps her on her 30th birthday. Meanwhile, widowed wilderness tour company owner, Jonathan Miller, whose wife, Cynthia, died four years earlier in a white-water rafting accident on an expedition he was leading, has vowed never to allow anyone else into his heart. Then Lucy comes bounding into his life and announces that the trip she booked for two will actually be a one-on-one tour. Reluctantly consenting to lead Lucy on her solo hiking trip, Jonathan is soon won over by her grit, especially as the multiday climb turns out to be harder than she’d expected. Through landslides, torrential rainstorms, and renegade tents, Lucy and Jonathan grow closer—but will their pasts prevent them from getting together? Lucy’s sweetness and sass convincingly slips beneath Jonathan’s high walls, and their grumpy/sunshine dynamic is a treat. Supporting characters, especially Lucy’s drag-queen bestie, Dirty O’Feelya, provide enchanting pockets of levity. This well-crafted romance will have readers hooked. (Self-published)

Reviewed on 10/03/2025 | Details & Permalink

Monti’s first novel (after the memoir I Remember Brooklyn) is an amusing crime caper in the vein of Elmore Leonard. Rocky Delmonico, a New Jersey golf hustler, gets into trouble with mobster Gino Lofaccio during the funeral of Gino’s father. As the casket is being lowered into the ground, Gino’s mother leaps on top of it, and Rocky can’t stifle his laughter. Afterwards, an infuriated Gino tells Rocky that, to make up for his faux pas, he’ll become the golf pro at Fair Play, a course run by slimy businessman Pincus Bogalinsky. Gino hopes to buy the property Fair Play sits on and turn it into a “condo goldmine.” He instructs Rocky to earn Pincus’s trust and gather any information that might help him make the purchase. Rocky reluctantly accepts the assignment, but soon discovers that Gino is not the only person looking to take Pincus down. As Rocky stumbles into ever more dangerous dealings, he struggles to keep a target off his own back. The premise’s familiarity ends up being more of an asset than a demerit as Monti manages to puts his own droll twist on the travails of small-time Jersey mobsters. For readers who like their crime with a side of comedy, this gets the job done. (Self-published)

Reviewed on 09/26/2025 | Details & Permalink

Randall debuts with an uplifting road novel about a terminally ill woman attempting to make amends. Eleanor, 61, has been betrayed and ignored for years by her husband, Walt, a Republican U.S. senator who’s now having an affair with an intern. After Eleanor is diagnosed with ALS, she leaves Walt and their home in Dayton, Ohio, in her pickup truck, hoping to reconcile with their only child, Jillian, a lesbian, and her younger sister, Isabel. Both women live in Colorado, and as Eleanor drives toward them across Kansas, she reflects on the causes of their estrangement. She was young when she married Walt, and left Isabel to deal with their mother’s dementia. When Walt spoke out publicly against gay rights, she neglected to support Jillian. Interspersed throughout are monologues from the perspective of such objects as the mixtape playing in her truck (“Don’t get me wrong, I hate making Eleanor cry, but I think it just might be my job to crack the old girl open every once in a while”). It’s a clever device that adds a welcome levity to the somber material, even as Eleanor vows later in the narrative to “get back to the business of dying after I’ve found a life.” This strikes just the right chord. (Self-published)

Reviewed on 09/19/2025 | Details & Permalink

Bell (the Annalise series) delivers a memorable small-town whodunit about a former pastry chef accused of murder. Laura Harris gave up her life as a culinary star in Los Angeles to care for her cancer-stricken mother in Sternburg, Tex. After her mother dies, Laura has second thoughts about her decision, and visits her lifelong friend, nonagenarian vineyard owner Hattie Stenburg, for advice. When Laura arrives, however, she finds Hattie’s battered corpse in her caretaker’s bedroom. Detective Adams, the local sheriff’s investigator, immediately suspects Laura of killing Hattie, since she discovered the body. His suspicions intensify when a reading of Hattie’s will reveals she named Laura the sole heir to her vast fortune. Laura has little choice but to find the real killer and clear her name—a task complicated by the hostility of Sternburg locals, who see her as little more than a coastal interloper, and Laura’s distrust of Hattie’s caretaker, who guards key information about the woman’s final days. Bell brings the eerie, tight-knit community of Sternburg to vibrant life, and makes Laura’s desperation palpable. This satisfies. (Self-published)

Reviewed on 09/12/2025 | Details & Permalink

A Midwestern hotel employee reinvents herself as an amateur sleuth in Sharp’s endearing debut cozy. Maiden Harlow works at the Harlow House Inn in Golden Glen, Mich., alongside her parents and her sister, Vonny. Most days consist of little more than lugging bags up and down stairs and managing the occasional hotheaded guest. Then a man named Mr. Creevey, who arrived at the inn with no ID and few possessions, is found in his room with his head bashed in. After police captain David McAlister learns that Maiden had a heated argument with the dead man when she caught him trying to hack the inn’s computer system, he pins her as his lead suspect. To clear her name, Maiden sets out to solve the murder herself, following a trail of clues that leads to an unprecedented bank robbery in a neighboring town. Sharp doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but her plotting is brisk and she makes Maiden’s wobbly first attempts at detecting feel plausible. This a diverting whodunit for fans of Murder, She Wrote. (Self-published)

