Linda M. Castellitto

YA FictionYA

Fair play

Feature by Linda M. Castellitto

The thrill of victory, the agony of defeat and the scourge of sexism are front and center in these stories of talented, fierce girls who find collective power on and off the field. These powerful YA novels celebrate sports, friendship and the pursuit of justice. Read them and cheer!

At 16 years old and 6 feet, 2 inches tall, Mara Deeble has a few chips on her well-muscled shoulders, thanks to the suppressed anger she wrangles every day in the affecting, funny and timely Like Other Girls by Britta Lundin, a writer on the CW show “Riverdale” and author of 2018’s Ship It.

Mara’s got a three-pronged strategy to escape her conservative rural Oregon hometown. Step 1: Win a basketball scholarship. Step 2: Go to college in Portland. Step 3: Come out. For now, however, the pressure of her all-important plans and the time it’s taking to implement them is wearing her down. So, too, are her mother’s insistence that she attend church clad in a dress and heels and her frustration at having crushes she knows she can never act on.

To top it all off, Mara gets booted from her beloved basketball team for fighting, and Coach Joyce says she can’t return unless she succeeds on another team—sans violence. Mara scornfully deems volleyball too girly, what with all the hair ribbons and giggling, so she joins the football team instead. Her brother, Noah, and her BFF, Quinn, are on it, and the three of them have been playing together since childhood. What could go wrong?

Well. She’s spent years acting like just another one of the guys, so as Mara begins to actually excel on the gridiron, she’s surprised when her teammates’ sexism turns on her with full, resentful force. Even worse, four volleyball girls—including Mara’s frenemy, Carly, and crush, Valentina—join the team. Suddenly Mara’s a role model whether she likes it or not. (Reader, she does not.) 

A newcomer to town named Jupiter, who is an older, out lesbian, helps Maya reframe some of her own biases. She offers empathy even as she notes that the way Maya’s mother gatekeeps femininity is not all that different from how Mara stereotypes the volleyball girls. Jupiter also serves as a lovely, hope-inspiring example of what life could be like for Mara and her queer classmates someday.

Along with suspenseful and exciting gameplay, Like Other Girls features a winning mix of coming-of-age revelations, fun romantic subplots and thought-provoking musings on what it really means to be comfortable with yourself as part of a family, a community and a team.

Like Mara, high school junior and field hockey star Zoe Alamandar has a plan in Dangerous Play. She’ll lead her team to New York state field hockey championships victory, impress a scout from and get a full ride to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and bid her central New York hometown a hearty farewell.

After a summer of training the team with co-captain Ava at her side, Zoe’s feeling pretty great about her chances for success. Her teammates are united in their shared goal. She’s had fun working at her uncle’s ice cream shack with her best friend, Liv. Her dad has been dealing with lingering pain from a work accident but has been more upbeat lately. Zoe might even get up the nerve to talk to her crush, a boy named Grove.

In Dangerous Play, debut author Emma Kress demonstrates with devastating realism just how quickly things can change. When Zoe is sexually assaulted at a party, her optimism and confidence are crushed under the weight of PTSD, and her bright “fockey”-filled future now seems impossibly far away.

Kress, who has worked as a sexual violence peer counselor, writes in her author’s note that she “wanted to examine what happens to a group of girls and their community when rape culture goes unchecked.” She has created a memorable portrait of a girl who struggles with her new reality as emotions roll over her like so much rough surf.

But what if the team could prevent the same thing from happening to other girls? Vengeance takes center stage as a new mission generates excitement and controversy among the girls. They’re an adventurous bunch (parkour is a beloved team hobby), but how far is too far? And who gets to decide what equals justice?

Dangerous Play celebrates female friendship with wit, heart and plenty of pulse-pounding field hockey action as the championship game draws ever closer. Readers will root for Zoe, her teammates and their families as they strive to find common ground: “We’re all strands of yarn and gradually . . . we knit together and become something. Something bigger.”

These powerful YA novels celebrate sports, friendship and the pursuit of justice. Read them and cheer!

YA FictionYA

Something witchy this way comes

Feature by Linda M. Castellitto

Coming-of-age goes supernatural in three spellbinding YA books featuring teen witches with amazing abilities and major magic. Toil, trouble and the curses of adolescence are no match for their power!

