Tag: 6 Rating

Serena’s Review: “The Whisperwood Legacy”

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

Book: “The Whisperwood Legacy” by Jo Schulte

Publishing Info: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, May 2025

Where Did I Get this Book: e-ARC from the publisher!

Where Can You Get this Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | IndieBound

Book Description: Welcome to Whisperwood, a sprawling theme park nestled in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, where thrilling rides and picture-perfect scenery bring cult-classic fairy tales to life. Or at least they did until eighteen months ago, when the family matriarch, Virginia Strauss, suddenly shut Whisperwood’s gates and the beloved park was left to wither away along with the family’s dwindling fortune.
 
For seventeen-year-old Frankie Strauss, Whisperwood’s closure has been a blessing in disguise. After seeing three generations of wealth’s corrupting influence, she is more than ready to shed the Strauss-family’s gilded handcuffs.
 
But when Virginia goes missing, Frankie realizes that her family might be guilty of something much worse than mere dysfunction. With the help of the mysterious and handsome groundskeeper, Jem, Frankie sifts through a web of near truths and outright lies, uncovering a reality where nothing is as it seems and fairy tales aren’t just real—they’re deadly.

Review: I live ever in hope that I will find a contemporary fantasy novel that I will connect with. It’s an entire subgenre of fantasy that I often struggle to fully appreciate. That said, I was excited by the concept of this one, especially by its creepy carnival cover! Alas, yet again, I find that I’m perhaps just not the correct reader for these books.

Let’s start with a few positives. While the story starts off weaker, things do begin to improve towards the middle point when some of the fantasy elements begin kicking in more fully. That said, it’s quite a wait to get to this portion, and I think the book would have been better served to have more carefully balanced the two halves and styles of the story. The fantasy aspects were also pretty wacky. This is a good and bad thing, I guess. On one hand, I was left with a strong sense of “what the heck is even happening” through much of it. But on the other, once we got into the back half of the book, it was easier to become more invested in finishing if just because I wanted to see what crazed situation would happen next.

However, this is definitely one of those YA fantasy novels that leans heavily in the YA direction. Of course, this is written for teens, so that isn’t a criticism on its own. However, many YA fantasy readers are adults, and there are way too many stereotypical YA fantasy tropes to be found here for it to be scalable to an older audience. For one thing, the romance struck heavily of instalove, with almost no attempt made for it to be given any further depth. There was also a heavy reliance on what I felt were fairly cringing modern references. Again, I’m not a teen, so maybe these will hit home better with this audience. But I have to say, this is the kind of style choice in writing that will quickly date this book, even by the standards of those who may enjoy it now.

However, while much of the writing and characterization felt very juevenile, there was also a lot of swearing, especially by one character in particular. Now, I’m no wilting flower, but it does leave me and others who recommend books in an odd position. Due to the simplistic nature of the book itself, I don’t think adults or even older teens are going to connect with it. However, I’d also feel a bit uncomfortable recommending it to middle graders, what with some of these language choices.

It was just an odd book, all told. If I had been left to my own devices, I probably would have DNF’d this one, but I always want to give a book I’ve received an ARC for my full attention through the end. This may work for some younger teen readers, but I don’t think it will connect to many readers beyond that. Perhaps, ultimately, this will best work for readers looking for a current version of “Goosebumps” or something of that ilk.

Rating 6: Overall, this read as very young even for a YA book and fell into too many tropes to have much new to over to the genre.

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Whisperwood Legacy” can be found on this Goodreads list: YA Novels of 2025.

Kate’s Review: “Bochica”

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

Book: “Bochica” by Carolina Flórez-Cerchiaro

Publishing Info: Atria/Primero Sueno Press, May 2025

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 real-life Latin American haunted mansion. A murky labyrinth of family secrets. A young, aristocratic woman desperate to escape her past. This haunting debut gothic horror novel is perfect for fans of Mexican Gothic and The Shining.

In 1923 Soacha, Colombia, La Casona—an opulent mansion perched above the legendary Salto del Tequendama waterfall—was once home to Antonia and her family, who settle in despite their constant nightmares and the house’s malevolent spirit. But tragedy strikes when Antonia’s mother takes a fatal fall into El Salto and her father, consumed by grief, attempts to burn the house down with Antonia still inside.

Three years later, haunted by disturbing dreams and cryptic journal entries from her late mother, Antonia is drawn back to her childhood home when it is converted into a luxurious hotel. As Antonia confronts her fragmented memories and the dark history of the estate, she wrestles with unsettling questions she can no longer Was her mother’s death by her own hands, or was it by someone else’s?

In a riveting quest for answers, Antonia must navigate the shadows of La Casona, unearthing its darkest secrets and confronting a legacy that threatens to swallow her whole.

