What can I say about this stunning novel except that it will move you.
It is a story of life, love and war, family and community, marriage, parenthood, independence and dependence, skepticism and mysticism, hope, lies, and truth. It will bring you through lofty highs and the lowest lows as it navigates the intersecting stories of two families drawn together by a moment of celebration, exuberation, and desperation.
It will pull you back into 20th century America with an empathetic eye for those who lived through some of the hardest years of our history.
It will squeeze your heart as you somehow absorb currents of feeling flowing through these characters in such a real and surprising way.
Buckeye is a triumph, and I could not recommend it more highly. What a wonderful, wonderful book.
Note:: I received an early copy of this book from the publisher through netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
Details
Title:: Buckeye Author:: Patrick Ryan Genre:: Historical Fiction Publisher:: Random House Length::464 pages Audio Length::15h Audiobook Narrator:: TBA Published:: September 2nd, 2025 The Litertarian Rating:: 5-Stars
The Hounding is a new novel by Xenobe Purvis full of mysticism, skepticism, and general uproar over rumor and gossip that will have consequences for an entire village.
There’s something strange about the five Mansfield sisters. The village has been plagued by a strange pack of dogs that never seem to be around at the same time as the sisters. When someone claims one afternoon to have seen them transform from girls into dogs, it sets off a chain of events that shrouds the whole village in low key hysteria.
The message this novel shares with The Crucible is an important one, even in our ‘modern’ times. Spreading lies and half truths or things you don’t know for sure has consequences and will have outcomes you won’t see coming.
I loved the telling of this tale. The writing itself was beautiful to read. It was an atmospheric almost fairy tale style read that I found immersive and interesting. It is technically historical fiction being based sometime in the 18th century, but it reads so smoothly I’m convinced readers of all genres will enjoy it.
It’s a lingering sort of tale – the type of story that will live in your mind far longer than the time it takes to read. The kind that makes me think I’ll get something new out of it no matter how many times I read it. Brilliant.
Note:: I received an early copy of this book from the publisher through netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
Details
Title:: The Hounding Author:: Xenobe Purvis Genre:: Historical Fiction Publisher:: Henry Holt & Co. Length::240 pages Audio Length::6h 24m Audiobook Narrator:: Olivia Vinall Published:: August 5th, 2025 The Litertarian Rating:: 4-Stars
I was this today years old when I learned what auto-fiction is. A fictional story using elements from the author’s real life. To be honest, I didn’t even catch that’s what this was until I saw every other review mentioning it. Apparently the ending was an actual break in the fourth wall! Now that I am aware of the format I am….confused?
I liked the concept of this novel: a bit of a mid-life crisis brought on by an ex-husband writing her into his most recent book painted in a bad light. I enjoyed a lot of the storytelling, even forgave some of the more…egregious aspects. Perhaps it is the intention of a novel like this to leave the reader in the uncomfortable space of questioning what exactly about the pages they just read is real and what is devised for literary intrigue. I hope to god the cat is in the later category.
Hmm. I’m flummoxed.
I think you might enjoy this book is you are an enthusiast of strange and unique writing. If you like the complicated, thought provoking, uncomfortable sort of book. But also, maybe, like me, you will rather think of it as a metaphor for some of life’s more devastating emotional blows and the way they affect us.
Note:: I received an early copy of this book from the publisher through netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
Details
Title:: If You Love It, Let It Kill You Author:: Hannah Pittard Genre:: Auto-Fiction Publisher:: Henry Holt & Co. Length::304 pages Audio Length::7h 36m Audiobook Narrator:: Allyson Ryan Published:: July 15th, 2025 The Litertarian Rating:: 3.5-Stars
Most people do not live their lives according to their own values. They say they do, they say they support certain things or care about them, but they never actually adjust their behavior. It’s not easy to retain your convictions. To honor your beliefs. It takes courage, and sometimes radical and uncomfortable change. For Arthur Candlewick, it took a traumatic brain injury. A hard reset. And it changed everything.
This novel is an interesting study of relationships, moral philosophy, materialism vs. charity, familial responsibility, and this crazy thing we call life in general.
Each of the characters is complex and in some ways, contradictory, even to themselves. In other ways, they were steady and immovable, usually to their own detriment.
