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NonfictionFood & DrinkCookbooks

Our South

Review by Becky Libourel Diamond

The recipes in the lavishly presented Our South: Black Food Through My Lens feature a fascinating blend of ingredients, flavors and techniques. Acclaimed chef Ashleigh Shanti, a queer Black woman from Appalachia, shares the region’s history and her own backstory to show how she developed a love of all things culinary. Recalling past meals rich in bacon, lard, butter and country ham, Shanti includes an abundance of regional dishes, such as Virginia Brunswick stew, and black pepper quail and leather britches, a southern Appalachian specialty dish of dried green beans and smoky seasoned meat. I made the gingered shrimp, watermelon and peach skewers—like eating summer on a plate—and the cucumber and celery heart salad, which is bathed in zesty, pickled goodness and tasted even better the second day. Shanti notes that her book is meant to “amplify your understanding of the complexities of Black food” and “dispel the myths of what America thinks Black cooking is and is not.” Our South is a perfect gift for anyone curious about the intersections of food and culture.

Ashleigh Shanti’s excellent, lavishly presented Our South twines the recipes and culture of Black Appalachia with the chef’s own culinary journey.
NonfictionFood & DrinkCookbooks

The Artful Way to Plant-Based Cooking

Review by Becky Libourel Diamond

Sure to inspire leisurely, locally crafted meals paired with excellent conversation and luscious wine, The Artful Way to Plant-Based Cooking: Nourishing Recipes and Heartfelt Moments is a breathtaking cookbook created by mother-daughter team Trudy Crane (a ceramic artist) and Chloé Crane-Leroux (a New York City-based food and lifestyle photographer) that could do double duty as an attractive coffee table display. Blending artistry with plant-based dishes, the duo makes enticing connections between food, taste and presentation, proving vegetables can be colorful works of art. With stunning photographs taken in Spain, the book highlights the shared love of travel that has always been a “deeply meaningful connection” between the mother and daughter. Divided into six sections of appetizers, date night dishes, friends for dinner, weekday favorites, solo suppers, and slow mornings and brunch favorites, a wide range of recipe types and flavor combinations are represented, among them crumbed artichokes with cashew aioli, a ricotta and squash galette, a traditional Greek salad and savory chickpea pancakes. I made the shawarma spice tofu skewers with hummus and wilted spinach, which proved to be a delicious blend of flavors and textures.

In their breathtaking new cookbook, mother-daughter team Trudy Crane and Chloé Crane-Leroux prove that vegetables can be colorful works of art.
NonfictionFood & DrinkCookbooks

Breaking Bao

Review by Becky Libourel Diamond

Breaking Bao: 88 Bakes and Snacks From Asia and Beyond by award-winning pastry chef Clarice Lam is a striking collection of thoughtfully crafted baked goods, highlighting her “love for Asian flavors while simultaneously connecting the dots between cultures.” Recalling her diverse background (her mother is from Hong Kong and her father from the Philippines) and experiences (the family lived and traveled all over the world), Lam explains how food was her solace during times when she felt like an outsider. On her path to becoming a chef, she gained knowledge and appreciation of the “interwoven food histories” that sustained her when the rest of the world shut her out. Organized into three main sections—Bao, Cakes and Desserts, and Snacks—Lam’s highly detailed instructions accompanied by texturally rich close-up photos will help assist even the most inexperienced pastry chef, as many of the recipes can be rather complicated and span several pages. Detailed chapters on ingredients, tools and equipment helpfully describe how and why they are used and where to get them. Dishes range from traditional Asian recipes such as shokupan (Japanese milk bread—one of the most common recipes in Asian baking) and chili crisp (a staple oil in every Chinese household), to dishes with an Asian-inspired twist, such as matcha-azuki Mont Blanc and pandan-lime meringue pie. This beautiful, informative cookbook is the perfect gift for anyone who enjoys being creative in the kitchen, and might even inspire home bakers to invent their own confectionary delights. 

