Category: Kate’s Reviews

Kate’s Review: “Better Than Revenge”

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “Better Than Revenge” by Bea Fitzgerald

Publishing Info: Sourcebooks Landmark, August 2026

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an ARC from the publisher

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: Their feud made them iconic. One decision made them infamous.

After all, where’s the fun in rivalry if there’s no bloodshed?

Nadine Heywood and Harper Moore have been rivals since their first days at drama school, a feud that has consumed them. A feud more passionate, more clawing than the gossip magazines ever note. Hollywood’s It-Girl versus the acclaimed starlet, caught in an obsession that can only lead to one someone’s downfall.

After beating out Harper in every category for best actress, Nadine believes she has finally done it. She’s won – completely and irrefutably. So why are thoughts of Harper still tormenting her? Why doesn’t victory taste at all sweet?

When a knock at her door reveals Harper covered in blood, Nadine realizes this could be the ultimate opportunity to bring her opponent down. Or change them both forever.

With flashbacks to Harper and Nadine’s infamous in-fighting building toward a murder that makes them iconic, and excerpts of an interview with Nadine for Harper’s upcoming true crime documentary, this is a salacious tale of scandal, ego, and infamy about two frenemies who may be more to each other than they would ever like to admit.

Review: Thank you to Sourcebooks Landmark for sending me an ARC of this novel!

Throughout the years I can think of numerous pop culture/Hollywood based ‘feuds’ between famous women that were rooted in some truth but were probably manufactured to an extent to drum up press and attention. For my elder millennial self I think of Hilary Duff vs Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears vs Christina Aguilera, and Jen vs Angelina, all having a grain of truth but all splashed on gossip sites and magazines to the point that SOME of it had to be made up or at least exacerbated. Probably in part due to misogyny and the constant need to pit women against each other. Hell, even today we see people commenting on modern starlets and who is or isn’t in their photos, or how they stand when near each other. I was thinking about this a bit as I read “Better Than Revenge” by Bea Fitzgerald, as two talented young starlets capitalize on their decades long rivalry, the lines between hate and love blur, and one of them ends up murdering someone and seeks out the other for help. How delightfully seedy! I was, of course, on board.

I will say off the bat that this is less of a thriller and more of a soap operatic character study in fame, jealousy, sexism to an extent, and rivalries and how the public LOVES a good rivalry. Our protagonist is Nadine, a movie star whose entire acting life has been entangled with Harper, a former classmate at theater school who is ALSO a huge star…. and whom Nadine has hated for their entire lives as they have been constantly pit against each other by others AND each other. It’s over the top in its constant needling and cattiness, with both Nadine AND Harper being generally insufferable but also just vulnerable enough that I was invested in their entire soapy journey from rivals to enemies to beyond. It is also an interesting take on the way that Hollywood gossip and fame loves a salacious story that will only bring MORE eyes to a person or topic, and how sometimes people take a narrative and lean all the way into it. It’s not really revelatory that celebrity culture and worship comes with perceived heroes and villains and the public enjoys watching a fight, manufactured or not, but this story is still fun watching Nadine and Harper be completely vicious to each other while they very clearly NEED each other in more ways than one.

I kind of wish there was a little bit more on the thiller angle. We don’t get the aforementioned ‘Harper goes to Nadine whilst covered in blood asking for her help’ until we are more than halfway into the story, and while we do get little sprinkles of hints about it throughout the narrative (mostly in the ‘true crime doc’ description interludes, which I did really enjoy), this is first and foremost a book about two women who will do anything tear the other down but who also are dependent on each other as their rivalry spirals and evolves and creates something passionate and incredibly toxic. It’s fun, but the parts around the murder and the cover up were a bit rushed as the story went on and started cyclings towards its conclusion. It’s fun and entertaining but the murder and the fall out takes a back seat to all of Nadine and Harper’s other drama. Not to say that it isn’t enjoyable, because it is. But if you want more of the murder and less of the Sapphic toxic back and forth, just know it leans more into the latter.

Overall, I found “Better Than Revenge” to be fun and the right amount of soapiness that I enjoy.

Rating 7: Soapy and catty with incredibly compelling and unlikable main characters, “Better Than Revenge” is a bit sleazy (in a good way) and a fun thriller, even if there isn’t much of a mystery to be found.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Better Than Revenge” is included on the Goodreads list “August 2026 Queer Releases List”.

Kate’s Review: “Mazywood”

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “Mazywood” by Tananarive Due

Publishing Info: S&S/Saga Press, September 2026

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an eARC from NetGalley

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: When Johnny—a filmmaker and grandson of the famous Black actress Mazelle Washington—brings his family to Mazywood, the secluded California mountain lodge left behind by his grandmother, he expects a quiet retreat. Instead, he uncovers a legacy of rage, secrets, and terror that has haunted his family for generations.

Set primarily in the present day, with haunting flashbacks to Hollywood’s Golden Age, Mazywood explores three generations while following Johnny as he pieces together the true story of his grandmother. As a young Black actress whose career spanned from the 1920s to the 1940s, Mazelle brushed shoulders with giants like Lena Horne, Clark Gable, and Hattie McDaniel. But beneath her public appearance, she carried a secret she had kept and nurtured since she was a child, when a dark wish came true and changed the course of her life forever.

Now, fifty years after Mazelle’s death, Johnny finds himself confronting the truth she buried—and the consequences she left behind. For a monster lurks outside Mazywood, hidden for generations, and Johnny brought his family to its hunting grounds.

