Female Authors

Books written by any Female/Femme identifying authors

Undead and Unwed Review

Book: Undead and Unwed
Author: Sam Tschida
Publisher: Quirk Books
Year: 2025
Rating: 1.5 out of 5 stars

Synopsis : “Tiffenie may be three hundred years old, but she’s still a hot mess. The vampire is tragically single, works a dead-end job at a blood bank, and spends her nights marathoning Hallmark Channel moves with her cat.
When Tiffenie inherits a fixer-upper home in Valentine, Vermont, thanks to a case of mistaken (okay, stolen!) identity, she seizes the chance to get her life back on track. With her newly undead neighbor (it was an accident!) in tow, Tiffenie is determined to live out her holiday rom-com dreams in this picture-perfect town.
But between the mystery of her stolen identity, small-town drama, and the arrival of her insufferable vampire ex-boyfriend Vlad, getting her happily ever after with a smoking-hot Christmas tree farmer won’t be easy. Tiffenie must embark on a journey of self-acceptance – with the help of a few therapy sessions – for the first time in her immortal life.”

Review : Over the last few years of writing ARC reviews, I believe I’ve only given two other books a star rating lower than 2. I give a truly low review only when it feels absolutely necessary – sparingly, you might even say. While my reviews are always honest and truthful and they may be, at times, scathing, I’m always hesitant to give someone a low rating for something they’ve crafted. It feels deeply embarrassing to me that Undead and Unwed has garnered as high a review as 3.5 stars on GoodReads, which is really all I need to say when I tell you that I do not use or read GoodReads reviews. Having read over 100 advanced reader copies (sorry, only 90 of those have made it here), I can honestly tell you that I have never received an advanced copy as unfinished and unpolished as this book was. It’s not a surprise to find small errors in an advanced copy, some grammatical mistakes, misspellings, an unfinished sentence here or there – it is a surprise to find a book with so many glaring mistakes as Undead and Unwed, and to be completely frank, that’s not even what scored this book 1.5 stars for me. It’s just part of the chaos and nonsense of the entire experience.

This is the first time I’ve wanted to say this : I read Undead and Unwed so you don’t have to. Please. Take my word for it. You don’t have to put yourself through this. The most frustrating aspect of this entire journey through such an incredibly poorly written book and nearly unreadable premise is that I actually liked the initial idea behind the plot. It could have been so much better, it could have been something readable. Execution, however, has failed. We find Tiffenie, a 300 year old vampire, living and working in L.A. at a blood bank – okay, expected, at least to some degree. She’s depressed, doesn’t know how to stand up for herself, and has little will to live beyond caring for her cat, Cat. We learn fairly early on that for a vampire to continue to exist in the world in any kind of feasible manner, they need to take on someone else’s identity in order to rent an apartment or buy a car or work a job – you know, they need a social security number and a real life name. Tiffenie is currently living under the stolen / bought name Tiffany Amanda Blair, an identity she purchased via the “black market” (I’m using quotes here as there’s no real explanation for this and it’s glossed over, so one can really only assume). When she receives a letter in the mail informing her of an inheritance in her namesake’s hometown of Valentine, Vermont, she hops in a hearse (yes, really) and heads out of town. Of course, I’m glossing over a lot of the minutiae here, but this is how things unfold : girl assumes identity, girl receives inheritance meant for the person whose identity she assumed, girl moves to claim the inheritance. Meanwhile, Tiffenie has accidentally drained her neighbor within an inch of her life and is forced to turn her into a vampire and take her on the road to Vermont because…well, just because. There are so many instances where things happen in the book without a good reason, the reader is forced to go along with what’s happening just for funzies because Tschida said so and it makes for poor storytelling.

Evidently, it’s been just ten years since the real Tiffany has moved away from her hometown of Valentine, yet even though Valentine is a tiny, rural town and Tiffany lived there for her entire life as a child and adult, ten years is somehow enough for Tiffenie to show up as a totally different person under the assumed identity of Tiffany and pass for this other person with an entire backstory and history in the town. And no-one blinks an eye. This was the first (of many) glaring issues I took with Undead and Unwed, as an assumed identity does not mean you also look like the person whose identity you stole! We only get a small explanation by way of Tiffenie dying her hair blonde because Tiffany was also a blonde. Yes, you read that correctly. In all other accounts, everyone Tiffenie runs into, be they old flames, friends from high school, or people who knew her family, all really, truly believe that Tiffenie is actually Tiffany. It is as asinine as it sounds. Next, we encounter the trouble with Tiffenie’s bank account – namely, she was dirt poor in L.A., working a job for peanuts, somehow living alone, and yet when she moves to Vermont without a job, she has enough money to start paying thousand dollar fines for living in a condemned building. There’s no explanation for this change in circumstances beyond the inheritance of a condemned property. There hasn’t been some grand windfall, no change in her lifestyle, only that she’s gone from L.A. to Vermont.

If this isn’t enough, Tiffenie is written just as the synopsis describes, as a hot mess. She’s flaky, irresponsible, somehow and for some unknown and never fleshed-out reason, she’s obsessed with not drinking blood, and she has a shopping problem. I don’t love this characterization, but I can get on board with it if it’s how she’s written, unfortunately, Tschida goes back and forth between our modern-day Tiffenie and the Tiffenie of the past who had children, knew how to bake for her family, and lived a real life with big ideas and plans. It’s a stark contrast and the jumping back and forth between these two versions of the self is stilted, as though Tschida threw them in at random without any planning or thought. Further, the conversations are so choppy and robotic, they’re nearly impossible to read. When it comes to story writing, Tschida has landed so far from the mark it’s almost laughable. There are so many instances where someone’s speaking and the only response will be “Yes.” that it became impossible to read with any semblance of seriousness. At one point I actively questioned whether this book was even written or whether it was dictated based on the glaring errors staring back at me from the page. There were multiple instances throughout where the paragraph was re-written but the original was never taken out, so I was presented with multiple directions in which this ARC might go, unsure of which would eventually be chosen for the final copy, and one instance where an entire paragraph was broke up with bullet points. These kinds of errors are not commonplace in an advanced copy, they’re sloppy and lazy and do the author a tremendous disservice – in this instance, Tschida needed all the help she could get and her publishing house did her dirty.

