Category: literary fiction

The Impossible Fortune by Richard Osman (Literary Mystery)

Read this in a single sitting — impossible to put down. The story has typically good twists and this time delves into bitcoin, trust issues, and a whole new meaning for deep storage, but what I have always liked about Osman’s books are his characters. The core Thursday Murder Club members (Elizabeth, Ibrahim, Joyce, and Ron), the somewhat unwilling police “friends,” and the various colorful criminal elements have all returned along with some new parts — and they are all as intriguing as ever. Osman’s characters have not run out of depth or surprises as often happens in series. Plenty of fun!

Thank you to Pamela Dorman Books and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on September 30th, 2025.

Happiness Falls by Angie Kim (Literary Fiction)

Mia’s family is unusual to say the least. Half Korean, half white, a working mother and a stay-at-home father, wildly different fraternal twins (Mia and John), and a younger brother (Eugene) who has both Autism and Angelman’s Syndrome (also known as the Happiness Syndrome as it is characterized by a happy demeanor). While Mia is hyperlexic (new word for me) and ultra analytic (sinking often into her vortex mode as in “warning, warning you’re sinking into a vortex of over analysis”), her twin John is ADHD, with a heavy emphasis on the H. Their mother is a linguist (who once helped with the libretto of a Vulcan opera) and their father is engaged in some very interesting “Happiness” research while caring full time for the now teenaged Eugene.

One day, the father goes missing and a very distraught Eugene — the only witness — makes it home on his own in a disheveled mess — without the ability to communicate anything about what occurred. What follows is an intricate plot to solve the mysteries of both the missing father and the essence of Eugene, complete with detectives, crowdsourced clues, behavioral specialists, plenty of confusion and misdirection, and some real surprises. The plot is engaging enough to attract most readers on its own, but what intrigued me was the obsessively interesting characters. The inner meanderings of our narrator (Mia — explained in the first pages as her compulsive need to digress) traipsed through philosophy, neurology, linguistics, human perception, music and emotion, modes of communication, and most especially the tools and abilities for understanding oneself and others — especially those others who do not function in the same way as yourself. Lots of research on conditions such as Eugene’s woven seamlessly into the narrative. While none of this would get in the way of a plot-oriented reader finding fulfillment, to me it was a Disneyland of intellectual treats that actually propelled the story forward.

Apropos of nothing, the author had a fantastic working vocabulary — I particularly liked the phrase “titular panache” — tickled me.

Highly recommended!

The List of Suspicious Things by Jennie Godfrey (Literary Fiction / Mystery)

A coming-of-age story told by a precocious 12-year old set in the time of the Yorkshire Ripper (late 70s). Miv and her best friend Sharon decide to find the Ripper themselves when their world starts falling apart due to the constant threat. They start by compiling a list of suspicious things about the people around them, and as they pursue investigations on multiple fronts, they learn a great deal about life. The unfolding stories of various people in their community are always instructive — some in bad ways and others in good. Miv learns about bullies, racism, grief, and even domestic abuse, but also about the importance of standing up for yourself and others, doing the right thing, tolerance, curiosity, friendship and love.

I liked the writing a great deal — Miv’s voice is unique, appealing, often humorous, and a good deal more exposed than an actual person might agree to. Never overdone or overly dramatic, but also never, ever vapid. I loved the way we got to know characters who appeared one way but easily morphed into a more complex (and much more likable) person with a little time and exposure. The ending was a real surprise, but well done and thought provoking.

Thank you to Sourcebooks Landmark and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on December 2nd, 2025.

Before I Forget by Tori Henwood Hoen (Literary Fiction)

This is the long-delayed coming-of-age story of a 26-year old going home to care for her Alzheimer-ridden father. And let me immediately reassure you that there is absolutely nothing depressing in any of it. What I began reading with trepidation (I’m not looking for depressing stories!) pulled me forward with increasing amounts of humor, human insight, and beyond touching moments (so yes, I teared up frequently, but from seeing substance, not sadness).