Edie in Between by Laura Sibson book coverEdie in Between

In Laura Sibson’s Edie in Between, Edie Mitchell treasures the silver acorn pendant her mother gave her, but she avoids nearly every other aspect of her heritage. Edie comes from a long line of witches, but the 17-year-old considers magic something to be avoided rather than embraced.

Since her mother’s recent death, Edie has been living with her grandmother, GG, in the small town of Cedar Branch, where she refuses to touch the herbs and small bones hanging in the kitchen or interact with the inquisitive ghosts of her ancestors who like to float around the houseboat they share with a cat named Temperance. Her mother is a ghostly presence, too, but Edie won’t chat with her like GG does; she’s “a constant reminder of what I’ve lost.”

Edie manages her longing for her former Baltimore home and her uncertainty about the future by going on daily runs with her new friend, Tess. But when a threatening force is accidentally roused, Edie’s reluctance to embrace magic becomes a liability. She must get up to speed on her powers before something terrible befalls her and those she cares about—including the beautiful and appealing Rhia, an aspiring witch who’s delighted to share with Edie what she’s learned about magic thus far.

The discovery of her mom’s old journal proves pivotal to Edie’s rushed education. Each entry hints at something Edie must find or do and opens a window into her mother’s life before she became pregnant. Sibson (The Art of Breaking Things) draws the past into the present with empathy and skill, respecting the pain of Edie’s grief while allowing her to know her mother in a way she might not have otherwise.

Edie in Between is a winning portrait of a girl’s evolution from embarrassment to openly embracing what makes her different, including celebrating her magical kinship with the witches who came before her.

The Witch Haven by Sasha Peyton Smith book coverThe Witch Haven

When 17-year-old seamstress Frances Hallowell discovers her powers in The Witch Haven, she is horrified, relieved and hopeful. It’s 1911 in New York City, and after a violent attack on her life, Frances is appalled to realize she may have killed her attacker with her emotions. Thankfully, two nurses suddenly appear on the scene and whisk her away to Haxahaven Sanitarium, helping her avoid police suspicion and catapulting her into an astonishing new chapter of her life.

That’s because the nurses are witches and Haxahaven isn’t a medical facility. Instead, it’s a 200-year-old school for the magical, complete with dramatic architecture, noisy dining hall and imperious headmistress. Now that Frances’ powers have been awakened, Haxahaven will help her use them for good.

And that’s where the hopefulness comes in, as magic holds both the promise of a better future and the solution to a more immediate problem: Can Frances’ new powers help her find out what happened to her brother, William, who was found dead in the East River four months ago? Her grief is ever-present—“like a punch to the gut fifty times a day”—as is her desire to solve his murder and prevent others from suffering as he did.

Debut author Sasha Peyton Smith has created a compelling character in Frances. She’s smart and often funny, impulsive and occasionally frustrating as she makes decisions born of naivete and desperation, often with new friends Maxine and Lena in tow. The arrival of William’s friend Finn offers a way for Frances to learn meaningful magic (disappointingly, Haxahaven focuses on housekeeping-centric spells) and to investigate William’s death. There’s romantic potential between them, too, but Finn belongs to a gentlemen’s club full of power-hungry wizards. Should she judge him by the company he keeps?

The Witch Haven is an immersive excursion into early 20th-century New York City. Beneath the grit and darkness of the period, Smith layers in a supernatural underworld that intrigues Frances as much as it endangers her. The result is an atmospheric and mystical adventure that offers a realistic exploration of grief and a memorable take on coming-of-age tropes.

Bad Witch Burning by Jessica Lewis book coverBad Witch Burning

Katrell Davis suffers greatly in debut author Jessica Lewis’ Bad Witch Burning, enduring wrenching emotional pain, violent beatings and overwhelming exhaustion. Even so, the 16-year-old stubbornly insists on survival even when her options are meager and dangerous. She works 30 hours a week at a burger joint, trying to pay the rent and bills for the decrepit townhouse where she lives with her neglectful mother and her mother’s abusive boyfriend, Gerald. She has a side gig, too: Using her magical powers, she conjures up her clients’ dead relatives, even though it causes her physical pain.

Her best friend, Will, loves to chat with her late grandma Clara, who warns Katrell that she must stop her seances: “You’ll burn down not only yourself, but everyone and everything around you.” Katrell pays Clara no mind; she’s got work to do. But when her hours at the burger joint are cut and Gerald kills her dog, Katrell’s anguish and rage burn hotter than ever, leading her to discover an even more powerful ability than merely communing with the dead. So what if people are crawling out of their graves and walking around? It’s a huge risk, but Katrell will figure it out, and she’ll monetize it.

