Sheer: A Novel
by Vanessa Lawrence
A deep into the makeup industry from the POV of a founder (1/13/2026)
The word "relatable" is often bandied about as a cliche in book reviews. However, Sheer is relatable. It is not relatable in the sense that I know many 40 year old female entrepreneurs who found cult-y makeup empires. It is relatable in the sense that I have watched the many decades of makeup-mania that Maxine, our founder and main character, lives through and transforms as she strives to build Reveal, a fictional company that will remind readers of many well-known beauty companies. What will also feel relatable are the events that lead to Max's downfall, told by Max in the style of a confessional.
Max shares the ups and eventual down of her rise in the beauty world and all she sacrifices. Max is attracted to women but learned early on that she had to hide her sexuality - from her small-town parents and friends, and eventually from her business partner and investors who are wrapped up in image and what sells. Max also recognizes early on that that other cliche is true - it is a man's world and Max chafes against the necessary (for their money) and chauvinistic intrusion of men into her empire. This is a read straight through book with a wistful conclusion as the naivete Max displayed as a 23 year old makeup savant comes back to haunt her and which she really never grew out of, to her detriment. Highly recommend.
Endling: A Novel
by Maria Reva
Superb novel about modern Ukraine (1/11/2026)
Endling is an absurdist tragi-comedy of a novel that pokes and prods at the lives of two groups of people - expat Ukrainians living in Canada (including the author, who inserts herself into her story in several instances of meta fiction) and young women in Ukraine immediately prior to the further incursion by the Russians in February 2022. Reva uses the foreign marriage bride industry as a metaphor for how much the world does not understand about Ukraine and its people, as well as for a plot device. The other primary metaphor at play is that of the snail population, whose species are dying out. A poorly conceived plan by one of the "brides" to kidnap prospective "grooms" that ensnares a sad malacologist who is trying to save Ukraine's snail population goes awry when the Russians invade. This is an excellent novel that illuminates the struggle of those watching a war unfold from afar and those who find their everyday lives completely upended by a war that they would never choose. Highly recommend.
Family of Spies
by Christine Kuehn
Dramatic and unsettling (12/22/2025)
Finding out your family has kept secrets from you is startling. Finding out those secrets involve your family having been Nazis is frightening. Finding out that the real secret is that those Nazis were also spies responsible for massive losses of American lives in WW2 is frankly unimaginable. So kudos to Christine Kuehn for not only uncovering and reckoning with her father’s past but for also presenting it in such a clear eyed and forthright manner. There is no equivocation. There is no apology. An epilogue tells us - at least in part - why Kuehn felt compelled to share the story and that relates to Kuehn witnessing the rising scourge of antisemitism overtaking North America. So thank you Christine Kuehn for sharing this difficult story.
The Gallagher Place: A Novel
by Julie Doar
Atmospheric dual timeline mystery (12/2/2025)
The Gallagher Place is a slow burn of a mystery. When a body is found on the Fisher's expansive country home property, questions arise as to whether it is connected to the disappearance of a young woman two decades earlier from the same property. The narrative unspools through the eyes of Marlowe, the middle Fisher daughter, and teenage best friend to the missing and never forgotten Nora. Who is covering up something and why? What are the risks to Marlowe's family if the secret long buried come to light? Doar crafts an atmospheric dual timeline narrative that gripped me to the very end.
The Irish Goodbye: A Novel
by Heather Aimee O'Neill
Perfect Thanksgiving Read (11/28/2025)
This is the best kind of family drama fiction - sprawling, multi-POV, heart-felt and well-told. Definitely, the tragedy at the centre of the story is a tough one (suicide and an accidental death). However, joining the 3 Ryan sisters - Maggie, Alice and Cait - for Thanksgiving at the historic family home with their aging parents in the small town they grew up in - while they navigate their unresolved grief, adult lives, and current challenges is a real treat. Highly recommend, especially during the holiday season!
The Gallagher Place: A Novel
by Julie Doar
Slow burn dual timeline mystery (11/19/2025)
The Gallagher Place is a slow burn of a mystery. When a body is found on the Fisher's expansive country home property, questions arise as to whether it is connected to the disappearance of a young woman two decades earlier from the same property. The narrative unspools through the eyes of Marlowe, the middle Fisher daughter, and teenage best friend to the missing and never forgotten Nora. Who is covering up something and why? What are the risks to Marlowe's family if the secret long buried come to light? Doar crafts an atmospheric dual timeline narrative that gripped me to the very end.
