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.

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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.

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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.

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three shorts from the Magic & Mystery collection

Posted on August 17, 2026 by pagesofjulia

I was delighted to try out a couple of these shorts as part of the “Magic & Mystery” collection of Amazon originals. (I am not thrilled about Amazon but I do want Baldree, Fawcett, and Durst, so here we are.)

Travis Baldree’s “Miss Gentle and the Case of the Very Flat Monk” is a mystery with a mystery within it. Abbot Listrum has a dead monk on his grounds whom nobody liked, and a bishop on the way. But when he puts his trust in an odd, suit-of-armored old woman (??) who calls herself Miss Gentle, the questions seem only to multiply. This story offers Baldree’s usual sense of ridiculousness and fun, even when the monk is indeed very flat. There is less space for comraderie and developing relationships, but I’m standing by for more. Preferably from Viv and the rest of the Legends and Lattes gang!

Heather Fawcett’s “A Labyrinth of Honeybees” contains perhaps still more a sense of mischief, even though the stakes are at least as high for the priestess of the Goddess of the Garden, in a world where the king has outlawed that Goddess and all the rest of the eighty-three (or eighty-four, depending on who’s counting) of the gods that the people have long respected. Upon a visit from the royal inquisitor, the priestess must use her wits to sidestep difficult questions. Luckily, the garden itself has a role to play. I found this one a little darker than I generally expect from Fawcett: less light-hearted and playful, more sinister, but every bit as delicious. I’m reminded of course of “St. Valentine, St. Abigail, St. Brigid”, another short, by C. L. Polk, that also involved honeybees and darkness. I’d happily return to this world.

Finally, I think my personal favorite of these three was “The Wednesday Witches Book Club” by Sarah Beth Durst, perhaps because, while magical, it approached most closely a world I live in. Ashley believes absolutely that “Every witch needs a book club,” and following a divorce and cross-country move, she’s ready to give one a try, even if her new acquaintances, and the home they meet in, are uncomfortably put-together and awfully… beige. They have some very interesting problems, however, and in facing them together, Ashley finds a book club and a new group of friends. Despite some serious themes (friendship, belonging) and stakes (remaining human), this story of the three had by far the greatest sense of fun, which is often something I seek, especially in fantasy.

I am glad to take some small bites from several authors whose writings I am always eagerly, anxiously awaiting. These were enjoyable, but I’m still so much looking forward to more full-length works from each!

Rating: 7 ears.

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The Warbler by Sarah Beth Durst (audio)

Posted on August 14, 2026 by pagesofjulia

I have followed Sarah Beth Durst through cozy fantasies (The Spellshop and its sequels), darker ones (The Queen of Blood and her fellows), and now here, to a deeply imaginative and deliciously weird look at the choices we make and those we may try to make for others.

Different chapters focus on three different women in three timelines, but it is Elisa who steps forward as protagonist. She has never lived anywhere longer than ten months, and lives by an elaborate set of rules and strategies, taught by her mother, to leave no trace and take no souvenirs. A family curse, passed from mother to daughter, decrees that if she ever “puts down roots,” that concept will be come literal. Elisa will turn into a tree, as her mother did before her. In alternate chapters, we see Lori, also on the run, and Rose, who always wanted to leave her hometown but never got a chance. Is a home something to be desired, sought after, built, and cherished? Or is a home a cage? We meet many weird, twisting, fascinating characters: a handsome bookstore owner, a moon-eyed lover in Paris, a possibly suicidal woman dressed entirely in pink, a gloomy pair of young women, a mystical trio of blue-haired old ones, and a bird-obsessed recluse, among others. I am over the moon that Margaret Atwood’s The Edible Woman gets a cameo here, because that’s the book this one reminds me of – it may even inspire a reread.

