Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin (audio)

Posted on September 21, 2026 by pagesofjulia

From the author of The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, I found this earlier novel for younger readers. In a nutshell, I appreciated its thought-provoking nature, but some parts left me not entirely comfortable. I found the dialog a little stilted (‘however’ and ‘nonetheless’ in the voice of young people in informal settings). There was much good here; I’m stimulated by the way it has me thinking about life and death and aging and choices. My feelings are too complicated to make an unqualified recommendation, but I would love to discuss it with somebody!

Liz Hall is fifteen, nearly sixteen years old when she is hit by a taxi while riding her bike. She dies from her injuries, and wakes up on board a ship bound for Elsewhere. This afterlife resembles Earth in many ways, and people can be reunited with loved ones – and pets – there, although with a crucial twist: in Elsewhere, as time goes by, people get younger, not older. Liz has just fifteen or so years to create a new life in this new place. And she is pissed: she misses her old life, she wanted to turn sixteen and get a driver’s license, she wanted to go to college, maybe get married someday. Now that she’s getting younger again, she feels cheated. It takes some time for her to come to terms with the new set of options available to her. Meanwhile, we encounter other stories: Liz’s grandmother, who died when Liz was in utero (and is now approaching a youthful 40 years old); Liz’s favorite rock star, dead of a drug overdose; another teenaged girl; the head of the Division of Domestic Animals; a young man who still pines for his (still alive) wife.

The possibilities and limitations of the world of Elsewhere were interesting to me. I did appreciate the worldbuilding aspect, the creation of new rules, although not all my questions were answered. (For example, residents here choose an avocation, where they work for the joy of it. There is currency, although it seems to be just for pleasure spending. What of sustenance and the basic necessities? Are they free, or actually unnecessary? What of classes and classic divisions of society? There is a utopian aspect that’s not explicated to my satisfaction.) As Liz experiences her own losses – and gains – I was fascinated by some of the thinking she goes through. Perhaps foremost in my head: in this world, we seem to dread aging. Liz dreads getting younger. That alone got me thinking about the advantages of aging. Also, the option to watch the living on Earth through apparently magic binoculars got me thinking about the old question of what we’d choose to know if it were knowable. Do you want to know what people say about you when you’re not there? Do you want to know when you’ll die? Or how? Liz knows how much time she has left in Elsewhere, but as she learns, that doesn’t dictate what she’ll do with her time.

The most difficult issue of the book I will spell out for you here in white text, as is my practice for spoilers. Highlight to read, or skip it. Because of aging backwards, we can wind up with a couple that appears to be decades apart in age although they were better matched on Earth, because one died much younger than the other. But what of this: a man dies, say, in his 20s. A girl dies, say, in her teens, but because it has been decades since the man died, their Elsewhere selves are about the same age. Is it okay for them to date? The man has lived 20-something plus ten-something years: he is now ~35 to her 15. Seriously? …The important detail is whether he is now emotionally and experientially 35, or 15. I’m not sure Zevin has answered this to my satisfaction: it seems to vary case by case. I was unsure how to feel, and a little creeped out by such a relationship.

Cassandra Morris narrates in a very youthful voice that might match Liz’s own (the bulk of the story is told in her close third-person). It was sometimes a little hard for me to listen to – and maybe that’s what it’s like to be inside a fifteen-year-old’s head. (Bless their hearts.) I think she gave a good performance. But on the whole, the experience of listening to and thinking about this story I would term, not enjoyable, but thought-provoking.

Rating: 6 sets of pajamas.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Kopp Sisters on the March by Amy Stewart (audio)

Posted on September 18, 2026 by pagesofjulia

As ever: mild spoilers for earlier books in the series, but not for this one.

Part of me keeps wanting to say “more of the same, but in a good way (promise)” – but this installment in the Kopp sisters’ adventures does in fact see a change of scenery. Following
Constance’s sad and upsetting dismissal from her work as sheriff’s deputy, she has spent a winter moping. But her country seems on the brink of entering the war in Europe, which will become World War I; Norma is up in arms (nearly literally) about her pigeons’ ability to serve as important wartime messengers; and Fleurette is getting restless as well. They will end up heading as a group to a camp of the National Service School in Chevy Chase, Maryland, where women are to be trained to help in the war effort.