A series of resurrections earns her more cash than she’s ever had—but more attention, too. As threatening types close in and Katrell realizes her powers aren’t completely under her control, Lewis’ story becomes an even wilder ride, its horror tinged with the darkest of humor as Katrell’s life hangs in the balance.

Bad Witch Burning is a powerful debut, a moving gift of a story from a writer who, per an author’s note included with advance editions of the book, worked through her own valid anger and emerged stronger on the other side to create a book “for girls who need to scream but smile instead.” It’s an exciting, harrowing supernatural tale filled with thrills, poignancy and heart.

Coming-of-age goes supernatural in three spellbinding YA books featuring teen witches with amazing abilities and major magic. Toil, trouble and the curses of adolescence are no match for their power!

Mystery & SuspenseThrillerMystery

Speculative and spectacular

Feature by Linda M. Castellitto

Career criminals crisscross Europe as they tread a perilous path to revenge, and FBI agents race to solve bizarre murders plaguing an historic Southern city. But otherworldly forces lurk around the edges, turning these two thrillers into something else altogether.

The Nameless Ones

John Connolly’s The Nameless Ones is a bleak, unflinching look at the ways in which the effects of war ripple ever outward, endlessly destructive, never truly resolved. In places where this kind of conflict is never-ending, there are some—such as Serbian brothers Spiridon and Radovan Vuksan—who might decide that crime does pay. After committing countless atrocities in the 1990s Yugoslav wars (Spiridon prefers hands-on torture, Radovan is a hands-off strategist), the men now lead a crime syndicate and have amassed money, power and influence.

But these things don’t render them invincible, especially where Louis and Angel are concerned. These fan-favorite characters, a loving gay couple who happen to be an assassin and a thief, are front and center in this 19th installment of the Charlie Parker series, though Parker makes cameos here and there. Louis and Angel are on a mission to avenge the death of De Jaager, a Dutch fixer whom the Vuksan brothers and their colleagues murdered, along with three others, in Amsterdam.

De Jaager’s death is the latest in a round robin of revenge that’s decreasing the likelihood of the Vuksans ever returning to Serbia as free men. Connolly delves into the logistics of organized crime while illustrating how escalating pressures are fraying the Vuksan brothers’ contentious relationship. Complicating matters is Parker’s late daughter, Jennifer, who appears to Louis and Angel in their dreams, plus a woman named Zorya whose presence is discomfiting and mystifying. Will she help or hinder the Vuksans as Louis and Angel, enraged and determined, draw ever closer?

Multiple characters and points of view factor into the complex plot, offering history and context for the sociopaths, narcissists and opportunists that populate The Nameless Ones. There are moments of wit and wisdom, too—and sinister questions that will leave fans eager for the next installment.

★ Bloodless

This November, it will have been 50 years since people first began asking, “Who the hell was D.B. Cooper?” Fans of Aloysius X.L. Pendergast will be delighted that Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child have chosen to mark the anniversary of Cooper’s famously unsolved skyjacking in Bloodless, the 20th title in their bestselling series featuring the unusual and inimitable FBI special agent who’s solved more than 100 cases and counting.

The book opens with a closer look at what might’ve happened during Cooper’s fateful crime in the sky, and then it fast-forwards to the present day wherein Pendergast, his companion Constance Greene and his partner Armstrong Coldmoon are embarking on a weird new case. They’ve been called to Savannah, Georgia, where a body has been found completely drained of blood, and the residents have no insight or information to offer. (Or do they?)

In short order, there are more victims who look “like alien creatures or wax manikins” and a continued and confounding lack of clues, much to the dismay of an obnoxious senatorial candidate who pushes the FBI and local police for a quick resolution. Other complicating factors include a brash documentary crew, with dubious ethics, in town to chronicle the city’s alleged paranormal activity; rumors that the elderly Chandler House hotel proprietor Felicity Frost is actually a vampire; and kooky residents and tourists who keep things messy.

And then things get really messy, as whoever is killing people ratchets up the gruesomeness, splattering the charming historical city with blood and gore while infusing the humid air with abject terror. History, mystery, action and the unexplainable collide as the FBI team draws closer to their prey while trying to avoid being hunted themselves.

