Good Reads & Views

The Only One Left by Riley Sager
Fiction

What it’s about: The Only One Left is a thriller that unravels the mystery through various avenues and multiple perspectives. Our main character is Kit, a newly reinstated caregiver who is assigned to care for Lenora Hope, a notorious recluse believed to have killed her entire family in 1929 but who was never charged. Lenora is now wheelchair bound, paralyzed, and only able to communicate via typewriter. As Kit cares for Lenora, she begins to learn the history of the Hope family, who Lenora truly is, and with the help of Lenora’s typed letters, what actually happened the night her family was murdered. Sager continually distracts the reader, diverts attention, and brings together threads that are minuscule only for them to be significant and surprising.

Why you might like it: Great for those that enjoy gothic thrillers, cliffside mansion settings and old typewriters. This story offers multiple perspectives and timeline jumps between the present and the past. Tensions build up with well-paced storytelling and action hits as the story concludes with multiple twists and turns that keep you guessing.

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Yours Truly by Abby Jimenez
Fiction

What it’s about:  Abby Jimenez writes us a wonderfully relatable and real heartwarming and emotional friendship and contemporary love story. We follow along with Briana, a recently divorced trauma doctor, and Jacob, a newly hired trauma doctor with social anxiety. They start off on the wrong foot, but soon the misunderstanding between Briana and Jacob turns into a genuine friendship that blossomed through written letters to each other and eventually becomes something more. Throughout this story Jimenez addresses topics like organ donation, anxiety, depression, and love in such a way that is refreshing and real. 

Is it for you? Yours Truly is for those that want a Grey’s Anatomy episode with a happy ending. Although this is a romance story with the popular trope of fake dating, there is plenty of humor, tension and a little bit of family drama that adds to the depth of the story.

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Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross
YA Fiction

What it’s about: A fantasy romance with a setting akin to WWII-era London. The reader follows two young rival journalists who find love through magical typewriters. Iris is a young journalist who finds herself swept to the frontlines of a war between two gods in order to find her brother, a soldier at the front, and also report the truth behind the war. She soon forges a magical connection when a letter suddenly appears in response to a letter she wrote and slipped beneath her wardrobe. What soon turns into a rivals to lovers relationship ends in a beautiful and tragic romance. While the gods linger in the background the ending promises further exploration in the sequel.

Why you might like it: A strongly character-driven knowledge full of intrigue and beautiful writing. In this novel, fantasy takes more of a backseat to the romance between the two main characters, which allows for a delightful progression to their passion. Rather than a full information unload at the start, the immersion into the world and mythological themes is steady and slow, allowing you to peel back the layers of the book while the characters do the same in their relationship. 

Reviewers say: "An ardent romance and a harrowing exploration of war’s horrors and heartbreaks... with inventive worldbuilding, nuanced characterizations, and prose by turns dreamy and atmospherically tense" (Publishers Weekly).

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What Lies in the Woods by Kate Alice Marshall
Fiction

What it’s about: Naomi and her two best friends are infamous for putting away a serial killer when they were kids, after an encounter in the woods. Only the girls were there that day, and the small community sees them as heroes, but they’re also liars. After learning the killer who attacked her has died in prison 22 years later, Naomi goes back to their small town of Chester, and she begins to question what she really saw that day in the woods.

Why you might like it: Marshall’s writing is powerfully descriptive in this novel, bringing even more darkness and magic to the woods. This dark thriller offers a look into a community full of secrets and webs of lies that cause many twists and reveals that leave readers feeling stranded in the woods just like Naomi.

Reviewers say: “Unexpected plot twists, deep psychological perspicacity, and an endlessly interesting dance between past and present...evokes the dread and intensity of Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects” (NYT Book Review).

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Georgie, All Along by Kate Clayborn 
Fiction 

What it’s about: This novel is a romance story with vulnerability and growth at its heart. Georgie is a young woman who is lost. With no longer having a secure job and no idea what she wants in life, she decides to move back to her hometown in Virginia to help her best friend prepare for her new baby. With this new task she hopes everything will fall into place, until she realizes her childhood home is now occupied by a temporary roommate, Levi, a retired bad boy and local grump. In order to find direction again in her life, she consults an old “friendfic” diary from high school and begins to cross off a bucket list of items with the help, to her surprise, of Levi. Clayborn seemingly refreshes the forced proximity and sunshine/grumpy tropes by welcoming us into this duo’s world as the pair benefits from each other and the unlikely situation they find themselves in.  

Reviewers say: “This is a book for plunging into, a river of feelings with an inescapable current. Even as you are swept away, you know Clayborn’s hand is safely on the tiller, steering you expertly through the rapids” (New York Times). 

You might also like: Love in the Time of Serial Killers by Alicia Thompson or Great and Precious Things by Rebecca Yarros. 

