The Book Witch

This delightful fantasy by Meg Shaffer imagines a world where specially trained people, Book Witches, can go into stories and save characters and story lines from bad actors in the real world, Burners. Rainy March--yes that's her name and not a weather forecast--has been a 3rd generation Book Witch since she was 15. She is an orphan, never having known a father and a mother who died when she was just 6 months old. She was raised by adoring grandparents and Pops--as she calls her grandfather--is still alive and living with her in Fort Meriwether, Oregon. Book Witches live by a series of rules which include the rule saying real people belong in the real world and fictional characters belong in works of fiction. So it is extremely against all the rules when Rainy falls in love with a character, a detective called the Duke of Chicago, when she is on a mission to save one of his books. Worse yet, the Duke falls in love with her, too. When her grandfather goes missing and the book her mother left her--her only inheritance--is stolen, there is no one Rainy trusts to help her solve the mystery except the Duke. The resolution of the book is a total surprise, or at least it was for me. Rainy will end up "uncovering secrets that could change the course of Rainy’s life"  (Kirkus). Kirkus goes on to say that Shaffer's writing style, while "a touch too cutesy to mine real emotional depths, the charms of the heroine and the conceit itself make up for it in spades. Catnip for anyone who ever wished they could walk around in their favorite book." There are lots of literary references and adventures inside other books on Rainy's mission to solve the mystery. Booklist calls it "magical, emotional and charming."

The Phoenix Crown

Two award winning authors of historical fiction, Kate Quinn and Janie Chang, team up to tell this tale of intrepid women in the weeks preceding and the years following the earthquake and fire that destroyed San Francisco in 1906. 

Booklist provides this useful summary of the storyline:  "In 1906, opera singer Gemma Garland moves to San Francisco to take her place in the chorus for a performance by the great Caruso, hoping to room with her old friend Nellie Doyle. But when she arrives, Nellie is nowhere to be found, though her housemate, botanist Alice Eastwood, encourages Gemma to stay. Meanwhile, 19-year-old Suling Feng dresses as a boy to help deliver her family's laundry, doing brisk business with hand-embroidery on the side. She is desperate to escape an arranged marriage, and she's also trying to forget her white lover, Reggie, who disappeared without a trace. One of Suling's hustles is serving champagne at the parties of industrialist Henry Thornton, who becomes taken with Gemma and offers to become her patron. But it's mere days before the devastating San Francisco earthquake and it will draw the women together in surprising ways. " They conclude their review with these praises: "Lushly detailed, richly imagined, and utterly satisfying, The Phoenix Crown will entrance readers."

Publishers Weekly agrees in their praise, "Readers of historicals with strong female leads will savor this."

 

 

Mad Mabel

Sallly Hepworth's newest novel opens with the lines "It's interesting to note that there are two groups of people who are rarely, if ever, suspected of murder. These groups are elderly women and little girls." Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick is 81 years old and has been living a quiet life on Kenny Lane for 60 years. She gets along with all her neighbors except for the man next door who lets his yappy dog poop on Elsie's roses. Elsie throws the feces back over the fence in an endless battle. When the neighbor dies, Elsie's dark past is revealed by one of her neighbors to the police. In her youth, she was known as Mabel Waller, the youngest person ever to be convicted of murder. Her height and red hair would probably be enough to single her out for torment as as a child, but her father spreads the rumor that, when 3-year-old Mabel got polio, she intentionally exposed her younger sister. Sister Kitty was a toddler and subsequently died from polio. Mabel herself did not know the story until the neighborhood kids started calling her "Mad Mabel."