Heart the Lover
by Lily King
Come for the prose stay for the story (9/24/2025)
Lily King is an auto-buy for me and Heart the Lover did not disappoint. This is a slight novel - told in 3 sections over 3 decades. The first section sets up “Jordan” - the persona the narrator adopts in college - and her two friends, Yash and Sam, both of whom she’ll become romantically involved. The next section details a reunion of sorts between Yash and Jordan when she’s newly married to Silas and the mom of two young boys. The third section is a sad coda to the lives of all 3 characters. The book is filled with the longing and tragedy of young love. King is an extraordinarily gifted writer and this story will stay with me for a long time to come.
Love Forms: A Novel
by Claire Adam
Beautiful story of loss and longing (8/18/2025)
Claire Adam slowly unspools the story of 16 year old Dawn whose "mistake" leads to the birth of baby given up for adoption. Dawn is now in her late fifties and looking back on the events of that summer and fall, and the intervening four decades, which includes the birth of her two sons, but also a longing and search for the daughter she gave up. Dawn's story tracks developments in her own career and marriage alongside the rising and falling fortunes of Trinidad & Tobago, where she was part of the white business-owning upper class, before moving to England. This is a slow-burn, narrative heavy story, perfect for fans of well written fiction with strong female protagonists. Highly recommend.
The Accidental Favorite: A Novel
by Fran Littlewood
Fantastic Family Drama (8/4/2025)
I don't have a sister but have no doubt that Fran Littlewood absolutely nailed what it means to grow up with two sisters - always being compared to one another, inadvertently, advertently, kindly and cruelly. When an event happens to suggest that Dad Patrick has a favourite among his daughters, it sends the three Fisher sisters spiraling and along the way unveils deeply buried feelings among the family. With a sprawling cast of adjacent family members, all of whom are spending a week together at a vacation home, Littlewood keeps the action moving and the tension building. Recommended for fans of well written family drama.
Flashlight: A Novel
by Susan Choi
A challenging but ultimately rewarding novel (7/2/2025)
This is a tough one to review. At nearly 500 pages it is meaty, weighty, intense, gorgeously written, and wonderfully plotted. At the same time, it can be ponderous and a little confusing. There is no doubt that this book will reward readers of intelligent historical literary fiction and I know I will be thinking about this one for a long time to come. The story takes us through what appears to be the unexplained and horrific drowning of a young Japanese-born ethnic Korean man while he is walking on a Japanese beach with his 10-year-old daughter while his American disabled wife waits at home. That synopsis does little to encompass this sweeping historical narrative that Choi tells about what happened to stateless ethnic Koreans in Japan after the war; how memory tricks us and confuses us into believing things that weren’t there or are not true; and how decades pass while family come in and out of each other’s lives.
Women and Children First: A Novel
by Alina Grabowski
Stellar storytelling (6/18/2025)
Grabowski's novel unpacks the events surrounding the sudden death of a teen in a small depressed MA town. The story is told through the voices of 10 women - young and old, who are adjacent to, part of, on the periphery, or deeply impacted by the young girl's death. The storytelling is circular - the individual narratives dip in and out of time, going backwards and forwards, moving the plot along while also retelling certain events from different perspectives.
There is nothing rudimentary about the very modern tragic story that Grabowski novel unspools, yet it is also a tale as old as time - young girls on the cusp of womanhood, older women reflecting back on their youth. Throughout, I wanted the girls to listen more to the mothers and the mothers to listen more their daughters! Highly recommend for lovers of women-first literary fiction.
Wild Dark Shore: A Novel
by Charlotte McConaghy
A perfect novel (6/18/2025)
All the stars. Charlotte McConaghy has written the perfect novel. She has created a beautiful and frightening elegy to our world in all its disarray and disorder and also done wonders to celebrate the unbreakable bonds between parent and children.
Hazel Says No: A Novel
by Jessica Berger Gross
Well crafted multi person contemporary novel (6/4/2025)
This is a well-crafted multi-person contemporary novel that jumps off from the question of what if Hazel said no - specifically to the lecherous small town principal who propositions her. And not just no, but no and then telling her community about it rather than sinking into shame for something wholly not her fault and likely happening to others.
The catch though - this happens on Hazel's first day of high school in her senior town in a small depressed town in Maine to which her Jewish Brooklyn based family has just moved so that her father can take a better paid and tenured teaching position at the local small liberal arts college. What unspools from Hazel's decision affects her, her younger brother, and her parents in ways foreseen and unforeseen. Jessica Berger Gross is a talented writer and I am eager to see what she writes next. Highly recommend.
