Tag: Thriller

Kate’s Review: “You Did Nothing Wrong”

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Book: “You Did Nothing Wrong” by C.G. Drews

Publishing Info: St Martin’s Press, March 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 relentless, horror-inducing psychological suspense for fans of The Push and Baby Teeth by New York Times bestselling author CG Drews.

Single mother Elodie’s life has become a fairy tale. She’s met Bren, equal parts golden-retriever devoted and sinfully handsome. He’s whisked her and her autistic son, Jude, to the crumbling family house he’s renovating. She has a new husband, a new house, and a new baby on the way. Everything is perfect.

Then Jude claims he can hear voices in the walls. He says their renovations are “hurting” the house. Even Elodie can’t ignore it–something strange is going on. The question is, is it with the house, or with her son?

Then the one secret Elodie has been hiding is revealed, and no one is safe anymore.

A pulse-pounding, clever take on the haunted house novel, You Did Nothing Wrong examines the complexities of motherhood and the twisted bonds of family as it races to its shocking ending.

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

We are getting some interesting subversions of the haunted house horror sub-genre recently! I love a haunted house story, but I’ve been pretty pleased with the way that authors have been experimenting with the themes that come with the sub-genre. “You Did Nothing Wrong” definitely falls into that category, because something that starts off seeming like just a ghostly tale turns into something even scarier than things that go bump in the night.

Whew, this book is intense for so many different reasons. We follow Elodie, a young mother to an autistic six year old named Jude (more on him in a bit) who has just married Bren, and is pregnant again. They move into a new house that Bren is trying to fix up, but Jude keeps talking about how the house is alive. And Elodie starts seeing strange things too. This is one layer of the tension, because Drews also throws in hints and clues to Elodie’s past, which carry a whole lot of darkness even if they aren’t apparent from the jump. Elodie is a narrator that I would shift between wanting to root for, to being completely horrified by, and I never quite knew if she was someone I could trust as a protagonist. But I had the same thing happen with Bren, who on the surface seems so kind and patient and doting, but has little flashes of menace and aggression. But then again, is that actually the case, or is it because we see what Elodie sees? As the story goes on and the tension between Elodie and Bren escalates, mostly because she also thinks she’s seeing things in the house AND because Bren is potentially abusing or manipulating Jude. As the story goes on Elodie gets more unhinged, but is she paranoid? Or is it something else altogether? Drews kept me guessing a good long time, and I was tearing through this book desperate to find out what happened next.

Another stressful point is the themes with Jude, who is presumed to be autistic based on how he is written, but who hasn’t been diagnosed because Elodie refuses to do so in case it is somehow blamed on her. As someone who has a child who is presumed autistic, there were beats in here that felt very familiar, either due to the way that some people just refuse to understand some of the more uncomfortable things about autistic people, or the way that things can go south in the blink of an eye without necessarily knowing why because your kid doesn’t really know why either. You add in a possessive obsession she has to her child and it makes it all the more intense. But then again, I was ALSO freaking out at Bren because I was so afraid that he was going to hurt Jude due to HIS misconceptions about how to treat an autistic child. It made me so uncomfortable but I’m pretty sure that was the point. Gosh I just wanted to sweep Jude up.

I do think that the ending had a few too many shocks and surprises, however. I’ve never been one to get behind a thriller novel that has a lot of last minute twists just to get a rise out of the reader, and while this book still stands very well on its own two feet due to the things I mentioned, I do think that there was a bit of an overreach when it comes to how things all shook out by the end.

But that’s a quibble in the long run, because overall I greatly enjoyed “You Did Nothing Wrong”. It kept me stressed out and it kept me flipping the pages whenever I had a chance. I definitely recommend it.

Rating 8: An addictive horror tale with unreliable narration and incredibly tense moments flies high for awhile, but has a slight petering out of an ending.

Reader’s Advisory:

“You Did Nothing Wrong” is included on the Goodreads lists “Autism in Horror Literature”, and “Dark Literature”.

Kate’s Review: “Turn Off the Light”

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Book: “Turn Off the Light” by Jacquie Walters

Publishing Info: Mulholland Books, March 2026

Where Did I Get This Book: I received a finished copy from the publicist

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

Book Description: Two women living centuries apart are bound by the same dark secret in this haunting novel that “upends everything you think you know about ghost stories” (Jennifer McMahon, author of The Winter People).

The Devil enters through doors left open…

On the isolated Eastern Shore of Virginia, Edith is a healer, a woman of knowledge—and a woman watched. Shadows move where they shouldn’t. Whispers creep through the dark. Terrified she has opened her home to the Devil, Edith makes a desperate choice.

Claire doesn’t believe in ghosts—until she returns home to care for her dying father and finds her childhood house… listening. As one sleepless night bleeds into the next, she becomes convinced something is stirring beneath the floorboards. Something that has waited a long time to rise.