Undead and Unwed is an unreadable mess. I can only hope that by the time it’s actually ready for print it will look dramatically different than it does in it’s advanced copy form, but from my experience this is rarely the case. I suspect this book will be slightly more readable, but I don’t believe it will have improved by much at that point. The concept of a Hallmark Channel-ish story where a vampire moves to Vermont and restores a property, finds a chosen family, and eventually love is actually such a cute idea and I’m actively upset that this book ended up being as poorly written as it was. It needs a significant amount of work, perhaps it would even be worth scrapping the whole thing and starting over, or maybe it would be better to never have started in the first place.

Advice : Don’t. Just, don’t. Don’t fall for the 3.5 GoodReads score. Don’t spend your money. If you really feel drawn to this book, request it at your local library and save your money for something else.

The Housekeeper’s Secret Review

Book: The Housekeeper’s Secret
Author: Sandra Schnakenburg
Publisher: She Writes Press
Year: 2025
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Synopsis : “A catholic family in 1960s Chicago headed by a narcissistic and demanding father takes on Lee, a housekeeper with a mysterious past. Lee becomes like a second mother to the Krilich children, especially Sandy. After Lee’s death, Sandy begins a determined quest to find out her dear friend’s backstory – and proceeds to uncover one shocking fact after another, even as the story of her own family drama, and the heartwarming role Lee played in the Krilich’s lives, unfolds.”

Review : While this book’s title and synopsis might lead you to believe the entirety of the novel will be spent uncovering a housekeeper’s secret(s), the truth is only about 20% of the book was spent actually delving into Lee’s past. While I don’t particularly think the information Schnakenburg was able to gather about Lee, her beloved housekeeper, is broad enough to fill an entire book, I do find it hard to wrap my head around how little of the book was actually devoted to Lee’s life and how much of it was devoted instead to our writer. I don’t find this problematic as far as storytelling goes, Schnakenburg, nee Krilich, had an extraordinary childhood filled with trauma, neglect, abuse, and a near fatal accident – but the title of the book is The Housekeeper’s Secret and we didn’t begin to dive into Lee’s secret until the book was nearly over. The title and the content didn’t match up.

Like I said, though, I found the story of Schnakenburg’s upbringing to be enough to keep me turning pages, wanting to know how things would evolve in the lives of Sandy’s family members, forced to endure a grueling childhood with a demanding and demeaning father with a roiling anger problem and no regard for the wellbeing of anyone in his path. I found Schnakenburg’s portrayal of her father to be quite interesting – in fact, I believe her storytelling of his abuse throughout her childhood to be far too lenient and more forgiving than I would hope. We spend, as I mentioned, about 80% of The Housekeeper’s Secret growing up with Sandy in a hellish nightmare world of a home, growing with her from the time she’s no more than a toddler until she’s an adult with children of her own. It’s throughout this memoir-like progression that we come to find Sandy’s relationship with her father, and the relationship he shares with her 5 additional siblings and mother, is strained at best. He is, to put it bluntly, a menace. Demanding 7 different types of juice each morning, forcing Schnakenburg’s mother into situations that endanger her life (more than once), forcing a six-year-old to utilize hedge-trimmers with zero supervision, and having a second family are only some of the stories we read in this book – it is well and truly a nightmare. And yet, Schakenburg attempts to humanize her father, explaining that he suffered the loss of a childhood friend in a drowning accident, as if this singular trauma might explain the evil that he unleashed upon his family; it’s particularly glaring when you consider that Schakenburg’s mother suffered from a terrible fear of drowning, so much so that she never learned to swim, and her husband forced her onto multiple boating trips, one in which the threat of drowning was quite real when their boat suffered damage and began to take on water.

*Spoilers Ahead*

When we do finally make our way to Lee’s story, a story she told the children for years she wanted to write (but spent no time actually writing down, nor telling to anyone to transcribe), the story we end up with is one of tremendous tragedy, horror, and loss. It is hard to endure, yet necessary to read. Lee, a Black woman growing up in the 1940s, was brutally attacked, beaten, and sexually assaulted by multiple men while walking to the bus after work. She was left for dead. Because it was winter and there was snow on the ground, she managed to survive the night, but suffered incredibly bodily damage as well as a traumatic brain injury. Being unable to fully recover and in a family that was enduring their own physical ailments and diagnoses, Lee was sent to a sanatorium for care. While there’s significantly more to Lee’s story, I’d like to leave it here and encourage you to read this book if for no other reason than the necessity of hearing a story like Lee’s – a story that deserves to be heard and told. The history of women’s medical treatment is one we should never take lightly, especially as we find ourselves simply not all that far removed from the most egregious “treatment” and experiments performed – often for diagnoses that are now easily managed with medication, therapy, and simple kindness. Women of color, even more so.

I sobbed through Lee’s story, wishing so much that there was more information available, that we could see retribution for the actions of the men in her life who treated her with such unimaginable disregard, wishing Schnakenburg could have dug up and revealed names so we might know them for who they were. It’s the human response, I believe, to reading a story like Lee’s. You want to see justice done, you want to see more come from it than 20% of a book about an abusive father, you just want more. I think it’s commendable that Schnakenburg took up the mantle of this task, but I wish there was less about Schnakenburg herself (perhaps saving it for a separate memoir) and more about Lee. As we meet Lee’s children toward the end of the book, Schnakenburg and her siblings share stories about Lee that were never mentioned at any other point in the book and I can’t help but think this book would have better served Lee’s memory had it included more stories of Lee’s life, even on where she was an employee of a family that was not her own. Schnakenburg dips her toes into the realm of white saviorism at the end, when she learns one of Lee’s children fell victim to the system as an orphaned child born in a sanatorium, suggesting that this child would have been better off in Schnakenburg’s home where her horrifically abusive father ruled with an iron fist of unpredictability. In fairness, I think her intentions were noble in this moment, believing the child would have been better off with Lee, and I agree, but again, I feel she’s been far too forgiving of her father and a bit short sighted, considering how deeply she had previously detailed his abuses. There were moments that left me gasping for air for the sheer horror of it all, moments where I sobbed, and moments where I cringed. Lee’s story is a tragedy that deserves to be heard.

