Latest Reviews
Natalka and Edwin are perfect, if improbable, partners in a detective agency. Eighty-four-year-old Edwin is a master at surveillance, deploying his age as a cloak of invisibility. Natalka, more than 50 years his junior, is a math whiz who takes any cases concerning fraud or deception. She loves a murder, but none have come the agency’s way. That is until local writer Melody Chambers dies. Melody’s daughters are convinced that their mother was murdered. Edwin thinks that Melody’s death is linked to that of an obituary writer who predeceased many of his subjects. Edwin and Benedict go undercover to investigate and are on a creative writing weekend at isolated Battle House when another murder occurs. Are the cases linked, and what is the role of a distinctly sinister book group attended by many of writers involved?
Claire Matchett needs this trip. It will be a break from work and raising children. A chance to repair her damaged marriage. A week of hiking and hot tubbing with friends at a luxurious hotel in the woods, disconnected from the pressures of real life. Then, on a lonely dirt road, Claire's minivan breaks down. With no cell reception, the group has no choice but to walk the rest of the way to their remote accommodation. But the forest is dark and difficult to navigate; hours later, they are lost. Hopelessly lost. As they venture deeper into the woods, the members of their party are struck down mysteriously, one by one. Are they being hunted? And by what --- or who? As Claire's dream vacation descends into a nightmare, something becomes clear: only one of them will return home alive.
It’s midsummer in Wyoming, and Alexandra Fuller is barely hanging on. Grieving her father and pining for her home country of Zimbabwe, reeling from a midlife breakup, freshly sober, and piecing her way uncertainly through a volatile new relationship with a younger woman, Alexandra vows to get herself back on even keel. And then, her 21-year-old son, Fi, dies suddenly in his sleep. Alexandra is painfully aware that she cannot succumb and abandon her two surviving daughters as her mother before her had done. From a sheep wagon deep in the mountains of Wyoming to a grief sanctuary in New Mexico to a silent meditation retreat in Alberta, Canada, Alexandra journeys up and down the spine of the Rocky Mountains in an attempt to find how to grieve herself whole.
Colton Gentry’s first hit in nearly a decade has caught fire, he’s opening for country megastar Brant Lucas, and he’s married to one of the hottest acts in the country. But he’s hurting. Only a few weeks earlier, his best friend, Duane, was murdered onstage by a mass shooter at a country music festival. One night, Colton stands before a sold-out arena crowd of country music fans and offers his unfiltered opinion on guns. It goes over poorly. Immediately, his career and marriage implode. Left with few choices or funds, he retreats to his rural Kentucky hometown. He’s resigned himself to has-been-dom, until a chance encounter at his town’s new farm-to-table restaurant gives him a second shot at life: a job working in the kitchen with Luann, his first love, who has undergone her own reinvention.
In McFalls County, local crime boss Gareth Burroughs runs everything on the mountain. And Nelson “Nails” McKenna has been his enforcer since he was a teenager, though his heart is not really in the dirty work. Then one night in a local roadhouse, Nails goes too far, defending a woman, and even Burroughs’ reach can’t get him out of this one. With a dead body and countless witnesses, Nails and the woman become fugitives on the run, and unlikely partners. But on the road to Jacksonville, where a possible escape awaits, there’s more than one interested party on the pair’s trail, and the glimpse they had of getting away scot-free suddenly seems elusive. In the end, Nails must make one final stand for his freedom --- or pay with both of their lives.
On a foggy winter morning, high school kids Luca and Emma discover the impossible: the wreck of an 18th-century ship stranded in a flower field. Emma enters the hatch on the deck and is never seen again. And she isn’t the last to disappear. Soon a government agency begins to investigate, determined to uncover the ship’s secrets before a media storm erupts. They enlist Robert Grim, a retired specialist of the occult, to unravel the mystery, and he soon realizes the ship could be a harbinger of an ancient doom awakened under the sea. In a maelstrom of international intrigue and pure terror, Grim and Luca must race against time as they come face-to-face with an open doorway to the apocalypse.
After a tumultuous childhood, Christa Liddle has hidden away, both figuratively and literally. Happily studying sea snails in the middle of the Indian Ocean, Christa finds her tranquil existence thrown into chaos when her once-famous father --- long thought dead after a plane crash --- turns out to be alive, well and ready to make amends. The world goes wild, fascinated by this real-life saga, pinning Christa and her family under the spotlight. As if that weren’t enough, her reunion with an old childhood friend reveals an intense physical attraction neither was expecting and both want to act on…if they can just keep a lid on it. When her father’s story starts to develop cracks, Christa fears she will lose herself, her potential relationship, and any chance of making it back to her snails before they forget her completely.
In her time, Anna May Wong was a legendary beauty, witty conversationalist and fashion icon. Plucked from her family’s laundry business in Los Angeles, she rose to stardom in Douglas Fairbanks’ blockbuster, The Thief of Bagdad. Fans and the press clamored to see more of this unlikely actress, but when Hollywood repeatedly cast her in stereotypical roles, she headed abroad in protest. Anna May starred in acclaimed films in Berlin, Paris and London. She dazzled royalty and heads of state across several nations, leaving trails of suitors in her wake. She returned to challenge Hollywood at its own game by speaking out about the industry’s blatant racism. She used her new stature to move away from her typecasting as the China doll or dragon lady, and worked to reshape Asian American representation in film.
Justin has a curse, and thanks to a Reddit thread, it's now all over the internet. Every woman he dates goes on to find their soul mate the second they break up. When a woman slides into his DMs with the same problem, they come up with a plan: They'll date each other and break up. Their curses will cancel each other’s out, and they’ll both go on to find the love of their lives. Emma hadn't planned that her next assignment as a traveling nurse would be in Minnesota, but she and her best friend agree that dating Justin is too good of an opportunity to pass up. It's supposed to be a quick fling, just for the summer. But when Emma's toxic mother shows up and Justin has to assume guardianship of his three siblings, they're suddenly navigating a lot more than they expected --- including catching real feelings for each other.
In 2016, Amy Tan grew overwhelmed by the state of the world: Hatred and misinformation became a daily presence on social media, and the country felt more divisive than ever. In search of peace, Tan turned toward the natural world just beyond her window and, specifically, the birds visiting her yard. But what began as an attempt to find solace turned into something far greater --- an opportunity to savor quiet moments during a volatile time, connect to nature in a meaningful way, and imagine the intricate lives of the birds she admired.