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Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros 
Fiction 

What it’s about: Enter the deadly kingdom of Navarre which lies behind protective wards and its elite dragon riders. Behind the walls of Basgiath War College, Violet Sorrengail has spent her life preparing to be a Scribe, until her mother and commanding general forces her to enter the Riders Quadrant. Each cadet must pass several dangerous assignments before becoming a true dragon rider. Violet must use every ounce of her intelligence and find her own ways to survive each task. This new fantasy series will have you on the edge of your seat with heart pounding action, moments brimming with tension, romance, well-crafted characters, and is bursting with magic and dragons that will leave you awestruck.  

Read this if you like: The deadly competitiveness of The Hunger Games, the wonderful array of dragons in How to Train You Dragon, and the dark fantasy academic setting of Zodiac Academy. 

Sneak Peak: “A dragon without its rider is a tragedy. A rider without their dragon is dead. Once bonded, riders can’t live without their dragons, but most dragons can live just fine after us. It’s why they choose carefully…The red dragon on the left opens its vast mouth, revealing teeth as big as I am. Fire erupts along its tongue, then shoots outward in a macabre blaze toward the fleeing cadet. He’s a pile of ash on the gravel before he can even make it to the shadow of the keep. Sixty-eight dead.”  

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River Woman, River Demon by Jennifer Givhan
Fiction

What it’s about: Eva Santos Moon is a flourishing Chicana artist who has suddenly hit creative stagnation. Even with her practice in the ancient spiritual ways of brujeria she finds herself struggling with a disconnect to her magickal roots, her art, and sudden blackouts. Her husband, her rock and father that holds the family together, is shockingly taken into custody as a potential murder suspect of their family friend. Eva finds herself not knowing who to trust, the police, herself, or her husband. As she fights to keep her family safe, she turns to her magick to protect them while confronting her dark past.

What critics are saying:  “In River Woman, River Demon, Givhan writes: ‘For us folks of color, conjuring isn’t entertainment; it’s the brass key pointing us to freedom.’ And with this novel Givhan wholly embodies this thesis, manifesting a richly textured exploration of personal pain, trauma, and loss, while capturing that slippery dreamlike beyond that people of color feel in our bones. River Woman, River Demon is a major working, a novel both visceral and revelatory” (Cadwell Turnbull, award-winning author of No Gods, No Monsters).

You might also like: The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina by Zoraida Cordova.

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From Lukov with Love by Mariana Zapata
Fiction

What it’s about: An epic contemporary romance set in the world of competitive figure skating. Jasmine Santos and Ivan Lukov have known each other for years, and not in the best of terms. After years of bantering and bickering with each other, Jasmine is offered the opportunity to become partners in pair skating. Jasmine has had some rough and unsuccessful years behind her and would give anything for another chance to prove her worth on the ice and finally win. So, when Ivan, a championship pair skater, offers her a partnership, she worries that he may have a hidden agenda. Or that Ivan is more than the arrogant skater he seems.

Why you might like it: The slow-burn of all slow-burn romances and a great enemy to lover’s style trope to boot. This novel also touches on the challenges and joys of family dynamics and relationships. Great choice for those who were also fans of Netflix’s Spinning Out.

You might also like: Icebreaker by Hannah Grace & In the Penalty Box by Lynn Rush.

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Stay Awake by Megan Goldin
Fiction  

The Plot: Liv Reese wakes up in the backseat of a cab with no recollection of how she got there, her last memory being 2 years ago. A stranger is now living in what was once her apartment and she finds herself on the run for a crime she doesn’t remember committing. Trying to piece together the lost memories and the notes she leaves herself written on her hands and arms, Liv must figure out who she can and cannot trust and how to clear her name.  

Tell me more: This novel keeps the reader constantly guessing and creates a sense of paranoia and suspense. As the plot opens, Liz is in a New York City she thinks she remembers and soon realizes that not only does she not recall the last two years, but her short term memory erases itself when she falls asleep. Is she a murderer, is she in danger, or both?  

Reviewers say: “Shocking twists and resourceful, well-drawn female characters keep the pages turning as the clever mystery unfolds. Goldin reliably entertains” (Publishers Weekly). “This thriller may cause readers to lose sleep so they can find out who is the true killer!” (LibraryReads).  

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The Neighbor Favor by Kristina Forest
Fiction

What it’s about: Lily Greene is a shy bookworm who ends up falling for her favorite fantasy novelist, N.R. Strickland, that she has been emailing back and forth with for months - until one day he ghosts her. Attempting to move on from her online heartbreak, Lily strikes up a conversation with her handsome new neighbor, Nick Brown. They immediately feel instant rapport, passion, and familiarity neither can quite place. Nick has his reasons for keeping secrets, can he find a way to be honest with Lily?  

Why you might like it: This satisfying “You’ve got mail” styled romantic comedy is perfect for those who enjoy novels set in the writing and publishing world. The story also fits into the forced proximity and friends to lover’s trope.  

You might also like: Fake It Till You Bake It by Jamie Wesley and Book Lovers by Emily Henry.

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