But, as is Amy Stewart’s practice, this novel doesn’t begin with the Kopp sisters, but with a character introduced in this book: Miss Beulah Binford has been living under an assumed name in New York City, but her life has hit a roadblock, once again. She hasn’t been able to use her real name in years, since that name was associated in the national press with a sensational case: a man murdered his wife, and Beulah was identified as one of the girls/women he had known on the side. In distress, she grasps at the idea that she might be sent overseas to France as part of the war effort. And so she winds up in the same camp, and the same canvas tent, as the Kopp sisters (and another young woman named Sarah, who is earnest in her desire to go join her twin brother as an ambulance driver in France).

I think Stewart made an excellent choice in expanding her characters’ world from Hackensack, New Jersey (where options for Constance’s work, and Stewart’s plots, were running low) to this training camp. It’s a fascinating setting and collision of worlds: many of the camp’s attendees are young society women of privilege, on a lark, interested in at most some light sewing and play-acting at marching in lines. But some, like Sarah (or in more eccentric fashion, Norma) hope for harder work and greater discipline. Constance is hoping to hide out from her own past, a little like Beulah (who for her fellow campers identifies as Roxie Collins); but when the camp’s matron is disabled by an accident, the former deputy is back in a position of authority, and it feels so good.

This setting and new cast of characters allows for more of Stewart’s good work with her (well-researched) fictionalization of true history (the camp, and Beulah Binford, were real), as well as an examination of the way different walks of life approached the idea of war service. Central is the idea of what women might have to offer, and you can just imagine how diverse those beliefs are; many of them play out right there in Chevy Chase on these pages. I found it all absorbing. Also, for the first time I think, this audiobook included the author’s note on historical sources and the line between fact and fiction in her work, which I really appreciated (and, it made me realize, I’ve been missing in the earlier books). The short answer is, much is true, and I think Stewart does a good job of spelling out where she’s chosen or been forced to invent.

Christina Moore’s narration is strong as ever – I think she excels at the various voices, and it should go without saying at this point that I could not hear any of these Kopp sisters in any other narrators’ telling. Moving on to book six.

Rating: 7 missing bananas.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , , | Leave a comment »

Sweet Pea by Kit de Waal

Posted on September 14, 2026 by pagesofjulia

A protagonist rich in vulnerability, empathy, and resilience faces sorrows with boundless love in this unforgettable novel of good cooking and built family.

Kit de Waal’s Sweet Pea is a novel about pain, kindness, and forgiveness, experienced through the life of an everywoman West Indian immigrant to England. Its unforgettable protagonist, Paulette, translates loss and insult into caring time and time again.

“Paulette was lucky. She slept in the same bed as her grandmother until she was six years old.” She has no mother, but “barely feels the loss because she… can’t imagine being loved any better than Granny loved her.” When Paulette is 11, she and Granny immigrate to working-class urban England, where, at the novel’s opening, Paulette works as an auxiliary nurse. She is 29 years old and yearning for a family, but her boyfriend, Denton, drags his feet. It is only upon his death in a car crash that she learns he already had a wife and three children of his own.

Awash with grief and betrayal, as even the friends who comfort her simultaneously scorn her naïveté, Paulette struggles through, finally achieving her longed-for pregnancy by way of Denton’s best friend. Garfield is an attentive partner and father, but their relationship is not based on love and does not last. Paulette again soldiers on, this time with the prize and star of her life: her son, Bird. As he grows into a young man, she loves him powerfully, with enough to spill over for friends, lovers, patients, neighbors, and another young boy whose life intertwines with Bird’s, and with Paulette’s, for good.