Advice : It’s worth noting that if you choose to read this book it does speak about verbal abuse, emotional abuse, manipulation, gang rape, power dynamics, torture, water torture, sexual assault, traumatic brain injury, a car accident / bicycle accident, and drowning. This book is not for the faint of heart, but if you’re a woman I think it’s a deeply important and impactful story to read.

Boudicca’s Daughter Review

Book: Boudicca’s Daughter
Author: Elodie Harper
Publisher: Union Square & Co
Year: 2025
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Synopsis : “Boudicca was an infamous warrior, queen of the British Iceni tribe, and mastermind of one of history’s greatest revolts. Her defeat in c. 60 CE by the conquering forces of the Roman Empire spelled ruin for her people, yet still Boudicca’s name was enough to strike fear into the hearts of her enemies.
But what of the woman who grew up in her shadow – her daughter Solina – who has her mother’s looks and cunning and her father’s druidic gifts, but a spirit all her own? Solina’s desperate bid for survival takes her from Britain’s battlefields and sacred marshlands to the glittering facades and treacherous politics of Nero’s Rome, where she must decide what it truly means to be Boudicca’s daughter.”

Review : Boudicca’s Daughter is an intense, 400+ page work of historical fiction that left me crying at times, enraged at others, and sent me down a google rabbit hole to find the truth. In all honesty, I’m not sure where I sit on the fence of historical fiction, and in all likelihood it’s probably closer to the “I’m not sure this is something we should do” side of things than not. In this instance, so little is known about Boudicca’s actual daughters – yes, plural – that the story could be filled in however Harper chose to see fit. It’s an interesting conundrum that a woman who held such a role in history, whose two daughters were deeded the rights to rule the Iceni tribe once their ruling father passed, made so little a mark as to have left two nameless daughters to the annals of time. I appreciate Harper’s work here in bringing these very real people back to life, even if created purely from imagination. We might suppose that some of what came to pass in this book could have been real, truthfully, Harper put in a great deal of work to get the historical facts correct; the rest, however, is mere speculation. While Harper suggests in her letter to the reader that humanity is largely the same even spanning across thousands of years, I suspect she’s written the characters we find here with more grace, humility, and kindness than might necessarily be warranted them.

Boudicca’s Daughter breaches the real world and enters into a historical fiction narrative complete with love, betrayal, and blood sacrifices that play out into the real world. I grew to love Solina, our protagonist, as we encountered her throughout four dramatic stages of her life. My biggest complaint about our time spent with Solina in the Iceni tribe is that so little of the book is spent in such a broad, wild place and so little time is truly spent on Boudicca’s actual assault on the British Empire. Much time passed during this first quarter of the book, yet the way it was written lead me to believe it was short-lived and perhaps even not so wide of a battle – history informs me that by the time the battles were over, nearly 100,000 people had been killed, British and Roman alike. Harper addresses the grey area that a war inevitably brings with it and asks the reader to critically think about who might bear the weight of the word guilty in a time when cultures are combining, the Roman Empire is conquering multiple people groups, and the masses are doing what they must do to survive. Where does the line get drawn and who holds the weight of responsibility for such a line? Can anyone be truly blameless in war or is everyone at equal rights to blame for the bloodshed? Harper weaves a thread of guilt and shame throughout the entirety of this novel, reminding us that the manner of human life is such that nuance is a necessity and survival is often the only option even in a world like Rome.

*Spoilers Ahead* We are drawn through time with Solina following the death of her mother, carrying the belief that she is truly the last remaining Iceni alive in the world; witnessing her ultimate defeat at the hands of a Roman General, Paulinus; watching her eventual enslavement to Poppaea Sabina, Nero’s wife; and finally her escape and eventual marriage to none other than Paulinus himself – her very captor. I struggle a bit to find the nuance between true devotional love and stockholm syndrome, but I do think Harper does the work necessary to convince the reader that Solina is truly in a headspace to care for the man who ultimately enslaved her, sold her to Nero, and murdered her entire bloodline. It’s hefty to put it all out there like that. This is ultimately why I find myself hemming and hawing on the fence of historical fiction, wondering if there’s truly a place for this genre when the pillage and mass murder of an entire people group at the hands of a brutal colonial empire is tamed to such a degree that we find ourselves in a love story between captor and captive. Does this do justice to the reality of the world? Or are we finding ourselves in an idealized version of history that makes people out to be much kinder, gentler, and more loving than the truth of history might reveal? It’s impossible to know, as we may only speculate upon the truth.

Boudicca’s Daughter held me captive for the entire 400+ pages, at no point did I find myself wanting to stop reading. I found myself roiling with rage over the injustices of the time, watching parallels between ancient Rome and our current world unfold, and simultaneously hoping for a happy ending in which captor and captive might live on forever. It’s well written and beautifully researched, weaving enough real history into the fiction that it feels as though it might as well be true, but again, we have to remember that it also, more than equally, is likely not. This is a struggle I seem to find impossible to ignore. At the end of the day, I enjoyed it for the entertainment value, but felt it could have possessed stronger anti-colonizer themes and less blurred lines between love and insufficient power. All told, it felt worth the week it took me to read it.

Advice : It’s worth mentioning that Boudicca’s Daughter talks extensively about blood, both in battle and in ritual, it discusses sexual assault, PTSD, captivity, forced castration, and suicide. I feel strongly that if you enjoy Outlander, you’ll enjoy this read.

The Book of Lost Hours Review

Book: The Book of Lost Hours
Author: Hayley Gelfuso
Publisher: Atria Books
Year: 2025
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Synopsis : “Nuremberg, 1938: Eleven-year-old Lisavet Levy is hidden by her father from approaching forces in a mysterious place called the time space, a library where all the memories of the past are stored inside of books. Trapped, she spends her adolescence walking through the memories of those who lived before. When she discovers that government spies are entering the time space to destroy volumes and maintain their preferred version of history, Lisavet sets about trying to salvage the past, creating her own book of lost memories.
Until one day in 1949, when she meets an American timekeeper named Ernest Duquesne, who offers her a chance at another life, setting in motion a series of events that puts her own existence – and that of the time space itself – in peril.
Boston, 1965: Amelia Duquesne is mourning the death of her uncle and guardian, Ernest, when she’s approached by Moira Donnelly, the head of the CIA’s highly secretive Temporal Reconnaissance Program. Moira tells her about the existence of the time space – accessed only by specially designed watches whose intricate mechanisms have been lost to history – and enlists her help in recovering a strange book her uncle had once sought. But when Amelia enters the time space, she discovers that her uncle may not have been the man she thought – and that the government may have another reason to bring her there.”

