BIOGRAPHY

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CLASSIC

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COOKING

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CRAFT

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GENERAL FICTION

Love letters to a serial killer by Tasha Coryell

Poet Coryell’s impressive mystery debut chronicles a young woman’s budding obsession with an accused killer. After Hannah’s quest for a promotion at her Minneapolis nonprofit job stalls and her boyfriend ghosts her, she finds solace and kinship in an online true crime forum focused on identifying the culprit who murdered four women near Atlanta. When handsome young lawyer William Thompson is arrested and charged with the crimes, Hannah begins writing angry letters to him while he awaits trial behind bars. When William unexpectedly responds, their communication turns flirtatious. Before long, Hannah agrees to be his girlfriend, and becomes so consumed by their exchanges that she’s fired from her job. She decides to go to Atlanta to watch William’s trial, bonding with fellow “serial killer groupies” in the process. When another body is found during the trial in the same ravine where the other women were discovered, William is swiftly acquitted, and Hannah moves in with him, gradually growing accustomed to his moneyed lifestyle. All the while, however, she’s nagged by doubts about her new beau’s acquittal, and begins looking for incriminating clues. Coryell expertly renders her protagonist’s uneasy perch between love and suspicion, keeping readers as in the dark as Hannah is about William’s true nature until the very end. This is un-put-downable. Publisher’s Weekly, March 2024

Return to sender by Lauren Draper

An Australian teen returns home to an unexpected welcome—and a still-perplexing mystery she thought she’d left behind. Brodie arrives back at her loving grandmother’s character-filled house—which is also the town of Warwick’s dead letter office—after being expelled from her cold, unwelcoming boarding school. Because her reputation for mischief led townspeople to believe she’d stolen the Adder Stone, a powerful, magical artifact famous in town lore, just before she was sent away, Brodie expects a chilly reception from everyone, including her friend Levi, whose parents are Warwick’s mayor and a police detective. Naturally, Nan is delighted to see her, and Brodie quickly falls back in with close friend Elliot. The resulting mystery involves the Adder Stone, old dead letters she’s long puzzled over, and the secrets of many of Warwick’s adults. The story unfolds slowly, allowing space for Levi and Brodie’s relationship to sweetly bloom, with pranks and sarcastic banter thrown into the mix. While the reveal of the letter mystery may not come entirely as a surprise to readers, they’ll find the time with the funny and vulnerable characters who populate this quirky town to be well spent. The central characters present white. Thoughtfully weaves a mystery into a poignant tale about a young woman finding home. Kirkus Reviews, May 2024

The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife by Anna Johnston

Johnston debuts with a sweet story of mistaken identity and second chances. The narrative begins with a failed rescue attempt, as impoverished widower Fred Fife tries to help a nonresponsive man, who turns out to be nursing home resident Bernard Greer, away from a river’s edge. After Bernard falls into the river and is carried out of sight, a harried nursing home employee ushers Fred, who looks just like Bernard, back to the home. Because Bernard exhibited signs of dementia, nobody believes Fred’s insistence that he doesn’t belong there, and when Bernard’s body is discovered with Fred’s wallet, which fell into the river during the botched rescue attempt, he’s identified by the police as Fred. After Fred’s initial resistance, he settles into the relative comfort of the home, befriending fellow resident Albert, who, in his dementia, believes Fred is his brother. When Bernard’s estranged daughter, Hannah, appears at the nursing home, Fred, who always longed for children and deeply misses his late wife, decides to lean into his lie to offer Hannah a happy and supportive version of the man who abandoned her. Johnston places the painful realities of grief and aging alongside Fred’s puckish antics and lands a convincingly hopeful ending. The result is a triumphant last act story. Publisher’s Weekly, July 2024

