Book Review: Obstetrix by Naomi Kritzer

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Obstetrix
Author: Naomi Kritzer
Publisher: Tor
Publication date: June 9, 2026
Length: 208 pages
Genre: Thriller
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

From the Hugo award-winning author Naomi Kritzer comes a tense portrait of a future we desperately hope to escape.

O Lord, deliver us.

Doctor Liz has just been acquitted for performing the last abortion in North Dakota when she’s kidnapped.

They’re not just any kidnappers, but a fundamentalist cult, deep in the rural west, without respect for law or decency, and in desperate need of an OB/GYN.

Guarded, isolated, without access to the outside world, Liz nevertheless is treated with respect as the only doctor on the compound, but she is very aware of what happened to the last obstetrician they kidnapped.

She must escape, and bring help to the girls trapped at the compound, if it’s the last thing she does.

Dr. Elizabeth Gwinn is a dedicated OB/GYN in desperate need of a fresh start. After facing a harrowing trial for performing an abortion, she’s narrowly managed to avoid prison — but legal fees have left her broke, the arrest and threat of conviction have destroyed her nerves, and she faces the sad truth that despite the critical need, there are now states with absolutely no obstetricians still in practice at all.

After a dismal job interview for yet another hospital job she’s doomed not to get once the hiring committee realizes just who she is, she agrees to meet with a representative of a home birth collective looking for an obstetrician to complement their team of midwives. Although the location of the interview seems unusual, Elizabeth really needs a job and sits down to learn more… only to find herself drugged, kidnapped, and transported in a van to some unknown destination.

Upon arrival, she finds herself held captive by a fundamentalist cult in a remote rural area. There are no phones, no internet, no books, no privacy. Watched every moment, Liz is informed that her role is to care for the cult’s seemingly endless parade of pregnant women. Although the compound has some modern medical supplies — drugs, ultrasound machine, surgical implements — it’s by no means an adequate medical facility, and Liz is disinclined to cooperate… until she hears what came of the last obstetrician who refused to play along. Liz decides to bide her time and look for a chance to escape, and meanwhile, she begins caring for the women, some really just girls, and provides more general medical care to the children and men of the compound as well.

The patriarchal, repressive society is headed by Pastor John, and rules are enforced through corporal punishment. Liz sees women and children with welts and other marks that would absolutely have her contacting the appropriate authorities if she were to see these type of injuries in a clinical setting. Here, in the middle of nowhere, at the mercy of her captors, all she can do is try to relieve pain and mitigate harm where she can.

Meanwhile, to self-soothe, Liz returns in her mind to the favorite fantasy book of her youth, recalling it page by page from memory and using it as a means of centering herself, holding out hope, and looking for any chance of contacting the outside world.

I’ve seen this book shelved as horror, dystopian, thriller, even sci-fi, and while there are bits of many of these (well, not sci-fi), none of these labels feel entirely spot-on. I’d described this book more as a near-future thriller, not to mention being a cautionary tale. Liz’s trial has concluded by the time the novel starts, and yet it’s not at all far-fetched to see this as a possibility not too far off in our own future. Learning that obstetrical care is no longer available in major areas of the country feels chillingly possible.

And in a world where choices are so controlled or outright denied, a religious cult that prizes pregnancy and birth above anything else a woman might represent seems like just one more likely outcome. Particularly painful is the revelation that a bright 13-year-old girl who’s eager to become Liz’s apprentice is scheduled to be married as soon as she turns 14, to an adult man who fully expects to start making babies right away. When Liz points out that the girl isn’t physically mature enough to safely carry a pregnancy, the woman behind her kidnapping who shadows her every move declares that “a woman’s body won’t grow a baby that’s too big for her to deliver”. The casual disregard of medical expertise and the casual expectation that a young girl is ready for childbearing are simply horrifying.

Obstetrix is a fascinating psychological study, a dystopian nightmare, and even an action tale, as Liz desperately struggles to find a way out, even while growing to care more and more for some of her patients, who clearly are victims themselves and just as much in need of rescue as she is. The tension mounts as the story progresses, and it’s a race to the finish to see how Liz will get out of this terrible situation.

Meanwhile, we can’t help but admire Liz’s dedication to her professional ethics and her devotion to patient care. Even without the blatant threats, she can’t refuse to treat those who need her. She may be distressed, she may feel that conditions are hazardous, but she still tends to those who need a physician, because she simply can’t do otherwise.

As Liz informs us:

The word obstetrics comes from the Latin words obstetrix, which means midwife. Literally it means “stands opposite to,” and references the person who stands opposite to the woman giving birth.

As Liz passes weeks at the compound, struggling not to lose hope, she uses her position of slight authority to oppose the system that might further harm the young women and girls in her care — an obstetrix indeed.

Obstetrix is a fast, compelling, chilling read. Highly recommended.

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.

28May2026

Book Review: Dolly All the Time by Annabel Monaghan

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Dolly All the Time
Author: Annabel Monaghan
Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons
Publication date: May 26, 2026
Length: 395 pages
Genre: Contemporary romance
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

A hardworking single mom returns to her seaside hometown and stumbles into a fake dating situationship with a wealthy, workaholic scion, from the New York Times bestselling author of Nora Goes Off Script.