In prose rich with feeling and detail, de Waal (My Name Is Leon) imbues these events with significance even when they seem mundane. Paulette’s excellent West Indian cooking, the mutual support she shares with a chain-smoking Irish neighbor, the simple comfort she finds in cleaning and the odd cocktail buoy her. She aches for family, connection, belonging, and for her native St. Kitts. “All the English summers in the entire world would never make up for just one day from the childhood she took for granted. Light so white you had to hide under a tree, skies so blue, trees so green, the whole world bright like pirate’s treasure, amber, rubies, sapphires.”

Endlessly tending to others, at work and at home, Paulette builds an unusual family for herself despite all odds. Those she cares for hurt her, but this is perhaps the human condition, and she is rewarded by caring anyway: fumbling, wise, and willing to try again. Sweet Pea is a refreshing novel of compassion and redemption.

This review originally ran in the August 24, 2026 issue of Shelf Awareness for the Book Trade. To subscribe, click here.

Rating: 7 yellow quilts.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , | Leave a comment »

Advantage Player: A Memoir of Blackjack, Backrooms, and Beginnings by Gina Fiore

Posted on September 11, 2026 by pagesofjulia

In games and in backrooms most readers will never see, one driven woman takes big risks to secure her place at the table in this dynamic, propulsive memoir.


Advantage Player: A Memoir of Blackjack, Backrooms, and Beginnings is an energetic account of false starts, big wins and big losses, challenges and redemptions. Gina Fiore tells her story with momentum and feeling, so readers share the tension of high stakes.

Fiore had a troubled childhood in a troubled Italian American family plagued by poverty and questionable decisions, distanced from extended family. They moved from New York to Reno, Nev., when she was eight. She began gambling at 14 years old, visiting the casinos where her mother dealt blackjack and gambled as well. Amid emotional and economic deprivation, Fiore felt from a young age that traditional careers would not serve her. She trained as a musician but found her world most expanded inside the casino. “Nothing else in my life or especially in school piqued my interest like card counting did…. Now at twenty-two years old, and for no obvious reasons, I believed wholeheartedly that I was somebody who could do whatever she chose. With that mentality of infinite freedom I chose card counting.”

Fiore’s childhood was rocky, and her young adulthood involved a series of personal choices that may be viewed as self-sabotage. But her memoir is at its most riveting when she describes her work and explains the art and the science of advantage play.

Card counting is just the beginning. Fiore educates her readers about blackjack and other casino games, and the differences between card counting, hole carding, edge sorting, and other forms of play that steal the advantage. These methods of removing the house edge are not illegal on their face, but they will get a gambler kicked out, blackballed, and even assaulted; thus, Fiore argues, the theater of advantage play is as important as the count, the card spotted, the edge calculated.

Fiore methodically trained herself from books, from firsthand study, and through mentorships with more experienced players to become one of the best advantage players in the world. She built elite teams of like-minded players and eventually took millions from casinos around the United States and beyond. Fiore’s memoir careens from high highs to low lows on the casino floor and in challenges with friendships, romantic and family relationships, and mental health. Advantage Player is a rocketing adventure and one woman’s story of how to survive and not only make the most of the hands she’s dealt but also how to influence the deal.

This review originally ran in the August 18, 2026 issue of Shelf Awareness for the Book Trade. To subscribe, click here.

Rating: 6 half circles.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , | Leave a comment »

The Witch Below the Dreaming Wood by H. G. Parry (audio)

Posted on September 7, 2026 by pagesofjulia

I love H. G. Parry.

This is a reworking of the myth(s) of King Arthur et al, with a timeline in the second World War interacting with earlier legends. It foregrounds two women: Nimue, who is raised by Morgan le Fay, the Lady of the Lake, to be Merlin’s doom; and Elaine (Ellie) Ambrose, a librarian in 1941 London who is sent to a remote estate in Wales after the bombing of the British Museum Library. Chapters alternate between Nimue’s first-person perspective (I believe hers is first-person because she has knowledge of most all events) and Ellie’s third-person (she is still working things out). Nimue’s girlhood is spent under the lake, knowing only her mother, Morgan le Fay; Lancelot, raised as her older brother; and Mordred, raised as her younger one. She is to bring down Merlin, the greatest wizard in the land. But when she leaves her underwater home, she finds out how little she understands about people, herself, her mother’s motivations, Arthur, Guinevere, Merlin himself, etc., etc. Meanwhile, Ellie is mystified and a little peeved to have been sent away from London: the bombings, the books, the work she is so committed to. But here she is in a backwater, at Camlan House, tasked with cataloging a private collection for an absent owner. She finds the housekeeper Mrs. Leaf odd and unfriendly, but the groundskeeper, Tom Wilder, will become a dear friend.

