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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2025 Thriller Awards

On June 21st, during ThrillerFest XX, the International Thriller Writers (ITW) announced the winners of the 2025 Thriller Awards at the the New York Hilton Midtown in New York City.

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Glass Girls by Danie Shokoohi

Alice Haserot thought she’d escaped the curse. For 16 years, she’s lived far from her family and the ghosts she used to conjure. But her past isn’t so easily left behind.

When Alice discovers she’s pregnant and her estranged sister, Bronwyn, turns up on her doorstep, her carefully built new life begins to unravel. Bronwyn offers an ultimatum: one of her daughters is trying to possess the other, and only Alice has the power to save them. If Alice refuses, Bronwyn will go to their abusive mother and expose her location.

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