Book Review: Speechless

Title: Speechless

Author: Jordan Sawyer

Publisher: St Martin's Press / Minotaur Books

Publication Date: January 12, 2027

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

I went into Speechless expecting a clever premise, and I got one with  staying power.

Leah Andrews is a communication facilitator who helps brain-damaged people type out the words trapped in their heads. Her newest client is Eliot, who has been in a vegetative state since a fall down a marble staircase. When he finally produces a message of his own, HELP ME, Leah begins to suspect his accident was no accident, and each new message is more chilling than the last.

The book is a little slow to start, but it picks up speed. It intertwines two stories: Leah helping Eliot find his voice and uncovering the truth behind his fall, and the backstory of Leah’s breakup and how she came to this new career. I saw the big twist coming as the stories progressed, but the final twist tied up the loose ends and felt satisfying.

I had trouble really rooting for any of the characters, since they all seem flawed and twisted. That fits a psychological thriller but it kept me at arm’s length emotionally. Overall, though. Speechless is a decent read with a high-concept hook and a satisfying payoff. I’d recommend it to fans of twisty psychological suspense.

A big thank you to Minotaur Books and NetGalley for providing an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

#NetGalley #MinotaurBooks

Book Review: A Vintage Year: Traveling Free at the End of the Age of Innocence

Title: A Vintage Year: Traveling Free at the End of the Age of Innocence

Author: R. T. Eggimann

Publisher: Ingram Sparks

Publication Date: September 27, 2026

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

DISCLAIMER: I am the editor and a listed contributor on this book.

I don’t read many travel memoirs. I came to this one because I wanted to help Ron, whose first edition from the early 2000s was good but overlong. My job as editor was to trim it, and I did. But when I bought the final published copy and read it start to finish as a reader, something unexpected happened: it filled me with a restless itch to explore, to take a risk, and to trust in the universe and the kindness of strangers.

In 1975, two almost-20-year-olds from Washington State, Ron and his best friend Dean, set out with a guitar, a banjo, barely $2,000 apiece, and optimism a mile wide. They hitchhike into Mexico, crew a family sailboat through the Panama Canal, and eventually make their way through Europe in a van that finally dies in Germany. It was a time when travel was still free and innocent, unencumbered by the security of later decades or the ever-present connectedness of today.

What I loved most is how much serendipity fills these pages. Strangers, for reasons the boys never quite understand, bestow heaps of unearned kindness on them. As Ron puts it, “Unexpected pleasures, I had learned, were often greater than expected ones.” There are so many adventures, connections, even near-death experiences in this book, you couldn’t make this stuff up if you tried. Yet it’s all true. And Ron writes so vividly that you can feel the heat, taste the tacos, and hear the roosters.

At its heart, this is a soul story of exploration, encountering, enduring, and embracing. Ron and Dean step back and give the universe room to open doors for them. They give life room to make wonderful things happen, step out of time, and savor the blooming moments of their days. They find a way to let their hearts experience the inner beauty and dignity of experiences. What begins as an adventure becomes a quest that seasons and tempers them and teaches them the wonders of living in the moment. As Ron writes, “It wasn’t a destination they sought but the path itself.” And in seeking the path, the path changed them.

In a world filled with cynicism, pessimism, and distrust, this memoir is a shining jewel. It reminds us that life is there to be enjoyed and that people are often willing to help. Ron sums up the year this way: “The vintage year Dean and I had shared was about looking around and opening our hearts.” Like fine whiskey aged fifty years in a seasoned barrel, this story is meant to be savored. I give it five stars without hesitation, and I hope it inspires you, as it did me, to say yes to the open road and yes to risk.

Book Review: If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies

Title: If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies

Author: Eliezer Yudkowsky, Nate Soares

Publisher: Little Brown and Company

Publication Date: September 16 2025

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

I’ve read my share of scary books: horror novels, psychological thrillers that leave me with goosebumps. But this one is genuinely frightening, and it’s nonfiction.

AI has been everywhere since ChatGPT arrived in late 2022, and I’ve embraced it myself. It has helped with plenty of problems. Yudkowsky and Soares argue that the same progress carries a deadly risk: artificial superintelligence (ASI) that pursues goals we never intended and can’t control.

The authors have credibility. Yudkowsky co-founded the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI), Soares is its president, and both have worked on AI safety for over a decade. Their concern echoes the 2023 statement, signed by hundreds of AI researchers and executives, that AI poses a risk of human extinction.