Is the house haunted? What compels this lurking darkness? As the danger mounts, Edith and Claire will discover they’ll need each other to survive. But they are separated by four hundred years. And time is running out for them both.

Review: Thank you to Little Brown and Company for sending me a copy of this novel!

I so enjoyed Jacquie Walters’s horror novel “Dearest”. It was a tense and evocative about motherhood and generational trauma, and it was done in a way that felt organic and earnest while also being very creepy. So I was absolutely interested in checking out her newest horror/supernatural thriller novel “Turn Off the Light”. It sounded like a haunted house story as well as a story about women dealing with difficult shit even without a haunted house to gaul them, and I was definitely in.

We have two narratives that we follow in this book. The first is in the modern day and follows Claire, a single mother returning to her childhood home to see her ailing father who is dying of dementia. Claire has avoided home for awhile, as she still has lingering trauma and sadness about the disappearance of her oldest sister Gabby, and the absence has caused a coldness between her and other sister Tilly who has been left with husband Peter to care for their dad. Claire feels like something strange is lurking in the home, and her worry grows as weird things start happening. The other narrative follows Edith, a woman living in the same house but during Puritan times, who works as a healer and medicine woman, but who starts to feel a weird presence in the house, which starts to feed into her anxieties about how her community, including her husband, sees her and her practices that she has kept mostly stifled due to fears of witchcraft. While I usually have a strong and clear preference for one narrative over another in these kinds of stories, I actually ended up liking both of them pretty evenly in this one. Claire’s life was engaging because of the family tension and the unsaid sadness within her family with her lost sister and sick father, and Edith’s story sucked me in because I am ALWAYS going to be into stories of healer women being viewed with suspicion because of Puritanical zealotry. I also thought that both women were pretty well fleshed out, and that they had complexities that made them all the more interesting to follow.

In terms of the horror/supernatural and thriller elements, this one did have a fair amount of suspenseful beats as both Claire and Edith think they are living through a haunting in the house that they both inhabit, centuries apart. I loved the slow burn of weird incidents in both timelines, which seem to be escalating but always feel just a little bit odd so that it wasn’t totally clear as to what was going on. I had a pretty good feeling I could track where things were going, and while I was basically right it still was interesting to see where Walters was taking the reader. I don’t want to spoil anything so will remain vague, but it went in directions that may be a little unexpected and did so in a way that made me feel like it was pulled off. It’s just very creative and I liked taking the journey and all of the tension that came with it.

“Turn Off the Light” is another fun novel from Jacquie Walters! I definitely recommend it for horror fans who like to think a bit outside the box of what a haunted house is.

Rating 8: A creative historical and supernatural thriller that jumps through time, “Turn Off the Light” had some solid twists, a lot of suspense, and two narratives that complemented each other quite well.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Turn Off the Light” is on the Goodreads list “Horror Releases Coming in 2026”.

Kate’s Review: “Maria the Wanted”

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Book: “Maria the Wanted” by V. Castro

Publishing Info: Titan Books, February 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: Newly turned Mexican vampire, Maria, is not just out for blood, she wants answers.

From the twice Bram Stoker-nominated author of The Haunting of Alejandra and Immortal Pleasures, a gripping tale of empowerment, desire and belonging, perfect for readers of A Dowry of Blood and Certain Dark Things.

Maria is a wanted woman. She’s wanted by an Aztec trafficker, a cartel boss, the people she fights for, and now the Devil she can’t resist. Her journey begins as a would-be immigrant turned vampire in Juarez, Mexico until the injustices of the world turn her into something else.

Forced to leave her home and family, she embarks on a journey across Mexico seeking those answers. She learns a new language and how to survive as a vampire. To ease her restlessness she finds work with an ex-boxer and learns to fight, becoming an unlikely bad ass enforcer of justice for the community that has embraced her. Is she a saint or an old God from a forgotten past?

An encounter with a violent, ruthless vampire boss leads her to finally find her creator, and he is nothing like she imagined. Drawn into a world of ancient vampires, deadly conspiracies and a dangerously seductive devil, Maria must find a way to fight for herself and all humankind.

A fierce and seductive vampire thriller, pulsing with rage, fear and desire, that explores the dark back streets of Mexico and a vampire woman’s determination to find her place in the world.

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

After being a bit let down by V. Castro’s previous vampire novel, I was pretty pleased to see that her newest book, “Maria the Wanted”, was another vampire story! Researching it further I found out that this new novel is actually a re-release, which will hopefully allow it to find new readers now that Castro has gained a bit more attention in the past few years. I had pretty high hopes for “Maria the Wanted”, and I’m happy to report that, for the most part, it was a pretty solid read! For the most part.