Review: Thank you to NetGalley for providing with with an eARC of this novel!

One of the first Tananarive Due stories I read was “Return to Bear Creek Lodge”, a short story that was part of a winter horror collection, and I had my curiosity piqued when I found out she wanted to expand upon that story (and the previous story “Incident at Bear Creek Lodge”). It was a weird and strange tale, and the thought of a full on novel about it was absolutely exciting. Fast forward a few years, and I find myself with her newest novel “Mazywood”. I loved “The Reformatory” so much it was a priority for me this year, and when I looked deeper into it I realized that THIS was the novel that was going to be the expanded lore of Bear Creek Lodge and the weird monster thing that lives in the woods. But not only that! It was also going to be a historical fiction novel following Mazelle Washington, the bitter grandmother from the previous stories who was also an up and coming Black starlet in the Golden Age of Hollywood, whose career was shaped, and destroyed, by racism. I was on board SO FAST.

Much like previous tales set at Bear Creek Lodge, the horror bits of “Mazywood” involve Johnny, the grandson of former movie star Mazelle Washington, who is at her mountainous and isolated estate in winter. But unlike the previous stories, Johnny is no longer a teenager, but a grown man approaching his sixties, who has become a successful filmmaker in his own right. His wife Tasha convinces him to take the family to his grandmother’s estate, long left empty, for a family weekend (but also so Tasha can research Mazelle for a book she plans to write, but ALSO to break the news to their teenage daughters that Tasha is pregnant). Johnny has bad memories of the lodge and his grandmother, but relents, thinking the OTHER memories of a monster have to be just made up from a scared kid’s mind. The horror here is the isolated cabin and the monster for sure, but Due takes us to places that I wasn’t really expecting as the snow comes down, the power goes out, and the family is suddenly in danger of potentially being eaten like others were in the past. We have some great monster moments, whether it’s the fleeting descriptions of the monster from the POVs of our characters, or hints to its presence, but we also have some great familial tension that adds to it (Tasha and Johnny feeling anxious about an unplanned pregnancy, their daughter Imani’s ADHD making itself known at not so good times, Johnny’s trauma about his grandmother bubbling over). I found the suspense top notch and the mystery about the monster well done. And I did find myself misting up at times because of COURSE things can never be so black and white and Due knows how to pluck at the heart strings when some realities are revealed, and that is all I will say about THAT, but just know I was crying a bit on and off.

The real emotional weight and meat of this story, however, is finally getting to follow Mazelle during her rise in Hollywood, and finally finding out how she transformed from wide eyed ingenue to the bitter and cruel elderly woman we knew from the previous stories… as well as her connection to the strange creature. We see how Mazelle was first a child performer with an amazing hook: a terrific (though strange) dog named Scout that could do almost any trick and seems to be completely in sync with her. As Mazelle gets older and still tries to find a big break, the cogs of old Hollywood and its corruption and racism are prevalent at every turn, whether she’s type cast into an incredibly racist caricature of a role, or has to work ten times harder than white performers but with little to show for it, or how she has to contend with criticism from the Black community for conforming when it’s clear that if she wants to make it she has absolutely no choice but to do so. The Mazelle that we have known from the previous stories is bitter and cruel and has created rifts between her and her loved ones that seem too large to cross. But the Mazelle here is so sympathetic and tragic as she deals with racism, misogynoir, humiliation, and sexual violence all the hands of powerful white Hollywood elites who see her as nothing more than a cash cow until she is tapped out. Due paints a stark and biting portait of the shit Black performers had to go through during this time, and also brings in real life people like Hattie McDaniel, Sammy Davis Junior, and Lena Horne to emphasize that this struggle and injustice wasn’t just limited to Mazelle’s youth during the silent era. I really loved seeing the real life people and how they were used to make these points (and I know that Clark Gable was a complete shithead in a lot of ways, but I enjoyed how Due touched on his relationship with Hattie McDaniel because it does seem like they genuinely enjoyed each other’s company).

“Mazywood” is another spectacular horror novel from Tananarive Due! If you haven’t read any of her books yet, you MUST pick this one up (and then go back and read the short stories that preceded it).

Rating 10: A searing story that is part monster in the woods horror tale, part historical fiction examination of racism in Hollywood’s Golden Age, “Mazywood” is a fantastic new book from Tananarive Due!

Reader’s Advisory:

“Mazywood” is included on the Goodreads post “Peek If You Dare: Our Guide to New Horror Books Coming This Fall”.

Kate’s Review: “Rooted”

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “Rooted” by Leopoldo Goût

Publishing Info: Tor Nightfire, September 2026

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an eARC from NetGalley

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: Aurora, a successful art lawyer, has returned to Mexico to celebrate a recent campaign for the repatriation of stolen artifacts. In particular a mysterious statue of an Aztec god.

There’s nothing wrong with Aurora. But Mexico City isn’t as she remembered, and as she cares for her ailing mother, home isn’t as she remembered either. Nothing is as she remembered. Elements of her past hint at darkness and power, and reality begins to crack and warp the streets.

There’s nothing wrong with Aurora. But some sicknesses can’t be healed. As Aurora’s sanity unravels, she must pry apart her family’s secrets and accept the simplest of The Flayed One cannot stay buried.

Review: Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an eARC of this novel!

