I can't believe I finished this crappy book

 

What did I just read?

Author Stephanie Perkins calls Overdue a  sweet and swoony romance for adults. Riddled with pronouns, accented with unnecessary profanity, populated with an array of DEI characters including homosexuals, trending woke, and strutting king-sized liberal viewpoints, this is an over-long slog about a 29-year-old woman who has to decide if she wants to marry her long-time boyfriend by dating others for a month. Then two months. Then three months. Romance? Think again.

I thought I requested a cute little romance in a library setting. Disappointed.

Ingrid Dahl has a chance to move up and actually have a career by going to library school for FREE! She is already working at the library and turns down a remarkable chance for free education. Distracted by this game of let’s date around before getting married although we have been together for 11 years, she is decidedly immature.

I deserve a prize for sticking with this mess until the very last word.

This book is Stephanie Perkins’ departure from writing young adult romances and YA horror novels. Born in South Carolina, she lives with her husband in Asheville, North Carolina.

 

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting July 29, 2025.

I would like to thank St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.

 

Nash Falls by David Baldacci

Walter Nash leads a comfortable, predictable life as a high‐level executive and family man who is unaccustomed to violence or intrigue in Nash Falls by David Baldacci. In this high tension thriller, his life will be turned completely upside down after a visit in the dead of night when the FBI makes contact with a damning revelation: Nash’s firm, Sybaritic Investments, is a money‑laundering scheme for a global criminal mastermind.

With little choice, Nash gives in to the FBI’s plan for him to go undercover. Once Nash begins a covert investigation into the vast workings of his company and all its divisions, everything in his reality starts to spin out of control once the evil schemer is somehow informed—a leak!-- of his pledge to the FBI. What begins as surveillance becomes survival. As Nash loses everything, he must reinvent himself from a mild‑mannered businessman into a vengeance seeker.

The cost to his personal life is devastating as a family member is kidnapped. When the captive goes online with an incriminating reveal about Nash—albeit the disclosure is one lie after another—he is forced to turn fugitive. With the help of his late father’s war buddy, Nash is able to make a daring escape to a safe retreat as he regroups in plotting how to fight back.

In this character-driven novel, Nash struggles with his conscience regarding revenge and violence and what these will cost to his personal identity and value system. His dilemma is reminiscent of Baldacci’s character Amos Decker first mentioned in Memory Man. Nash, an ordinary man being corrupted into becoming something he is not, is a frequent trope in thriller fiction.

David Baldacci, a New York Times bestselling author, has captivated readers worldwide with his gripping suspense and legal novels, many drawn from his background as an  attorney. Born and raised in Richmond, Virginia, Baldacci has created numerous acclaimed series including the aforementioned Amos Decker series, as well as the Camel Club series, the Atlee Pine series, and the Aloysius Archer series. His debut novel Absolute Power launched his career in 1996, and he has continued to produce bestsellers that blend legal expertise with compelling storytelling.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting July 27, 2025.

I would like to thank Grand Central Publishing, Hachette Book Group, and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.

 

The Widow by John Grisham

 What if you are innocent and no one believes you? Publishing on  October 21, 2025, The Widow by John Grisham centers on Simon Latch, a small-town Virginia lawyer who must find a way to clear his name after being accused of murdering client Eleanor Barnett, an 85-year-old widow. Grisham’s longtime involvement with the Innocence Project directly informs the themes and emotional core of The Widow, even though the novel itself is a fictional “whodunit.”

Barnett comes into Latch’s office in need of a new will. Another lawyer in town gave it a try, but she is not satisfied with his work. While Latch usually charges $250 for a simple will, he sees a bigger paycheck as the widow claims to have great wealth. Greed drives him in this seemingly good fortune as he struggles to pay his bills and hold his marriage together.

Seeing a need to protect this woman’s wealth, Latch endeavors to draw up an expansive will setting up a plan for the distribution of her assets upon her death. Over a series of lunches he puts on his own tab, Latch extracts information from Barnett to create this last testament.

What Latch struggles to validate is the expanse of her wealth. He begins to wonder if she understands just how many assets she actually possesses. When it comes to the ones she can leave her fortune to, the answers to his questions make clear she has no one in her life other than two greedy stepsons with whom she has no relationship.

When the widow is involved in a car accident in which she is at fault, other legal documents become necessary, which Latch creates—at the urging of a concerned nurse--and is forced to have her sign while in the hospital where she is recovering from her injuries. Then the unthinkable happens and everything goes off the rails.

Latch’s efforts to prove himself not guilty of the widow’s murder is anguishing as he faces circumstantial evidence in the role he played in the death. Grisham uses his experience representing clients wrongly accused of crimes to illustrate how legal missteps and flawed evidence can threaten lives.

Latch finds himself on the brink of ruin as his already struggling practice nets not nearly enough to pay a highly recommended defense lawyer. Even closing his practice and selling the building will only make a dent in much needed finances. He finds it hard to believe that any jury could convict him because he is innocent of committing the murder and the evidence is only circumstantial.

The Widow, though fictional, carries forward these concerns as it portrays an innocent man racing to reclaim his reputation and prove his innocence in court. The Widow is less about who committed murder and more about how easily the wrong person can end up in the crosshairs.