Ellie has been mostly dismissive of the recent wave of dreams, shared by much of the British populace, about King Arthur. It is only at Camlan House that Ellie begins to dream, too: not of Arthur, but of Nimue. Staunchly practical, she persists in believing that Arthurian legend can have no bearing on the bombs and the Nazis of the present–right up until she and Tom together rescue an actual questing beast from a rock pool on the coast. And then things start to get really strange.

I won’t say too much more. Things I loved about King Arthur and the Round Table are present here: the exalted ideals of the chivalric code, the loves and tragedies of Arthur-Guinevere-Lancelot’s triangle, the brooding mystique of the Lady of the Lake; all of which benefit from the recentered women of The Mists of Avalon. T.H. White even appears as a character here! (Also Maid Marian…) And then there is the passionate librarianship of Ellie, a very shadowy character herself. I loved Tom, I loved Merlin in every version. I couldn’t wait to get back into it, even with an overlay of tragedy everywhere we turn. This book is about the same length as Breeze Spells and Bridgerooms, but felt so different. I love both–but where Bridegrooms raced past in bliss and cakes and punch and fairy lights, The Witch feels epic and inexorable. This is a matter of pacing but also content: Arthur’s time and World War II are both at least as full of darkness as of light, and hinge upon the battle between the two (in simplest, most mythic terms). It’s not a cheerful story, but it is a brave, beautiful one.

Helen Day narrates in a variety of voices and accents that felt very immediate and right to me. I think I will seek out audio versions of Parry’s work in future. Definitely recommend, for lovers of books, legend, the Arthurian stories, history, and the kind of fantasy that strives to save the world.

Rating: 8 tutting mice.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a comment »

Breeze Spells and Bridegrooms by Sarah Wallace and S.O. Callahan

Posted on September 4, 2026 by pagesofjulia

I had the best time with this lively tale of human-fae relations, magic, and enemies-to-lovers romance. It’s sugary sweet but hit just the right note for me.

In this alternative Regency-era London, same-sex relationships are as usual as hetero ones, and humans and fae folk live together, although not entirely with ease. Everybody (human and fae) takes the Hastings test when they are twelve. This exam claims to test magical ability, and the score assigned dictates each individual’s options for the rest of their life: who inherits, what profession one can enter, and one’s marriageability (which we know is terribly important in Regency London). As we enter this year’s social Season, one Roger Barnes (human) is less concerned with finding a mate, and more concerned with reworking the infamous Hastings test. Roger’s low score has labelled him as worthless, but his hard work on a new test rubric makes the reader suspicious of that conclusion early on. Unfortunately, Roger is assigned to work with Wyndham Wrenwhistle on this project. Wyn (fae) and Roger have known each other since childhood, but never gotten along. Wyn is beautiful, stylish, and aloof, where Roger is chubby, bookish, and deeply anxious. Their partnership for the test rubric is unlikely and prickly from the start, although from the reader’s privileged perspective, they may indeed have complementary qualities and much to offer one another. The trouble really begins when an unusual and eccentric gossip columnist prints the news that the two are engaged–this is false, but once printed, by the mores of their society, it would mean social doom for both families if retracted. And so Roger and Wyn find themselves working not only to fix the Haynes test, but to fake a romantic partnership, complete with romantic walks in the park (chaperoned, of course), deep sighs, and choreographed dances. And spells.