Cricket quits her job as an underutilized gofer for an over-the-top healthcare company that peddles an infinite array of body rejuvenation at very high prices. Instead, she heads to her favorite place (their home in the Adirondacks) and her beloved father — neither of which she has seen since a decade old tragedy left her beyond bereft and thoroughly guilt-ridden. From here the story takes off in unexpected ways with engaging characters, possible connections to the spiritual world, some unexpected business opportunities, and many chances to rethink the past. Throughout all of it, Cricket moves toward self understanding, forgiveness, and a stronger connection to those about her.

The writing is very good — the prose, pacing, and plot elements all perfectly tuned to Cricket’s growth without demeaning the roles of others in her story. I loved the insight and the messaging and the way Cricket always behaved in a principled manner — even when she was confused or afraid. I loved the different out-of-the-box ways dementia was portrayed, without downplaying the difficulty and loss. I loved the way personality traits could be interpreted in opposites: was someone passive or patient? Complacent or content? Insatiable or intrepid?). And I loved the humor applied to the situations and characters — particularly the buffoonish commentary on new age health gurus and products (see some of my favorite quotes below).

One of my favorite books this year.

Some great quotes:
“I am only 26, which means I am essentially a larva. In contemporary America, childhood can last well into one’s 30s, 40s, and even 50s.”

“What if Alzheimers isn’t just a slow death? What if it’s another dimension entirely – an ascension even? Humans are so fixated on our minds that we see their loss as a tragedy. But what if it’s a gift? Maybe the erosion of memory clears space for something truer. Maybe the intellect gets in the way of the heart, until little by little, it doesn’t.”

“My mother once told me I was too passive, but I prefer to think of myself as patient. There are some problems that solve themselves if you simply wait a while.”

“I have a vague feeling that, when it comes to my life, not only am I sitting on the sidelines, but I’m playing the wrong game altogether. As I look around at the leftover mess from the weekend, I think: I’m ready to be something other than young.”

“I was impressed by her confidence and conviction – two things I was lacking. When you are full of questions, you are drawn to people who look like answers.”

“You could spend all day exfoliating, lifting, moisturizing, resurfacing, deep conditioning, buffing, harmonizing, depilating, and rejuvenating your bodily surfaces, but at the end of that day, your soul will still ache for what it really wants: freedom from the consumptive cycle of never feeling or looking quite good enough. We’ve conflated health with vanity. It’s not that I don’t believe in healing; I just don’t believe you can buy it for $78 an ounce.”

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on December 2nd, 2025.

The Winds from Further West by Alexander McCall Smith (Literary Fiction)

In this new, standalone novel, McCall Smith takes on the ethics and responsibilities of those caught up in cancel culture — including the perspectives and calculations of those willing to play along (on either side) for personal gain. We follow Neil, a University of Edinburgh public health lecturer and researcher, as he is accused of making an “insensitive” comment and is asked by an unscrupulous dean to apologize regardless of guilt. I’ll hasten to say that McCall Smith does not allow the book to slide into a Kafkaesque nightmare from which our hero cannot emerge unscathed (I almost stopped reading when I thought it was going in that direction). Instead, he focuses on how people react to “life experiences” such as these and how they can be used to further self (and world-at-large) awareness and growth. I found it insightful and inspiring.

I love that McCall Smith always brings the ethics of big social trends into how they play out in individuals. The book is full of pithy commentary as to the state of the world (or one’s university!) and one’s role within it. His characters are always interesting — one is caught reading a book called “A Brief History of the Smile.” Others contemplate and discuss such random (but IMO engaging) topics such as a recent theory about Neanderthals, people vs. microbes, the use of shaming in society, and as always, a lovely collection of quotations from (mostly Scottish) poets (my favorite is Auden’s line: “If equally affection cannot be, let the more loving one be me.” It made me cry. I also loved the discussion (minor argument?) about the democratization of science — while Neil’s girlfriend feels teachers should be less didactic, Neil points out that Bernoullis equation is not an opinion.