Fans of Grisham’s earlier legal thrillers will find comfort in the familiar rhythm of courtroom drama, while newcomers may be surprised by the novel’s emotional resonance. Grisham is a board member of the Innocence Project, a nonprofit devoted to exonerating wrongly convicted individuals. Grisham made a name for himself with his very first  novel, A Time to Kill (1989), followed by other court procedural novels that made him king of the modern legal thriller.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting July 25, 2025.

I would like to thank Doubleday Books and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.

Hank Phillippi Ryan’s All This Could Be Yours

 Coming out September 9, Hank Phillippi Ryan’s All This Could Be Yours is a taut, emotionally charged thriller that explores the dark undercurrents of fame, family, and the secrets from the past that keep trespassing on current lives. Blending psychological suspense with the precision of  journalistic writing, Ryan delivers an engrossing story that is both timely and chilling.

While readers might thrill at the opportunity to attend an author event at their local bookstore, it is a different story for the writer. Tessa Calloway keeps telling herself she is living the dream but the pressure of flight after flight, a different city every night, as she fulfils her contract to conduct author visits is taking its toll on her as well as on her husband and two children back home.

Not only the pace of the tour and being away from home plague Tessa but also something creepy is going on. Starting with a locket left behind in Tessa’s hotel room, a series of events is leaving her unsettled: startling messages left at her hotels, insistent questions about her private life from audience members, and people taking and leaving things in her hotel room while she is out. Tessa thinks it could all add up to something bad that happened when she was 10 years old, but it could be another thing that occurred when she was a teenager: events that caused her mother to flee with her and change their names.

Author Ryan seems to be digging into her own book tour experience as she captures the chaotic pace of the travel and the actual author events themselves. Tessa’s internal turmoil is magnified by the fact she cannot halt the pace in order to stop what sinister event seems about to occur. A thin line between having it all and what the costs may be to keep it all drives this page turner to the finish with one final twist.

Born in Indianapolis, Hank Phillippi Ryan is an American investigative reporter for Channel 7 News on WHDH-TV, a local television station in Boston, Massachusetts. She is also the author of mystery thrillers. Several of her books have been optioned for film and television.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting July 15, 2025.

I would like to thank St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.

A Flicker in the Dark by Stacy Willingham

 Following the success of the runaway best seller, A Flicker in the Dark, Stacy Willingham returns to the murky waters of Southern Gothic suspense with Forget Me Not, a story that examines how trauma reverberates across decades. Coming out August 26, the novel focuses on Claire Campbell, a journalist who has spent 22 years running from the ghosts of her past.

Haunted by the tragic murder of her sister Natalie, an event that drove their parents apart, Claire escaped her South Carolina hometown of Claxton for a fresh start in New York City at The New York Journal. She has not been back since she left 15 years ago but an unexpected call from her father brings her back home to deal with all of it again.

Now a freelance writer with her own schedule, she decides to take a job for the summer in the nearby Galloway Farm where her sister once worked before she disappeared. She will be picking grapes and doing other farm chores while staying on the farm in the guest house where she makes a surprising discovery: an old journal.

The past and present begin to be woven together as Claire uses her journalistic skills and the mysterious diary to create a narrative about the history of the farm and its people. What seems to be a tranquil atmosphere is anything but as the diary starts to reveal the story of a runaway teenage girl whose love for an older man turns into something dangerous as long-unsolved crimes are detailed in its pages. Claire believes the account holds clues to Natalie’s fate.

As things turn dark and mysterious, it is a race to the finish for readers to discover just what happened on the farm…and where the bodies are buried.

Stacy Willingham had remarkable success with her debut novel, A Flicker in the Dark. Actress Emma Stone’s production company along with HBO Max are developing a series based on the novel. Willingham lives in Charleston, South Carolina, with her family.

 

The Wrong Sister by Claire Douglas

 The Wrong Sister by Claire Douglas is a gripping, emotionally resonant thriller that balances family drama with suspense that never slackens. Arriving on shelves August 5, the novel is a tense read filled with twists and turns as Tasha, the stay-at-home mother of twins in Chew Norton, a fictional town set near Somerset, England, and her mechanic husband Aaron embark on a” trade-life-with her successful scientist sister Alice” for a week in Venice.

Alice, a look-alike with her sister, and her husband Kyle, a successful entrepreneur, are in for a busy week in Tasha’s home as they are caring for two 3-year-olds. Tasha and Aaron enjoy a chance to reconnect after raising twins, but their holiday is colored black by a stranger who follows them on the streets of Venice, threatening them harm.

Meanwhile, the illusion of safety in quiet Chew Norton shatters when Tasha receives a devastating phone call: Alice and Kyle have been attacked during an apparent burglary leaving Kyle dead and putting Alice in intensive care. This terrible news is followed by a chilling note to Tasha shoved through her mail slot: “It was supposed to be you.”

What follows is a masterpiece of misdirection presenting a psychological puzzle that keeps readers guessing until the final pages. The story unfolds through alternating perspectives—Tasha, Alice, and their mother Jeanette weave a layered narrative of past and present that slowly reveals the family’s buried traumas and long-held secrets. A haunting subplot emerges involving a long-missing sister.

The Wrong Sister is Claire Douglas’ 10^th novel. She is a British author and former journalist. Her fiction writing career began when she won a competition in Marie Claire magazine with the submission of the first three chapters of her first novel which led to a publishing contract with HarperCollins. She lives in Bath, Somerset, England, with her family.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting July 4, 2025.

I would like to thank HarperCollins Publishers and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.