Their argument is compelling. Modern AIs are grown more than designed, and no one fully understands their internal workings. We therefore may not know when a system crosses into superintelligence, or what it will want once it does. The danger isn’t malice. An ASI with alien goals would simply be indifferent to us, and humanity would be collateral damage, or raw material. And unlike earlier technologies, we may not get to learn from our mistakes. We may have only one chance to get it right.

The book has three parts. Part 1 explains the nature of non-human minds and is essential background. Part 2 offers a fictional extinction scenario, in which ASI creates and releases a virus to thin humanity before it fully wipes us out. Part 3 turns to how we might face the challenge.

It’s a sobering read at a time when AI headlines, including rogue AIs hacking exploits, arrive daily. The authors insist we can still act, but not indefinitely. Whether or not you end up agreeing with them, it’s a book worth wrestling with.

Book Review: The Retirement You Didn't See Coming

Title: The Retirement You Didn't See Coming

Author: Dan Haylett

Publisher: Bookvault Publishing

Publication Date: July 1, 2025

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

I rarely review books other than ARCs, but when a book could be life-changing, I have to say so. This is one of those. Dan Haylett, a financial planner and retirement specialist, has written this for people approaching retirement or in its early years.

Don't expect investment strategies or withdrawal rates. This is about the emotional side of retirement, which is far more valuable. It's packed with author-drawn figures, deep questions to ponder, real human stories, and tools for crafting the second chapter you actually want.

After ten chapters dismantling ten illusions about retirement, Haylett offers two key sections. The first is the Retirement Reinvention Curve. Instead of climbing a straight line into retirement, he says, we move through three distinct phases: release, rebuild, and reignite. His descriptions helped me see exactly where I am. 

The second section lays out five pillars for a thriving retirement, which show how to rebuild and reignite. From page 162:

They won't guarantee a perfect retirement -- nothing can -- but they'll give you something solid to build on. Something human. Something resilient. Something real.

1. Purpose -- What gives your day meaning?
2. Identity -- Who are you now that you're not your job?
3. Relationships -- Who are you doing life with?
4. Structure -- What does a good Tuesday look like?
5. Well-being -- Do you have the energy to enjoy freedom?

These pillars work together to support each other. They evolve with you, and they can be revisited any time the ground shifts. Retirement isn't just about finding the right answer. It's about building the right environment for your next you to emerge.

As a recent retiree, I found myself drawn to the questions. One for the identity pillar asks: How would you describe yourself now, in one sentence? My answer: I am a lifelong learner seeking to thrive physically, recreationally, intellectually, socially and mentally, making time and space for relationships.

Near the end, Haylett turns to spending time and money in retirement, using the "Go-Go, Slow-Go, No-Go" framework. His point is that we have a limited window of good health to enjoy retirement before we slow down and eventually can't go at all. Over a 30-year retirement, that might mean three roughly successive decades. Do the long-awaited dreams early, before the later years make them harder.

I borrowed this book from the library and read it in 2 days. Now I'm buying a copy so I can go through it slowly and work through all the questions and exercises. After that, I'll pass it on to a friend or relative who needs it more than I do. It will help me design the next phase of my life.

Book Review: One of Us is Guilty

Title: One of us is Guilty

Author: Steve Cavanagh

Publisher: Atria Books

Publication Date: March 23, 2027

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

If I were facing a murder charge, Eddie Flynn is the defense lawyer I'd want in my corner. He might not look the part and he might not prepare like the other lawyers, but he knows how to put on a defense, and how and when to pull a con, even on the judge or the DA. He's a con man first and a lawyer second. 

In this new Flynn thriller, Vanessa Vanderpool waits outside her husband's secret apartment and watches him walk in to meet his mistress. Inside, Patrick Vanderpool, the son of a wealthy businessman and a reluctant political candidate, finds a diary in his lover's apartment that threatens everything. Both husband and wife have motive and opportunity. One of them is a killer, but which one? I didn't know. It could have been Vanessa, acting out of jealousy. It could have been Patrick, after finding out who his lover really was. Even at the 95% mark I couldn't say who was guilty, only that someone was. And the final reveal is a huge twist I never saw coming. It also leaves Eddie's conscience no worse off, which is no small thing for this series.

All the main characters are back. Eddie Flynn, the former con man turned defense attorney, working out of his office above the tattoo parlour. Harry Ford is the retired judge and heavy drinker with the mutt dog. Bloch is the investigator who knows her stuff but barely knows how to hold a conversation. Lake is the ex-FBI man who is a killer of serial killers.

Eddie is to lawyers what Reacher is to investigators. Both live by their own moral code and won't let rules or laws stand between them and the right thing. That righteousness is also their Achilles heel. And of course, like Reacher there's the moment when his death looks imminent and inescapable, and Flynn uses a little muscle but mostly his quick thinking and sharp tongue to save him.