“This book is like a spicy margarita…sweet and a little salty, tart and hot…I have fallen in love with Dolly and with funny, fizzing Annabel Monaghan!” —Catherine Newman, New York Times bestselling author of Sandwich

If they start by pretending, can they end with something real?

Dolly Brick has never met a problem she couldn’t solve. Not when her mom left when she was twelve, and not at thirty-nine when she moves with her son back to Whitfield, Rhode Island, for the summer to keep her dad and brother from losing the family home.

So when she comes across Stewart Whitfield—annoyingly handsome scion of the Whitfield family—with a flat tire and at the wrong end of a very public, very humiliating breakup, it’s in her nature to help. But Stewart’s proposed arrangement ends up being more than either of them bargained for, because as public dinners and high-society benefits turn into sunset boat rides and kisses that hit her bloodstream like a ghost pepper, Dolly starts to feel something more than helpful. She’s never relied on anyone besides herself—can she really start now?

If summer is just around the corner, then it’s time for an Annabel Monaghan novel! Once again, her newest book is a delightful mix of grounded characters, interesting situations, sincere emotions, and fantastic beachy vibes.

Dolly Brick seems to never stop working. A single mom on the verge of 40, Dolly works four (yes, four!) jobs to make ends meet, support her son, make sure her dad and disabled brother have a non-leaky roof over their heads, and basically keeps everyone and everything going through sheer willpower. As Dolly All the Time opens, she’s headed back to her Rhode Island hometown for the summer — not what she’d had planned — to deal with the aftermath of a small electrical fire at her family home.

Once there, she jumps right back in — working at the counter at her father’s fish store during the busy tourist season, making sure her brother Chris gets his meds adjusted, bringing in a contractor to look at the fire damage, and figuring out how much of the needed repairs she can do on her own. Dolly is incredibly adept at fixing and creating — that’s what living on a shoestring budget will do for you! — but when she learns from the fire department that the roof is in such bad shape that the house may be condemned if they don’t replace it, she comes close to despair. Even with all her jobs, there’s no way the family has that kind of money.

Rescue arrives in the form of Stewart Whitfield, son of the town’s extremely wealthy founding family and next in line to be CEO of the family business. Or rather, Dolly starts off by rescuing Stewart, who finds himself in desperate need of help when he gets a flat tire and has a dead cell phone battery. Of course, he’s never changed a tire in his life, and of course, Dolly is a pro. When a passing paparazzo snaps a photo of them, Stewart realizes Dolly may represent more than just roadside assistance. After being very publicly dumped by his fiancée, Stewart needs to show his family that he’s stable and grounded enough for the CEO job. Cue the fake girlfriend trope!

Stewart offers Dolly a deal, complete with NDA. If she’ll pose as his girlfriend for the summer, attending key galas and family events with him, he’ll pay her enough to fix the roof (and then some). It’s a weird offer (which Dolly immediately connects with Pretty Woman), but really too good a chance to save the family home to pass up. Stewart is stiff and seems to be a workaholic, but Dolly detects a glimmer of something more relatable underneath the suits and fancy cars, and she agrees to the deal.

After an adorable makeover outing with Stewart’s younger sister (one of my favorite characters in the book), Dolly begins her role as Stewart’s fake girlfriend. She’s quirky and definitely not trained for high society, and yet there’s something in her non-conforming demeanor that starts to put Stewart at ease. As they spend time together, she challenges him to loosen up, even just a little. Why not take out the sailboat that he hasn’t touched in years? How about a break from working around the clock to enjoy a bit of summer? When Stewart meets Dolly’s family, she gets a chance to see how considerate he can be, and as the weeks pass, Stewart and Dolly begin to connect in ways that no longer feel like it’s all for show.

There’s just so much to love about this book! First, Dolly herself is amazing. While she struggles to allow others to share her burdens, her devotion to her family is incredibly admirable. She doesn’t resent her responsibilities — she’s a deeply committed caregiver, and her 24/7 priority is keeping her family safe and happy. As she learns over the course of the book, she really doesn’t have to take everything on her own shoulders, but learning to let others in is part of her personal journey. She’s a fantastic mother to 13-year-old Gus. I admired the honesty with which she interacts with him — they have a lovely dynamic.

The romance feels real very quickly, and is well-developed. We see Stewart and Dolly opening up to one another, and can track how their appearances-for-show turn into time spent together that means something to them both. The plot may follow key trope milestones in some ways, but it comes across as genuine. There’s no doubt that these two have a connection and understand one another in ways no one else does. They’re wonderful together.

Now, there is a 3rd-act breakup, which I generally dread these days while reading contemporary romances. Here, the events make sense. None of the more common failure-to-communicate or the (awful) I’m-dumping-you-for-your-own-good scenarios! When Dolly and Stewart’s relationship blows up, we know exactly why. We can hate it, but we also understand what went wrong (and fortunately, can be very confident that there will be a happy ending, even if they have to suffer before getting there).

