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Best Hispanic and Latinx titles of 2024 (so far)

Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15 to October 15) by reading one of these excellent books by Hispanic and Latinx authors.
Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15 to October 15) by reading one of these excellent books by Hispanic and Latinx authors.
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13 writers to watch in 2022

Feature by the editors of BookPage
Maud Newton

Maud Newton, author of Ancestor Trouble
Random House | March 29

Maud Newton made a name for herself back in 2002 as one of the very first book bloggers, drawing a large audience with her blend of cultural criticism and personal writing about her family tree. Now her first book, Ancestor Trouble, will develop those early musings into their fullest forms, using the lens of Newton’s family (including her Confederate heritage-obsessed father and a grandfather who got married 13 times) to examine the wider world of genetics, intergenerational trauma and family secrets, both buried and spilled. Her approach is sweeping, even exhaustive, but Newton is a master at taking a complex, far-reaching topic and making it magnificently intimate.

M.E. Hilliard

M.E. Hilliard, author of Shadow in the Glass
Crooked Lane | April 5

A working librarian who grew up on the Connecticut coast, M.E. Hilliard brings her professional and personal expertise to bear in the Greer Hogan mysteries, the rare cozy series that can be legitimately described as “edgy.” The standard elements are all there—a beautiful small-town setting in New England, a clever and resourceful heroine—but there’s a pleasing strain of darkness running through the proceedings. Hilliard’s debut, The Unkindness of Ravens, won rave reviews across the board, and Shadow in the Glass is bound to lure even more readers to her chilly, ceaselessly clever take on the classic cozy. 

Bonnie Garmus

Bonnie Garmus, author of Lessons in Chemistry
Doubleday | April 5

California-born, London-based author Bonnie Garmus’ first novel, Lessons in Chemistry, made waves when it sold in a 16-publisher auction, and now Brie Larson is set to star in and executive produce the Apple TV+ series adaptation. That’s a whole lot of hype, but the great news is that Garmus’ novel delivers on its promises in depicting the ups and downs in the life of chemist and cooking show host Elizabeth Zott. Plus, Garmus seems like someone we’d like to be friends with: copywriter, creative director, open-water swimmer, rower and mother with a background in tech and science and a real knack for naming dogs. (The dog in Lessons in Chemistry is named Six-Thirty, and the author’s own is named 99.)

Kris Ripper

Kris Ripper, author of Book Boyfriend
Carina Adores | April 26

The extremely prolific Kris Ripper became one of the genre’s rising stars with The Love Study series, a charming, nuanced look at modern love that boasted an enviable and highly entertaining friend group. Ripper’s next book, Book Boyfriend, offers a charmingly meta wrinkle to the always popular subgenre of romances set in the literary world. PK is a writer who has been in love with his best friend, Art, for years. He pours all of his feelings into his work, creating a novel in which a fictionalized version of himself is the perfect partner (aka a “book boyfriend,” a romance term used to refer to characters that readers would love to date in real life). 

Shelby Van Pelt

Shelby Van Pelt, author of Remarkably Bright Creatures
Ecco | May 3

First-time novelist and Pacific Northwest native Shelby Van Pelt arrives with the year’s most anticipated animal narrator: Marcellus, an Ove-style curmudgeon that just so happens to be a highly observant giant Pacific octopus living in an aquarium. Van Pelt has combined My Octopus Teacher with a drama involving an elderly woman’s search for her missing son, resulting in a novel that aims for the book club sweet spot.

Putsata Reang

Putsata Reang, author of Ma and Me
MCD | May 17

When journalist Putsata Reang was less than a year old, she spent 23 days on a crowded boat with her mother as refugees fleeing Cambodia. Sanctuary was eventually offered in the Philippines, where Reang’s mother rushed her sick baby to a military doctor, who saved Reang’s life. This is the debt Reang owes her mother—and this is the reason Reang felt her mother’s disappointment so acutely when Reang came out as a lesbian and her mother severed the relationship. Ma and Me is an important new entry in the growing body of American refugee and immigrant literature, shining a light on the experiences of queer people whose families have survived the trauma of war. 

Kirstin Chen

Kirstin Chen, author of Counterfeit
William Morrow | June 7

Award-winning author Kirstin Chen’s first two novels, Soy Sauce for Beginners and Bury What We Cannot Take, received several “best books” nods and plenty of critical love, but her third novel, Counterfeit, is her first from a traditional publisher, which means that a whole new section of the reading public will finally get the chance to discover her. To tell the story of two Asian American women who band together in a counterfeit handbag scheme, Chen undertook a research trip to Guangdong, China, to witness the industry of luxury brand “superfakes.” It’s a juicy premise, so of course TV rights have already been sold, with Chen set to executive produce. Born and raised in Singapore, Chen currently lives in San Francisco, and she teaches creative writing at the University of San Francisco and in Ashland University’s Low-Residency MFA Program.

Kali Fajardo-Anstine

Kali Fajardo-Anstine, author of Woman of Light
One World | June 7

No doubt about it, Colorado-based author Kali Fajardo-Anstine’s star is rising. Her 2019 short story collection, Sabrina & Corina, won an American Book Award and was a finalist for the National Book Award, the PEN/Bingham Prize and the Story Prize, which means that her first novel, Woman of Light, is really exciting in a “if you know, you know” sort of way. It’s a multigenerational epic set in the American West from 1890 to 1935, following an Indigenous Chicano family throughout five generations. Fajardo-Anstine earned her MFA from the University of Wyoming and is the 2022/2023 Endowed Chair of Creative Writing at Texas State University.