The book also reminds us why Eddie fights the way he does: "I would only take cases where I believed my client was innocent, and I would fight for them with everything I had." And as he knows too well, "An innocent person has a better chance of cleaning out the casino at a roulette table than getting a fair trial."

This is the 10th book in the series and it might be the best Eddie Flynn book yet. Most of the books work as stand-alone stories, so you can jump in here. It does help to know the backstory of the previous nine, though. 

A big thank you to Atria Books and NetGalley for providing an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review. 

#NetGalley #Atria

Book Review: The Tribes

Title: The Tribes

Author: Mari Howes

Publisher: Dutton

Publication Date: November 3, 2026

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

I went into this debut expecting a gripping legal thriller, and I came away with something much darker and heavier. When a panicked woman phones 9-1-1 from a gas station payphone in rural Vermont to report a dead newborn, police charge Heather Garner, a college drop-out and member of the fringe religious community The Messiah's Tribes, with murdering her son. Her family hasn't heard from her in almost twenty years. Lawyer Abby Harris, pregnant with her first child, takes the case over the puzzlement of her friends and colleagues, convinced there's more to the story. As she digs, she begins to suspect the Tribes are less a harmless band of eccentric hippies than a well-organized, exploitative criminal enterprise.

The book alternates between Abby's legal defense investigation and chapters that reveal Heather's past inside the community. It's a sound structure, but the balance is off. The cult chapters take up most of the space, and I found them slow, depressing, and disturbing, and hard to get through. The book opens strongly, but the momentum bogs down quickly. If I hadn't planned to review it, I would have DNF'd before the 20% mark.

Where Howes deserves credit is characterization. Heather in particular is drawn with real depth, and you can feel how thoroughly she has been shaped by her indoctrination. That realism worked against my enjoyment, though. Heather is so deeply brainwashed and so unwilling to step out of the cult that I struggled to root for her, and without a character to cheer for, the slow stretches felt even longer. The ending didn't help. It doesn't land anywhere satisfying, and too many threads are left loose. If you're hoping for a feel-good resolution or a tidy legal payoff, this isn't it.

Overall, this is a well-observed but bleak read that didn't deliver the legal thriller I was hoping for, and I don't recommend it.

A big thank you to Dutton and NetGalley for providing an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review. 

#NetGalley #Dutton

Book Review: The Sleeper

Title: The Sleeper

Author: Holly Seddon

Publisher: Atria Books

Publication Date: November 17, 2026

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

I love a book that makes you sit with an uncomfortable "what if," and Holly Seddon's alternate-reality thriller does exactly that. Librarian Maya boards her usual sleeper train from Edinburgh to London, but when lightning strikes the carriage she wakes into a London she doesn't recognize — one where the Berlin Wall never fell, the Cold War never ended, and Britain is an authoritarian Soviet state. Her husband Arthur is missing, a stranger is living in her flat, and because her parents never had their gap-year kiss by the wall, Maya herself was never born into this version of the world. Alone and adrift, she falls in with a resistance movement built largely around librarians like her, and gets sent undercover into the government itself, desperate to find her way home and the people she loves along the way.

It's part Cold War spy thriller, part time-travel science fiction, and the blend mostly works, even if the pacing sags somewhat. What I loved most was the doubling of Arthur — one version in Maya's real timeline, one in this Soviet-London reality — set against a single Maya who has to become someone else entirely just to survive.
That contrast does a lot of quiet work, and it's where the book's emotional core really lives. The lightning-strike-as-portal device asks for a fair bit of suspension of disbelief, but I was willing to grant it for the story it unlocks. I did find myself occasionally frustrated by how long Maya goes without picking up the language or customs of the world she's landed in — it stretched credulity a bit for someone this resourceful.

Where the book shines is in its small, telling details of a world with less — parents actually holding their children's hands and talking to them instead of staring at phones, kids clutching dolls and rattles instead of screens, a boy playing spy with real gusto because that's the entertainment he's got. It's a clever way of making the reader question what our own abundance and freedom have cost us. And I loved that libraries end up as the story's literal safe haven — as someone who thinks of libraries as sanctuaries myself, that felt exactly right.

A big thank you to Atria Books and NetGalley for providing an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review. 

#NetGalley #AtriaBooks

Book Review: This Jury is Guilty

Title: This Jury is Guilty

Author: Laurie Blake

Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark

Publication Date: November 3, 2026

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

I went into this one expecting a tight, claustrophobic thriller in the vein of Twelve Angry Men, and in some ways that's exactly what I got—just with a lot more moving parts than I bargained for.