The Honeyeater by Jessie Tu

Jessie Tu’s debut, A Lonely Girl is a Dangerous Thing, was a runaway success during the difficult year for debut books that was 2020. It was shortlisted that year for the Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction, and right from the opening pages of The Honeyeater it’s easy to remember why. Tu’s writing skills are on full display in this ambitious work. Tu sets her readers on course to tackle some big issues alongside her, focussing on the power structures that affect the book’s characters professionally and personally: racism, sexism, family, ego and more. Tu takes us into the world of our narrator Fay, a young translator whose life revolves around her single mother, who she lives with, her work at the university in the translation department under her seemingly charming mentor and the married man she has recently ended an affair with. A novel in three parts, the bulk of the first part is set in France, where Fay has brought her mother on a birthday trip, ‘as a romantic offering’. It is a ‘mid-range tour’ as she cannot afford more on her meagre salary, but fortunately her mother is not precious. As Fay takes in the sights of France and works diligently on her first solo translation of a book, the reader, through small observations, soon discovers all is not as it seems. Towards the end of the trip, Fay learns some terrible news that is set to upend her life. She does not know what she is returning to in Australia, but it feels like she is entering hostile territory. Even as her dreams seemingly play out, including a spot at the coveted conference in Taipei, it becomes apparent that she and her mentor are most likely in an intense game of chess. With each confrontation, revelation and tactical move, the reader is reminded that power is always at play, and it favours a certain kind of person. Readings, June 2024

Tiananmen square by Lai Wen

The pseudonymous Wen debuts with a piercing coming-of-age novel based on her experiences growing up in China and her involvement in the 1989 student demonstrations against the government. Born in 1970, Lai struggles for acceptance from her parents, who wished for a son. Her father, a cartographer, remains scarred by the “fear and uncertainty” of life under Maoism, while her mother refuses to acknowledge that the leaders of the Cultural Revolution were anything but fair. During high school, an elderly bookseller allows Lai to borrow titles by freethinking writers like Camus, Orwell, and Sartre, and she receives a scholarship to attend Peking University. There, Lai comes into her own, linking up with a subversive theater troupe that will end up playing a key role in the Tiananmen Square standoff. Wen generates suspense and pathos in the buildup to the demonstration, even though its tragic outcome is well-known, and she offers keen psychological insights into how Lei’s fraught relationship with her parents spurred her to seek her own path. Wen brings the past to life in this deeply personal narrative. Publisher’s Weekly, April 2024

Sylvia’s second act by Hillary Yablon

Yablon’s delightful debut features a spunky retiree who overhauls her life after she discovers her husband in flagrante. Sixty-three-year-old Connecticut transplant Sylvia Fisher is leading an unfulfilled retirement in a Florida development for fellow retirees when she walks in on her husband, Louis, having sex with a neighbor. To make matters worse, Louis has lost all of their money in a questionable investment scheme. Sylvia first decamps to her uptight daughter Isabel’s home in Connecticut, and later convinces her best friend from the development, glamorous widow Evie, to join her in reinventing their lives in New York City. Soon, Sylvia has a job as a wedding planner and falls for the divorced father of one of the brides. Will this new man prove to be every bit as much a cad as the one she left behind? Comic relief is aptly provided by Isabel’s amorous mother-in-law, and by a Bergdorf Goodman personal shopper who shows Sylvia and Evie they can be sexy at any age. It’s impossible not to cheer for the strong heroine at the center of Yablon’s savvy story. Publisher’s Weekly, January 2024

Butter by Asako Yuzuki

Rika Machida, an ambitious young reporter for a Japanese weekly, becomes obsessed with the suspected killer known as “Kajimana,” who extorted money from a string of lonely middle-aged men lured by her cooking. Three of the men died in suspicious accidents, one of a drug overdose, another under a train, and another in a bathtub. Determined to score an interview with the assumed murderer, who is in a detention center awaiting a second trial, Rika overcomes the woman’s refusals by expressing great interest in food. To further gain her trust, Rika carries out the extreme assignments concocted by Kajimana, including having sex (with her droopy older boyfriend, as it turns out) before rushing out to consume butter ramen noodles at a particular restaurant. The ecstasy Rika experiences from the butter rush leads her to reject the usual dietary restrictions—and gain weight. That worries her, but the proudly corpulent Kajimana, an anti-feminist who flaunts her flesh in rejecting male conceptions of beauty and sexuality, mocks her concerns. The better Rika knows her (or thinks she does), the more she questions her new mentor’s part in the men’s deaths. Ultimately, the questions she doesn’t ask come back to bite her. Loosely based on a true story, Yuzuki’s debut novel, a bestseller in Japan, is a slow cooker at 464 pages—one with an appetite for indicting male-dominated society. But the book’s persistence, like that of its protagonist, proves to be one of its winning qualities. While not as seductive as the mouthwatering dishes Yuzuki describes, the liveliness of the writing, full of wry twists, breaks down any resistance. Eating gets sexy in this offbeat confidence tale. Kirkus Reviews, April 2024