Nekesa Afia

Nekesa Afia, author of Harlem Sunset
Berkley | June 28

It’s hard to write a good historical mystery. Authors must manage all the spinning plates of a good whodunit (premise, red herrings, pacing of clues, etc.), while also wrestling with the knotty questions of historical fiction. Can they evoke the feeling of an era while still making it accessible to modern readers, and successfully highlight both the fun and glamour and the inequalities and issues of the day? In her roaring ’20s historical mystery debut, Dead Dead Girls, Nekesa Afia succeeded at all of the above and introduced a complicated, perfectly crafted sleuth to boot. No surprise the book became a word-of-mouth hit. We expect that Harlem Sunset will introduce even more readers to Afia and her fashionable heroine, Louise Lovie Lloyd.

CJ Hauser

CJ Hauser, author of The Crane Wife
Doubleday | July 12

Novelist CJ Hauser (Family of Origin, The From-Aways) struck it big in 2019 with her Paris Review essay “The Crane Wife,” which has since been read by over a million people. Now her debut work of nonfiction will take the eponymous viral essay—about traveling to Texas to study whooping cranes 10 days after calling off her wedding—and enlarge its scope with 17 additional pieces that explore how to cultivate an unconventional life, from robot conventions, to weddings, to John Belushi’s grave. As a fiction writer, Hauser’s work is smart, surprising and irresistibly weird—and now, as an essayist, perhaps doubly so.

Isaac Fitzgerald

Isaac Fitzgerald, author of Dirtbag, Massachusetts
Bloomsbury | July 19

Isaac Fitzgerald has been a man about book-town for years: He’s the founding editor of Buzzfeed Books, a bestselling children’s book author, an essayist, a co-author of art books about tattoos and a frequent “Today” show guest. Dirtbag, Massachusetts marks his grand entry into one of the few book-town neighborhoods where he hasn’t yet set up shop: prose books for adults. Fitzgerald’s memoir-in-essays will chart his rough-and-tumble upbringing in Boston and rural Massachusetts and the choppy waters of his West Coast adulthood, learning to navigate the pitfalls of masculinity, body image, class and family strife. There will be tough stops along this journey—including discussions of violence, homelessness and trauma—but we suspect Fitzgerald’s signature tenderness, humor and generosity will carry readers gently the whole way.

Alexandra Rowland

Alexandra Rowland, author of A Taste of Gold and Iron
Tordotcom | August 30

Fantasy romance is absolutely huge right now, to the point that it can be hard to stand out among the flood of gorgeously crafted tales of star-crossed lovers or rival princes. But standing out has not been a problem for Alexandra Rowland. Their Conspiracy of Truths duology was funny, moving and profound in equal measure, thematically ambitious but still deeply rooted in the personal experiences of its characters. We expect even more from A Taste of Gold and Iron, a standalone fantasy romance set in a world inspired by the Ottoman Empire. This tale of a prince and his bodyguard falling in love while untangling a plot that threatens their kingdom and promises to be a feast that satisfies both emotionally and intellectually.

Maya Phillips

Maya Phillips, author of Nerd
Atria | October 11

Poet and New York Times critic at large Maya Phillips will breathe new life into the ever-popular subject of fandom in her prose debut, Nerd: Adventures in Fandom From This Universe to the Multiverse. Growing up in the 1990s, Phillips cut her teeth on narrative greats such as Star Wars, Harry Potter, “Doctor Who” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” As she teases apart how these franchises and others formed her identity, worldview and media appetites, her experiences as a Black woman and chops as a professional film and TV critic elevate each essay above the typical fandom fray. Nerd will lend weight to a sometimes-flighty sector of cultural criticism and establish Phillips as a true contender.

Newton author photo by Maximus Clarke. Garmus author photo by Serena Bolton. Van Pelt author photo by Karen Forsythe. Reang photo by Kim Oanh Nguyen. Chen photo by Sarah Deragon. Fajardo-Anstine photo by Estevan Ruiz. Afia photo by FizCo Photography. Hauser photo by Shannon Taggart. Fitzgerald photo by Maddie McGarvey. Rowland by Charles Darrel. Phillips photo by Brian Goldfarb.

From debuts to breakout books, this year promises to be a big one for these 13 authors. Keep them on your radar!
Mystery & SuspenseSuspense

Review

Review by bookpagedev

ome books scream blockbuster movie, and Ridley Pearson’s latest is just such a screamer. The author of 17 novels may not be as the jacket copy claims “the best thriller writer on the planet,” but if he isn’t, he’s got whoever is in first place looking over his shoulder.

In Parallel Lies, Pearson uses a classic hunter/hunted plot. The hunter is Peter Tyler, a disgraced former homicide cop trying to make a new life for himself by tracking down a railroad hobo who may be a serial killer. The hunted is former high school teacher Umberto Alvarez, who at first appears to be only a crazed railroad saboteur.