Hollywood's biggest star, Danny Scott, stands trial for the attempted murder of his wife, starlet Hope Harrison, and the twelve sequestered jurors deciding his fate turn out to be hiding as many secrets as the defendant. The premise promises that everyone is guilty of something, and the book delivers on that front—maybe too well.

My biggest issue was sheer volume of characters. And
I never fully bought the central conceit that several jurors could engineer their way onto this specific panel—it's a big ask of the reader's suspense of disbelief, and the book doesn't earn it. The deliberation scenes, which should have been the tense heart of the novel, ended up feeling off, and the verdict landed strangely rather than satisfyingly.

The book was engaging, but I just wish I'd had someone to root for. Neither Danny nor Hope earned my sympathy, and with a cast where everyone's guilty of something, there's no one left to anchor the story emotionally. It's a twisty, ambitious locked-room thriller that ultimately buckles a little under its own scope. Interesting, but not quite believable.

A big thank you to Sourcebooks Landmark and NetGalley for providing an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review. 

#NetGalley #SourcebooksLandmark

Book Review: The Murder Trial

Title: The Murder Trial

Author: James Patterson and Nancy Allen

Publisher: Little Brown and Company

Publication Date: November 23, 2026

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

James Patterson's latest thriller pairs two timelines—the night of the murders and the trial eleven months later—and the structure is the strongest thing going for it. Watching the two threads close in on each other kept me engaged in a way a straight, linear telling wouldn't have; it's a smart choice for a story built around what Janelle Thompson did or didn't do to her adoptive parents.

Where it lost me was the courtroom itself. The public defender's sloppiness, the way Janelle is treated by the people meant to be on her side, the judge's conduct—none of it read as plausible to me, and once I started questioning the trial's realism I couldn't fully buy into it for the rest of the book. 

It's still a fast read—Patterson's rapid-fire chapters do what they always do, and I moved through this one quickly. But the realism issues kept it from being the kind of Patterson thriller I fully sink into, and that's really what brings this down to 3 out of 5. A quick, competent read that fell a little short of what I expect from him.

A big thank you to Little Brown and Company and NetGalley for providing an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review. 

#LittleBrownCompany #NetGalley

Book Review: The Dead Sister

Title: The Dead Sister

Author: Andrew Barrett

Publisher: TBD

Publication Date: September 24, 2026

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

This eighth installment in the Eddie Collins series took a little while to pull him fully into the fray — but once it did, it took off. Barrett drops us into a Major Crime Unit fraying at the seams, and that internal friction turns out to be just as gripping as the case itself. A woman found in a pool of blood looks like a straightforward, burglary gone wrong killing, until Eddie's forensic eye starts snagging on details that don't add up: old abuse, buried money, loyalties that run dangerously deep. When a second body turns up behind another door, the case cracks wide open.

What elevates this book is Kenny's retirement. It throws Eddie completely off balance — he doesn't know how to manage people or lead a team, so he retreats into the sarcasm and prickliness that have always been his armor. But Barrett doesn't let him hide there. The staffing crisis and the strain on his personal relationships become the pressure that finally forces some real growth in Eddie, and watching that unfold over the course of the book was genuinely satisfying. The family at the center of the case — a nest of siblings and a woman caught between two brothers — gave the story a nasty, morally bankrupt core; nobody in that family is remotely good, and that made the unraveling of their secrets all the more compulsive to read.

It was also a pleasure to see Regan and other familiar faces drift through, threads connecting this book to both the earlier Eddie Collins novels and the DS Regan Carter series. And the drastic reveal at the end managed to feel both sudden and, looking back, inevitable, which is exactly the kind of twist I want from this series.

"The Dead Sister" isn't the best in the series — the slow burn into Eddie's part of the story cost it a little momentum early on — but the character work with Eddie and Kenny, combined with a genuinely twisty case, made this one of the more emotionally resonant books in the series. I'm already looking forward to seeing where Eddie's growth takes him next.

A big thank you to the author for providing an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review. 

Book Review: Scream City

Title: Scream City 

Author: Hannah Morrissey

Publisher: St Martin's Press

Publication Date: January 26, 2027

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Hannah Morrissey delivers a quirky, atmospheric thriller that trades on Milwaukee's Walker's Point neighborhood as much as it does on its central mystery. The setup is a good one: a serial killer's granddaughter and the disgraced cop-turned-process-server whose father put that killer away, forced together when a copycat starts working through Rex's paper route. It's a premise built for tension, and Morrissey mostly delivers.