Dolly All the Time conveys heartwarming messages about devotion to family, taking time to care for oneself even while caring for others, and giving thought to what real happiness might look like. The family dynamics are outstanding, and the romantic elements really sing.

I’ll note that this book has plenty of romantic, swoon-worthy moments, but that sex scenes are closed-door / off-the-page… which I, for one, really appreciate!

Dolly All the Time is both a terrific summer read — oh, to be in a little seaside town with salt breezes, ice cream shops, and walks on the beach! — and an engaging love story. There’s deep emotional impact, yet the tone is upbeat, with plenty of humor and whimsy to balance the more serious moments.

He’s in a tuxedo that was woven by angels with tiny hands to the exact specifications of his body. His black shoes have been professionally tied by the royal shoe tyer.

Great plot, wonderful characters, and a seaside, sunny setting all add up to a wonderful start to beach reading season. Highly recommended — for any time of year!

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.

Interested in more books by Annabel Monaghan? Check out my reviews:
Nora Goes Off Script
Same Time Next Summer
Summer Romance
It’s a Love Story

**Save

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23May2026

Book Review: The Foursome by Christina Baker Kline

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Foursome
Author: Christina Baker Kline
Publisher: Mariner Books
Publication date: May 12, 2026
Length: 384 pages
Genre: Historical fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Christina Baker Kline comes a boldly original reimagining of an astonishing true story of two sisters in nineteenth-century North Carolina—Kline’s own distant relatives—who married world-famous conjoined twins from Siam.

When Chang and Eng Bunker arrive in Wilkes County in 1839, they’re not just a curiosity—they’re a sensation. Everyone is eager to learn whether the salacious rumors about them are true. Within months, the twins have opened a general store, bought land, and begun building a plantation. Now, word has it, they’re looking for wives—and in a place that thrives on gossip and legacy, their ambitions set the community on edge.

Sarah and Adelaide Yates, daughters of a once-prominent local family brought low by scandal, are drawn into their orbit. Bold, beautiful Addie sees in the twins’ fame a chance to reclaim her future. Sallie, quiet and observant, isn’t so sure. When the twins’ lives become entangled with theirs, they must navigate loyalty, longing, and identity in a world where everything—including race, class, and gender—is rigidly defined.

Spanning five decades and unfolding against the backdrop of a fractured nation hurtling toward war, The Foursome is both intimate and a story of love and constraint, identity and reinvention. With piercing insight and emotional precision, Kline brings to life a forgotten chapter of American history and the complex, boundary-defying marriages at its center.

In this fascinating work of historical fiction, author Christina Baker Kline shines a spotlight on the conjoined twins for whom the term “Siamese twins” was coined, by showing their lives through the eyes of one of the sisters who married them.

Most of us take for granted that, at the very least, we come into this world alone and die our own deaths But this was not true for my husband and his brother. They could not escape each other.

The Foursome is narrated by Sarah “Sallie” Yates, a young woman with a damaged reputation as the novel opens in the 1840s. After a family scandal, she and her younger sister Adelaide face limited prospects. When the famous conjoined twins Chang and Eng Bunker (the “Siamese Double Boys”) settle in their North Carolina community, the sisters are as curious as everyone else, but when curiosity turns to courtship, it’s Addie who leads the way, seeing the twins as a way out of their difficulties and a route to a secure future.

The engagement and marriage is, of couse, scandalous. Chang and Eng are joined by a band of flesh at the base of their chests. They’re active, healthy, educated men who pride themselves on living as gentlemen, but to the people of North Carolina, they’re seen as foreigners and as freaks. When the brothers marry the Yates sisters, the gossip is intense and personal.

As Sallie shares with readers, navigating a marriage to a man who can never leave his brother’s side presents complex challenges, from the embarrassment of figuring out sleeping (and sexual) arrangements to sharing a household with her sister to never once being able to have a truly private conversation with her husband. Sallie’s marriage to Eng does eventually turn into one of love and compatibility, but the unavoidable presence of Addie and Chang is a constant source of tension.

Still, something must work. Between them, the two couples have a total of twenty-one children over the years! The sisters eventually demand separate homes, but even so, the rigid scheduling and presence of a husband’s brother mean that the families can never truly be separate.

I saw how they leaned on each other — how their bond became a kind of fortress, both shelter and prison. How, sometimes, it shut out even those who loved them.

Beyond the domestic, The Foursome explores the lives of the Bunker husbands and wives in the context of the looming Civil War. Chang and Eng are landowners — and in the North Carolina of the 1800s, that means that they’ve slave owners. Sallie accepts that enslaved workers are simply a fact of life, but over time, her eyes are opened to what this actually means for the people who raise her children and care for her needs. As their community is drawn into war, and as sons of both households go off to fight, Sallie increasingly finds herself at odds with Addie and their husbands about the Confederacy’s ideals and what it is that they’re fighting to preserve.