Clarice Lam’s Breaking Bao is a striking collection of thoughtfully crafted baked goods that highlights the inventive pastry chef’s love of Asian flavors.
NonfictionFood & DrinkCookbooks

Every Last Bite

Review by Becky Libourel Diamond

With the goal of sharing simple, delicious recipes filled with constructive tips to reduce waste, save time and cut costs, Every Last Bite: Save Money, Time and Waste With 70 Recipes That Make the Most of Mealtimes by British chef and writer Rosie Sykes (The Kitchen Revolution) is a delightful mix of global recipes reflecting her background and experiences as a chef and former London pub owner. Featuring eight chapters with cheeky titles such as “Quick as a wink and not too filling,” “Goings-on in the oven” and “Blueprints for leftovers,” Sykes has crafted an accessible, practical resource that will be welcomed by anyone looking to rein in their food budget and avoid excess waste and energy usage. The recipes are a wide-ranging mix of cultural dishes, from Catalan-style beans and chorizo, pea and potato pav bhaji, and bacon and egg pie. Each is accompanied by a helpful symbol indicating alternate serving suggestions, ways to use up leftovers, ingredient hacks, storage tips, budget helpers and low/no-waste ideas. For example, the simple, delicious cauliflower farfalle, which combines roasted cauliflower, red onions and bow-tie pasta dressed in a simple walnut pesto, features a tip to store nuts in the refrigerator to prevent spoiling. The recipes and instructions are clearly laid out (including conversions to American measurements), and will appeal to both beginning and advanced cooks.

Every Last Bite is an accessible, practical cookbook that will be welcomed by anyone looking to rein in their food budget and avoid excess waste and energy usage.
NonfictionLiteratureBiography

Didion and Babitz

Review by Sarah McCraw Crow

In her introduction to Didion and Babitz, Lili Anolik lays out her plan: “What this book attempts to do: See Joan Didion plainly; see Eve Babitz plainly. Except Joan Didion can’t be seen plainly,” only “through a glass darkly. Eve Babitz is that glass.”

Babitz, born in 1943, was a child of Hollywood. Her father was a violinist for movie studios, her godfather was Igor Stravinsky. At 20, she made waves for posing nude with Marcel Duchamp as the two played chess. Though she wanted to be an artist and design album covers, she’s remembered for her memoir and short stories recounting the sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll scene of early-1970s Los Angeles. But Babitz’s drug-fueled lifestyle got in her way, and her writing was largely forgotten until Anolik got to know her in 2012. Anolik’s profile for Vanity Fair and a 2019 biography, Hollywood’s Eve, sparked a resurgence of interest in Babitz’s writing. 

After Babitz died in 2021, Anolik stayed in touch with Babitz’s sister, Mirandi, who invited Anolik to examine the writer’s collection of letters. Anolik found one of particular interest: an unsent 1972 letter from Babitz to her friend Joan Didion. By turns earnest and angry, it sets up Babitz and Didion not as merely friends but as writerly rivals; Babitz chides Didion for dismissing Virginia Woolf and, Babitz claims, wanting to write like a man. The revelation led Anolik to begin another book about Babitz, this time including Didion.

The resulting book draws on copious interviews with Babitz’s and Didion’s networks, and the archives of Didion, Babitz and a host of others. Didion and Babitz situates the two in the 1970s LA scene that both wrote about, following them to the end of their lives—they died within days of one another. It’s a lively recounting of freewheeling partier Babitz and ambitious “cool customer” Didion. Despite the title, the narrative is notably tilted towards Babitz, more grounded in her work and life than in Didion’s. Still, the book captures a period and a vibe, and the celebrity gossip alone will entertain any ’70s-curious reader. Like Babitz herself, Didion and Babitz is an engaging narrative that Didion fans may quibble with, but that situates the two writers as the prime chroniclers of 1970s LA. 

Lili Anolik’s Didion and Babitz is a freewheeling and engaging narrative about two iconic literary rivals and their world in 1970s Los Angeles.
NonfictionMusicBiography

We All Shine On

Review by Alice Cary

“Full disclosure. I was never a Beatles superfan,” Elliot Mintz confesses early in his memoir, We All Shine On: John, Yoko, and Me. Nonetheless, in 1970, the 26-year-old radio host suddenly became one of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s closest friends.

The son of a Polish immigrant, Mintz grew up in New York City and, despite having a strong New York accent and severe stutter, decided to become a radio broadcaster. He overcame the stutter, lost the accent and, by age 21, was a radio talk show host in Los Angeles. One fateful day, he hosted Ono to discuss her newly released album, Fly. Not 24 hours after the interview, Ono called Mintz at home to thank him. “Sometimes,” she said, “it’s very difficult being me.” They chatted for about 45 minutes, and Ono continued to call nearly every day. Before long, Lennon joined her.

