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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Take Me With You by Catherine Ryan Hyde (audio)

Posted on July 13, 2026 by pagesofjulia

I’m pretty blown away by this one, which seems to have hit me just exactly right.

We begin in scene, and put together details as we find them. A man named August is living, with his little dog Woody, in his RV where it is parked at a car repair shop; he wanted very badly to make it to Yellowstone this summer, but the cost of these repairs may make that impossible. He waits and worries. The mechanic, Wes, wonders if they might make a deal. His two young sons play with August’s dog. The two men talk. Wes is about to go into jail for a 90-day sentence and has no one to watch his boys. He suggests that Yellowstone may still be possible: he’ll do the repair gratis if August will take his sons away for the summer. This is a crazy idea on its face, of course. August is a stranger to Wes. But off we go.

August is a high school science teacher, and a recovering alcoholic, grieving the loss of his nineteen-year-old son almost two years previous. It doesn’t take much to put together that August will be moved by two slightly damaged, very sweet young boys (it’s not like August’s son was ever twelve or seven years old, August’s gruff AA sponsor points out with dry sarcasm), or that the boys, twelve-year-old Seth and seven-year-old Henry, are in need of a patient, stable father figure. Wes, it turns out, is an alcoholic.

August wondered if his job would be different if kids looked up at him with eager faces. And if even these two kids would have been the slightest bit eager for a science lesson if they had been in school. Maybe the school was the problem, August thought. Maybe everybody wants a science lesson if they’re sitting in the middle of one of the greatest geothermal wonders of the world. Maybe we’ve removed all the relevance from the information we teach kids so they have no idea why they should care. Maybe it’s not the kids’ fault. Maybe we made the first mistake. “I’ll start with geysers,” he said.

The odd threesome (foursome, with Woody, who has much to offer) have a pretty great summer together, although punctuated by the challenges of August’s grieving and the boys’ pain. When Wes has gone to jail before, they entered a county facility, and Henry hasn’t spoken since. He speaks, very little, but does eventually speak, to August. The bond is delicate but undeniable. But he’ll have to take them home again.

Take Me With You is gorgeous, wise, funny, heartbreaking, and a lovely evocation of natural beauty in several of our national parks, and of the pain and joy of making connections across grief and trauma. We meet a few indelible characters along the way (and the AA community looks awfully good in this context, really), but mostly it revolves around August, Seth, and Henry, with Wes coming in for the occasional hard edge. There are no villains and no real heroes, although August’s impact on these two young lives is significant.

Everybody is a good person and a bad person at the same time. The only real variation is in the balance.

Jeff Cummings’ narration feels pretty spot-on to me, capturing voices like that gruff AA sponsor, troubled Wes, and the timid cartoon mouse of young Henry’s rare words, as well as August’s careful, intentional slowing down to take questions seriously even when it hurts. The novel is contemplative, lovely in its descriptions, and cautious about coming to conclusions. Some of the relationships it describes are impossibly tender. I would love to continue to know these characters, and will be thinking about this book for a long time. It’s been a special journey; I think it’s going to be one of my favorite books this year.

Rating: 9 pictures.

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Strangers Behind Closed Doors by Catherine Adel West

Posted on July 10, 2026 by pagesofjulia

Disclosure: I was sent a galley copy of this book by a publisher’s representative in exchange for my honest review.

Giovanni Mason – Gio to her friends – is the chief concierge at one of Chicago’s most exclusive premier hotels, the Ivory. She was the first Black concierge of any kind, let alone chief, and she’s very proud of this accomplishment, even if her mother (a longtime Ivory housekeeper) hoped she’d wind up somewhere different. Detective Redding Stark has followed her father’s path with the Chicago PD. Like Gio, Red is a workaholic, whose commitment to her work has not always proved healthy. She remains preoccupied with the cold cases of five missing women – young Black women, whose disappearances have been far too easily forgotten by the system Red works for. Then a beauty influencer, who also happens to be Gio’s former best friend, vanishes from one of the Ivory’s extra-rarified upper floor rooms, a room now marked by broken glass and blood splatter. Gio fought with Natalie just hours earlier, and now has bruises on her wrists and no memory of a chunk of her evening. But Red suspects the chief concierge is innocent. She believes instead that Natalie’s case is linked to the others.