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

Anyone who knows me or has been reading this blog for awhile knows that I really adore Gothic stories, especially if they are within the horror genre. Isolated settings, tormented heroines, questions of hauntings or ghosts or hallucinations, I love it all. So obviously the book “Bochica” by Carolina Flórez-Cerchiaro really called out to me, given that not only is it a Gothic story with a mansion that has a haunting history, it’s also in the jungles of Colombia! In the early part of the 20th Century! All of this is just catnip to me, and I had been really looking forward to digging in once it was getting closer to review time.

I absolutely loved the setting of this book. For one, I really enjoyed the time and place, with the focus on Colombia in the 1920s and 1930s, centered mostly in a Gothic mansion nestled in the jungle by a large waterfall (based on an actual mansion that has its own history that somewhat mirrors this story). I love Gothic stories, and to have one centered with a Latin American backdrop and a rich and complex historical basis really compelled me. I loved the way that Flórez-Cerchiaro paints a portrait of this opulent hotel with a dark history, and how I could just see it all come to life as I read the book. I also greatly enjoyed the histories that this story touched upon, whether it was the Muisca mythology and folklore, as well as the ways that the book would touch upon colonialism and imperialism, and the role that the Catholic Church has played in such things ever since the Spanish-led conquest/genocide in this area. There are also some creepy and eerie moments that really unnerved me, with strange shadowy figures or weird moments in the dark.

On the flip side, outside of our main character Antonia, I wasn’t really blown away by our cast of characters, as everyone that wasn’t her didn’t really interest me or feel well expanded upon. Whether it was a complicated relationship between Antonia and her father Ricardo that felt limp, or a romantic connection between Antonia and her love interest/journalist Alejandro that never really crackled, or even an antagonist with secrets in Doña Pereira, who has a past connection to Antonia and her mother and has taken over El Salto as a hotel, none of the characters really did much for me, and the way that Antonia interacted with any of them just didn’t really take off. And because of that, my reading experience never felt very high stakes, and I wasn’t as engrossed with the story as much as I had hoped I would be. I think that going in with a lot of high hopes set it up for a bit of a free fall when they weren’t met, and while I would certainly recommend this book as a Gothic horror story with a unique POV, it doesn’t really stand out beyond that.

A bit of a mixed bag. I definitely suggest checking it out if you have been thinking about it, but the comparisons to other stories like “The Shining” and “Mexican Gothtic” aren’t quite on point.

Rating 7: The setting is eerie and very unique with great explorations of the history of the area, but the characters were kind of flat, and I was never fully pulled in. Overall, lots of potential, but it didn’t quite channel it.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Bochica” is included on the Goodreads list “Horror to Look Forward to in 2025”.

Kate’s Review: “Murder Land”

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

Book: “Murder Land” by Carlyn Greenwald

Publishing Info: Sourcebooks Fire, May 2025

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

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

Book Description: Murder Land opens tonight. Not everyone will survive. Buckle up for a thriller that will have you on the edge of your seat, perfect for fans of Karen McManus and Holly Jackson.

Seventeen-year-old Billie feels like she is on top of the world. She gets to spend the summer with her best friend, sparks are flying with her crush, and she has received a promotion to ride operator for one of the most buzzworthy new attractions in the theme park she works at. But the first night on the new job takes a dark turn when her creepy coworker mysteriously dies…on her ride, when she isn’t authorized to be running it.

At first, it seems like he died by heart attack, but by the time she returns to the body with help, it looks like a broken neck. Had she just imagined him sitting upright a few minutes ago? It’s as if someone is trying to pin his death on her, and she has one night to figure out who is really responsible before she is blamed.

Billie recruits the help of her friends to sneak around the park after-hours and search for the truth. But as the night stretches on and more people wind up dead, Billie realizes she may not make it out of Murder Land alive. And her friends may know more than they’re letting on.

Review: Thank you to Sourcebooks Fire for sending me an eARC via NetGalley!

Outside of Disney World, I am not REALLY a fan of theme parks. We have a couple here in Minnesota, there’s Valley Fair a bit south of the cities, and the Mall of America has Nickelodeon Universe, which my five year old loves and I only tolerate for her sake (also, here’s some lore: it USED to be called Camp Snoopy and was Peanuts themed, but alas, those days are long over). But even though I don’t really like theme or amusement parks, I do love the idea of a horror or thriller novel set in one. It just opens up so many different opportunities for suspense and horror. Because of this I was definitely interested in checking out “Murder Land” by Carlyn Greenwald, a new YA thriller that has a murderous night at a popular theme park as its premise. Nickelodeon Universe could NEVER. Plus I really like that cover. It just screams Santa Cruz Boardwalk by way of “The Lost Boys”.

No vampires, though. (source)

But promising premise and my own dorky associations aside, I am sorry to say that, for me, an old hat connoisseur of the thriller genre, “Murder Land” was a bit of a let down.