I was tickled by the combination of Regency standards and Wallace and Callahan’s worldbuilding. Human and fae magics, respectively, have long been understood for their differences, not their complementary possibilities. And some features of each will be rediscovered, by accident and with purpose, by this unlikely duo. Roger’s academic enthusiasm is absolutely genuine, and infectious. He really does need help with anxiety; and Wyn, it turns out, needs help with certain aspects of being in the city, as well. This lovely tale includes scholarship, social politicking as well as the political kind, finessing of human-fae relations, and swoon-worthy romance. Breeze Spells and Bridegrooms feels as good as fluff, but with substance. Over 400 pages flew by in an actual blink; I will be looking for more.

Rating: 9 honey-covered biscuits.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , , | 1 Comment »

Black Moon by Stephen Wright

Posted on August 31, 2026 by pagesofjulia

This fiercely imaginative, blood-soaked, starry-eyed, and exuberant epic based on the life of Irish pirate Anne Bonny will capture the dreams and nightmares of any daring reader.

Stephen Wright’s Black Moon is a wild romp of an adventure, lush with blood and debauchery, starring a spectacularly colorful character based on the historical figure of Anne Bonny. Readers will need a strong constitution for the violence and rape that populate these pages, but the heroine and her associates offer plenty of humor, thoughtful philosophy, and transcendence to balance the scales.

Not much is known about Anne Bonny, an Irishwoman turned pirate in the early 1700s. With this inspiration, Wright (Meditations in Green; M31: A Family Romance) invents Amethyst “Meeks” Connell. From early trauma to an orphanage, then a “sewing shop for recalcitrant maids” and a youthful marriage into the minor gentry, Meeks continually reaches to improve her circumstances. When her devoted husband, Georgie, lusts after the latest round of developing war between the major European powers, Meeks plays along. “In a short amount of time she [becomes] considerably adept at fencing,” followed by other forms of combat–it is a feature of Meeks’s character that she is good at most anything she puts her mind to. Georgie decides he must join the war himself and secures himself a commission, and Meeks accompanies him. Within minutes of reaching the battlefield, Meeks makes her first kill and is widowed.

Wright’s swashbuckling, stylish narrative unfolds perfectly naturally as Meeks lives as a soldier and a man (with a short haircut, she simply fails to correct the assumptions of her fellows); marries a woman and is widowed again; and, on the lam, sets sail for Ireland and home. When her ship is boarded by pirates, no reader will be surprised that she joins them. It is at this point that Meeks’s real adventures–and the shining love(s) of her life–begin.

Meeks loves the sky over the ocean at morning, which she judges “the ultimate source of all value.” She loves the lifestyle, the freedom, the riches, the violence, and the friends she makes. At sea, she lives as a woman again; vehement misogyny is common among sailors and pirates, but there are those who honor her skills. The pirate life is for “those who can work like miners, fight like demons, and revel like tosspots,” and Meeks keeps up with the best of them. “There remains, of course, the lingering issue of love.” Black Moon, however bloodthirsty, is also a romantic novel: spirited, atmospheric, raging, and joyful unto its unforgettable end.

This review originally ran as a *starred review* in the August 13, 2026 issue of Shelf Awareness for the Book Trade. To subscribe, click here.

Rating: 7 fingers.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , , | Leave a comment »

Maximum Shelf author interview: Carter Wilson

Posted on August 28, 2026 by pagesofjulia

Following Monday’s review of When They Find Me, here’s Carter Wilson: Small Casts and Huge Consequences.

Carter Wilson is known for domestic and psychological thrillers, including Final Crossing, The Boy in the Woods, Mister Tender’s Girl, and Tell Me What You Did. He is the creator and host of the podcast Making It Up, and the founder of Unbound Writer, where he works with writers through coaching, retreats, and online classes. Wilson was born in New Mexico, grew up in Los Angeles, and attended Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. He lives with his family in Erie, Colo. His 11th novel, When They Find Me, is a tense, electric thriller featuring random accidents, family bonds, and the legacies of old wounds, set in snowbound rural Colorado. It will be published by Poisoned Pen Press on November 10, 2026.