But first the good, and the good news is that there is a lot of good to be had! I really enjoyed our vampire protagonist Maria, whose story starts as a worker in a maquiladora in Juarez, but whose life is forever changed when some cartel vampire thugs break in to cause havoc. Maria is turned into a vampire by the most mysterious of the attackers, who disappears and leaves her to pick up the pieces of her old life and to adjust to her new one. I really liked seeing her not only have to find strength within herself to keep going, but also liked her growth journey from fledgling vampire to an avenging force not only looking for her maker, but also someone who helps the helpless, many of whom are women and girls, in a world of violence and corruption. Castro very effectively utilizes Maria’s backstory and culture to make for an interesting arc, and I was pretty damn invested in her from the jump as the moves around Mexico and beyond. I also enjoyed the vampire mythology, as Castro has some interesting twists on what her vampires are like compared to vampires in other tales.

I will say though, I feel like this book had a weird shift between the first two thirds into the final third that felt like a whole new book, but with no proper time or pages to explore it fully. I don’t really want to spoil too much of it here, but I will have to say SOME things to explain what my gripes were, so perhaps proceed with some caution. The first two thirds I greatly enjoyed, as Maria is trying to find her maker, get some justice for those who rarely get justice, and figure out what her place in the world is now that she is a vampire. All of this was solid and I enjoyed watching her go on her journey, meeting up with cartels, other women, and some fun characters be they vampires or not. But then we get to the last arc of the book, and suddenly there are prophecies, a potential armageddon at hand, and maybe even the Devil himself that she has to square up against. And that aspect felt like it needed a lot more breathing room to really flesh out a fairly significant plot point like the literal end of the world. I just felt to me like it was a wild swerve that wasn’t super well explored. It probably should have been a book in and of itself, to be honest, as it took away from the rest of the novel by confusing me as we headed into the climax.

But overall I enjoyed “Maria the Wanted”! I’m glad that they decided to re-release it for new audiences to find!

Rating 7: A really solid and entertaining first two thirds was muddled by a confusing final third, but overall an enjoyable vampire thriller.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Maria the Wanted” is included on the Goodreads list “2026 Women in Horror”.

Kate’s Review: “The Hostess”

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Book: “The Hostess” by Courtney Psak

Publishing Info: Hodder & Stoughton, January 2026

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

Where You Can Get This Book: Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: Natalie and her husband decide to escape the city for a much-needed break. After suffering from a terrible accident, Natalie needs some time and space to recover. So when they find a gorgeous rental home on an estate in the Hamptons available at the last minute, it seems too good to be true.

The owner of the estate, Sadie, is beautiful, elegant and wealthy, and Natalie is immediately drawn to her.

But as the women begin to bond, Natalie can’t shake the feeling that Sadie is hiding something beneath her polished exterior.

When Natalie discovers that the previous guest disappeared without a trace, dark questions Who exactly is the hostess? What are her secrets? And can Natalie uncover the truth, before it’s too late?

Review: Thank you to Kaye Publicity for sending me an ARC of this novel!

It’s the dead of winter here in Minnesota, with temps dropping well below zero this weekend. In the dead of winter it’s always kind of fun to read books that have a less frigid setting, and “The Hostess” by Courtney Psak is a twisty thriller that also happens to take place in The Hamptons, a beach setting if there ever was one (though to be fair, apparently New York is also getting rocked by cold and snow this weekend, so even The Hamptons get frigid). I hadn’t ready anything by Courtney Psak before, but when this ended up in my mailbox I thought I’d give it a go. I like a suspenseful thriller with unreliable narrators, after all, and this one sounded like it would deliver on that.

We have two narrative voices in “The Hostess”. The first is that of Natalie, a woman who needs to get away from her everyday life after being in an accident that has given her mental health woes and hallucinations (though her past traumas are also causing issues). She and husband Luke luck out in renting a house in the Hamptons, with their hostess being Sadie, a wealthy and charismatic woman, who also happens to be our second narrative POV, and who has some secrets of her own. We alternate between Natalie and Sadie, slowly learning about both of them through flashbacks and the slow reveal of secrets that they are keeping. Natalie and Sadie both have interesting layers, with my opinions starting in one place for each of them and then evolving in ways that I didn’t expect.

I will say that it took a bit for me to get fully invested in this, as for whatever reason the first half it dragged a little bit as the exposition and clues were starting to be set out. There were a few red herrings that I could spot from the jump, and while I was interested to see what surprises were laying in wait, I was also kind of getting anxious to get further into the action and suspense. But that said, once things did click into place, I was pretty well pulled into the story and the mystery at hand. By the time I was getting to the final chapters I was racing through the pages to see what was going to happen, and that, to me, is what ultimately made this story worth the read, and one that would be a solid choice if you are looking for a thriller with some interesting twists and turns.

“The Hostess” is ultimately an enjoyable thriller with some interesting narrative characters. Think about picking it up if you want a mystery on a cold winter night.

Rating 7: Once the pace picked up in the last half I was pretty into it!

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Hostess” isn’t on any Goodreads lists as of now, but this is probably a read for Frieda McFadden fans.