I really loved Leopoldo Goût’s previous horror novel “Piñata”, as I found the story, themes, and critique of violent colonialism to be incredibly powerful as well as very creepy. So of course I wanted to read his newest novel “Rooted”. And also, look at that cover. I’m not usually that in tune with the impact of book covers (I know Serena comments on covers a fair amount!), but this one really jumped out at me. Throw in themes of artifact repatriation and the violent history of colonized Mexico (and the wrath of the Old Gods), and I was super pumped to check it out.

Once again Goût centers his story and its themes with a backdrop in Mexico City, and with a huge theme of Mesoamerican mythology and folklore. Our protagonist is Aurora, a lawyer who is returning to her original home of Mexico City as she oversees repatriation of ancient artifacts that had been stolen and sent to other museums. Now that the artifacts are being returned she can celebrate as well as see her mother Maria, who returned to Mexico from Aurora’s childhood in Texas after Aurora grew up. But once she is there she starts having strange visions and hallucinations, as well as memories that don’t make sense, and they seem to have to do with a statue of Xipe Totec, also known as The Flayed One. It’s a great premise, and there are so many questions of what Aurora is seeing, what the statue means, and what the memories and dreams could mean. It’s creepy and at times incredibly gory, with lots of nasty body horror bits as well as commentary about family secrets and familial traumas that are kept from the younger generations out of a misguided attempt to protect them. There were times that I would go from squirming over some of the body horror stuff, and then I would feel a deep melancholy because of the difficulties in the relationship between Aurora and Maria, with Maria hiding things in hopes of protecting Aurora, but only making it worse in trying to keep her safe.

I do think that sometimes the story stalled here and there. It had a true bang of a prologue, and then the set up of Aurora going to Mexico City to work as a lawyer within repatriation deals of Mexican artifacts being brought back to Mexico was incredibly fascinating for me (as I used to work in museums and these questions are always present). And with the set up of the Xipe Totec statue ever present and the weird things that Aurora was seeing made the slow burn of the plot nice and creepy, but I did find myself wanting the plot to move forward a bit faster with repetitive creepy moments weighing it down until we got some answers. We did eventually get there and once some of the pieces fell into place things picked up again, but I think it could have been tightened up without sacrificing a build up of suspense.

But pacing issues aside, I enjoyed the themes and horror elements of “Root”. Leopoldo Goût delivers another satisfying horror tale! I look forward to seeing what more he brings as time goes on.

Rating 7: It was a little slowly paced at times, but the body horror, folklore, and look into family secrets and trauma all worked well for me.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Rooted” is included on the Goodreads list “All the New Horror Books Arriving in September 2026”.

Kate’s Review: “The Hanged Man”

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “The Hanged Man” by Jane Brookwood

Publishing Info: Brookwood Publishing, July 2026

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an ePub from the publicist

Where You Can Get This Book: Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: Gilmore Girls meets Ghost Whisperer in this cozy metaphysical mystery.

Fiona Miller runs a metaphysical gift shop in Pineridge Hollow. She reads tarot, sells crystals, mixes tea and generally minds her own business. Until she can’t.

When the son of her long-lost best friend Maggie turns up dead, Fiona has decided she’s getting to the bottom of it before she’s even aware of the decision. What stops her cold is the timing — moments before the call, she pulls The Hanged Man tarot card on the heels of a monster zoomie rampage by her cat and familiar Rosie.

Maggie’s son, found hanging in an eerie echo of the boy on the card. Accident? Suicide? Murder? The town has already decided. Fiona’s tarot deck isn’t so sure.

In her little corner of nowhere, with only her tarot to guide her through the stickier situations, Fiona is making her way blindly with little or no technology to guide her. The cat though…

Rosie brings some much-needed intuitive skills along with the Chief, who brings something else. With her Pineridge Hollow crew and Rosie at her side, Fiona follows the cards into buried grudges, old money, and secrets the town spent decades hiding.

On top of everything, The Hanged Man keeps making himself known. Flip it on its head, he whispers. Look…really look, and then, be prepared to wait. You just might be surprised…

Review: Thank you to Books Forward for sending me an ePub of this novel!

I love that we are in the Ber months, finally. For those who don’t know, the “Ber” Months are the last four months of the year, September, October, November, and December. It’s my favorite time of year, as we transition from Summer to Autumn and then ease into Winter, and when September hits I start to shift into two distinct moods: spooky, because of course, and cozy, because Autumn is SO cozy to me. And when I started reading “The Hanged Man” by Jane Brookwood, the start to a new cozy mystery series that has TAROT and ESOTERIC STUFF and QUIRKY CHARACTERS and a CAT, I felt it was the perfect transition read into my favorite time of year. And as someone who likes to collect tarot decks, it was all the more of a hook to me. I’m a huge sucker for this stuff.

The vibes in this are very much aligned with my own personal interests. Not only do we have Fiona who owns her own metaphysical shop filled with tarot, tea, and other esoteric goodies, we also have a story that is just brimming with the kind of cozy energy that just feels like it wraps the reader up with a blanket. The small town is filled with quirky characters, Fiona is likable and relatable, she has an ADORABLE cat, and I loved the tarot themes. It hits all of the best things about a cozy mystery to me, with an interesting hook and a charming setting with enjoyable characters. And my GOSH I really want to go to The Raven to get my cards read, or just to chill out with some tea, a book, and Rosie the cat. One of the greatest traits I look for in a cozy mystery is the vibes, and this one definitely has them.