Arthur’s change in personality after his accident broke their family apart. His wife Yara could not reconcile his new self with the man she married and for their two children, teenagers at the time, the fracture was a formative experience.
What is there to say about a novel like this one, except to read it for yourself? It isn’t necessarily an easy read, though it’s not heavy or difficult quite either. The thing it will demand of you is your full attention. It will make you think, and to face your own thinking. Emil (the son) is one of the most thoughtful and considered characters I may have ever read. Sometimes things are black and white, but both the black and the white have larger implications, and it is always useful to explore them.
You will take out of this book what you put into it, and I absolutely love that.
Note:: I received an early copy of this book from the publisher through netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
Details
Title:: The Greatest Possible Good Author:: Ben Brooks Genre:: General/Literary Fiction Publisher:: Simon & Schuster Length::336 pages Published:: July 15th, 2025 The Litertarian Rating:: 5-Stars
A tree falls in the woods, and all three of your adult children are standing beneath it. You dive forward to remove one from danger, but the tree never falls, and the child you went to save was decidedly not the one nearest you. There is no hiding what happened. Nothing at all, and yet something. Something none of them can unsee, unknow, and Patrick cannot undo.
Meet the Fisher’s. It’s not often the whole family gets back together in the same place at the same time now that they’re all grown, but it is Vivienne’s seventieth birthday, and her three daughters and their family’s have come to stay for a few days at a unique glass house for the celebration. Once everyone arrives, they gather for pictures, which is how the sisters ended up in the path of the falling tree. After, from their father’s reaction and because of their sudden forced proximity, old resentments start to boil back to the surface, and secrets being held close.
I absolutely loved Fran’s first novel Amazing Grace Adams. I loved everything about that story, and I can see after reading this second release that she is very interested in family dynamics and the human response to trauma (some big, some small). The thing I admired most about The Accidental Favorite is the exploration of how the most subtle moments in a family, or any relationship really, can have ripple effects that resound through personalities and time.
The novel itself is quite subtle. The metaphor of the glass house is so interesting, and big things do happen throughout the novel, but the meaning largely hides between the lines.
I am such a fan of Littlewood’s writing and I can’t wait to see what she comes up with next!
Note:: I received an early copy of this book from the publisher through netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
Details
Title:: The Accidental Favorite Author:: Fran Littlewood Genre:: Contemporary Fiction Publisher:: Henry Holt & Co. Length::320 pages Audio Length::10h 45m Audiobook Narrator:: Fiona Button Published:: June 24th, 2025 The Litertarian Rating:: 4-Stars
A novel to move you. Sybil’s life is as complex and nuanced as the next, and as someone who corresponds best through the written word, we get glimpses into her past, her present, her constancy, and her deepest secrets. The Correspondent is a novel that will make you laugh, cry, smile, and wince as Sybil Van Antwerp bares her soul into the pages.
An epistolary novel is one told entirely through correspondence. There is no narrator or outside voice – we are presented with letters and emails that cross Sybil’s desk, both incoming and outgoing, and from these we discern her life.
What do we know? She has a complicated relationship with her family, her previous career, a young acquaintance, a new medical diagnosis, and secrets from her past she is both keeping and some she is too afraid to discover. She is older, her children are grown, and she is coming to terms with her life, such as she has lived it to this point.
This is a beautiful novel. It unfolds so elegantly with each new letter. Sybil is at times laughable stodgy in her set ways, but also touching and vulnerable in others. Her story teaches us that it’s never too late to put yourself out there, to right previous wrongs, or to learn something new about yourself.
I love Sybil, and by the end of her story, I had tears streaming down my face. This is a story I won’t soon forget, and I hope you read it too.
Note:: I received an early copy of this book from the publisher through netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
Details
Title:: The Correspondent Author:: Virginia Evans Genre:: Epistolary Fiction Publisher:: Crown Length::304 pages Audio Length::10h Audiobook Narrator:: TBA Published:: April 29th, 2025 The Litertarian Rating:: 5-Stars
Cause of death, age of death. Would you want to know?
For some on one fateful domestic flight between Hobart and Sydney the prediction from one of the other passengers was a comfort. Long, healthy, full lives. For others, their predictions were not as lucky.