The two form, in fits and starts, a mistrustful alliance, motivated by concern that Natalie may be alive and in danger, wanting to prove Giovanni’s innocence, and wishing for justice for women who look like them. There are few people in either woman’s life whom they can trust. Instead, the Ivory Hotel and the Chicago Police Department are filled with politicians, social climbers, and the very rich. In chasing the truth, as they reveal plots, corruption, and double-crossings, Gio and Red place themselves in great danger.

Strangers Behind Closed Doors offers intrigue and action scenes by the truckload. Amid luxury suites, fine dining establishments and neighborhood classics, flower shops and cozy homes, fight scenes and family drama unfold. The impulse toward friendship between Gio and Red feels real, and poignant, even as both are limited by their own trauma. I was definitely propelled by the twisty-turny plot, which kept offering surprises. It was not completely without unbelievable details, but that’s not too unusual in the genre. The background big issue, that the disappearances of women of color are overlooked, is a point well taken. West’s Chicago is well done: it’s not a city I claim great familiarity with, but I recognized some landmarks, and it felt fully realized. I never stopped rooting for the two stars, even in their flaws.

Rating: 7 photographs.

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Brothersong by TJ Klune (audio)

Posted on June 26, 2026 by pagesofjulia

As ever, here you will find spoilers from previous books in the series. And, well, I’m revealing the ‘ship of this novel, but that will surprise no one who read book three.

I love these books and am very sad that the series is over.

Each of four books has focused on the development of a certain couple, and the development of one of the two characters in particular. Wolfsong was Ox’s story, and followed his relationship with Joe. Ravensong was Gordo, and his with Mark. Heartsong followed Robbie on his way back to Kelly. Now Brothersong sees Carter, eldest of the Bennett brothers, move fully into his relationship with Gavin. As the final book, it also wraps the whole larger story, and circles back around to Ox, who has become arguably the heart of the Bennett pack. I laughed, I cried.

I prefer this cover image

One of the things I love most about the Carter-and-Gavin development is that Carter has, until recently, thought he was a straight man. None of the other three couples seemed to struggle with being men attracted to men, although Ox dated some girls before deciding he was bi (or pan – I think they used the term bi). Carter is over 30 and has always been clear that women were for him. But now it is finally clear to Carter (as it has been clear to literally everyone else in his life for years) that his mate – the wolfish term for a deeply felt life partner and soulmate – is Gavin. Carter is a member of ‘like, the gayest pack ever’ (their words), with two gay brothers, etc., etc., and that’s all fine with him, but he’d never expected to be trying to figure out sex with a man himself. He’s both fine with it and quite shaken, and nervous about the actual sex part. I find this a fascinating line of inquiry. Not least, I’ve always wondered how I’d do if I found myself in love with a woman (hasn’t happened yet); I feel like I understand his confusion. And when I talk to young people these days I think about keeping our language open, and I admire the fluidity or the lack of labels that they seem to enjoy. Something about this aspect of the story really appealed to me.

Klune continues to engage me with action, intrigue, drama, pain, love, and yes, sex; I love that we can laugh in the middle of a very compelling sex scene. And he also continues to play with my feelings, threatening to off a major-major character, not for the first time. We continue to learn the rules of this werewolfed world. We have human heroes as well as werewolf ones (not that that’s new). And the pack continues to develop and grow.

I am bereft that this is over. I will miss these people forever. All the kudos to Kirt Graves, as ever.

Rating: 8 sparkles.

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The Devoted by Catherine Cho

Posted on June 22, 2026 by pagesofjulia

The fast-accelerating plot of Catherine Cho’s first novel follows a young girl shielded from her father’s criminal underworld as she grows into a woman who must fight to chart her own way.

Literary agent Catherine Cho (Inferno) considers family, legacy, and fate in The Devoted, a deft debut novel of subtle questioning with a fast-accelerating plot.

