Latest Reviews
Elinor Gilbert was once a young woman with a thriving career at the FBI. Now decades past solving crimes with the bureau, she is personally and professionally forgettable. Which is exactly what her former FBI boss needs. He disguises Elinor as a middle-aged nanny, and casts her as an agent on the inside of his investigation into a New York art dealer suspected of ties to organized crime. But as Elinor pushes toward the truth, her superpower --- anonymity --- morphs into a fatal flaw. The more the invisible woman integrates into her “host” family, the more dangerously memorable she becomes.
Willow experienced all her big firsts with her high school sweetheart. Now, reeling from their very public breakup, she wants to get a re-do on those important moments. While dog-sitting for her brother during his deployment, she has a chance to start over, and spending time with his best friend gives her the confidence to start checking items off her “Re-Do list.” Deacon promised his best friend two things when Cruz left for a deployment: he would look out for Willow and keep his hands off Cruz’s baby sister. “Operation Re-Do” is innocent enough at first: Deacon likes Willow, and he’s willing to help her out any way he can. But when the list of firsts turns from a first dance to first kisses and more, Deacon can’t deny the connection he feels to Willow.
Ellory Morgan is determined to prove that she belongs at Warren University, an ivy league school whose history is deeply linked to occult rumors and dark secrets. But as she settles into her freshman year, something about the ornate buildings and shadowy paths feels strangely…familiar. And, with every passing day, that sense of déjà vu grows increasingly sinister. Despite all logic, despite all reason, despite all the rules of reality, Ellory knows one thing to be true: she has been here before. And if she can't convince brooding legacy student Hudson Graves to help her remember a past that seems determined to slip through her fingers as if by some insidious magic…this time, she may lose herself for good.
After being fired for taking an uncharacteristic risk at her commodities trading job, Bea Macon sublets her New York apartment and books a one-way ticket to stay with her mother, Christy. Usually the responsible one, Bea isn't about to admit exactly why she's suddenly decided to visit, but she isn’t the only one keeping secrets: Christy has a man. She has a map. She has…a username on a forum devoted to unearthing $1 million in buried treasure that an antiquities dealer claims to have hidden somewhere in the western U.S.? Bea is convinced this is just another one of her mother’s wild larks, an elaborate way to refuse to finally grow up. But Christy believes she’s onto something --- and she’s arranged a rendezvous in a rural town called Mercy with the guy she’s been obsessively trading theories with online to prove it.
Two hundred and fifty years ago, the Declaration of Independence marked the birth of the United States. But two essays of that era appealed even more directly to Americans’ feelings. In January 1776, Thomas Paine --- a recent immigrant to America --- published Common Sense. His straightforward argument upended the fraud of monarchy and dismantled the idea of aristocratic privilege that had dominated the world for centuries. He turned a rebellion over taxes and representation into a true Revolution. Having inspired patriots to declare their independence, Paine enlisted as a militia private. He saw Washington’s army suffer grievous defeats. He slogged through the mud with retreating troops to Pennsylvania. There, he wrote The American Crisis, the most stirring rallying cry in our history. It began: “These are the times that try men’s souls…”
Fatima Bhutto was a teenager when her beloved father was assassinated. Ever since, she longed for a complete and happy family. Years later, still grappling with profound grief, she meets a charismatic man who offers her a new beginning --- promising love, healing, and the children she’s always dreamed of. But the dream soon unravels, revealing a toxic, manipulative relationship that holds her captive for over a decade. By the spring of 2020, Fatima finds herself secluded in the English countryside, accompanied by her most loyal companion: Coco, a fiercely protective Jack Russell terrier. In the presence of nature and Coco’s unwavering devotion, Fatima begins to question everything --- and slowly finds the courage to confront her suffering and reclaim her voice.
Deputy Sheriff Eli North has spent the last year getting his life back together. He hasn’t touched a drop of alcohol, he’s working through his PTSD from his military deployment, and he’s repairing his most important relationships. When an undercover informant disappears and all signs point to murder, Eli must expose the dark underbelly of his idyllic Wisconsin small town while safeguarding his newfound stability. Then, with the unexpected arrival of FBI Agent Alyssa Mason, Eli and his mother, the sheriff, are pulled deeper into a violent criminal network built on the backs of the lost and forgotten. As the case deepens, loyalties fracture and the line between justice and survival begins to blur. In a town where everyone has something to hide, exposing the truth may cost them everything.
When Maya, a young Russian filmmaker, makes a low-budget horror movie with her friends, it seems like a promising start to a career in indie film. Little does she know that her jokey lo-fi film will soon attract the attention of the autocratic censors at the highest levels of the Russian police state. What follows is a propulsive narrative of an artist being crushed by state power, and the choices that one makes within a system where free expression is literally illegal.
A woman is filibustering for her life. Every night she tells a story. Every morning, she lives one more day. ONE ALADDIN TWO LAMPS cracks open the legendary story of Shahrazad in ONE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS to explore new and ancient questions. Who should we trust? Is love the most important thing in the world? Does it matter if you are honest? What makes us happy? In her guise as Aladdin --- the orphan who changes his world --- Jeanette Winterson asks us to reread what we think we know. To look again. Especially to look again at how fiction works in our lives, giving us the courage to change our own narratives and alter endings we wish to subvert. As a young working-class woman, with no obvious future beyond factory work or marriage, Winterson realizes through the power of books that she can read herself as fiction as well as a fact.
You think it will never happen to you. The doorbell. The policeman. The words that turn your world inside out: I'm afraid there's been an incident. For Sally Lambert, those words mean only one thing --- danger. Not just for her family, but for Champ, their loyal and beloved dog. A single accusation, a neighbor's grudge, and suddenly the Lamberts are trapped in a nightmare with no escape. Unless they make one. Most people would never run. Most people would never leave behind everything they know to protect an animal who can't defend himself. But for Sally, Champ is more than a dog --- he's one of her children. And most people aren't the Lamberts. No one has ever done this before. No one has ever gone this far. But the Lamberts have never been quite like any other family.
