October 2026's Burgoine and Pearl-Rule reviews

Author 'Nathan Burgoine posted this simple, direct method of not getting paralyzed by the prospect of having to write reviews. The Three-Sentence Review is, as he notes, very helpful and also simple to achieve. I get completely unmanned at the idea of saying something trenchant about each book I read, when there often just isn't that much to say...now I can use this structure to say what I think is the most important idea I took away from the read and not try to dig for more.

Think about using it yourselves!

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Death at King's Cross (A Four Queens of Crime Mystery #2) by Rosanne Limoncelli

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: DCI Lilian Wyles is confronted by a troubling case, one that only the four queens of crime can help solve—even amidst the ongoing war efforts.

Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Margery Allingham, and Ngaio Marsh are back in the follow-up novel to The Four Queens of Crime.

1941, London. When DCI Lilian Wyles finds a young woman murdered at King's Cross Station, she needs the help of someone she can trust, but Richard Davidson, her former Scotland Yard partner, has joined MI5 and is busy tracking black market routes outside of London, so for now, she is on her own.

After having met the four queens of crime during a murder investigation two years earlier, DCI Wyles has kept in touch. But Agatha, Dorothy, Margery, and Ngaio are all involved in the war effort and have problems of their own.

Agatha is volunteering at the University Hospital Pharmacy, where a dangerous anesthetic has been stolen. Dorothy has heard unsettling information from her connections at the BBC regarding members of the Royal Navy. Margery, who has been in the countryside helping families escape the city from the bombing, is worried about one of her charges whose older sister has gone missing. And Ngaio, who has relocated to New Zealand and is volunteering as an ambulance driver, has begun gathering secret intelligence from wounded soldiers and sailors that may put her in danger.

When the four queens contact DCI Wyles for help, the information they share makes the final pieces of the puzzle fall into place. DCI Wyles once again finds herself collaborating with her old partners in crime to solve the mystery and close the case in this thrilling sequel, perfect for fans of Nicola Upson and Anna Lee Huber.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: An idea I found fun, with the real-life Golden Age Queens solving crimes, gets a second story set in its storyverse. It was a perfectly fine, amusing to read, mystery on its own merits; I was gld to come back to it every time I opened the DRC.

I didn't remember to all that often because I was never fully convinced I agreed with Author Limoncelli's characterizations of them, so kinda felt weirdly underdelivered-to.

Crooked Lane Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) says "$14.99 please" so either read and love the sample available, or try your library before committing to buy.

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Mercy House by Adam Cesare

Rating: 3.25* of five

The Publisher Says: Welcome to Mercy House, a state-of-the-art retirement home that appears perfectly clean and orderly . . . but something is turning the residents into monsters. In this thrilling novel from the author of Clown in a Cornfield, you will find little mercy—only a shocking eruption of unfathomable horror.

Harriet Laurel notices the odor the moment she steps inside Mercy House, brought to the retirement home against her will by her son and his wife. In the early stages of dementia, Harriet has grown to resent her daughter-in-law for not providing grandchildren. Yet as she crosses the threshold, she notices her mind begins to sharpen. Then her hate begins to grow. . . .

Arnold Piper, an eighty-five-year-old ex-Marine, has always prided himself on self-reliance. But betrayed by his own body, he’s learning that surviving war-torn Korea was easier than facing the daily indignities of old age. And his worst trials are still to come.

Sarah Campbell, an idealistic nurse, is already stretched thin at the chronically understaffed Mercy House. Now her duties are about to take a terrifying turn. Can she survive the night. . . and her patients?

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Seriously creepy for an old man living in assisted living to read at Halloween, but just a hair less creepy than I'd hoped. Why's every oldster divesting themselves of clothes, inhibitions against murder, and taboos around cannibalism?

Dunno. Author Cesare never says. The body horror will put off many in my age group. It *should* bother our descendants, seeing us in this vio;ent;y primal state, but whatever your gore tolerance is, it's the absence of a *reason* we all go hog-wild that ought to make you go "nah, I'm good" this #Deathtober.

Del Rey Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) is only asking $4.99 for an ebook.

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Chain Reaction (Jack Reacher #31) by Lee Child and Andrew Child

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: The heart-pounding new Jack Reacher thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling authors Lee Child and Andrew Child.

Jack Reacher is hard to find. It's not easy to track him down. And he likes it that way. But General Susan Turner, based deep inside the Pentagon, has the means and the motive. She needs his help. A member of her team has been brutally murdered on covert duty. She can’t trust anyone she works with, not even her deputy. She needs someone from the outside. Someone who solves problems and disappears without a trace.

Reacher heads to Summertown, Colorado. A town as remote and bizarre as it gets. One diner, one motel, five massive data centers, two giant solar farms humming away in the dust. Total population: four people. And one of them is watching him. But Reacher isn’t built to run. He’s built to finish things. General Turner knows that if they come for Reacher, they’ll regret it—all the way to the top of the chain.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: My first Reacher of the 2020s, chosen because Andrew is taking over the series and I wanted to scope it out. This is exactly what I would expect a handover of this long-running series to be. It's not indistinguishable from Lee's earlier work, in a good way.

It's a fine, refining difference that marks Reacher with the smallest bit more need to be human: Susan Turner's back. For series aficionados, catnip.

Bantam Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) has $14.99 on the cover of the ebook. It's #Deathtober, the data centers he's destroying should give you the happy they gave me, whatthehell.

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When the Night Comes Knocking by Katherine Daniel

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: In this Appalachian horror novel, two estranged siblings become trapped in a convenience store under attack by a monster from the mountains who feasts on guilty hearts.

Rattle, rattle in the dark…
The mountain’s bones seek out a heart.

Jane has not spoken to her brother Thomas since the accident that nearly killed them both. Their drive from college through the North Georgia mountains is uncomfortably silent, until they stop at a roadside convenience store, where a man stumbles in with a mutilated body, claiming to have been attacked by a monster.

At first, no one believes the man’s ravings, but when the next person to leave the store is brutally killed, they fear that local legend might be true: There’s a beast in these mountains who feasts on guilty hearts… and someone among them has lured it out of hiding.

Jane and Thomas each harbor secrets, but so do the other patrons, and as the monster claims more hearts, the survivors turn on each other, desperate to save themselves by uncovering the guiltiest among them.

If the siblings can’t overcome the rift between them, they’ll surely become the monster’s next victims…or worse, become monsters themselves.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: #Deathtober spookiness in Appalachia; all in on that, me! Sadly the pieces never came together for a satisfying conclusion to the narrative.

I really disliked what I got to know about Jane and Thomas so that did not help.

Berkley Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) wants $14.99 for an ebook. Library borrows are free and, if you enjoy it, great value. If you don't you've only lost time.

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The Haunted Librarian by Auralee Wallace

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: A lonely librarian finds love, friends, and a few ghosts between the shelves in this cozy, paranormal tale from beloved bestselling author Auralee Wallace.

It’s a dark and stormy night…and Amelia Bates is caught in the rain. Life hasn’t always been kind to her, and being a ghostseer certainly doesn’t make things any easier.

Glowing warmly through the autumnal downpour is her safest the library. Amelia, the newly hired librarian, has always relished the comfort of curling up with a novel, vastly preferring it to the company of humans (alive or ghostly).

But Amelia is shocked to discover the building is full of more than quiet stories and warm cups of tea. There are curious, talkative patrons, a shy, bespectacled head librarian who makes her heart skip a beat, and three quirky spirits causing paranormal havoc that endangers the future of the library.

To help the ghosts and save the building, Amelia will have to gather all her bravery and wits, because learning to trust others might just be the first step to a happily ever after she only thought was possible in books.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Librarian + ghosts x cozy romantasy = terrific #Deathtober entertainment. Another story I was never sorry to pick back up, but didn't think to do so for days at a time. I thought Simon, Amelia's love interest, was very dull; I forget which ghost called Amelia "dude" all the time but that *really* grated after the skatey-eighth time.

The humor is gentle, the tone is the good kind of sentimental, the milieu could grow legs and be the book your grands are happiest to find after you die. It was fine, but I wanted to be able to invest in Amelia more. Next book?

Ace Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) only wants $12.99 for an ebook, which is exactly the right price.

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Brimstone Hollow (Annie Gore #2) by Archer Sullivan

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: Following her powerful debut in The Witch’s Orchard, private investigator Annie Gore returns in Brimstone Hollow, bringing readers back to the mountains that author Archer Sullivan, a ninth generation Appalachian, knows so well.

There isn’t much that happens in the Appalachian Mountains that Private Investigator Annie Gore hasn’t seen. Before she joined the Air Force, she was born and raised in those rolling hills, and lately Annie's cases have called her away from her Louisville office and closer to the small towns of her youth than she ever anticipated. But when her newest client asks if she’s ever been to a snake-handling church, Annie knows she’s about to enter unknown territory.