But first, the good. As I mentioned above, the premise and potential of this story is off the charts for me. There is a precedent in thrillers and horror stories for theme parks or carnivals or festivals to be unique and unsettling settings, and I, for one, wouldn’t be opposed to more of it. And that translates over to “Murder Land”, with clear homages to places like Knotts Berry Farm. And I always love a theme of greedy corporations hoping to hide scandals for profit purposes, and the conspiracies that can come to fruition because of it. And also, as a YA thriller, I could see this being a solid introduction to the thriller genre, as there is definitely a plotted out mystery that does feel planned and thought out. I also love a device that uses epistolary or ‘found footage’, so the way that we have transcripts from a website/channel that is all about the history of CaliforniaLand and references ‘urban exploration’ along with it. That all worked for me.

But, on the flip side, I am definitely not the target audience for this book, and I have read so many thrillers over the years, that nothing about “Murder Land” really stood out to me despite all of the potential that it had. I thought that our main characters, rounded out by protagonist Billie and her friend group Grace, Leon, and Sawyer, were pretty cookie cutter in their personalities and their relationships with each other. We have a bit of a love quadrangle going on, which I can usually grin and bear if it’s basically sidelined, but within this story, taking place in ONE night with lots of death and murder and tragedy at hand, it felt clunky and out of place. I also felt that the way that the reveals were done, outside of a few in the transcripts, didn’t have that much weight. I think this is probably due to the fact that I wasn’t as invested in the story because I wasn’t as invested in the characters, but I DO feel like even if I don’t connect with any characters in a thriller I can still be, well, thrilled. And I wasn’t held in much suspense as this story was going. I do think that it’s very possible (maybe even probable) that if I was a teen reading this it would have worked better, but for this forty year old, it just didn’t click.

Overall I think that this didn’t work for me because I’m not the audience it caters to. “Murder Land” was a disappointment for me, but it probably won’t be for everyone!

Rating 6: This is a solid thriller for the age group it is intended for, but seasoned thriller fans in general may be a little underwhelmed.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Murder Land” is included on the Goodreads list “YA Releases of May 2025”.

Kate’s Review: “When The Wolf Comes Home”

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

Book: “When The Wolf Comes Home” by Nat Cassidy

Publishing Info: Tor Nightfire, April 2025

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

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

Book Description: One night, Jess, a struggling actress, finds a five-year-old runaway hiding in the bushes outside her apartment. After a violent, bloody encounter with the boy’s father, she and the boy find themselves running for their lives.

As they attempt to evade the boy’s increasingly desperate father, horrifying incidents of butchery follow them. At first, Jess thinks she understands what they’re up against, but she’s about to learn there’s more to these surreal and grisly events than she could’ve ever imagined.

And that when the wolf finally comes home, none will be spared.

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

Every once in awhile I encounter an author that has some pretty solid and good hype around their work, and then when I try it out it doesn’t REALLY click with me. A lot of the time with a one off I am inclined to give said author another go, especially if the hype of future works continues. That’s been my experience with Nat Cassidy, as I didn’t really gel with his book “Mary”, but kept seeing others praise that book as well as his other works after the fact. When I saw that happening with “When The Wolf Comes Home”, I told myself that it was time to give it another go. I hoped that I would have a better result with this book. And it was…. kind of a similar experience as last time?

Firstly, however, there were a lot of things I did like about this book. For one, wow is this a gnarly and gory monster story, with some solid moments of suspense and some breakneck action. We follow Jess, an aspiring actress who has kind of found herself stalled out and working in a diner, who stumbles upon a mysterious young boy who is being chased by his father, who also happens to be taking the form of a monstrous killer wolf. So, at the jump, this starts like a really graphic and absolutely insane (I say this in a praising way) monster tale, with no holds barred monster horror with lots of nasty beats of gore and body horror. I can’t help but cackle a bit at the fact that at the start of the month I was saying how I hadn’t seen much werewolf horror in recent years, and then in April I had three books with werewolf-esque themes. Cassidy brings his usual uninhibited scares to the story, and man, it’s bloody and nasty. But what struck me more about this tale is that it also has a lot of deep and emotional explorations of trauma, grief, and complicated relationships with fathers. For the mysterious Boy it’s pretty clear, but as we get to know Jess we find out that her father abandoned her as a child and it’s something that she has had to deal with and process her entire life. We also get a really poignant author’s note from Cassidy after the ending detailing his inspirations for this story from his own life, and it added another layer to an already intense thematic that I really liked.

But, even with all of that great action and gnarly/poignant characterization, there were a couple things that didn’t quite land for me in this book. The first is that there is a HUGE swerve from what has been laid out as the main issue/plot point of this novel. I definitely thought that was I was getting was a werewolf story when I picked this book up. And, to be fair, there are certainly elements that would make this a werewolf story. But once it was revealed that there was, in fact, something else going on, I was taken aback, but wasn’t quite as enthralled as I had been because it felt so out of left field. It’s not BAD, don’t get me wrong, but it just felt like a huge deviation and it never quite stuck that landing nor recovered from it. On top of that, we had a moment early on that was alluded to as being significant (I don’t want to spoil anything so I’m going to be vague), then was kind of cast aside but still mentioned, and then once we came back to it it threw another grenade very close to the end that blew a huge chunk into the ending and story overall. And then how it wrapped up kind of confused me. This very well could just be a ‘me’ problem, though. But I was left with wanting more.