The news that Mad Mabel was living in this quiet cul de sac of Melbourne spreads quickly and the press and conspiracy fanatics show up in droves. Mabel decides to reveal her history to two young documentarians who want to present Elsie/ Mabel's side of the story.  The chapters alternate between young Mabel's childhood and the present day. This is a story of redemption which "emphasize[s] resilience and the power of friendship" (Kirkus). Library Journal concludes their review by saying, "Hepworth... showcases her storytelling prowess with this dual-timeline tale that is part thriller, part historical mystery and filled with quirky characters that will pull readers in different directions emotionally. The twists may not all be surprising, but readers will be fully enraptured by the story and fall in love with Mabel, curmudgeonly woman that she is."

Welcome to Cottonmouth

This inaugural and action packed thriller by Jay S. Bell takes you on a wild ride from the very start. The book jacket asks, "What does the U.S. government do with spies and special operators when they pass their expiration date? They retire them to a small town deep in the Piney Woods of East Texas, where they're certain to cause no trouble." What could possibly go wrong with this scenario, right?! When a car breaks down nearby carrying two women who are fleeing from sex traffickers with connections in high places, Devlin Mahoney, the de facto "mayor" of Cottonmouth, Texas  must choose between "doing what's right and doing what he's told." Once you get to know Devlin you will know he always chooses what's right and so begins a war between the handful of Cottonmouth's "special citizens" and a man with endless supplies of money, ammunition and ruthless killers. Devlin's predictable infatuation with one of the women, Britte, causes some near-fatal mistakes because of it, but you can trust that most things come out okay in the end.  Gets rave reviews from readers and I hope there's a sequel.  

Someone Else's Husband

This suspenseful mystery is the newest novel from Kimberly McCreight (2026) which offers "plenty of surprising secondary twists" (Publishers Weekly). The Boston Globe similarly comments that "“Multiple sleights of hand propel this pleasurably head-spinning thriller."

Kirkus introduces their review with this summary: "When Gretchen Falk and her husband, Richard, are awakened in the wee hours by police officers pounding on the door of their Upper East Side apartment, neither knows anything about why an up-and-coming artist named Frankie Callahan is dead—but it turns out that Richard knew Frankie fairly well, the two having met on a climbing expedition of Mount Kilimanjaro. The narration switches between Gretchen as her family copes with Richard’s arrest on murder charges and Frankie in the week before her death as she’s concerned about a man from her past; there are also scenes from the Kilimanjaro trip, which involved a tragic fall..." They go on to note that "Much of what connects these characters has to do with American social class" and conclude with this lukewarm assessment "McCreight focuses on class tensions in a plot that doesn’t quite rise to the heights of her previous books."

The New York Times has a more positive review, calling this a "labyrinthine mystery, told from multiple points of view in multiple timelines. It’s far more complicated than it first appears, and it rewards patience." Publishers Weekly likewise praises "Dynamic characters and expert pacing further bolster the proceedings." I was surprised by the ending as we are offered several red herrings that suggest who the murderer might be, and I found the storyline engaging. Secondary characters are only minimally developed; however, they serve to highlight aspects of the main characters.

The Housemaid

This book is the first in a series of 4 novels featuring the "Housemaid" by prolific writer Freida McFadden (pseudonym for Sara Cohen). Our initial narrator is Millie,an ex-con who is desperate to find a new job after getting fired from her last one and now living in her car. She interviews and is hired into the wealthy Winchester household by Nina who is crazy according to all the neighborhood gossip, having been hospitalized on more than one occasion for "delusional" behavior.  Although the husband Andrew is kind to his wife and to Millie, Nina seems determined to make Millie's life a misery, deliberately trashing the house, and giving Millie incorrect information about tasks and then blaming her for the mistakes. Millie is drawn to Andrew and the feeling seems to be mutual resulting in a one-night stand while Nina is out of town. Subsequently Andrew tells Nina that he doesn't love her anymore and throws her and her daughter Cecelia out of the house. The second part of the book tells the story of the marriage from the wife's point of view and to say anything more would be a spoiler. 

This is definitely a psychological thriller that will keep you engaged until the end. The Guardian calls the book "deliciously dark" and "ultra-twisty." The book was adapted as a movie.