Katie May has been estranged from her father―one of Appalachia’s last infamous snake handling preachers―for twenty years. But when Katie finds out he’s been fatally bitten, and a funeral was held within twenty-four hours, she questions whether someone deliberately rushed the process. Despite Annie’s doubts, she takes the case. After all, when she looks at Katie, she sees a version of herself: a girl who needs to understand her father in order to understand herself.

As she navigates the hidden hollers and dangerous secrets of this insular Eastern Kentucky town, Annie works fast, hoping to find the truth in record time for her client―and before too many memories from her own childhood surface. But it soon becomes apparent that someone wants Annie’s investigation to stop―by any means necessary.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: The snake-handling preacher dying of a snake bite was *chef's kiss* and then Author Archer pulled a fast one on me and made it the mystery to find out if he really did die of a snakebite which totally harshed my buzz. (There's a joke in there for y'all to discover.) Not one thing stays the same for long: Victims and perps switch places, Honey the 260Z suffers gross indignities, Annie Gore damn near dies of rattlesnake bite...and by the end I was rooting for a guy who needed Annie to...get...him a severed finger to accomplish something "illegal" to get it done.

Problem is it's all so busy, so frantic in pace that I got left behind a little too often for me to offer a more elevated rating. Still, enjoyed my Appalachian #Deathtober visit fine. Get well soon, Annie.

Minotaur Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) wants $14.99 for an ebook. Start with #1, linked up top.

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The Raven by Susan McCauley

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: As illness tightens its grip, something darker begins to stir.

England, 1665. As plague ravages London and fear spreads north to York, Martin Blake, a humble cobbler, struggles to protect his family through a bitter, death-shadowed winter. When the parish rector, his wife’s domineering uncle, forces orphaned children from London into their already meager home, Martin’s fragile world begins to unravel.

Grief, illness, and the weight of buried sins close in. Ravens gather. Martin’s reason begins to slip. Whispers spread—of misused alms, of spirits that roam at night, of faith twisted into something monstrous. As snow blankets the land and the dead lie unburied, Martin must confront a chilling truth: is he haunted by guilt, or by something far more sinister?

A gothic tale of illness, obsession, and the perilous border between loyalty and madness.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: A #Deathtober gothic story set during the witch panic and Black Death of the 1660s, this is a very creepy tale that is deeply immersive. It took me a while to sort put whether I felt the ravens were real, or simply the guilt/religious abuse and the overwhelming amount of death surrounding Martin the main character manifesting either in the world or in his head.

I'd give it a higher rating were it not for the repetitiveness of Martin's experiences ending up reducing my sympathy for him.

Celtic Sea, LLC (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) wants $19.99 for a paperback.

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This space is dedicated to Nancy Pearl's Rule of 50, or "the Pearl Rule" as I've always called it. After realizing five times in December 2021 alone that I'd already Pearl-Ruled a book I picked up on a whim, I realized how close my Half-heimer's is getting to the full-on article. Hence my decision to track my Pearls!

As she says:

People frequently ask me how many pages they should give a book before they give up on it. In response to that question, I came up with my “rule of fifty,” which is based on the shortness of time and the immensity of the world of books. If you’re fifty years of age or younger, give a book fifty pages before you decide to commit to reading it or give it up. If you’re over fifty, which is when time gets even shorter, subtract your age from 100—the result is the number of pages you should read before making your decision to stay with it or quit.

So this space will be each month's listing of Pearl-Ruled books. Earlier Pearl-Rule posts will be linked below the current month's crop.

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The Last Time We Saw Her (22%) by Jaclyn Goldis

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: Ten years ago, a teenage summer camper disappeared while searching for a rumored treasure on a remote island. Now, the long-buried truth of what happened to her and the long-lost gold threatens the lives of her friends in this thriller from the critically acclaimed author of The Chateau.

Ten years ago, a group of American teenage summer campers went to a lush and isolated Azores island for a hiking and heritage trip. But when a clue to a local legend of buried treasure emerged, the summer devolved into a frenzied hunt and culminated in the disappearance—and rumored murder—of “it girl” camper, Sydney. She was never seen again and the treasure never found.

Now, a decade later, Sydney’s closest circle returns to honor her memory: Sydney’s sister and fellow camper, Olivia; a group of childhood camp friends; and their beloved counselors. They’ve all agreed to participate in a documentary probing what really happened to Sydney.

The group reunites in paradise and retraces their old haunts, hiking along crater lakes and submerging in thermal hot springs. But not everyone has innocent motives for returning to the island. And when the documentary filming reveals explosive truths and fresh hints resurrect the tantalizing treasure hunt, the group begins to implode. Old feuds reignite—and then one of them turns up dead.

Which means that a murderer has surfaced...again.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: I read The Chateau a couple years ago when I was in Long Beach at a fellow reader's behest, and thought it was okay: nice setting well evoked, tidy climax.

Loved this setting, the Azores, but was never convinced by the true-crime documentary being that interesting; I gave up mid-transcript because it was just too grating.

Atria/Emily Bestler Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) asks $13.99 for an ebook.

September 2026's Burgoine and Pearl-Rule reviews

Author 'Nathan Burgoine posted this simple, direct method of not getting paralyzed by the prospect of having to write reviews. The Three-Sentence Review is, as he notes, very helpful and also simple to achieve. I get completely unmanned at the idea of saying something trenchant about each book I read, when there often just isn't that much to say...now I can use this structure to say what I think is the most important idea I took away from the read and not try to dig for more.

Think about using it yourselves!

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Laws of Solomon (Martyr Maker #4) by Eriq La Salle

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: Redemption isn't given. It's fought for.

After years of violence, Solomon leaves the brutal backdrop of New York and its underworld to find peace in California where he settles for the quiet life of a gardener defined by routine, restraint, and a fragile kind of peace that had alluded him. Having been a former child soldier, mercenary, and hit man, he is determined to put his past behind him. But as violence erupts on the grounds he tends, his hard-won tranquility shatters when he encounters a young boy named Gaby whose life is in danger.

Protecting the child pulls Solomon back into a world he swore he'd buried. As they set out on an unexpected journey, hunted by men who will stop at nothing to get what they want, Solomon must confront not only the threat closing in but the darkness he carries within.

Propulsive and deeply human, Laws of Solomon is a story of redemption, found family, and the cost of choosing compassion in a brutal world. In saving Gaby, Solomon may finally discover whether peace is something a man like him can earn—or something he must sacrifice everything to protect.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: The fatherly love Solomon lavishes on the child Gaby is very welcome to see in a literary landscape where men are solely violent and hateful, or redeemed by some woman or another. Solomon's world has only ever been violent so he's redeemed, but by the need to protect and guide a child not his.

Not to say he's non-violent...many readers will love that, but I didn't, and I can't get all the way to a fourth star despite how well-written the story is.

Poisoned Pen Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) wants $7.99 for an ebook. Tolerant of violence? Go ahead.

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She's a Killer by Kirsten McDougall

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: Alice is struggling to find things to care about.

Branded 'smarter than most' at the age of seven, she now works in Enrolments at the local university and spends her time stalking the internet for shoes she can't afford.

Meanwhile, the climate is in crisis and wealthy immigrants are flocking to New Zealand for shelter, stealing land, driving up food prices and taking over.

When Alice meets teenage genius Erika, life suddenly gets a lot more interesting.

But Erika soon reveals a dangerous plan to set things 'right', forcing Alice out of indifference and into action of the most radical kind.

Just what is a slacker to do? Bold and brilliantly bizarre, She’s a Killer is the satirical dystopian cli-fi thriller you never knew you needed. Until now.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Buy it for the new (to me, anyway) coinage of "wealthugees." The rich are taking over beautiful New Zealand and screwing it both up and over, a too-smart-to-be-happy woman's caught up in a scheme to do something permanent about it, and hijinks ensue. Very slowly, but they do ensue.

I'm not over the moon because cli-fi and satire are odd bedfellows, the Māori in the story come across to me as more a white person's vision than real people, and I ran out of patience with Alice before I ran out of book.

Pushkin Vertigo (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) needs $14.99 for the openable ebook. In the proper mood....

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Children of wolves: a novel by Lawrence Osborne

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: Never fall for your prey....

A thrilling tale of manipulation and deceit about an American private investigator who travels to Turkey to track down the daughter of a wealthy family, unwittingly setting off a sinister plot.

Four children from wealthy families are sent to a strict prestigious boarding school for troubled teenagers. Haunted by the horrors they experience, they vow to disrupt the status quo by all means necessary.

Years later, Tyler is a private investigator with a failing career who has been hired by petrochemical billionaire James Arthur Knight Jr. to find his run-away daughter, Chana. At a seaside hotel in Turkey, he finds Chana lounging with her three wealthy friends and living with a fake name.

Enthralled by Chana’s shyness and elegance, Tyler decides to keep his discovery to himself, accepting Mr. Knight’s payments while feeding him elusive information and partying with Chana and her friends over wine and raki. One night, when Tyler lets slip his relationship with the American consul, Chana lights up with interest and asks if he can orchestrate a meeting.

With a backdrop of of glitzy ex-pat parties, diplomatic galas, and the gritty underworld of Istanbul, Chana conjures a plot involving the consul that sets into motion a dark chain of events.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Glitzy surfaces that sound nice, have interesting shapes, and doesn't do much with them beyond note their surfaces' shine and elaborately describe to color and texture. Tyler's failings are self-inflicted; Chana's rebellion is pique at how her rich dad, a scumbag to be sure, failed to give her *enough* so now she and her buds want to take it away.

It was nicely paced, had a fascinating geopolitical setting that's mostly squandered in travel-magazine puffery, and ultimately ends in sequel bait. It was not a huge success for me.

Summit Books/S & S (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) thinks $12.99 is fair for the book. Library's free....

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Thoughts Be Bloody by Auden Patrick

Rating: 2.5* of five

The Publisher Says: A struggling student, a resident golden boy, and the curse that will bring them together: this queer, trans retelling is Hamlet as you’ve never read it before

Exploring classism, identity, and the true meaning of revolution, this dark academia novel is perfect for fans of R. F. Kuang’s Babel

The summer before his sophomore year, Horatio Bithersea walks into the university library to find Carson Hamlett, resident golden boy and master magician, cradling his father’s dead body. Life at Elsinore, one of the most prestigious universities in the secretive magical world, simply goes on when the professor’s death is ruled an accident—despite the mysterious circumstances and the bloody scene.

A year later, Horatio is keeping his head down, attempting to graduate without his out-of-control magic harming his classmates. That changes when the ghost of Hamlett’s father appears and places a curse on Horatio and Hamlett: avenge his death by destroying Elsinore and its heart, lest the ghost robs them of their minds, memories, and their very souls.

Elsinore has given Horatio everything—knowledge of his magical ability, an escape from his abusive family, and freedom to pursue his life as a transgender man—and now he’s to be its doom. As the two uncover more of Elsinore’s secrets, Horatio finds himself becoming more and more ensnared in Hamlett’s dark but charismatic web.

The question is not if Horatio will manage to destroy Elsinore. The question is if Hamlett will destroy him first. This twisty, queer, dark academia is a brand-new take on the questions that haunt Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: To read, or not to read: that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous youthful solipsism, or to take leave from Horatio's roiling inner-sea of troubles, and by opposing the demand to re-tread deepworn paths leading to that ever-stormy inner-sea, end them at bloody last; to die to this endlessly refought battle, finally to sleep through more youthful Sturm und Drang; and by a sleep, to say we end...at least my unwilling awareness of...the heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks that solipsistic young transmasc Flesh is heir to? 'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.

I read the whole bleedin' thing and I want those hours back.

DAW (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
thinks $15.99 works as a price for the ebook...I disagree.

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Three Hitmen and a Baby (Assassins Anonymous #3) by Rob Hart

Rating: 3.25* of five

The Publisher Says: Welcome back to Assassins Anonymous, where family is everything and danger lurks around every corner.

Assassins Anonymous isn't just a weekly recovery meeting for reformed killers—it's also a family.

When Valencia receives troubling news that her brother has gone missing, she wants rush off to LA to find him. But she can’t bring her baby girl, Lucia. Enter the other members of Assassins Anonymous—Mark, Astrid, and Booker, who offer to watch the toddler while she's gone. After all, they're three of the deadliest, most highly skilled people on the planet; what could go wrong?

Turns out, a lot. Shortly after Valencia leaves, Mark is summoned to the lair of Zmeya, a Russian mob boss calling in a deadly favor—she wants him to kill Astrid, his protege and friend. Mark refuses, but Zmeya reveals that she knows the identity of Mark’s ex-girlfriend . . . and his son. Either Astrid goes, or they do.

Meanwhile, Lucia spikes a dangerously high fever, and when Booker and Astrid take her to urgent care, they realize too late, that their fabricated identities are a real liability. Also, they don't know Valencia’s last name, let alone Lucia's. They can hardly blame the staff for calling the NYPD.

Suddenly the splintered group is on the run from both the Russian mob and the police, dodging bad guys and do-gooders while trying to find refuge in a city full of surveillance cameras—all without killing anyone. That is, until Zmeya captures Sara and Bennett, and Mark is ready to throw his sobriety out the window.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: I lost steam, lost the thread, lost my sense of humor...SOMEthing happened to reduce my enjoyment of the silliness of this series to a new low. Maybe it's the baby's fever...?

Whatever it was I chuckled a couple times early on then sat stonefaced in front of my Kindle flipping pages with no trace of a smile, no moment of rib-tickling daffy fun I could see on my mental TV screen.

G.P. Putnam's Sons (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) requires $14.99 to completely transfer you a reading license that they can revoke at any time, for any reason. At least the library isn't capricious. (see? humorless)

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Dead Weight by Hildur Knútsdóttir (tr. Mary Robinette Kowal)

Rating: 3.25* of five

The Publisher Says: An Icelandic night may hide secrets and affairs—or even bodies—in this gruesomely cathartic horror thriller from the author of The Night Guest.

Unnur was living a normal, if lonely, life until a black cat showed up at her door.

Trying to do the right thing, Unnur reunites the lost pet with its owner—a young woman named Ásta who is in desperate need of some help. Unnur reluctantly agrees to take in the cat until Ásta is able to care for it again herself.

Soon, Ásta becomes a fixture in Unnur's life and the two form an unlikely friendship. But like a black cat, trouble is tailing Ásta, and Unnur is the only one there when things take a violent turn.

Nothing tests a friendship like blood on your hands.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Dark, horrifying story of how vicious the world is to women, how victimization of women is met by apathy, and how few women step up to help each other in hours of need. Nothing else in this story made me afraid and angry...I was pretty eye-rolly about the "horror" in this story.

At a hair over 150pp, this is a novella which is exactly long enough to spend with dreary, depressing Unnur and ridiculously unintrospective Ásta...about three and a half hours and I was gnawing on my Kindle's case to escape the dreary sadness I was feeling with some microplastic consumption.

Tor Nightfire (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) wants $12.99 for an ebook, but the library's free.

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To Rob a Bank Is an Honor by Lucio Urtubia (tr. Paul Sharkey)

Rating: 3.9* of five

The Publisher Says: For the first time in English, the life story of the revolutionary outlaw who brought Citibank to its knees.

In 1981, Lucio Urtubia received a suitcase full of cash from Citibank executives, handed over the plates he’d used to forge 20 million dollars in traveler’s checks, and walked away a free man. This is the true story of the most famous Robin Hood of the twentieth century, a lifelong anarchist who robbed from the rich to give to liberation struggles the world round.

Born to a poor family in the Basque Country, Urtubia was conscripted into Franco’s army at seventeen, where he began smuggling rations from military stores. In 1954, he fled to exile in Paris, where he learned to work as a mason, laying bricks by day and collaborating with Catalonian anarchists by night. Soon, he was planning bank heists to fund the Spanish struggle, stealing weapons, and masterminding the escape of resistance fighters. Following the uprisings of May 1968, Urtubia opened a printshop, producing political pamphlets while amassing a crew of operatives to counterfeit passports, ID cards, and workers’ paychecks.

By the late 70s, Urtubia hit on the plan that would make him infamous: changing the serial numbers on traveler’s checks and depositing them simultaneously. Citibank’s early global banking system offered the prime target, and checks spread to revolutionary movements in Europe, Latin America, and the United States. “He who robs a thief is a thousand times forgiven,” Urtubia argued. Over decades, Urtubia funneled material support to groups including the Red Brigades in Italy, the Baader-Meinhof group in Germany, the Black Panthers in the US, and the ETA Basque separatists.

Told with Urtubia's characteristic warmth and humor, To Rob a Bank Is an Honor collects the adventures and political convictions of this larger-than-life figure of an incendiary era.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Gets into inspiration porn pretty quickly, is 75pp too long, and deals with rebellion in a world that simply does not exist in today's societal panopticon.

OTOH he's got good stories to tell, makes an excellent example of "who robs a thief is a thousand times forgiven," and very clearly does not succumb to the right-wing-encouraged "moral purity" bullshit afflicting leftists for centuries.

AK Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) charges $21.99 for an ebook...I'd make the obvious joke but....

