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Family Life

Review

Members Only

by Brian Kenney

If you have the taste for crime writing—either the real stuff or the imaginative—then you are destined to love Emma Rosenblum’s latest satirical thriller. The book is set at the super-exclusive Harrington Connecticut country club. On a day when one of the younger members will be having an evening wedding, the morning kicks off with a bang that echoes throughout the campus. Suicide? Car exhaust? Pistol? Whatever it might be, it’s now the force that catapults the story ahead, from the bride-to-be (please don’t marry me) to the club’s president (I’m almost broke) to the politics of pickleball and, lest we forget, the totally cute chef. Far more honest than most profiles about privilege, this is a story few readers will forget.—Brian Kenney

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Review

The Wild Beneath

by Dodie Ownes

Book of the Week June 25, 2026

A massive tsunami hits the Pacific Northwest and sweeps away Annie’s mother and father Maya and Aiden, and there’s not much left of Hale’s Landing, where she is sheltering with her grandmother Ruth. Then Annie discovers a man on the beach, about her age, with slimy, pale skin and strange eyes. As she and her aunt nurse Walker back to health, more questions than answers come up about him, making the townspeople suspicious. Moving back and forth in time from when Aiden first met Maya to the present to time in between, readers will find the lives of of Hale’s Landing inhabitants unfolding across the pages—Annie’s best friend and first love, Evan Hale, trapped by his father Isaac’s logging business; Uncle Henry, gruff and loving; and the chorus, locals who mistrusted Maya even before she and Aiden made the decision to live full-time on a sailboat. Annie can no longer deny that the sea calls her, as it did her mother, and Walker is somehow part of that—but how, and why? What is the connection she is missing? And can Hale’s Landing survive without the logging business that built it? Anderson spins an enchanting and exhilarating tale that will especially appeal to those who love everything about our waters and forests and all that dwell in and around them.—Dodie Ownes

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Review

Tell Me Something True

by Willy Williams

Book of the Week June 18, 2026

This emotionally resonant standalone by a two-time Gold Dagger winner is Robotham’s most personal book yet. Although this is his 20th novel, the author, as he notes in his acknowledgements, first wrote it in his twenties and then filed it away until he accumulated a lifetime of writing experience to return to the manuscript. After 12 years in prison, Arlo Hackett has returned to see his mother in the small Australian town of Yulara on the Great Southern Road between Sydney and Melbourne. But the self-righteous, small-minded community is not ready to forgive Arlo for his role as an accessory after the fact in the rape and murder of 17-year-old Saxon Winacot, apparently committed by his neurodivergent younger brother, Luke, who later killed himself. Despite the town’s seething hostility, Arlo is determined to stay and fix up his mother’s house for sale after a stroke puts her in a nursing home. When he uncovers evidence that the cops might have brutally beaten Luke to extract a confession, Arlo searches his memories and questions locals to uncover the truth that will exonerate his brother. Alternating between past and present timelines, this is more than an atmospheric crime novel populated with well-drawn characters: It’s a haunting coming-of-age story; a sorrowful tale of lost love, missed chances, and promising lives cut short; and a moving narrative of redemption. Fans of Peter Temple’s The Broken Shore will find much to appreciate in Robotham’s trenchant depiction of small-town Aussie life.—Willy Williams

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Article

The Devoted

by Chris Kahn

Eunha, a young Korean woman married to a respectable Chinese businessman, lives in a Hong Kong ocean-view apartment as a proper tai tai (a wealthy, married woman of leisure). She has a helper to care for her three-year-old son, Minsuk, and plenty of time to play tennis and gossip with her friends at the exclusive Palm Club. But when Minsuk is snatched off a busy street, Eunha is pulled back into the criminal underworld she has worked so hard to avoid. Could the kidnapping be tied to her brother Solomon’s role as a Dragon Head within the Chinese Triad syndicate? They control so much of Hong Kong. As her well-ordered life begins to spiral out of control, Eunha also gets caught in the orbit of Kai, a childhood friend who had been a favorite of her Dragon Head father and who, too, has achieved success in the Triad. Can Eunha find the strength to resist Kai’s allure and chart a new and different course for herself? Alternating between Eunha’s sheltered childhood in a remote village and her troubled present, memoirist Cho’s (Inferno) elegant, introspective fiction debut is a haunting and emotional tale about family love, loyalty, betrayal, and vengeance.—Willy Williams

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Review

The Children

by Jeff Ayers

Book of the Week March 19, 2026

Guinevere and her brother, Ennis, have grown up in the shadow of their mother’s success. Edith Sharpe wrote five books in a magical series called The Ninth City, and they are beloved by millions. Their mom used their names for the main characters, and Guinevere and Ennis pretend to love the comparisons between them and their fictional selves. They’re often asked how wonderful it must be to have Edith as their mom, but the truth is that they had a horrible childhood of neglect and fear. They’ve kept their mouths shut for years, and now Guinevere has written a memoir about her childhood that is almost entirely fiction. Ennis works as a famous artist, and the two of them haven’t talked since a night when everything changed. When Guinevere learns about her brother’s newest exhibit, titled MOTHER, she worries that Ennis will reveal secrets that she’s not ready to have public. She begins to remember more as her life starts to unravel. Can she confront her brother and convince him to stay silent? Albert’s novel balances the line between gothic horror, high-stakes thriller, and a dark fairy tale. She uses words like a paintbrush, creating vivid images that will haunt the reader long after. Wow.—Jeff Ayers

