Our Reviews

At firstCLUE, we only review books we love, or at least like a whole lot—and the reviews appear months in advance of publication.

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firstCLUE: New reviews every Thursday.
Monthly: Reviews of books publishing that month.

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Recent Reviews

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by Brian Kenney

An utterly heartfelt, entertaining, and beguiling sophomore effort from Dukess, author of The Last Book Party (2019). Cath is finally going through the possessions …

by Danise Hoover

Shelby is returning home, not by choice. Her career managing a graphic-arts company is over as the company was sold, taking with it her …

by Henrietta Thornton

They’re back! The trained assassins readers first met and loved in Killers of a Certain Age (2022) are on another mission, but things are …

by Jeff Ayers

A strange discovery in an Air and Space Museum makes the scientists in Scalzi’s (Starter Villian, 2023) latest think a theft has occurred: a …

by Danise Hoover

We are taken back to the roaring ’20s, to speakeasys and the Ziegfeld Follies, in this gritty noir with Ginny Dugan as our main …

by Brian Kenney

Expat Tabitha King—formerly of suburban Detroit—is living, as the kids would say, her best life. She’s upped and moved to post-war Paris—she’s bilingual thanks …