Latest Reviews
Five high school friends are bonded by an oath to protect one another no matter what. Then, on a camping trip in the middle of the forest, they find something extraordinary: a mysterious staircase to nowhere. One friend walks up --- and never comes back down. Then the staircase disappears. Twenty years later, the staircase has reappeared. Now the group returns to find the lost boy --- and what lies beyond the staircase in the woods.
Present day: Annie Adams is just settling into life in Castle Knoll when local fortune teller Peony Lane shares a cryptic message only hours before being found dead inside the locked Gravesdown Estate. Annie has no choice but to delve into the dark secrets of her new countryside home in order to find out just what Peony Lane was trying to warn her about. 1967: Teenage Frances Adams, Annie’s great aunt, finds herself caught between two men. Ford Gravesdown is one of the only remaining members of a family known for its wealth and dubious uses of power. Archie Foyle is a local who can’t hold down a job and lives above the village pub. But when Frances teams up with Archie to investigate the car crash that killed most of Ford's family, it quickly becomes clear that this was no accident.
Tildy Barrows, Head Curator of a beautiful archival library in San Francisco, is meticulously dedicated to the century’s worth of inventory housed in her beloved Beaux Art building. But her life takes an unexpected turn when she learns the library is on the verge of bankruptcy and discovers two exquisite never-before-seen dollhouses. After finding clues hidden within these remarkable miniatures, Tildy sets out to decipher the secret history of the dollhouses, aiming to salvage her cherished library in the process. Her journey introduces her to a world of ambitious and gifted women in Belle Époque Paris, a group of scarred World War I veterans in the English countryside, and Walt Disney’s bustling Burbank studio in the 1950s. As Tildy unravels the mystery, she finds not only inspiring, hidden history, but also a future for herself --- and an astonishing familial revelation.
At 63 years old, million-dollar lottery winner PJ Halliday would be the luckiest man in Pondville, Massachusetts, if it weren’t for the tragedies of his life: the sudden death of his eldest daughter and the way his marriage fell apart after that. He probably doesn’t have much time left as he’s had three heart attacks already. But when PJ reads the obituary of his old romantic rival, he realizes that his high school sweetheart, Michelle Cobb, is finally single again. So he decides to drive across the country to the Tender Hearts Retirement Community in Arizona to win Michelle back. Before he can hit the road, tragedy strikes Pondville, leaving PJ the sudden guardian of his estranged brother’s grandchildren. This could be the second chance PJ has long hoped for --- a fresh shot at love and parenting --- but does he have the strength to do both those things again?
Before he'd covered dozens of World Series; before he'd written about countless hirings, firings, superstars and scandals, Bill Madden was a cub reporter on one of his first assignments at Yankee Stadium --- and manager Ralph Houk had just gone out of his way to spit tobacco juice all over Madden's shoes. “That’s Ralph’s way with rookie writers he doesn’t recognize,” came the explanation. “He doesn’t mean anything by it.” So began a Hall of Fame scribe's career, as detailed in this clear-eyed memoir. With verve and candor, Madden reflects on five decades of triumphs, misadventures and unforgettable characters.
National Park Service investigator Michael Walker is battling smugglers stealing priceless artifacts when he’s dispatched to Glacier Bay National Park in Alaska, where a team of scientists has gone missing. Meanwhile, in Florida’s Everglades National Park, FBI special investigator Gina Delgado traces the murder of an environmental science intern back to another U.S. Geological Survey team’s ongoing experiments that are decimating the fragile ecosystem. That is before she’s dispatched to the scene of a sunken U.S. nuclear submarine, the entire crew of which has been inexplicably killed. The connection between these disparate investigations lies in a deadly prehistoric organism, frozen for thousands of years in the ice until global warming brings it back to life in what could mean the death of all life on Earth.
In the midst of the woods stands a house called Lichen Hall. This place is shrouded in folklore --- old stories of ghosts, of witches, of a child who is not quite a child. Now the woods are creeping closer, and something has been unleashed. Pearl Gorham arrives in 1965, one of a string of young women sent to Lichen Hall to give birth. And she soon suspects the proprietors are hiding something. Then she meets the mysterious mother and young boy who live on the grounds --- and together they begin to unpack the secrets of this place. As the truth comes to the surface and the darkness moves in, Pearl must rethink everything she knew --- and risk what she holds most dear.
Rose, the mother of aspiring writer Jules, has waited three months for answers about her daughter’s death. Why was she swimming alone when she feared the water? Why did she stop texting days before she was last seen? When the official investigation rules the death an accidental drowning, an unsatisfied Rose travels to the memoir-writing workshop herself. She hopes to draw her own conclusion and find closure. When Rose arrives, she is swept into the curious world created by her daughter’s literary hero, the famous writing teacher Eva Marshall, a charismatic woman known for her candid --- and controversial --- memoirs. As Rose uncovers details about the days leading up to Jules’ disappearance, she begins to suspect that this glamorous retreat package is hiding ugly truths.
The word atavism, coined by a botanist and popularized by a criminologist, refers to the resurfacing of a primitive evolutionary trait or urge in a modern being. This inventive collection from Lydia Millet offers overlapping tales of urges ranging from rage to jealousy to yearning. The titular atavists include an underachieving, bewildered young bartender; a middle-aged mother convinced that her gentle son-in-law is fixated on geriatric porn; a bodybuilder with an incel’s fantasy life; an arrogant academic accused of plagiarism; and an empty-nester dad determined to host refugees in a tiny house in his backyard. As they pick away at the splitting seams in American culture, Millet’s characters shimmer with the sense of powerlessness we share in an era of mass overwhelm.
Ryan and Lillian Bright are deeply in love, recently married, and now parents to a baby girl, Georgette. But Lillian has a son she hasn’t told Ryan about, and Ryan has an alcohol addiction he hasn’t told Lillian about, so Georgette comes of age watching their marriage rise and fall. When a shocking blow scatters their fragile trio, Georgette tries to distance herself from reminders of her parents. Years later, Lillian’s son comes searching for his birth family, so Georgette must return to her roots, unearth her family’s history, and decide if she can open up to love for them --- or herself --- while there’s still time.