As the paths of the hunter and the hunted begin to cross, it becomes clear that Alvarez is more than just a revenge-obsessed lunatic out to destroy the railroad company he blames for the death of his wife and two children. Tyler comes oh-so-close to catching Alvarez early in the action, only to lose him. But Tyler stays close as the two play a cat and mouse game in which the object for both men is to find and expose the truth.

As in the best of such stories think of the movie version of The Fugitive the hunter begins to empathize with the hunted. Readers, too, will be torn by conflicting loyalties as they watch two likeable and honorable men approaching what seems to be a deadly confrontation.

The culmination of the plot brings the two men together on what may be a doomed supertrain. Will either of the two men survive? What is the secret that may have led to the death of Alvarez’s wife and children? What truly rivets the reader is that there is no way to accurately predict which twists and turns Pearson’s plot may take, or even who will survive the climax.

This is a “big bucket of popcorn” novel. It has building tension, likeable characters, a believable love story between Tyler and a female railroad security officer, resourceful bad guys, an absorbing behind-the-scenes exploration of the modern railroad industry and a truly explosive climax. Get a jump on your fellow moviegoers and read this thriller before it hits the big screen.

William Marden is a freelance writer who lives and works in Orange Park, Florida.

ome books scream blockbuster movie, and Ridley Pearson’s latest is just such a screamer. The author of 17 novels may not be as the jacket copy claims “the best thriller writer on the planet,” but if he isn’t, he’s got whoever is in first place looking over his shoulder. In Parallel Lies, Pearson uses a […]
Mystery & SuspenseSuspense

Review

Review by bookpagedev

tructured around four fatal falls, Icarus is a gripping new thriller from the writing team that turned out the 1999 hit, Gideon. With the flair of a Hitchcock tribute, its suspense grabs from the start, cranking up the tension as the action moves relentlessly forward.

Russell Andrews is actually a pen name for the duo of writer/editor Peter Andrew Gethers (author of The Cat Who Went to Paris and several other books) and mystery novelist David Russell Handler (who wrote the Stewart Hoag mysteries). Their styles blend to create an entertaining novel in which not everything is as it seems.

When a madman flings young Jack Keller’s mother to her death from a high-rise window, the event triggers Jack’s lifelong acrophobia. He works his way through college and meets Caroline, a young woman from a wealthy Southern family. They combine their skills to open Jack’s, a restaurant that launches an international chain of upscale steak joints.

Meanwhile, unable to have children of their own, Jack and Caroline take in Kid, a friend’s orphaned teenage son.

When Kid disappears near the end of his successful college football career, Jack and Caroline are heartbroken and retreat into their lucrative business.

Then, during the opening of a Charlottesville Jack’s, tragedy strikes in the form of a botched robbery attempt. Jack is nearly paralyzed in a fall, needing more than a year to recover from his injuries. Kid reappears just as mysteriously as he left, returning as a physical therapist with a Midas touch. During his workouts with Jack, Kid reveals coded details of the Team, the dozen or so sexy women he’s dating simultaneously, each referred to by a telling nickname: the Rookie, the Entertainer, the Destination, the Mortician and the Mistake. When a third fatal fall occurs, Jack is plunged knee-deep into trouble, convinced that one of Kid’s women is a murderer.

The plot careens in directions unexpected enough to throw off most readers (and we’ve intentionally concealed some of the more bizarre plot twists to save the surprise). If you like your vacation reading fast-paced and harrowing, Icarus will take you to new heights.

Bill Gagliani is the author of Shadowplays, an e-book collection of dark fiction.

tructured around four fatal falls, Icarus is a gripping new thriller from the writing team that turned out the 1999 hit, Gideon. With the flair of a Hitchcock tribute, its suspense grabs from the start, cranking up the tension as the action moves relentlessly forward. Russell Andrews is actually a pen name for the duo […]
Mystery & SuspenseSuspenseMystery

Whodunit: March 2022

Feature by Bruce Tierney

★ Shadows Reel

I have been a fan of C.J. Box’s Joe Pickett mysteries since the outset of the series. The 22nd offering, Shadows Reel, narrows in on Pickett’s pal, outlaw falconer Nate Romanowski, as he hunts down the thieves who killed some of his prized raptors and stole the rest of them. Romanowski is a sidekick in the mold of Spenser’s Hawk or Elvis Cole’s Joe Pike: hardboiled, loyal to a fault and probably tougher than the nominal hero of the tale. That said, Romanowski’s quarry is easily as well trained as he, and younger and stronger to boot, which is a potentially lethal combination for the aging warrior. Meanwhile, a Nazi relic creates quite a buzz in the town of Saddlestring, Wyoming—especially after its owner, a crusty old fishing guide, gets murdered most gruesomely. It will not be the last relic-related murder, as the killer has instructions to let nothing stand in his way, and he takes these instructions very literally. A recurring theme in these books is Pickett’s struggle with his deep-seated “cowboy code” morality, which is juxtaposed against the often frustrating legalities of the situations he comes up against. This time out, that conflict will give Pickett’s conscience a world-class workout. 

