My Monday tradition, including a look back and a look ahead — what I read last week, what new books came my way, and what books are keeping me busy right now. Plus a smattering of other stuff too.
Life.
Happy Star Wars Day… and happy May! I’m eager for a month full of sunshine and flowers… and okay, sure, maybe a little Star Wars too.
Such a nice experience over the weekend! For a few years now, I’ve been meeting up with a small group for recreational folk dancing, just for the fun of it. On Saturday, ten of us went to a local senior living facility to do a few short performances, and had a blast! The residents seemed to really enjoy it, we had a lot of fun, and we loved showing off some favorite dances.
Bookish odds and ends:
First, a meme I that made me laugh:
And… while reading the New York Times a few days ago, I was totally tickled to see this explanation of passkeys:
I definitely did not expect to see a technology column using Tamora Pierce as a point of reference!
What did I read during the last week?
Margo’s Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe: Loved it! My review is here.
The Poisoned King (Impossible Creatures, #2) by Katherine Rundell: The 2nd book in this middle grade fantasy series is just as delightful as I’d expected. My review is here.
The Impossible Fortune (Thursday Murder Club, #5) by Richard Osman: It’s always a blast to spend time with the Thursday Murder Club! My review is here.
Pop culture & TV:
I’m really enjoying the AppleTV adaptation of Margo’s Got Money Troubles. I’m caught up with all available episodes at this point — just waiting for the next new one to drop.
I’m not entirely sure what I’ll be starting next, but I’m leaning toward Widow’s Bay.
Puzzle of the week:
Thanks to finding a local puzzle swap group, I ended up with a batch of new puzzles to enjoy, and finished one over the weekend:
Eeboo puzzles are always fun. I loved the colors and images for this one!
Fresh Catch:
One new book this week:
I read the eARC for this book last week, and loved it. I’m so happy to have a beautiful hardcover edition!
What will I be reading during the coming week?
Currently in my hands:
The Buffalo Hunter Hunterby Stephen Graham Jones: I’ve been wanting to read this book since it came out last year. I’m at about 25%, and I’m feeling myself more and more drawn into the story. I just hope this week is quiet enough to include big chunks of reading time so I can really focus on this book.
Now playing via audiobook:
The Body by Stephen King: This audiobook is a new version of the Stephen King classic, narrated by Wil Wheaton. I can’t believe I’ve never actually read this before. This new audiobook is a great listen.
Ongoing reads:
The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe: My book group’s newest classic read. We’re reading and discussing two chapters per week. Progress: 11%. Coming up this week: Chapters 7 and 8.
The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare: I’ll be seeing this play at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival this summer, and since I’ve never read it before, I decided now’s the time! I’m trying to read just one scene per day, taking my time with it since I have a few months yet. Progress so far: About to start Act III.
Title: The Impossible Fortune Series: The Thursday Murder Club, #5 Author: Richard Osman Publisher: Pamela Dorman Books Publication date: September 30, 2025 Length: 368 pages Genre: Mystery Source: Library Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4.5 out of 5.
Who’s got time to think about murder when there’s a wedding to plan?
It’s been a quiet year for the Thursday Murder Club. Joyce is busy with table plans and first dances. Elizabeth is grieving. Ron is dealing with family troubles, and Ibrahim is still providing therapy to his favorite criminal.
But when Elizabeth meets Nick, a wedding guest asking for her help, she finds the thrill of the chase is ignited once again. And when Nick disappears without a trace, his cagey business partner becomes the gang’s next stop. It seems the duo have something valuable—something worth killing for.
Joyce’s daughter, Joanna, jumps into the fray to help the gang as they seek answers: Has someone kidnapped Nick? And what’s this uncrackable code they keep hearing about? Plunged back into action once more, can the four friends solve the puzzle and a murder in time?
It’s always a treat to pick up another Thursday Murder Club book — and now that I’ve finished The Impossible Fortune, I’m all caught up!
This installment picks up a year after the events of book #4, The Last Devil to Die. The gang is as close as ever, but they’re getting a bit itchy to solve more murders. When Joyce’s daughter Joanna’s wedding rolls around, the best man reaches out to Elizabeth for help. He thinks someone is trying to kill him… and based on the bomb placed under his car, it looks like he’s right.
As the group dig into Nick’s worries, they learn about a top-secret storage facility, a potential fortune in Bitcoin, possibly double-crossing business partners and investors, and all sorts of shady secrets. Meanwhile, their personal lives have unanticipated complications, and while Joyce is beaming with joy ever time she gets to mention that she now has a son-in-law, she’s also more than ready to interrogate suspects over tea and baked goods.