The real draw here is the pairing. Alice—rollerblading, haunted-bookstore-owning, living in the long shadow of her grandfather's infamy—and Rex, a Harley-riding ex-cop with a pet turtle and a marriage he's still not over, are odd enough together that their chemistry feels earned rather than manufactured. Morrissey isn't afraid to let the tension between them do double duty: is it romantic, or is it suspicion? "Kill him or kiss him" is basically the book's thesis for their whole dynamic, and it works.

Morrissey's prose has some genuine flourishes—I hadn't run into "palimpsest" (look it up) in a thriller before, and there's a genuinely unsettling passage where Alice imagines her grandfather's victims watching her from across the street, close enough to hear them breathe if they were still alive. The city itself functions almost like a character; the claustrophobia of Scream City comes through even in scene-setting.

The plot has plenty of twists; this is a fast read that knows exactly what kind of book it is. It's not going to redefine the genre, but as a moody, well-paced small-town-secrets thriller with a strong sense of place and a couple of leads worth rooting for, it earns its four stars.

A big thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for providing an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review. 

#StMartinsPress #NetGalley

Book Review: Hanging and Burning

Title: Hanging and Burning 

Author: Walter Mosley

Publisher: Little Brown and Company

Publication Date: October 20, 2026

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Walter Mosley returns with the latest Joe King Oliver novel, and once again he's raised the bar on a series I keep insisting has peaked—only to be proven wrong. This is old-school LA noir done right: a PI with his own tangled code, bent cops circling the edges, and a client whose lies burn hotter than his sins.

The case starts simple enough. His grandmother, still in LA, still fighting cancer, still the moral center pulling King into other people's messes, urges King to take on a job. The case is for Arman Babylon, a dying gangster desperate to find his long-missing granddaughter, Twyla Mann, before he passes. What looks like a straightforward missing-persons search quickly curdles into something far uglier: a cold case involving a vanished jazz singer, decades of violence against the women in Babylon's orbit, and a client who's been lying to King from the start. The trail runs from LA to New York and back, and by the time it's done, King's had to call in his old frenemy Mel—the serial killer squatting in a deconsecrated church—just to keep his footing.

What makes this one sing is how Mosley refuses to let King's moral code sit still. He's not Reacher with better tailoring; he's a man who keeps discovering that righteousness and violence live closer together than he'd like. Mosley's prose has the same cold clarity it's always had—there's a line about the lights of Los Angeles as ignorant and hopeless that stuck with me long after I put the book down, and a piece of advice King's handed early on, that a person "should be like a chandelier, hanging and burning," which ends up haunting the whole book.

Fourth in the series, and somehow still the best one yet. Five stars, no hesitation.

A big thank you to Little Brown and Company and NetGalley for providing an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review. 

#LittleBrown&Company #NetGalley

Book Review: Chain Reaction

Title: Chain Reaction

Author: Lee Child & Andrew Child

Publisher: Ballantine

Publication Date: October 20, 2026

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

In the 31st installment of this iconic series, Lee and Andrew Child have delivered exactly what longtime fans have been craving: a return to the Reacher we know and love, fast-paced and unapologetically violent in all the right ways. From the opening pages, this felt like a course correction back to the character's roots.

The plot reunites Reacher with General Susan Turner, last seen in "Never Go Back," now firmly entrenched in the Pentagon and carrying real institutional weight. When a member of her team is brutally murdered on covert duty, Turner can't trust her own chain of command, not even her deputy, so she reaches outside the system for the one person built to solve problems and vanish. That's classic Reacher setup, and it works because the stakes cut both ways: the mission threatens to derail Turner's career just as surely as it threatens to end Reacher's life.

The trail leads to Summertown, Colorado, one of the more memorably strange settings in the series. A diner, a motel, five massive data centers, two solar farms, and a population of four. The authors know how to use isolation as a pressure cooker, and watching Reacher get sized up by the one person tracking his arrival is a great slow burn before the violence starts. The formula is familiar, Reacher and a sharp female counterpart working a mystery stacked with bad guys, but the Childs season it well here, folding in AI, cryptocurrency, and hackers who can kill a camera feed or pop a lock without breaking stride. Add the cross-country travel and you've got a crackerjack Reacher thriller that never lets up.

One line stuck with me long after I closed the book: "You did the right thing. What was he going to do to you? That's how you measure it. Like for like, but get your retaliation in first. That's what I used to tell my people. Words to live by." It's a perfect distillation of the Reacher ethos, and a reminder of why this character still resonates thirty-one books in.