Sallie’s voice in The Foursome is open and revealing. She shares the joyful moments, especially as she gives birth to child after child, as well as the discomfort of being married to a man who’ll always belong more to someone else. The descriptions of the family’s adaptation to the brothers’ conjoined nature offer a fascinating look into a situation that seems practically beyond belief.

*(L–R) Sarah, her son Patrick Henry, Eng, Chang, his son Albert, Adelaide*

I did wish that Sallie’s awakening to the evils of slavery came sooner. I couldn’t help but feel that some of her change in perspective was driven by the purely personal, in terms of how slavery affected her rather than out of a sense of compassion and justice for the enslaved. She can’t make up for the past, but she eventually attempts her own version of reparation by offering new beginnings and opportunities to those she’d wronged.

There are sins of action and sins of inaction. I cannot forgive myself for the times I saw wrong and turned away.

Because the story is told through Sallie’s point of view, we only understand Addie through her eyes. This is understandable, yet sometimes frustrating. Addie is the catalyst for the marriage — I would have liked a deeper understanding of Addie’s inner life and why she felt so strongly that the choice to marry the brothers was their best (and only) option.

The Foursome is actually the second novel I’ve read about these historical figures. Chang and Eng by Darin Strauss, published in 2000, is a fictionalized account of their lives as told by Eng. I don’t remember a lot of the details at this point, but I do remember how interesting I found it. Reading The Foursome, I was reminded of many of the biographical details, and was entirely drawn in by this new approach and perspective on their lives.

The Foursome is a powerful, compelling read about remarkable lives, set against the backdrop of one of the most devastating and consequential periods in American history. Sallie’s voice is memorable, and the experiences she describes paint a picture of a particular family’s life that might seem unbelievable if it weren’t actually based on historical events. Highly recommended.

20May2026

Book Review: The Shippers by Katherine Center

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Shippers
Author: Katherine Center
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Publication date: May 19, 2026
Length: 336 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

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 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.

I usually love Katherine Center books, but The Shippers is a bit too slight and focused on silliness to entirely work for me.

In The Shippers, we open with main character Jojo’s wedding. She’s wearing her soon-to-be mother-in-law’s itchy, awful wedding gown — quite a clear sign that nothing about this wedding truly fits Jojo. She has a history of dumping guys as soon as they fall for her, and her fiancé’s distance and disinterest have kept her in the relationship far longer than made sense. As she’s about to walk down the aisle, her childhood best friend Cooper walks in. Cooper essentially ghosted her four years ago without explanation, but his sudden appearance (and suggestion to fake a faint at the altar) help Jojo realize how little she wants to get married. Fake fainting turns out to be her key to escape.

Six weeks later, Jojo is forced to endure endless gossip and family and neighborhood togetherness for her sister Ashley’s cruise-based wedding. But thanks to Ashley’s interest in psychology, the sisters seem to have figured out Jojo’s problem: They conclude that she’s fixated on her first kiss (at age 10), while carrying some serious abandonment issues courtesy of their distant dad, and will never be able to have a successful, healthy relationship until she resolves the feelings associated with that kiss. Fortunately, the kisser will be on the cruise too, and Jojo will have a week to get him to fall in love with her.

When Cooper unexpectedly shows up for the cruise as well, Jojo loops him into her plan — and when the obnoxious cousin Jojo is rooming with makes it clear that their cabin will be otherwise occupied most nights, Jojo ends up bunking with Cooper. With all that togetherness, it’s only a matter of time before Jojo and Cooper confront their pasts… but her fixation on the kiss may drive them apart for good this time, despite the fact that Jojo seems to be finally waking up to how awesome (and attractive) Cooper is.

“How did you turn into a Disney prince?”

“You think I look like a Disney prince?”

“I really do.”

“You think I look like a cartoon?”

“Not a cartoon like SpongeBob. A sexy cartoon.”

The vibe of The Shippers is mostly goofy. It’s hard to take Jojo’s emotional baggage seriously when it’s addressed in between comical scenes of her wearing inappropriate clothing, falling off her high heels, getting badly sunburned (I mean, that’s not actually funny, but it’s presented as yet another ridiculous thing that Jojo gets herself into), and entering a slow-dance contest with guy who’s clearly wrong for her. We’re obviously meant to be rooting for Jojo to wake up to the fact that Cooper has been her person — and love of her life — all along, but the frantic focus on Jojo making odd choices and getting into crazy situations makes it all seem rather frivolous and shallow.

To be clear, The Shippers is entertaining and zips along with never a dull moment. For me, it was just all so intentionally silly that I couldn’t take any of it particularly seriously, even when the characters attempt to address past hurts and issues in a more thoughtful way.

Still, fans of the author will find plenty to enjoy, and The Shippers would make a good choice for a sunny summer beach read.