★ The Harbor

Katrine Engberg’s third mystery featuring Copenhagen cops Anette Werner and Jeppe Kørner perfectly balances a mysterious disappearance with the no less intriguing domestic concerns of its two investigators. At the start of The Harbor, Oscar Dreyer-Hoff, the teenage son of a wealthy family, has gone missing, perhaps kidnapped, and clues are thin on the ground. The family boat is missing, and Oscar’s backpack has turned up near the vessel’s harbor mooring. His girlfriend says she has no idea where he is and in general acts very unconcerned about the whole thing. Some time back, scandal rocked the Dreyer-Hoff family, triggering some threatening letters that must be reconsidered in light of Oscar’s disappearance. In the background, home life in the Werner and Kørner households has become less than optimal. Anette is considering an affair with a person of interest in the case, and Jeppe struggles to balance the demands of work and his new lover, whose children are none too happy about their mom’s beau. Engberg is a must read for fans of Nordic noir, and two more books starring Anette and Jeppe will soon be translated into English.

★ Girl in Ice

Erica Ferencik’s Girl in Ice is an excellent, thrilling mystery set against a quasi-science fiction backdrop. Linguist Valerie “Val” Chesterfield has accepted an unusual assignment: She’s traveling to Greenland to meet a girl rescued from an ice field who initially appeared to have frozen to death but has somehow survived. The girl speaks no known language, and Chesterfield is one of only a few scholars with sufficient knowledge of archaic Northern European languages to try and communicate with her. But there is a more pressing connection for Val: Her twin brother, Andy, died at the same Arctic outpost not so long ago, and try as she might, she cannot make any sense of his death. The novel veers into speculative territory as Wyatt, the team leader, begins to entertain the idea that the girl is not a recent freezing victim but rather is from another epoch entirely, having been cryogenically preserved using technology lost to the ages. With its fascinating science and compelling characters (one or more of whom may be a murderer), Girl in Ice demands to be read in one sitting.

★ The Berlin Exchange

It’s rare for an espionage novel’s protagonist to be a traitor, but author Joseph Kanon quite successfully breaks that unwritten rule in his 10th novel, The Berlin Exchange. As a physicist on the controversial Manhattan Project, the U.S. military program that introduced the world to atomic warfare, Martin Keller was privy to top-secret design and implementation information. Motivated by dubious idealism, Keller shared some intelligence with the opposing team and received a lengthy sentence when his subterfuge was found out. Fast forward to 1963: A prisoner exchange has been arranged, and Keller finds himself set free in East Berlin. It is a freedom that is fraught with terror from the get-go. As he passes the checkpoint, he narrowly escapes being killed by a sniper, and it will take all the resources at his disposal to stay one step ahead of whoever is trying to kill him in this chilly, elegant and consistently excellent espionage thriller.

It’s a great month for mysteries: All four of the books in our Whodunit column received a starred review!
Mystery & SuspenseMystery

Secrets in the city that never sleeps

Feature by Lauren Emily Whalen

Nothing is more mysterious than the family we were born into. Amateur sleuths Lena Scott and Claudia Lin don’t quite fit in with their blood relatives, but the solutions to their respective cases may lie within the bonds they’ve known their whole lives.

“I found out my sister was back in New York from Instagram. I found out she’d died from the New York Daily News.” These arresting first lines of Kellye Garrett’s Like a Sister alert the reader that this family-oriented thriller is anything but ordinary. 

Lena Scott and her younger half-sister, Desiree Pierce, have little in common. Lena’s a serious grad student living with her grandmother’s widow in the Bronx, while Manhattan-based ex-reality star Desiree blows through men, clothes and substances as fast as she can spend the money from their father, music industry titan Mel Pierce. But when Desiree sees the newspaper headline, she knows there’s more to her sister’s death than a simple heroin overdose. Desiree was afraid of needles, and why was she found shoeless near Lena’s own neighborhood, when the women have been estranged for two years? 

Garrett wrote for the television show “Cold Case” before publishing her award-winning debut novel, Hollywood Homicide, and its follow-up, Hollywood Ending, and in Like a Sister, she incorporates issues of race, class and, most of all, the complicated ties that bind into a twisty murder mystery with nuance and heart.

Meanwhile, in Brooklyn, Claudia Lin knows she’s a complete disappointment to her family. The narrator of Jane Pek’s The Verifiers, Claudia has neither a nice Chinese husband nor a lucrative job. She likes women and hasn’t yet told her mother, and unbeknownst to her successful older brother, Charles, she has left the full-time position he’d helped her snag. Instead, as the newest staff member of Veracity, a top-secret firm in glamorous Tribeca, Claudia helps would-be lovers uncover the true identities of online paramours and expose any skeletons in their closets. 

When one of Claudia’s first clients, Iris Lettriste, is found dead in her apartment, Claudia discovers that Iris had her own secret: She wasn’t Iris Lettriste at all. Who was “Iris,” and could her online presence and virtual network be the keys to figuring out who killed her? 

Claudia is a scrappy, resourceful protagonist. She’s a dedicated cyclist who can and will bike anywhere, she’s a huge fan of a fictional mystery series starring the brilliant Inspector Yuan, and thanks to Veracity, she has invasive but effective tracking devices at her fingertips. Pek’s beautifully paced debut offers a hard look at our digital lives and the people we surround ourselves with IRL. It’ll have readers asking, along with Claudia, “Could a dating app, and the forces behind it, actually kill me?”

