What We’ve Been Reading

The Collection

Explore our full library of honest reviews and literary recommendations.

The Duchess Takes a Lover

This novella takes readers on a journey through the rocky marriage of Mara and Ambrose, Duke and Duchess of Southwick. With a fair amount of old-school storytelling and plenty of…

Read Review

Never Blow a Kiss

Romance readers are a varied lot. We love all sorts of genres, leads, heat, and more. One person’s romp is another’s slog. I was in the middle of this book…

Read Review

Heat

Recently, while stuck on a plane for too many hours, I decided to reread Heat. Back in the day, I loved Smith’s complex, morally batshit books. Three of her works,…

Read Review

The Maid

In Nita Prose’s The Maid, we are given a first-person narrator in Molly—the Maid herself. Molly, a presumably neurodivergent young woman, finds her sole joy in working as a housemaid…

Read Review

First Lie Wins

In the realm of storytelling, every now and then, a book emerges wielding a narrator so specific and wildly entertaining that all one wants to do is shut out the…

Read Review

Hate Me Under the Mistletoe

Look, I’m all in for a good time. Who doesn’t adore a fun holiday romance? But this one, while sporadically amusing and occasionally sizzling, dissipates into the realm of insubstantiality…

Read Review

The Frozen River

Ariel Lawhon’s latest work is my favorite book of 2023. This whopper of a novel delicately peels back the layers of history to reveal the intricate struggles and enduring resilience…

Read Review

Protecting You & Fighting for Us

The Bailey Brothers series, by the prolific self-published author Kingsley, comes highly recommended by some of our readers. Curious what the fuss was about, I decided to give the series…

Read Review

Return to Monte Carlo

Cate C. Wells’ latest offering, Return to Monte Carlo, attempts to revisit the sizzling romance novels of the 1980s, but instead, sinks into a morass of missed chances, icky sex…

Read Review

After That Night

Looking for a light, fun read? Karin Slaughter’s latest addition to the GBI Special Agent Will Trent and Dr. Sara Linton series is not it. This book, the 11th installment…

Read Review

Starling House

Alix Harrow’s latest offering, Starling House, transports readers to the heart of Eden, Kentucky, a town wrestling with the ghosts of its past—racism, environmental decay, and the decline of coal…

Read Review

Tom Lake

Set in the crucible of Spring 2020, as the pandemic’s grip tightened, Ann Patchett’s Tom Lake is a marvel. The narrative takes place over a few weeks on a family…

Read Review