Interested in this author? Check out my reviews of other Katherine Center books:
The Bright Side of Disaster
Get Lucky
Happiness for Beginners
Hello Stranger
How to Walk Away
The Rom-Commers
Things You Save in a Fire
What You Wish For
The Love Haters

16May2026

Audiobook Review: Our Perfect Storm by Carley Fortune

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Our Perfect Storm
Author: Carley Fortune
Narrators: AJ Bridel and Jack Copland
Publisher: Berkley
Publication date: May 5, 2026
Print length: 420 pages
Audio length: 10 hours 51 minutes
Genre: Contemporary romance
Source: Purchased
Rating:

Frankie and George have been best friends since they were eight years old. Both passionate, impulsive, and headstrong—they’ve always clashed . . . and come back together. Until now. It’s the eve of Frankie’s wedding weekend, and she doesn’t know where they stand or even if George will show up as her best man.

Then, at the start of the festivities, in walks George. For one glorious evening, surrounded by her loved ones, Frankie’s life is finally perfect. But it all comes crashing down when her fiancé dumps her the next morning, leaving only a note as an explanation.

Crushed and confused, Frankie returns to her family’s home to wallow. But George has a different idea and a plan for healing Frankie’s broken heart. He wants her to go on her honeymoon. With him. For one week, to the lush rainforests and misty beaches of Tofino.

Frankie agrees, seeing the trip for what it really is: one last chance to repair their friendship. Even if it means unearthing secrets and long buried feelings neither knows how to handle. Even if it means falling apart for good.

There’s nothing like a Carley Fortune book! Heartfelt storytelling, deep connections, and beautiful settings are the hallmark of her beach bag-ready novels. Her fifth novel, Our Perfect Storm, captures all the elements I love so much about her writing and delivers a friends-to-lovers story that, despite the trope, feels fresh and expansive.

Our Perfect Storm opens at the start of Frankie’s wedding weekend — a high-end affair at a luxury resort, no expense spared. But initially, it’s not perfect: Frankie is distracted throughout the opening dinner because her best friend (and best man) George hasn’t arrived. Her seemingly ideal fiancé Nate is sitting right next to her, but she can’t enjoy the food or the company… until George finally walks in. (It may not be obvious to Frankie, but we readers know deep, unacknowledged love when we see it!)

The perfect wedding is now back on track… until Frankie wakes up the next morning to a note from Nate, calling off the wedding with no explanation whatsoever. Devastated, Frankie moves back home with her parents and spends the next couple of months trying to get her life back on track.

George hasn’t been seen since the wedding, so Frankie is shocked when he shows up one day, and has a plan. Nate has already told Frankie that she should go to the resort he’d booked for their honeymoon, since it was already paid for. Frankie had no intention of going, but George insists that it’ll be just what she needs — and that he’s going with her. Frankie needs an escape from the world so she can heal, George has been researching recovery after a breakup, and he’s going to guide her through the process.

So off they go to Tofino, a beautiful location on Vancouver Island, where they’ll be staying in a luxury villa at a fancy resort, with nothing to do but enjoy the scenery, explore, eat good food, and let Frankie find fresh inspiration and let go of the past. Of course, the past is not so simple. While Frankie had only known Nate for a total of one year prior to their almost-wedding, she’s known George since childhood. They’ve been there for one another through family sorrows, personal challenges, growing up, and turning into adults. From next-door neighbors to best friends to college roommates, they were inseparable for most of their lives, until George pulled away in recent years, leaving Frankie to miss him and wonder what happened to their friendship.

As they week in Tofino unfolds, George and Frankie reconnect, falling back into their easy dynamic, sharing truths and secrets, but also noting new elements to their chemisty… like a intense attraction that Frankie was never willing to fully acknowledge in the past. It becomes clear that there’s way more between them than friendship, but they’ll need to get past old hurts and traumas before they can fully trust that what they feel might just be love… and that they might have a very different future ahead of them than either could have imagined.

I just loved Frankie and George! They’re both fully developed characters. We can care about them because we get to know them so well. Flashback chapters take us back to their childhood and adolescence, and of course it’s clear to a reader that these two are way beyond “best friends”. The way they trust one another is lovely, as is the way they’re so easily able to fall back into spending constant time together, even after being apart for years.

In addition to her cancelled wedding, Frankie has a lifetime of unresolved issues to finally come to terms with, particularly in regard to her complicated relationship with her mother. I appreciated seeing the thoughtfulness with which the characters deal with this, and how past trauma gets addressed and acknowledged.

Of course, the heart and soul of the story is the connection between Frankie and George. The plot points I’ve mentioned so far may not sound action-packed, but that’s not what this book is. There’s plenty of humor, serious talks and situations too, but overall, the pacing is leisurely and gives time for the relationships and character growth to unfold.

The armchair travel elements can’t be ignored. Carley Fortune’s books always have the most lovely settings, and I was practically dying over the descriptions of Tofino. (Sad but true: I took a fantastic road trip to Vancouver Island last summer, but didn’t have quite enough time to get to Tofino… clearly, I need to go back!)

As with the author’s other books, the audiobook is narrated by AJ Bridel, who does a wonderful job. This time, she’s joined by Jack Copland, who does the dialogue for the male characters. I loved listening — the voices, pacing, and delivery are all fantastic.