What Kind of Paradise: A Novel
by Janelle Brown
What if the Unabomber had had a daughter? (5/29/2025)
Brown's latest is an excellent genre mash up - a dash of literary fiction, an achingly difficult coming of age story, a drop of romance, a compelling mystery and a frightening thriller. Brown's story asks the question, simplified so as not to give away too much plot - what would happen if the Unabomber had been raising a daughter while pursuing his ideologic reign of terror. The book is fast paced and so good that I often wished I could shut off all the notifications on my phone and keep the outside world out so I could race to the end - the irony of this is not lost on me given that the thrust of the book is whether technology is good or bad? harmful or helpful? Whatever the answer, Brown's book is an excellent read.
The Ghostwriter: A Novel
by Julie Clark
Another winner (5/22/2025)
When you approach a new Julie Clark mystery, you must accept that you will do little else until you finish it. You will ignore your work, put down your phone, and forget to make dinner, all in service of ripping through another well told, smart story. Clark specializes in strong women facing difficult choices and The Ghostwriter offers several such examples.
The Names: A Novel
by Florence Knapp
Stellar novel (4/17/2025)
Occasionally someone says, "you rate too many novels 5 stars." So I thought about this and attribute it to the following: 1) I am choosy about what I read and do my research so the odds are high it will have merit and be good; 2) as a lifelong voracious reader, I recognize and appreciate a novel that is compelling, well-written and says something new; and 3) what does a rating system even mean. Which brings me to The Names by Florence Knapp. This is truly an outstanding, compulsively readable, unique, five star read. Knapp offers us a sliding doors novel of three versions of one woman's life - but the sliding doors in this case is a name - how does a name - the 3 names Cora bestows on her newborn son in 3 different versions of her life - define someone and what happens to our life as a result? This book is harrowing - the 3 "lives" all deal with domestic abuse. But there is beauty in the horror and an understanding of what it means to have a life well lived despite the odds. The highest of recommendations.
The Eights
by Joanna Miller
Moving and Illuminating (4/16/2025)
Women know well the uncomfortable experience of being the sole woman in a hostile environment. Women also know well the validating experience of being surrounded by women who lift you up and support you during the good and bad times. Miller has written a universal story centering on four women (the "Eights") who are so bold as to choose to join the inaugural graduating class at Oxford in 1920. The women's varied experiences pre, during and post-WWI are still fresh and underly their determined efforts to become educated and independent women in a society that values neither unless you are a man. Highly recommended to lovers of literary fiction and historical fiction.
The Bright Years
by Sarah Damoff
Redemptive and hopeful (4/10/2025)
As readers, we all long for a well written story with a redemption arc; a book that tackles some of society's most heart-wrenching issues - addiction, adoption; a book that shares a viewpoint but does not hammer the reader over the head with dogma or ideology. The Bright Years is that book. While the content is challenging and at times, so sad as to be almost - but not quite - overwhelming - the prose flows, the inner lives of the 3 narrators are effortlessly conveyed; and the pace of the story makes it hard to put down. Highly recommend. Thank you NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for the DRC
Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism
by Sarah Wynn-Williams
A clear eyed frightening behind the scenes look at big tech (4/10/2025)
When you can't stop thinking about a book, when it invades your dreams, when you ask everyone you know to read it ... you know it has had an impact. Even if Meta was not working so hard (and succeeding in part) to get this book and the author's voice quashed, I would be imploring everyone to read it. The book is fast paced, astonishing in its content, and clear minded in its view point. Kudos to Sarah Wynn-Williams for going where others dared not go.
Tilt: A Novel
by Emma Pattee
A wild dystopic but all too real ride (3/25/2025)
Pattee's novel is one of those read straight through in one sitting book. Actually, this book is one of those where you have to physically restrain yourself from reading the last few pages to find out what happens! Tilt tells the store of one day in the life of Annie, who is 37 weeks pregnant and at IKEA alone buying a crib when a massive earthquake hits Oregon.
As Annie tries to walk home through the destruction to get back her partner, her interior monologue is a frantic, ripped from the headlines searing indictment of climate change, the staggering cost of American healthcare and dental care, the pregnancy industrial complex, urban real estate prices, and the futility of making art in a broken world. In a taut 240 pages Pattee accomplishes so much. What a debut! What a voice!
Power Reviewer