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HISTORICAL FICTION

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MYSTERY

Don’t let the Devil ride by Ace Atkins

International intrigue and classic P.I. sleuthing combine in this deliciously complex thriller from bestseller Atkins (the Quinn Colson series). Addison McKellar has grown used to her husband Dean’s frequent work-related absences, but after several days pass without a word from him, she worries something bad has happened. Though Dean’s friends and associates at his Memphis construction firm assure Addison she’s overreacting, she follows her father’s advice and hires private investigator Porter Hayes. It doesn’t take long for the former cop and Vietnam vet to discover that Dean is not the man he claims to be, kick-starting a globe-trotting adventure involving a B-movie actress, Russian mobsters, and a suave French criminal, each of whom are after a mysterious cache of holy relics in transit from Turkey to Memphis. Atkins has loads of fun marrying his hardboiled sensibility to the gonzo espionage plot, and relies on his strengths as a storyteller to keep the whole thing from running off the rails. This should win Atkins oodles of new fans. Publisher’s Weekly, March 2024

The proof of the pudding by Rhys Bowen

Lady Georgiana Rannoch has yet another murder to solve. This time she gets some help from Agatha Christie. Georgie, cousin to King Edward VIII, and her husband, Darcy O’Mara, who does something secret for the Crown, are expecting their first child shortly. Despite their aristocratic connections, they’re not wealthy. Living at Eynsleigh, the Elizabethan house of Georgie’s godfather, they await the arrival of a French chef while surviving on the stodgy food cooked by Georgie’s former maid Queenie, a walking disaster. The long-awaited chef, Pierre, is handsome, and Queenie agrees to act as his assistant. Despite some misunderstandings over language and other matters, their first dinner party is such a smashing success that mystery author Sir Mordred Mortimer asks Georgie to let Pierre cook for a dinner to raise money for South African orphans. Mortimer seems a bit of a poseur, but his house and gardens, especially the poison garden, are a subject of considerable interest. The guests at his well-attended soiree include his children, along with some neighbors, some social climbers, an old school friend, and Laurence Olivier and Agatha Christie. The food is marvelous, and somehow all goes well even though Queenie and a dim maid serve as the only kitchen help. Luckily for her, Georgiana does not eat the dessert, a marvelous fruit tart that gives a number of the attendees food poisoning and leads the police to arrest Pierre for murder. Once Georgie sets out to prove the chef innocent, she is aided by Agatha Christie, who’s quite an expert on poisons. A charming and often amusing mystery whose malefactor readers will quickly unmask. Kirkus Reviews, September 2023

Clete by James Lee Burke

In the gonzo latest from Edgar winner Burke (Harbor Lights), detective Dave Robicheaux’s friend, P.I. Clete Purcel, gets caught up in the bizarre pursuit of a bioweapon in late-1990s Louisiana. Clete wakes one Sunday to find three men disassembling his Cadillac in search of contraband. During a brief confrontation, the men knock Clete unconscious, and from there, the story spins out in a dizzying array of directions. One of Clete’s assailants turns out to be a member of an occult neo-Nazi group; the men appeared to be on a mission that also involves slimy millionaire Lauren Bow and his actor wife, Clara. They’re all after a bioweapon called Leprechaun, which may or may not have been in the Cadillac. Clete gets help from Robicheaux, sheriff Helen Soileau, and Joan of Arc, who appears in prophetic visions to steer him from further harm. Readers will delight in Burke’s sterling prose (Louisiana is “an antediluvian place that could have been formed on the first day of Creation, then forgotten, feral and threatening”) and take heart amid the surreal proceedings in Robicheaux’s assertion that “mysteries exist. The denial of them is an absurdity.” This is a winner. Publishers Weekly, April 2024