The writing in The Impossible Fortune is as clever as always, full of sharp little twists and plenty of humor.
Connie would love to get married. Perhaps she should do something about that? What she really needs is a Tinder for criminals. Everyone could use their most recent mugshot.
The crime is twisty and well-constructed, with a handful of suspects and more than a few red herrings. Meanwhile, there are bad guys to be dealt with, as only our group of septuagenarians can. And even amongst the good guys, there’s room for words of wisdom and the occasional dose of snark.
“We’re not going to be dissuaded,” says Ron. “Don’t try.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” says Elizabeth. “You go right ahead. Perhaps they’ll put you all in the same prison? That would make it easier to visit.”
“No one’s going to prison,” says Jason.
Elizabeth nods, reassured. “I wonder if anyone who ever said that before actually did end up in prison? Surely not.”
The 5th book in a series is obviously not the place to start… but take my word for it, it’s absolutely worth the time to start at the beginning and then keep going. I’ve enjoyed every moment with this terrific cast of characters, and I’m only sorry that I’ve run out of Thursday Murder Club books to read. According to the author’s notes, there’s more to come, although I haven’t seen anything definite yet about an expected date for another book. Whenever it does come along, I’ll be waiting!
Purchase links: Amazon – Audible audiobook – Bookshop.org – Libro.fm Disclaimer: When you make a purchase through one of these affiliate links, I may earn a small commission, at no additional cost to you.
Title: The Poisoned King Series: Impossible Creatures, #2 Author: Katherine Rundell Narrator: Samuel West Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers Publication date: September 11, 2025 Print length: 304 pages Audio length: 7 hours 6 minutes Genre: Middle grade fantasy Source: Purchased Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Return to the magic of the Archipelago in the dazzling sequel to the runaway, #1 New York Times bestseller Impossible Creatures, hailed as “an instant classic” (Katherine Applegate, Newbery Medal Winner for The One and Only Ivan)!
Christopher Forrester woke to find a dragon chewing on his face—and his heart leapt for joy! He’d been dreaming of going back to the Archipelago, the secret cluster of islands where all the creatures of myth still live, and here was his summons.
But there is a poison spreading in the Archipelago. Rooting it out will involve a daring rescue mission on the back of a sphinx, a stealthy entrance to a dragon’s lair, and a death-defying plan to save a prisoner held in the heart of a castle. At the center of this storm is Anya: a small girl with a flock of birds at her side, a new-hatched chick in her pocket, and a ravenous hunger for justice.
Katherine Rundell’s second thrilling installment in the Impossible Creatures series involves castles, dragons, and revenge—the things of which great stories are made. The splendors within are brought to life with more than fifty illustrations, including a map and a bestiary of magical creatures.
As The Poisoned King opens, a teen-aged boy named Christopher is woken by a dragon chewing on his nose. Which is less dangerous than it sounds — this is a Jaculus dragon, a creature the size of a sparrow, but with an outsized sense of its own importance. Jacques — the dragon — has come with a summons: Christopher is required to come with him to the Archipelago immediately. Someone is poisoning the great dragons, and there’s no time to lose.
What is the Archipelago? It’s a magical world comprising many large and small islands, inhabited by an astonishing variety of humans and creatures, hidden from our own world and accessible only through certain connecting locations known as waybetweens. Waybetweens are protected and kept safe by Guardians, of which Christopher’s grandfather is one — as Christopher learned the previous summer while visiting him at his remote home in Scotland, which led to Christopher’s grand, dramatic adventures in Impossible Creatures.
Christopher is a good, brave person who would never ignore a call for help, so he returns to the Archipelago to discover that things are even worse than he feared. Upon arrival, he’s met by a sphinx, who instructs him that he has a detour to make before proceeding to the dragons: A princess named Anya is in desperate need of rescue, and his mission and her plight are bound together.
And so we meet Anya Argen, granddaughter of the king of the island of Dousha. Anya’s father has raised her far from the castle, free to explore the forest they both love and spend time with the creatures who live there. When the King insists that she learn to behave like a proper princess, they’re forced to return to the castle, much to Anya’s dismay. As the story opens, the King is murdered, and her father — heir to the throne — is framed for the crime, leaving the way clear for his younger brother to act as Regent until Anya comes of age to rule herself. But her uncle Claude is not a patient man, and Anya finds her own life threatened.