Kate’s Review: “All The Little Houses”

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Book: “All The Little Houses” by May Cobb

Publishing Info: Sourcebooks Landmark, January 2026

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

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

Book Description: It’s the mid-1980s in the tiny town of Longview, Texas. Nellie Anderson, the beautiful daughter of the Anderson family dynasty, has burst onto the scene. She always gets what she wants. What she can’t get for herself… well, that’s what her mother is for. Because Charleigh Andersen, blond, beautiful, and ruthlessly cunning, remembers all too well having to claw her way to the top. When she was coming of age on the poor side of East Texas, she was a loser, an outcast, humiliated, and shunned by the in-crowd, whose approval she’d so desperately thirsted for. When a prairie-kissed family moves to town, all trad wife, woodworking dad, wholesome daughter vibes, Charleigh’s entire self-made social empire threatens to crumble. Who will be left standing when the dust settles?

From the author of The Hunting Wives comes a deliciously wicked new thriller about mean girls, mean moms, and the delicious secrets inside all the little houses.

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

When I was a kid I had a nanny that really loved “Little House on the Prairie”. I remember her sometimes trying to get me to watch it, but I found it so utterly boring that she never was able to convert me. I have read a good deal of the “Little House” books (I’m a Minnesota girl after all), but never got into the TV show mythos (as it’s extensive and different from the books I hear tell). When I started reading “All the Little Houses” by May Cobb, it took me a little bit to realize that I was reading a book that was a 1980s kind of interpretation of the “Little House” TV show, but when I did I thought ‘oh, that’s kinda fun!’ Given that Cobb wrote “The Hunting Wives”, which is now a hit show on Netflix (I haven’t watched it yet but it sounds wild), I was really hoping for something unhinged and covered in suds and over the top dramatics. I live for that stuff. And with a “Little House” vibe it felt all the more ripe for the picking. Unfortunately it didn’t click for me.

But first the good stuff. As much as I am not a “Little House on the Prairie” person, I know enough about it to be able to make the connections to the characters that are representative of the characters from the show, and some of that I really enjoyed. Especially because some of the directions that a few of the characters were taken (specifically Ethan, the patriarch of the Swift family, though the reveal here is a bit more in line with the real life Charles Ingalls as opposed to TV show or book… if you know, you know). I also enjoyed the character of Jackson, Charleigh’s best friend who is an interior decorator and happens to be a gay man in the 1980s, feeling a need to be careful while also being flaunted by Charleigh as a novelty. While none of the characters were particularly likable (more on that in a bit), at least Jackson’s prickly and abrasive behaviors made some sense as being a gay man during this time was incredibly difficult.

But there were definitely some stumbles that came with this book. As mentioned above, most of the characters were completely unlikable, and very few of them had the complexities to make their terrible personalities bearable/understandable. This was especially disappointing for the character of Nellie, who is clearly the Nellie Oleson analog but is SO awful that it’s not even fun to follow her in her chapters. And even when we got a slight tread towards making her nuanced or at least a little bit complicated, Cobb never quite pulled the trigger with her to have her move beyond being completely horrendous (and while I haven’t seen “Little House on the Prairie” all that much, I’ve seen enough clips to know that Nellie has a HUGE redemption/development arc, so that made this even more disappointing). Also, these characters seemed to be 1980s caricatures of the TV show, but then also references the TV show as something in universe. Which was confusing. And finally, the ending was incredibly rushed. We got some hints throughout the book about a murder or at least a dead body in the local lake/pond with question as to who it is and who did it, but then by the time we got to the climax it landed with a huge thud, and then abruptly ended. Generally I can forgive a lot if there is a lot of suds and over the top melodrama, but it wasn’t enough to bolster it above the ho-humness of the execution.

“All the Little Houses” had potential but didn’t really meet it. It may work for others, but it didn’t really work for me.

Rating 5: With very few likable characters and a thud of an ending, even the soapy fun couldn’t fully redeem this book.

Reader’s Advisory:

“All the Little Houses” is included on the Goodreads list “2026 Mystery/Thriller New Releases”.

Kate’s Review: “Beth Is Dead”

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Book: “Beth Is Dead” by Katie Bernet

Publishing Info: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, January 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: Beth March’s sisters will stop at nothing to track down her killer—until they begin to suspect each other—in this debut thriller that’s also a bold, contemporary reimagining of the beloved classic Little Women.

When Beth March is found dead in the woods on New Year’s Day, her sisters vow to uncover her murderer. Suspects abound. There’s the neighbor who has feelings for not one but two of the girls. Meg’s manipulative best friend. Amy’s flirtatious mentor. And Beth’s lionhearted first love. But it doesn’t take the surviving sisters much digging to uncover motives each one of the March girls had for doing the unthinkable.

Jo, an aspiring author with a huge following on social media, would do anything to hook readers. Would she kill her sister for the story? Amy dreams of studying art in Europe, but she’ll need money from her aunt—money that’s always been earmarked for Beth. And Meg wouldn’t dream of hurting her sister…but her boyfriend might have, and she’ll protect him at all costs.