Review : Lisavet Levy lives in the Time Space. In the history of time, it seems that no one has ever simply lived in the Time Space – the place outside concrete reality where all memories live and are recorded, where souls who pass go to be placed into books, where our recollection of events are housed. And yet, for over a decade, Lisavet Levy lives within the Time Space. In a world where special watches and only a few select people may generate a doorway into such a sacred place, the governing bodies of countries all across the globe enter and tamper with the Time Space, effectively changing the way people view the world according, literally, to the victor. It’s within the Time Space that Lisavet Levy realizes government agents and soldiers are entering her temporal reality and burning memories, literally destroying the memories of hundreds, if not thousands, of people. In the real world, as a reader, The Book of Lost Hours speaks, at least in part, to the dangers of propaganda and misinformation campaigns. And while we may be in a world without a literal Time Space, nearly one hundred years in the future, the threat of mis (and dis) information looms large. Gelfuso touches on a topic that is near and dear to many of our hearts with her stunning book, reminding us of the importance of preserving the memories of those who perhaps did not fare as well as the victor may have, as we know that indeed, history is written by the victor.

While The Book of Lost Hours is a chilling look into how governing bodies (presidents, say) go about changing and challenging the agreed upon version of events, it is at it’s core a hauntingly beautiful love story that spans not just years and countries, but memories and timelines as well. Lisavet meets Ernest Duquesne in the Time Space and while they court each other in the memories of others, Lisavet begins to change Ernest’s mind about burning and changing the memories of those he’s sent into the Time Space to discard. **Spoilers Ahead** And though Lisavet, as a form of self preservation, must eventually erase all memory of herself and their love from Ernest’s mind, the seed she planted in his mind takes root. By the year 1965, there’s a full-blown revolution occurring within the CIA, even spanning across the globe; soldier’s preserving memories they’d been sent to destroy, thwarting the notion that memories and history must be warped to fit a specific turn of events. Through sheer bad luck and, perhaps, inevitability, Lisavet finds herself captured and under the control of the director of the CIA, Jack, a man who sees her merely as an asset and something to be used to further bolster the American agenda within a growing Cold War. It is outside the Time Space that Lisavet and Ernest meet once again, and again find themselves falling in love – though one of them remembers the past while the other doesn’t.

Jumping between the perspective of Lisavet and Amelia, Ernest’s niece, we piece Lisavet’s story together, from her time within the Time Space to her time spent in the real, concrete world. With several twists and turns that, while easy to spot, don’t detract from the storyline, we navigate a growing divide in the external world and a literal growing chasm in the Time Space, torn apart by Amelia’s mere presence in the world. With just a hint of string theory and quantum physics, The Book of Lost Hours presents a framework whereby we might imagine memories as a collectively agreed upon idea rather than a set in stone foundation of events that well and truly happened. It’s a lot to chew on and offers a unique perspective into the idea of time, memories, and consciousness – all while addressing the very real implications of disinformation. With parallels to our own world, it’s hard to miss the roadsigns. If we aren’t careful, we’ll wrap ourselves up so tightly in a web of lies we’ll never be able to find our way back to the truth again – if we haven’t already.

Advice : This book comes out tomorrow (8/12)!! I think you should grab it. If you enjoy Outlander, time travel of any kind, libraries, and a little bit of science fiction, I think you’ll really love this one. If you’re not interested in a love story, or don’t like books, well, this is probably not for you and what are you even doing on my blog in the first place?

From a Studio in Oakland California Review

Book: From a Studio in Oakland California : 180 Notes on Existence
Author: Enia Oaks
Publisher: Self Published
Year: 2025
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Synopsis : “This collection of poems and essays is for those who sit at the crossroads of past and future, wondering which way to turn. Those who have bravely restarted and are building new homes from within themselves. Those who believe in the grand experience of life and living it fully, even when it asks everything of them. Those hurting, healing, or transforming. For the ones who are seeking meaning or a deep exploration of the layers of existence.”

Review : Enia Oak’s debut book, From a Studio in Oakland California : 108 Notes on Existence is not to be read quickly, blown through, or breezed by; it’s made to be savored, slowly devoured, and meditated upon. It does not surprise me one bit to find this book of 108 missives to be a meditation – it’s spiritual in nature. Written in short blurbs, poems, and ideas, FASIOC is filled with logical life advice, imparted wisdom, and personal exploration. It is quite literally packed to the cover with information on how and why and when to grow, on the choices we make as humans, the way we stretch out for someone else to witness our lives, and how we might best look inward to see and gently tend our inner child as fully formed adults.

While Oaks’ synopsis / letter to the reader calls this book a “collection of poems and essays”, I would more likely call this an open letter to someone who’s going through therapy and doing the work to heal. Based on Oaks’ description, I was initially confused by the layout and conversive tone her poems and essays take. They don’t necessarily read as poems, certainly not so when you take the totality of the book under review, but they do read as essays directed toward the reader. Like I said, it reads like an open letter, not like a collection of poems. It really comes down to the naming of the thing, for me – if they weren’t named as poems, I wouldn’t take issue or feel surprised as a reader, but because I was expecting poetry, I found myself a bit taken aback and disconnected as I got into the meat of the book. I do feel that Oaks might have benefitted from a more formal editor / publisher rather than going the self-published route, it’s truly worth mentioning that I have dog eared this book from start to finish. While there are aspects that I feel read in a discordant way, small mistakes, and grammatical errors I wish weren’t included, Oaks has a distinctive point of view that has a place in this world. This book feels important for so many people.

I found Oaks’ work to be most successful in her most experimental forms, where we might call the style a poem (but again, I struggle to view most of these works as poetry), or where the style seems completely unique to the inner workings of Oaks’ mind. Most of the book is written in a direct way to “you”, perhaps at times the reader, perhaps at times the writer, perhaps at times our collective inner child. It’s less a work of interpretation for the reader, and more directions on how to live your life as told by a therapist – of whom Oaks is not, which is worth saying. I found so many pieces of this book aligning with my own lived experience, and while this did not feel profound, it did feel familiar. There were many reasons Oaks’ collection garnered 3.5 stars, but I want to remind you, reader, that that’s more than 50% and I did genuinely enjoy reading this one.