Honestly, I have loved almost all of McCall Smith’s books and really can’t believe he hasn’t run out of philosophical musings and expositions after all this time. Every book seems to cleanly dissect complex problems into clear and concise points to help you thread through them.

Some of my favorite quotes:
“One had to become indifferent to the things you could not do anything about, unless you were prepared to let them hurt you indefinitely.”

“He, and people like him, might do a little to change the basic rules of engagement between human beings and microbes, but here and there, in small corners of the battlefield, they achieve their largely unsung victories. And in the background, their research, sometimes painfully slow and seemingly entirely theoretical, built up the human armory against microbial defeat.”

“People say that the thing about poetry is its power to haunt.“

“The world’s in a sorry mess. People put so much energy into finding fault with others, with attacking them, with calculating personal advantage, with … with all of those things. We’ve broken the bonds that exist between us, with the result that we are all potential enemies of one another, locked in mutual suspicion and distrust. And do you know what? I’ve had enough of it, I can’t bear to be part of that any longer.”

Thank you to Pantheon and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this audio book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on July 29th, 2025.

The Eights by Joanna Miller (Historical Fiction)

Historical fiction at its best! Four women are part of the historic 1920 matriculation of women to Oxford — the first in over 1,000 years. Roomed together in “corridor eight,” this is the story of their first year, with several flashbacks to flesh out their personal context. Beatrice Sparks — almost 6 feet tall, daughter of a famous (and vigorous!) suffragette, with an appetite for politics; Marianne Gray — the motherless daughter of an English vicar; Dora Greenwood — beautiful and still grieving for the brother and fiancee who died in the war; and Ottoline Wallace-Kerr — wealthy and at odds with her family’s expectations, who keeps herself calm with mathematics. There are some secrets and some surprises — all quite realistic and perfectly embedded in the well-drawn context of the time. And for the girls, a discovery of unexpected, but deeply felt, friendship.

I say this is historical fiction at its best because it finds the right balance between the extremes of dull, historic, facts and overly sensationalized (and manipulatively emotional) story telling with a minimum of historic accuracy. There are no modern sensibilities sneaking in — but plenty of individual reactions and experiences nestled in the very real context of the day. The country had just emerged from WWI, (some) women had just gotten the vote, and now — Oxford was open to women who wanted to pursue a more intellectual path through life. I loved the many small details that peppered the prose: a new mystery author — Agatha Christie — who was set the challenge to write a novel where it was impossible to guess who did it — and succeeded; the introduction of ouija boards; stories of the Bodlein library and how the rare books were protected during the war; the second wave of influenza; the origin of Chequers (home to Britain’s prime ministers); practice trenches in the countryside; suffragette pennies, etc. A pretty interesting Oxford-style debate on whether or not women should be at Oxford at all. I loved the bits of discussions on various studied subjects. The secondary impact of the war on various people after the war was over was equally interesting — more personal, individualized, and detailed. Philosophical and ethical issues pervaded the experiences because how could they not?

I like historical fiction because, when done well, you learn about what history might have meant to the people who lived through it. The author’s note delineates fact from fiction as well as describes inspirations — with a nice bibliography on relevant sources. Also — there is a glossary at the end that I really wish I had known about before I finished! Plenty of period specific slang was used that I had to constantly look up or guess at. Now you know!

Thank you to G. P. Putnam’s Sons and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on April 15th, 2025.

The Boxcar Librarian by Brianna Labuskes (Historical Fiction)

Writing: 4/5 Plot: 5/5 Characters: 5/5

Loved this historical fiction centered in Montana in the early 1900s. Three timelines for three characters that slowly converge: Millie Lang (1936), exiled to Missoula to “fix” the state’s contribution to the depression era American Guide Series, sponsored by the Federal Writers Project of the WPA. Alice Monroe (1924), small town Missoula librarian born to wealth, who works to get more books into more hands via rural visits. Colette Durand (1914), daughter of a Shakespeare loving union organizer for the miners employed by the Anaconda Mining Company.