What’s different about writing your 11th book from your first one?

Carter Wilson
(Elke Hope Photography)

Not much. It gets easier in terms of the physicality of writing, just constructing sentences. My first novel was like hand-to-hand combat. Now, if I know what I’m doing in terms of a scene, it just flows. I produce faster.

The struggles are the beauty. I don’t outline, so I have no idea where the story is going, and so in every book I have the same pain point: Is this any good? Is there an ending here? Does this make sense? But the flip side of that is I get to sit down every day and say, what happens? And I get to find out. I can’t imagine ever not doing that.

Over time, you develop a sense of story that just soaks into your subconscious. I’ll have a sense that nobody’s moving around enough, we need action, or we need an emotional break, or a pause. When you first start out, all you have is the experience of reading other people’s books. Once you write enough, you have a sense of your own cadence and rhythm, and it continuously evolves, and that’s kind of beautiful too. Your voice changes.

Is it difficult to switch between two voices?

That’s a real challenge. I don’t do it a lot; most of my books are single point of view, first-person present tense, and this one is a dual POV, with each having more or less equal weight. Having them sound distinct is really tough. I asked Tess Gerritson this same question and she said she considers their economic background. That’s really interesting. In the case of this book, one of the voices is fairly uneducated, young, home-schooled, and I think I was able to adopt a sound from that.

There’s a trap that thriller writers, including myself, get into. First-person present tense is so interior, it’s so immediate, that you can go down a path where you’re inside somebody’s head without them actually doing anything for a long time. It becomes a shortcut to reveal backstory or intention. That’s my first draft. Next draft, I cut a lot of that out–how do I show this in an interesting way? The beauty and the work are all in the editing.

Are there special challenges in writing from darkness?

I usually don’t write from the antagonist’s point of view. Typically it’s the protagonist, and their inference and their filtering of their relationship with the antagonist. I write from a place of their fear, and that allows me to get into their head and imagine, what would I do in this situation? What would I feel? I think the hardest part of writing an antagonist is not sounding cartoony about it, and making sure there is a real reason, even if it’s in their own head, that they’re doing what they’re doing. It’s kind of Villains 101, right? They have to believe in their own story, and it can’t be too outlandish. It has to be based on something where you can say, I could see someone getting to a point where this could happen. Including myself.

I’ve evolved over time. My early books were more horror-leaning. Now it’s like, what if this happened? It doesn’t have to be too crazy to be really scary. If I’m feeling empathy, however that’s defined, the reader will be too. If I get scared, then maybe that will happen to the reader too.

How do you choose the protagonist or narrator of a story?

This draft always had two narrators, but it totally changed in my edits. That second voice changed to a totally different character. It depends on the story. With The Father She Went to Find, I just had this person in my head. For probably six months, I didn’t write anything down, just–who is this person? There are other books that might be inspired by a news article I read, so the character tends to be inspired by the person in that article. The last story, I didn’t know who the person was, I just knew they were really angry. It all depends. I tend to alternate between female and male points of view, so it depends on what I’ve done lately as well.

What are the strengths of the locked-room format?

It scared the hell out of me. I didn’t know where the story was going to go. The entirety of the book takes place over five hours, and about halfway through I was like, do I have enough here? But I’ve always loved small casts and huge consequences, rather than vast global conspiracies. The advantages are that you really get to explore each of these characters in a heightened emotional state. It let me get deeper into their psychology.

What do you feel the images contribute?

There’s multimedia in a lot of my books. I do it to amuse myself. I’m a very visual person, so sometimes I just want to see what a scene looks like. I wanted to see what it looked like as if I was directing this as a movie. I had them hire an artist to sketch this out, as I would a storyboard. There’s not a lot of intentionality about it, but I hope the readers see what they want to see in it. Sometimes you don’t want to reveal too much of how you see it, because you want the reader to put it all together themselves. But that’s the beauty of the storyboard: it’s just really rough.

What are you working on next?