So another chance on Nat Cassidy had another mixed bag of results with “When The Wolf Comes Home”. The things that worked really really worked, but the things that didn’t were clunky.

Rating 6: I was into it for a good chunk, but then a swerve of a plot twist and a somewhat confusing ending kind of knocked it down a few points for me.

Reader’s Advisory:

“When the Wolf Comes Home” is included on the Goodreads list “Horror to Look Forward to in 2025”.

Book Club Review: “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society”

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

We are part of a group of librarian friends who have had an ongoing book club running for the last several years. Each “season” (we’re nerds) we pick a theme and each of us chooses a book within that theme for us all to read. Re-visiting some of our past themes, we’re once again reading books that have had film/TV adaptations and then comparing the two mediums. For this blog, we will post a joint review of each book we read for book club. We’ll also post the next book coming up in book club. So feel free to read along with us or use our book selections and questions in your own book club!

Book: “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society” by Mary Ann Shaffer & Anne Burrows

Publishing Info: The Dial Press, July 2008

Where Did I Get This Book: The library!

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

What We Watched: “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society”

Book Description: January 1946: London is emerging from the shadow of the Second World War, and writer Juliet Ashton is looking for her next book subject. Who could imagine that she would find it in a letter from a man she’s never met, a native of the island of Guernsey, who has come across her name written inside a book by Charles Lamb….

As Juliet and her new correspondent exchange letters, Juliet is drawn into the world of this man and his friends – and what a wonderfully eccentric world it is. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society – born as a spur-of-the-moment alibi when its members were discovered breaking curfew by the Germans occupying their island – boasts a charming, funny, deeply human cast of characters, from pig farmers to phrenologists, literature lovers all. Juliet begins a remarkable correspondence with the society’s members, learning about their island, their taste in books, and the impact the recent German occupation has had on their lives. Captivated by their stories, she sets sail for Guernsey, and what she finds will change her forever.

Written with warmth and humor as a series of letters, this novel is a celebration of the written word in all its guises and of finding connection in the most surprising ways.

Kate’s Thoughts

Hooray for book club! I genuinely feel this way all of the time no matter what the circumstance, but I also love how it will push me outside of my comfort zones when my fellow members pick our books each month. And that happened with “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society” by Mary Ann Shaffer and Anne Burrows. Because while I do read historical fiction, I generally don’t read WWII historical fiction. But bring it on, book club! Give me a reason to stretch my reading muscles!

I hadn’t realized until I picked it up that this book was an epistolary novel, but it was a pleasant surprise because I really do enjoy epistolary stories. I enjoyed reading the letters between the various characters and seeing their personalities come out through their letters, and I liked how it made for an interesting way for the plot to come together. I can certainly say that this book had a lot of charming aspects, from quirky characters to a tight knit community bringing and outsider into the fold, to some pretty funny bits in the letters. It was a breezy read, and it was engaging enough.

On the other hand, World War Two books aren’t usually my go to for reading, fiction or non-fiction alike. While it was unique in the sense that the island of Guernsey was occupied by Nazis, and therefore the citizens had to actually live with their enemies, it just wasn’t really my cup of tea. It didn’t really help that I had a hard time with the mentioned romance between Society Founder Elizabeth’s romance with a German doctor named Christian, as while I did appreciate that the authors did their due diligence to make it feel the least amount of whitewashing of Nazis (and actually I liked the book’s approach to this more than the movie, as the book did portray Christian as actively resisting in his own small ways), it still felt clunky. This combined with just a general ambivalence towards the genre made it a middle of the road read for me.

All in all it fostered good book club discussion and had its charming bits. But I’m probably not the target audience for this book. But if you like WWII fiction that feels somewhat cozy, this would be a solid choice!

Kate’s Rating 6: It was charming and engaging, but it’s not really my kind of book at the end of the day.

Book Club Questions

  1. How did you feel about the format of this story, and how does it compare to other epistolary novels?
  2. There is a large cast of characters in this book. Did any of them stick out to you? How did you like and dislike?
  3. What did you think of Christian and how he was portrayed as a romantic interest for Elizabeth in the past despite the fact he was a Nazi occupier?
  4. If you have read the book and seen the movie, what did you think of the changes that were made? Were there any you liked? Disliked?
  5. There are many WWII novels out there. What kinds of genre and sub-genres do you like with these stories? Any titles you like best?

Reader’s Advisory

“The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society” is included on the Goodreads lists “World War II Fiction”, and “Foreign Lands”.