As Christopher and Anya’s journeys connect, they join forces to unravel the mystery of what’s happened to the dragons while also laying plans to keep Anya alive and rescue her father, now imprisoned and sentenced to death for the murder of the King. Their quest takes them to new and old friends, and brings them into contact with even more fascinating magical creatures, while also giving them time to develop trust, friendship, and loyalty to one another.
The Poisoned King is a terrific second book in this captivating middle grade series. It has the surprises and delights of encountering magical worlds and beings, journeying through lands with rules and customs so different from our own, and seeing two young humans struggle to fix situations that have gone very badly.
Christopher is as lovely as ever, and Anya is a compelling addition to this fictional world. She’s complex and spiky; her desperate need to save her father is paired with a burning thirst for vengeance, and we see her grapple with the idea of revenge and what its impact might be on the type of person she is and wants to be.
The Poisoned King isn’t quite as glorious as Impossible Creatures — but that’s to be expected in the 2nd book of a series. Impossible Creatures introduced us to a new magical world and its wonders; The Poisoned King tells another story in that world, but lacks just a bit of the awe that comes with a world-building introduction. That said, The Poisoned King is very good, and is a worthy successor to such a stellar first book.
As with Impossible Creatures, I listened to the audiobook, narrated by actor Samuel West (currently starring in All Creatures Great and Small as Siegfried Farnon). He is an amazing voice actor, with delightful voices for Christopher, Anya, and all the various creatures, from tiny dragon Jacques to a deadly manticore and more. I did have a bit of trouble understanding one or two non-human characters due to the pitch of their voices, but that was only for a fraction of the audiobook experience, and didn’t detract from the overall enjoyment at all.
Repeating my reading note from Impossible Creatures: While I loved the audiobook experience, I strongly encourage anyone going that route to also follow along with a print edition. The book is filled with beautiful black and white illustrations by artist Ashley Mackenzie that add so much to the story. A bestiary at the end of the book gives more in-depth explanations of the various creatures in the book, from Batrachomyomachian Mouse to Winged Unicorn, accompanied by illustrations for each. The visual delights of this book should not be missed!
I loved returning to the world of Impossible Creatures, and highly recommend The Poisoned King (but do start with the first book!). A third book, The Neverfear, is scheduled for publication in fall 2026, and I absolutely plan to read it.
The Neverfear (Impossible Creatures, #3) Release date: September 1, 2026
Purchase links: Amazon – Audible audiobook – Bookshop.org – Libro.fm Disclaimer: When you make a purchase through one of these affiliate links, I may earn a small commission, at no additional cost to you.
First Lines Friday is a weekly feature for book lovers created by Wandering Words. What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines?
Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page.
Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first.
Finally… reveal the book!
This week’s lines are from a middle grade fantasy series:
They would have said it wasn’t possible: the chaos and the mayhem she caused. They would have said she didn’t have it in her.
It was in her, but deep. What’s under your house, if you were to dig? Mud and worms. Buried treasure. Skeletons. You don’t know. The girl dug into the depths of her heart, and there she found a hunger for justice and a thirst for revenge.
Mrs. Richmond’s wedding gown was itchy, for one thing.
So what’s the book?
The Poisoned King (Impossible Creatures, #2) by Katherine Rundell Release date: September 11, 2025 304 pages
Synopsis:
Return to the magic of the Archipelago in the dazzling sequel to the runaway, #1 New York Times bestseller Impossible Creatures, hailed as “an instant classic” (Katherine Applegate, Newbery Medal Winner for The One and Only Ivan)!
Christopher Forrester woke to find a dragon chewing on his face—and his heart leapt for joy! He’d been dreaming of going back to the Archipelago, the secret cluster of islands where all the creatures of myth still live, and here was his summons.
But there is a poison spreading in the Archipelago. Rooting it out will involve a daring rescue mission on the back of a sphinx, a stealthy entrance to a dragon’s lair, and a death-defying plan to save a prisoner held in the heart of a castle. At the center of this storm is Anya: a small girl with a flock of birds at her side, a new-hatched chick in her pocket, and a ravenous hunger for justice.
Katherine Rundell’s second thrilling installment in the Impossible Creatures series involves castles, dragons, and revenge—the things of which great stories are made. The splendors within are brought to life with more than fifty illustrations, including a map and a bestiary of magical creatures.
Sound like something you’d enjoy? (If so, be sure to start with the first book, Impossible Creatures!)
