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Review

Complicit

by Jeff Ayers

Book of the Week September 17, 2026

Knapp’s debut tells a dark story laced with hope and courage. Dr. Randi Jewell recently lost her police officer husband to violence during a robbery and her sister has mysteriously vanished. She buries herself in her work as an OB-GYN, overworking to forget. Her 13-year-old daughter, Alaina, asks her to help a friend who’s pregnant and having complications. The friend, who calls herself Holly, is 18, and her living conditions are far from safe. She doesn’t trust Randi at first but slowly begins to warm to her care. Randi starts noticing patterns that tie back to her husband’s death and her sister’s disappearance as she learns more about Nora, Holly’s real name. Doing the right thing could cost Randi her career, or worse, land the rest of her family in the local cemetery. Knapp’s background as an OB-GYN in rural communities lends authenticity to this disturbing yet uplifting tale. Don’t be complicit in overlooking this terrific medical thriller. Knapp has a long career as a gifted storyteller ahead of her.—Jeff Ayers

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Review

Girls Will Be Girls

by Henrietta Thornton

After Mallory moves to Herldsburg, MA, with her family, she’s desperate to make friends with the Sweet Hill Moms, a group of women who walk the neighborhood every day. That is, when they’re taking breaks from their successful Instagram accounts that document their perfect lives. Mallory feels far less glam, looking after two small kids and barely making it financially while her husband doesn’t lift a finger at home. When she’s accepted to the exclusive friend group, it’s more bitchy than she expected, and it seems like this will be a takedown of wealthy suburban moms. But Stava’s absorbing thriller turns into something quite different, offering unexpected characters and motivations and a satisfying and detailed story of what happens when girls will be girls. This has the tone of Big Little Lies, and Stava’s Count My Lies will soon be a TV series of its own; a screen adaptation of Mallory and her neighbors’ shocking-in-the-best-way tale can’t be far behind.—Henrietta Thornton

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Review

Winter Song

by Willy Williams

Book of the Week September 10, 2026

It’s January 3, 1986. Two and a half hours west of Minnesota’s Twin Cities sits the “back-of-beyond hamlet” of Monte (short for Montevideo), with “a population of five thousand snowbound souls.” Heading its tiny police department is recently widowed 59-year-old Gordon Trent, who is determined not to retire. On this same frigid winter day, as the police chief goes about his daily routines, 26-year-old Byron Lugo is released from Stillwater prison after serving almost four years for vehicular homicide. At the time of his trial, Byron refused to acknowledge his guilt. Now free, he aims to clear his name and get his old life back despite resistance from a hostile community wary of the felon in their midst. It’s Byron’s unrelenting insistence on his innocence that awakens uncertainty and doubt in Trent as he begins to reexamine the case. Morales’s beautifully written debut is both a slow-burn of a literary mystery, gradually revealing a tragic secret, and an evocative portrait of Midwestern small-town life with a vivid sense of place and well-developed characters.—Willy Williams

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Review

Darling, You’re Next

by Dodie Ownes

Maren and Topher find each other in a total meet-cute: she stumbles and twists her ankle while jogging, and a handsome kind man comes to her rescue. The attraction is unmistakable, but they part ways with just a smile. When they find each other in the same grief-counseling session the next day, it seems like kismet—Topher is mourning the loss of his fiancée, Abby, and Maren’s father has recently passed—and the relationship takes off. Quickly. Can Topher actually be this perfect? As more details come to light about how Abby died, Maren suspects she doesn’t know the whole truth, and sensing that, Topher tightens his hold on her. With a dual timeline, readers will build parallels between the stories he is trying to hide from his past and what is happening now. Bush builds support nets around both Abby and Maren through an interesting cast of characters both sympathetic and problematic, such as Topher’s alcoholic mother and Abby’s best friend. This is addictive and thrilling, the sense of dread growing as each chapter flies by, with a spectacular ending that readers won’t see coming.—Dodie Ownes

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Review

The Daughter

by Henrietta Thornton

Evie Wingfield and her mother, Lauren, are your typical mother-daughter pair, bickering at times but with a deep love underneath. Lauren is hoping that Evie’s Christmas break from her London law studies will provide time for them to relax and get past the teenage moodiness, but when she arrives at the dorms to pick Evie up, she’s not there. The sleepy young man who answers the dorm door swears that this has been his place for months, and the school’s security can’t (or won’t?) provide answers. At once, the reader is dropped into Lauren’s nightmare. Nobody will take Evie’s disappearance seriously enough, and Lauren and her young son, Lucas, a secondary character who might be the novel’s strongest, in effect start their own police procedural. What follows is one of the most exciting stories I’ve read in some time, and definitely with one of the most startling ending twists. After this, you’ll want to try Logan’s previous works, The Mother and The Holiday.—Henrietta Thornton