Next Book Club Pick: “Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret” by Judy Blume

Kate’s Review: “What Remains of Teague House”

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

Book: “What Remains of Teague House” by Stacy Johns

Publishing Info: Poisoned Pen Press, April 2025

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: Three siblings reckon with the darkness hidden within their family after multiple graves are discovered behind their childhood home.

When the Rawlins family matriarch unexpectedly dies, all three adult children rush home. What they find is a house bursting with grief, dark memories surfacing around each corner, and multiple bodies buried deep in the woods. The Rawlinses want to believe these discoveries point to a crime long past. But one of the graves behind Teague House is fresh, the earth disturbed just that week—and its inhabitant is a local woman they knew.

Is the youngest Rawlins sibling with something to hide guilty of her murder? Is his sister experiencing false memories of her late father digging near the graves? Why is their aunt in such a rush to leave town after her sister’s funeral?

Enter private detective Maddie Reed, who has her own reasons for being curious about the bodies buried behind Teague House. Detective Reed sets out to unmask a killer—one she may have been hunting all her life.

Review: Thank you to Poisoned Pen Press for sending me an ARC of this novel!

Families hiding secrets are always fun types of thrillers to me. I enjoy a sub-genre of families being terrible and damaging the generations down the line, no matter WHAT the parent genre is, but when you bring murder into it as well as generational trauma that is a topic that has so many possibilities. Because of this love for that kind of drama, I was very interested in reading “What Remains of Teague House” by Stacy Johns. When family secrets involve dead bodies, old AND new, buried on the family property, things have a possibility to get juicy!

I think that some of the strongest things in this book were character based. We followed a few of the characters through third person, and in one case first person, perspective chapters, where we get to follow their parts of the mystery and see how they all fit together. We had perspectives from all three of the siblings, Sandra, Jon, and Robby, as well as past perspectives from Aunt Phil to see the background to Russ and Val (who got a single chapter at the start). I found Aunt Phil’s to be really well done and thought that it was great getting some context for her relationship with Val, giving us insight into Val as well. The sibling perspectives went from fine (Jon and Sandra) to deeply irritating (Robby. It’s by design as he’s a scumbag, but it was grating to have to read his chapters). But the best one, for me, was that of Maddie, who is an investigator who gets privy to what is happening at Teague House, and has her own reasons and connections (potentially) to one of the bodies that has been unearthed. I really enjoyed Maddie’s chapters, as not only was hers the first person perspective, but I also thought that her motivations, backstory, and arc were the most interesting. Her chapters also read like a well done procedural, and I enjoyed seeing her on the trail and getting her information from the Rawlins siblings in hopes of finding justice.

But, along with that, comes why it didn’t work as well for me as I had hoped it would. We had some good build up and pacing for a lot of the novel, but then as we started to get closer to the climax things started to go REALLY fast and felt really rushed and cobbled together. I was left scratching my head a bit about some of the reveals, feeling like some choices were made just to make things shocking without really earning it. On top of that, going back to Robby’s character from above, we had such a frustrating and grating character in this guy that I was actively turned off anytime we were following his perspective. I can usually do fine with immoral characters or people who are deeply unlikable, but that’s only if there is something a bit more interesting about them, and Robby just wasn’t interesting. Just obnoxious. These things sadly derailed my experience, and the other characters couldn’t quite compensate.

I think that “What Remains of Teague House” had its ups and downs. I definitely don’t regret reading it, but it was pretty middle of the road.

Rating 6: I like a family drama, but with some really unlikable characters and a rushed ending this one didn’t live up to my expectations.

Reader’s Advisory:

“What Remains of Teague House” isn’t on any Goodreads lists as of now, but it would fit in on “Family Secrets”.

Serena’s Review: “A Harvest of Hearts”

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

Book: “A Harvest of Hearts” by Andrea Eames

Publishing Info: Erewhon Books, March 2025

Where Did I Get this Book: ARC from the publisher!

Where Can You Get this Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | IndieBound

Book Description: Before Foss Butcher was Snagged, she thought no more of the magic-users than did anyone else in her tiny village. Sometimes gorgeous women in impossible carriages rolled into town and took bits of people’s hearts. Everyone knew hearts fueled their magic. But Foss, plain, clumsy, and practical as a boot, never expected anyone would want hers.

True enough, when the only sorcerer in the kingdom stepped from his glossy carriage, he didn’t intend to hook Foss. Sylvester’s riot of black curls and perfectly etched cheekbones caught her eye a moment too long, that was all. Suddenly, Foss is cursed and finds herself stomping toward the grand City to keep his enchanted House, where her only friend is a talking cat and the walls themselves have moods.

But as Foss learns the ways of magic, she realizes she’s far from its only unwilling captive. Even Sylvester is hemmed in by spells and threats. It’s said this sorcery protects king, country, and order for thousands. If Foss wants to free herself—and, perhaps, Sylvester—she’ll have to confront it all . . . and uncover the blight nestled in the heart of the kingdom itself.