A bold, laugh-out-loud funny, and heartwarming story about one young woman’s attempt to navigate adulthood, new motherhood, and her meager bank account in our increasingly online world—from the PEN/Faulkner finalist and critically acclaimed author of The Knockout Queen.
As the child of a Hooters waitress and an ex-pro wrestler, Margo Millet’s always known she’d have to make it on her own. So she enrolls at her local junior college, even though she can’t imagine how she’ll ever make a living. She’s still figuring things out and never planned to have an affair with her English professor—and while the affair is brief, it isn’t brief enough to keep her from getting pregnant. Despite everyone’s advice, she decides to keep the baby, mostly out of naiveté and a yearning for something bigger.
Now, at twenty, Margo is alone with an infant, unemployed, and on the verge of eviction. She needs a cash infusion—fast. When her estranged father, Jinx, shows up on her doorstep and asks to move in with her, she agrees in exchange for help with childcare. Then Margo begins to form a plan: she’ll start an OnlyFans as an experiment, and soon finds herself adapting some of Jinx’s advice from the world of wrestling. Like how to craft a compelling character and make your audience fall in love with you. Before she knows it, she’s turned it into a runaway success. Could this be the answer to all of Margo’s problems, or does internet fame come with too high a price?
Blisteringly funny and filled with sharp insight, Margo’s Got Money Troubles is a tender tale starring an endearing young heroine who’s struggling to wrest money and power from a world that has little interest in giving it to her. It’s a playful and honest examination of the art of storytelling and controlling your own narrative, and an empowering portrait of coming into your own, both online and off.
When Margo’s Got Money Troubles came out in 2024, I was sure it wasn’t a book for me, despite the buzz I kept seeing. A book about someone starting an OnlyFans account? Nope, no thanks.
But… when the AppleTV adaptation (starring Elle Fanning, who narrates this audiobook) was released a few weeks ago, the reviews were unvaryingly positive — and once I started paying attention, I realized there might be much more to this story than I thought.
So, I borrowed the audiobook from the library, got started… and was immediately captivating by Margo’s narrative voice and the overall excellent storytelling.
Margo’s Got Money Troubles is about a 19-year-old trying to figure things out, without much in the way of parental or other support. A college freshman with a flare for writing, Margo supports herself through waitressing and lives with three roommates in order to make rent. When her (married) English professor takes an interest, Margo falls into a brief affair with him — and when she discovers that she’s pregnant, he tells her to get an abortion and then basically cuts her out of his life completely.
Despite not being at all prepared to become a mother, Margo can’t bring herself to end the pregnancy. Her mother Shyanne is no help whatsoever, being an entirely self-centered woman who sees Margo as an accessory rather than a person separate from herself. Margo’s father Jinx is a former pro wrestler and manager, hugely famous in the wrestling world, who’s always been a guest in Margo’s life, showing up here and there but clearly focused on his “real” family.
Once the baby is born, Margo’s money troubles really hit. Her roommates are furious about the noise a baby makes — they have midterms to study for! She’s fired after leaving a shift due to a baby emergency, and really can’t afford childcare without spending all the money meant for rent. When Jinx shows up needing a place to stay, it’s perfect timing, since two of the roommates have left in a huff. Jinx’s splitting the rent isn’t a long-term solution, but Margo appreciates his help and companionship. One night, watching a wrestling match together, he casually mentions that a particular woman wrestler has struck it rich via OnlyFans… and Margo has to know more.
Let me pause here to say that while the plot may sound somewhat tawdry, it’s anything but — and the key is Margo herself. Funny and smart, Margo tells her story with humor and with a narrative flare.
The sadness from the morning didn’t exactly go away; it dried on me and slowly crumbled, leaving me covered in little flakes, like if you eat a glazed donut in a black shirt.
She alternates between first person and third person throughout the book, which initially feels like an odd choice, but gives Margo room to tell both a straightforward account of her life and a story with a more fanciful feel.
As Margo describes her investigation of OnlyFans and how she might use it as a source of income, it’s clear that her creative spark, once nurtured through her writing classes, has found a new source of inspiration. Margo is curious about what makes someone stand out, and what makes subscribers keep coming back. It’s Jinx who’s able to supply some critical advice. Drawing from his wresting career, they discuss “faces” versus “heels” (hero characters and villain characters), how to draw attention, and what keeps a crowd interested and engaged. Margo isn’t interested in just posting nudes for a few dollars; she wants to know how to succeed online, and engages in some incredibly creative research and outreach to figure it all out.
Margo never would have guessed she loved money this much. In fact, in the movies and TV shows and books she’d read, you could tell if a character was the bad guy by how much he cared about money. And since she wanted to be good, she’d always been careful not to care too much about money. Now she wondered if all those Disney movies were merely propaganda to keep poor people content with their lot.
Meanwhile, her struggles with her mother, and the return of her baby’s father (with a potential custody battle) create tension in her personal life, especially when she starts to achieve the type of viral success she’d hoped for. And I must point out: Margo is a terrific mother. She may struggle financially, have some odd people in her life, and does something very unconventional as her job — but she loves little Bodhi and is a gem when it comes to caring for him and providing him with safety and showers of affection.
Elle Fanning’s narration is fabulous. Her voice for Margo is full of the character’s spirit; the humor and intelligence come through even when Margo is going through some of her worst challenges. I didn’t want to stop listening!
Margo’s Got Money Troubles is highly engaging and entertaining, and it also has a lot to say about reputation, finding one’s own way, and non-conventional families. Margo’s solution to her money troubles certainly isn’t for everyone — but it’s incredibly fun and even inspiring to see her figure out a way to be creative and support her baby through sheer willpower and a kooky sort of talent.
Highly recommended (and do check out the audiobook version if you can).
I’m hoping to start the TV adaptation this week — can’t wait to see how it compares!
Purchase links: Amazon – Audible – Bookshop.org – Libro.fm Disclaimer: When you make a purchase through one of these affiliate links, I may earn a small commission, at no additional cost to you.
Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is a freebie, which means we all come up with our own topics. I’ve done freebie posts focusing on backlist books a few times (here are my lists from 2025 and 2024), and thought I’d come back with some new and updated picks.
Below are backlist books from favorite authors, all of which I’d like to make time for. I’ve read these authors’ more recent books, and now want to go back to earlier books and see what I might have missed!
TJ Klune: Murmuration was originally pubished in 2016, and is being reissued in November 2026. How could I possibly resist? I love this new cover.
Kelley Armstrong: After finishing her Rockton and Haven’s Rock series, I’m curious about her supernatural series, Women of the Otherworld, starting with Bitten.
Jenny Colgan: I have a handful of her early books to read — and while some that I’ve tried feel pretty dated, I’m still up for trying Amanda’s Wedding, and possibly others as well.
Colleen Oakley: I’ve enjoyed several of her books… and this earlier one is sitting on my bookshelf.
Sally Hepworth: The Secrets of Midwives is the only one of her books that I haven’t read yet, and I think I need to fix that.
Ariel Lawhon: I’ve now read two of her more recent books with my book group. I Was Anastasia sounds like something I’d find appealing.
Rachel Koller Croft: I loved her disco vampire book, We Love the Nightlife, and definitely need to read this earlier release as well.
Jennifer Weiner: Every time I read a book by this author, I’m eager to read even more. Mrs. Everything was released in 2019 and I’ve been meaning to read it ever since.
Katherine Center: I believe I have only two of her early books yet to read. The Lost Husband is the one I’m most likely to pick up.
Julia Quinn: I gobbled up the Bridgertons series, so why not read the prequel series too?
Have you read any of my backlist picks? Any you especially recommend?
If you wrote a freebie post this week, what topic did you choose? Please share your link!
My Monday tradition, including a look back and a look ahead — what I read last week, what new books came my way, and what books are keeping me busy right now. Plus a smattering of other stuff too.
Life.
A friend mentioned that she got some great new jigsaw puzzles via a local Facebook puzzle swap group… and it’s changed my life! Ha, well, nothing that dramatic… but I did join a swap group and traded five of my finished puzzles for five new ones this past week! Now I just need time to work on them.
I had a busy weekend, with lots of dancing, dinner out at a new-to-us restaurant, and a bit of time for some general tidying and organizing.
Bookish odds and ends:
Thought I’d share a few cute memes that made me smile this week…
… plus some book news that’s very exciting!
This is going to be a must-read for me!
What did I read during the last week?
Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth: What a great read! Highly recommended. My review is here.
Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke: There’s so much buzz about this book right now… and I found it a fairly dismal reading experience, even though it kind of all comes together by the end. My review is here.
We Burned So Bright by TJ Klune: A beautiful novella about love, living a good life, and the end of the world. My review is here.
Margo’s Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe: I didn’t expect this to be a book for me… and it was! I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Review to follow later this week.
Pop culture & TV:
I’m almost done with the most recent season of Dark Winds. Just as excellent as I’d expected. If you’ve never checked it out… you really should!
Since I finished reading Margo’s Got Money Troubles over the weekend, I think my next move will be to check out the AppleTV adaptation. I’ve seen really positive reviews.
Fresh Catch:
No new books this week.
What will I be reading during the coming week?
Currently in my hands:
The Impossible Fortune (Thursday Murder Club, #5)by Richard Osman: I’m happy to be returning to the Thursday Murder Club! Just getting started — these books are just so much fun.
Now playing via audiobook:
The Poisoned King (Impossible Creatures, #2) by Katherine Rundell: Only a few chapters in so far. I really enjoyed the first book in this middle grade series, and I’m happy to finally be getting back to it.
Ongoing reads:
The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe: My book group’s newest classic read. We’re reading and discussing two chapters per week. Progress: 7%. Coming up this week: Chapters 5 and 6.
The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare: I’ll be seeing this play at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival this summer, and since I’ve never read it before, I decided now’s the time! I’m trying to read just one scene per day, taking my time with it since I have a few months yet. Progress so far: About to start Act II.
Title: We Burned So Bright Author: TJ Klune Publisher: Tor Publication date: April 28, 2026 Length: 171 pages Genre: Contemporary/science fiction Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 5 out of 5.
A heart-wrenching standalone novel by #1 New York Times bestselling author TJ Klune, We Burned So Bright follows an elder gay couple on an end-of-the-world road-trip.
The road stretched out before them. No other cars, just the headlights on the blacktop. Above, the cracked moon in a kaleidoscope sky….
Husbands Don and Rodney have lived a good long life. Together they’ve experienced the highest highs of love and family, and lows so low that they felt like the end of the world.
Now, the world is ending for real. A rogue black hole is coming for Earth and in a month everything and everyone they’ve ever known will be gone.
Suddenly, after 40 years together, Don and Rodney are out of time. They’re in a race against the clock to make it from Maine to Washington State to take care of some unfinished business before it’s all over.
On the road they meet those who refuse to believe death is coming and those who rush to meet it. But there are also people living their final days as best they know how—impromptu weddings, bright burning bonfires, shared meals, and new friends.
And as the black hole draws near, among ball lightning and under a cracked moon in a kaleidoscope sky, Don and Rodney will look back on their lives and ask if their best was good enough.
Is it enough to burn bright if nothing comes from the ashes?
Why do we find books about the end of the world so compelling? There’s something inherently heartbreaking about humanity as a whole knowing specifically how and when the world will end, and something fascinating in seeing how people choose to act in the limited time left.
TJ Klune’s new release, We Burned So Bright, has a sci-fi premise — a black hole will destroy Earth within a month — but the point and heart of the story is not science fiction, but what this premise shows about the very human hearts involved.
For perhaps the first time in human history, we’re all experiencing the same thing. It doesn’t matter what color you are. Your background. Your beliefs. Your heritage. Who you love. Everyone, right now, is all the same. There’s something beautiful about that.
I’ll quickly note that in looking back at all the other books I’ve read by TJ Klune, I see that We Burned So Bright is the first of these that doesn’t include a supernatural/magical/fantasy element. It doesn’t need it — this a deeply human story about two regular people facing unprecedented times together.
Don and Rodney, now in their 70s, have been together since they met as young men, through the ups and downs of discrimination, abuse, homophobia, the AIDS crisis, “don’t ask, don’t tell” — basically, they’ve weathered the storm of gay history through the power of their love and commitment. It hasn’t always been easy, and they’ve suffered tremendous hardships, but they’ve survived, and so has their love.
As the world faces its last month of life, Don and Rodney have a promise to keep before the end. While society shuts down around them, with rioting and craziness abounding, they pack up their old RV for one last road trip — destination: Washington State.
The reason for their trip will be revealed by the end. Meanwhile, their journey is one of discovery, connection, sorrow, and beauty. As they travel, they encounter others on the road, all dealing with the end in different ways — violence, despair, denial… but also, love and grabbing moments of joy in every remaining second of life.
“You ever think we’d end up in a field in Ohio with hippies?”
“I’m surprised it hadn’t happened to us before, to be quite honest.”
“Sass,” Rodney said fondly. “Always with the sass.”
Slowly, we learn more about Rodney and Don’s past and why their road leads where it does. Their story is heartbreaking, yet makes the reader love them even more. They’re big-hearted, devoted, flawed, kind people who’ve spent their lives loving one another and doing the best they could. Seeing the end of the world through these two lovely people brings it all home better than a focus on explosions and science and governmental scrambles for survival possibly could.