Mintz installed a third telephone line at home, his “John and Yoko hotline,” as well as a red light on his bedroom ceiling that flashed whenever it rang. He traveled and spent holidays with the pair, and his life became consumed with their whims and needs. “I believed, in a sense, that I was married to John and Yoko,” he writes.

Like any celebrity memoir worth its salt, We All Shine On makes readers feel as if they’ve spent time with the book’s subjects. A candid storyteller, Mintz reveals intimacies about the artists’ lives without being salacious. Readers will delight in strange facts (their apartment in the Dakota contained an Egyptian mummy), compelling insights (“John was functionally a child when it came to taking care of himself”) and amusing observations (“The mere mention of Bob Dylan’s name . . . could uncork a volcano of roiling resentments and pent-up jealousies—not to mention one of John’s startlingly accurate impersonations.”). There are spats and hurt feelings, as well as the memorable time that Lennon and Ono invited themselves to tag along to Mintz’s radio interview with Salvador Dali, which they ended up ruining with their frequent, unsolicited comments.

Mintz’s ending, which leads up to Lennon’s horrific murder, is especially poignant. The couple were leading fulfilling, creative lives when suddenly their charmed world ceased to exist. Mintz, who ultimately became the spokesperson for Lennon’s estate, describes sitting outside Ono’s bedroom door after the murder, waiting for her to respond. Regardless of whether you’re a superfan or an ordinary admirer of the music of Lennon, Ono and the Beatles, you’ll likely find the captivating story of this unusual friendship unduly hard to put down.

Elliot Mintz recounts his one-of-a-kind friendship with John Lennon and Yoko Ono in an intimate memoir that is unduly hard to put down.
NonfictionArtPhotographyArt

The African Gaze

Review by Laura Hutson Hunter

Amy Sall’s The African Gaze: Photography, Cinema and Power began as a university course Sall developed at New York City’s The New School. An undercurrent of academic rigor flows throughout the volume, which functions as an introduction to African photography and film as well as a collective biography of some of its most influential players. In her preface, writer and archivist Sall distills her thoughts on the subjects she spent so many years studying, and each sentence is packed with authoritative insight. The photography section begins with self-portraits by Ghanaian Felicia Abban, who also happens to be one of the few “named and known” women photographers in Africa. Many of the book’s other highlights involve female subjects: a striking studio portrait of three women by Augustt Azaglo Cornélius Yawo; a candid shot of four young women seated around a table at a party by Jean Depara; and a woman posing seated with a single high-heeled sandal that’s been placed atop her oversized skirt by Seydou Keita. Cinema is more difficult to capture in still images, and so the Filmmakers section relies on the breadth of its subjects, which includes artists working in documentary and animation in addition to scripted dramas. Particularly evocative are images of the two protagonists of Djibril Diop Mambéty’s Touki Bouki, or the stunning close-up of the main character in Ousmane Sembene’s Black Girl. The African Gaze is an essential, encyclopedic study of African image-makers, and reading through it in its entirety made me feel like I’d actually enrolled in Sall’s course.

Amy Sall’s The African Gaze is an essential, encyclopedic study of African photographers and filmmakers that’s packed with insight and images.
NonfictionBiography

Ingenious

Review by Roger Bishop

Benjamin Franklin was among the most influential of the Founding Fathers. He signed all four major founding documents, and his diplomacy brought about our fledgling nation’s alliance with France and the peace treaty with Britain that ended the Revolutionary War. A true Renaissance man, Franklin was also a publisher, printer, businessman, community leader, inventor, widely read author and much more. And although his scientific work is sometimes described by historians as a hobby, Franklin was in fact a visionary scientist. Richard Munson’s splendid Ingenious: A Biography of Benjamin Franklin, Scientist convincingly argues that Franklin may not have been as effectual as a politician “if not for his fame as a leading scientist, which opened doors for him in the worlds of diplomacy and nation-building,” Munson writes. “Science, rather than being a sideline, is the through line that integrates Franklin’s diverse interests.”