New York City is full of mysteries—and two smart amateur sleuths are on the case.
Mystery & SuspenseSuspense

The Appeal

Review by Linda M. Castellitto

British author Janice Hallett’s The Appeal is a cleverly constructed, meticulously detailed, often hilarious epistolary novel that kicks off with an intriguing premise. Senior law partner Roderick Tanner gives young lawyers Charlotte and Femi an important new project. In just a few days, they must work their way through a mountain of correspondence (texts, emails, instant messages) and other materials (newspaper clippings, flyers, receipts) crucial to the appeal he’ll soon be filing. But he doesn’t tell them who’s done what; he wants them to immerse themselves, to come to their own conclusions about the people in question. And quickly!

Hallett deputizes the reader right along with the lawyers with this approach, which gradually engenders an understanding of—and fascination with—a family-led amateur theater group. The close-knit Fairway Players, who are based in a small town outside London, are led by director Martin Hayward and his wife (and leading lady), Helen. They’re one big happy theatrical family, ready to mount a production of Arthur Miller’s All My Sons, until tragedy strikes. Martin and Helen’s granddaughter, Poppy, is diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, and enormously pricey experimental treatments are the only possible cure. Fundraising appeals begin in earnest alongside preparations for the play, and the stress soon begins to show in snippy text threads, contentious group chats and lots and lots of duplicitous emails. 

Janice Hallett’s own theatrical experiences helped her construct ‘The Appeal.’

It’s mightily impressive how skillfully Hallett shades in her characters’ personalities and ulterior motives, especially since so many of them are actors and thus adept at emotional manipulation. The layers of revelation are plentiful and pleasing—as is the feeling that, as the pages turn, the culprits and their intentions are becoming increasingly clear. Or are they? A long list of suspects (15 by this reviewer’s count!) and an endlessly shifting mass of clues add up to twists and misdirects that will keep readers a captive audience until the very end of this thought-provoking and deliciously dramatic debut.

Janice Hallett’s The Appeal is a cleverly constructed, meticulously detailed, often hilarious epistolary novel of suspense.
Mystery & SuspenseCozy Mystery

A Deadly Bone to Pick

Review by Jamie Orsini

Mystery fans and dog lovers alike will enjoy Peggy Rothschild’s A Deadly Bone to Pick, the first in a new cozy mystery series featuring former police officer-turned-dog trainer Molly Madison.

Looking for a fresh start after the death of her husband, Molly makes a cross-country move to California. With her loyal golden retriever, Harlow, at her side, Molly hopes to heal and put down roots in the coastal town of Pier Point. On her first day there, she befriends a slobbery Saint Berdoodle (named Noodle) and volunteers to train him after learning that his owner can’t properly care for him. But when her new charge digs up a severed hand on the beach, Molly quickly goes from new kid on the block to murder suspect.

Readers will enjoy Rothschild’s fast-paced and well-plotted mystery, especially its small beach community setting. In Pier Point, the locals keep tabs on their neighbors, and everyone has a secret to hide. The town is filled with memorable characters, including Miguel Vasquez, the handsome detective investigating the murder, and Ava, Molly’s precocious 8-year-old neighbor who’s in need of tips for both training her dog and making friends her own age.

Molly’s lessons to other Pier Point residents and their dogs blend seamlessly into the central mystery, and animal lovers will appreciate seeing the reality of loving and living with pets depicted on the page. Rothschild shows that while it’s easy to love our dogs, they can also be a lot of work: There’s no sleeping in for Molly, not when Harlow needs to be let outside or fed. A Deadly Bone to Pick is a satisfying debut that will leave readers eager for more adventures with Molly and her canine companions.

Mystery fans and dog lovers alike will enjoy Peggy Rothschild’s A Deadly Bone to Pick, the first in a new cozy mystery series featuring former police officer-turned-dog trainer Molly Madison.
Mystery & SuspenseSuspense

Janice Hallett

Interview by Linda M. Castellitto

Janice Hallett has worked as a journalist, magazine editor and government speechwriter in her native England. Now she’s adding novelist to her CV with The Appeal, an inventive and darkly funny epistolary mystery set in the drama-filled world of amateur theater. In this Q&A, Hallett revisits her own theatrical experiences and reveals what it was like to construct a story with no fewer than 15 viable suspects.

The many plausible suspects in The Appeal make it great fun to play amateur sleuth while reading. Was it fun to write? Did you change your mind as you went along, in terms of who you wanted the murderer to be, or did you always know whodunit?
It was huge fun, not least because I wrote it entirely on spec, with no deadline except a vague feeling I didn’t want to spend longer than a year working on it. At the start, I had no idea who the victim or murderer was going to be. I let the story evolve as it went along, then did some intricate reverse engineering to make what I wrote in the end fit the beginning.

Before writing this book, you’ve written and directed plays. Did that give you the confidence to dive right into an epistolary novel with lots of layers and complexities and characters?
My scriptwriting background played into The Appeal for sure. A stage play is a bunch of characters interacting before your eyes. An epistolary novel is the exact same, but in your mind’s eye. I have to say the greatest confidence-building aspect of playwriting is its immediacy. The performance is live—you have actors giving their skill and energy to bring your characters to life—and the audience is live—watching and listening to the story you wrote. There is no hiding place. If it doesn’t work, you and everyone else in the room will know it. If it does work . . . let’s just say nothing will ever beat the moment that first audience laughed at the first joke in my first play. I was hooked from that day on.

“At the start, I had no idea who the victim or murderer was going to be.”