The mystery itself is pretty good too. I feel like we kind of got thrown into the deep end with Fiona and her community of Pineridge Hollow and their backstories, but I caught up pretty well and by the time the mystery of what happened to Henry Jr, the son of her deceased friend Maggie, who perhaps killed himself by hanging (hence the Hanged Man card that keeps popping up), but perhaps had some enemies in town who would have wanted him dead. Fiona is the kind of amateur detective that I enjoy, intrepid and loyal and perhaps a LITTLE impetuous, but who is likable and easy to root for as well. As she gathers clues and butts heads with local authorities a bit we get some good build up, a nice cast of suspects, and the ever present tarot predictions helping drive the investigation. I kind of figured it out pretty early, but the journey was enjoyable and it didn’t really matter that I called the ending.

“The Hanged Man” is a promising start to a new cozy mystery series that will be perfect Fall reading. Get out your tarot deck, a cup of tea, and a blanket, and then just settle in.

Rating 7: A cozy mystery with a unique premise and the exact right vibes for the upcoming Autumn season!

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Hanged Man” is included on the Goodreads list “Halloween and Autumn Cozy Mysteries”.

Kate’s Review: “Kiss Slay Replay”

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “Kiss Slay Replay” by Rachel Harrison

Publishing Info: Berkley, September 2026

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an ARC from the publisher at ALAAC2026

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: Every wedding guest’s worst nightmare is on repeat in this wild and twisty new horror novel from the New York Times bestselling author of So Thirsty and Play Nice.

It’s the picture-perfect wedding The venue is dreamy, the weather is beautiful, love is in the air—and Willa Sullivan is having a bad time. She’s excited to celebrate her best friends finally having the big wedding they’ve always wanted, but this is the first time she’s seen her ex-fiancé in months, and he brought a date. Everything feels off, like she stumbled into an alternate universe. But things start to look up when Willa meets Danny, the groom’s charming and single childhood best friend. When they sneak off together, their rendezvous is interrupted by a masked killer terrorizing the reception. Willa and Danny fight to save the ones they love and survive the night, but the killer is unrelenting. A final girl, Willa is not.

Or is she? She wakes up and it’s the morning of the wedding. She just had the most intense nightmare of her life. Only as the day unfolds, there are some uncanny coincidences that make her question whether it was really a dream, déjà vu, or something more sinister. After a horrifying turn of events, Willa comes to understand that she’s stuck in a loop of carnage and terror that she must learn how to escape or else suffer a fate worse than death—being an eternal wedding guest.

Review: Thank you to Berkley for giving me an ARC of this novel at ALAAC26!

I am usually not super anxious when I go to ALA every year and I am on the hunt for ARCs. For one, Serena and I have basically perfected the ARC hunt strategy, figuring out where the publisher’s booths are ahead of time, getting there early to get in line for the exhibits hall, and knowing that in all likelihood we will get the books that we want. I had Rachel Harrison’s newest horror novel “Kiss Slay Replay” on my ‘seek out’ list, and on one of the mornings at opening I determinedly but politely and NOT obnoxiously made my way towards the publisher tables in hopes I’d see it. And lo and behold it was there!…. And people were SWARMING for it. I was lucky enough to get a copy, because my inherent need to not be a dick about ARCs meant I was one of the last people to get one before they were gone. It’s admittedly great seeing horror get such an enthusiastic response. And I was very excited to see what Harrison was going to do with it.

And it definitely lived up to what I was expecting, and kind of went a few steps further. The premise is definitely one we’ve seen before, at the very least in films like “Happy Death Day” and “Groundhog Day”, but Harrison takes it a step further and makes it even more fun by altering the threats of the time loop wedding massacre for each time Willa has to go through it. It could be a masked murderer at one loop, but then it could be zombies at another loop, with each scenario being campy and out there but still being grotesque and very horror centric, even with the humor and outlandishness. And while I don’t really like the film “Cabin in the Woods”, I kept thinking about it as I read this and it was in a positive way. Harrison has her tongue planted firmly in cheek in this story and while it sometimes had me squirming, it was a true hoot and felt like a fun horror movie that kept me interested. So much so I read it in one afternoon!

But there is also an undercurrent of pathos and melancholy in this book as we follow Willa during a particularly hard moment in her life. She is still reeling from a recent breakup of a long term relationship/engagement, and is now going to the wedding of a friend in their circle, and having to face her friends for the first time in a group setting after years apart after this huge change. It fits for a time loop story, as Willa is not only literally trapped in a loop that won’t go forward on her friend’s wedding day, but even before this she feels stagnant and lost, unable to move forward after her monumental break up and wallowing a bit in the aftermath. Much like the aforementioned film “Happy Death Day”, Willa is stuck in grief which has altered her life and relationships, and perhaps to actually be able to move forward literally she will need to start to move forward emotionally. It’s well worn territory, but Harrison makes it feel fresh and it is effective and bittersweet seeing her have to process all of this. I really enjoyed that aspect, and it was very on brand for Harrison’s horror stories that have some pretty relatable womens experiences at their heart.

“Kiss Slay Replay” is another fun and lighter (not light, but lighter) horror story from Rachel Harrison! If you like time loop stories, check this one out!

Rating 8: A fun and heartfelt Sci-Fi horror tale that feels like “Happy Death Day”, “Groundhog Day”, and “Cabin in the Woods” all rolled into one, with some melancholy undercurrents. Quite enjoyable!

