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Culpability by Bruce Holsinger

July 2025

CULPABILITY by Bruce Holsinger is a brilliant look at a family that is involved in an accident in their autonomously driven minivan. The collision kills an elderly couple and sends their car down a cliff. It seems that it’s not just the vehicle that behaved badly here, as each person in the family has his or her own reason for feeling guilty about what happened. Charlie was behind the wheel, and his father, Noah, was writing an email beside him. In the back seat were Noah’s wife, Lorelei, who was working on a project, and their two daughters, Alice and Izzy, who were on their phones.

To recover from the accident, both emotionally and physically, the family rents a home for a week on the Chesapeake Bay. It is right across the bay from a compound-size property (with its own heliport) that is owned by tech pioneer Daniel Monet, who is very passionate about AI. Charlie meets Daniel’s daughter, Eurydice, and they go off on adventures on the water, including one that will put them in jeopardy.

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The Unraveling of Julia by Lisa Scottoline

July 2025

I love how Lisa Scottoline changes things up, especially with her last few books. We went with her to Italy for ETERNAL, the story of three childhood friends who come of age during World War II. LOYALTY brought us through the beginning days of the Mafia. While she kept us stateside with WHAT HAPPENED TO THE BENNETTS and THE TRUTH ABOUT THE DEVLINS, she continued to examine justice and family.

Now, in THE UNRAVELING OF JULIA, Julia’s husband tragically dies at the hands of an unknown assailant in Philadelphia while protecting her. She lost her adoptive parents at a young age, and it feels like she is not destined to be forever happy. After her husband’s death, Julia is barely going through the motions of her life when she receives a letter that she has inherited an Italian villa and a vineyard. Cautious but also ready to try something new, she heads to the Italian countryside to learn more about this piece of property. A surprise awaits her there.

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The River Is Waiting by Wally Lamb

June 2025

Wow is the first word that I use to describe this powerful and moving work from Wally Lamb. I finished THE RIVER IS WAITING last Saturday morning and went through most of the rest of the weekend ruminating about it.

I will say that this is not a happy book. In fact, there is a lot of sadness woven between its pages. There are moments when you will want to knock characters’ heads together. There are other times when you will have so much sympathy and know that this novel will have you seeing incarceration up close in a raw way.

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Atmosphere: A Love Story by Taylor Jenkins Reid

June 2025

From the time I was a young girl, I loved the space program. It was not just what happened in the skies that intrigued me, but also what transpired at Mission Control. Taylor Jenkins Reid’s ATMOSPHERE gave me a big dose of both.

Joan Goodwin has been looking at the stars since she was a child. She is working as a professor of physics and astronomy at Rice University when she finds out that they are accepting female scientists at NASA’s space shuttle program. She applies and is part of the team that begins training at Houston’s Johnson Space Center during the summer of 1980. In these early days, the trainees are learning each other’s strong points and what they need to think about as space travelers.

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The Ghostwriter by Julie Clark

June 2025

I remember meeting Julie Clark before THE LAST FLIGHT came out in 2020, and I have been a committed reader of her books since then. In her third thriller, THE GHOSTWRITER, she has written another propulsive story.

Olivia has grown up being told that her father, Vincent, killed his brother, Danny, and his sister, Poppy, when he was a teenager. He was never charged or convicted, but the idea of him as a murderer has tracked him his whole life. He married his high school girlfriend and went on to become a bestselling horror writer. Olivia has been estranged from him for decades, ever since he sent her to boarding school in Europe.

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What Kind of Paradise by Janelle Brown

June 2025

WHAT KIND OF PARADISE by Janelle Brown captured my attention on so many levels. First, I was intrigued by Jane’s story of being raised off the grid in the woods of Montana from the time she was a toddler. Second, since Bookreporter started in 1996 and we were in the planning stages in 1995, it was a reminder of the primitive days of the internet, as opposed to what it has become now. Third, it made me think about the instant connectivity that we have today --- and what that means for good and bad.

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The Doorman by Chris Pavone

June 2025

With THE DOORMAN, Chris Pavone has written both a taut thriller and a brilliant social commentary on present-day New York, similar to what we saw in THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES.

Set over just one day, with generous backstory to give deeper meaning to his characters, Chris has portrayed different layers of New Yorkers. The first, as noted in the title, is the doorman, who opens doors, collects packages, and is acknowledged (or not) according to how you see him in his role. The others include the occupants of one of the biggest apartments in the building on one of the higher floors --- one that actually combined two spaces --- and the people who live in a more modest space on a lower floor.

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Harlem Rhapsody by Victoria Christopher Murray

May 2025

I confess that I knew little about the Harlem Renaissance before reading HARLEM RHAPSODY by Victoria Christopher Murray. I listened to the audiobook, which is narrated by Robin Miles. Each time I tuned into it, I found myself ensconced in the time period.

Victoria includes wonderful details not just about the writing that happened at The Crisis, the NAACP’s literary magazine, but also about the music, fashion and social scene that filled the times. The novel is set in 1920s Harlem, during the days of Prohibition, as well as enlightenment in the Black community. When I talked to Victoria about the book, she was quick to note that these strides for Black people had happened just 50 years after the end of slavery.

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Speak to Me of Home by Jeanine Cummins

May 2025

After reading AMERICAN DIRT, I was looking forward to what Jeanine Cummins would write next. I was so happy to see that she really delivered again with the generational story in SPEAK TO ME OF HOME. I know many people who have migrated to this country, and sometimes I wonder if they are torn between two places. While life here has so many freedoms and opportunities, I have often considered what it is like to think in two languages and think of home as more than one place. It was very much on my mind as I read this book.

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Saltwater by Katy Hays

April 2025

As my sons are now in their 30s, I miss spring break, which was a standard thing in their youth. So it was no surprise that I was eager for a book that took place in a location with sun and sand. SALTWATER by Katy Hays fit the bill. It’s set on the isle of Capri, where the Lingate family has gathered for a week each summer to vacation. What’s a tad odd about this return trip each year is that it’s the anniversary of the week when Sarah Lingate was found dead in 1992. Are they coming back there to honor her, or to be sure that people believe she died of natural causes and that no one in the family had anything to do with it? Interesting question, right?

But then the necklace that Sarah was wearing on the night she disappeared shows up again, and the investigation into what happened to her is reopened.

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