Franklin’s “core and consistent attribute,” according to Munson, was curiosity. While only upper class men in Europe had the financial resources, equipment and time to pursue scientific projects, in the Colonies, inquisitive amateurs like Franklin approached the same concerns. As Franklin became a man of means, he purchased sophisticated instruments and assembled a team to work with him. Skilled in communications, he shared his experimentation with a network of fellow scientists around the world.

Franklin is best known for his experiments with electricity, and Munson covers the subject in considerable detail. Robert Millikan, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1923, said that Franklin’s research was “probably the most fundamental thing ever done in the field of electricity.” But the broad range of Franklin’s interests included the interaction of oil and water, weather patterns, demographic studies, circulation of blood, ant behavior, smallpox, salt mines, whirlwinds and waterspouts, the absorption of heat by different colors, the threat of lead poisoning, purification of air by vegetation and the management of silkworms. Franklin’s well-written accounts of his experiments were accessible to readers of all kinds. He received many honors in Europe and the U.S. for his scientific work. As a founder of the American Philosophical Society, he supported the scholarly pursuit of what he called “useful knowledge.”

Munson’s absorbing narrative biography guides us expertly through Franklin’s extraordinary life. Page after page, Ingenious shows how one person with little formal education made an impact that still has relevance today. For readers of history, biography and science (or simply those in search of an outstanding book about Franklin that is not too long), Ingenious is an excellent choice.

Richard Munson’s splendid biography of Benjamin Franklin provides an insightful view of the statesman’s lesser known accomplishments in science.
Mystery & SuspenseSuspense

Precipice

Review by Thane Tierney

It’s probably manageable if the leader of the free world goes off the deep end, or if the continent that drives the world’s economy loses its collective mind . . . unless both things happen at the same time. In 1914, at the beginning of Robert Harris’ latest novel, Precipice, the stars align to create a war so horrific in its size and scope that it would later (wrongly, as it turned out) be called “the war to end all wars.” Meanwhile, British Prime Minister H.H. Asquith has fallen head over heels for Venetia Stanley, an aristocrat 35 years his junior.

Did we mention he is married?

It should be also said at this juncture that, while Precipice is a work of fiction, virtually all of the characters are real, as is the correspondence from the PM to his inamorata. In fact, the letters (which she saved) provide some of the only historical insight into meetings that determined Britain’s decision to involve itself in the continental conflagration. The lone fictional character, a Scotland Yard Special Branch officer named Paul Deemer, has been tasked with monitoring what, if any, secrets are being spilled in the lovebirds’ copious correspondence (Asquith wrote to Venetia as many as three times a day).

Harris steers the reader through the slalom course of this ill-fated love story, set against the backdrop of the war’s more consequential casualties. His supporting cast, ripped right out of the society pages, includes the ruthlessly ambitious David Lloyd George, who would succeed Asquith as PM; the poet Rupert Brooke, who is enamored of Asquith’s daughter; Winston Churchill, whose hubris led to disaster at Gallipoli; and King Edward VII, who had somewhat scandalously anointed Asquith as PM in Biarritz, France, rather than on British soil.

Harris’ ear for language is keen, capturing both Britain’s elite and hoi polloi with effortless grace. Of course, he is aided by Asquith’s actual words, quoted from one of the avalanche of love letters: “Do you know how much I love you? No? Just try to multiply the stars by the sands.” Certainly more poetic than Charles’ phone calls to Camilla, though every bit as moonstruck.

Despite the fact that anyone acquainted with modern British history already knows the outcome of the story (spoiler alert: we won the war), Harris’ skill keeps the action taut and the reader focused. And the novel echoes a much older bit of classical English political fiction: As Shakespeare said, the fault lies not in our stars, but in ourselves.

Robert Harris’ Precipice dramatizes a real-life scandal: On the eve of World War I, the British prime minister engaged in a national security-jeopardizing love affair.
NonfictionNatureAnimals

Thinking Like a Wolf

Review by Deborah Hopkinson

Rick McIntyre began working at Yellowstone National Park in 1994, just before the Fish and Wildlife Service reintroduced gray wolves in an effort to balance the ecological diversity of the park. He has spent thousands of hours observing many generations of wolves, and documents his insights into their social dynamics in his endlessly compelling Alpha Wolves of Yellowstone series, which has brought a groundbreaking understanding of the species to readers.