Christmas cupcake murder by Joanne Fluke

Recipes dominate bestseller Fluke’s amiable 26th Hannah Swenson mystery (after Coconut Layer Cake Murder). Early one December morning, Hannah Swensen, owner of the Cookie Jar bakery in Lake Eden, Minn., is baking German chocolate cupcakes when she hears a knock at the door. Outside is a stranger asking for work. Hannah invites the man in, and over coffee the two discover a mutual love of German chocolate cake. The stranger reminisces about how his mother always used to give him an orange when she made him one for his birthday. Recipes follow for German chocolate cake and frosting. The man leaves after doing a few odd chores for Hannah, who later that day finds him lying unconscious in her mother’s storage shed. The doctor who treats the man diagnoses that he has amnesia brought about by a blow to the head. After many more recipes and discussions of food, the stranger’s fondness for oranges provides Hannah with a clue to his fate. Cozy fans with a sweet tooth will be more than satisfied. Publisher’s Weekly, August 2020

Blind spots by Thomas Mullen

In the high-tech future, murder is murky. Seven years after a cataclysmic global event known as The Blinding, people are able to see only with the aid of vidders, metal discs implanted in their temples. Vidders have helped restore societal order, but organized crime is still a huge challenge for law enforcement. Partners Mark Owens and Safiya Khouri, along with the abrasive man-mountain Peterson, a third cop, find themselves in the run-down River District, where a tense situation and a malfunctioning vidder lead to a questionable shooting by Owens. He’s dressed down by crusty Capt. Carlyle, who runs the Major Crimes unit. On the homefront, Owens’ lover, Amira Quigley, who’s also a fellow cop, wants to move in with him. Stress and the specter of his ex Jeanie, a painter whose artwork still adorns the walls of Owens’ apartment, make him waffle. All the while, a Truth Commission instituted by the new president is laying out complex procedures and investigating recent activities of government employees, including Owens. The opening chapters are heavy with exposition, but Mullen’s crisp character delineation pays off as the plot unfolds. He rights the narrative ship with a complex puzzle: the murder of Dr. Jensen, a researcher at Bio-Lux Technologies, by a blurry figure much like one Owens encountered on the waterfront. More murders follow. Grounded in the set pieces of police procedurals, this is both a whodunit and a cautionary tale about technology and government authoritarianism run amok. A lively, offbeat mystery with a thought-provoking premise. Kirkus Reviews, January 2023

This is why we lied by Karin Slaughter

Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent Will Trent and medical examiner Sara Linton honeymoon at a family lodge that includes breathtaking landscapes, varied guests, troubled family dynamics, and murder. McAlpine Family Lodge manager Mercy McAlpine has been an outcast within her family ever since Dave McAlpine, an orphan whom her parents adopted, got her pregnant at 15. To her enduring shame, her relatives, from her aunt Delilah to her own brother, Christopher, took Dave to their hearts even as they squeezed her out, snatching baby Jon from her to be raised mostly by Delilah. Sixteen years later, when her father, Cecil, plans to sell the lodge whose operation Mercy’s poured herself into, she’s had enough, and evidently so have they. Hours after she announces her intention to ruin the lives of any family members who vote with Cecil to sell the place to Max Brouwer and Sydney Flynn for $12 million, Will finds her fatally stabbed near Lake McAlpine, and she dies in his arms. The half-dozen other guests are icing on the cake, since every one of Mercy’s relatives had a powerful motive to kill her. The honeymoon isn’t exactly over, but Will tells Sara he’d be committed to investigating even if Chuck, the fellow guest who tormented Will in the orphanage where they both grew up, weren’t on hand as Christopher’s lecherous best friend. The shattering climax reveals that the McAlpine family is even more dysfunctional than you imagined. One character nails it: This is “an Agatha Christie locked-room mystery with a VC Andrews twist.” Kirkus Reviews, July 2024