Obviously, I’m a big fan, and Our Perfect Summer hit all the right notes for me. I’ll eagerly await whatever Carley Fortune writes next. Meanwhile, I highly recommend Our Perfect Summer, and all of her other books too!

For more by Carley Fortune:
Every Summer After
Meet Me at the Lake
This Summer Will Be Different
One Golden Summer

15May2026

Book Review: Dead Weight by Hildur Knútsdóttir

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Dead Weight
Author: Hildur Knútsdóttir
Translated by: Mary Robinette Kowal
Publisher: Tor Nightfire
Publication date: May 26, 2026
Length: 160 pages
Genre: Thriller
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

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.

When she tracks down the cat’s wayward owner, she finds a young woman just as lost and in need of help. Like a gust of cold air in a Reykjavík night, Ásta and her pet slip into Unnur’s life.

It’s unexpected, but welcome. Unnur likes the company, and she begins to rely on Ásta in turn. But like a black cat, trouble has been tailing her new friend, and Unnur is the only one there for Ásta when things take a violent turn.

The two women quickly learn: nothing tests a friendship like blood on your hands.

This new Icelandic thriller opens with a bang, as I shared in a recent First Lines Friday post:

I have thought long and hard about how I would dispose of a dead body. I have carefully weighed options such as digging, sinking, burning, hiding. It’s something I do when I can’t sleep. I used to think that everyone did this, that each person I met had a plan of their own. But the day I casually mentioned mine during lunch at work, a weird and uncomfortable silence settled over the table. So it turns out that most people listen to audio books when they can’t sleep. It’s only me who hides bodies. I find it relaxing.

With an opening like that, it’s clear that at some point in this tense novella, there WILL be a body to deal with. The questions are — whose, and why, and how?

I’ll pause here for a second — I don’t typically share content warnings, but when it comes to abuse, I feel it’s necessary.

Content warning: Domestic/relationship violence, physical and emotional abuse.
Content reassurance: Cats are an important part of the plot… and they are fine! No animal deaths or injury (although they are threatened).

The story is told by Unnar, who is somewhat of an odd duck, and does not necessarily appear to be a reliable narrator. She’s a successful businesswoman who has learned to feign reactions to get what she wants.

I practice the look I’m going to use. Raise my eyes up and to the right. Because I’ve read that people look there when they’re doing creative thinking, but to the left when doing recall.

Meanwhile, she lives alone and conducts a passionate relationship with a married man, whose influencer wife she stalks on Instagram, convinced that he’s being honest when he says that theirs is a loveless marriage and he’s only staying for the sake of the children. Hmm, no married man has ever claimed that before, have they?

Unnar’s predictable life is interrupted when a cat shows up on her doorstep. The cat seems to find a way inside, even when the apartment doors are closed. After a couple of days of visits, Unnar searches Facebook for posts about missing cats, and tracks down the owner, a young woman named Ásta. Ásta is thrilled to be reunited with Io, but has an odd request: Can Unnar keep her for a while? Ásta’s boyfriend really doesn’t like cats, and she doesn’t want to rock the boat. When Unnar comes home again to find that Io has had a kitten, she agrees with Ásta’s proposal that mom and baby kitty will stay until the kitten is old enough to be moved, and they set up a schedule for Ásta to come and visit.

But with each visit, Unnar becomes more and more concerned about Ásta’s well-being. She shows up with bruises, and is clearly scared to upset her boyfriend. When he tracks her to Unnar’s home, violence ensues, and the growing friendship between the two women leads to startling results.

I’d love to be able to say which book (from almost 30 years ago) that this reminded me of… but even to name the book would be to reveal more than I should about the plot! Suffice it to say that things take a turn for the grisly, and Unnar’s detachment and level-headedness become a necessary counterweight to Ásta’s emotions and fragility.

I have mixed feeling about Dead Weight. On the one hand, it’s a highly readable, fast-paced, absorbing story — and given that it’s novella-length, it’s a very quick read. On the other hand… I’m not sure what to make of certain plot elements and characterizations.

Unnar is both incredibly competent and seemingly emotionally stunted. She hints at incidents from her family history, but we never entirely get the full picture. Her romantic relationship shows both her ability to feel and her ability to compartmentalize and shut down the emotions that don’t serve her own narrative; there are clear signs of denial and possibly even more serious mental health concerns that become apparent as she interacts with Ásta.

On a more practical note, Unnar’s narration makes very clear all the ways in which society doesn’t value women’s strength, expects certain types of performance and demeanor, and doesn’t recognize or have sufficient resources when a woman experiences abuse and needs an escape plan. Unnar seems to lack a moral compass, yet even thought she’s practically a stranger to Ásta, she’se the only person in Ásta’s corner when she’s in danger.

I found the ending ambiguous. I’m not sure how to interpret the very final scene. (There are two options — I don’t know which answer I like better, and I’m not sure whether we’re supposed to know or guess).

This book is definitely not a good choice for the squeamish — only read if you can tolerate blood and gore!