“I expect intimate partner homicide. Age twenty-five,” she tells a newlywed. “I expect drowning. Age seven.” “I expect self-harm.” “Assault.” How might you react hearing someone say this to you completely unprompted? A woman walked down the aisle of the airplane, pointing one at a time, cursing each person as she went with the knowledge of their manor and age of inevitable death.
Then again, how seriously could they take it? No one there knew about her mother’s past as a psychic. They didn’t know her from Eve. Just an eccentric older lady having some kind of episode, so far as they knew.
Until the first death happened, exactly how she predicted.
I am a great fan of Liane Moriarty. Her novels explore topics that are often uncomfortable, and always intriguing. This novel explored a great many avenues of thought to consider and leaves quite a bit of room for interpretation.
In her typical form, the points of view are plentiful. Between chapters of how ‘the death lady‘ arrived at that fateful moment are sprinkled narratives of various passengers from the flight in the months afterward. Some of them brush it off. Some of them can’t do much but wait for something they cannot control like an accident or a scary diagnosis. Still others are as proactive as they can be. The mother of the son destined to drown gets him into more swimming lessons than is probably healthy. Loved ones rally, social media pages are created, and time passes…more predictions come true.
If the topic of psychics, mediums, and the everyday supernatural appeal to you in any way, and even if they don’t particularly, this novel is a wonderful read. A lot is left up to your own interpretation of what may have happened that day on the plane. For that reason alone, this would make an excellent book club read. I also found the real human stories to be engrossing and sometimes quite powerful. Another hit from Down Under!
I have more to say about this book, but it contains spoilers. Click at your own risk 🙂
Spoilers/Discussion
My favorite part of the novel is how, even when all is said and done, we still don’t have any incontrovertible truth that what Cherry experiences on that plane isn’t a divine intervention or prediction. A true supernatural gift.
It was not lost on me that Cherry’s mother’s gifts were not developed until after she lost the love of her life. And now that Cherry has lost hers, this happens. It makes you wonder…and I love that.
Either way, it is hard to deny her mother’s own predictions for her. The little girl, the castle, the notebooks? Those are not random things that would apply to just anyone, as Cherry commonly believes about her mother’s readings. I believe she had the gift. Some kind of gift (maybe not all the time). But it is clear that Cherry (and her mathematical brain) is a die-hard skeptic to the point she denies her own possible inclination toward it.
Details
Title:: Here One Moment Author:: Liane Moriarty Genre:: Contemporary Fiction Publisher:: Crown Length::512 pages Audio Length::15h 53m Audiobook Narrator:: Caroline Lee & Geraldine Hakewill Audiobook Publisher:: Random House Audio Published:: September 10th, 2025 The Litertarian Rating:: 4-Stars
I am perpetually entranced by the writing of Sally Rooney. Her prose is simple and sad, poetic and deeply honest. Each of her novels feels like a gift: an intimate experience of authentic humanity that almost feel as if they could be occurring within your own mind.
I read Beautiful World, Where Are You? three times back-to-back and cover-to-cover. I read Normal People in one sitting and am unsure if I’ll ever be brave enough to read it again. I have yet to experience Conversations with Friends, but I trust it will be moving and insightful and devastating in a way I could never anticipate.
Intermezzo (in chess):: An unexpected move that is played in the middle of a combination. Causes severe threat and forces an immediate response, designed to frustrate the opponent. (at least this is what the ol’ google tells me)
In the case of the narrative, the Intermezzo is the death of Peter and Ivan’s father, before the story begins. Peter is a human rights lawyer in his thirties and Ivan, a young twenties chess savant who peaked early and is on the decline in the Ireland chess circuit. The novel delves into the sometimes-volatile relationship between the two of them as well as the romantic connections they become entangled in all while they’re processing the grief of their father’s death.
But describing the plot isn’t going to convince you to read this book. What happens in a Sally Rooney book is the least important thing about it, in my opinion. It is the writing itself that is valuable. The unique perspective she pulls you into – forcing you deep inside the head of the character, understanding what is happening, and at the same time examining every line of thought that occurs to them in real time. She takes her time in some moments, luxuriating in her careful command of language, and in others skims over the things that don’t matter, pulling out only a word or two here and there to convey the passage of time, or events occurring. It is the most fascinating thing, and it reminds me of my favorite writer of all time: Hemingway.