An excellent cast of supporting characters, lots of action and surprising plot twists, well-researched details of the time period, and plenty of interesting locations (e.g. Glacier National Park, Wild Horse Island in Flathead Lakes, Missoula mining camps) — all vividly brought to life. Lots of literary references, both in terms of very apt quotes and individual books for an assortment of characters and the real impact they had. Really demolished the stereotype of the “lower classes” being uninteresting in learning and mind expansion. She handled themes of vengeance, injustice, and restrictions on and expectations of women adroitly with real reflection on how to know what “doing the right thing” means, and what it might cost. Loved the Boxcar library itself (apparently you can see the Lumberman’s library box car in Fort Missoula — I may take a trip!)

A great read!

Some quotes:

“Everyone had a story, and most people were just trying to get by. They didn’t deserve to become empty vessels to hold other people’s anger and insecurities.“

“So did writers. They saw the extremes in life as appealing – tear courage, fear, and strength, love and hate. They were what made humans human. But Millie didn’t think of herself as a writer. She thought of herself as a journalist. She was there to tell other people’s stories.”

Thank you to William Morrow and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book was published on March 4th, 2025.

Typewriter Beach by Meg Waite Clayton (Historical Fiction)

I really warmed up to this book — it started off a little slowly and then became more and more intriguing with every chapter, ending with a lovely last line to cap it all off.

Dual timelines — an isolated set of cottages on the beach at Carmel in 1957. During the darkest times of McCarthy’s blacklists and the slow strangulation of Hollywood, a young starlet on the verge of being the next Grace Kelly is sent to wait in one of these cottages by the studio manager and all around fixer. Told to stay indoors and not be seen, she nevertheless meets her neighbor, the enigmatic Leo — a black listed scriptwriter with a haunted past. In 2018 we follow Gemma, whose beloved grandfather has just died and left her his cottage.

The story slowly unfolds, past to present, and while I often thought I knew what was happening, I was often quite wrong. The writing style is rich with thought provoking commentary and reflections. Hollywood — the deals, the norms, the restrictions, the cheats — is on display with all of the detail that I love — not just a description of events, but a description of the people living through those events and how they are changed, what they do to survive, what decisions they make (and sometimes regret, and often don’t). It’s the full experience and incredibly well-researched. I learned a lot about the different ways people dealt with the blacklist and (of course) the very different ways men and women had to deal with opportunities, threats, and restrictions.

Along with this spectacular depiction of the times and contexts is a lovely and often surprising story of love, family, parenthood, and friendship. I don’t want to give anything away, but there are multiple lovely stories of people finding love and family in a world not inclined to make it easy for them. Plenty of stories of people living in an environment not of their choosing and not in their control — and yet … finding their happiness.

Lots of intriguing details on Carmel and Hollywood — late credits for blacklisted screenwriters, a form of “me too” throughout the ages, morals clauses (for women only). I enjoyed every minute of it.

Thank you to Harper and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book was published on July 1st, 2025.

Rental House by Weike Wang (Literary Fiction)

Two vacations five years apart. A married couple from (very) different backgrounds invite their parents to join them for vacation number one.. Keru’s Chinese immigrant parents are post-Covid germaphobes with a suffering-suffused view of life, while Nate’s are outwardly friendly xenophobes from rural Appalachia. On vacation number two, nobody is invited … but some interesting people show up anyway. The whole thing is an incredibly perceptive description of what happens when people of multiple (and often conflicting) worldviews come together.

I read this shortly after reading Tamim Ansary’s “The Invention of Yesterday,” a book blaming most of history on the clashing of misunderstood worldviews (he’s not wrong). Rental House looks at this same problem at the personal level — clashing individual worldviews and the resulting problems and miscommunications. Keru’s observations and incisive analysis gets to the root of how we understand (or don’t) each other — what each person values, perceives, prioritizes and feels entitled to — things people often don’t take the time to understand even about themselves.

