In 2014, journalist Fiona Sheridan finds out that an elderly woman plans to re-open the long-abandoned boarding school where the body of Fiona’s sister was found 20 years ago. In 1950, the school was where “troubled” girls were sent. Four roommates from very different backgrounds form a friendship in the strict, dreary school. When one… Read More The Broken Girls by Simone St. James
Quincy seems to be fine, years after she was the only survivor of a mass murder at a lake cottage. But meeting another “final girl” will change her perceptions of how well she’s coping. Fast paced and twisty Characters are not likable Nonlinear timeline Some unbelievable plotting Enjoyable thriller if you don’t think too hard… Read More Final Girls by Riley Sager
#3 in The First Law trilogy The conclusion to an adventurous, inventive, and bloody trilogy with fascinating characters and complex plots. Say one thing for Joe Abercrombie – he knows how to spin a good yarn. This final book in the First Law trilogy hits all the notes. The odd combination of travelers has returned… Read More Last Argument of Kings by Joe Abercrombie
“Another year, and I still don’t like old people.” Hendrik Groen decides to start 2013 by keeping a diary of his days at a care home in North Amsterdam. He has many opinions on “the oldies” as he calls them, and about the world at large, that he shares amidst the everyday monotony of the… Read More The Secret Life of Hendrik Groen, 83 1/4 Years Old by Hendrik Groen
This novel is pure enjoyment. It doesn’t try to explore deep issues, it focuses on depicting the lives of a few 14-year-olds coming of age in the 1980s. The inclusion of cultural detail is sometimes clunky but not heavy-handed. The boys do pretty stupid things but, hey, they’re 14! Treatment of female characters is refreshingly… Read More The Impossible Fortress by Jason Rekulak
An unusual story about two older women – one black, one white – in South Africa who lived through apartheid and have been neighbors for the past 20 years. Their mutual disdain for each other is legendary but, when circumstances throw them together, will they realize they have more in common than they thought? Their… Read More The Woman Next Door by Yewande Omotoso
#12 in the Three Pines mystery series The writing is lyrical and beautiful, as always, as Armand Gamache takes on a new challenge, but the latest in the Three Pines series also features an intricately plotted and satisfying mystery. The camaraderie of the characters of Three Pines shines through, with humor lightening the darkness as… Read More A Great Reckoning by Louise Penny
Liane Moriarty has perfected the art of the slowly-revealed, devastating event that changes everything. In this case, three couples’ lives are affected by something that happened a few weeks before. The dynamics between each couple are quite different and all of their voices are eventually heard as they remember and react to “the day of… Read More Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty
Precocious 9-year-old Frank Banning steals the show from Alice, the story’s narrator and Frank’s temporary caregiver, in this debut novel. Alice has been sent to Hollywood to watch Frank while his mother, a reclusive writer, attempts to produce a book that will save them from financial ruin. Mimi is prickly toward Alice but also welcomes… Read More Be Frank With Me by Julia Claiborne Johnson
While this novel reads like literary fiction, the writing contains technical jargon and fantastical, largely-unexplained magic that readers who do not regularly enjoy science fiction or fantasy may find difficult to appreciate. If you can enjoy a story in which you don’t fully understand the fine points, All the Birds in the Sky is a… Read More All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders