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When the Tamarind Tree Blooms by Elaine Russell

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: Geneviève Dubois, half-Lao, half-French, turns eighteen and leaves the French orphanage where she has been trapped for fourteen unhappy years. She is determined to uncover the story of her parents and locate her missing twin brother.

Stepping into the deeply divided world of 1931 French colonial Laos, she finds neither French colonists nor native Lao readily accept her mixed heritage. Even falling in love is fraught with the cultural restrictions of two dissonant societies. Where does she fit in?

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Interesting setting, interesting mixed-race woman's PoV in colonial patriarchal cultures (plural), and somehow it never comes together. From the outset I was not clear as to why I was so involved in the story as I read it; when I'd put it down, I'd forget about it. It's a two-year-plus odyssey, my finishing the story.

Yet finish it I did, and without much flipping back to refresh my memory; unusual experience, honestly I just don't get it at all.

Belles Histoires (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) asks $4.99 for an ebook. If the premise interests you, it's not a bad read.

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This space is dedicated to Nancy Pearl's Rule of 50, or "the Pearl Rule" as I've always called it. After realizing five times in December 2021 alone that I'd already Pearl-Ruled a book I picked up on a whim, I realized how close my Half-heimer's is getting to the full-on article. Hence my decision to track my Pearls!

As she says:

People frequently ask me how many pages they should give a book before they give up on it. In response to that question, I came up with my “rule of fifty,” which is based on the shortness of time and the immensity of the world of books. If you’re fifty years of age or younger, give a book fifty pages before you decide to commit to reading it or give it up. If you’re over fifty, which is when time gets even shorter, subtract your age from 100—the result is the number of pages you should read before making your decision to stay with it or quit.

So this space will be each month's listing of Pearl-Ruled books. Earlier Pearl-Rule posts will be linked below the current month's crop.

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Warning to the Crocodiles (41%) by António Lobo Antunes (tr. Karen Sotelino)

Rating: 3* of five because there was no reason it should've been this obfuscatory

The Publisher Says: Set in the aftermath of the Carnation Revolution of April 25, 1974, Antonio Lobo Antunes's Warning to the Crocodiles is a fragmented narrative of the violent tensions resulting from major political changes in Portugal.

Told through the memories of four women who spend their days fashioning homemade explosives and participating in the kidnap and torture of communists, the novel details the clandestine activities of an extreme right-wing Salazarist faction resisting the country s new embrace of democracy."

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: I don't know what's going on here, I'm told there are four narrators and okay that's nice but who are they and why are they helping the men doing these horrible things to decent, upstanding communists anyway? Like, they're men who're bruised by losing but you're going to be better off so what the what is the cheapness of the family treasures causing such gold-plated anxiety about?

It's never been harder to say "No thanks" to a read because I liked the strange, not-ordinary descriptions (that church shadow *shudder*), the way the prose wrapped around itself; but when you don't like these women and you can't tell who's who and there's not one shred of help...ya gotta bail eventually.

Dalkey Archive Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) has a yen for getting $9.95 per ebook.

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Swallows (46%) by Natsuo Kirino (tr. Lisa Hofmann-Kuroda)

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: The highly anticipated new novel. When a young single woman in Tokyo decides she’s ready to sell anything—even her womb—to escape the precarity of her life, an agency pairs her with a wealthy couple desperate to have a child. The match seems made in heaven. She even looks a little like the wife. But is anything ever that simple?

Nothing has ever gone right for Riki. She left her boring hometown in Hokkaido, where she worked at a nursing home, for a better life in Tokyo. But as a temp in the big city she has no job security, and barely scrapes by. She eats the same old discount boiled egg for lunch every day, sometimes for dinner, too. Many of her peers have to take on a side hustle just to make ends meet. So when her friend discovers an agency offering a hefty sum for egg donation, both leap at the chance for an interview.

Meanwhile, former ballet star Motoi Kusaoke and his wife, Yuko, have been trying to conceive for years. After trying what feels like every available option, it seems futile—until Motoi dives deep into his research and learns that, while surrogacy is technically illegal in Japan, there is a company that’s found a loophole.

Before long, everyone has an opinion on the from Yuko’s sex-obsessed, asexual best friend, to Motoi’s controlling prima ballerina mother, and even the affable sex-worker-slash-therapist that Riki has been to a couple of times, after she accepted a down-payment to be a surrogate.

Acutely funny and addictively page-turning, Swallows pulls at the seams of society, reassessing our understanding of motherhood, self-worth, bodily autonomy, and class. What does it mean to be “in control”? And can money really buy happiness?

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: My discomfort reached the breaking point at the end of chapter two, when the ironic distance between Ririko and those around her crystallized into the overarching phoniness of the entire story's relationships being so in-my-face I couldn't unsee it. It could simply be a mood-based dislike of that, it could be there's humor in how it was being done that I simply didn't cotton on to, or it could just be a sea-change in me, away from interest in stories about fa¸ades, is real.

Whatever the source, I'm not continuing reads that lose me, no matter where they do so.

Alfred A. Knopf (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) charges $12.99 for the ebook. Read a sample first.

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Fallow (61%) by Sarah Anderson

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Slyly funny and disarmingly tender, Fallow is the story of a young woman who signs up to be the world’s first in-house corporate surrogate, then finds herself caught up in a social experiment of another kind.

Natalie knows one truth: There is no such thing as a good job.

As the clock ticks away at the workplace harassment call center, she tries to ignore the increasing pain in her jaw. She has no dental insurance. She has no skills or ambitions. She has student loans. And, minute by minute, she hears the many ways workers are not just not getting by, but actually getting hustled.

Then, at the blood bank where she sells her plasma, a mysterious flyer leads her to The Company. Natalie turns out to be the perfect candidate for their pilot in-house surrogate. The Company pitches it as an opportunity to help women access greater gender equity, motherhood without maternity leave. Finally, she will be adequately—generously—compensated.

For years, her every need is stacks of healthy meals in the refrigerator of a luxury condo, fitness coaches and nutritionists, around-the-clock healthcare. Between deliveries, she takes time off—no obligations or expectations. For the first time in her life, she is good at her job; for the first time, she feels free.

But just as she’s about to fulfill the terms of her contract, a staffing decision upends everything and drags her deep into another social experiment. There she meets new questions about her future, her freedom, her purpose, and what she can expect from the world.

Woundingly funny and deeply moving, Sarah Anderson’s Fallow is a tender, hilarious, alarmingly real vision of a woman balancing on the knife-edge of capitalism as she comes to realize who she wants to be.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: K.M. Szpara's Docile made my skin crawl, with its pharmacologically induced submissiveness as an enforcement of sexual servitude to repay debt. This is, somehow, worse. I was all the way into part three of three when a twist occurred that caused me to mark a character's speech given to Natalie...very amusing name to give her, Author Sarah...and decisevely type "Uncle" and nope out. I can't say why because I hope you will be deeply intrigued by this not-unrealistic end-stage-capitalist cautionary tale of why we need tumbrils, guillotines, and Mme Defarge to recrudesce, and to give it a fair shake.

My breaking point is entirely, idiosyncratically personal so irrelevant to the quality of the book.

FSG (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) charges $14.99 for your ebook passport to capitalist dystopia. Only if it gets me *out*....

August 2026's Burgoine and Pearl-Rule reviews

Author 'Nathan Burgoine posted this simple, direct method of not getting paralyzed by the prospect of having to write reviews. The Three-Sentence Review is, as he notes, very helpful and also simple to achieve. I get completely unmanned at the idea of saying something trenchant about each book I read, when there often just isn't that much to say...now I can use this structure to say what I think is the most important idea I took away from the read and not try to dig for more.

Think about using it yourselves!

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The Women in White by Sarah Pekkanen

Rating: 2.5* of five

The Publisher Says: The next thriller from #1 bestselling author Sarah Pekkanen combines a decades-old mystery with spine-tingling paranormal elements in this twisty novel of the seen and unseen.

Extrasensory perception.
The Gift.
A Sixth Sense.
Or something else…

In 1964, four remarkable young women at a prestigious university became the subjects of parapsychology experiments by a visionary scientist. On the cusp of a historic breakthrough, the women mysteriously vanished and the program was erased from history.

Decades later, Riley Bell, newly divorced and desperate for a fresh start, accepts a caretaker job for an elderly widow named Betty. Riley steps into a home that is frozen in another era—no microwave, television, or cell phones, and Betty has never heard of the internet.

Why has Betty lived in such profound isolation for so many years, and why does she need Riley now? As the story unfolds across two timelines—Betty’s 1960s era of 5 o’clock martinis and high-stakes experiments, and Riley’s quest to uncover the truth about the missing women—old secrets rise to the surface. And the only way to survive is to confront the mystery that has lingered for sixty years.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: It's not you, book, it's me...I am allergic to storylines about parapsychology now. I had no idea this would happen; I've enjoyed stories in this vein fairly recently. I'm really disappointed.

So my rating is only for me, I need to remind muself not to ask for ESP/parapsychology tales anymore ::sad trombone::


St. Martin's Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) will gladly accept $14.99 from you to get the ebook onto your Kindle. I say do it, though without fervor.

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Dislocations by Sylvia Molloy (tr. Jennifer Croft)

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: How do you keep a friendship intact, when Alzheimer's has stolen the common ground of language, memory, and experience, that unites you?

In brief, sharply drawn moments, Sylvia Molloy’s Dislocations records the gradual loss of a beloved friend, M.L., a disappearance in ways expected (forgotten names, forgotten moments) and painfully surprising (the reversion to a formal, proper Spanish from their previous shared vernacular). There are occasions of wonder, too—M.L. can no longer find the words to say she is dizzy, but can translate that message from Spanish to English, when it's passed along by a friend.

This loss holds Molloy’s sense of herself too—the person she is in relation to M.L. fades as her friend’s memory does. But the writer remains: 'I’m not writing to patch up holes and make people (or myself) think that there’s nothing to see here, but rather to bear witness to unintelligibilities and breaches and silences. That is my continuity, that of the scribe.' In 2007, at New York University, she created the MFA in Creative Writing in Spanish, which was the first programme of its kind in the United States.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: In under 100pp, the terrifying journey that is dementia is not possible to plumb...only to evoke. It's a quick hit of a terrible drug whose side effects are agonizing.

I did not feel I was particularly drawn in as a short story can do; nor was I afforded insight; nor was I entertained; it was fine sentence-by-sentence writing and image-making but not storytelling.

Charco Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) wants $15.95 for an ebook. Ask the library to get one.

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This is Amiko, Do You Copy? by Natsuko Imamura (tr. Hitomi Yoshio)

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Other people don’t seem to understand Amiko. Whether eating curry rice with her hands at school or peeking through the sliding doors at her mother’s calligraphy class, her curious, exuberant nature mostly meets with confusion.

When her stepmother falls into a depression and her brother begins spending all his time with a motorcycle gang, Amiko is left increasingly alone to navigate a world where she doesn’t quite fit.

Subtle, tender and moving, This is Amiko shows us life through the eyes of a unique, irrepressible, neurodivergent young character.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Very interesting look at Japanese culture through the eyes of a young, naïve girl who is also neurodivergent. It is very much her book, in the manner of the French récit; but I know so little about Japanese culture that much flew above my head.

I can't tell if that is my problem really perceiving Amiko's affect on others, or if it is her naïveté that presents the obstacles to her success communicating with others.

Pushkin Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) needs $11.99 for you to legally access the ebook. An afternoon's involving if slight reading so do it if you're in that mood.

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January by Sara Gallardo (tr. Frances Riddle, and Maureen Shaughnessy)

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: A revelatory, pioneering masterpiece about the life, rape, and abortion of a 16-year-old Argentine farmworker—now in English for the very first time

With echoes of Edith Wharton’s Summer, this radical feminist novel broke the silence around abortion to reshape the way women’s bodies and rights were perceived in 20th-century Argentina.

Perfect for readers of Tove Ditlevsen, Annie Ernaux’s Happening, and Claudia Piñeiro’s Elana Knows.

In the sweltering Argentine pampas, all things bow to Nefer. Reeds nod when she digs her heels into her horse, unripe peaches snap and fall as she gallops past. Sickly-sweet air bends, churns in Nefer’s throat.

Nefer measures the distance between her body and the table, and feels something filling her up, turning against her. Her belly swells.

Desperate, Nefer visits a local medicine woman who is known to perform abortions but Nefer becomes too afraid to explain why she is truly there.

She attends confession at church but cannot confide in the priest. During a fierce argument with her mother, she finally blurts out her secret.

A radical feminist text, January was the first Argentine novel to represent rape from the survivor’s perspective and to explore the life-threatening risks pregnancy posed, in a society where abortion was both outlawed and taboo.

With a narcotic musicality and voice scorched through with honesty, Gallardo hangs before us an experience that has been lived and ignored a thousand times over. Nefer closes her eyes. We careen to her and we see.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: I quibble with "has been lived and ignored a thousand times over" and would put "billion" in that place. I have not read the Spanish version; I can say the English one might be more...flattened out, unmusical...to me as a man who has a pretty simple idea of how to fix rape: Teach your fucking son to keep it in his pants. "No" means no, "stop" means stop. Do it anyway and we lock you in a room with her family and a baseball bat, whatever's left of you raping bastard after five minutes we arrest or bury as appropriate. No further questions.

Abortion is healthcare, healthcare is a human right.

Archipelago (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) charges $13.99 for an ebook.

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Black Box: The Memoir That Sparked Japan’s #MeToo Movement by Shiori Ito (tr. Allison Markin Powell)

Rating: 5* of five

The Publisher Says: The internationally recognized sexual assault memoir that revolutionized a feminist movement around rape, stigma, and silence in Japan.

In 2015, an aspiring young journalist named Shiori Ito charged prominent reporter Noriyuki Yamaguchi with rape. After meeting up for drinks and networking, Ito remembers regaining consciousness in a hotel room whilst being assaulted. But when she went to the police, Ito was told that her case was a "black box"—untouchable and unprosecutable.

Upon publication in 2017, Ito’s searing account foregrounded the #MeToo movement in Japan and became the center of an urgent cultural and legal shift around recognizing sexual assault and gender-based violence. As international outlets covered every step of her story—even documenting it in the BBC film Japan’s Secret Shame—this book launched a societal reckoning. At the end of 2019, Ito won a civil case against Yamaguchi.

With careful and quiet fury, Black Box recounts a broken system of repression and violence—but it also heralds the beginning of a new solidarity movement seeking a more equitable path toward justice.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Rape is a disgusting criminal act of bodily and psychological violation; it is the world's most common crime; it's also, for its frequency of occurrence, the least prosecuted because no one wants to believe the victim.

No one believed my mother was raping me, so I relate, Ms. Ito; but your courage while rage-fueled was ultimately what changed the game in Japan. I hope your example continues to inspire victims of rape to come forward in their legions to seek, and receive, justice.

Feminist Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) wants a pretty hefty $17.95 for any edition. Be prepared for graphic, horrifying words evoking graphic, horrifying acts.

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Variations on the Body by María Ospina Pizano (tr. Heather Cleary)

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: A constellation of short stories illustrate the intersecting lives of women on various peripheries of society in and around Bogotá, Colombia.

In six subtly connected stories, Variations on the Body explores the obsessions, desires, and idiosyncrasies of women and girls from different strata of Colombian society. A former FARC guerilla fighter adjusts to urban life and faces the new violence of an editor co-opting her experiences. A woman adrift in the city she left as a child looks for someone to care for, even if it has to be by force, while another documents a flea infestation with a catalog of the marks on her flesh. A little girl copes with her anxiety about the adult world by exacting revenge on her nanny, who she thinks belongs to her.

Combining humor, heartbreak, and unexpected violence, Ospina constructs a keen reflection on the body as a simultaneous vehicle of connection and alienation in vibrant, gleaming prose.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Six stories in ~127pp that came across like weirdly semi-autonomous chapters in a surreal novel, not quite different enough to be full stories but instead feeling to me as though Author Ospina is re-writing the same idea from different angles.

"When she reached that age of abstract yearnings that concentrate in and cloud the body, not long after she moved to the United States with her parents, Aurora used to scrape the bottom of her yogurt cup in desperation, ashamed of her desire for so much more when it was clear there was nothing left, sensing that her distress meant something else, something wretched and essential she couldn't put into words." It's finely wrought but seemingly undifferentiated from the others. I hope we see more, and more developed, other ideas soon.

Coffee House Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) asks for $16.95 for any edition. Need a short read to get into in fits and starts? It's perfect for you.

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So We Look to the Sky: A Novel by Misumi Kubo (tr. Polly Barton)

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: This shocking, boisterous novel was a runaway bestseller and award winner in Japan

Searingly honest and sexually explicit, So We Look to the Sky is a novel told in five linked stories that begin with an affair between a student, Takumi, and a woman ten years his senior. Their scandalous liaison, which the woman's husband makes public by posting a secretly taped video online, frames all of the stories, each exploring different aspects of the passages of life and the hardships ordinary people face.

A teenager experimenting with sex and then, perhaps, experiencing love and loss; a young, anime-obsessed wife bullied by her mother-in-law to produce the child she and her husband cannot conceive; a high school girl, spurned by Takumi, realizing that being cute and fertile is all others expect of her; Takumi's best friend, who lives in the projects and is left alone to support and care for his voracious, senile grandmother; and Takumi's mother, a divorced single parent and midwife, who guides women bringing new life into this world and must rescue her son, crushed by the twin blows of public humiliation and loss, from giving up on his own.

Narrating each story in the distinctive voice of its protagonist, Misumi Kubo weaves themes including sex, love, the female body, gossip, and the bullying that leaves young people feeling burdened and helpless into a profoundly original novel that stays with you for its affirmation of the raw, unstoppable force of life.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: I feel a bit dimwitted because I did not get how these stories cohered into a novel at all. Braided stories don't usually flummox me like this; the framing device did not relate to the other stories enough for my old queer's brain to follow its story logic.

However heterosexual I'm not, I did get involved in the events herein and recommend the read to straight people.

Arcade (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) ants what I find a pretty steep $17.95 for the ebook.

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Migratory Birds (Undelivered Lectures series) by Mariana Oliver (tr. Julia Sanches)

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: A sensitive, stunning debut on movement, migration, and loss, in the vein of Valeria Luiselli’s Sidewalks.

In her prize-winning debut, Mexican essayist Mariana Oliver trains her gaze on migration in its many forms, moving between real cities and other more inaccessible territories: language, memory, pain, desire, and the body. With an abiding curiosity and poetic ease, Oliver leads us through the underground city of Cappadocia, explores the vicissitudes of a Berlin marked by historical fracture, recalls a shocking childhood exodus, and recreates the intimacy of the spaces we inhabit. Blending criticism, reportage, and a travel writing all her own, Oliver presents a brilliant collection of essays that asks us what it means to leave the familiar behind and make the unfamiliar our own.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review:

"A place at once empty and full, Cappadocia inspires bewilderment. Which is why it is useless to try and take in the landscape with only your eyes. Trees are few and far between and sunlight pours mercilessly onto your skin, drenching it." –and–
A man pilots a yellow ultralight across the sky. His name, Bill, Bill, Bill, is the last thing he hears before his feet take wing. All liftoffs are the same, he thinks, a ritual by which we become birds. As the body rises, the mind blots out all sounds and refashions them one by one, as if they existed in isolation. First heartbeat, then breath, then saliva moistening the throat; then the whoosh of air as the ultralight’s wings break it into a white trail.

Prose like this is...fine. In small doses. I hit my maximum dose before the book was over.


Transit Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) charges you $14.99 for the ebook. I might not be thrilled with it, you might be; at least it's not wasted money.

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In Bad Company (Sandhamn Murders #9) by Viveca Sten (tr. Marlaine Delargy)

Rating: 2.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Sandhamn Island’s archipelago is a beautiful place to visit. For a mother on the run, it’s the only place to hide in a novel of escalating suspense by Viveca Sten, bestselling author of Still Waters.

Building a case against Andreis Kovač is a risky strategy for prosecutor Nora Linde. A violent key player in Stockholm’s drug trade and untouchable when it comes to financial crimes, he has the best defense money can buy. To topple Andreis’s empire, Nora’s working a different angle. It’s personal. Nora’s critical witness is Andreis’s wife, Mina—if she’ll testify.

Mina has suffered her husband’s rage too long. It’s nearly cost her her life. Still carrying the traumas of the Bosnian War, Andreis can be triggered like an explosive. He must be taken down. And as the trial looms, Mina and her infant son must disappear. The police have found her a safe place to hide on Runmarö Island in Sandhamn’s archipelago. But there’s no shelter from a man as powerful and merciless as Andreis. Especially when he’s being crossed.

His campaign of terror has just begun. He’s prepared to crush anyone who stands in his way: Mina, Nora, and everyone they know and love. Andreis is coming for them. This time, Nora is on the defense.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: It's time I left the series behind. I was not involved in this one at all, and after finishing it felt no relief, no regret, nothing at all.

It could be comparison bias after The Camino, it could be Bosnian-War criminal fatigue, it could be I'm just tired of Nora...but poke me with a fork, I'm done.

Amazon Crossing (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) requests and requires $14.95 for a paperback.

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This space is dedicated to Nancy Pearl's Rule of 50, or "the Pearl Rule" as I've always called it. After realizing five times in December 2021 alone that I'd already Pearl-Ruled a book I picked up on a whim, I realized how close my Half-heimer's is getting to the full-on article. Hence my decision to track my Pearls!

As she says:

People frequently ask me how many pages they should give a book before they give up on it. In response to that question, I came up with my “rule of fifty,” which is based on the shortness of time and the immensity of the world of books. If you’re fifty years of age or younger, give a book fifty pages before you decide to commit to reading it or give it up. If you’re over fifty, which is when time gets even shorter, subtract your age from 100—the result is the number of pages you should read before making your decision to stay with it or quit.

So this space will be each month's listing of Pearl-Ruled books. Earlier Pearl-Rule posts will be linked below the current month's crop.

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An Ordinary Violence: A Novel (58%) by Adriana Chartrand

Rating: 2.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Terrible things happen side by side with the ordinary.

Dawn hasn't spoken to her brother, Cody, since he was sent to prison for a violent crime seven years ago. But when Dawn's seemingly perfect life in the big city implodes, she is forced to return to her childhood home and the prairie city that still holds so much pain for her and her fractured family. Cody is released from prison with a mysterious new friend by his side, and Dawn must follow increasingly sinister leads to uncover their nefarious plans to access a dangerous supernatural network.

As the lines between right and wrong blur and dissolve, Dawn reckons with trauma and violence, loss and reclamation in an unsettling world where spirit realms entwine with the living—and where it is humans who carry out the truly monstrous acts.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: "Maybe that's why Violet talks to her, why she can feel a buzzing sometimes, an insistent mechanical whine from somewhere distant that, if she listened hard enough, might turn ou to be the sound of her name, hissing through a hundred thousand alien throats."
I made it all the way to that line before my experiment with #Summerween blew up. Maybe I need actual fall, leaf-changing pumpkin-carving fall, short-day clock-turning fall, to put me in the mood for spooky shenanigans.

Or maybe this just isn't great and I'm done.

Spiderline/House of Anansi Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) asks $18.99 for a paperback.

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Accidental Genius: An Oral History of The Room (32%) edited by Andrew J. Rausch

Rating: 2* of five

The Publisher Says: Accidental Genius features intimate and laugh-out-loud commentary from The Room cast and crew, including interviews from its star Greg Sestero.

What a story indeed! A rollicking recollection of experiences from the legendary “so bad it's good” film. This comprehensively chronicled book offers a fascinating glimpse into the cultural phenomenon that brings together die-hard fans and newcomers alike.

Everything you could have possibly wondered about The Room all in one book!

Take a look at Tommy Wiseau's infamous 2003 release through the eyes of the people who made it. Get the low-down on bizarre audition calls, film set antics, and accounts from the very first fans who experienced The Room at its earliest screenings. Also including interviews focusing on the aftermath of the movie: Sestero’s The Disaster Artist, where are they now, and its lasting legacy.

Here you will get a glimpse of how it all began, why it remains popular, and just what audiences still get out of this unusual film that people love to hate.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: I thought these were essays on the OTHER bad movie, from 2015, but that one's just called Room. The 2003 excrescence these snippets are about was too ghastly to watch so I really didn't...I heckled and jeered. That was kinda fun, I guess, but not enough to read about the reeking shitpile I've tried to forget seeing.

CLASH Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
has the effrontery to ask you to PAY for this! $18.95 no less...any edition...I'd laugh if I wasn't so pissed off at being pissed on by that Wiseau...person.

July 2026's Burgoine and Pearl-Rule reviews

Author 'Nathan Burgoine posted this simple, direct method of not getting paralyzed by the prospect of having to write reviews. The Three-Sentence Review is, as he notes, very helpful and also simple to achieve. I get completely unmanned at the idea of saying something trenchant about each book I read, when there often just isn't that much to say...now I can use this structure to say what I think is the most important idea I took away from the read and not try to dig for more.

Think about using it yourselves!

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I Who Have Never Known Men by by Jacqueline Harpman (tr. Ros Schwartz)

Real Rating: 4.8* of five

The Independent Press Top 40 Bestsellers: Fiction For the week ending November 3, 2026

The Publisher Says: Deep underground, forty women live imprisoned in a cage. Watched over by guards, the women have no memory of how they got there, no notion of time, and only a vague recollection of their lives before.

As the burn of electric light merges day into night and numberless years pass, a young girl—the fortieth prisoner—sits alone and outcast in the corner. Soon she will show herself to be the key to the others' escape and survival in the strange world that awaits them above ground.

Jacqueline Harpman was born in Etterbeek, Belgium, in 1929, and fled to Casablanca with her family during WWII. Informed by her background as a psychoanalyst and her youth in exile, I Who Have Never Known Men is a haunting, heartbreaking post-apocalyptic novel of female friendship and intimacy, and the lengths people will go to maintain their humanity in the face of devastation. Back in print for the first time since 1997, Harpman’s modern classic is an important addition to the growing canon of feminist speculative literature.

I CHECKED THIS BOOK OUT OF MY LOCAL LIBRARY. USE THEIR SERVICES OFTEN, THEY NEED US TO STAY ALIVE!

My Review: Library borrow, to read before the story collection reviewed here: WE WERE FORBIDDEN, three stories from a feminist author at her tendentious best. This is an SFnal story about how very awful it is to be a woman. Since the evidence is pretty overwhelming that it *is* dreadful to be a woman, I've got nothing clever to say about it.

Most agreeable-to-me prose style as ably rendered into English by Translator Schwartz, it feels...pithy, almost aphoristic.

Transit Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) EXPECTS $15.99 from you before you open the ebook.

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The Simp: A Novel Without a Hero by Roshan Sethi

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: A novel without a hero. Hellscape with an infinity pool.

Raj Ladlani is an unemployable actor. He has reasons to believe he is spectacularly talented (his beloved acting coach Anthony says so), a legend in every way but for the success.

His anonymous life working at Yogurtland, obsessively reading Vanity Fair, and fantasizing about stardom, comes to an end when he answers a job ad detailing a relentless, laughable parade of menial responsibilities for a "Hollywood Family." So begins the astonishing decline and fall of Raj Ladlani.

The Simp tells the story of Raj's momentous employment with the H Family and the destruction that follows in the wake of his time with the with Jim H, a massive and macho director in a creative rut. Anna H might uncharitably be described as his much younger trophy wife, quietly and neurotically seeking out her own independent sense of purpose as a screenwriter. Raj’s work as their executive assistant becomes his new sense of soaring purpose. But he procured the job through a sea of lies.

And when the job reveals itself to be an absurdist walk through affluent domestic chaos and misguided engagements with identity politics, Raj might be about to lose it—on a very public stage.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: The Line of Beauty. Saltburn. The world of wealth and its attendant privileges is of never-ending fascination for the have-nots. Is another iteration, with a South Asian protagonist, adding to the conversation or cashing in on the gossip?

Yes...both...and bloodily flensing the fakeness of it all, class, ethnicity, hype, all of it. Not as much LOL-funny as it is mordant.

Simon & Schuster (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) takes $14.99 from you to legally read the ebook. It will fit a mood, or else skip it.

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A Human Business: The People-First Model for Lasting Success by Glenn Bostock

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: For too long, business leaders have operated under the assumption that maximizing profit requires minimizing humanity. The result is widespread employee disengagement, toxic workplace cultures, and organizations that drain rather than energize their people.

A Human Business challenges this paradigm with a proven alternative. Drawing from forty years building SnapCab from a small cabinet shop to an international manufacturing company, Glenn Bostock demonstrates how modeling your organization after the human body creates communities where people thrive.

Inside, you will discover:

how to create a foundation of caring that attracts and retains exceptional talent

identify and leverage what you and your team genuinely love doing

shift focus from profit-chasing to value-creation through usefulness

build interdependent systems where every department serves shared intentions

Through vulnerable personal stories and practical business applications, Bostock reveals how dyslexia and learning disabilities became unexpected assets in building a company culture that values accessibility over expertise, collaboration over competition, and purpose over profit alone.

Whether launching a startup or transforming an established organization, A Human Business provides the framework for creating workplaces where people want to spend their days—and where sustainable success follows naturally.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Three stars for the time-tested advice to get to know the people, treat them with respect and honor, and allow them to grow under your care. The extra half-star is for the genuinely vulnerable revelations of how Author Bostock learned to take these ancient nuggets of wisdom to heart, apply them to his own business, and reap generous rewards therefrom.

Life changing for some, perhaps, good for all to read as a reminder of how to behave and why, and not at all hard to plow through.

Forbes Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) offers an ebook for 99¢. I bought one just to show solidarity with the author and publisher for being so very generous.

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Nothing in Moderation: A Psychedelic Reckoning With Excess by Shep Rose

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Shep Rose thought he had life figured out.

As one of the breakout stars of Bravo's Southern Charm, he'd built a reputation as Charleston's ultimate good-time guy: charismatic, adventurous, and always ready for the next party. His mantra? Say yes. Say yes to every invitation, every adventure, every opportunity for excess. For years, it worked beautifully, bringing him a successful television career, incredible experiences around the world, and the kind of life most people only dream about.

But by November 2023, that same approach had become dangerous. A blackout weekend at BravoCon in Las Vegas, complete with drugs, gambling binges, and behavior he couldn't even remember, culminated in a sobering phone call from Andy Cohen himself. The message was clear: change or lose everything.

Instead of deploying more traditional methods, Shep made an unconventional choice. At the recommendation of a Navy SEAL friend who'd found his own healing there, Shep flew to Costa Rica to spend a week at Rythmia, participating in four consecutive nights of Ayahuasca ceremonies. What followed was the most transformative, terrifying, and enlightening experience of his life.

In this remarkably honest memoir, Shep chronicles his journey with vivid detail and his signature humor. From his first ceremony, where he saw himself as the pole of an amusement park ride that could send everyone flying if he wasn't stable, to the profound night when he witnessed "the machine" and underwent spiritual heart surgery, each experience peeled back another layer of self-deception and forced him to confront uncomfortable truths.

This book is about the universal struggle between who we think we are and who we've actually become. It's about the fine line between being the life of the party and being destructively out of control. It's about learning that vulnerability isn't weakness and that sometimes the bravest thing you can do is admit you need help.

Written with the same authenticity that's made him a fan favorite for over a decade, Shep shares not just the mystical visions and profound realizations, but also the awkward moments, the embarrassing incidents, and the ongoing work of integration after the ceremonies ended. He doesn't pretend to have all the answers or to be "cured." Instead, he offers something more valuable: an honest account of one man's attempt to course correct before it's too late.

Whether you've struggled with your own relationship to excess, questioned whether your greatest strengths might also be your biggest weaknesses, or simply wondered what it's really like to drink Ayahuasca with a shaman in the Costa Rican jungle, this book offers insights, laughs, and the kind of raw honesty that's increasingly rare in our curated world.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Earnest, heartfelt prose telling the self-discovery story again. I myownself will attest to ayahuasca's efficacy as a self-discovery tool from forty-plus-year-old experience...nothing beats altering perceptions of reality as an aid to gaining perspective on life, the past, and the path forward best to take: Pursue honesty and behave compassionately, starting with yourself.

DO NOT TRY IT ALONE. Always seek guidance, always verify your guide's trustworthiness because honest people welcome scrutiny.

Advantage Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) wants $9.99 for an ebook. Worth the price if you need the nudge to take the reins of your life.

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The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder (Antique Hunter’s #1) by C.L. Miller

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: In this irresistible and thrilling debut novel, a former antique hunter investigates a suspicious death at an isolated English manor, embroiling her back in the dangerous world of tracking stolen artifacts.

What antique would you kill for?

Freya Lockwood is shocked when she learns that Arthur Crockleford, antiques dealer and her estranged mentor, has died under mysterious circumstances. She has spent the last twenty years avoiding her quaint English hometown, but when she receives a letter from Arthur asking her to investigate—sent just days before his death—Freya has no choice but to return to a life she had sworn to leave behind.

Joining forces with her eccentric Aunt Carole, Freya follows clues and her instincts to an old manor house for an advertised antiques enthusiast’s weekend. But not all is as it seems. It’s clear to Freya that the antiques are all just poor reproductions and her fellow guests are secretive and menacing. What is going on at this estate and how was Arthur involved? More importantly, can Freya and Carole discover the truth before the killer strikes again?

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Very much on board with the "return your spoliated goods" message; the precise target audience for the Antiques Roadshow provenance of the story; loved the tidbit about the author being one of the show's expert's daughter!

The mystery itself was competent but journeyman-level work. It's not bad but it should only get better from here.

Atria Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) would like you to be so genteel as to surreptitiously slip $13.99 onto the electronic butler's digital visiting card tray before you open that ebook.

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The Antique Hunter's Death on the Red Sea (Antique Hunter’s #2) by C.L. Miller

Rating: 3.25* of five

The Publisher Says: In this follow-up to the USA TODAY bestselling “utterly charming mystery” (Robyn Harding, author The Party) The Antique Hunter’s Guide to Murder, Freya Lockwood and Aunt Carole are on the hunt once again to return priceless stolen antiques and catch a dangerous criminal aboard a cruise ship.

When a painting vanishes from a maritime museum and a dead body is found nearby, the newly established Lockwood Antique Hunter’s Agency, Freya Lockwood and her Aunt Carole, are called to investigate.

Following a lead that takes them aboard a glamorous antiques cruise sailing toward the Red Sea in Jordan, they quickly discover that the ships art gallery is filled with stolen antiquities. Each antique is also listed in Freya’s late mentor’s journals that detail unsolved cases. In chasing a murderer with a stolen painting, they may have found something more sinister than they could’ve imagined…

Their hunt soon turns deadly when they learn the enigmatic and dangerous art trafficker named The Collector could be on board. But on a ship full of antiques enthusiasts—plus some unexpected familiar faces—will Freya and Carole be able to discover the Collector’s identity and stop his murderous plans before the ship docks? Or will the killer strike again?

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Again, I batten on each element of the story: bottled on a cruise ship, antique collectors with grudges old enough to have grand-grudges end up one terrible old greedy snot down, while on the quite stunning Red Sea. None of it quite jells.

"The Collector" who is the anonymous Big Bad would've been a cute narrative device on TV. Think Lovejoy on The Love Boat. Alas, an authorial hand more suited to Kojak was at work.

Atria Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) still wants $13.99 for the ebook. Mmmaaaybe, but the library's free.

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The Antique Hunter's Murder in the Castle (Antique Hunter’s #3) by C.L. Miller

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: The third novel in the “delightful, page-turning” (Tom Ryan, USA TODAY bestselling author) Antique Hunter Series finds Freya, Aunt Carole, and friends searching for a missing colleague in picturesque Scotland.

Hot on the heels of an art forger, a member of the Lockwood Antique Hunter’s Agency disappears while investigating an isolated castle deep in Scottish countryside. Freya and Aunt Carole race to her last known location and arrive in the wintry, snow-covered Scottish Borders.

At the castle, they discover that a murdered laird in the vegetable garden and his priceless collection of silverware has been stolen. Local police believe Freya’s missing team member was involved with the robbery and murder...but where is she now?

As a snowstorm descends on the castle, Freya and Carole call in back-up to help uncover what happened that fateful night. As each question is met with more mystery, the clock is ticking to find their friend and the murderer before they are cut off from the outside world.

Another delightfully gripping and endearing mystery, the Antique Hunter’s Series provides “great characters, great story, and you’re always eager for the next one” (Ian Moore, author of Death and Croissants).

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Look at that praise, from reputable authors! And here I sit with my teeth in my mouth.

No more. Atria should not try this author on me again because I'm not a good fit for this prose.

Atria Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) now wants $14.99 for an ebook! Gadzooks and godzilla!

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A Lark's Gambit (A Verity Lark Mystery #6) by Lynn Messina

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Oh, dear. Is that the Marquess of Ware enjoying a pipe in the very same upscale opium den as Verity Lark?

It is, yes.
Wonderful.

Now she must inform her suitor, Colson Hardwicke, of his father’s unsavory habit—which means she will have to reveal that she herself had been partaking in the very next berth.

He will understand.

Once she explains that the den is above the fish seller whose poppy trade she has been monitoring for months, he will totally get it. As London’s most intrepid reporter and dogged gossipmonger, she is duty bound to get to the bottom of the mystery.

What Hardwicke might find a little harder to accept is why she was kissing the marquess in a darkened room during a fashionable society affair.

That is a slightly more complicated story.

Alas, with a killer stalking her, she might not have a chance to tell it.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: There is a deeply, intricately interconnected Messina-verse. Verity Lark and Beatrice Hyde-Clare are the poles the puzzles to be solved in the stories anchor to. The reason Author Messina chose two bluestockings to hold up her stories is obvious: Aren't you damn good and sick of YET ANOTHER marriage plot?

Bridgerton notwithstanding, it's time to move 2026 past 1806's mores, if not manners and speech patterns because those're still heaps of fun. Verity's a ballsy Lady Whistledown with serious Ida Tarbell vibes.

I won't pretend this is Heyer territory, all champagne bubbles and gooseberry fool served to noddycocks by discreet servants. It's still well-thought-out fun, puzzling stories that hang on details you missed; no easy solves with Verity! You *do* need to read them in order, though. I recommend starting with A Lark's Tale to get properly oriented, the proceed at your own pace...likely apace...to savor the fun.

Potatoworks Press (non-affiliate Amazon link) will need $6.99 for you to get into that Kindlebook.

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This space is dedicated to Nancy Pearl's Rule of 50, or "the Pearl Rule" as I've always called it. After realizing five times in December 2021 alone that I'd already Pearl-Ruled a book I picked up on a whim, I realized how close my Half-heimer's is getting to the full-on article. Hence my decision to track my Pearls!

As she says:

People frequently ask me how many pages they should give a book before they give up on it. In response to that question, I came up with my “rule of fifty,” which is based on the shortness of time and the immensity of the world of books. If you’re fifty years of age or younger, give a book fifty pages before you decide to commit to reading it or give it up. If you’re over fifty, which is when time gets even shorter, subtract your age from 100—the result is the number of pages you should read before making your decision to stay with it or quit.

So this space will be each month's listing of Pearl-Ruled books. Earlier Pearl-Rule posts will be linked below the current month's crop.

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Goodbye Chinatown (28%) by Kit Fan

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: As her native Hong Kong seethes, torn between two world powers, Amber Fan tries to build a career as a chef in London’s Chinatown.

Amber Fan, a young Oxford-educated chef, opens the first Chinese fusion joint in London’s Chinatown following the failure of her father’s traditional restaurant. When her parents decide to return to Hong Kong, taking with them their young son Bobby as well as the haunting secret surrounding his birth, Amber is left alone in London. That is, until a woman called Celeste hires out the restaurant, coughing up three grand for a dinner for one. Who is this extravagant stranger, and how did she get so wealthy?

Set in the aftermath of Hong Kong’s return to Chinese rule, Goodbye Chinatown shows a family torn between two countries. Amber throws herself into her career to escape the painful cycle of family separations and reunions.

The tastes and smells spark off every page in Kit Fan’s latest novel, making for a truly multisensorial reading experience. Offering a behind-the-scenes of this suburb of London’s hospitality economy, and using food to reflect on identity, Goodbye Chinatown paints a portrait of an enterprising émigré who, faced with divided loyalties, invents her own language for home through the culinary arts.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: I tapped out in chapter 13:

Amber smiled. She'd just closed the kitchen and agreed to meet Celeste outside in five minutes. She came out wearing a tight pair of Levi's and a loose russet jacket and kissed Celeste's cheeks.She told her she'd have put her on the VIP list if she'd rung.

Which she? Who "her"? What's "her" jacket got to do with anything except making me picture "her" as a potato? (Russet, see, and unattached to any other concept but closely associated with a kitchen = spud.) Craft failures for author *and* editor.

It's just too hard to connect all those dots tentatively because who knows if I'm getting the referents right, who knows what I'm supposed to think about "her" sincerity over the VIP list, or about "her" place on it...or control over it...?

World Editions (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) would like $14.99 for you to read the book. Try a sample first.

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Paranoid Publics: Psychopolitics of Truth (30%) by Zahid R. Chaudhary

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Facts and established truths are regularly denied in contemporary life. This situation has brought paranoid politics into the mainstream, from conspiracy theories like QAnon, to sex panics and assaults on public health measures, to election denialism and the rise of vigilante militias. Paranoid Publics analyzes these phenomena as psychosocial realities enmeshed with emerging ways of determining truth.

Today’s paranoia cannot simply be blamed on the rise of social media or the recent surge of populist anger. Rather, as Chaudhary shows, both are fueled by preexisting psychosocial processes. Applying psychodynamics to analyze truth and politics, Paranoid Publics foregrounds unconscious demands, wishes, and compulsions. Against the hope that progressive economic policies might dispel widespread disorientation and disillusionment, Chaudhary reveals how psychic realities mark politics as deeply as do self-interest and class dynamics do.

Chaudhary takes up and reinvents psychoanalytic concepts to analyze how, for example, the personal liberty exercised through vaccine exemptions is paradoxically grounded in submission to the authority of the family and the state. Such politically consequential attitudes concerning truth emerge from a social order that they proceed to challenge. Making a case for psychosocial understandings of our current historical juncture, Paranoid Publics radically expands our notion of the political.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: I had to give up my battle against academic prose when Author Zahid says, oh so casually, "Hence, as well, elaborate rationalizations by right-wing politicians for the kind of manipulative work engaged in surreptitiously by Cambridge Analytica (which has become more common and less scandalous since the Cambridge Analytica scandal of 2018.)"

I felt a T.I.A. in my immediate future as the import of that statement sat longer and longer in my craw, stuck fast. Self-defensively, then, I called it and closed my Kindle at that point.

Fordham University Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) would like $26.99 for ebook access. If you're up to it....