Books

A woman is standing beside me at the swings. I can see the exact expression on her face; I can hear her voice as she chats with her son. Her name is Tessa, and she isn’t real. Like all readers, I’m familiar with the way reality and fiction can blur together. I remember visiting Edinburgh,

In case you missed it, on Saturday I put together a list of the queer books that appeared on the many Best Books of 2024 So Far lists as a bonus for paid subscribers. Did you know that your paid subscription now gives you access to all of Book Riot’s bonus content across all our

As a music lover, it’s tempting to say that Addison McKellar deserves everything that’s coming to her for attending a Hootie and the Blowfish concert. Still, I must remember I’m here to review books and not their character’s music choices, no matter how dubious. Addison is approaching 40, and has a mid-life crisis heading for

There is an immediate richness to the historical fiction of Tracy Chevalier (Girl With a Pearl Earring, Remarkable Creatures), one that goes beyond carefully researched details and evocative prose, and into deep emotion. In her 12th book, The Glassmaker, Chevalier weaves a tapestry of character and conflict, change and stability, to create a story that

When little Afia can’t sleep, her mind as active as a summer night, she and her papa travel in their imaginations to find love. And find it they do—in the sun-warmed sand, on a snowy mountain top, in the ocean’s friendly waves and even in the darkest night sky. Before she finally drifts off to

Diane Marie Brown’s Black Candle Women tells the story of three fierce Black women united by the spells and elixirs that have been passed down in their family. Willow, Augusta and Victoria Montrose lead a quiet existence in California until Victoria’s teenage daughter, Nickie, becomes involved with Felix. Unaware of the family curse—that anyone a

Both Same as It Ever Was and your debut, The Most Fun We Ever Had, are lengthy novels that examine family dynamics over the course of decades. What draws you to this type of story? I’ve always been drawn as a reader to big, meaty novels that stick with a cast of characters over a

For so many of us, the refrigerator is an appliance we’ve interacted with daily for as long as we can remember. It’s also one we take for granted, rather than viewing it as emblematic of the world-changing innovation Nicola Twilley explores in Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves. As readers will

With its near 500-page count and robust endnotes, The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A., and the Origins of America’s Invasion of Iraq might at first glance scare off readers who haven’t sniffed a textbook in years. But thanks to Steve Coll’s crisp and dynamic prose, what’s between the covers feels little like an academic

With about half of the year in the rear-view mirror, it’s time we did some reflection. And Goodreads, with its millions of members, is always a great place to get a pulse check on what’s popular among the people. The most popular books of the year so far were determined by looking at which new

First edition front cover. When most people think of Shirley Jackson, they think of horror. The Haunting of Hill House is often cited as the archetypal 20th-century ghost story. Even scaremonger-in-chief Stephen King regards Shirley Jackson as a major influence, devoting 30 pages of his 1982 memoir Danse Macabre to her work. The Californian writer

In White Poverty: How Exposing Myths About Race and Class Can Reconstruct American Democracy, MacArthur fellow and activist-pastor William J. Barber II makes the logical but nonetheless surprising point that, even though poverty has a disproportionately high impact on Black Americans, there is a vastly greater number of white people living in poverty, leading lives

Alex Gerlis is a veteran espionage author with three series already behind him, but with Every Spy a Traitor he launches a new series. This time it’s a classic fish out of water story, similar to those written by Eric Ambler, but with a twist. Ambler (The Mask Of Dimitrios, Journey Into Fear) was a

Gennifer Choldenko’s The Tenth Mistake of Hank Hooperman is a moving story about an 11-year-old abandoned by his single mom and left to care for his 3-year-old sister, Boo, inspired by Choldenko’s own childhood experiences of having undependable parents and a caring older brother who acted as a surrogate parent. Fans of the Newbery Honor

In Malas, the legend of La Llorona (the Weeping Woman) ties together the stories of two women from different generations in a Texas border town. When the two meet in the ‘90s, their connection—including a shared love of Selena—threatens to surface buried town secrets. Malas is your first novel. Can you tell us a bit