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Review

The Murder Party

by Dodie Ownes

June’s older sister Lily is perfect—gets all A’s in school, has a gorgeous boyfriend, and is respectful to Ma and Pa and their Asian heritage—while June is messy, not a scholar, and questions everything. When Lily dies in an accident involving a malfunctioning prop knife during a secret Murder Club, her family is devastated, and June blames herself, since she knew that her sister was sneaking out at night. But something doesn’t seem right, and with the help of best friend Zoey and cute guy Alex, she starts to put together the pieces and decides to throw a Murder Club of her own. As June continues to pull on the strings holding together the lie about what happened on the night Lily died, we discover that her sister’s perfect circle of friends are anything but that. June wants justice for her sister and is willing to put herself at risk to out Lily’s murderer, no matter the cost. Author He constructs a tightly wound thriller against the backdrop of high-school reality with a shocking conclusion that will leave readers breathless.—Dodie Ownes

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Review

Heavy Sugar

by Dodie Ownes

Hey Hollywood, scoop this one up now! The book takes place over one day, the day before Thanksgiving 1991. We meet Georgie Quinlan and his cousin Scags, one short of Three Stooges, about to up their petty-criminal game. The plan is to break into Maggie’s Turnstile, a bar where they are both regulars, find the hidden stash of cash, and get out. Things don’t go as planned, but Georgie manages to snag the dying owner’s prized baseball signed by Joe DiMaggio. Boyle takes readers on a wild ride from the Bronx to Gravesend, with Georgie trying to evade the owner’s avengers. Fast on Georgie’s tail is Roz, his very estranged teenaged daughter, who has an unusual interest in gangsters and a bit of a newfound crush on her fast-talking dad, lending a bit of a Paper Moon vibe. Humor, mob action, betrayal, guns, and family secrets, and wait! a little bit of magical realism too—are all part of this hard driving contemporary noir that is impossible to put down.—Dodie Ownes

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Review

Bitter Fruit

by Henrietta Thornton

Book of the Week September 3, 2026

The light and darkness that are modern and past Ireland are embodied in Detective Inspector Lewan Kane, who in this kick-in-the-gut debut investigates the death of a man who’s been decapitated and left in an Irish field. As in the best crime fiction, that’s just the surface layer of a tale that takes readers on a journey through geography, the past, and terrible misdeeds and puzzles. Lewan is at first (barely) politely rejecting of help from a young woman whose dreams make her beg him to investigate a seemingly unrelated missing-person case. As the images and names she comes up with start to be relevant to the case, he can no longer ignore her. The symbolism of names plays a major role here, perhaps unsurprisingly given the author’s own meaning-laden name, and add to the idea that every word of this story is to be closely turned in the readers’ hand. Move over, Tana French.—Henrietta Thornton

 

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Review

Price of Silence

by Jeff Ayers

A reporter becomes part of the story in Kipness’s latest, and the result is a gripping ride. Even though Sydney Price has relatives who run Glenmont Media, she has chosen to earn her place as a reporter on her own terms and works at a smaller New York TV network. Her desk is next to a colleague she’d rather avoid, a man who isn’t very nice and has a habit of swiping her snacks. Then everything accelerates. A bomb threat in the building next door, the home of Glenmont, turns out to be very real, and Sydney’s brother is suspect number one. Her irritating deskmate is suddenly rushed to the hospital with food poisoning, fighting for his life. When sabotage strikes the plaza, Sydney throws herself into finding answers, even as she realizes her position as a reporter both helps and hinders what she can uncover. While a menacing storm bears down on the city, one thing becomes painfully clear: whatever she digs up could make her the next target. Kipness writes about the world of television news with real expertise and flair, crafting compelling characters and a baffling, twisty mystery. Layer in a sharp exposé of New York high society, and you get a story readers will be eager to talk about. Fortunately, the price of silence isn’t too steep here, because word of mouth is exactly what this terrific book deserves.—Jeff Ayers

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Review

Black Christmas

by Henrietta Thornton

Muñoz continues his holiday horror spree (after Turkey Day and others) with this grisly sorority-house-Christmas set tale that’s based on the 1974 film of the same name. With Christmas celebrations and travel, the young women at the Pi Kappa Sigma sorority house barely see one another and have no time to deal with the creepy phone calls they receive from a man they dub “the moaner.” Or is it a man? The calls sometimes seem to also feature a woman and a baby crying. Well, whatever. The sherry is flowing, boyfriends are calling to the house, and there’s little time for that weirdness; add the problem that nobody believes the young women. When an adolescent girl is found murdered in a nearby park, however, the police realize it’s serious, thought they’re too late to stop the killings that are already underway at the house, which are gory and terrifying. An ending chase reflects the book’s slasher-film origins and will keep readers on edge, all while the shocking treatment of young women by the police and the sorority sisters’ families and boyfriends continues unabated. An eye opening and grisly twist on the usual Christmas coziness, for those who relish Stephen King and slasher films.—Henrietta Thornton

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