Despite the growing suspicion within the family, it’s hard to know for sure if the crime was committed by someone close to home. After all, the March sisters were dragged into the spotlight months ago when their father published a controversial bestseller about his own daughters. Beth could have been killed by anyone.

Beth’s perspective told in flashback unfolds next to Meg, Jo, and Amy’s increasingly fraught investigation as the tragedy threatens to rip the Marches apart.

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

As an elder Millennial I have a very special place in my heart for the 1994 “Little Women” film. I just love the story of the March Sisters growing up and experiencing love, loss, and growth. But I’ve always found the character of Beth to be a little twee, so good and so angelic, only to die a tragic death that is so unfair because she was just SO good. Beth has had some great performers behind her, don’t get me wrong (Claire Danes is perfection), but as a character, to me, she’s there to be a tragedy. Suffice to say, when I saw the book “Beth Is Dead” by Katie Bernet on my various social media and book feeds, it caught my eye. At first I was thinking ‘well that’s a LITTLE grotesque’, as turning a death from a weakened heart due to illness into a violent murder seemed perhaps a little crude. But, as you all know, I’m really big into thrillers and mysteries, especially if the mystery involves murder, and the idea of making “Little Women” into a modern murder mystery was just too fun. I jumped in with no expectations, but ended up really enjoying this re-imagining. And it may surprise some of you to learn that a book that makes Beth March a murder victim actually humanized her more than I’ve encountered in other adaptations and reimaginings!

They mystery at hand is what I will talk about first, just to get it all out there, because to me that was one of the weaker aspects of this novel, if ONLY because if you are familiar with the source material you will probably be able to discern what is going on for basically all of the characters. But that isn’t to say that I didn’t enjoy this book, because I found it hard to put down, mostly because I wanted to see how Bernet was going to fit the themes from the original text into a 21st Century murder mystery. And overall she did it very successfully. We have the March Sisters of Jo, Meg, Amy, and yes, Beth (more on Beth in a bit) jumping from their Victorian personalities into a whole new world, but Bernet managed to fit all of them into new boxes in believable ways. For Jo we have an aspiring author who has found her voice in becoming an influencer, creating stories of her day to day life for a hungry audience. For Meg we have an Oldest Daughter Syndrome people pleaser who wants to live up to the lofty expectations of her family and herself, though she can easily be taken advantage of by those around her because of it. For Amy it’s a rebel child who stirs up trouble, dreaming of getting to Europe to pursue and artist’s life at any cost. And for Beth it’s a painfully shy girl who feels like others don’t know her so well, but aches to come out of her shell. I also really liked how in this the father isn’t a soldier who is off at war, but is an author who has taken the lives of his daughters and written a literary novel that is based on their lives, which has set off a firestorm of controversy that causes him to leave in hopes he will stop hurting his children (or perhaps in hopes it will all blow over). It’s things like this that feel like they echo the source material while feeling relevant to our modern world.

But it’s the way that Bernet tackles Beth that worked the best for me in this novel. While the crux of the story is Jo, Meg, and Amy trying to solve their sister’s murder (while also hiding their own secrets from each other), we also get flashbacks to Beth’s final months, and the road that led her to her unfortunate end. I’ve seen this kind of thing in other “Little Women” reimaginings, getting Beth’s perspective at least a little bit, but even in those that I’ve read it feels like Beth is still otherworldly and angelic in those interpretations. In this story where she is murdered, ironically enough, I felt like we actually got the most humanized version of Beth that I’ve seen put to page. She still feels true to her original characterization, preferring her piano and being introverted to being more out there, but it isn’t the only thing we learn about her. We also see her own hopes and dreams, which don’t keep her limited to being the kindest and most loved March Sister due to her inherent goodness. She doesn’t want to just be good, and I really, really liked that.

“Beth Is Dead” was entertaining and suspenseful, and it was a successful twist on a classic that has been so well loved for so many generations.

Rating 8: A fun and suspenseful modern re-imagining of a beloved classic, where sisters keep secrets and a long martyred and beloved March Sister gets a voice.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Beth Is Dead” is included in the Goodreads article “204 Retellings with New Spins on Old Stories”.

Kate’s Review: “I Was A Fashion School Serial Killer”

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Book: “I Was A Fashion School Serial Killer” by Doug Wagner & Daniel Hillyard (Ill.)

Publishing Info: Image Comics, December 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: Rennie Bethary has just been accepted into New York City’s most prestigious fashion school. Her designs are daring, edgy, and singular…and made of human flesh. Did we forget to mention Rennie is a serial killer who simply wants to be a fashion designer instead? Stupid, pesky, murderous urges!

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

Happy New Year everyone! 2025 was a mess in a lot of ways, but we are starting off fresh and we can only hope that we can rise above whatever the hell that was last year (though we’ve said that so many times before). But I thought that starting off with a bit of a bang would be fun, and with that I present a graphic horror/thriller novel that really caught my eye: “I Was A Fashion School Serial Killer” by Doug Warner and Daniel Hillyard just sounded like a lot of campy nasty fun, as someone who likes serial killer thrillers/horror AND satires of fashion and style. I had really high hopes for this one. Unfortunately it didn’t quite match my enthusiasm.