Bloodless is rife with inventive scenarios, amusing exchanges (especially between oft-impatient Coldmoon and eternally placid Pendergast) and tantalizingly spooky mysteries, topped off with a gloriously wild finale that is as action-packed as it is memorable.

Horrors both supernatural and all-too-human haunt two new installments of popular, long-running series.

Business & Finance

Texas tea and wisdom

Review by Linda M. Castellitto

Time magazine called billionaire T. Boone Pickens a real-life J.R. Ewing. Both are Texas oil barons, and they're quite wealthy, thanks to plenty of business savvy and an energetic affinity for taking risks. But it's unlikely the fictional J.R. would've written a book like The First Billion is the Hardest: Reflections on a Life of Comebacks and America's Energy Future. In this memoir-cum-business-book, Pickens is just as up-front about his battle with depression as he is about his various corporate takeovers in an interesting mix of personal revelations and professional excitement. Every chapter includes "Booneisms" like "Don't rush the monkey and you'll see a better show" and "In a deal between friends, there's no place for a wolverine." Pickens also debunks myths about the oil industry and details his impact on corporate practices: "Through our takeover attempts, my team and I introduced the concept that reigns supreme today – shareholder value." After 40 years at the helm of Mesa Petroleum, he started up BP Capital, a commodities and equities firm, during his seventh decade. Today, at 80, he's one of the world's highest – paid hedge fund managers. Pickens' no-nonsense, you-can-do-it-too approach works, whether he's extolling the benefits of physical fitness, offering an energy plan for America or reminding readers that "Action leads to more action. One deal leads to another deal."

Time magazine called billionaire T. Boone Pickens a real-life J.R. Ewing. Both are Texas oil barons, and they're quite wealthy, thanks to plenty of business savvy and an energetic affinity for taking risks. But it's unlikely the fictional J.R. would've written a book like The…

‘Long Tail’ author takes a free ride

Review by Linda M. Castellitto

When Chris Anderson wrote his first book, 2006’s The Long Tail, he made some of his research, ideas and conclusions available free to readers of his blog. He was rewarded with thoughtful feedback and questions, not to mention a ready-made audience for the book. His new book, Free: The Future of a Radical Price, takes a page from that experience via case studies with a foundation of free, plus a tour through the history and psychology of “freeconomics.” By “free,” Anderson doesn’t mean gift-with-purchase; he means no-strings-attached giveaways that reap rewards through sales of other products or services, or information that can be used to build brand and customer loyalty.

The author, whose day job is editor-in-chief of Wired (available free online), explores print advertising models and their new online counterparts and also describes strategies employed by pioneers and modern-day masters of free-centric business models. For example, in 1904, Jell-O created demand for its strange new product by giving away recipe booklets; in 2008, science fiction writer Neil Gaiman offered for four weeks a free download of American Gods. Obviously, Jell-O’s strategy worked, as did Gaiman’s: American Gods became a bestseller, and independent-bookstore sales of his other books increased by 40 percent.

Also valuable: a willingness to take risks in pursuit of capturing the attention of media-savvy, demanding consumers with Web-centric lives. Anderson writes, “If you’re controlling scarce resources (the prime-time broadcast schedule, say) you have to be discriminating. . . . But if you’re tapping into abundant resources, you can afford to take chances, since the cost of failure is so low.” Sections like “The 10 Principles of Abundance Thinking” and “50 Business Models Built on Free” will help readers grasp (and apply) freeconomic principles, while sidebars such as “Why do free bikes thrive in one city, but not another?” ask and answer intriguing questions. As with The Long Tail, Anderson has crafted an edifying, entertaining read—one that will be exciting and useful for readers looking for a fresh approach to business.

Linda M. Castellitto writes from North Carolina. 

When Chris Anderson wrote his first book, 2006’s The Long Tail, he made some of his research, ideas and conclusions available free to readers of his blog. He was rewarded with thoughtful feedback and questions, not to mention a ready-made audience for the book. His…

NonfictionMemoirFood & Drink

Taste

Review by Linda M. Castellitto

Like il timpano, the enormous layered pasta pie that starred in the 1996 movie Big Night alongside Tony Shalhoub and Stanley Tucci, the latter’s new memoir, Taste: My Life Through Food, is a gastronome’s delight. It has piquant surprises tucked inside and will leave readers both sated and wanting more.