Review: I had high hopes for this book based on the unique-sounding summary (plus, who can say no to a cover with an adorable cat silhouette?). Unfortunately, this one started out a bit rough and then never quite recovered. I will talk about some of the good things first though. And primarily among those is the creativity at the heart of the this story. The idea of sorcerers who casually roll through villages and suck up parts of peoples’ hearts to gain power? Super interesting! This book has also been compared to “Howl’s Moving Castle,” and as I don’t think this fully works, there were aspects of the writing that did strike a similar note. Moments of whimsy and small interactions between Foss and Sylvester, some of these did have a certain “Howl’s” vibe to them.

However, for the most part, I didn’t connect with this book. It didn’t start off on a good note, with the very first chapter being essentially a big info-dump from the main character. It was paragraph after paragraph of basic facts about this world. This was made worse by some of the inconsistencies with the writing style for the voice of the main character. She’s meant to be have had a simple upbringing, which the author demonstrated with attempts at “folksy” language. But then some of the exposition would completely conflict with this character style, with Foss conveying information to the reader that it doesn’t seem like she would know (always a challenge with this POV style of writing, but the challenge in and of itself doesn’t excuse the error). Beyond that, this manner of introducing a world and magic system was simply clumsy, at best. From this rocky start, the pacing continued to be a problem, with large lulls happening throughout.

I also struggled to enjoy Foss as a character. I appreciate what the author was attempting to do, creating a character who struggles with self-esteem and self-perception. However, the actual execution of this was, again, very clumsy. Foss would bemoan her own looks and her expectations for a loveless future to such a degree that it felt like she was hitting readers over the head with it. And, from what the reader is given, none of these fears seem based in reality. Yes, people often struggle to view themselves as others do, and this is a believable problem. But the degree to which Foss focused on this aspect of herself was over the top and began to overwhelm any other characteristics she brought to the table.

I was also supremely uninvested in the romance. There wasn’t anything overtly bad here, but Sebastian was such a nothing character that, combined with my struggles with Foss’s self-talk, I couldn’t become invested in their love story. Perhaps others will appreciate these characters more than I did. I think each started with some interesting groundwork, but the story failed to realize them as fully-fleshed out characters.

Overall, this was a very underwhelming read. There were brief moments of light and I think the author could come into her own with future projects. But as it stands now, this book felt underdeveloped with fairly weak characters. Perhaps those fully dedicated to the cozy fantasy subgenre may find this one more appealing than I did, and I’m sure there are readers out there who will enjoy it. Unfortunately, that wasn’t me.

Rating 6: There were some creative ideas at the heart of this story, but weak characters and choppy pacing left me struggling to get through this one.

Reader’s Advisory:

“A Harvest of Hearts” can be found on these Goodreads lists: Realistic Hearts and 2025 Cozy Fantasy Romance.

Kate’s Review: “We Were Warned”

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

Book: “We Were Warned” by Chelsea Ichaso

Publishing Info: Sourcebooks Fire, March 2025

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: Everyone knows the legend of Fairport twenty years ago, a shocking murder closed the place down. This year, the ruins will be bulldozed at last. But tonight, it’s not too late to die.

All her life, Eden Stafford has heard the lore about the abandoned beach resort at the edge of ever since the notorious murder there, anyone who sets foot on the property is cursed to die, It’s more than just a over the years, two high school students who dared to explore the ruins of Fairport Village were killed there.

Eden is no stranger to notoriety, having endured a family scandal that’s made her a target at school. So when she reluctantly attends an overnight party at the ruins, she’s on edge—not because of some legend, but because the clique that has made her life hell for years is there, too, including Caleb Durham, the worst of them all.

Yet out of all the things Eden expected to happen that night, finding another student dead at Fairport Village wasn’t one of them.

Though the death is ruled an accident, Eden knows she saw something suspicious at the ruins—and Caleb and her other longtime tormentors did too. Now they’re all being followed by a deadly stranger, and to save themselves, they must work together to uncover the truth about Fairport Village. But after all that’s happened, can Eden really trust Caleb and his friends? Or will they leave her to face a killer alone?

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

One of my favorite things to do when I was working at one of my old library internships was putting together YA displays. I had this internship for half a year and I did about four or five displays, and finding common themes in books, from the obvious to the kind of quirky, was really fun. Whenever I read a YA novel I think about this fun task, and what kind of display said book would fit into. I kept thinking about that as I read “We Were Warned” by Chelsea Ichaso, because man would it have had so many possibilities! Would it have been on a YA Urban Legends display? A “If You Like “Pretty Little Liars…” display (dating myself like crazy here)? Would it have been on a “Creepy Stories By The Seaside” display? It has a lot of potential!