Eunha is raised by her Korean grandmother in a village in Hong Kong, alongside her older brother, Solomon, and a single occasional visitor, a boy named Kai. It is a life of isolation, purportedly for safety’s sake; the children’s father is a Dragon Head, a powerful leader in organized crime. Eunha is aware from a young age of the powerful forces at play around her, causing her father’s absence and her mother’s institutionalization, bending her brother’s fate, and leading her beloved grandmother to yearn for another life for Eunha. In adulthood, Eunha believes she’s found that different path, but marriage to “a man who had never loved me” and a life of proper lunches at the Palm Club with other wives leaves Eunha no less lonely. Then her three-year-old son is abducted, and that shell of a life, too, is upended.

The child is returned to his mother, apparently none the worse, but Eunha learns yet again that her life is not her own. She begins to push in earnest against the powerful men who have always surrounded her: her father and her brother. In the upheaval, she reunites with Kai, now a Dragon Head as well, both the sensitive, magnetic boy she knew in youth and a frighteningly compelling leader. She considers again her brother and their childhood friend: “The way they turned and bent, synchronized. They looked like separate halves, reflected men.” Eunha questions whether she might still find the unencumbered life her grandmother had wanted for her. Can she keep her son safe? Can she choose for herself?

Much of The Devoted unfolds at a contemplative pace, evoking the powerlessness Eunha feels in her own existence. But as she starts to exert her own will, secrets and betrayals reveal themselves one on top of another, and the novel gathers speed into an electric tale of intrigue, many layered and consistently surprising. Cho’s first novel is at once a family saga, a narrative of identity and belonging, a love story, and a tale of suspense. The deceptively quiet package probes class and respectability and whether one can ever escape their upbringing. Eunha’s struggles are softly spoken but pack a wallop.

This review originally ran in the May 26, 2026 issue of Shelf Awareness for the Book Trade. To subscribe, click here.

Rating: 7 light-up trainers.

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Thistlemarch by Moorea Corrigan

Posted on June 15, 2026 by pagesofjulia

This was a compelling, engrossing read – not always quite a pleasure, because despite the presence of faeries, there was a lot of darkness to this tale. But it was absolutely rewarding.

Thistlemarch is historical fiction, set just at the end of World War I in rural England. We meet Mouse on a train: after serving as a nurse in France, she is on her way home to the estate called Thistlemarch, outside the village of Tithe. Her dear cousin Bertie was killed at the Somme. Her dear brother Roger lies in a hospital bed, raving, shouting, rarely recognizing her. Her uncle, holder of the estate, has also died. Mouse was always looked down upon by the proper, lordly wing of the family: her mother had the temerity to marry an Irish gardener, and so the girl who would be called Mouse lived in a room that would be called the Matchbox, tucked away. By a twist of fate, it falls to Mouse, disregarded niece, to inherit – but only on a seemingly impossible condition.

Faeries disappeared more than one hundred years ago; much as Mouse has always loved the tales, she has put away her childish hope of ever meeting the magical beings who once blessed the now dilapidated Thistlemarch. So when a High Fae appears to her, she feels disbelief, and distrust. Like her mother, Mouse has studied the old stories, and she knows that a bargain with a faerie is not to be taken lightly. But she needs this inheritance to pay for Roger’s care – and so Mouse makes a deal.

As the story unfolds, the falling-down estate takes on a bit of a life of its own, rebuilt and falling down again. The faerie called Thornwood seems to be allying himself with Mouse, but she’s not sure she can trust him. A hateful, grasping cousin, a longtime friend in the village vicar, a nasty lawyer, a loyal gardener, and an enigmatic faerie servant surround our protagonist, who will encounter a dragon, a dog, and a stone mermaid along the way. Faeries and magic, yes, but also class differences, penury, and various prejudices, shellshock and a nation haunted by war. It’s a riveting combination, and for all its twists, finishes with something like a fairy tale ending. I was entranced, and would read more from debut author Corrigan.

Rating: 7 egg sandwiches.

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Heartsong by TJ Klune (audio)

Posted on May 18, 2026 by pagesofjulia

As ever, here you will find spoilers from previous books in the series.

These are pure enjoyment and I can hardly stand the time I have to spend away from the Green Creek series on audio. Also, this image is the audiobook cover, but I do prefer the print version, below.