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Review

January and July

by Jeff Ayers

January Holte works for an intelligence agency nicknamed the Annex. An op in Paris crashes and burns, and she’s deemed responsible. Now back home and trying to make amends, she secretly sets out to uncover someone in the Annex who’s selling secrets. The clues lead her to a small town in Texas and a possible suspect named Bill Connors. July Whitlock begins a job as a bodyguard-for-hire, and his first client, Bill Connors, convinces him to wait outside while he meets with someone for a few minutes. Bill vanishes, and feeling guilty for leaving his side, July goes searching. His investigation takes him to a small town in Texas. January and July might not find Bill, but they do find deception, animosity, and their lives threatened. Abbott has crafted two terrific characters in January and July, and readers will quickly become invested in how things work out for them, even though they might be on opposite sides. The pacing is lightning-fast, the mysteries are complex and hard to decipher, and the story begs for a sequel featuring more of their adventures.—Jeff Ayers

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Review

Look What You Made Me Do

by Henrietta Thornton

Couples facing upheaval, from romantic to criminal, are under the microscope in Whitbread award-winning Lanchester’s unusual thriller. The book opens at Oxford University in the 1980s, where we meet a young woman, Kate, who’s obsessed with another student after seeing him just once. With internet sleuthing not yet possible, we get a refresher on how stalking happened before social media as well as a reminder that people were no less devious back then. In the current day, TV-writer Phoebe is finding her first success; her show Cheating is suddenly what everyone’s talking about. At the same time, Kate’s just lost her husband and finds that her relationship with him is almost perfectly depicted in the show, with unique language they shared used by the show’s cheating partners, far past the point of coincidence. Kate is devastated, with Lanchester’s writing of the character’s grief and shock a realistic visit to the fog of loss. Twists come into play to bring the stories together and the ending, which takes the “dish best served cold” to incredible extremes, is both satisfying and strikingly strange.—Henrietta Thornton

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Review

Whidbey

by Dodie Ownes

In her fiction debut, Madden gifts readers with a complex psychological story that explores the lasting effects of violence and who controls the narrative of trauma. The novel unfolds from the alternating perspectives of three women whose lives are linked by one man, Calvin, who has just been murdered. They are Birdie Chang, a woman who was sexually abused by Calvin and is now on the run from him; Linzie King, another victim of Calvin’s, a former reality-TV star who has published a bestselling memoir about her experience; and Mary-Beth, Calvin’s devoted mother, who fiercely defended him throughout his legal troubles and struggles to reconcile the son she loves with the person capable of such actions. Moving across their voices and time, from Whidbey Island’s lush cool green to a sticky, tacky North Pole gas station in Florida, each woman examines what part she played in Calvin’s actions. A cast of secondary characters fills in the blanks. There’s Syl, Mary-Beth’s sister, who wonders why she ever allowed Cal into her home, which put her twin daughters in danger. And Rich, who meets Birdie on the ferry to Whidbey and offers to “take care of” Calvin for her, as well as Trace, Birdie’s girlfriend, who travels to Florida to do that herself. Madden masterfully captures the haze of lost and found memories, the urges to take revenge, and the regrets of those who knew, but did nothing.—Dodie Ownes

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Review

Time Travel for Beginners

by Jeff Ayers

When single-mom Anna gets hit by a car, she makes a life change and accepts a job working for an agency that claims that customers can time travel. Traveling to the past to fix a mistake or witness history seems irresistible, but online reviews of the experience are predominantly accusatory or complain about the high cost. Anna witnesses strange things on the job, including a door she’s not allowed to enter and a recurring visitor who either screams or cries after their trip through time. Then she learns about a mysterious death. Is the company a scam? What is the truth behind what Anna’s supposed to be selling? The reader follows Anna as she tries to uncover the truth along with Teddy, a man whose recent marriage imploded after his wife ran off with his brother; and Jade, who believes the Time Travel Agency is the root cause of her trauma. With compelling characters, a baffling mystery, and an ending that even savvy readers will not see coming, Moriarty’s latest is a winner that explores fate and how we are all connected.—Jeff Ayers

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Review

Last Night Was Killer

by Brian Kenney

Book of The Week

Interested in a new and hilarious spin on motherhood? Then get on your reading list the laugh-aloud-funny/steer-wheel-gripping story of Tilly Turner, a single mom who will do anything for her identical twin daughters. When her career as a stand-up comic hits the shredder and her beloved mother has recently died, Tilly moves back to her hometown in Idaho, eager to establish community. Which, naturally, brings her to join a pole-dancing 101 class. And guess what? Pole dancing turns out to be a total blast. If only she didn’t wake up the next morning with a pounding headache, bad case of alcohol-induced amnesia, and a dead body scrunched in the trunk of the car. For starters, who is the dead man? Could Tilly have done him in? And where can she get a reliable babysitter whom the twins will love so that she can go figure out what’s happening and what the other strippers may know? Add to this the hottie agent from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives who keeps showing up at her home, not invited but not disinvited either. Sit back, relax, and enjoy what is sure to be one of the best blends of crime fiction with a good dollop of coziness to be published in 2026.

© 2025 firstCLUE Reviews

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