When it comes to Tucci, fans always want more. The award-winning actor and bestselling cookbook author was considered a standout guy even before his swoony Negroni tutorial video went viral at the beginning of the COVID-19 lockdown. He’s known for scene-stealing roles in movies like Spotlight and The Devil Wears Prada, as well as in foodie films like Big Night and Julie & Julia. 

And like Julia Child before him, Tucci’s chef skills are as impressive as his boundless passion for eating. Such is the life of a gourmand, which he revels in and reflects on in Taste. The author takes readers on a grand tasting tour, from his childhood in Westchester, New York, to his 1980s New York City acting debut to bigger roles in major movies made around the world, where he always dined with gusto.

Tucci is quite opinionated about food. Well-placed “fuck”s signify outraged incredulity (e.g., an adult “cutting their spaghetti!!!!!!!” or the travesty of turkey in an alfredo) and offer hits of hilarity throughout. There are also dramatic renderings of memorable conversations, like the gasp-inducing time a chef told him, “I make a stock . . . of cheese.” 

He shares serious stories as well, like the pain and grief he and his family felt when his late wife, Kathryn, died in 2009, and their joy and hope when he married Felicity Blunt in 2012. He writes, too, about his recent cancer diagnosis and treatment, a grueling experience during which he had a feeding tube and worried “things would never return to the way they were, when life was edible.”

Thankfully he is now cancer-free, and via the artfully crafted recipes Tucci includes in Taste, readers can join him in celebrating food and drink once again. Under his tutelage, they might even dare to construct and consume their own timpano.

Like the enormous layered pasta pie that starred in the 1996 movie Big Night, Stanley Tucci’s new memoir is a gastronome’s delight.
Children's & YAMiddle Grade

Playing the Cards You’re Dealt

Review by Linda M. Castellitto

It’s day one of fifth grade, and Anthony “Ant” Joplin is playing it cool. He surrenders to lots of photos and kisses from his parents but insists on walking to Gerald Elementary on his own, as befits the 10-year-old he has become.

He also wants to get there early so he can play with the deck of cards he has secreted away in his backpack. The annual Oak Grove spades tournament kicks off soon, and Ant really, really wants to win. He tried last year, but it didn’t go well (tears were involved), which is especially embarrassing since his older brother, their dad and their grandfather have all won in the past. So Ant is planning to practice hard, stay strong and stoic like his dad is always telling him to be, and uphold the Joplin men’s tradition. After all, as the warm and witty omniscient narrator observes, “bragging rights are more valuable than a packet of hot sauce at a fish fry.”

But in Varian Johnson’s winningly affecting and timely Playing the Cards You’re Dealt, Ant realizes that wanting something and trying hard to get it isn’t always enough—whether it’s winning a game, gaining approval from a parent or keeping everything the same.

Instead, in the suspenseful lead-up to the tournament, one thing after another goes awry. Ant’s spades partner, Jamal, gets grounded, and Ant’s father acts increasingly strange. He used to have a drinking problem but promised to stop, so that can’t be the reason, right? The arrival of new girl Shirley also throws Ant for a loop. Shirley is smart, won’t tolerate Jamal’s bullying and is comfortable talking about feelings. Ant is drawn to her not just because she’d be a great new spades partner but also because she’s an example of how to live life sans toxic masculinity. (He thinks she’s pretty cute, too.)

Readers will root for the good-hearted and charming Ant as he learns lessons about trust, teamwork and true strength, with some sweet hints of romance thrown in as well. They might learn a new skill, too, thanks to Johnson’s beginner-friendly explanations of the strategies—and fun!—of playing spades.

It’s day one of fifth grade, and Anthony “Ant” Joplin is playing it cool.

NonfictionHumorEssays

Please Don’t Sit on My Bed in Your Outside Clothes

Review by Linda M. Castellitto

From dubbing Michael Keaton an “Eyebrow Zaddy” to writing a treatise on barrister wigs “looking like a sad-ass Halloween costume and smelling like Seabiscuit’s haystack,” Phoebe Robinson is as hilarious as ever in her third book, Please Don’t Sit on My Bed in Your Outside Clothes, the first title from the comedian-podcaster-actor-host’s new Tiny Reparations Books imprint.