Advice : This book is already available to buy! If you’ve spent time in therapy I suspect you will enjoy this book. If you like a collection of small works that are quick and easy to read at your own pace with no deadline or need to speed your way through, I think you’ll enjoy this.

Five Found Dead Review

Book: Five Found Dead
Author: Sulari Gentill
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Year: 2025
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Synopsis : “Crime fiction author Joe Penvale has won the most brutal battle of his life. Now that he has finished his intense medical treatment, he and his twin sister, Meredith, are boarding the glorious Orient Express in Paris, hoping for some much-needed rest and rejuvenation. Meredith also hopes that the literary ghosts on the train will nudge Joe’s muse awake and he’ll be inspired to write again. And he is; after their first eventing spent getting to know some of their fellow travelers, Joe pulls out his laptop and opens a new document. Seems like this trip is just what the doctor ordered…
And then some. The next morning, Joe and Meredith are shocked to witness that the cabin net door has become a crime scene, bathed in blood but with no body in sight. The pari soon find themselves caught up in an Agathy Cirstie-esque murder investigation. Without any help from the authorities and with the victim still not found, Joe and Meredith are asked to join a group of fellow passengers with law enforcement backgrounds to look into the mysterious disappearance of the man in Cabin 16G. But when the steward guarding the crime scene is murdered, it marks the beginning of a killing spree that leaves five found dead – and one still missing. Now Joe and Meredith must fight once again to preserve their newfound future and to catch a cunning killer before they reach the end of the line.”

Review : It takes a certain level of gumption to write a new take on a famously done murder mystery, possibly none as more culturally known as Murder on the Orient Express, and while I enjoyed much of Five Found Dead, it simply did not live up to Agatha Christie’s famous work. Gentill, to her credit, does much work to lay a foundation wherein her novel would not simply be a retelling, but a fairly meta mystery involving an author, a couple podcasters, and a whole host of law enforcement attempting to sold a crime all while existing within a world in which Murder on the Orient Express might cloud ones perspective of such an incident. It is from this perspective that the entirety of the book ultimately begins to unravel – there are far too many characters, at least a few of whom we rarely interact with; far too much extraneous story-telling happening, some of which does seem to be an attempt at red herring; and far too many details to make this a succinct murder mystery, or really anything that might ever stand up to Christie’s work. And while I think it might be a bit unfair to compare Five Found Dead with Murder on the Orient Express, it’s also exactly what one asks to be done when writing a book about a murder (nay, murders) upon the very Orient Express Christie herself wrote about.

Joe Penvale, a famous murder mystery writer, has undergone an intense period of cancer treatment and upon finding himself in remission, has taken himself and his sister on the trip of a lifetime : a train ride on the famous Orient Express. Gentill managed to set a perfectly cozy scene aboard the train, and after reading her acknowledgments I can clearly understand why, for she herself endured medical treatments and a ride upon the Orient Express. Her understanding of what sets a cozy scene does feel perfectly in line with what I’d like in a murder mystery, even what I’d like within a locked door mystery, but beyond this scene setting, I found the gross majority of the book to be a conundrum. To begin, while Joe and Meredith are twin siblings with a shared family trauma, I found their relationship to be odd and uncomfortable at times. I’m not sure if they were mirrored after a family relationship Gentill has or if they were simply conjured out of thin air, but I did not find believability within their world in the least. If we can look past the strangeness of their written relationship, we find ourselves enmeshed within a world where Covid still has a grip – I was unable to determine during what time frame this story was set and we are given no clues beyond the fact that Covid is still creating new variants. Is there a new variant ravaging the world? Perhaps this was set a few years ago? Or even 2020? It’s unclear and the answer is never given. ***Any further reading will reveal SPOILERS AHEAD*** There is an entire subplot in which we find several passengers have tested positive for a new and deadly variant, a small detour I believe Christie would have used in her own writing, but nonetheless, without more details I found it to be added confusion in a story that is already more confusing than I necessarily agree with.

Upon awakening after their first night aboard the train, Joe and Meredith find that the man in the cabin next to theirs has been murdered or has at least gone missing. What follows is a strange and chaotic 24-48 hours whereby multiple passengers test positive for Covid, five people are murdered, and at we discover that at least seven of the passengers aboard are members of varying international police forces. We encounter so many needless characters that it quickly begins to feel superfluous and needlessly confusing – I suspect in part at least to mimic Christie’s work, but it simply doesn’t play out in a way that lends any ease to the reader. There are so many side trails and intentional red herrings that by the time we do finally unmask our criminal(s) it feels strange, tangled, and frustrating (which, to my mind, is the exact opposite of what you want from a murder mystery reveal). I will say, I was able to determine fairly easily who the man in the cabin next to the Penvale’s actually was, though this does not mean I was able to determine who the killer was. I warned you, here be spoilers. While I won’t reveal the exact nature of the crimes and perpetrators, I will tell you that in the end, it was anticlimactic and disappointing to find the truth. Not to mention, the final chapter reveals an entire podcast episode whereby Gentill undoes much of the convoluted work she’d laid out for us, creating further confusion and disappointment in the ending. I did not find myself pleased with the end result.

Gentill has managed to create a cozy atmosphere aboard the Orient Express, allowing the reader to feel, truly, as if they were on board themselves. Beyond that, however, I found the work to be needlessly convoluted and had to return to past pages to reread sections that didn’t make much sense. It wasn’t exactly what I was hoping for. The ending left much to be desired, the second ending even more so, and with a cast of characters limited to those aboard a train, I suspect many readers will be able to sniff out at least one of our criminal elements prior to the “big reveal”. To her credit, Gentill, unlike Christie, has given the reader enough breadcrumbs to figure things out on their own (for the most part) and, even if I didn’t agree with how it all turned out, I do enjoy that aspect of things. All in all, it was fine, I felt cozy, but it wasn’t deeply satisfying or even tremendously challenging. Take that how you will.

Advice : You may find this to be a worthwhile and perhaps even enjoyable read if you love the genre and consume anything you can within it. However, I suspect you will be comparing it to Christie’s works along the way and in that respect, you may not enjoy it at all. It’s 50/50 – maybe check it out from the library before committing to buying. Happy sleuthing!