But first the positives! The biggest positive is that the premise is such a freakin’ fun one. I love the idea of a serial killer also having a passion for fashion design and having a dream to become a designer, while also making clothing and muck out of people who are wronging her and those around her, be they her friends, or the downtrodden, or those who are victimized. It feels a bit like “Dexter” while also having a bit of an undercurrent of ‘we love women’s wrongs’ that can be kind of fun in this day and age. I also enjoyed Rennie a lot, as she feels/knows she is a full on psychopath, but manages to find at least a tiny bit of humanity in her heart while she not only pursues a passion, but also makes a human connection with her classmate Sofie, who is so lovely and friendly and serves as a fun (though perhaps a bit old hat these days) foil for our more cynical and dark protagonist.

But on the other hand, I did find the pacing to be uneven. We have a pretty slow build, watching Rennie ease into her school life while also taking out sociopaths and predators, taking a couple of issues to establish her mindset and relationship and aspirations, connecting not only with Sofie but also with various mentors or butting heads with snotty classmates. And then in the third of the book we get some wild reveals and a huge confrontation that felt incredibly rushed and didn’t feel like it paid off because of it. I will say that the big reveal DID have some hints and build up and didn’t come completely out of left field, but at the same time once we did get the reveal out it still fell a little bit flat. I think that if there had been more issues there could have been a bit more of a reveal that matched the slower pacing.

And finally, I did enjoy the artwork, finding it to be cute and kind of retro at times, while also being SUPER disgusting at others. I don’t really want to show any of that here because I know that isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but Daniel Hillyard’s style matched the story well.

“I Was A Fashion School Serial Killer” had loads of potential and a really fun protagonist, but it didn’t quite hit the levels that I hoped for. I think it’s worth checking out, but I had hoped for more.

Rating 6: The premise is so good and I really enjoyed Rennie as an anti-hero, but it built almost too slowly and then rushed through the ending.

Reader’s Advisory:

“I Was A Fashion School Serial Killer” isn’t on any Goodreads lists as of late, but if you like books about women getting grisly revenge on those who wrong them or the patriarchy this could be a good fit!

Kate’s Review: “The Dead Husband Cookbook”

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Book: “The Dead Husband Cookbook” by Danielle Valentine

Publishing Info: Sourcebooks Landmark, August 2025

Where Did I Get This Book: The library!

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

Book Description: She has the recipe for the perfect murder…

Maria Capello is a celebrity chef like no other. A household name, an inspiration, an icon. Her dozens of cookbooks and weekly television show, broadcast from her beautiful Italian-style kitchen, not to mention her line of bestselling supermarket sauces. And of course there’s her history. Once just the timid wife of famous chef Damien Capello, she stepped into the spotlight after Damien’s mysterious disappearance twenty years before. An event she’s never spoken about publicly until now, when it is announced that she is looking for a publisher for her memoirs.

Why is Maria willing to finally break her silence? Why does she turn down seven-figure offers from large publishing houses and sign up with a small press? And why does she do so on the condition that it is edited by Thea Woods? Thea is a lifelong fan but has never met Maria and can’t figure it out, plus she had been planning to hand in her notice that very day. But when she is invited to Maria’s remote farm to work on the manuscript, she can’t resist. After all, she may finally learn whether the rumours are that Maria killed Damien for his recipes and the legendary ‘secret ingredient’…

Review: I was kicking myself when I realized that I completely missed an opportunity to read “The Dead Husband Cookbook” by Danielle Valentine in time for the publication date. In part due to the fact that I really enjoyed Valentine’s previous book “Delicate Condition”. But also due to the fact that the premise of a celebrity chef being rumored to have murdered her husband, and potentially spilling all of the T regarding it to a desperate and ambitious editor. Oh, and the implied cannibalism. Because who doesn’t love a weird and twisted cannibal story? But I did eventually get it from the library, and when I started it I had a hard time putting it down, even in the whirlwind of the holiday season! Because “The Dead Husband Cookbook” is compulsive and incredibly addictive, and maybe I’m a weirdo for saying it, but also made me a little hungry…

Is this spoilery? Maybe. Maybe not. I’ll never tell. (source)

The premise is pretty straightforward. Thea Woods is a talented editor, but has found herself on thin ice at her publishing house due to the part she played in a pretty huge scandal that rocked the publishing world. She’s convinced she’s gong to be fired, but is shocked when she is instead requested to be the editor for the memoir of celebrity chef and powerhouse Maria Capello, who rocketed to stardom after her chef husband went missing and she followed in and improved upon his footsteps (and has been hounded by rumors and conspiracies of the role she played in the whole debacle). Thea jumps at the chance, desperate to close this deal in spite of the fact she has to go to Maria’s estate by herself and is soon drawn into weird shenanigans. The mystery at hand (did Maria murder her husband? Why did she insist upon Thea as her editor? Just what is happening at the estate?) is told through Thea’s perspective, as well as chapters from Maria’s memoir as she hands them to Thea bit by bit, and I thought that the structure was tense and intriguing, with both Thea AND Maria acting as unreliable narrators with secrets to hide and a lot to lose. The pacing is fast, there are some genuinely interesting and surprising twists, and I found myself shocked more often than not as I read through. I also really like that I found myself going back and forth in my head about whether or not Maria did, in fact, murder her husband, and I like having to really question the foundation and bare bones of a mystery like this.