How did you keep track of all of the messages, notes, transcripts, etc., that you created? Were there pushpins, sticky notes, whiteboards and/or spreadsheets involved? Did you harken back to any of your own correspondence as you created your characters’ varied communication styles?
Strangely, I made very few notes. I did a lot of scrolling back and forth though, and paid particular attention to how each character opened and signed off, so I had a lot of information to keep in my head. I most certainly took inspiration from 20 years of email correspondence, both professional and personal. Email communication is a great leveler. What we don’t write speaks just as loudly as anything we do. What’s exposed are aspects of your true self, such as your empathy, your attention to detail and how you really feel about the person you’re “speaking” to. I’m quite sad to see texting and messaging take over from good old-fashioned email.

You chose to not include correspondence from certain characters, such as enigmatic newcomers Sam and Kel. Instead, we learn about them through others’ impressions and opinions. What motivated you to reveal versus conceal particular characters or events in your story?
This was a happy accident, but it ended up being the aspect of The Appeal I am most proud of. When I first decided to write a novel, I’d had a vague idea for a TV series (I was working as a TV writer at the time) about a couple who return from overseas volunteering and whose experiences there inform their suspicions about a local fundraising campaign. When I started the novel, I thought why not take the same story but present it as emails that fly back and forth—“offstage” so to speak—between minor players. That’s why we don’t hear from the three main characters, and I think it’s one of the most effective devices in the book.

The Fairway Players is a close-knit theater troupe presided over by Martin and Helen Hayward. When the power couple shares that their granddaughter has been stricken with a rare cancer, the group fundraises like mad in hopes of paying for pricey experimental treatments. What made you want to explore crowdfunding?
When I started the novel in 2018, I’d noticed a proliferation of crowdfunding campaigns on Facebook raising money for drugs or medical treatments abroad. It struck me how enthusiastically people pull together and how fast money can be raised that way. But at the same time, money is like blood: It attracts sharks, like drug companies who capitalize on families’ desperation, or even ordinary people who have debts to pay or simple terminal greed and a complete lack of morals. Cases in which someone has blatantly lied about their child’s (or their own) illness to raise money from friends and family have appalled and fascinated me in equal measure.

“What we don’t write speaks just as loudly as anything we do.”

Tight bonds are formed in theater troupes, whether via growing into roles together, shared nervousness as the premiere approaches or camaraderie after a show well done. What drew you to exploring what happens when such a strong bond begins to fray?
A drama group becomes like a family, with emotional bonds among the members—and just like in a family, the stakes can suddenly become much higher. Even when things are falling apart, you can’t just walk away: The show must go on.

There are insiders and outsiders in The Appeal, which makes for lots of tension bubbling under the surface as the players jockey for social dominance. What about that sort of group dynamic fascinates you most?
Like most writers, I’m a natural outsider. In fact, when I attend writerly events, and I’m in a room full of outsiders, I’m still the outsider, so that dynamic is very familiar to me. But I’m truly fascinated by people who are the opposite: natural socializers, witty and funny, able to hold the attention of a crowd and get them onside. Charisma is magical. It can elevate someone through the social hierarchy by osmosis.

In The Appeal, there are characters whose social standing is earned by their proximity to the alpha family. When you arrive in a strong, tightknit community like that, it can be hard to find your place in it. Sam and Kel slowly work their way in, but Issy, who has been there much longer, struggles to be accepted by anyone. The social hierarchy can be horribly unfair, as can individuals, who might choose to ally themselves with the strongest character, rather than the nicest or most deserving person in the group.

The Appeal is often very funny, with sharp insights into the ways in which certain types of people ingratiate themselves, manipulate a situation or gleefully gossip. Does writing humor come naturally to you? Do you consider yourself a funny person?
If you want to empty a room in double-quick time, get me to tell a joke. While I wouldn’t say I’m funny in person, I gravitate toward comedy when I’m writing. Making people laugh is a powerful tool to help you engage them with your story. Having said that, if you’re writing a thriller in which the aim is to build tension, you have to be very careful how you use humor, because laughter in that instance will disperse the tension immediately. It’s a tricky balance!

Read our review of ‘The Appeal.’

Can you share with us a bit about the significance of having your fictional Fairway Players stage a production of Arthur Miller’s All My Sons?
The Raglan Players staged All My Sons in 2010. It was one of the more serious, grittier plays we did over the years, among many light comedies and farces. It was a huge challenge I’m proud to say we rose to. I think if you’re familiar with the play, there will be an added layer of intrigue. It’s about the death of a couple’s son, which the audience grows to suspect is either directly or tangentially their fault. It has a very strong female lead role, that of a woman who lives in a world of her own. I’ll say no more!

What’s next for you? Any upcoming books or other projects you’d like to tell us about?
My second novel, The Twyford Code, launched in the U.K. in January 2022. It’s about a former prisoner who, at the suggestion of his probation officer, sets out to investigate the disappearance of his teacher on a school trip in 1983. It will be published by Atria in the U.S. in 2023. I’m currently writing my third novel, and there’s a fourth percolating in my mind at this very moment.

Author photo by Gaia Banks.