Speedy Reviews

To be honest, I fully intended to give each of these books their own individual reviews, but time got away from me and here we are! Let’s dive in :

Book: A Fate So Cold
Author: Amanda Foody & C. L. Herman
Publisher: Tor Teen
Year: 2025
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Synopsis : “For most of the year, Summer reigns peacefully over Alderland. Then, for six brutal weeks, Winter rages, obliterating towns and wreaking casualties. Magicians bond with powerful wands of Summer to defend the nation, a duty that costs many their lives.
Domenic Barrow never wanted such responsibility – but destiny hasn’t granted him a choice. The greatest Summer wand has awakened for the first time in a century, warning that any icy cataclysm looms on the horizon. And despite his reputation as the last suited of his classmates, the and chooses Domenic to wield it.
Ellery Caldwell spent years striving to be a perfect Summer magician – and burying her fears of her own power. But her worst suspicions are proven true when she accidentally creates the first ever Winter wand.
Now, as the unprecedented Chosen Two, Domenic and Ellery must thwart the oncoming cataclysm together. And in trying to fulfill their destinies, they wonder if they were brought together for a second fate : to fall in love.
Until they discover the unthinkable truth. The Chosen Two aren’t fated allies, but eternal rivals, and the only way to save their home is for one of them to slay the other.”

Review : A Fate So Cold is a quick and enjoyable page-turning ‘chosen one’ fantasy that left me wishing book two would come out already! Told between bouncing perspectives, it guides the reader through the winding world of Summer and Winter – and teases the idea that a peaceful world where Summer reigns for 90% of the year might not actually be the ideal. When our protagonist and budding antagonist are chosen by their wands, we fall headfirst into a sweet and idealistic closed-door romance that feels like just enough personal story in the midst of heart racing suspense. This is certainly no cozy fantasy story, so if a sweaty palm fantasy isn’t for you, you might want to skip this one. I found the story to be unique and enjoyable, though I did find small reminders and little hints toward outside inspiration like the Magicians trilogy, the obvious “Winter is coming” of it all as we might have read (or watched) in Game of Thrones, and the wand ceremony from Harry Potter. And while there were small reminders and hints to outside works, none of them felt like direct replicas or served to remove me from the story. All told, this was a fast paced and fun fantasy read with just enough suspense and just enough of a cliffhanger at the end to leave me ready for the next book.

Book: Welcome to Murder Week
Author: Karne Dukess
Publisher: Scout Press
Year: 2025
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Synopsis : “When thirty-four-year-old Cath loses her mostly absentee mother, she is ambivalent. With days of quiet, unassuming routine in Buffalo, New York, Cath consciously avoids the impulsive, thrill-seeking lifestyle that her mother once led. But when she’s forced to go through her mother’s things one afternoon, Cath is perplexed to find tickets for an upcoming “murder week” in England’s Peak District: a whole town has come together to stage a fake murder mystery to attract tourism to their quaint hamlet. Baffled but helplessly intrigued by her mother’s secret purchase, Cath decides to go on the trip herself—and begins a journey she never could have anticipated.
Teaming up with her two cottage-mates, both ardent mystery lovers—Wyatt Green, forty, who works unhappily in his husband’s birding store, and Amity Clark, fifty, a divorced romance writer struggling with her novels—Cath sets about solving the “crime” and begins to unravel shocking truths about her mother along the way. Amidst a fling—or something more—with the handsome local maker of artisanal gin, Cath and her irresistibly charming fellow sleuths will find this week of fake murder may help them face up to a very real crossroads in their own lives.
Witty, wise, and deliciously escapist, Welcome to Murder Week is a fresh, inventive twist on the murder mystery and a touching portrayal of one daughter’s reckoning with her grief, her past—and her own budding sense of adventure.”

Review : I absolutely adored Welcome to Murder Week! I had no idea a book about a fictional murder mystery game would be exactly what I needed in my life, but it turns out it was. I did refrain from a 5 star review, though, due to the slow start. I found myself moving at a snail’s pace as the book began, but once things got rolling, boy did they. Sweet, wholesome, and a wonderful good time, Welcome to Murder Week is perfect for anyone who grew up watching Poirot movies, reading Agatha Christie, enjoying Murder She Wrote, or lives for a cozy mystery in book, tv, or movie form. As three strangers work together to solve a fictional murder mystery in a quaint English town, they find themselves growing together as close friends. What began as a quirky tourist trip, though, quickly becomes a deeper and more meaningful adventure for our protagonist, Cath, that we could even have expected. In moments of tenderness, we find Cath retracing steps that seem strangely familiar, despite having never visited the English countryside; we witness the healing of generational trauma, and we experience the joy of watching her story completely turn on its head and unfold in the most beautiful way. This book will make you laugh out loud while simultaneously making you cry. It’s everything I didn’t know I needed and more. Absolutely well done.

The Enchanted Greenhouse Review

Book: The Enchanted Greenhouse
Author: Sarah Beth Durst
Publisher: Bramble
Year: 2025
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Synopsis : “Terlu Perna was lonely, so she broke the law. She cast a spell and created a magically sentient spider plant. As punishment, she was turned into a wooden statue and tucked away in an alcove in the North Reading Room of the Great Library of Alyssum. And that was the end of her story. Until…
Terry wakes in the cold of winter on a nearly deserted island full of hundreds of magical greenhouses. She’s starving and freezing and the only other human on the island is a grumpy gardener. To her surprise, he offers Terlu a place to sleep, clean clothes, and freshly baked honey cakes – at least until she’s ready to sail home.
But Terlu can’t return home and doesn’t want to – the greenhouses are a dream come true, each more wondrous than the next. When she learns that the magic that sustains them is failing – causing the death of everything within them – Terlu knows she must help. Even if that means breaking the law again.
This time, though, she isn’t alone. Assisted by a gardener and a sentient rose, Trull must unravel the secrets of a long-dead sorcerer if she wants to save the island – and have a fresh chance at happiness and love.”