At heart, We Burned So Bright is a personal, emotional story — showing truly how each individual is an entire universe. Rodney and Don are layered, wonderful characters. They’re ordinary people in an extraordinary time, and even as the world collapses around them, they see beauty wherever they go.
A meditation on what it means to share a life, to grow old with the person you love, to experience joy even after facing tragedy, We Burned So Bright is a lovely, powerful story. Don’t miss it.
Purchase links: Amazon – Audible audiobook – Bookshop.org – Libro.fm Disclaimer: When you make a purchase through one of these affiliate links, I may earn a small commission, at no additional cost to you.
My name was Natalie Heller Mills, and I was perfect at being alive.
Natalie lives a traditional lifestyle. Her charming farmhouse is rustic, her husband a handsome cowboy, her six children each more delightful than the last. So what if there are nannies and producers behind the scenes, her kitchen hiding industrial-grade fridges and ovens, her husband the heir to a political dynasty? What Natalie’s followers—all 8 million of them—don’t know won’t hurt them. And The Angry Women? The privileged, Ivy League, coastal elite haters who call her an antifeminist iconoclast? They’re sick with jealousy. Because Natalie isn’t simply living the good life, she’s living the ideal—and just so happens to be building an empire from it.
Until one morning she wakes up in a life that isn’t hers. Her home, her husband, her children—they’re all familiar, but something’s off. Her kitchen is warmed by a sputtering fire rather than electricity, her children are dirty and strange, and her soft-handed husband is suddenly a competent farmer. Just yesterday Natalie was curating photos of homemade jam for her Instagram, and now she’s expected to haul firewood and handwash clothes until her fingers bleed. Has she become the unwitting star of a ruthless reality show? Could it really be time travel? Is she being tested by God? By Satan? When Natalie suffers a brutal injury in the woods, she realizes two things: This is not her beautiful life, and she must escape by any means possible.
A gripping, electrifying novel that is as darkly funny as it is frightening, Yesteryear is a gimlet-eyed look at tradition, fame, faith, and the grand performance of womanhood.
The premise sounds like a perfect reality TV show, in a way: Take a tradwife influencer and make her actually live on a homestead. No running water, no appliances, no fresh veggies except what she can grow herself. Make bread for the family every day… without an electric stove or perfect kitchen tools or curated ingredients. And do it all again, day in, day out. How many would last more than a day? A week?
In Yesteryear, this is exactly the set-up… sort of. Natalie is a perfect wife and perfect mother, raising her adorable brood of adorable children with good old-fashioned family values, with a devoted husband to protect them all and care for the farm while she prepares wholesome food and homeschools her little ones. She’s devout, she’s pretty, she’s hard-working… and she’s an influencer with millions of followers. So yes, she makes a small fortune from the products her fans buy, and she’s adored and hated probably in equal measure — but loved or hated, that’s attention, and that means money and fame.
Until it doesn’t. Because one day, Natalie wakes up cold, under a rough quilt rather than the high quality linens she’s used to, and the children in her kitchen aren’t really her children. Instead of a rustic-looking but actually highly polished home, her house is truly rustic, with gaps in the boards, heat from a wood-burning hearth, and no modern conveniences whatsoever. Is this a trick? Is she being secretly filmed? Has she teleported back in time? All Natalie knows is that something is very, very wrong, and she’s powerless to change it or to escape.
As Yesteryear moves forward, we follow several timelines. We seeing Natalie’s history from childhood to college, where she disdained her classmates and dropped out to marry a seemingly perfect man, to their complicated early years of marriage, and finally, to their life at Yesteryear Ranch and her growing internet fame. We also see Natalie’s panic when, pregnant with her sixth child and experiencing huge success, her carefully constructed world starts to crumble around her. And mixed in with all this, we see Natalie’s awakening in the ranch of 1855, experiencing displacement, confusion, and sheer panic as she tries to figure out what’s been done to her and how she can get back to her real life.
Lest you have the impression that Natalie is a hero or a good person, let me assure you: She is not. In every age and stage, Natalie — who professes to be a good, Christian, God-fearing woman — is full of spite, scorn, and even hatred for the people around her. She judges everyone and finds them lacking, and sees herself as the epitome of everything a woman should be.
And who was I? A flawless Christian woman. The manic pixie American dream girl of this nation’s deepest, darkest fantasies. The mother every woman wanted to be, and the wife every man wanted to come home to. Like a nun in a porno, it didn’t make sense, but also, by God: it worked. My name is Natalie Heller Mills, and I was perfect at being alive.