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NON FICTION

Living Hot by Clive Hamilton

Living Hot by Clive Hamilton (Silent Invasion) and independent energy consultant George Wilkenfeld, provides a stark assessment of Australia’s response to climate change, emphasising that the inertia behind carbon emissions reduction won’t easily shift without significant upheaval such as a global economic collapse or world war. Even with the sobering outlook, the book offers valuable insight into the nation’s climate change narrative, critiques prevailing arguments, and explores government inaction. It delves into the psychology of false hope, challenges the viability of renewable energy solutions, and scrutinises proposed strategies such as electrification. Hamilton and Wilkenfeld emphasise the necessity of preparation and adaptation, acknowledging the complexity of the challenge ahead, the costs, and the limited impact Australia’s actions will have on future global climate scenarios. Living Hot will offer a fresh perspective on climate change to some readers as it advocates for a shift towards local solutions, such as self-sufficient food zones and trained local advisors. Throughout the book, the inclusion of local government examples, including in First Nations communities, illustrates recent climate crises and highlights trailblazers we can learn from. There’s a lot covered for such a short book, making Living Hot an excellent introduction for those ready to engage in further conversation and who are open to confronting the psychological challenges of a warming world. By tackling sometimes uncomfortable truths, questioning the proposed solutions to date, and advocating for transformative action, Living Hot encourages readers to take meaningful steps towards addressing climate change, such as landscape management, internal migration, a national heat strategy and action plan, and the ‘climate proofing’ of infrastructure. Books Publishing, May 2024

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POETRY

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ROMANCE

A novel love story by Ashley Poston

Stranger Than Fiction meets Virgin River in this incandescently clever meta rom-com from Poston (The Seven Year Slip). English professor Eileen “Elsy” Merriweather feels frozen in place after her fiancé breaks up with her a week before their wedding. Thankfully, there’s the promise of a “week of wine and happily ever afters” when her Super Smutty Book Club vacations together in a cabin in the Catskills. When Elsy gets lost in a storm on the way there, however, she winds up in Eloraton, the fictional small-town setting of bestseller Rachel Flowers’s hit Quixotic Falls series, the romances that brought the Super Smutty Book Club together in the first place. Flowers died before she could finish the series and Eloraton is stuck at the point where she stopped writing. The owner of the local bookstore, Anderson Sinclair, is the only person aware there’s anything odd about the town. He warns Elsy not to make ripples or change things, but she feels compelled to help her favorite characters find the happy endings their author planned for them. Poston gracefully walks the line between women’s fiction and romance—with just a hint of magic—providing an inspirational story of personal growth and second-chance romance alongside a fascinating exploration of transformative fiction, how readers and writers cocreate and share stories, and the value and purpose of escaping into one’s favorite novels. Readers will want to escape into this one again and again. Publisher’s Weekly, March 2024

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SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY

The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst

As the city of Alyssium and its vast library crumble and burn around her, a young librarian who’s spent 11 years sequestered among dusty bookshelves—with only a sentient, research-loving spider plant to keep her company—finds herself on the run. After leaving the ruins of Alyssium’s great library behind—keen-eyed readers might notice the distinct parallels with the ill-fated Library of Alexandria—Keila makes her way across the open ocean to Caltrey, the picturesque island where she grew up, carrying Caz the spider plant and a boatful of spellbooks she could be punished for having taken. Hoping to lay low for a while and keep out of the locals’ hair, Keila moves into the long-abandoned cottage where her late parents raised her. What she doesn’t expect is to be welcomed by the locals with open arms; to meet her kind—and incredibly handsome—merhorse-riding neighbor, Larran; or to learn that the empire she left behind is draining the magic from her new home. The use of magic is strictly prohibited by the empire and is a punishable offense if you’re a member of the general population caught using it, but, determined to return some of the kindness that’s been shown to her, Keila decides to utilize her rescued spellbooks and opens a secret spellshop under the guise of making different berry jams. She proceeds to use the spells herself to help slowly return the island to its much more magical state. It’s a delightful, easily digestible palate cleanser with a story that feels like a whimsical, warm hug. Kindness is king in this soft and breezy low-stakes cottagecore fantasy. Kirkus Reviews, May 2024

Starling House by Alix E. Harrow

Hugo Award winner Harrow (The Ten Thousand Doors of January) does it again in this tender and triumphant haunted house story. The closest thing to a home that Opal has ever known is the motel room where she lives with her younger brother, Jasper, but she’s plagued by mysterious dreams about wandering through Starling House, the most notorious building in the coal-mining town of Eden, Ky., complete with perpetually slamming doors and a light that cuts through the town’s thick, rising mist. None of the townsfolk have ever seen the inside save for the unsettling and reclusive Starling family, but in Opal’s dreams she knows the interior intimately. She feels called to investigate her connection to the house and the family, but along the way she’ll have to determine which secrets she’s ready to uncover and who and what she’s willing to fight for. Harrow’s prose cuts straight to the heart as she melds a story of family legacy and historical oppression with a stirring call to speak the truth. Readers will be left chewing on this tale long after the last page, and Starling House will no doubt take its place alongside fiction’s most memorable haunted houses. Publisher’s Weekly, July 2023