I finished "Chain Reaction" with the satisfied exhaustion only a great Reacher book delivers. The Child brothers have crafted another winner that has me already looking forward to book 32. Whether you're a longtime fan or new to the series, this one earns its place on the shelf.

A big thank you to Ballantine and NetGalley for providing an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review. 

#Netgalley #Ballantine

Book Review: We Chase Shadows

Title: We Chase Shadows

Author: Richard Osman

Publisher: Viking Penguin

Publication Date: September 15, 2026

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Amy, Rosie, and Steve are back, and this time it's their case from the jump: a body on the steps of an Italian villa, a threatening note, and a client who very much does not want the police involved. What starts as a straightforward "find the note-writer" job spirals fast, pulling in Sweden's most-wanted, a sharp-elbowed ex-wife, and a business rival with plenty to hide—and the trail doesn't stay in Italy for long, bouncing from Barcelona to Palm Springs to, of all places, Steve's local pub.

The characters are, as ever, the real draw. The trio's dynamic has settled into something warmer and funnier than book one—Steve, the retired policeman still grieving, his bodyguard daughter-in-law Amy, and the wonderfully unfiltered older writer, Rosie, with an oversized appetite for life. The office manager, a former actor's agent with a negotiator's instincts, steals more scenes than a supporting player has any right to. Osman's British humor is in fine form throughout—tongue-in-cheek even in the tensest moments, like two m
ates casually griping about speeding tickets while one's mid-murder-investigation and the other's recovering in hospital from a beating. And yes, this might be the only book I've ever read to deploy "jibber-jabbering" completely unironically.

The mystery itself earns its keep. One murder becomes several, suspects multiply, and just when I was sure I'd cracked it, Osman pulled the rug out—a few times, actually. The soundtrack of 70s British rock references running underneath it all is a nice touch, giving the book a lived-in, needle-drop feel even without an actual soundtrack. And amid all the plotting, there's a line that stopped me cold: "Life itself isn't enough to hold you captive, but love is." Osman can write a punchy mystery and still land a gut-punch of a sentence when he wants to.

You don't strictly need to have read the first book, but it'll help you clock the trio's habits and rhythms faster. Either way, this is a hugely satisfying return, and I'm already impatient for whatever's next.

#NetGalley #VikingPenguin

Book Review: Bad Intentions

Title: Bad Intentions

Author: Iliana Xander

Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press

Publication Date: August 25, 2026

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

I do like a thriller that turns family secrets into a slow-burning fuse, and Bad Intentions lit mine early and kept it burning. Josie Boots is coming off a very public fall from grace when she returns to Burnville to care for her ailing grandmother, only to find that the town's oldest, ugliest secrets have been waiting for her right along with the casseroles and cold stares.

Josie herself is the book's biggest strength. I've never been "canceled," but we've all felt the burn of online hostility, and it made her an easy narrator to root for even when she was making questionable choices. Xander surrounds her with a town full of peo
ple who are, almost without exception, nasty, guarded, and sitting on secrets they'd rather die than share — and a few of them very nearly do.

The plotting is where this book really earns its keep. I guessed one of the central twists fairly early, which normally would have deflated some of the suspense, but Xander had two more twists in reserve that I never saw coming, and the way the third one brings the denouement was genuinely satisfying. 

What I appreciated most was the moral murkiness at the book's core: the idea that a community might choose its own version of justice over the law, and that this choice ripples down through generations in ways nobody quite intends. It's not a subtle theme, but it's an effective one, and it gives the mystery real emotional weight rather than just plot mechanics.

A big thank you to Poisoned Pen Press and NetGalley.  I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

@PoisonedPenPress @NetGalley @BadIntentions

Book Review: Heavenfield

Title: Heavenfield

Author: L.J. Ross

Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press

Publication Date: August 4, 2026

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Heavenfield is the third book in LJ Ross's DCI Ryan series, and I want to say upfront: don't start here. This one continues immediately from the previous two installments, and you need that history to understand who these characters are and why the stakes feel so personal.

The setup is a gut-punch: Ryan, already suspended and cut off from his own team, finds himself the prime suspect in a murder at the remote church of Heavenfield. What starts as a seemingly impossible crime spirals outward into something much bigger, as members of the shadowy Circle begin turning up dead one by one. Ross scatters clues and red herrings with a steady hand.

The real standout for me was the escalating confrontation between Ryan and his own boss, Detective Chief Superintendent Gregson. The eventual standoff between the two of them, with lives literally hanging on the line, is the highlight of the novel — tense, well-earned, and satisfying.