But I also really liked the way that Valentine tackles themes of motherhood, the expectations of being a wife, and the way that married women and mothers have to constantly deal with frustrating expectations when it comes to how they can ‘have it all’. Whether it’s Thea who loves her child but feels like her husband doesn’t really understand the true challenges of being a mother and having a full time job, or Maria who had her own aspirations and dreams and ambitions but had to set them aside for her less talented (and caddish) husband, you find sympathy for two women who are both making terrible decisions and, in Maria’s case, possibly committing horrific acts. Valentine touched on similar issues in “Delicate Condition”, and while this one didn’t have the same level of oomph that that one had, it still had my blood boiling at times, whether it was because Thea’s husband was crumbling under the pressure of parenthood after one solitary night, or because Maria’s husband was complaining that she isn’t really fun anymore now that she’s a wife and mother while he’s running a business that she dreamed of. Feminine rage abound, and Valentine captures it quite well once again.

Oh, and yes, there are some really tasty sounding recipes in this book. I was absolutely tickled that Valentine threw in a lot of Italian dishes with some snappy/sarcastic names, and while I’m not a talented enough cook to know if they sounded like they were going to be amazing, I was, nonetheless, very interested in giving at least a few of them a whirl. The only Italian dish that I really know how to do is lasanga, but now I have some ideas to potentially try my hand at…

“The Dead Husband Cookbook” is another fun and suspenseful mystery from Danielle Valentine! I’m sorry I missed it on the first go around, and I will definitely be more in tune with what Valentine comes out with in the future!

Rating 8: A twisty mystery, a lot of righteous indignation about marriage and relationships, and some pretty fun recipes combine to make another enjoyable thriller from Danielle Valentine!

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Dead Husband’s Cookbook” is included on the Goodreads list “Food-Related Fiction”.

Kate’s Review: “Carried Away”

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Book: “Carried Away: Surviving the Unimaginable” by T.J. Derry

Publishing Info: Dead Icon Collective, November 2025

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

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

Book Description: A tropical surf escape turns catastrophic when a tsunami hits, stranding four best friends in a fight for survival. Injured, disoriented, and cut off from the world, they face a brutal test no one could have prepared for.

For Cole, the trip was meant to be a reset—surf, sun, and nothing serious. But an unexpected connection with Kendal, a grounded, perceptive traveler, changes everything. Just as their romance begins to take root, disaster sweeps it all away.

Days stretch into an ordeal of dehydration, exposure, predators—and unraveling minds. The paradise they came to enjoy becomes a crucible that tests every instinct, bond, and belief.

Told with visceral realism and poetic restraint, Carried Away explores the thin lines between fear and love, chaos and clarity, life and loss. For fans of The Beach, Into the Wild, and Unbroken, it’s a gripping debut about friendship, survival, and the beautiful brutality of waking up to your own life.

A portion of the proceeds from book sales will be donated to Sungai Watch, an organization dedicated to reducing ocean pollution by cleaning up Indonesia’s rivers.

Review: Thank you to Dead Icon Collective for sending me an ARC of this novel!

It’s going to be incredibly cold in Minnesota this weekend. Like, -25 degrees below cold. This is how it can be here in L’Etoile du Nord, so perhaps spending some time leading up to it reading a book about a surfing trip gone horribly wrong made the impending frigid temps not feel so bad…. Maybe. But I will say that as I read “Carried Away” by T.J. Derry, I found myself thinking I was grateful this ice box of a state doesn’t have to worry about tsunamis. I do love this kind of survival story, so I wanted to read it when it came across the inbox.

I will say that this book moved a little slow for me at first. I wholly understand the need for laying the groundwork as Cole and his friends Kavi, Logan, and Fern settle in for an ambitious surfing trip in Indonesia, setting up the beautiful backdrop, the charming people they meet on their journey (including the effervescent Kendal, with whom Cole shares a deep connection). But for me, I was really excited to get to the survival thriller aspect of the book, and I’m wholly impatient which is probably on me.