Overall, while I still prefer the author’s previous book, The Night Guest, I found Dead Weight an intriguing, all-in-one-sitting read. Check it out for the Icelandic vibe, and if you enjoy ambiguity and unreliable narrators.

14May2026

Book Review: An Ordinary Sort of Evil (A Rip Through Time, #5) by Kelley Armstrong

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: An Ordinary Sort of Evil
Series: A Rip Through Time, #5
Author: Kelley Armstrong
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Publication date: May 19, 2026
Length: 320 pages
Genre: Historical fiction/mystery
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via Netgalley
Rating:

New York Times bestselling author Kelley Armstrong returns to Victorian Scotland in the latest in the genre-blending Rip Through Time series.

Modern-day homicide detective Mallory Mitchell has grown accustomed to life in Victorian Scotland after travelling 150 years into the past into the body of a housemaid. She’s built a new life for herself. Even though she works as an assistant to forensic-science pioneer Dr. Duncan Gray and Detective Hugh McCreadie, she considers them true friends. And with Gray in particular, perhaps, someday, something more.

Late one night, Gray and Mallory are summoned urgently to the home of Lady Adler, a patron of Gray’s undertaking business, and they assume there’s been a death in the household. But instead, they arrive in the midst of a seance with a ghost demanding Gray’s presence. The ghost is Lady Adler’s former maid, who had gone missing but now requests that Gray investigate her murder. Although Gray and Mallory are skeptical, they agree to look into the matter, whether she’s dead or alive. But unsure if there’s been a murder or not, unable to call out the medium as a fraud, and concerned for the fate of the young maid, Gray and Mallory are once again drawn into a mystery much more puzzling–and more dangerous–than it first seems.

An Ordinary Sort of Evil, book #5 in the excellent A Rip Through Time series, delivers the twisty mystery and terrific character moments that we’ve come to expect over the course of these books.

A quick explanation of the story so far: Mallory Mitchell, a Canadian homicide detective from the 21st century, stumbles through a time anomaly while visiting family in Edinburgh and finds her consciousness now inhabiting the body of a 20-year-old housemaid in Victorian Scotland. This housemaid words for Dr. Duncan Gray, an undertaker and scientist who assists the Edinburgh police with unusual cases, which is probably the best of all possible situations for Mallory to have landed in.

As the series progresses, Mallory adapts to her new life, and after sharing the truth about herself with Duncan and a few other close connections, she’s able to apply her detective skills in this new, strange world. Five books into the series, Mallory is established as Duncan’s assistant, although with her modern-day detective and forensic skills, she takes the lead for their investigations. Meanwhile, Mallory and Duncan’s professional closeness and personal friendship seems to be developing into something more, and yet Victorian standards related to class, race, and gender threaten to put an end to any deeper relationship before it can even start.

As An Ordinary Sort of Evil opens, Mallory and Duncan are summoned to a wealthy patron’s home in the middle of the night — not to investigate a murder, but because a ghost summoned during a seance has asked for Duncan by name. Or so the medium says: She claims that a maid working in the patron’s household has contacted her, and wants Duncan to investigate her murder. The problem is, the maid was last seen alive and well, and was believed to have left for new opportunities. Mallory and Duncan scoff at the spiritualism fad, but when a body turns up, they’re immersed once more in an investigation, trying to determine if this is in fact the missing maid, what happened to her, and how someone at the seance could have known of her death.

It’s an ordinary sort of evil. The kind people do every day, and never think twice. It’s just how you get ahead in life.

Once again, Kelley Armstrong skillfully blends an intriguing, unpredictable murder mystery with Mallory’s fish-out-of-water existence in a time not her own, while also keeping the character development moving forward and building upon everything that’s happened so far in the series. That’s a tough order to fill, but this author makes it work, and then some.

One of the delights of these books is seeing Mallory’s adjustment to life in Victorian times. For propriety’s sake, she must pose as Duncan’s subordinate and defer to him — publicly, at least — on matters in which she’s the expert. Behind closed doors, however, she lets loose and allows her outspoken nature to break free, which makes for all sorts of entertainment as we readers get to enjoy her anachronistic sass and snark.

I raise a slow middle finger.

“Too bad I do not know what that means,” he says. “I am certain, though, that it expresses your agreement with my point.”

The mystery in An Ordinary Sort of Evil is highly entertaining and not at all straightforward. I often thought I had a sense of how things might unfold; each time, I was wrong. Following Mallory and Duncan’s investigation is pure delight — I loved seeing how the clues and false leads and various suspects and their actions all come together by the end.

As for the characters and their relationships, things do progress in ways that will make readers of this series very happy, but there’s plenty of room for even more developments… and that’s all I’ll say about that!

A Rip Through Time continues to entertain and offer thrills and mysteries to puzzle through, and I can’t wait for more. Highly recommended — but do start at the beginning of the series! You won’t want to miss a thing.

Next up: A newly announced novella, to be release later this year. I absolutely plan to read it — I’ll need a Mallory fix while waiting for the next book in the series.

Brawlers & Burglars
Release date: December 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.