Reviewed on 09/12/2025 | Details & Permalink

Three children evacuate London for Sussex during WWII and make a surprising series of discoveries in this reflective novel from Mulhorn (The Release). Fourteen-year-old Katie and her younger brothers Angel, 10, and Tom, six, are on a farm belonging to their grandparents, whom they call Biddy and Codger. Their father, a soldier, is stationed in North Africa and their mother works for the Ministry of Information. In between farm chores and irregular schooling by their distractible grandmother, the children discover signs of someone bivouacking in a forested part of the property. They stake it out and meet Stanely Mobbs, a young draft dodger. Stanley becomes like an older brother, indulging the two boys’ games and winning over Angel, who initially wanted to report Stanley to Biddy and Codger. The siblings sneak him food and keep his presence a secret until Angel is attacked by knife-wielding bullies. When Stanley intervenes, he’s stabbed, prompting Angel to take him to Codger, who’s a doctor. Codger is sympathetic to Stanley’s predicament and tries to help him become a medic to avoid the front lines. Meanwhile, during a surprise visit from the children’s injured father, they learn a secret about their origins. Mulhorn effectively conveys the children’s sense of their lives being in suspension while they wait out the war. It’s an affecting family drama. (Self-published)

Reviewed on 09/12/2025 | Details & Permalink

In this affecting debut from Gongola, a preteen navigates family strife near the end of the Vietnam War, tries to be a hero, and discovers the truth is not always what it seems. Stevie Stepanek, 11, grows up in a New England mill town, raised by a father who lost both legs as an infantryman in WWII, and who frequently trades barbs with Stevie’s mother, a waitress and heavy smoker. Stevie absorbs his family’s pain even more intensely upon the return from Vietnam of his older brother, Paul, who’s suffering from PTSD and has gone mute. When the Barnes family, who is Black, moves in across the street in their predominantly white neighborhood, Stevie resists his parents’ racist admonishments to stay away from them. He befriends Ronnie, the family’s youngest, and the two become altar boys together. After Stevie begins to suspect their priest, Father Gabe, of molesting Ronnie, he sets out with Ronnie’s brother Marcus to investigate, setting the stage for an improbable plot twist. Much better are the nostalgic scenes of Stevie’s everyday challenges and triumphs, as when he convinces his parents to help him fix up his broken-down Schwinn Sting-Ray, or plays pick-up baseball with his friends. It’s an enjoyable if simplistic trip down memory lane. (Self-published)

Reviewed on 08/29/2025 | Details & Permalink

Krenik’s promising debut nimbly melds fantasy and mystery for a satisfying whodunit set in 2226. Courtney Drake has spent two years distraught over the disappearance of her husband, Keith, who vanished while coordinating assistance to hurricane victims in the Tropics. She’s stunned when a letter arrives informing her that Keith was arrested for spreading lies about PAX, a group of anti-democratic elites who masked their desire for power as an earnest attempt to improve living conditions for working people worldwide. Strapped for money, Courtney agrees to tutor the five-year-old twins of Lord Robert Ranfurly, a widower who has been secretly working with anti-PAX group CAPE, to which Courtney’s son, Nick, also belongs. The job becomes more complicated when Lord Ranfurly’s gardener is killed, possibly by PAX members or sympathizers, and Courtney teams up with Lord Ranfurly to solve the murder, hoping the investigation might lead her to Keith. Krenik toggles between Courtney’s and Ranfurly’s perspectives, which helps flesh out a future filled with dragons and nefarious government conspiracies. With satisfying reveals and tantalizing sparks between the protagonists, this will leave readers eager for the sequel. (Self-published)

Reviewed on 08/29/2025 | Details & Permalink

Wood’s simple and straightforward debut traces the friendship of three women from young adulthood into their late 70s. In 1946, recent high school grads BT, Joanie, and Edie view a summer waiting tables on Martha’s Vineyard as a chance for liberation from the “tightly bound cocoon” of Little Cliffs, R.I. Indeed, the girls do find freedom—especially BT, who embarks on a summer fling while her fiancé, Leo, is stationed overseas. Decades later, recently widowed Joanie struggles with whether to confess the role she and Edie played in BT and Leo’s eventual broken engagement. Toggling between the first-person perspectives of all three women, the novel shifts between the present day and that pivotal youthful summer and touches on each woman’s relationship and career trajectories during the intervening years. The emotional core is the steadiness of the women’s friendships over decades of disappointments by parents and spouses. Reuniting near the novel’s end, they reflect on the meaning of “coming of age,” with Joanie musing, “What age? Old age? Have we come into it yet? All I know is that life is getting shorter and friends could leave us.” Archival photos sprinkled throughout lend authenticity to the refreshingly unsentimental narrative. This satisfies. (Self-published)

Reviewed on 08/15/2025 | Details & Permalink