As in her previous memoirs-in-essay (You Can’t Touch My Hair and Everything’s Trash, but It’s Okay), not only is the bestselling author’s work super funny, it’s also enlightening and thought-provoking. Whether she’s offering advice to aspiring bosses, dismantling the “patriarchal narrative [that] every woman . . . wants the same things” (especially motherhood) or explaining why the #ITakeResponsibility initiative in the summer of 2020 enrages her (“celebrities heard but did not listen to what Black people wanted and raced to put together something so shoddy and tone-deaf”), Robinson’s voice is sure and strong.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Phoebe Robinson shares what she hopes to accomplish as the publisher of Tiny Reparations Books.

Her essay “Black Girl, Will Travel” is particularly moving. She explains that, while her parents are team “#NoNewFriendsOrAcquaintancesOrWorldlyExperiences,” one of the benefits of her career is the ability to see more of the world. It can be “downright terrifying and life-threatening to travel while Black”—and the lack of movies, books, shows and ads featuring Black people abroad certainly makes it seem as if travel isn’t for Black people. But visiting unfamiliar places has changed her, and she urges readers to remember “evolving can’t always happen when we’re confined to our area code.”

In “4C Girl Living in Anything but a 4C World: The Disrespect,” Robinson describes a journey of a different kind: Her own rocky path to feeling at home in and with her hair. She examines the historical and cultural influences that have shaped Black women’s feelings about their hair and details the racism, colorism and cruelty that persists to this day. It’s a memorable, meaningful reading experience dotted with hits of poetry, anger and revelation—as is Please Don’t Sit on My Bed in Your Outside Clothes as a whole. So slip into your inside cardigan (a la Mr. Rogers) and settle in for another rollicking and resonant Robinson read.

Not only are Phoebe Robinson’s essays super funny, they’re also enlightening and thought-provoking, dotted with hits of poetry, anger and revelation.
Mystery & SuspenseMystery

A Good Day for Chardonnay

Review by Linda M. Castellitto

Readers who enjoy murder mysteries with lots of intertwined plotlines, quirky characters and zany hijinks topped off with a healthy dose of horniness will be delighted by bestselling author Darynda Jones’ A Good Day for Chardonnay.

The small tourist town of Del Sol, New Mexico, is populated by unruly residents who are staunchly community-minded and happen to be, per Sheriff Sunshine Vicram’s hilariously lusty inner monologues, quite desirable. To wit, her chief deputy and BFF Quincy is “sexy feet, AF inches” tall. And her lifelong crush, local-badboy-turned-wealthy-distillery-owner Levi Ravinder? Well, he and his crime-aficionado family look “as though [they were] chiseled by the gods . . . [with] lean, solid bodies and razor-sharp jawlines.”

But while Sunshine is often mightily distracted by eye candy, she’s also dedicated to—and excellent at—her job. She’s been back in town for four months after being away for 15 years, and she has multiple mysteries to solve. The newest include a bar fight gone terribly wrong; resurfaced cold cases with ties to her own traumatic past; and a raft of false confessions. On top of that, the mayor is pressuring her to figure out if the Dangerous Daughters secret society (rumored to have run the town for decades) is real or just local legend.

And then there’s Sunshine’s daughter Auri, whom fans met in series kickoff A Bad Day for Sunshine. The smart, reckless teenager is determined to solve crimes just like her mom, and she pursues a sweet old lady who might be a serial killer. Auri is also Sunshine’s personal mystery: at 17, the sheriff was abducted by Levi’s uncle and held captive for five days, after which she emerged pregnant and with severe memory loss.

Will Levi’s family finally answer Sunshine’s questions about her abduction? Can she catch the marauding raccoon that’s terrorizing the town? How are the cold cases tied to these complex new crimes? With her trademark warmth and humor, Jones answers some of these questions and raises even more, nicely teeing up the next installment in Sunshine’s complicated, sexy and highly entertaining life story.

Readers who like their murder mysteries to have lots of intertwined plotlines, quirky characters and zany hijinks topped off with a healthy dose of horniness will be delighted by bestselling author Darynda Jones’ A Good Day for Chardonnay.

NonfictionMemoir

Blind Man’s Bluff

Review by Linda M. Castellitto

When he was 16, James Tate Hill’s eyesight changed forever. A diagnosis of Leber’s hereditary optic neuropathy put a name to what he was experiencing as his vision faded: “Picture a kaleidoscope . . . a time-lapsed photograph of a distant galaxy. . . . Imagine a movie filmed with only extras, a meal cooked using nothing but herbs and a dash of salt, a sentence constructed of only metaphors.”