The tension between staying and going, and what each of us fears and yearns for among these options, occupies much of the book. Also the gifts and the chains that come out of a mother’s love for her daughter, and the question of what power we have and should have to choose for others. There is romance, and there is some ‘light’ fantasy, but mostly, there is an examination of these big questions, absolutely within the gendered constructs of a society that historically encouraged women to care for husband, children, and home, and what it does and does not encourage now. But it’s not a pointed study, because it’s couched within mysteries, creepy bird collectors, the fine art of dumpster diving, the handsome bookstore owner, etc. I had the best time! And my appreciation of Durst’s work only grows. Onward.

Rating: 8 reels of microfiche.

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Platform Decay by Martha Wells (audio)

Posted on August 10, 2026 by pagesofjulia

Platform Decay is book 8 in the Murderbot Diaries series, to which Liz originally tipped me; and is it possible this is the first one I’ve listened to on audio?! I’ve got to say, the experience disrupted some of my impressions of Murderbot, to a distracting extent, especially early on; but I really did enjoy hearing it in a different way, too. I almost wonder if I should just turn around and reread (relisten to) it again immediately. But I’ll take pity on the next person on the library’s hold list for this sought-after title.

SecUnit (formerly Murderbot, but it feels like we’re moving away from that epithet over the course of this series) has come a long way. They have, however reluctantly, resigned themself to working on their mental health, and developing relationships and even trust with humans. They’re working on ‘clear communication.’ Much of this is about their new employer/mentor/friend, Dr. Mensa. In this story, SecUnit is on a mission to rescue Mensa’s family, which of course immediately expands into a little more than that. They continue to struggle with humans: so slow, and always with the feelings, the emotions, the touching, the bodily functions (ew). But it’s always clear that SecUnit loves and cares about humans, too. Especially these ones.

Liz, as a more hardcore devotee and student of this series than I am, will have a more incisive review. At my more cursory level, I call this an appropriate extension of the Diaries: SecUnit continues to develop and grow, as do their relationships; there are surprises in the small-scale plot, but none in terms of the general arc of the series, and I mean that in a good way. This is the Murderbot we love, for all the same reasons: a combination of insightful observations about human nature with humor, and however surly the narrator gets, a hearty dose of love and devotion. I’m still here for more. I might go back to reading text, though.

Rating: 7 hot liquids.

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The Somewhat Wicked Witch of Brigandale by C. M. Waggoner (audio)

Posted on August 7, 2026 by pagesofjulia

Props to my colleague Jaclyn Fulwood’s Shelf Awareness review which sold me on this title.

Gretsella was firmly opposed to life lessons of all kinds. There were, in her view, two proper ways to come to an understanding about the ways of the world: through native intelligence and old-fashioned common sense, as she had, or by having the ways of the world firmly explained to you by Gretsella, as she preferred for everyone else. It was much simpler for everyone that way, so long as she wasn’t forced to repeat herself.

The Somewhat Wicked Witch of Brigandale is a joy, starring a grumpy curmudgeon of a witch who thinks herself a bit less sentimental than she turns out to be.

Gretsella has built a life that suits her, as the witch with the reasonable prices, who lives alone in a cottage in the woods, mostly unbothered – until someone deposits a baby on her doorstep. She raises him to be a handsome ninny of a young man, deeply kind but not burdened by much intellect, a hairdresser’s apprentice who is developing his craft when the woodland creatures identify him as heir to the throne. Gretsella is able to push this aside until the knights show up with the same message, and one very handsome knight in particular. Bradley cannot resist a handsome knight. And so he is off to try to run a kingdom, with barely the sense needed to serve as hairdresser’s apprentice in a small village where he lives with his mother.

Gretsella, who loves to be useful (and right), is gratified when Bradley asks her for help. She arrives at the palace in the capitol to try and put things back together, hiring a council of sensible elders to help guide Bradley’s actions. He is likeable enough, and absolutely well-meaning, but unfit to rule, and would be happy to step down if he could figure out how to do it. Leave it to Gretsella to arrange to overthrow her son’s rule – with love. What could go wrong?