For more in this series:
A Rip Through Time
The Poisoner’s Ring
Disturbing the Dead
Schemes & Scandals (novella)
Death at a Highland Wedding
Kirkyards & Kindness (novella)

26Apr2026

Book Review: We Burned So Bright by TJ Klune

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

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:

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.

25Apr2026

Book Review: Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Yesteryear
Author: Caro Claire Burke
Publisher: Knopf
Publication date: April 7, 2026
Length: 400 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Library
Rating:

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?

22Apr2026

Book Review: Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Mad Mabel
Author: Sally Hepworth
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Publication date: April 21, 2026
Length: 348 pages
Genre: Thriller
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley (also won a copy in a Goodreads giveaway)
Rating:

From New York Times bestselling author Sally Hepworth comes a twisty tale of justice, redemption, and one irrepressible woman who’s not done breaking the rules just yet.

Meet Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick: eighty-one years old, gloriously grumpy, fiercely independent, and never without a hot cup of tea—or a cutting remark. She minds her own business in her quiet Melbourne suburb, until a neighbor turns up dead and the whispers start flying.

Because Elsie hasn’t always been Elsie. Once upon a headline, she was Mad Mabel Waller—Australia’s youngest convicted murderer. But was she really mad, or just misunderstood? Either way, she’s kept her secret buried for decades.

Enter seven-year-old Persephone, a relentless little chatterbox who has just moved in across the road (armed with stickers, questions, and no sense of personal boundaries); Joan, who appears to have it in for Elsie; and a healthy dose of public interest—the cops are sniffing around, and the media is circling like seagulls at a picnic.

So Mabel does what she’s always done best—she takes matters into her own hands.

Is she a cantankerous old lady with a shady past? A cold-blooded killer with arthritis? Or just someone who’s finally ready to tell her side of the story?

Sharp, surprising, and wickedly funny, this is the unforgettable story of a woman who’s spent a lifetime being underestimated—and is about to prove everyone wrong. Again.

What a dark, twisted delight it is to have a new book by Sally Hepworth to read! To read? Maybe I should say to devour. I could not put this book down once I started.

As Mad Mabel opens, we meet grouchy 81-year-old Elsie, who lives on Kenny Lane, a quiet Melbourne street close enough to a seedier part of town to have to deal with the occasional miscreants who stumble through. Still, it’s mostly a predictable life, as Elsie spends time with her best friend Daphne, feuds with her neighbor over his yappy dog, and exchanges nasty little notes with the nosy woman across the street. When 7-year-old Persephone decides that Elsie is her new best friend, despite Elsie’s clear resistance, the door is opened to chaos.

First, the dog-owner next door dies and Elsie finds the body. Next, the nosy neighbor lets it be known that she knows the truth about Elsie’s past. Soon, the police want to talk to Elsie about the body, and packs of reporters are staking out her house. Elsie, it turns out, is Mad Mabel, the youngest convicted murderer in Australian history. Has Mad Mabel struck again?

When a pair of persistent podcasters show up on her doorstep, Elsie decides to finally tell her story. After all, she’s 81 years old! What does she have to lose?

The story Elsie tells is dark and tragic, as the truth about her family and her alleged crimes is revealed. The stories of the murders she was rumored to be responsible for as well as the murder for which she was convicted are shared over the course of her interviews with the podcasters, which we see doled out in small doses in “then” chapters interspersed throughout the book. The story of Mabel’s childhood and early teens is shocking and heartbreaking, and we’re fully on Mabel’s side long before the more sordid events come to pass.

The flashback chapters are fascinating; it was jarring to be forced to return to the “now” chapters. And yet, Elsie’s “now” story is also terrific, with much more humor as well as some rising tension. I couldn’t help but laugh at Persephone’s persistence and Elsie’s utter inability to drive her away. Elsie reveals a tender, nurturing heart underneath the cranky exterior as it becomes clear that she does, in fact, care about her neighbors, that they care about her, and that’s she’s more than willing to take action to protect those who need it.

Elsie is a fabulous character, and her story held me tight from start to finish. The balance of now and then is masterfully managed, with just enough revealed chapter by chapter to keep readers on the edge of their seats. I had plenty of guesses about where the story was going — and while some may have been in the general ballpark, I was delighted by just how many twists and surprises the book had in store for me.

Mad Mabel ranks right up at the top of my list of favorite Sally Hepworth books, along with The Good Sister and The Things We Keep — although you really can’t go wrong with any of her books. I have just one of her books yet to read, The Secrets of Midwives (2015), and I’m going to make it a priority to finally pick it up this year.

Mad Mabel is a compelling story that will keep you hooked. Highly recommended — don’t miss it!

*Australia edition – which cover do you prefer?*

Interested in this author? Check out my reviews:
The Things We Keep by Sally Hepworth
The Mother’s Promise by Sally Hepworth
The Family Next Door by Sally Hepworth
The Mother-In-Law by Sally Hepworth
The Good Sister by Sally Hepworth
The Younger Wife by Sally Hepworth
The Soulmate by Sally Hepworth
Darling Girls by Sally Hepworth