This is probably a great entry for the thriller genre for the target audience, but also has the goods to be entertaining to anyone looking for a quick and snappy read with some decent red herrings and an easy to follow mystery. I love the idea of an urban legend that is possibly true, and the way that it captures how a small town tragedy can take on a life of its own within the minds of the people who live within a community that has head to live with it. I’ve always been a huge sucker for mysteries and horror tales that use this kind of device, and this one had a solid background and a sufficiently eerie setting of an abandoned seaside resort that was the location of a horrific murder and some devastating fallout in the years after (including more murders). I found the mystery to be entertaining and a quick read, and I can definitely see how young adult audiences would be able to relate to Eden and Caleb, and even some of the more morally grey characters like Victoria, Caleb’s close friend and kind of Mean Girl that is Eden’s nemesis (but maybe misunderstood?). I enjoyed the dynamics between these characters and how Ichaso upended expectations for Eden and for me as a reader.

That said, as a 40 year old woman who has read MANY mysteries and thrillers over the years, “We Were Warned” definitely reads like a YA thriller to me. Which is NOT a bad thing at all. I would absolutely put this on a display for chilling thrillers in a YA section of a library, and know exactly who I would recommend this title to. But as a YA thriller, it does have some things that didn’t work for me. For one, Eden is, at times, a bit grating in the constant reminders of how Caleb must hate her and how much she hates him, while it’s pretty clear to the reader (or at least this reader) that there was more to the story on Caleb’s side. It got a bit repetitive to read about her resentment towards him and her assumptions, as it was obvious that wasn’t the case. There were also some twists in here that didn’t work for me, one in particular that followed a familiar ‘one last shock’ routine that almost never clicks with me when it happens in a thriller novel I’m reading. But again, these kinds of things are not necessarily going to hinder the audience that the book is intended for. It’s definitely a ‘your mileage may vary’ situation.

“We Were Warned” has a fun premise and an entertaining mystery. While it was a bit middle of the road for me, I am pretty certain that it will be a good fit for its intended audience!

Rating 6: Entertaining and a fast read to be sure and almost certainly a solid thriller for the audience it is written for, though more seasoned thriller fans may be underwhelmed at times.

Reader’s Advisory:

“We Were Warned” is included on the Goodreads list “YA Novels of 2025”.

Kate’s Review: “The Crash”

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

Book: “The Crash” by Freida McFadden

Publishing Info: Poisoned Pen Press, January 2025

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: The nightmare she’s running from is nothing compared to where she’s headed.

Tegan is eight months pregnant, alone, and desperately wants to put her crumbling life in the rearview mirror. So she hits the road, planning to stay with her brother until she can figure out her next move. But she doesn’t realize she’s heading straight into a blizzard.

She never arrives at her destination.

Stranded in rural Maine with a dead car and broken ankle, Tegan worries she’s made a terrible mistake. Then a miracle she is rescued by a couple who offers her a room in their warm cabin until the snow clears. But something isn’t right. Tegan believed she was waiting out the storm, but as time ticks by, she comes to realize she is in grave danger. This safe haven isn’t what she thought it was, and staying here may have been her most deadly mistake yet.

And now she must do whatever it takes to save herself—and her unborn child.

A gut-wrenching story of motherhood, survival, and twisted expectations, #1 New York Times bestselling author Freida McFadden delivers a snowbound thriller that will chill you to the bone.

Review: Thank you to Poisoned Pen Press for sending me an ARC of this novel!

Here is a bit of a wild thriller confession on my part (though if you have been reading my reviews for awhile now it won’t be shocking): I haven’t read anything by Freida McFadden. I feel like she’s a pretty popular author in the genre right now, at the very least she is very prevalent with title after title coming out. And she does show up on my various reading feeds pretty often. But I just hadn’t checked her out! Well, until Poisoned Pen Press sent me an ARC of “The Crash”, a novel about a pregnant woman named Tegan fleeing a bad situation… who ends up in a worse situation when her car crashes during a blizzard and she’s ‘rescued’ by an older couple in the middle of nowhere, who say they can give her shelter…. and then imprison her in their basement. Well, I mean, come on. The premise alone is super, super intriguing. And I figured it was high time that I read something by this author that I’d been seeing everywhere. And to be quite honest, once I was done, I wasn’t totally sold.

But first the things that did work for me. I was pleasantly surprised that not only do we get the perspective of Tegan, our pregnant hostage in the basement of a strange couple in rural Maine, we ALSO get the perspective of Polly, the wife of the duo who is the actual mastermind of the kidnapping plot. It was a bold choice, and because we got to see what was going in her mind I was able to see that this was not only having some “Misery” vibes, but also some “Pearl” vibes as well. I say “Pearl” because Polly is both deeply unwell and a bit disturbing, but also sympathetic in a lot of ways, in this case because of her deep grief, trauma, and borderline psychosis due to her infertility when she so desperately wants a child. Is it a little cliché? Sure. Does grief and trauma over not being able to have a baby mean you can kidnap a pregnant woman your husband stumbled upon after a car crash and plot to to take the infant for your own?

