Latest Reviews
Dorothy Wagner has spent her whole life wanting nothing more than to be seen. But after failing to make her mark as an influencer, she takes a job working for a brilliant coder whose company is focused on cutting-edge deepfake technology. And there, in secret, is where she creates her salvation. Isabella. An impossibly gorgeous girl who takes social media by storm. Dorothy's artistry is brilliant, and Isabella seems so real that she garners millions of followers. But everybody knows that overnight success doesn’t just happen. And when someone gets a little too close to the truth, a violent confrontation sends Dorothy on the run, forcing her to confront what she’s willing to sacrifice to keep her secrets.
Peter Gammons is the preeminent baseball writer of his generation. Nearly every significant figure in the game has shared stories with him. IT’S ALL ABOUT THE PLAYERS reveals what Gammons has learned from those greats about baseball and life. He details the emergence of Latin and Asian players in Major League Baseball and the symbiotic relationships between manager and general managers, catchers and pitchers, and second basemen and shortstops. He recalls his chance childhood meeting with Roger Maris as he was falling in love with baseball. He speaks to the marriage between rock n' roll and baseball, and tells the story of how Ted Williams claimed he could smell the wood burning on his bat after smoking line drives to the outfield.
When a search dog locates a mass burial ground in the Oregon forest, Detective Noelle Marshall is plunged into a hunt for a killer who’s hiding in plain sight. The key to her case lies in a decades-old secret: a lone survivor who escaped and is still out there, living in fear. The murderer is a phantom who left behind a collection of victims with nothing in common but their final resting place. As pressure mounts to identify the bodies and find the killer, the investigation draws in FBI Agent Max Rhodes --- Noelle’s partner in work and in life. They’ve hunted monsters before, but this one has spent years preparing for this moment, and he craves revenge.
In this new collection of genre-defying stories by Cristina Rivera Garza, a woman visits what she thinks could be her old lover's hometown after being abandoned by her years earlier. Two herons hitchhike across Mexico. A group of workers build a new home, only to see it destroyed by the state. With little baggage and much bravado, the characters in TERRESTRIAL hitchhike, migrate, take trains, wander or, at times, fly to survive the mandates of patriarchy and capitalism. On dusty roads or by a lake turned suddenly ominous, they remain in close contact with the earth's surface, sensing its wild promise and capacity for violence, its degradation and enduring beauty.
Following a catastrophic plane crash, married couple Mam and Bunko have found themselves in Cloud Six. It's the newest --- and lowest --- tier of heaven, run by a slumlord demon named Widdershins who takes the form of an underwear model. With a rabbit skeleton as their guide, the pair do their best to remain hopeful and together in their quest: to navigate the strangest of places, to find help, and to catch even one glimpse of the teen daughter they left behind. While Mam and Bunko try to accept their fate, Widdershins navigates workplace politics and tries to impress an ex-lover. And Amy, who appears in the book as our guide and scribe, grapples with how to tell an honest story with Satan breathing down her neck.
College freshman Lily Chen is off to spend the summer in Taipei at an intensive language program like so many Chinese American students before her. But a promising start quickly unravels. Her classes are grueling, her roommate is driving her insane, and a reckless trip to the hot springs with a guy she barely knows soon has her classmates viciously gossiping. She feels adrift, a foreigner in a country she thought would feel like home. Then shocking news arrives: Lily’s grandfather has passed away. The loss forces her to grapple with now-unanswerable questions about her family history. As Lily grieves, she’s drawn into a journey of self-discovery --- piecing together memories, stories and silences over a series of hilarious and devastating attempts at connection.
For decades, the women of Wester House have unsettled and fascinated their small, timeless North Carolina town. Their home is full of whispers, old griefs and uncanny knowing. But when Willamena Wester reaches out to the granddaughter she once pushed away, long-buried truths begin to stir. 1976: Restless young Willamena falls for a stranded musician who brings freedom and the promise of another life to her carefully controlled world. Their brief, incandescent love story promises to escape the pull of the Wester legacy until Willamena makes a fateful choice that changes her life forever. Present day: Returning home is the last thing Bailey Wester wants. Yet, as she reconnects with Willamena, the grandmother she feared, Bailey begins to understand the love, heartbreak and impossible choices that shaped the women in her family.
The victim’s corpse is so mangled and damaged it’s hard to believe a lone, unarmed assailant could have managed it. The killer was clearly unnaturally strong --- and smart enough to find a way into wealthy biotech executive Larry Chu’s highly secure building. Most of all, whoever did this was very, very angry. The excessive violence leads NYSPD Lieutenant Eve Dallas to conclude that this was a deeply personal act. And though the motive seems rooted in heated emotion rather than cold hard cash, she can’t ignore the suspicious bank account in the Cayman Islands, or the shadowy, profit-hungry company Chu worked for. The mystery only grows when it turns out that Chu isn’t the only victim --- and Dallas will need to tear through one layer of secrecy after another to reveal what lies behind this explosion of fury.
Carl Mørck, the former head of Department Q, comes across a disturbing audio recording and turns it over to his former colleagues, who are struggling to keep the old department up and running on their own. That is, until a new transfer unexpectedly arrives --- Helena Henry, a Frenchwoman who throws herself into the investigation with gusto, but who may also have secrets of her own. When the team realizes that the audio recording might shed new light on a supposedly open-and-shut murder-suicide case from years earlier, suddenly everything they thought they knew is called into question. Meanwhile, a spurt of seemingly random violence leads the Department Q team to investigate a possible connection to a different long-ago dark and sinister event.
Noah is the boy everyone admires --- an honor student, a champion swimmer, a hometown success story. Until he confesses to sexually abusing young girls during swim practice. In a single moment, his future evaporates, and his family shoulders the fallout. After 18 months in a juvenile sexual rehabilitation center, Noah returns home. But the town recoils, and his father refuses to let him back into their family's life. Noah's mom, Adrianne, is forced into an impossible role: the mother of a child no one believes deserves saving. As devastating truths emerge, she must confront the darkest question of all: When does standing by your child become a betrayal of everyone around you?
