Latest Reviews
In 1988, eight men in Kingston, Jamaica, begin rehearsals for a play. Though strangers to one another, they share an inescapable truth: All of them are gay. And they live in a world that refuses to accept them. One night, the men are savagely beaten, and one of them is killed. As their bodies heal, the survivors begin to face the hatred and contempt that the violence laid bare. Some try to ignore what happened. Others double down on retribution. Some disappear completely.
“Is home the place where we are born? Or is it the place where we die?” These questions haunt Magnolia, a successful Haitian American real estate agent in Miami. When she hears gunfire while at a shopping mall, she takes shelter in a nearby restaurant. Once she’s safely home, Magnolia keeps this traumatic event from everyone. But given her life back, she begins to see everything clearly: her extraordinary bond with her daughter, Zoë; her nearly broken relationship with Zoë’s father; the challenges of her mentally troubled mother; and her father’s affair with a woman who has borne him a child. While struggling through the labyrinth of her past, Magnolia also must come to terms with the losses sustained that life-altering day, and nearly every day by her parents and sibling in Haiti.
Jemma Stelling walks into a police station and confesses --- not to a murder she's committed, but to the one she's terrified she might. Jemma can't stop herself from thinking about murdering her stepmother, Marianne Upton. The only way to stop herself might be to confess before she snaps and does the unthinkable. But while Jemma is still giving her statement, a call comes in: Marianne has just been found stabbed to death, killed in exactly the way Jemma described. Suddenly, the woman desperate to prevent a murder has an unshakeable alibi…and a disturbingly accurate description of the crime she couldn't have committed. Is Jemma an innocent bystander? Or a brilliant, cold-blooded killer who planned everything down to the minute?
There is no mystery more compelling in the history of mountaineering than the disappearance of George Mallory and Sandy Irvine close to the summit of Mount Everest on June 8, 1924. Over 100 years after they were last seen “going strong for the top,” the question of exactly what happened to them on that fateful day has not been answered. George Mallory’s frozen remains were discovered in 1999. But in September 2024, a climber found an old boot lying out in the open on the Central Rongbuk Glacier on Mount Everest. It contained a foot, and a sock bearing a nametape spelled out in red: A.C. IRVINE. Did Mallory and Irvine reach the summit, or did they perish while ascending? What happened to the camera that Irvine may have carried, which would have documented their climb?
At 9:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945, an American bomber pierced the skies over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The single bomb it dropped unleashed an atomic hurricane that toppled homes, vaporized birds in flight, and carbonized humans. Three days later, a second bomb flattened the port city of Nagasaki. In the span of a mere 75 hours, the United States --- a nation once morally opposed to the bombing of civilians --- killed 120,000 men, women and children, dooming tens of thousands more to agonizing death in the weeks and months ahead. EMPIRE OF ASHES explores the final brutal months of the war in the Pacific, featuring the voices of never-before-heard victims of the atomic bombs.
Mourning Mayne knows he’ll one day bear the duty of managing his family’s vast empire of wealth and power. But the feckless Mourning has always struggled to accept this legacy of cruelty, domination and exploitation…and something even darker. Because the Maynes are no ordinary family. Hidden in our world are the fiends --- half-human, half-demon, and possessed of a dark magic born from buying human souls --- and the Maynes are one of the oldest and most influential fiendish families. But when Mourning’s estranged father, the formidable and terrifying Hadrian Mayne, demands that Mourning return to the fold, he has to decide whether to accept his legacy and embrace his role in the family or to forge his own destiny…and, with it, change the course of the world.
Tucked away in the corner of a neighborhood in Dosan, South Korea, is the Plant Shop. Shop owner Yoohee has started anew, and her meticulously grown foliage thrives under her tender care. By day, Yoohee dispenses advice on gardening, but she also finds herself offering a special service off the clock. Women who are at their wits’ end come to her about a man they hope might disappear from their lives. So as night falls, Yoohee trades her apron for a shovel and a hoe and disappears into her moonlit garden. There, she buries not just the remains of the day, but also the bloody remnants of a few unfortunate encounters. As men begin to disappear, will anyone ever suspect the Plant Lady?
Nina Johnson has always taken pride in belonging to The Tenth. Her great-great-grandmother founded the prestigious DC society --- a space for influential African Americans --- just 40 years after the Emancipation Proclamation. Nina has been elected to helm the organization, but she is determined to escape the influence of her mother and forge her own path. To realize her ambitions, Nina needs funding. So when a wealthy white benefactor named Sienna Masters offers financial support in exchange for her participation in a mysterious project at a former public housing complex, The Orchard, Nina ignores her initial skepticism and agrees to a partnership. But as Nina and those closest to her piece together Sienna's true motives, they discover far more sinister forces at play.
Blackjack pro Ronnie “the Technician” Redfield has his life blown up when a casino owner decides to take him down. Card counting isn’t illegal, but the court battle costs Ronnie his livelihood, his sobriety and his family. His wife is dead, and his teenage daughter, Margot, has disappeared. Now, three years later, he’s just about dug himself out of his hole when his old army buddy, “Wild” Bill Grimsley --- now a casino handler for high rollers --- shows up to drag Ronnie back into the action. Bill has a revenge plot to take down Rodrigo Gwynne, the nastiest, most exploitative casino owner on the Strip. All Ronnie has to do is what he does best: make money off the house. If he succeeds, his share of the take will be enough to get his life back on track --- and hire a detective to track down Margot.
Talia Kemper is on death row for murdering her husband. She had an alibi and no known motive, yet her unwavering protestations of innocence have always been ignored. Then one day in the visiting area, she sees a man she's certain is her husband. The person she's been convicted of killing may not be dead after all. But as the days tick away toward Talia's execution, what will it take for her to be believed?