I found this to be a remarkably non judgmental book. The clashes developed across the board — political affiliations, race, socioeconomic class, choice of profession, and family expectations — but each person had both different opinions and different levels of investment in those opinions. Did the clash cause mild irritation or offend deeply held principles? Did one person try to understand another, or just get upset at how stubborn the other person was? Keru applied her analytic blade to herself just as often, noting when she may have overreacted to perceived slights, as an example. I appreciated the analytic vs emotional drive for understanding. Reading through someone’s pain allows an empathetic connection for the reader, but doesn’t teach anything about understanding why that someone is in pain, or how he or she (or the reader) might prevent similar pain in the future.

I like Wang’s writing style — clear, insightful, wry, and thought provoking. I also appreciate how thoroughly drawn her characters are — I feel I understand these people in ways that would take years in real life.

Just a few quotes — don’t want to give too many away :
“… An exercise that was like, shoving a square peg into a round hole, but with enough force, and with every neuron dedicated to the problem, he could smash the square peg through.”

“and this led to a heated discussion that characterized the early years of their dating – the aggressive comparison of their worldviews, which ultimately led to clarifications in their basic English vocabularies. Expats left wealthy nations to humble themselves at the altar of the world, immigrants escaped poorer nations to be the workforce of the rich. “

“…because suffering is required. To suffer is to strive and to set a bar so high that one never becomes an obstacle a a complacent. to become complacent is to become lazy and to lose one’s spirit to fight, and to lose one’s spirit to fight is to die. So, to suffer is to live. “

“Then his father chirped back a safe retort, next his mother, and Keru wondered if all white families in public acted like a set of affable birds.”

Thank you to Riverhead Books and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book was published on December 3rd, 2024.

Misophonia by Dana Vowinckel (Literary Fiction)

Part coming-of-age story and part family dynamics, this is the story of an unusual family. Avi is an Israeli born and bred Cantor in Berlin living with his 15-year old daughter Margarita. Her American, linguist mother, Marsha, lives in the U.S. and has little involvement with Margarita to this point. The action takes place in Germany, Israel, and Chicago, where Margarita spends time every summer with her maternal grandparents. While there, Margarita is heavily pressured to go to Israel to stay with her mother who has a summer Fellowship to study Yiddish and Arabic as “oppressed minority languages.”

This is a translation from German, and the prose feels very German to me — methodical depictions of action, thoughts, individual insights, and development — very organized. The opposite of stream-of-consciousness and relaxing for my structured brain. What wasn’t particularly relaxing was the extreme depth of the exposure to the inner turmoil of troubled characters. Margarita’s story becomes cringeworthy in the way that only a particularly astute description of a teenaged girl’s inner struggles can be. The pressures — both internal and external — of being Jewish in multiple contexts (e.g. in Israel, Germany, or America) is thoroughly explored to the point where the reader is completely immersed in the religion from multiple viewpoints, and the impact of Jewish people dwelling within these contexts — much of which is exposed as the revelations different characters have as they develop through the story. I found all this extremely eye-opening, despite the fact that these are topics I’ve read a lot about. There are some absolutely beautiful comments about faith and ritual and Jewish Philosophy. Some very interesting thoughts about how context shapes children as much as their parents do, and how this can cause friction and non-understanding between them.

In the acknowledgements, the author explains that she worked on the novel the year before the events of Oct 2023 so the huge impact that the Hamas massacre had on Israel and the rest of the world is not a part of the story, though I noticed that you can see some hints in a few of the attitudes of some characters. I can’t say that I enjoyed reading this book — the characters are dysfunctional — not in a hopeless or upsetting way, as they are all working to figure things out and improve themselves and their lives, but in a painful way to read. However, I am very glad I read the book and feel like I gained some fresh understanding of the lives of people very different than myself (which is big part of what I look for in my reading).

Thank you to HarperVia and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on May 6th, 2025.