Thinking Like a Wolf: Lessons From the Yellowstone Packs explores personal territory: how the wolves have inspired the author. In 2015, when McIntyre was recovering from major heart surgery, he began seeing wolf 926 (the wolves are not named) in his dreams. Small but intelligent, 926 had lived a tough life but rose to dominance in her pack. McIntyre writes that in time of need, she “motivated me to emulate her determination to advance in life regardless of any setbacks and trauma.”

He follows this powerful introduction with eight stories of different wolves. While Thinking Like a Wolf is the fifth book in the Alpha Wolves of Yellowstone series, it’s not necessary to have read any of the previous titles. The author provides a treasure trove of information at the start, including maps of the parks, illustrated renderings of the wolves and timelines that record each pack’s principal members. Based on McIntyre’s extensive field research notes, as well as deep knowledge of Yellowstone and wolf behavior, the portraits are fascinating, informative and sometimes heartbreaking. McIntyre provides remarkable histories, like that of 755, a lone wolf who sired pups in several different packs over more than nine years before disappearing from human view (he likely outlasted the battery in his collar).

The power struggles documented are reminiscent of the jockeying for dominance in Game of Thrones, and thanks to McIntyre’s compelling storytelling and keen observations, the narrative sparkles. At one point, he watches five little cubs play “like kids during recess in a schoolyard.” One of those pups is 926, the wolf who inspired the author in his cardiac recovery. Her later death and McIntyre’s efforts to honor her legacy remind us that protecting the wilderness and the wolves that call it home is not simply a responsibility, but a privilege. Thinking Like a Wolf, and the entire Alpha Wolves of Yellowstone series, is a remarkable account of animal behavior, and a singular contribution to our understanding of wildlife.

The fifth entry in Rick McIntyre’s Alpha Wolves of Yellowstone series chronicles the lives of eight wolves in stories that sparkle with insight.
Mystery & SuspenseMystery

The Author’s Guide to Murder

Review by Lauren Emily Whalen

What’s better than traveling to Scotland with your besties, staying in a castle run by a literary legend and writing a book together? For Kat, Cassie and Emma, literally anything, but a job’s a job—until someone drops dead and they are the prime suspects. The Author’s Guide to Murder, co-written by Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig and Karen White, is the coziest of cozy mysteries, a celebration of feminism, friendship and solving a murder while wearing only the best in Land’s End plaid.

The trio of authors couldn’t be more different (Cassie’s a Southern mom of six who pens cupcake- and cat-themed cozy mysteries; Emma’s an East Coast scribe of enormous historical novels; and Brooklynite Kat writes erotica and sports sexy outfits) and they definitely aren’t the best friends they claim to be. They do, however, share an editor and a fascination with “Naughty Ned,” the laird of Castle Kinloch who collected old-timey “marital aids” before his mysterious demise in 1900. In the present day, Castle Kinloch is occupied by celebrated writer and not-so-secret misogynist Brett Saffron Presley—and each of the three authors has a connection to him too. Squabbling, rather than writing, ensues, but when another Castle Kinloch occupant is found dead, the three women band together to crack the case, discovering secret passageways, muscular shepherds and a whole lot about one another.

Individually bestselling authors Williams (Husbands & Lovers), Willig (the Pink Carnation series) and White (the Tradd Street mystery series) have previously teamed up on four historical novels, most recently The Lost Summers of Newport. From Cassie’s chirpy insistence on countless selfies to Emma’s propensity for obscure facts to Kat’s favorite “pantaboots” (tight trousers that seamlessly transition to stiletto footwear), each narrator possesses enough quips, quirks and juicy secrets for a trio of spinoff sequels, and the colorful cast of locals, including handsome detective Euan Macintosh, who can’t get his mind off Kat even when he’s investigating her for murder, add more flavor than the most buttery scone. The Author’s Guide to Murder is a triple-perspective, locked-room mystery that’s long on suspense, sass and sumptuous Scottish scenery. Grab a cuppa and dig in.

The Author’s Guide to Murder is a triple-perspective, locked-room mystery that’s long on suspense, sass and sumptuous Scottish scenery.
Mystery & SuspenseSuspense

Karla’s Choice

Review by Elyse Discher

It seems like an impossible task to resurrect a beloved character, much less to do so in the voice of the most iconic espionage thriller writer after Ian Fleming. But in Karla’s Choice, author Nick Harkaway, son of the late John le Carré, manages to accomplish both, adding more nuance to the mythos of his father’s seemingly inimitable George Smiley.