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New additions to eBooks at SMSA

eBooks & Audiobooks help

EBOOKS

All the Beautiful Things You Love by Jonathan Seidler

A romantic comedy told in reverse, All the Beautiful Things You Love charts Elly and Enzo’s relationship over 10 years, leading up to their divorce. But what happens to their shared belongings after their long-term relationship ends? Elly decides to sell them on Facebook Marketplace in an attempt to clear their house and the memories attached. In a non-linear, meandering style, author Jonathan Seidler (It’s a Shame About Ray: A memoir, A&U) writes this poignant, character-driven novel with evocative detail. Elly and Enzo grow more memorable and compelling as the relationship and their personalities are pieced together. This is achieved with the help of intriguing side characters and items—a heart-shaped record, vintage couch and eight-seater table—that prompt memories to be revealed. Set in London, All the Beautiful Things You Love alternates between an omniscient narrator and Elly’s perspective and, at times, transitions between these perspectives can feel jarring. However, once this approach becomes familiar, it adds to the tone of the book, allowing the reader to truly feel the love and heartbreak intertwined in each interaction. Although this is his first book in this genre, Seidler’s skill with words, seen in his journalistic work, is on full display in this fresh but familiar ode to love and all the messiness that comes with it. This is a touching story recommended for those seeking a character-based book similar to One Day by David Nicholls or Nick Hornby’s novels. Publisher’s Weekly, March 2024

Death and the Conjuror by Tom Mead

Set in London, Mead’s stellar debut and series launch, an homage to golden age crime fiction, in particular the works of John Dickson Carr, introduces magician Joseph Spector. In 1936, Spector’s Scotland Yard friend, Insp. George Flint, consults him in the baffling case of Austrian psychotherapist Anselm Rees. The doctor was found dead in his study with his throat slit so deeply that his head was almost decapitated. As the room’s door and windows were locked, Flint hopes Spector, a master of conjuring tricks and misdirection, can explain how anyone could have committed the crime and left the room sealed. The pair pursue the theory that the murder was a revenge killing after learning that one of Rees’s Viennese patients cut his own throat in a similar manner. Meanwhile, they must also probe two other cases: the apparently connected murder of a possible witness in an elevator that no one but the victim had access to, and the impossible theft of a rare artwork. Mead maintains suspense throughout, creating a creepy atmosphere en route to satisfying reveals. Puzzle mystery fans will eagerly await the sequel. Publisher’s Weekly, May 2022

The Honeyeater by Jessie Tu

The Honeyeater is the second novel by Jessie Tu, acclaimed author of A Lonely Girl Is a Dangerous Thing. The story centres around Fay, an academic and emerging translator who works on English-to-Taiwanese literary translations. Over the course of the novel, Fay holidays in Paris, works in Sydney and attends a conference in Taipei, but her world feels small. Mostly, she moves between her university office and the apartment she shares with her mother, Helen, and engages with the world meaningfully through reading and translating. When Fay and Helen travel to Paris—an attempt by Fay to please her mother and perhaps bridge the gap between them—we learn some important things about Fay: she’s working on her first solo translation, she’s recently broken off a relationship with a married man, and she’s a liar. The Honeyeater is a multi-layered story that uses the lens of literary translation to examine complex relationships: parent and child, mentor and mentee, secret lovers and old flames. Fay uses her skills as a translator to interpret and find meaning in a text but fails to apply these skills in her life and relationships. Tu’s writing is seamless and her characters have realistic flaws. Through Fay, she explores femininity, identity, grief, loneliness and what brings meaning to our lives. This book is an intelligent study of people for readers of Cold Enough for Snow by Jessica Au and fans of Tessa Hadley. Publisher’s Weekly, May 2024