Author Janice Hallett revisits her theatrical experiences and shows how they helped her construct her darkly funny epistolary mystery, The Appeal.
Mystery & SuspenseSuspense

Review

Review by bookpagedev

his wide-ranging knowledge of the country’s military establishment, Washington Post Pentagon correspondent Thomas E. Ricks has created an entirely credible, and disturbing, fictional tale of conspiracy among our highest-ranking military officials.

After observing the culture wars that dominated military-civilian interactions during the Clinton administration, Ricks reportedly felt that a novel, rather than a nonfiction book, was the best way to reveal the strains and conflicts that affect today’s soldiers.

At the center of his novel are two talented young officers who arrive at the Pentagon and conveniently fall in love. Majors Bud Lewis and Cindy Sherman are among the Army’s best, and they’ve both been tapped for prime positions as aides-de-camp for two of the Pentagon’s most senior generals. After Sherman and Lewis begin their tours of duty, they soon discover that a secret group of military officers who call themselves the Sons of Liberty is conducting covert protests against White House policy.

Failed missions in Algeria and a looming debacle in Afghanistan, coupled with a civilian leadership that’s out of touch, provide the backdrop for a gripping thriller and an excellent portrait of the American military. As the administration keeps the Army grinding through a miserable third-world brushfire war, the Sons of Liberty’s activities grow more treasonous, and their efforts to avoid detection more ruthless. Majors Sherman and Lewis find themselves in a vicious game with life-and-death stakes and the future of the American military hanging in the balance.

The subversive campaign gains more support as the Afghanistan mission worsens. In the end, the young officers are challenged to choose between their duties to a nation and its civilian leadership and their personal honor as officers expected to follow the orders of their superiors.

A Soldier’s Duty offers a provocative look at the post-Cold War generation of soldiers. A Pulitzer Prize winner for his reporting at the Washington Post and the author of a nonfiction bestseller (Making the Corps), Rick has demonstrated with his first novel that fiction can be an effective tool for reporting a story.

Dominic Caraccilo is a lieutenant colonel in the Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment at Fort Benning, Georgia.

his wide-ranging knowledge of the country’s military establishment, Washington Post Pentagon correspondent Thomas E. Ricks has created an entirely credible, and disturbing, fictional tale of conspiracy among our highest-ranking military officials. After observing the culture wars that dominated military-civilian interactions during the Clinton administration, Ricks reportedly felt that a novel, rather than a nonfiction book, […]
Mystery & SuspenseSuspense

Review

Review by bookpagedev

s Blunt’s Forty Words for Sorrow takes place during a dreary February on the Chippewa Reserve in northern Ontario, Canada. Blunt’s bone-chilling description of the snowbound and desolate area is so crisp and concise that you practically need mittens to turn the pages: “All around them the snow fell away in shades that ranged from bone white to charcoal gray and even in the dips and scallops of the snowbanks deep mauve.” In this frigid setting, a serial killer is on the loose, and Blunt depicts the crime scenes in particularly graphic, and frightening, detail.

John Cardinal, a homicide detective with the Algonquin Bay Police Department in Ontario, has a lot on his mind. He’s obsessed with solving the case of several missing teenagers. In addition, he must simultaneously deal with a new partner, departmental politics, his wife’s ongoing illness and the financing of his daughter’s expensive education. While on the trail of the serial killer, Cardinal is a man with his own secrets. As a result, he himself becomes the target of an investigation. Who is investigating the investigator and why? Can Lise Delorme, his new partner, be trusted? More importantly, can Cardinal and Delorme stop the murderer from claiming another victim? Creating credible characters can be a challenge for some suspense writers. Not so for Blunt; he populates his novel with vivid and complex characters. The meticulous police work they employ is both plausible and convincing. Secondary figures, such as Jerry Commanda, the Ontario Provincial Policeman, come alive with the author’s precise and energetic writing style.

Blunt skillfully alternates the action and viewpoint between the hunter and the hunted, all the while maintaining the momentum and emotional impact of the story. This technique gives us a terrifying glimpse into the sinister minds of sociopaths. And, as far as villains go, they don’t come much more evil than this.

Forty Words for Sorrow is a gripping tale that delivers escalating tension as the detective and the killer speed toward each other on a harrowing collision course. C. L. Ross writes from Pismo Beach, California.

s Blunt’s Forty Words for Sorrow takes place during a dreary February on the Chippewa Reserve in northern Ontario, Canada. Blunt’s bone-chilling description of the snowbound and desolate area is so crisp and concise that you practically need mittens to turn the pages: “All around them the snow fell away in shades that ranged from […]
Mystery & SuspenseSuspense

Review

Review by bookpagedev

iles Blunt’s Forty Words for Sorrow takes place during a dreary February on the Chippewa Reserve in northern Ontario, Canada. Blunt’s bone-chilling description of the snowbound and desolate area is so crisp and concise that you practically need mittens to turn the pages: “All around them the snow fell away in shades that ranged from bone white to charcoal gray and even in the dips and scallops of the snowbanks deep mauve.” In this frigid setting, a serial killer is on the loose, and Blunt depicts the crime scenes in particularly graphic, and frightening, detail.