In his disarmingly honest and funny memoir, Blind Man’s Bluff, Hill—a writing instructor, audiobooks columnist, editor and author of academic-satire-murder-mystery Academy Gothic (2015)—shares his journey from denial to acceptance, from pretending to be fully sighted to acknowledging the truth he worked so hard to hide.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: James Tate Hill shares how his literary career helped him take big emotional leaps toward self-acceptance.

Hill writes movingly of the internalized shame and stigma that had such a strong hold on him for some 15 years, sharing both the pain of loneliness and isolation (much of it self-imposed) and the clever strategies he employed in his efforts to pass for sighted. Misdirects included feigning eye contact, asking restaurant waitstaff for recommendations rather than attempting to read a menu and, when he began teaching college classes, telling students to go ahead and speak without first raising their hands.

The author is adept at humor in Blind Man’s Bluff—such as when he writes, “In New York City, most people didn’t drive. I wasn’t blind; I was a New Yorker.”—and he also deploys finely tuned, often deliciously slow-building suspense. (Can he cross a busy street unharmed? Is it possible to walk at graduation without revealing the truth? Will he find love again after his divorce?)

Readers will root for Hill as he travels the long, rocky road from self-flagellation to self-confidence, developing an affection for 1980s pop culture along the way. They’ll also likely find themselves wishing he’d be kinder to himself—and feeling relieved and optimistic when, at last, he is.

Blind Man’s Bluff is an inspiring, often incredible story that reminds us of the strength that can come from vulnerability, from opening ourselves to warts-and-all human connection. As Hill writes, “Wisdom, it turns out, is acknowledging where I cannot go without help.”

In his disarmingly honest and funny memoir, James Tate Hill shares his journey from pretending to be fully sighted to acknowledging and embracing his blindness.
Mystery & SuspenseMystery

The Night Hawks

Review by Linda M. Castellitto

History, mystery and legend collide in The Night Hawks, the atmospheric and intense 13th entry in British author Elly Griffiths’ bestselling series starring forensic archaeologist Dr. Ruth Galloway.

Ruth has recently returned to the Norfolk fens, leaving behind a job at Cambridge University as well as her ex-boyfriend Frank Barker. She’s now head of archaeology at the University of North Norfolk, complete with a lovely large office and employee David Brown, who seems to love dismissing her authority almost as much as he loves going on digs. Another constant presence at the digs are the Night Hawks, a group of licensed metal detectorists who are excited at the prospect of buried treasure at nearby Blakeney Point beach. Alas, while the eventual discovery they make there is notable, it’s not in the way they’d hoped. Certainly, a hoard of Bronze Age artifacts is an excellent find, especially with a very old skeleton in their midst—but nearby, they also find the much more recent corpse of a man with a tattoo that resembles the mythical Norfolk Sea Serpent.

As special advisor to the local police, Ruth is called to the scene by Detective Chief Inspector Harry Nelson, who is the father of her 10-year-old daughter, Kate. She and the police have just begun to unravel the bodies’ and artifacts’ origins when there is another gruesome discovery: the presumed murder-suicide of a married couple at a remote farmhouse that locals believe is haunted by the Black Shuck, a harbinger of death in the form of a huge black dog with frightening red eyes. Even stranger, the Night Hawks discovered this tragedy as well, and the investigators begin to wonder if the group, rather than simply stumbling across crimes, is somehow involved in them.

Like the seaweed that lays in messy heaps on the rocky Norfolk beach, the interplay among Griffiths’ appealingly varied characters becomes ever more tangled as the story progresses, making for an intriguing mix of secrets, loyalties and ulterior motives. The Night Hawks will delight longtime fans and new readers alike with its spooky-beautiful setting, layered mysteries and authentically complex relationships.

History, mystery and legend collide in The Night Hawks, the atmospheric and intense 13th entry in British author Elly Griffiths’ bestselling series starring forensic archaeologist Dr. Ruth Galloway.

Mystery & SuspenseSuspense

Such a Quiet Place

Review by Linda M. Castellitto

It’s not uncommon for neighbors or co-workers to consider themselves family, and in bestselling author Megan Miranda’s Such a Quiet Place, the residents of Hollow’s Edge feel that pressure from both sides. A picturesque community of close-set homes, Hollow’s Edge is mainly populated by employees of the nearby College of Lake Hollow. But something malevolent lurks beneath the community’s pretty surface, and close bonds are frayed, even broken, in the wake of a shocking murder.