This novel is part fairy tale, part political satire; a completely hilarious, gleeful piece of escapism; and a lovely, earnest study on the different kinds of love, familial and otherwise, how we get hurt and that we must keep going anyway. It’s touching, exuberant, and cantankerous, like Gretsella herself. She is nothing if not opinionated: “No mother should have to endure anything half so dreadful as her own son developing the ability to formulate independent thoughts.”

Rebecca Stern’s narration felt perfect: I was lost in another world with this book (even as we were critiquing bureaucracy!), and couldn’t wait to get back there. In fact, I’m hopeful that Gretsella may not be done adventuring and advising on the fate of the kingdom. I’ll be looking up this author’s backlist, as well. I hope you enjoy this somewhat wicked witch as much as I did.

Rating: 8 slices of delectable cake.

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We Burned So Bright by TJ Klune (audio)

Posted on August 3, 2026 by pagesofjulia

A bit of a complicated story for this one. I started it for the first time maybe six weeks again, and had to put it down about halfway through. On Liz‘s good review, I did decide to try it again, and got back on my library’s wait list. My track record with TJ Klune has been to passionately love almost everything of his, and fail to make it through the rest. This one was indeed worth reading (listening to), but I struggled with one rough part.

The world is ending. A black hole is scheduled to devour the earth, along with everything else in the solar system. Human society has reacted more or less as we might expect: many people take to looting, rioting, and general bad behaviors; some continue living on as if everything is normal; some seek their final, profound experiences, bucket-list-style. There is friction at those intersections. Our protagonists are two older men, Don and Rodney, who have been a couple for more than 40 years. (I think they are in their 70s, but I did not search up that detail.) They are making a cross-country trek in an aged RV, headed for the west coast, where they have an important task to complete, a promise to keep, the nature of which remains murky for much of the story, although there are hints.

Along the way, they meet people from the different rough categories I’ve drawn above. Some might call these ‘bad’ or ‘good’ people, or say that Don and Rodney have better and worse experiences with them, but, you know. People. It is in one of these episodes that I initially had to put the book down. (If you’ve read it, you can probably guess which one. At least it feels obvious to me!) Liz was right: the book moves again through light, through better experiences and better faces of humanity. The final revelations and final scene… are more uplifting, and certainly thought-provoking. There was much that was good to contemplate, and some of it was also good in that other sense. Klune does expose his reader to some darkness – that was not unexpected. Some of it hit me a little wrong, or more likely, a little at the wrong time in my life, but we got through.

“Luck,” Don said. “Rotten, shitty luck.”
Jerri laughed. “It is. So much. But here we are, strangers who never would have met. Maybe that’s what the point of all of this was. To have these random moments of collision, to learn from each other, to hear stories.”
“To live,” Rodney said.
Jerri looked back out at the animals. “I suppose you’re right…”

I really love this author. I remain on the edge of my seat for whatever he does next. I appreciate his take on grief, aging, and the end of the world in whatever form, and I trust his wisdom on these questions. (He is not so aged, just almost precisely my age, ha! but does have some experience with loss.) It’s a gorgeously written story, full of detail and specificity and beauty and wonder, and I’m not done thinking about it. I’m actually still thinking quite a lot about Take Me With You, and finding some parallels there. It’s a beautiful book. As ever, beware the darkness.

Also as ever, Kirt Graves’ narration is spot-on. I don’t want any Klune from anybody else.

Rating: 8 night swims.

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Dear Future Occupants by Keith Stahl

Posted on July 31, 2026 by pagesofjulia

An unusual family navigates small-town Connecticut in 1979 with wacky adventures, conflict, and love in this funny, affecting debut novel.