Reader’s Advisory:

“Kiss Slay Replay” is included on the Goodreads list “Time Loops”.

Kate’s Review: “A Beginner’s Guide to Leveling Up”

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “A Beginner’s Guide to Leveling Up” by Elizabeth Agyemang

Publishing Info: G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers, September 2026

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an eARC from the author

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: TRON meets sixth grade in this heartfelt and fantastical graphic novel where a pixelated quest helps one girl navigate grief, friendship, and the wilds of middle school.

Sixth grade. The game just got real. For Lexie, this year was supposed to be all about joining clubs, claiming the perfect lunch spot, and gaming after school with her best friends. But shifting friendships and the grief of losing her beloved grandfather make middle school feel more like someone switched her life to hard mode.

Then Lexie discovers a mysterious journal tucked inside her grandfather’s things. It’s filled with cryptic notes and cheat codes from an unfinished video game he was Warrior’s Quest. When Lexie and her older sister, Eunice, are suddenly transported into the game’s pixelated world, the line between reality and fantasy starts to blur. Can Lexie and her sister level up and face the monsters in the game—and in real life—or is it game over for good?

Review: Thank you to Elizabeth Agyemang for sending me an eARC of this graphic novel!

I have lots of fond memories of playing computer games with my sister and/or the neighbor kids after school when I was a kid. We would play games like “Oregon Trail”, “Are You Afraid of the Dark: Orpheo’s Curse”, “The Lost Mind of Dr. Brain”, and more that I can’t remember the names of. When Elizabeth Agyemang reached out to me with “The Beginner’s Guide to Leveling Up” these memories definitely bubbled up, and when I read that the premise was not only kids being sucked into a video game and having to find their way out, but also kids dealing with real life anxieties, I was on board to give it a try.

Taking into account the target audience I found “A Beginner’s Guide to Leveling Up” to be a fun fantasy/Sci-Fi tale with a good premise of kids being sucked into a video game and having to find their way out. Our main character is Lexie, who is dealing with starting sixth grade and the stresses that come with that as well as the recent death of her grandfather, a video game designer that she misses very much, and how she and some friends become part of a mysterious game they find in his belongings. The description makes reference to “Tron” and it definitely fits, and made me think a bit about “Jumanji” as well. I enjoyed seeing Lexie and her friends have to solve the game mechanics and how it makes literal villains out of the mean girls that Lexie and her friend Mika have been dealing with while also making an escapist game seem like a way to get away from the real world problems she’s been going through (more on that in a bit). The game itself felt pretty realistic, and this elder Millennial was hit with a full on nostalgia bomb of playing CD ROM games with friends.

The strongest aspect of this book, however, was how Agyemang tackles real life issues that may be relevant to the intended audience, aka middle grade kids who are experiencing life changes as they get older. Whether it is the grief that Lexie and Eunice are experiencing in the aftermath of their grandfather’s death (and their opposite ways of dealing with said grief), or the growing pains of entering a new school environment and how that can cause issues between friends, or the difficulties of dealing with other kids who aren’t so great, or racism, and so forth, we have a story about a girl who is going through a LOT and is having a hard time dealing. It’s presented in an empathetic way without being overly melodramatic, and I definitely think that some of the things Lexie is going through would be relatable to middle grade readers. Lexie herself is an enjoyable protagonist who misses her grandfather so much, and her grief and awkwardness about her new school life are realistic to be sure.

“A Beginner’s Guide to Leveling Up” is a cute graphic novel that will be fun for kids who may be navigating some tougher issues and who happen to enjoy a nice video game!

Rating 8: A cute middle grade tale about school growing pains, grief, and teamwork in life and video games.

Reader’s Advisory:

“A Beginner’s Guide to Leveling Up” is included on the Goodreads list “Middle Grade Graphic Novels of 2026”.

Kate’s Review: “The Calamities”

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “The Calamities” by Chuck Wendig

Publishing Info: Del Rey, August 2026

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an eARC from NetGalley

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: The heir to one of the world’s most influential families reckons with the demonic secret to their power, in this contemporary dark fantasy that melds occult magic with shocking family drama from the New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Accidents.

Mourning Mayne knows he’ll one day bear the duty of managing his family’s vast empire of wealth and power. But the feckless Mourning has always struggled to accept this legacy, which is one of cruelty, domination, and exploitation… and something even darker.

Because the Maynes are no ordinary family: Hidden in our world are the fiends—half-human, half-demon, and possessed of dark magic born from buying human souls—and the Maynes are one of the oldest and most influential fiendish families.

But when Mourning’s estranged father, the formidable and terrifying Hadrian Mayne, demands that he return to the fold, Mourning has to make a decision whether to accept his legacy and embrace his role in the family, or to forge his own destiny, and with it, change the course of the world.

Because along the way home, he will meet Key, a black-market seller of human souls, and Quinn, an artist who may hold the dark truth behind the fate of the fiends. Alone, they have all struggled with the darkness of their fiendish nature… but together, they might find a path out of the shadows.

Review: Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an eARC of this book!

It’s been a few years since “Succession” ended, and while I don’t particularly MISS it (it was good but it ended well and man they were all just horrible), I was still immediately thinking of it when I read about Chuck Wendig’s new novel “The Calamities”. We all know that I like Wendig as a horror author, and the idea of him writing a book about an uber wealthy and uber powerful family that just so happens to have demon blood and soul snatching powers just tickled me. “Succession” meets cosmic and demon horror? Hell yes! The Roy Family is basically filled with demons anyway, why not do a story that just leans all the way into that?

