The Younger Wife is a juicy, fast paced family drama. While marketed as a thriller, I'd call it dramatic suspense. Rachel and Tully are adult sisters whose mother has experienced early and advanced dementia. Their father, Stephen, has a new girlfriend who is younger than they are. 

The story begins with so much tension. At Stephen's wedding to the much younger Heather, the newlyweds go to sign the registry and the celebrant comes out covered in blood asking for a doctor. We then go back one year in time and slowly learn the events that led up to the wedding. 

Hepworth does such a great job with steady reveals and a fast pace, despite the actual plot moving slowly back towards the wedding day. I love how she writes relationships and the character development of the sisters Rachel and Tully was exceptional. If you read The Soulmate and felt it was a mixed bag, I definitely recommend giving Hepworth another try with this one- I think it will be a hit for many. 

The Party by Robyn Harding is a quick reading, propulsive suburban drama. When Hannah turns sixteen, her parents let her have a few friends over for a sleepover. Her mother Kim lays down the law, "no boys, no booze, no drugs," but the girls have other plans in mind. Hannah's father, Jeff, wants to be a cool dad and gives the girls a bottle of sparkling wine in secret. 

A few hours later, Kim and Jeff wake up to screams and their daughter covered in blood. A tragedy has occurred that will reveal so much about their family and others in the community. This is definitely not a thriller, but it will keep you on the edge of your seat as you see how far Kim and Jeff must go to protect their family and how far others will go for justice and revenge. 

The ending felt disappointing to me, I hoped for more resolution or more ambiguity and this landed somewhere in between. If you like suburban drama, this is definitely worth picking up and I almost guarantee you will be done reading it quickly. 

A haunting and beautiful retelling of a classic myth, The Daughters of Ys is the story of two sisters and what happens to them after their mother's sudden death. When their father responds to his grief in socially frowned upon ways, the daughters diverge. One heads away from the castle and into nature, while the other dives into her new found power and the elusive mystery of Ys. 

If you don't know the myth, I suggest reading this one without knowing anything more. That will make it much more surprising and fun. 

Twenty-Seven Minutes is a small town mystery about a deadly car crash on a dangerous bridge ten years ago. Siblings Grant and Phoebe Dean were taking Becca home after a big party when they crashed. Phoebe died, after Grant waited 27 minutes to call for help. 

Now ten years later, a memorial is planned and we read from the perspectives of Grant, Becca, June, and Wyatt- all twenty somethings who grew up in this small town, were around at the time of the accident, and haven't left. This book moves slowly and deliberately with a focus on the inner thoughts of each character and the pieces each of them is missing in the real story of Phoebe's tragic death. 

Nothing really happens in this book until the 80% mark, but when it did start to unfold I was surprised. Looking back, all the pieces were there and I think some readers will predict the ending. I enjoyed this book and recommend it for fans of slow, character driven small town mysteries. 

Thank you to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for an ARC in exchange for my honest review. 

Demon Copperfield is a moving saga of one young man's experience growing up in Lee County, Virginia as the opioid crisis skyrocketed. Told in Demon's unflinchingly honest voice, we journey from stories he heard about his birth and early years to his experience with a mom recovering from addiction, his abysmal journey through the foster care system and DSS, and then to his early years as an adult. 

This novel hits hard, full of a very real emotional toll at every turn. But it is lightened by Demon's voice, which as someone from the South, struck me as sincere and at times humorous. I flew through this must faster than I expected to, feeling completely absorbed by Kingsolver's characters. 

I had no idea where this book was heading in the final quarter, and I was so worried about how it might end. The conclusion was tender, beautiful, and left a window open for hope after a book full of tragedy. I think it cannot go without saying that this book is very close to reality for many people hit hardest by the opioid epidemic. I highly recommend this book and Empire of Pain as a pairing. 

The Darlings is a family drama set on Cape Cod told from the perspective of three generations of women. Andi is a newly single mother, finally divorced after many years in a less than ideal marriage. Andi and her siblings are back on the Cape at the family home, Riptide, for a (mandatory) vacation before the youngest sibling, Sydney, gets married in a few weeks. 

When they all arrive at Riptide, Tish Darling- the 92 year old grandmother, arrives and takes them all by surprise with her presence and a truth the three children had never suspected. 

We journey through the processing of this dramatic secret with chapters from Andi, Tish, and Cora. By the middle of the book, I felt connected to each of them. They are all flawed but relatable women with various degrees of trauma that informed their pivotal life decisions. 

I flew through this book in one weekend on the Cape. I think it's a perfect beach read if you like a family drama, it was a heavy story but not inordinately so and the characters were well developed and believable. My only small gripes were with some of the trite dialogue choices that took me out of the story at some moments. Overall, this was a great book and I'll read from the author again. 

Wastelands: The True Story of Farm Country on Trial was recommended by one of my local libraries. It was described as a nonfiction account that reads like fiction with unbelievable villains and a storyline to rival fiction. That was accurate. 

To get right to the point, this is a story about citizens of Eastern North Carolina that live so close to hog farms that every day is impacted by hog waste in the air. Most of these citizens are poor and Black and hog giant, Smithfield, has made it near impossible to lodge complaints. Through many bellwether trials, a big hearted lawyer does her best to make these people seen and heard. 

As someone who identifies as a North Carolinian, this story really gutted me. I have only visited the Eastern part of the state, but this book truly brought it to life and captured what is so special about any place folks call home. I would encourage anyone to read this and use it to make decisions about voting and contacting your representatives. While this book does have a riveting conclusion, the saga of industrial livestock waste is far from over. 

Cool. Awkward. Black. is a short story collection with a wide range of genres within it. Many of the stories have an element of sci-fi or magical realism, while others are more literary and some that feel like fictionalized memoir. Two of the stories were absolute standouts for me, and unfortunately they were both in the first third of the book.

"Nina Evans, in the Round" and "Earth is Ghetto" were tremendous. In the former, Nina is finishing college and aspires to be in a theater production while her parents greatly discourage her. They want her to focus on her studies that can lead to a lucrative career, not acting which they feel can only bring her a pittance of success as a Black woman in a racist acting world. The later story is a sci-fi about space travel that was both on the nose in it's commentary and hilarious. 

I wish I had resonated more with the later stories in this book, but I'm sure that's more about me and my interests than the writing. The authors in this book are all top notch and I'm so glad this YA compilation features them. I recommend this for nerds of all ages!