A few years ago I was in a phase of absolutely inhaling books for a minute there. Most of what I read then is now a blur, but one book among them stands out. I still think of it often: Migrations, by Charlotte McConaghy. When I saw she has a new release, I jumped at the chance to read it early, and I’m so grateful to have received an early copy through the publisher and netgalley. If there is one thing I know to be true about her works, it’s that you can count on her for an interesting, intelligent work that includes fascinating scientific facts that are woven into the story so well they become unforgettable. Oh yeah, and the stories are compelling as hell, too.
In Wild Dark Shore the body of a woman washes up on a tiny island called Shearwater far off the southern coast of Australia – closest to Antartica. There she is rescued by the only living souls on the island: a father and his three children. The only other occupants of the island are an abandoned research facility, and a seed bank the rising seas are threatening to drown.
This novel is shrouded in secrecy. The family has secrets, the woman has secrets, and the eerie island itself has secrets. As the woman, Rowan, gets to know the family, the lines of secrecy start to blur, and everything she thought she knew, even the deepest truths of her own character, turn out to be malleable.
I think the closest description I can come up with to describe the genre of this book is a literary thriller. It is moody and dark and mysterious and there is always a sense of impending doom. The island itself is out to get them in a way, between the freezing temperatures, the violent seas, the frequent storms, and the rocky terrain, anything at all could happen. And it has. The island is known for its ghosts, and Rowan is there to find one of them.
The characterization of this novel is wonderful. Each of them is interesting in their own right, and whatever it is that makes them most unique adds something to the story. Things happen the way they do because of the personalities on the island. I like that we have a middle-aged woman who’s been tossed around by the world a little bit, alone, but strong, as the focus of the narrative. It’s an important perspective and I feel like I don’t see it enough.
The writing, too, is gorgeous. Bleak and beautiful. It was something that stood out to me about Migrations as well, her style is very world-weary, but there is always that little spark of hope to keep you going.
The version I read was the audiobook, and the voice actors did a wonderful job. There were multiple voices for the multiple POVs, and each of them seemed to match the characters very well.
Like Migrations, I think Wild Dark Shore is a book that is going to stick with me for a long time. It is haunting and lovely and sometimes disturbing but ultimately about survival and the lengths we’ll go to accomplish it for ourselves and the ones we love.
Note:: I received an early copy of this book from the publisher through netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
Details
Title:: Wild Dark Shore Author:: Charlotte McConaghy Genre:: Literary Thriller Publisher:: Flatiron Books Length::320 pages Audio Length::9h 35m Audiobook Narrator:: Cooper Mortlock, Katherine Littrell, Saskia Maarleveld, Steve West Audiobook Publisher:: Macmillan Audio Published:: March 4th, 2025 The Litertarian Rating:: 5-Stars
This book is my cup of tea. Like drinking a strong cup of tea at the exact right temperature, really. It warmed me up from the inside and put a contented smile on my face while I sat back in pure comfort to read. Bliss.
I’ll Come to You is a true family saga, though perhaps a little short for such a label. This novel encapsulates the space of a year for one extended family, beginning with the news of a new baby near Christmas in the mid-nineties. We hear from the mother, the father, grandparents, and siblings as they come at the recent events through their own lenses. Each of them has a history and their own troubles.
The vignettes that make up the book were each a captivating and intriguing piece of the story. Most are only a snapshot in time, perhaps lasting a few hours, but with thoughts and implications that are outside of time, existing mostly within the character’s personal history and reflections upon their own wisdom.
It is one deeply human moment after another, and I’m sad it wasn’t longer. I hope you’ll read it. I know this won’t be the last time I do.
Note:: I received an audiobook copy of this book through the publisher and netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Details
Title:: I’ll Come to You Author:: Rebecca Kauffman Genre:: Literary Fiction Publisher:: Counterpoint LLC Length::224 pages Audio Length::6h 12m Audiobook Narrator:: Elisabeth Rodgers Audiobook Publisher:: Recorded Books Published:: January 7th, 2025 The Litertarian Rating:: 5-Stars