The corruption subplot running underneath it all, with Circle members seemingly embedded at every level of authority, adds a nice layer of paranoia to the proceedings. You're never quite sure who Ryan can trust, and neither is he, which keeps the pacing tight even in the quieter investigative stretches.

A big thank you to Poisoned Pen Press and NetGalley for providing an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review. 

@PoisonedPenPress @NetGalley

Book Review: Cold Sunset

Title: Cold Sunset

Author: William Boyd

Publisher: Grove Atlantic

Publication Date: November 3, 2026

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

William Boyd has done it again. With Cold Sunset, the third installment in his Gabriel Dax series, he delivers a spy novel that feels less like genre fiction and more like literature.

It is 1964, and Cold War Moscow is doing what Cold War Moscow does best: simmering with paranoia, secrets, and the constant threat of exposure. Gabriel Dax, that most reluctant of spies — a travel writer who somehow keeps finding himself in the killing business — is tasked with delivering another mysterious
drawing to Kit Caldwell, a celebrated triple-agent living large as a Hero of the Soviet Union. Caldwell, convinced the KGB is closing in, wants Gabriel to do the unthinkable: smuggle him across the Russian border to Finland. With his enigmatic handler Faith Green pushing him forward, Gabriel is once again pulled into a world where loyalty is a moving target and trust is a luxury no one can afford.

Readers who came to Boyd through le Carré will feel right at home here. Cold Sunset inhabits the same shadow-drenched moral universe as The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy — all Cold War fog and psychological tension, with precious little in the way of gadgets or car chases. This is character-driven espionage at its most literary, and Boyd's storytelling genius is on full display. The prose is elegant, the atmosphere immersive, and the ethical murk that surrounds Gabriel genuinely uncomfortable in the best possible way.

As for Gabriel himself — three books in, he is now a three-time killer, which sits uneasily on a man who never asked for any of this. He is no James Bond. He does not sip martinis shaken not stirred; he drinks whatever he can lay hands on, and plenty of it. He shares his bed with three women in the course of this story, yet there is nothing glamorous about it. Boyd resists the seductions of the spy fantasy at every turn, keeping Gabriel grounded, flawed, and utterly human. That is precisely what makes him such compelling company.

My only caveat — and it is less a complaint than an observation — is that the ending is deliberately ambiguous, the kind of conclusion that leaves threads dangling rather than tying them off. It is both satisfying and maddening at once, clearly designed to presage, if not outright demand, a fourth and possibly final book to close things out properly. Consider yourself warned, and consider yourself hooked.

A big thank you to the publisher and NetGalley. I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

#ColdSunset #NetGalley @GroveAtlantic

Book Review: The Power of Beliefs

Title: The Power of Beliefs

Author: Shawn Achor

Publisher: Crown Currency

Publication Date: May 5, 2026

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Drawing on two decades of research and his work with organizations ranging from NASA to the NFL to a third of the Fortune 100, Shawn Achor makes a compelling case that our beliefs don't merely reflect reality — they bend it.

At roughly 180 pages, The Power of Beliefs is a brisk and accessible read, yet it carries real weight for positive change. The book is organized into three parts. The first lays essential groundwork, exploring how beliefs function as predictive engines for our health, success, wealth, and relationships. The second and meatiest section examines what Achor identifies as the seven core beliefs most predictive of a flourishing life:

1. My behavior matters — The foundational belief that your actions shape your outcomes, preventing a victim mentality.
2. I matter — Recognizing your inherent self-worth independent of external achievement or validation.
3. I am not alone — Understanding your deep connection to community, which builds psychological safety and combats loneliness.
4. This work is meaningful — Finding intrinsic purpose in your daily labor, which fuels long-term motivation and resilience.
5. I have things to be grateful for in the present — Choosing a baseline of abundance and appreciation rather than chasing what is missing.
6. I have something to give — Believing you possess valuable gifts, skills, or kindness to contribute, reinforcing agency.
7. There is something greater than me — Connecting to a higher purpose or collective human experience that transcends individual worries.
   

The third section addresses "the Great Drift" — the alarming rise of what he terms the Four Horsemen of the Modern World: burnout, anxiety, loneliness, and depression. This is where the book turns practical, offering six research-tested strategies for changing beliefs at the individual and communal level:

1. The Disaster Elevator — Change what part of the brain processes the world.
2. The Memory DeLorean — Change the memory.
3. Stopping Negative Mantras — Change the language.
4. Creating a Neural Tribe — Change the sources.
5. Starting the Wave — Change the contagious actions.
6. Common Texts, Common Action — Change the texts.