Karla’s Choice takes place in 1963, shortly after the events of The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, and British intelligence officer Smiley is questioning his place in “the Circus”: le Carré’s nickname for Britain’s MI6. Smiley’s reeling from the recent death of his colleague, Alec Leamas, and has become cynical after discovering his home country employing the same morally gray strategies of their Communist enemies.

Smiley is fully intent on retiring when a Soviet hitman defects, turning himself in to a young Hungarian emigre, Szusanna. He soon finds himself swallowed back into the fold of espionage, first agreeing only to interview Szusanna and the defector, but eventually traveling back to Berlin, the site of his recent trauma. As he excavates Soviet spy networks and counterintelligence plots, Smiley learns more about his nemesis, an agent named Karla who will feature heavily in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

“It was a benign, elective haunting”: How Nick Harkaway channeled his late father’s voice.

Smiley is an unlikely spy. Unassuming, a little frumpy and rather forgettable, his strength is his ability to blend in; he is a “Gray Man” in a genre of action heroes. He’s also a man conflicted about his country’s actions in a new type of war, where violence is carried out on a faraway stage. Despite being set in the 1960s, Smiley’s concerns will resonate with readers who are familiar with today’s geopolitical conflicts. 

Karla’s Choice may be best suited for fans of le Carré or vintage espionage thrillers: George’s world is a cerebral one—a chess game with a barely known enemy—not one of action or explosions. Harkaway mimics the tone of le Carré’s novels, which after 80 years may feel opaque and ponderous to newcomers.

However, Harkaway also does his late father justice in capturing Smiley’s subtlety and his shrewd ability to read the people around him. This, and the focus on the history of his nemesis, Karla, adds depth to the existing Smiley narrative, making Karla’s Choice a worthy and elevated addition to le Carré’s series.

In Karla’s Choice, author Nick Harkaway ably updates his father’s iconic George Smiley novels while lovingly preserving the tone and mood of the original novels.
Mystery & SuspenseMystery

Deadly Animals

Review by Alice Cary

Ava Bonney of Birmingham, England, is not your typical sleuth, and she’s one readers of Marie Tierney’s debut mystery, Deadly Animals, will long remember. Living in a sparse apartment with her younger sister and selfish mother, 14-year-old Ava makes her own entertainment. Bones fascinate her—“We are our bones,” she says. To further her scientific studies, she has created a secret “body farm” to study the anatomy of decomposing roadkill that she finds. A former biology teacher who grew up in Birmingham herself, Tierney sets the book in the early 1980s of her youth, writing with the analytic precision of a scientist and the literary aplomb of a gifted storyteller. 

During a morning outing to her farm, Ava discovers the body of 14-year-old local bully Mickey Grant and, soon after, the missing, now murdered 6-year-old Bryan Shelton. Ava quickly acts to preserve valuable evidence in danger of disappearing. Fearing the police won’t take her seriously, she pretends to be an adult while calling in Mickey’s murder, and enlists her best friend, John, to call about Bryan. “Their secret was gargantuan,” Ava and John realize. “It was scary and exciting, an adventure—but also a horror story.” 

A serial killer is on the loose, and Ava begins a surreptitious partnership with Detective Seth Delahaye—who recognizes her genius—to track down the murderer. Ava and Delahaye’s initial cat-and-mouse communications burgeon into mutual trust and respect, forming the empowering heart of the novel. “Ava was custodian of the dead,” Tierney writes, “this she understood. The idea of hurting an animal, by accident or on purpose, was anathema to her.” As Ava stumbles across murdered bodies and tortured animal corpses, she has an “awful epiphany: this killer was just herself turned inside out: her fatal inversion.” 

This noteworthy debut is a fast-paced, brilliantly plotted mystery, filled with short chapters and crisp prose. Gory—but never gratuitous—details of dead animals and humans abound, but all are in service of the plot, as well as Ava’s scientific interests and investigation. As the book progresses, the stakes become higher and danger creeps closer to Ava and John, leading to a dramatic conclusion. With Deadly Animals, Tierney has created an exceptional heroine who demands a sequel.

Deadly Animals, Marie Tierney’s brilliantly plotted debut mystery, introduces readers to Ava Bonney: a 14-year-old English girl obsessed with decomposing bodies.

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