Review : I’ll be the first to admit that the concept of anything talking that wouldn’t normally talk is one of my least favorite fantasy tropes – I find talking animals to be disconnected from my expectations and there’s rarely a time when I feel differently. So the concept of a book in which most of the characters are talking plants was immediately something I entered into with trepidation. I love a fun new world of fantasy novels, but for some reason, I just cannot generally get on board with talking creatures. I’m happy to report, however, that The Enchanted Greenhouse is the exception. Durst has successfully created a fantasy world with this novel that needs very little extra work – the entirety of the novel takes place in a massive series of enchanted and magical greenhouses, on an island with just one other inhabitant beyond our protagonist (Terlu Perna, purple skin, purple eyes…human). The plants we encounter in the greenhouses, while some seem to be otherworldly, largely reflect what we might find in our own world, and while there is a flying cat and several magical creatures spelled to do some work in the greenhouses, there’s little beyond the inherent magical quality of the book that wouldn’t be found in our own world.

I realized about a chapter into The Enchanted Greenhouse that this is in fact a sequel to a previous book that I haven’t read, but the mark of a great book is that it can stand alone without much explanation needed, and Durst certainly achieved that feat. Had I not read the letter from the author, I would never have known this wasn’t a stand alone novel, the recap at the beginning of the book felt less like a recap and more like the necessary introduction to Terlu Perna and the magical world she resides within. And though the world she lives in is magical, it’s also filled with rules about who can and can’t do magic – for good reason, as magic can be dangerous – only trained sorcerers are allowed to even attempt to perform spells. However, Terlu casts a spell to create sentience in a plant friend of hers, and in doing so finds herself made an example of and is turned to wood. During her years as a statue, though, the Empire falls and the rules of what magic is and isn’t allowed are changed. To save Terlu from the fires of the resistance, Terlu’s old boss ships the statue formerly known as the living Terlu (along with the spell to awaken her from her statue slumber) to a remote island of greenhouses run by a lone gardener named Yarrow. Having sent letters to the government begging for help with his magically failing greenhouses, Yarrow believes Terlu is a sorcerer sent to help him. When Terlu awakens and Yarrow realizes she’s just a girl who cast a spell one time, he becomes sullen and grouchy. But the greenhouses continue to fail, and Terlu is determined to help.

I’ve read several books over the last few years that have billed themselves as being similar to Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree, and while some have come close to the cozy fantasy he’s crafted in his series, none have really been what I would compare to his works. While The Enchanted Greenhouse wasn’t labeled as such, had it been, it would have been the first book I’ve read since Legends and Lattes that made me feel the same way Baldree did. Durst has created a cozy, low-stakes fantasy with the most wonderful cast of characters. It did have a slow start, hence the 4.5 stars, but once I got into it, things really picked up in a sweet, cozy, romantic sort of way. And it’s worth saying that even though this book was published by Bramble, it is definitively not a romance novel – it’s a love story. And who would have though I’d have spent an entire novel crying my eyes out over a lovable rag-tag crew of talking plants? Not me, that’s for sure. But cry I did. Durst has created something truly magical with this work, weaving the concept of empathy into her tale in such a way that I can’t imagine anyone who read this book could walk away unchanged. Not only is it a beautiful tale of found family, it’s also a deeply political tale as well, and perfectly timed, at that. I won’t spoil it for you, but know that it doesn’t read as political, it’s just that you cannot come away from this book on the side of the oppressor. You simply can’t.

Advice : If you enjoy quiet, cozy, low-stakes fantasy novels with flying cats and miniature dragons and honey cakes…well, do I have news for you. Add this one to your list, pre-order it now before it’s release in June. Trust me.

Don’t Let Him In Review

Book: Don’t Let Him In
Author: Lisa Jewell
Publisher: Atria Books
Year: 2025
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Review : “He’s the perfect man. He says he loves you. You think he might even be made for you. Before long he’s moved into your heart – and into your house. And then he leaves for days at a time. You don’t know where he’s gone or who he’s with. And you realize – if you looked back – you’d say to yourself : Don’t let him in.”

Review : Don’t Let Him In is, in some ways, the quintessential scam story – a man gives just enough details to be believed, but not enough to encourage questions and in doing so he scams women out of their life’s savings, their home, and their dignity. In other ways, Don’t Let Him In suffers from an image crisis, namely, it doesn’t seem to know what it is – or rather, it wants to be too many things. Jewell does an excellent job painting picture for the reader, jumping back and forth between the present and the past, changing point of view from the victim(s) to a man with many names, guiding us from victim to victim, broadening the scope as she simultaneously narrows the field of vision. It’s an enjoyable suspense thriller with multiple female characters, deviating from the excruciating norm of the unreliable female narrator that so many suspense/thriller writers seem to clutch to with all their might. Jewell, instead, weaves a winding narrative of a man who manipulates, targets, and attacks with precision and ease. By the time it’s all said and done, it doesn’t come down to one (or several) unreliable women, rather, they’re logical, grounded, down to earth women who are worn down over a period of years until they don’t even know themselves anymore.

Where I struggle with Don’t Let Him In, is that this story is far from unique. And while that’s a sad portrait of our modern times, it’s more than that. Jewell seemed to have trouble reigning in her plot, it became muddied and she let slip a few holes because of it. ** Spoilers Ahead ** Jewell wanted us to buy that her scam artist main character was manipulating women, conning his way into their lives, and stealing their money on a slow but steady basis – yes, that I can buy. Consider it sold! But wait, that’s not all – next we have to buy that our main character is also a street stalker, potentially even someone who derives in-the-moment sexual gratification from his street stalking, that this gratification may be his sole sexual drive; okay, I guess I can believe both aspects of this guy’s personality, but again, that’s not all. Now we need to believe he’s also insanely jealous, prone to fits of vengeance and extravagent plotting; next, he’s a murderer; next, he’s faked his own death; next, he’s got a god-complex and delusions of grandeur; he’s an escort; he’s running business scams as a life coach; wait, now he’s also a master of escape. No. It’s too much. Don’t Let Him In suffers from a lack of editing, the plot is a disaster, and the story struggles to keep itself afloat beneath the weight of so many incredible personality characteristics. Pick two from the above list and go hard, do them well, I’ll buy that. This? I’m not buying what you’re selling.