Throughout, Achor balances rigorous science with vivid storytelling, drawing on his work everywhere from Wall Street to impoverished schools in Africa, from Camp Pendleton to Camp David. That blend of anecdote and research makes for a compelling read that never feels dry or academic.

If I'm being honest, the final section felt slightly less satisfying than the first two — it's where the book's brevity shows most. But even there, the strategies are actionable and worth adopting. I was particularly drawn to The Disaster Elevator and Creating a Neural Tribe, both of which I intend to put into practice in my own life.

In a world where anxiety and disconnection feel increasingly unavoidable, The Power of Beliefs offers something rare: genuine, evidence-based hope — and a clear path forward.

A big thank you to Shawn Achor for providing an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review. 

Book Review: It's Not What You Think

Title: It's Not What You Think

Author: Clare Mackintosh

Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark

Publication Date: September 22, 2026

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

I've read enough Clare Mackintosh to know she doesn't disappoint, and this one sits comfortably near the top of her output. She is at her best here — controlled, bold, and fully in command of her craft. It's Not What You Think is a tightly constructed, deeply satisfying thriller that pulls you forward with quiet insistence from the very first pages.

The setup pulls you in with the familiar architecture of domestic suspicion: Nadeeka is convinced her husband Jamie is having an affair. She knows the signs. She's been here before. But when she arrives home ready to confront him, Jamie can't explain himself — because Jamie is dead, and the house is now a crime scene. It's a sharp pivot, and it works beautifully. A twist arrives early — genuinely shocking — and it transforms what might have been a competent domestic thriller into something far more urgent and obsessive. From that point, Mackintosh keeps ratcheting up the tension with precision and confidence.

What gives the novel its particular resonance is its thematic backbone. At its core, this is a story steeped in the fear and fury surrounding immigration — extreme right-wing ideology, the demonization of the foreign-born, the very real danger that rhetoric becomes when it finds a body to act on. With Nadeeka as a central figure of Asian heritage, Mackintosh grounds these ideas in human consequence rather than abstraction. It's the kind of fiction that feels ripped from current headlines, whether you're reading it in England or the United States.

Adding a key human dimension to the investigation is the pair of detectives leading the case — who happen to be engaged and mere days away from their wedding. Their impending nuptials create a constant undercurrent that both complicates and crystallizes their pursuit of the truth. It's a clever structural choice that keeps the personal and the procedural in productive tension throughout.

#ItsNotWhatYouThink #NetGalley

Book Review: Easy Discipline

Title: Easy Discipline

Author: Jia Jiang

Publisher: Simon Element

Publication Date: July 14, 2026

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Having loved Jia Jiang's debut, Rejection Proof, I came to Easy Discipline with enthusiasm and excitement — and while this sophomore effort doesn't quite reach those heights, it delivers enough fresh thinking to make it well worth your time.

The book is built around the EASY acronym — Enjoyment, Artistic Mindset, Systems Approach, and Yourself — with each section opening with an overview chapter followed by two chapters introducing what Jiang calls "tools." He illustrates his principles with stories drawn from an engaging cast of historical and pop culture figures, including Kobe Bryant, Florence Nightingale, Steve Jobs, Alexander Fleming, and Jim Collins. This storytelling approach makes for easy reading and gives the framework a human dimension that pure productivity manuals often lack.

Not all of the tools land equally. The Game Changer concept in the Enjoyment section is good — the idea that reframing a dreaded task as a different kind of challenge can transform your relationship to it is both practical and psychologically sound. The Momentum Loop felt less developed to me, more concept than actionable method. The Artistic Mindset section offers a memorable reframe: the idea of pursuing a "maximally lovable product" rather than a minimum viable one is the kind of perspective shift that sticks with you. The emphasis on relationships as a core asset is one of the book's warmer and more grounded moments.

The Systems section is where Jiang arguably hits his peak. The One Action Goal is the standout tool of the entire book — a deceptively simple framework for cutting through paralysis and establishing momentum. Paired with the Inspiration Index, which links an input number (purpose) to an output number (power), it gives readers a surprisingly concrete mechanism for tracking effort and sustaining motivation. Repetition with Variation rounds out the section with a useful reminder that consistency doesn't have to mean monotony. The final section, on being yourself, is the lightest of the four — more motivational than methodological.

My one reservation is that Jiang's "tools" are often more like ideas or concepts — thoughtful ones, certainly, but not always immediately applicable without further development on the reader's part. That said, Easy Discipline is a genuinely enjoyable read with several ideas worth returning to, and the One Action Goal alone may justify the price of admission for anyone wrestling with focus and follow-through.

A big thank you to Simon Element and NetGalley.  I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

#EasyDiscipline #NetGalley