John Cardinal, a homicide detective with the Algonquin Bay Police Department in Ontario, has a lot on his mind. He’s obsessed with solving the case of several missing teenagers. In addition, he must simultaneously deal with a new partner, departmental politics, his wife’s ongoing illness and the financing of his daughter’s expensive education. While on the trail of the serial killer, Cardinal is a man with his own secrets. As a result, he himself becomes the target of an investigation. Who is investigating the investigator and why? Can Lise Delorme, his new partner, be trusted? More importantly, can Cardinal and Delorme stop the murderer from claiming another victim? Creating credible characters can be a challenge for some suspense writers. Not so for Blunt; he populates his novel with vivid and complex characters. The meticulous police work they employ is both plausible and convincing. Secondary figures, such as Jerry Commanda, the Ontario Provincial Policeman, come alive with the author’s precise and energetic writing style.

Blunt skillfully alternates the action and viewpoint between the hunter and the hunted, all the while maintaining the momentum and emotional impact of the story. This technique gives us a terrifying glimpse into the sinister minds of sociopaths. And, as far as villains go, they don’t come much more evil than this.

Forty Words for Sorrow is a gripping tale that delivers escalating tension as the detective and the killer speed toward each other on a harrowing collision course. C. L. Ross writes from Pismo Beach, California.

iles Blunt’s Forty Words for Sorrow takes place during a dreary February on the Chippewa Reserve in northern Ontario, Canada. Blunt’s bone-chilling description of the snowbound and desolate area is so crisp and concise that you practically need mittens to turn the pages: “All around them the snow fell away in shades that ranged from […]
Mystery & SuspenseHistorical Mystery

The Mystery of Albert E. Finch

Review by Jamie Orsini

Mystery novelist and amateur sleuth Lady Amy Lovell is back in The Mystery of Albert E. Finch, the latest installment in Callie Hutton’s Victorian Book Club Mystery series.

The novel kicks off with Amy’s wedding to Lord William Wethington, a fellow member of the Mystery Book Club of Bath. During the celebratory wedding breakfast, Amy’s cousin, Alice Finch, is poisoned and collapses face-first into her meal. There’s no reviving Mrs. Finch, and soon the Wethington wedding reception is declared a crime scene.

Local detectives charge Mrs. Finch’s husband, Albert, with her murder, but Amy isn’t sure that he’s guilty. With their honeymoon on hold, Amy and William put their sleuthing skills to the test and begin their own investigation. When a second body turns up, the newlyweds must race to figure out who is poisoning their wedding guests—and why.

Hutton’s Victorian-era Bath is a delightful setting, even given the murders taking place in its streets. And it’s easy to root for the newlywed sleuths, whose relationship is clearly rooted in friendship and respect. Though the story takes a humorous turn when several of Amy’s relatives unexpectedly move into the couple’s home, The Mystery of Albert E. Finch also addresses issues like misogyny and classism with grace and heart.

There’s a running joke about William’s disappointment in his delayed honeymoon that goes on for a bit too long and loses steam, but overall, Hutton’s writing is sharp and witty. Amy and William are in top form, and readers will enjoy reuniting with them and the rest of the Mystery Book Club in this consistently pleasurable cozy mystery.

The latest Victorian Book Club Mystery takes on issues like misogyny and classism with grace and heart.
Mystery & SuspenseSuspense

Hello, Transcriber

Review by Linda M. Castellitto

“Welcome to Black Harbor, you’ll love it here!” said no one ever, as quickly becomes evident in Hannah Morrissey’s gritty gothic-noir thriller, Hello, Transcriber, which is set in a fictional Wisconsin city with the highest crime rate in the state and a rising suicide rate to match.

People frequently leap from Forge Bridge, a spot that Hazel Greenlee finds herself drawn to time and again. The 26-year-old has been in Black Harbor for two years as the trailing spouse of aquatic ecologist Tommy. They’ve been together since they were 16, but romance has long since departed. Their lives orbit around his drinking and hunting, and the terrible sex he demands every three days. Her vivacious influencer/radio DJ sister, Elle, is no safe harbor: The two are often at odds, not least because Hazel feels bland by comparison.

When she takes a night shift job as a transcriber at the police department, Hazel hopes to find fodder for the novel-in-progress she believes will help her escape Black Harbor at last. During one shift, Investigator Nikolai Kole’s alluring “Hello, Transcriber” fills her headphones—and Hazel’s drug-addled neighbor, Sam, writes a message in the frost on her office window with a severed finger that isn’t his. To Hazel, this is terrifying but intriguing. After all, she reminds herself, the saying is “Write what you know.” If she helps Nik investigate Sam’s ties to a mysterious drug dealer called Candy Man, she’ll know plenty.

Time squeezes in on them: Children are overdosing, Hazel feels like she’s being watched and she and Nik are undeniably attracted to each other. But as Nik often says, everybody lies in Black Harbor. Will Hazel see the twisted truth before it’s too late?

Thanks to its finely tuned bleakness and unflinching exploration of human depravity, Hello, Transcriber is a suspenseful, often shudder-inducing series kickoff that will appeal to fans of atmospheric thrillers or true crime, as well as anyone curious about what it’s like to be a police transcriber. Morrissey, who was one for a few years, makes it sound truly interesting, horrors aside. One hopes real-life transcribers’ shifts are far less eventful than Hazel’s.

Author Hannah Morrissey explores how her work as a police transcriber gave her the perfect perspective for her debut novel.

With its fine-tuned bleakness and unflinching exploration of human depravity, Hello, Transcriber is a shudder-inducing series kickoff.

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