As Natalie’s world unravels, readers may struggle to feel any sympathy for her at all. The world she’s built is so blatantly false, existing only while the cameras roll. Modern conveniences, nannies, farmhands — all are hidden behind false fronts, so that her perfect prairie life appears on screens as a shining example of virtuous, healthy, wholesome family living. It’s all a bit sickening… but even Natalie is aware that she exists as both Online Natalie and Offline Natalie, and it’s only when the two converge that things really go south.
Yesteryear is a strange book in so many ways. It’s truly dismal for much of it. I have no idea why the synopsis calls this book darkly funny; I couldn’t find anything to laugh at. Well, okay, that’s not entirely true: Natalie’s self-serving statements and prayers really did make me stifle a snort at times:
Thank you for watching over the farm animals, Lord, and thank you for helping us pass five million on Instagram this week.
And yet, Natalie is just so awful that there isn’t truly much in the way of enjoyment in reading about her rise and fall and the startling transposition to a 19th century farmhouse. She’s certainly not sympathetic in any way. There’s a weird fascination to it all, as readers are forced to piece together the truth of what’s going on from hints and clues. It takes a very long time for any of it to make sense. I will say that the author manages to pull it all together in an ending that answers all the questions posed along the way, although I didn’t necessarily think the actual events and explanations were believable.
I picked up Yesteryear after seeing the book start gaining buzz once it was selected as the April pick for Good Morning America’s book club, and after winning two hardcover copies for my Little Free Library (which got snapped up in the blink of an eye). Luckily, I was able to get a copy from the library to read myself without too long a wait.
I’m not sorry that I read Yesteryear — but I also didn’t find it as compelling or deep as the buzz might have us believe. Until close to the end, I probably would have given this book less than a 3-star rating… but I did admire the author’s sleight of hand in coming up with an ending that (more or less) works, so long as you can apply a hefty dose of suspending disbelief.
I’d be curious to hear other people’s thoughts on Yesteryear: Timely story about today’s society, influencer culture, the rot beneath the family values/tradwife hype, a rant against anti-feminism? Or a muddled book that seems to want to be saying more than it actually is?
Purchase links: Amazon – Audible audiobook – Bookshop.org – Libro.fm Disclaimer: When you make a purchase through one of these affiliate links, I may earn a small commission, at no additional cost to you.
First Lines Friday is a weekly feature for book lovers created by Wandering Words. What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines?
Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page.
Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first.
Finally… reveal the book!
This week, I’m featuring lines from an upcoming new release:
Mrs. Richmond’s wedding gown was itchy, for one thing.
The kind of itchy that eclipses everything else.
And there was no way to get out of it.
And that was nobody’s fault but my own.
Mrs. Richmond’s wedding gown was itchy, for one thing.
So what’s the book?
The Shippers by Katherine Center Release date: May 19, 2026 336 pages
Synopsis:
One of the hottest, fastest-rising rom-com stars delivers her latest swoon-worthy novel about a destination wedding on a cruise ship.
After a whole lifetime of being bad at love, JoJo Burton decides to solve her intimacy issues once and for all at her sister’s destination wedding on a cruise ship. With the help of a little pop psychology, she diagnoses herself with a fixation on the neighborhood guy who was her first crush and first kiss (and who just happens to be a newly-divorced wedding guest ), and she decides to woo him during the cruise for some long-delayed closure. Only problem is, her sister’s a little busy being a bride at the moment—so JoJo ropes in her childhood bestie, Cooper Watts, to be her wing man. Cooper: who RSVPed no, but then showed up, anyway. Cooper: who left town without a word four years earlier and moved to London. Cooper: who was, if she’s honest, the worst heartbreak of JoJo’s life. It’s bliss for her to see him again, and it’s agony, too—and the more they team up for Project Conquest, the more she obsesses over questions she can’t bring herself to ask.
Shipboard antics ensue in this witty, heart-tugging, childhood-friends-to-lovers romance—as JoJo and Cooper fake flirt, slow dance, share a cabin, sing duets, treat sunburns, get jealous, rescue each other over and over, and finally, at last, figure it all out in the most blissful, swoony, romantic way.
No one does summer romance quite like Katherine Center. THE SHIPPERS will take readers on the cruise of a lifetime in a story awash with romantic longing, top-notch banter, long-held secrets . . . and true love rediscovered.
Bookshelf Fantasies 