It’s been 18 months since Brandon and Fiona Truett were found dead, and 14 months since Ruby Fletcher was convicted of the crime. The community heaved a collective sigh of relief when she began her 20-year prison sentence, but as the book opens, they’re gasping in righteous horror. Ruby’s conviction was overturned, and she’s back in Hollow’s Edge, charismatic as ever and with a vengeful gleam in her eye.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Why Megan Miranda is always drawn to dark, deep woods.

After all, despite the neighborhood watch, security cameras and homeowners association message board, somebody killed the Truetts. The neighbors, convinced it was Ruby, testified against her. Only her housemate, narrator Harper Nash, seems open to the possibility that it wasn’t Ruby—and even she’s not 100% sure. But what if Ruby really didn’t do it? Who among them is the actual killer? The residents of Hollow’s Edge face a highly disturbing and dangerous state of affairs, no matter how you look at it.

Playing with perspective is a Miranda specialty, and she does so spectacularly in Such a Quiet Place, exploring how speculation can transform from idle entertainment to actual condemnation. She also touches on a favored theme of manipulative friendships, as Harper’s persistent self-doubt and empathetic nature leave her vulnerable, coloring her worldview and behavior toward Ruby. But Harper is determined to suss out the truth, and readers will enjoy riding along as she tempts fate via some daring amateur sleuthing around the woods, lake and streets of Hollow’s Edge.

Miranda has created a claustrophobic and suspenseful whodunit—a pressure cooker brimming with a host of plausible suspects, toxic HOA groupthink and plenty of finger-pointing among supposed friends—that ponders the eternal question of how well we really know those closest to us.

This claustrophobic, suspenseful whodunit ponders the eternal question of how well we really know those closest to us.

YA FictionYA

The Coming Storm

Review by Linda M. Castellitto

For more than a century, thanks to L.M. Montgomery’s series that began with Anne of Green Gables, readers have associated Canada’s Prince Edward Island (PEI) with a spirited redhead named Anne Shirley. First-time author Regina M. Hansen stakes her own PEI literary claim via another ginger-haired girl, Beatrice MacNeill, known as “Beet.” Like Anne, she’s determined and sharp-witted. Unlike Anne, she discovers one fateful night in 1949 that she can see ghosts. 

It’s the specter of Beet’s beloved older cousin Gerry who comes to her, soaking wet and playing an eerie tune on his fiddle. Beet realizes he must have died at sea and that he’ll never meet his son, Joseph, born that very night. Alas, this is not the last time Beet experiences deep sorrow in Hansen’s historical fantasy, The Coming Storm. It’s also not the last time something strange happens in her world, as ancient folklore and workaday reality collide.

The sea and its unknowable allure are central to Hansen’s story, as is PEI itself. The author’s descriptions of the island’s wet sands, foggy nights and dramatic cliffs create a spooky atmosphere that elicits a delicious sense of creeping dread. This dread takes hold of Beet after the arrival of Marina Shaw, who claims to be a cousin of Gerry’s and expresses her outrageous intent to take little Joseph back to Boston with her. 

Beet can’t understand why Marina remains so unsettlingly serene in the wake of any objections. And what about the unearthly music she keeps hearing riding on the breeze? Certainly the sea stirs up strange winds, but this feels . . . different. 

Hansen moves the story back and forth in time, skillfully introducing characters who share their own bizarre sea stories with Beet. As the days and pages pass, the danger to Joseph grows, and a supernatural threat looms over Beet’s island home, all of which contribute to the slowly building suspense. The Coming Storm is an intriguing, often thrilling tribute to the bonds of love and friendship. It’s also an eloquent ode to the wild beauty of PEI and a testament to the power of facing what confounds us.

First-time author Regina M. Hansen stakes her own Prince Edward Island literary claim via another ginger-haired girl, Beatrice MacNeill, known as “Beet.” Like Anne, she’s determined and sharp-witted. Unlike Anne, she discovers one fateful night in 1949 that she can see ghosts. 

Sign Up

Stay on top of new releases: Sign up for our newsletter to receive reading recommendations in your favorite genres.

Sign up now

Trending Features

All Features