Polly, noooooo. (source)

That said, I really enjoyed the Polly sections because I loved the unhingedness of it all. It made it fast paced and a true page turner, the exact kind of read I want for escapism. Polly was a huge reason for that.

But on the other hand, there were a couple of things that didn’t work as well for me. The first was Tegan as a character, as while Polly was very interesting to me, Tegan felt half baked. I just didn’t connect with her as much and thought that she was a lot more two dimensional than I wanted her to be. On top of that, we had some pretty wild twists and turns that felt shallow and only there for shock value, and I don’t want to spoil any of them here because I do want people who want to read it to not go in with all the fun sucked out, but there was one in particular that made me say ‘really?’ out loud once it was revealed. You all know how grumpy I get about books that have massive twists for the sake of twists, and this one had one that I found to be particularly frustrating (I will admit that there was another that I did generally like, though it wasn’t super surprising).

So for my first Freida McFadden novel it was a bit of a mixed bag. I am pretty sure I will be checking out other books by McFadden, because this one was fun for the most part, but I will probably save them for times that I need a quick and not so deep escape.

Rating 6: Pretty entertaining and it has an interesting perspective from that of the main antagonist, but some of the twists were a little too outlandish for my tastes.

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Crash” isn’t on any super relevant Goodreads lists, but it would fit in on “Kidnapped!”.

Kate’s Review: “A Girl Like Us”

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

Book: “A Girl Like Us” by Anna Sophia McLoughlin

Publishing Info: Sourcebooks Landmark, February 2025

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: Succession meets Saltburn in a crackling locked-room thriller of inconceivable wealth, unchecked power, and the secrets poised to bring a powerful family down.

It’s 2004 and former reality TV star and party girl Maya Miller has just married the most eligible bachelor on the planet: Colin Sterling, of the globally famous Sterling family whose history of aristocratic titles and land holdings rival a British royal and whose media empire is comparable to the Murdochs. To some, Maya represents the American dream. To others, a gold digger. But when Colin’s cousin Arianna, the heiress to the family’s immense fortune, is found murdered, Maya is thrust into the spotlight: first as she is revealed to be the next heiress to the fortune, and then as the prime suspect.

Swiftly, the entire Sterling family goes into lockdown at Silver House, the family’s ancestral estate in the English countryside. They’re told it’s for their own safety—but Maya becomes convinced that it’s not to keep threats out, but to keep secrets in. Now, she has no choice but to find and expose the truth hidden within the Sterling family, and why Arianna, a girl she had never met, chose her to take her place. But Maya has secrets of her own. And she knows that in order to survive the Sterlings, she’ll have to beat them at their own game.

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

You’d think that with the state of EVERYTHING going on right now I would be fully turned off of books about disgusting billionaires with way too much power being full on villainous, and yet it’s still a sub-genre of thrillers that I greatly enjoy (I mean I guess we will see if that continues going forward? Maybe it the stories all end like “Ready or Not”?). Regardless of my existential dread, I picked up “A Girl Like Us” by Anna Sophia McLoughlin in hopes of a soapy and easy to digest escapist thriller with twists and turns and maybe something a little more. I got basically everything except for the last bit.

In terms of mystery, this one is fairly straight forward. We have the uber wealthy steeping in their privilege and cruelty, as well as a newcomer who is dying to fit in but has some salacious secrets of her own, and a mysterious murder and a slew of suspects. It’s the exact kind of thriller that I would associate with a day by the pool or a long plane ride, one that makes the time go fast and keeps the reader entertained. Given how billionaires are really showing their asses lately (or even being fully super villain!) I am always down for a story that puts their terribleness front and center, and with Maya being a bit of a wild card and kind of a villainess in her own ways herself it’s fun to root for a morally grey character against a backdrop of really nasty people with too much money and power. And it just adds more some really soapy moments that felt right out of an episode of “The Bold and the Beautiful” circa the early 2000s when I was watching it in the student union when I was between classes in college. I was entertained to be sure.

But as I said above, by being fairly straight forward it doesn’t really go outside the box of what I’d expect from the genre, and while it’s fun seeing two dimensional villains claw at each other, it also makes for a tale that doesn’t really stand out in the long run. There are some interesting dynamics at play as we follow the perspectives of both Maya in the present and then Arianna in the past through her journal entries, but this too just stuck to familiar pathways and formulas. None of this is a bad thing, necessarily, though I have been finding myself more intrigued and compelled with thrillers that go the extra step. Would I recommend this as a fun read? Absolutely. But that being said, it didn’t wow me in the way that some recent thrillers have.

“A Girl Like Us” is a solid thriller that checks a lot of boxes of the genre. I was entertained, but not blown away.

Rating 6: Entertaining and soapy, but it didn’t really reinvent the wheel when it comes to thrillers.

Reader’s Advisory:

“A Girl Like Us” is included in the Goodreads article “A Month-by-Month Guide to 2025’s Biggest Mysteries and Thrillers”.