But once we got to the tsunami and the aftermath of it, I was basically locked in. I LOVE wilderness survival tales, as someone who doesn’t do much ‘wilderness’-ing, and this one felt like a mix of “The Shallows” and the old TV movie “Two Came Back” (which is based on the actual survival story of Deborah Scaling Kiley). As Cole and his friends have to survive on a makeshift raft with no food or water, and then on an isolated and decimated small island, the deteriorating conditions of him and his friends and their situation is tense and gripping. I enjoyed how the danger didn’t really go away once they were on land, but just shifted due to the presence of a giant salt water crocodile and one of their friends being gravely injured and becoming weaker and weaker. I love crocodilians, and it’s not often that I’ve seen one being used in a survival story like this.

So while the start was a bit slower, once the meat of the survival tale began I was locked in. “Carried Away” had solid suspense and some interesting introspection the things you may miss out on if you chase adventure to situations that may not let you go.

Rating 7: Once we got to the wilderness survival aspects of the book I was fully invested! Its hard to say no to sharks and a giant crocodile!

Reader’s Advisory:

“Carried Away” isn’t on any Goodreads lists as of now, but it would fit in on “Wilderness Thrillers”.

Kate’s Review: “Oxford Soju Club”

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Book: “Oxford Soju Club” by Jinwoo Park

Publishing Info: Dundum Press, September 2025

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

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

Book Description: When North Korean spymaster Doha Kim is mysteriously killed in Oxford, his protege, Yohan Kim, chases the only breadcrumb given to him in Doha’s last breath: “Soju Club, Dr. Ryu.” In the meantime, a Korean American CIA agent , Yunah Choi, races to salvage her investigation of the North Korean spy cell in the aftermath of the assassination. At the centre of it all is the Soju Club, the only Korean restaurant in Oxford, owned by Jihoon Lim, an immigrant from Seoul in search of a new life after suffering a tragedy. As different factions move in with their own agendas, their fates become entangled, resulting in a bitter struggle that will determine whose truth will triumph.

Oxford Soju Club weaves a tale of how immigrants in the Korean diaspora are forced to create identities to survive, and how in the end, they must shed those masks and seek their true selves.

Review: Thank you to River Street Writing for sending me an eARC of this novel!

I’m not really one for spy and espionage thrillers, but when “Oxford Soju Club” by Jinwoo Park ended up in my inbox I had a hard time saying no. Maybe it’s because I am always trying to stretch my reading boundaries. But I also was super intrigued by the idea of North Korean spies trying to maneuver in England with the CIA hot on their tails. I decided to go for it, and I’m happy I did because I found this spy story contained surprises I wasn’t expecting.

So yes, the spy elements are pretty present, but it is done in a way that was interesting to me. We have three separate perspectives for each chapter, setting up a flashpoint of North Korean spies in the face of a shifting political landscape, a CIA agent trying to keep track of their movements, and a South Korean restaurant owner whose business serves as a backdrop for politicking, all set in Oxford, England. Yohan Kim’s mentor, fellow North Korean spy Doha Kim, has been stabbed to death, and with his dying breath he tells Yohan to go to the Soju Club restaurant to meet with the mysterious Dr. Ryu. It starts the novel off with a bang, and it’s only the start as Yohan tries to keep himself safe and discreet, while CIA agent Yunah Choi starts to make moves for the American side of spies as the heat starts to turn up in the wake of North Korean regime change and political shifts, making openings for American intelligence. And while spies make moves, they all center at the Soju Club, the only Korean restaurant in Oxford that is run by South Korean immigrant Jihoon Lim. The story goes quickly in the present, while flashing back to see all of the characters paths that lead up to this point with double crosses, deaths, conspiracies, and unthinkable pressure. I do admit that sometimes I found the pacing and time jumps to be a little confusing, and found myself having to read back to keep up a fair amount. Spy stories are complicated enough without hasty time jumping.

The other huge theme of this book, and the theme that resonated the most for me, was a common feeling between all of our characters, be they spies or civilians, about their connection to their Korean identity and how it informs their choices and movements forward. For Yohan, his ties to the North are mostly because of his relationship with his mentor Doha, whose influence has shaped Yohan’s entire perspectives as this point, and whose companionship is really all he’s ever known. For Yunah, she is the daughter of Korean immigrants who raised her in New Jersey, and who has been treading a line between her American childhood and her relationship with parents who have so many dreams for her that she can’t quite line up with. And for the non-spy Jihoon, he is trying to make an homage to his mother, who ran a restaurant in Seoul and whose love has inspired him to open his own Korean restaurant in Oxford. We followed all of these perspectives and got an insight into all of their motivations, and I found it poignant and emotional given that in spy/espionage stories there are few happy endings.

“Oxford Soju Club” was a tense thriller with a lot of emotions at its center. It was a pleasant surprise that went to places I didn’t expect! Confusing timeline shifts aside, I enjoyed it.

Rating 7: While it is a spy thriller on the surface, “Oxford Soju Club” is also an examination of identity, culture, loyalty, and the conflicts that can come with them.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Oxford Soju Club” is included on the Goodreads list “ATY 2026: Korean or Korean Diaspora Author”.