I just turned in my next book, for publication roughly August 2027. I’ll tell you the setup, because it really happened. My mother, who’s in her 80s, about five years ago, handed me this business card. She said, when I die, call this number. What the hell? As it turns out, she’s made all her postmortem arrangements, which is very thoughtful and considerate and beautiful. And I was telling that story to a group of friends and one said, what if you called that number and three black Escalades just whisked up to your house? That’s a story! So, it’s a story about a son who scans this barcode after his mother kills herself unexpectedly, and what it unleashes and how little he actually knew of her at all.

I’m a little afraid, because my mom is very convinced that you write what you know. I’m going to have to really convince her that, beside the setup, this is not you.

This interview originally ran on August 5, 2026 as a Shelf Awareness special issue. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish fun.

Filed under: interviews | Tagged: , , | Leave a comment »

Maximum Shelf: When They Find Me by Carter Wilson

Posted on August 24, 2026 by pagesofjulia

Maximum Shelf is the weekly Shelf Awareness feature focusing on an upcoming title we love and believe will be a great handselling opportunity for booksellers everywhere. The features are written by our editors and reviewers and the publisher has helped support the issue.

This review was published by Shelf Awareness on August 5, 2026.

Carter Wilson’s 11th novel, When They Find Me, is a super-charged thriller about family ties, the legacy of trauma, and the tension between morality and survival. The story opens with an immediate adrenaline hit: “The old man says this is where our target is hiding. Somewhere in this little town. Expanse, Colorado.” A young woman named Riven has just arrived in the cold and snow, traveling in a beat-up old RV with Boone, her brother, and their father, who calls himself Coyote. Boone and Coyote have both killed before, but their task in Expanse is to set up Riven’s first kill. The target is the man Coyote maintains ruined their lives, years ago, when they lived in Idaho–“Back when we were domesticated. Fed on routines. Sleeping in real beds. No blood on our hands, no need for constant vigilance.”

Also in Expanse, Annie Wolfe and her 12-year-old daughter, Coral, live away from mainstream society, offline and in hiding. They keep go-bags and weapons at the ready. They’ve equipped their home with a secret underground bunker. They have Harley, “the least ass-kicking dog” Annie has ever known, but she’s good at alerting. Annie fears those who may be hunting them from a past life.

On December 23, as a potentially record-breaking snowstorm descends, Riven enters what she believes to be the house of her intended target. Instead, she finds Annie. This random accident–a simple mistaken address–sets off a chain of events that will change their lives forever.

The odds of these two armed parties stumbling upon each other may seem unlikely, but Expanse is a special place. “No one in this town discusses real names,” and everyone seems to be hiding from something. Riven’s intended victim had hoped to outrun the past that brings Coyote to Colorado. Annie, his neighbor, is on the run from something else: her own old trauma, the loss of her husband, and irrevocable damage to herself and to Coral.

After their initial confrontation, Riven and Annie are joined by Coyote and Boone in Annie’s home, and they settle into their closed, snowbound environment. The three home invaders stand opposed to Annie and her dog, Harley; Coral is hidden away, hopefully in safety. Hours pass. Weapons are aimed, questions asked. The strain increases steadily as both physical and psychological threats multiply. Coyote came for revenge but insists his “pack” stay and seek a twisted “truth.” Truth is a shifting target, however, for these men and women variously hunted or hunting.

Wilson’s two narrators are flawed but sympathetic, with redemption seeming to hover just over the horizon. Riven in particular seems poised on the edge of a major change: “And here I remain, the one with all the power. The power to choose. The power to kill. The choice of being an animal or human.” This will-she-or-won’t-she charge contributes to the general unease.

Alternating chapters are told from the two women’s first-person perspectives and move between the present setting–December in Expanse–and earlier times. In those flashbacks, readers slowly put together the past ordeals of the present-day antagonists. Annie, under a previous name, was married and lived in Miami. After the events leading to her husband’s murder, she barely escaped with Coral to make a new life. “All women have my kind of fury,” she posits. “All that’s needed is the trigger to unleash it.”