Death in the Details by Katie Tietjen

Maple Bishop is a WWII war widow in rural Vermont, struggling with being penniless after clearing her husband’s debts. One day, she sees two farmers, Wallace and Mooreland, fighting, with one threatening to kill the other over a dead cow. Shaken, Maple asks the sheriff to intervene; she is rebuffed. To earn a few dollars, Maple takes the hardware-store owner up on his offer to let her use his front window as a workshop for her detailed dollhouses. When she takes her first commission from Wallace’s wife, she finds Wallace hanging in the barn. The medical examiner declares the death accidental. But using her powers of recall and her dollhouse skills, Maple builds a model, or “nutshell,” of the scene to prove it was murder. At first the sheriff dismisses her claims, but as the investigation continues, Maple and the sheriff’s young deputy uncover something more sinister than a farmers’ squabble. This smart debut was inspired by the “nutshells of unexplained death,” or dioramas, made by heiress Frances Glessner Lee and used to teach forensic crime-scene analysis. Booklist, March 2024

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AUDIOBOOKS

What We Hide by Colleen Coble

Bestsellers Coble (Break of Day) and Acker (Guilty Blood) team up for a heart-pounding tale of stolen artifacts and murder. History professor Savannah Webster has struggled to pick up the pieces after her marriage fell apart in the wake of her toddler’s death three years ago. While researching the Willard Treasure, a collection of pre-Columbian artifacts housed in a museum at her Alabama university, Savannah discovers a stack of fake provenance letters and becomes suspicious that someone is trying to steal from the collection. She goes in search of answers from “slimy” university president Ellison Abernathy—only to stumble on his dead body in his office and become a prime suspect in his murder. When Savannah’s soon-to-be ex-husband Hez arrives for a new teaching job, she enlists his help tracking down the killer. Along the way, they draw on their faith to heal the emotional wounds from their daughter’s death and try to resist falling back in love before their divorce is finalized. The second-chance romance adds dimension to the well-plotted whodunit, which leaves more than a few secrets to be uncovered in the next installment. Readers will be on tenterhooks. Publisher’s Weekly, May 2024

The Vanishing by Jayne Ann Krentz

Krentz (Untouchable) leads readers into an immersive, atmospheric world in the romantic suspense novel that opens her Fogg Lake trilogy. Following a mysterious occurrence known as “the Incident,” the inhabitants of the sleepy town of Fogg Lake developed psychic abilities. Childhood friends Catalina Lark and Olivia LeClair put their paranormal powers to use solving crimes as private investigators in Seattle. When Olivia disappears, Catalina fears that the unsolved murder they witnessed as children may have come back to haunt them. Around the same time, the Foundation, an organization devoted to studying the paranormal, investigates the murders of two collectors of otherworldly artifacts. Despite bad blood between Catalina and the Foundation, when the president of the Foundation’s nephew, Slater Arganbright, offers to collaborate on solving both mysteries, Catalina reluctantly agrees. As they search for the missing collectors’ items and follow leads to find Olivia, Slater and Catalina develop a deep connection on both a psychic and physical level. Krentz masterfully balances mystery, romance, and the paranormal. Readers are sure to be hooked on this new series. Publisher’s Weekly, October 2019

What Waits in the Woods by Terri Parlato

Parlato’s grim second mystery featuring Det. Rita Myers (after All the Dark Places) opens with 29-year-old Esme Foster returning to her hometown of Graybridge, Mass., after a hip injury ends her career as a professional dancer. The last thing Esme expects to see when arriving at her ailing alcoholic father’s home is a crime scene in the woods behind the house. Hours earlier, Esme’s childhood best friend, Kara Cunningham, was killed there by an assailant who crushed her skull with a rock. Immediately, Esme recalls the car accident that killed her mother years earlier, and the strange man who appeared at the scene and threatened to murder Esme. She suspects that he came back and attacked the wrong woman, given how closely she and Kara resemble one another. When Rita gets assigned to the case, she focuses her attention on Cynthia Ridley, a mentally disturbed neighbor of Esme’s father who killed her own younger sister 20 years ago. As more secrets come to light, however, Rita’s list of suspects grows. Parlato’s multidimensional characters and effective use of red herrings will keep readers invested right up to the gasp-worthy conclusion. Series fans and newcomers alike will look forward to Rita’s next case. Publisher’s Weekly, November 2023