Keith Stahl’s first novel, Dear Future Occupants, relates the poignant, madcap adventures of a dysfunctional but essentially loving family. In March of 1979, Bud Sommer moves his family back to Greenhill, Conn., having inherited his childhood home, a massive, crumbling 17th-century estate. Bud, a sometimes painter and aspiring restaurateur, has also used his wife Rebecca’s inheritance to purchase a nearby diner. Joining Bud and Rebecca are their middle-school-aged sons, Victor and Wade; their eldest son, Herman, who has spent recent years hitchhiking around the nation; and the family dog, named The Dog. Victor, who has been bullied at school, begins running around with the “lav rat” kids, who smoke in the restrooms. Meanwhile, his little brother, Wade, a piano prodigy, experiences one accidental injury too many and chooses to wrap himself in bubble wrap around the clock. Long-haired Herman likes to wear women’s clothing, to the great distress of his parents. A literal skeleton is discovered in the basement of their dilapidated home, and a local adjunct professor moves in to study it. One absurdity after another plagues this motley household, until it seems that something will have to give.

The Sommers experiment with church, rehab, open mic nights, therapy, and a new business scheme that involves hiding buds of high-grade marijuana in boiled liver, thyme, and wheat-germ sandwiches. Stahl’s narrative shifts perspectives: Bud and Victor tell their first-person stories in alternating chapters, interspersed with Herman’s ventures in creative writing, which include short stories, poetry, and satirical news articles. Wade and Rebecca, as well as other colorful characters like Bud’s beautiful young waitress, Cassandra, and Victor’s school ally, Strom Luger, remain observed rather than observers. Stahl’s background in poetry colors his detail-rich descriptions of such zany episodes as family Wiffle ball tournaments, their visit from Child Protective Services, and Bud’s imaginative game of gruesome food-service deaths. The personalities of Stahl’s outlandish characters engender often surprising humor.

Against the backdrop of conservative small-town Connecticut in 1979, the Sommers grapple with concepts of family, sexual identity, counterculture, and drug and alcohol use. With pathos, humor, compassion, and great energy, this novel offers a moving examination of the meaning and acceptability of Herman’s cross-dressing and the value of family–in general and in this sweet, troubled individual case. The title of Dear Future Occupants refers to the marks left on the Sommer home; its story is arguably about the tension between conformity and authenticity in the Sommers’ impact on a larger world. The result is preposterous, exuberant, and tender.

This review originally ran in the July 6, 2026 issue of Shelf Awareness for the Book Trade. To subscribe, click here.

Rating: 7 Easter eggs.

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The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag by Alan Bradley (audio)

Posted on July 27, 2026 by pagesofjulia

I read the first Flavia de Luce mystery many years ago. When I read recently that Alan Bradley had died, I felt moved to try the second. This eleven-year-old narrator and amateur sleuth is funny, impressive, indomitable, precocious, and very clever, but not precisely likeable. I keep coming up against this in my reading: I know likeability is not supposed to be a requirement for our reading enjoyment, but it sure does help, and in its absence, something else must step in. Here, happily, it was plot. I was drawn in by the twisting mystery and a genuine curiosity about whodunit (there being at least two crimes for which to assign blame), but I have to say, I don’t feel moved toward book three.

The problem with we de Luces, I decided, is that we are infested with history in much the same way that other people are infested with lice. There have been de Luces at Buckshaw since King Harold stopped an arrow with his eye at the Battle of Hastings, and most of them have been unhappy in one complicated way or another. We seem to be born with wisps of both glory and gloom in our veins, and we can never be certain at any given moment which of the two is driving us.

I like Flavia’s backstory, the murkiness surrounding her late mother, her beloved bicycle Gladys (which belonged to her late mother), and the difficulty with her terribly obnoxious two older sisters. The historical framing is pleasing, and the twistiness of the plot is expert. I think Alan Bradley was quite talented. I just don’t quite fall into line with Flavia herself – and everyone else in this world seems purposefully at least a little bit unsympathetic. I thought about putting this one down until maybe halfway through, at which point I was fully committed, and I don’t regret this time, but won’t pick up another either. So many books in the world, and clearly, there are many readers perfectly matched to this series. If you’re one of them, please come tell me what you love about it!

Rating: 6 beautiful laboratory instruments.

Addendum: Jayne Entwistle’s narration feels perfectly suited to me and I love her voices for these characters – full points for the performance.

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