Riven, like Coral, witnessed terrible things as a child. Through her eyes, readers watch Coyote’s mental health deteriorate. He commands his children to stop calling him father. He calls his family a pack, says they’re on migration, demands they live by his version of an animal code: survival without sentiment. (As an Easter egg for returning fans, Coyote has named himself after a character in Wilson’s third novel, Revelation.) Coyote is entirely lost in his fantasies, but Riven remains ambivalent, closely watching her beloved brother Boone, wondering if there is any shred left of “the kid who used to sneak me extra food, who still stands a little closer to me when the old man’s voice sharpens. He’s straddling some line I can’t pull him off of. Half in the dark, half reaching for the light.”

The circumscribed setting in a secluded, snowed-in, modest home, and the expansive interior worlds of the various parties, offer a remarkable contrast. Despite spanning only a handful of hours in the present, tightly defined space, When They Find Me journeys to past timelines, memories and fantasies without sacrificing its fast pace. Riven grapples with taking agency in her own life, questioning what she remembers and who she wants to emulate. Annie’s past losses and old enemies remain ever-present for her, as she worries for Coral and avoids the ghosts she’s not ready to face. This chilling novel of suspense is accompanied by occasional pencil-shaded sketches, illustrating scenes. Each holds a hidden element that contributes to the immersive effect and sense of mystery. Taut pressure, high stakes, and compelling characters combine in this unnerving thriller from an experienced writer.

Rating: 7 Christmas songs.

Come back Friday for my interview with Wilson.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , , , | 1 Comment »

The Queen of Sorrow by Sarah Beth Durst (audio)

Posted on August 21, 2026 by pagesofjulia

This third and final book in the Queens of Renthia series lives up to its name, with hardships and sorrows, but ends on a surprisingly hopeful note. The Queen of Blood was Daleina, and The Reluctant Queen was Naelin; this third titular queen is Naelin again, facing new challenges. Thematically, to some extent, these might be summed up as the tension between caring for one’s own, as individuals (in Naelin’s case, her two children) and caring for the masses (in Naelin’s case, her realm of Aratay, and perhaps even beyond it to the people of all of Renthia). A ruler with individual loved ones is ever in a position of conflicted loyalties, with no easy solutions. We also see in this book a return of an earlier antagonist. The spirits are bad enough – killers, but only by instinct, without much in the way of personality, or motivations beyond those instincts; and they may be managed, even somewhat humanely, by a queen who is both good and powerful. But then there is Merecot: powerful, but not entirely ‘good,’ she is ambitious, self-centered, and arguably amoral. Since book one she has been at least a little bit at odds with Daleina, who is undeniably good (Merecot would say, obnoxiously so), but distressingly unpowerful in her command of the spirits. Naelin is very powerful, but poorly trained, and compromised by her personal loyalties, as above; she might be the chaos to contrast with Daleina’s good and Merecot’s less-than-good. And yes, all three of these are pitted against the spirits, characterized almost as a force of nature (indeed, they are the embodiments of natural forces), but perhaps with more agency than we originally thought.

Whew.

As a series closer, The Queen of Sorrow is powerful: there is no question of the strength of the emotional experiences of each of our queens, and I’m stimulated by a number of secondary characters, too, including several loves (and one ex), a sister, and a mother-in-law-to-be, not to mention Merecot and her machinations (and predecessor). There are weddings, deaths, a wolf with a backstory, new worlds. There’s a lot of new for a series closer, and I see we do have a (standalone-ish?) “Tales of Renthia” book already, as well. I guess I appreciate that Durst left so much possibility, although it might be frustrating for the supposed final work in a series! I think the whole thing has been a feat of worldbuilding. There’s something about the darkness here that has kept me at a bit of a distance, that I can’t quite put a finger on, but I’m also gripped by the plot and completely invested – when I spotted that fourth book I knew I had to have it. I think I relate more closely to Durst’s cozier outings, but I want this kind just as badly. Maybe I’ll figure out how to better articulate this in the next edition.

Rating: 7 jewels.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , , | Leave a comment »

Next Page »