We spend this book with Robbie, and there is one big, early-ish spoiler that I think I’d like to preserve for any readers who are likely to get into the series, so we’ll do some white text below (highlight to read) and then keep the rest of this review brief. I’m keeping my spoilers to early in the book, still.

The book is told from Robbie’s point of view (as per usual), and in the early chapters, I was confused as to timeline, because he is with Michelle Hughes’ pack and apparently ignorant of the Bennetts, but also something is off. Does this precede the events in which Robbie meets the Bennetts, and importantly, Kelly? No: he has had his brain fucked with in a big way, his memories erased. While much of the book’s plot does handle issues that take place outside of Robbie’s head – werewolf wars and changes in the lives of other characters we’ve already come to care deeply for – the central and most important arc is interior. Robbie must rebuild his bonds with the Bennetts and with his mate, with those other players remembering their shared history and working hard not to take personally that Robbie does not. It’s excruciating.

What else to say? I’ve become very comfortable in and attached to both Klune’s storytelling style in this series, and Kirt Graves’ audio narration. These are the voices of these characters for me, and they do all have distinct voices: Robbie’s Chicago accent is pronounced, and that had been in previous books an occasional flavoring, but here is of course the main event. It took some getting used to. I salute Graves’ commitment to that acting. Also, I am no accent expert.

We end, obviously, on a major cliffhanger, with some of our favorites in grim circumstances. I’m barely holding on for book four.

Rating: 8 carvings.

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Nymph by Sofia Montrone

Posted on May 11, 2026 by pagesofjulia

This sensual, yearning novel of personal tragedy and first love in the Northern Italian countryside will transport readers of all ages.

Sofia Montrone’s first novel, Nymph, handles the coming-of-age of a girl named Leo, alongside the aging of her family’s Italian agriturismo. Leo and her family–Leo’s Italian mother, her American father, her one-year-younger brother Max–spend every summer at the rural hotel, helping to run the family business. Readers watch Leo move toward adulthood over the course of two summers, when she is 10 and when she is 18.

When she is younger, Leo cleans rooms, collecting the motley items guests leave behind, and helps prepare food alongside her Nonna Tina. Max, who is better with people, works at the front desk. Their mother is unwell and mostly sleeps. Their father, a professor and a heavy drinker, reads and tells stories; his renditions of the epics of Homer are among the many threads that keep Leo captivated. She and Max “want to know where Atlantis is, what feathers are made of, whether hair grows right out of their scalps or from their tangled ends, and he tells them. They have no sense of what is real and what is play, only that the Absent-Minded Professor is a kind of god, all-knowing, and that with the right password, they will be privy to his secrets, which are the secrets of the world.” Leo idolizes her father. By the novel’s second part, the shape of her family will be changed irrevocably, and is still changing. Her Nonna Tina, the hotel’s faithful employee Davide, and Leo’s immediate family are maturing or withering. The hotel is in decline. Leo herself is on the cusp of the next stage of her life, as a newcomer–an American teenager, curious, creative, and enthralling–captures her attention.

“Nymph” refers to “those maidens that live in the rivers and trees” as well as “a baby grasshopper,” whose short life plays a role in Leo’s. Montrone’s debut tracks these several processes in prose as lovely, fleeting, subtle, and shocking as growing up ever is. Ten-year-old Leo experiences the fallibility of her most beloved elders, and 18-year-old Leo finds her first love and still more loss. These tentative steps toward adulthood are set against a striking rural and natural setting, punctuated by the World Cup games that hold Italy rapt. “The mountains are nimbed with green light. Dark shapes swoop over the grounds, whether bats or birds she cannot say, only that they form black whorls like clouds.” Nymph is concerned with growth, shedding, and origins. “Where does the story of one’s life begin? At birth, with one’s parents or grandparents, the first days of Italy and its legions of secretive, long-suffering women, Odysseus?” This nuanced, wise novel expands with quiet understatement to reach profundity.

This review originally ran in the April 17, 2026 issue of Shelf Awareness for the Book Trade. To subscribe, click here.

Rating: 7 pearl earrings.

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