Only a man who feeds on human souls and misery could come up with boar on the floor as far as I’m concerned. (source)

Off the bat I will admit that the theme of ‘billionaires and billionaire families are soul sucking demons’ is a bit on the nose, but that doesn’t make it any less resonant. Especially these days. And Wendig is always so thorough and deliberate with his world building that even if the theme is obvious, he makes it feel fresh and brings in so much originality, probably because he has built an entire mythos around the idea of ‘Fiend’ families (aka people who have demon blood in them and who take human souls for feeding) gathering wealth, power, and souls for their own devices, hoarding and exploiting power with no care for the consequences. With different families having rivalries and motives to hold on to souls to consume, we have a lot of well done motivations and a tellar history and world of people with demon blood and soul snatching powers. The horror in this book is less ‘demonic’ and definitely more in the realm of body and cosmic horror, with some really nasty moments that had me squirming, while also building up the suspense in a way that kept me reading. Wendig is such a reliable horror writer and while this one did feel a little bit meandering at times, I was generally locked in.

And unsurprisingly so, the characters in this one are a feast, with morally grey ones, traumatized ones, funny ones, and incredibly creepy ones. Wendig has the gross entitlement and cruelty of a wealthy family a la the Sacklers or Du Ponts, but also brings out interesting complex characters who are sometimes infuriating but at other times wholly sympathetic. We also get an interesting examination of the way narcissistic parents can favor some kids while scapegoating others, and how they can pit their children against each other. This dynamic is especially prevalent in the Maynes Family, with our protagonist Mourning being a black sheep to his cruel and megalomaniacal father Hadrian while his twin siblings Lachlan and Lorelei are highly favored and keep him under their boots because of this advantage (this whole family was very Lannister-esque). But we also have characters like Key, who is a black market soul merchant who finds herself teaming up with Mourning when his father (and their fount of souls) disappears, who is also struggling with her own culpability in the business even if she doesn’t have the monetary advantages of the Maynes and other Fiend families (and uses her soul stealing skills in a way that leaves her incredibly conflicted as the story progresses). Other characters include an artist named Quinn who has a part to play in the nefarious plan, and a Fiend named Silas who has a cold and predatory nature, but who has been muzzled. While sometimes the four perspectives felt a little harried, I overall enjoyed them.

“The Calamities” also has set up a clear path to more books about the Fiends, and I would absolutely keep reading about them should this come to pass. I so enjoy Chuck Wendig and his creepy horror tales, and this one is another good time.

Rating 8: The world building is stellar and while the metaphor is kind of obvious Wendig creates a nasty and fun world of demons, billionaires, cosmic horror, and undoing familial trauma and damage.

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Calamities” is included on the Goodreads blog post “Peek If You Dare: Our Guide to New Horror Books Coming This Fall”.

Kate’s Review: “Heart of Glass”

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “Heart of Glass” by Jennifer Hillier

Publishing Info: Minotaur Books, August 2026

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an eARC from NetGalley

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: A serial killer recants his long-ago confession regarding a small-town high school girl―and her then-best friends are forced to confront what really happened that night and what’s happening now.

Seaside is a small coastal town, known originally for the local amusement park. But twenty-five years ago, a serial killer dubbed The Carnival Killer confessed to the murder of a local high school girl. Now, he’s recanted that confession.

Barb, Nicolette, and Lorelei were best friends – then they met “Sam” at Wonderland, the local amusement park. After hanging out with him there, and accompanying him to the drive-in movie, where the twenty-something handsome drifter made out with Lorelei in the backseat. That night was the last time Lorelei was seen alive, her murdered body surfacing a couple of days later in a local cranberry bog.

Barb’s dreams of leaving Seaside and becoming a successful writer never materialized and she is a freelancer for the local newspaper and, secretly, writes anonymously about reality tv stars for a hugely successful gossip web-site called Reality Bitch. Specifically, she writes savagely about a long-running show set in Canada called Trophy Wives.

Nicolette left town shortly after Lorelei’s body surfaced, never to return. Ultimately, she married a very rich man, moved to Toronto and rebranded herself as Cole Lennox, one of the stars of Trophy Wives.

With the amusement park about to reopen, revitalizing the dying town of Seaside, the Carnival Killer recants his confession about killing Lorelei, the dead body of young woman washes ashore, and the truth about what happened that night twenty-five years ago – and what is happening now – threatens not only the carefully constructed lives of Barb and Nicolette, but the very fabric of Seaside itself.

Review: Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an eARC of this novel!

It felt like it had been forever since a new Jennifer Hillier book had hit the ground, and I, for one, was really missing her thrillers and mysteries (while wholly respecting her writing on her own timeline and not my insatiable need to read her books, of course!). Basically every book of hers I have read I have enjoyed, and after waiting for about four years I was ever so happy to see that her new book “Heart of Glass” was finally coming out. It felt like the perfect read to start the send off of summer, and as I read it and enjoyed it I told myself that I needed to slow down and savor it…. only to tear through it in a couple days. What can I say? I really missed Hillier’s work!