As someone who partakes in pop culture, it wasn’t a struggle to see what podcasts and tv shows Jewell might have consumed prior to writing this book – Dirty John (a true crime podcast by Christopher Goffard) and You (a Netflix adaptation of a book series by the same name) come immediately to mind, I’m sure with just a few additional minutes of thought you or I could come up with more than a handful of others. It’s a storyline in the mainstream, it’s not new or unique and Don’t Let Him In doesn’t offer an inventive perspective beyond trying to encompass every perspective. I didn’t find this book to be very interesting or compelling, but I will say the ending was exactly what you’d hope it would be, without giving anything away. It’s satisfying and thank god for that, because if you’ve plowed through this nearly 500 page book, you deserve an ending that makes you happy it’s over. I didn’t find myself thinking about this book when I wasn’t reading it, or chewing on it after it was over, I simply read it. That’s all. The twists are easily spotted, the plot holes are glaring, and the plot itself is a messy, muddled fiasco.

Advice : If you’re looking for a book that showcases every possible scam available in one character – woo! This is it! If you’re looking for some substance, something that doesn’t read like every podcast you’ve listened to in the last 10 years or every tv show you’ve watched on your fav streaming platform, this is not it. Keep looking. And listen, suspense / thrillers only get better if we, the reader, demand more.

Hunger Like a Thirst Review

Book: Hunger Like a Thirst
Author: Besha Rodell
Publisher: Celadon Books
Year: 2025
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Synopsis : “When Besha Rodell moved from Australia to the United States with her mother at fourteen, she was a foreigner in a new land, missing her friends, her father, and the food she grew up eating. In the years that followed, Rodell began waitressing and discovered the buzz of the restaurant world, immersing herself in the lifestyle and community while struggling with the industry’s shortcomings. As she built a family, Rodell realized her dream, though only a handful of women before her had done it : to make a career as a restaurant critic.
From the streets of Brooklyn to lush Atlanta to sunny Los Angeles to traveling and eating around the world and, finally, home to Australia, Rodell takes us on a delicious, raw, and fascinating journey through her life and career and explores the history of criticism and dining and the cultural shifts that have turned us all into food obsessives. Hunger Like a Thirst shares the joys and hardships of coming of age, the amazing (and sometimes terrible) meals she ate along the way, and the dear friends she made in each restaurant, workplace, and home.”

Review : I don’t receive nonfiction advanced copies with any kind of regularity, but when I do, they’re almost always a revelation. Hunger Like a Thirst is no exception. Written by one of the world’s last anonymous food critics, Besha Rodell, Hunger, as poignant as it is comforting, is laid out as courses on our table, each more decadent, more revealing, than the last. Like a blooming onion (yes she has reviewed Outback Steakhouse), Rodell gently peels back the layers of the decadent food world, the culture that simultaneously shaped our tastes and was shaped by our foodie interests, exploring the ways in which food is inherently political, all the while laying herself bare before us, her own heart on our plate. Delicious, rich, funny and equally heartbreaking, overwhelming, and steeped in grief that is not just Rodell’s but my own, Hunger is an absolute must-read.

From living on food stamps to traveling internationally for Food & Wine, Rodell guides us through the often unbalanced and winding journey of a restaurant critic, describing the sheer financial cost of dining out multiple nights per week, often at her own expense, traveling to find the best, the newest, the most creative gem, often alone. She explains the dichotomy of loneliness she feels as she travels the world and the claustrophobia she feels at being back home, the seemingly impossible go-go-go of jet setting from place to place, while being just a few miles shy of landmarks she promised her father she’d see in her lifetime, while not afforded the time or leisure to visit while traveling for work. Hunger is far more than a memoir of good (and sometimes bad) food. Rodell shares her life, her travels outside of work, and the friendships she’s made both in the restaurant industry and in her career as one of only a dozen or so restaurant critics in the country.

Each chapter reads like an in depth exploration of not only the history of food culture and specific food phenomena, but as a dive into the world of a woman working in a predominantly male driven industry. Rodell tackles bigger global issues with ease, often discussing racial disparities, misogyny, and the way in which the world of food has expanded, sometimes at a snail’s pace, to meet a broadening world. She explains the history of women in the service industry through deep dives into the nation’s first chain restaurants and talks about what it’s like to be a woman who continues to work in this industry where women are expected to largely be one thing : gentle. From a background in Alt Weekly publications, Rodell writes in a way that feels comfortable and familiar, like you’re listening to your favorite person rant about their special interest. She’s approachable and funny and foul-mouthed in exactly the way you’d hope, telling slightly horrifying tales from her teenage years as a recent transplant in the US from Australia, talking about the culture that seeps over from punk music into the back of house of a food service gig, all the while remaining real and human and, though not, somehow tangible.

I don’t think any book of this sort could be written without addressing some of the harder aspects of industry work, like drug abuse and suicide. Rodell navigates each with grace and grief, speaking about people she and her husband have both worked with and lost, her husband’s own substance struggles, and drawing parallels in her own internal world to the monumental loss of Anthony Bourdain. Rodell brings the truth and the grit and the heartache of the restaurant world to the reader in a way that feels tender and gentle, written with care and heart. Everything she addresses is important in it’s own way, but this aspect perhaps most of all.

As someone who has never worked in the food service industry but, like so many others, loves watching Top Chef, I found Hunger to be exciting and enjoyable on yet another level. Reading about the foundational restaurants and seminal chefs throughout the decades Rodell shares of her life, it was so fun to hear new stories of people I’ve become familiar with through my favorite cooking show and to learn some of the history involved. Rodell speaks of living in New York during 2001, of feeding diners mere days after the twin towers were hit, and of the chefs who fed first responders. She talks about incredible chefs and restaurants in Atlanta and Los Angeles, and shares her hometown in Melbourne, Australia with us. She shares her husband’s realized dream of opening his own restaurant, an endeavor set to open in 2020, and the indescribable, and perhaps insurmountable, grief that came with that timing. She brings us into her world and shares it in such a way that by the time you’re done reading, Besha Rodell feels like an old friend. Every aspect of this book, from start to finish, is perfection. It’s comfort food.

Advice : If you’re into fine dining or finding holes in the wall or eating where the locals eat or the ins and outs of what it’s like to eat at the best spots in LA, if you love watching Top Chef or Chopped or reading up on the newest spot in town, if you’ve ever wondered what it might be like to be an anonymous food reviewer and restaurant critic, this is an absolute must read. I have a hard time saying there’s any reason not to read it, unless for some reason you hate food and don’t enjoy memoirs. Pick it up, it’s released on May 13th. It’s truly excellent.