Break of Day by Colleen Coble

In the overbusy final installment of Coble’s Annie Pederson trilogy (after Dark of Night), a parks ranger works to crack a kidnapping case before she becomes a target. After some professional and personal turbulence, it seems Annie Pederson’s life is on stable ground: she’s learned that Jon, the love of her life (and, she hopes, future fiancé), is her daughter’s father, and the three are poised to settle down together. But when Glenn Hussert, a criminal accused of kidnapping and embezzlement, disappears from police custody, it becomes clear danger is lurking nearby—a suspicion that’s confirmed when Annie receives a phone call suggesting Glenn is being held against his will. As Annie digs into Glenn’s exploits, she uncovers potential links between his possible kidnappers and a number of hikers who have recently gone missing, all while contending with family issues, including a difficult relationship with her sister. Annie pursues the case and is soon stalked by gun-toting men who clearly want to curtail the investigation, leading her to stake her faith in God to protect herself and her loved ones. Despite moments of pulse-pounding suspense, readers may struggle to keep up with the myriad, overlapping story lines—including ones following Annie’s struggles to trust her formerly estranged sister, a friend’s cancer treatment, and Jon’s plans to propose to Annie (plus his own father’s recent engagement)—several of which feel rushed to wrap up by the story’s end. Coble’s fans may be left wanting. Publisher’s Weekly, April 2023

The Framed Women of Ardemore House by Brandy Schillace

An autistic book editor stumbles into a murder mystery while attempting to claim her inheritance in this wonderful series launch from historian Schillace (Mr. Humble & Dr. Butcher). After her mother dies, Josephine “Jo” Jones heads from New York City to England to take possession of her family’s long-abandoned country estate. Following a divorce and a devastating job loss, Jo plans to restore the property and start a new life. When she arrives, however, she finds caretaker Sid Randles dead in his cottage on the property. A short time later, she discovers a strange portrait of a woman who resembles one of her ancestors hidden in the main house’s attic that subsequently goes missing. She reports both incidents to the local authorities, but they’re skeptical of Jo’s outsider status and insensitive to her autism. Teaming up with new friends, including an antiques dealer and an innkeeper’s wife whom she meets in town, Jo sets out to clear her name, and find the killer and the thief before they strike again. Schillace, who’s autistic herself, draws a marvelously believable heroine in Jo, and sets her up with an expertly constructed mystery. Readers will be hungry for a sequel. Publisher’s Weekly, January 2024

Murder in Rose Hill by Victoria Thompson

An early-20th-century New York midwife puts aside her birthing responsibilities to solve yet another murder. Socialite Sarah Brandt Malloy and her husband, Frank–who inherited enough money to quit the corrupt police department and open a detective agency–have solved many mysteries. Sarah, who likes to keep a hand in at a clinic she’s funded where even the poorest women can get care, has just delivered a baby when Louisa Rodgers, a magazine reporter for the New Century, arrives asking for her help in exposing the dangers of patent medicines. Many of them are addictive–not a surprise when most of them have a high alcohol content or contain drugs like opium to make their users feel better. When Louisa’s father shows up a few days later with the news that his daughter has been murdered, he tells Sarah that his daughter was a secretary at the magazine, not a reporter. Since the police think she was a randomly chosen victim, Sarah explains to Louisa’s distraught father that hiring Frank may be the only way to find the killer. Frank learns a good deal from his interviews at the New Century and a good deal more from his secretary, Maeve Smith, when he sends her to work there undercover. Maeve joins Frank’s partner, Gino Donatelli, to take on the people at the boardinghouse where Louisa lived. With suspects ranging from the owner of a local patent medicine factory to Louisa’s family members, it will be no easy task to uncover the real motive for her death. The talented sleuths once again solve a difficult case enhanced by social commentary and historic detail. Kirkus Review, March 2024

A Lady’s Guide to Marvels and Misadventure by Angela Bell

Beverley A. Crick gives a spirited performance of this historical adventure. In mid-nineteenth-century Europe, Clara, who is wrongfully accused of being “insane,” meets Theodore, her grandfather’s new apprentice. Theodore then whisks Clara away on scavenger hunt around Europe to find a flying machine that is coveted by villainous enemies. Crick gives a cheeky flavor to her performance, making it fun and engaging. The character details, story twists, and reveals are all done with carefully measured pacing, so no listener will become lost. Crick impressively evokes the chemistry between Clara and Theodore. Neither too dramatic nor too pensive, Crick’s delivery is just right. AudioFile Magazine, 2024

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