“Heart of Glass” is another woman centered thriller with complicated protagonists and a dark mystery at its heart, which I have come to expect from Hillier and what I always look forward to most about her books. We are following two women in this story, both from Seaside, a tourist trap town with a defunct but soon to reopen amusement park, who share a dark secret from their past that has a link to a notorious serial killer. The first is Barb, who never left her hometown and is now not only a journalist for the local paper, but who also writes anonymous snark reviews of a popular reality show called “Trophy Wives”. The second is Cole, formerly known as Nicolette, who left Seaside as fast as she could after their friend Lorelei was murdered and reinvented herself into a trophy wife, who happens to be on the show Barb reviews. Both of them are haunted by their friend Lorelei’s murder, which was assumed to be killed by a notorious serial killer, who is now recanting his confession… which means Barb and Cole’s long held secret may be in danger of cracking open. It is SUCH a great hook, and I greatly enjoyed both of their perspectives, as messy, complicated, and traumatized as they were. Both Cole and Barb were such great characters, and I was wholly on their sides and cheering them on even if at times they were making TERRIBLE decisions. There is just enough messiness if them that their storylines were incredibly soapy, but then very upsetting at the same time as we slowly see what they were both going through on the night Lorelei was killed, and how these girls were changed forever into the walking disasters we see in the present day. I just loved them both.

As for the mystery, there are a few going on at the same time, which makes the read both deeply addictive, but also sometimes muddled. But muddled as it was, with some kind of wild reveals and some aspects that felt unexplored, it still reads incredibly fast, and I had a lot of fun with it. I figured out a few of the twists pretty early, but there were also a couple that did legitimately catch my off guard. I also liked the way that we jumped back and forth from the past and present to get a fuller picture, as well as seeing the transcripts from the interview that the Carnival Killer gives as he recants his confession. It has a lot of different storytelling devices and they all worked pretty well.

“Heart of Glass” was a fun breezy thriller that I definitely enjoyed. It was a great end of summer read and thriller fans, rejoice, because Jennifer Hillier is BACK.

Rating 8: Another fun and suspenseful thriller from Jennifer Hillier! “Heart of Glass” has suds, lots of twists, and some flawed but easy to root for heroines.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Heart of Glass” is included on the Goodreads blog post “Readers’ 60 Most Anticipated Fall Books”.

Kate’s Review: “Ghost Wall”

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “Ghost Wall” by Sarah Moss

Publishing Info: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, January 2019

Where Did I Get This Book: I own it

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: In the north of England, far from the intrusions of cities but not far from civilization, Silvie and her family are living as if they are ancient Britons, surviving by the tools and knowledge of the Iron Age.

For two weeks, the length of her father’s vacation, they join an anthropology course set to reenact life in simpler times. They are surrounded by forests of birch and rowan; they make stew from foraged roots and hunted rabbit. The students are fulfilling their coursework; Silvie’s father is fulfilling his lifelong obsession. He has raised her on stories of early man, taken her to witness rare artifacts, recounted time and again their rituals and beliefs—particularly their sacrifices to the bog. Mixing with the students, Silvie begins to see, hear, and imagine another kind of life, one that might include going to university, traveling beyond England, choosing her own clothes and food, speaking her mind.

The ancient Britons built ghost walls to ward off enemy invaders, rude barricades of stakes topped with ancestral skulls. When the group builds one of their own, they find a spiritual connection to the past. What comes next but human sacrifice?

A story at once mythic and strikingly timely, Sarah Moss’s Ghost Wall urges us to wonder how far we have come from the “primitive minds” of our ancestors.

Review: Every once in awhile I try to do a tidying up on my Kindle and pick a book I haven’t read yet that has been stagnating and read it. It’s probably no surprise that I have a tendency to get books and then kind of forget about them. During my most recent check in, I remembered that I had the book “Ghost Wall” by Sarah Moss, which caught my eye a couple years ago but then I never picked it up. I decided that it was high time to rectify that, and jumped in, devouring it in one sitting.

Now it’s partially true the ‘one sitting’ circumstance was because this is a novella, but “Ghost Wall” also kept me at rapt attention because of the slow burn build up on unease to discomfort to absolute frayed nerves. We follow Silvie, a teenage girl whose father, due to his eccentric and strict need to make his family live the way an Iron Age family would, is accompanying her father, mother, and a group of University students and their professor on an immersive field trip to ‘live like the Iron agers would’. From the very start we know that something is wrong with this family dynamic, as Silvie is always trying to remain small and unobtrusive while her mother is straight up terrified, and as we learn more about their history and her father’s control of his wife and daughter we soon realize that this is a very dangerous situation at hand. Add in academic outsiders who don’t realize the danger and the actual obsession that this man has, ESPECIALLY if they are women, and Silvie becomes more and more on edge as her father pulls more and more men from the expedition under his spell due to his ‘knowledge’ and manipulative prowess. As we charge towards the climax, the reader just feels like something dreadful is going to happen and it pulls itself so tight it could violently snap at any time. I was both scared to see how it would all end, but also needed to know.

But it’s also an interesting critique on toxic masculinity, power, and how history is held up as a pinnacle of a purer time for incredibly sinister reasons. For the professor and the students all of this is theoretical and they can separate themselves from it to an extent. For Sylvie and her mom they have to live with a man who is violent, especially when he feels disrespected and powerless, and who forced them into this role because he HIMSELF felt powerless and became obsessed with finding it anywhere he could, i.e. through a patriarchal Iron Age family structure (but like so many regressionists who love ‘the good old days’, it is more based on misogyny and racism than anyhting else). As we see more and more people start to become very invested in building a ‘ghost wall’, the academics and the psychopathic family abuser alike start to become more and more unhinged, and while it’s almost certainly a message of ‘in some ways humans aren’t so different from a more ‘primitive’ time’, I also thought it was a message about who gets power and who gets put in positions of power, sometimes to the detriment of others. I quite enjoyed that aspecf of this book.