Since I write about new LGBTQ book releases every week on Our Queerest Shelves, I keep a giant spreadsheet of upcoming queer books, adding titles as soon as I learn about them. I follow approximately a million queer book blogs, BookTubers, BookTokers, Bookstagrammers, etc — and that’s not to mention the deluge of publicity emails

Each section of neuroscientist and corporate coach Nicole Vignola’s Rewire: Break the Cycle, Alter Your Thoughts and Create Lasting Change is titled with phrases that will sound familiar to readers bent on self-improvement: “Ditch the Negative,” “Shift Your Narrative,” “Boost the Positive.” While those imperatives may not be new, the author’s explanations of how one

Magdalena Herrera has a lot of responsibilities. On top of trying to finish high school, she works a part-time job and is the sole caregiver for her grandmother. Mags has a lot of secrets as well. She’s hooking up with a girl who has a boyfriend. And every night she disappears down a trapdoor in

Here is our daily round-up of what’s going on in the world of books: Publishers Sue Google over Pirate Sites  I was just having a conversation about a recent survey about audiobook consumption that had a pretty startling statistic: 47% of respondents report getting an audiobook through a file-sharing service or YouTube. And that reminded

There are some high quality reads on the way and top of our pile this week is the latest from Chris Carter. He’s an author with a huge and dedicated following, and for good reason – the knowledge he built up as a criminal behaviour psychologist goes straight into his books, and you can tell.

The second Pacific Coast Highway mystery sees the welcome return of proto-detective Adam Zantz. His job as driver on the taxi app Lyft got him into a heap of trouble in The Last Songbird, when he needed to prove his innocence of the murder of his favourite client. In Cinnamon Girl, the reluctant LA private

We crime fiction lovers know that every day offers a reading opportunity, but June is National Crime Reading Month (NCRM) in Britain – a festival of reading hosted by the Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) in partnership with The Reading Agency for 2024. The aim is to encourage people to #PickUpAPageTurner. Karen Napier, CEO of The

Summer is nearly here and as temperatures rise the publishing industry begins to deliver page-turning thrillers for the holiday season. Our news column seems to reflect this – each book this week is a thriller that aims to get you hooked. We start with The Wreckage of Us by English author Dan Malakin, plus we

Like so many novels in the noir sub-genre, Holy City by Henry Wise reveals the links between its main character’s past and their present predicament, and how, no matter which choices they may make, their fate is almost predetermined. However, what sets it apart from the pack is its lyrical prose, grace and examination of

As you might have noticed, we review books here on Crime Fiction Lover. A lot of books. Over 2,900, in fact. But that’s not all we do, and it’s always interesting when new things come along that push the boundaries. Lately, we’ve been delving into a new app for iOS and Android called Storiaverse and

The world of crime fiction is a broad church, featuring everything from snooping grannies in sleepy rural hamlets to blood spattered serial killers, and everything in between. At the darkest end of that spectrum comes Chris Carter, whose Robert Hunter series is definitely not for the faint-hearted. Consequently, as a fan of a good old

Child assassins, human trafficking and buried memories are just a handful of the themes that come to the fore in Jana: Marked for Life, the new Swedish crime series that arrives on BBC Four in the UK starting Saturday 8 June, 2024. Lovers of Nordic noir will have the chance to settle in to another

Translated by Louise Rogers Lalaurie — The unconventional short novel French Windows by French author Antoine Laurain proves once again that delving into another person’s psyche is tricky business. You know from the cover that the book is a murder mystery, but what is this murder? When and where does it occur? And when the

Right, then. Are you ready for our latest weekly tour of the world of crime fiction? It starts and ends in Lancashire, with stops in Florence, the Canadian prairies, the Idaho woods plus a little vintage Hollywood glamour for good measure. It’s a week of ballroom dancing with the latest from Mark Billingham, there are