My only qualm is that the ending feels a little rushed and maybe a little to neat. I didn’t need it to be super complex or muddled, but it did make me go ‘well… that’s pretty convenient’. Not a huge ding, but one I wanted to mention.

Overall I’m glad I finally read “Ghost Wall”! It’s fast and deeply unsettling, so if you are looking for a quick horror novella that will suck you in, give it a whirl!

Rating 7: An unsettling build up of suspense about walls, human nature, and what defines a primitive society (and how perhaps modernity doesn’t preclude us from that).

Reader’s Advisory:

“Ghost Wall” is included on the Goodreads list “Horrortok”.

Kate’s Review: “If We Survive the Night”

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “If We Survive the Night” by Jo Salazar

Publishing Info: Sourcebooks Fire, August 2026

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an ARC from the publisher

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: It’s kill or be killed in this heart-pounding apocalyptic horror. The first book in a new series, If We Survive the Night combines the ruthless zombie perils of The Last of Us with the every-woman-for-herself angle of Yellowjackets. What type of person does it take to survive the end of the world?

Sixteen-year-old Quinn is used to being told that what she feels inside isn’t quite right. After getting kicked out of multiple foster homes and narrowly escaping juvenile detention, she’s undergoing therapy at a residential treatment center for “troubled” girls. Looking for a night of freedom, Quinn sneaks onto the roof with her best friend Keisha, and what she sees changes everything…

She witnesses the start of the zombie apocalypse.

As zombies, or “carriers” as the news calls them, infiltrate the treatment center, escape becomes crucial. Quinn and Keisha make a pact to leave together, but several unexpected complications screw up their plans.

As the girls battle the carriers and wrestle with their doubts about each other, Quinn realizes she has never felt more alive. Maybe this is exactly the kind of world she was built for. And part of thriving in this cutthroat environment means cutting off the dead weight – even if that means putting other lives at risk…But even if she’s willing to sacrifice everything, can anyone really outlive the apocalypse?

Review: Thank you to Sourcebooks Fire for sending me an ARC of this novel!

It has honestly been a bit since I read a straight up zombie apocalypse story. I think that zombies kind of cooled off after they were basically everywhere, but we are starting to see a bit of a resurgence with “The Last of Us” and the “Walking Dead” spin offs we’ve seen as of late. I enjoy zombies but hadn’t dabbled in a bit, and when Jo Salazar’s book “If We Survive the Night” ended up in my mailbox I was ready to jump back in. I had certain expectations going in, as it’s a zombie story and it’s YA, but this one actually ended up surprising me in mostly good ways.

As a zombie apocalypse novel it hits all of the beats the sub-genre needs to hit, but finds freshness in the perspectives at hand and by focusing on teenage girls who are all suffering from various mental health issues and have been in a treatment facility for them. Having not only girls but teenage girls be the center of the story was a really compelling choice, and all of them having various mental health problems made for other conflicts that complicated the whole situation even more. We have teenagers who are already vulnerable enough by their age and their gender, and then you add in things like impulsivity, dysregulation, rigid thinking, and violent tendencies and that makes them all the more unpredictable in an incredibly dangerous situation, and Salazar isn’t shy to show how these kinds of difficulties can play out. It’s also pretty frank with how difficult it can be for people to interact with people with these kinds of issues, especially when they aren’t receiving the supports and treatments that they need or are being pushed away and silenced.

Which leads me to the aspect of this book that worked the best for me, which is the fact that our main character Quinn is a complete psychopath who is learning that she can absolutely THRIVE in the zombie apocalypse because of her complete lack of empathy. We meet Quinn with her fellow inpatients at the treatment center, and she is clearly troubled but somewhat held back because of being in the program. But when the ‘carriers’ as they are calling them start to overrun society and end up at the facility (and we have little explanation as to what has caused it to happen, but hey, that’s probably fairly realistic), Quinn starts to calculate who would be a good ally to have and who would be a liability, and starts to cull the herd with glee. It is such a great choice because so often in zombie apocalypse fiction we see good people not only trying to outlast and outrun zombies, but also outrun dangerous people while ALSO trying to hold onto their humanity. But Quinn? Quinn is more than happy to shed that part of her and really lean into her violent and psychopathic tendencies, and that makes the story all the more compelling, even if following her became more and more grating because of how terrible she can be. It is like if instead of following Rick Grimes “The Walking Dead” instead decided to put a spotlight on The Governor and had us follow HIS POV. It’s so daring and unique, and deeply disturbing at times as well. I don’t know how amped I am to keep following Quinn, as this is definitely a set up for a series, but props to Salazar for going there with this character, especially for a YA audience.

“If We Survive The Night” is fun and quick! It’s been a bit since I’ve picked up a zombie story and this one was a nice revisit to the sub-genre!

Rating 7: A fun new zombie apocalypse novel with a protagonist that feels more like a Governor than a Rick (if you know you know), “If We Survive the Night” is unique and gory zombie horror.

Reader’s Advisory:

“If We Survive the Night” would fit in on the Goodreads list “Zombie Apocalypse Books”.