By Allison Brennan
** Publication Date 23 June 2026 **
​4 stars




Farming and ranching life is not for the faint of heart. It’s a 24/7 job from sunup to sundown. It is a lot of work and can be a lot of heartache, but also joy.


Ellen McKenna lost her husband less than a year ago. It was an accident. An accident that left her with four children and a large farm to manage. She’s been doing great, however, one thing after another seems to keep going wrong. Minor farm breakdowns and large storms are keeping everyone busy.


They have a neighbor who wants their land. He’s been pressing hard to get it, but Ellen is determined to keep the family dream alive. Then a robbery and attempted murder occurs on an adjacent farm. The farm owner is barely alive, another massive storm is headed their way, and life is going to turn for the worst in unimaginable ways.


This was a super quick read for me. It was so engaging. Ellen and the rest of the McKenna clan are hard-working, likable people. To see them struggling as they are means wanting to see how all this is going to turn out. Kept me turning pages to see what was going to happen next! 


It’’s not really a cozy mystery, nor a thriller, but it’s definitely suspenseful. I really enjoyed this novel and would recommend it. 

Assassins Anonymous #3
By Rob Hart
** Publication Date 16 June 2026 **
​4 stars




Things change for most people when they have children. For this group it’s another layer of having to keep their noses clean. After all, Lucia is someone they all love and care about, even if she is Valencia’s daughter.


Mark, Pale Horse, is a former hit man for the Agency. A super-secret government agency that employs people to take care of problems. In Mark’s case, he was expected to make those problems go away permanently. Astrid was also employed by the Agency. They are both “retired” now and attend the weekly meetings of Assassins Anonymous, a ten step program for former paid killers.


When Valencia gets called away to California unexpectedly, to deal with some family issues, the group steps up to take care of Lucia. It will only be a few days, and really what can happen in a few days? Mark, Booker, and Astrid head to Target to load up on toddler food and clothing and go back to Mark’s apartment. Mark gets a call when they arrive back there and has to leave abruptly. Then Lucia gets sick, running a fever. Booker and Astrid aren’t quite sure what to do, so they run Lucia over to the nearest urgent care. 


But things go sideways when they can’t come up with Lucia’s last name, and then make the mistake of saying they were caring for her while a friend is away. They have to plow there way out of there, which puts them on NYPD’s radar. Things continue to go downhill from there, involving the Russian mafia, a diner owner/fixer, and Mark’s ex and son. 


As with the last two books, this is a truly wild series. Each one can standalone, but it’s so much better to read all of them. Mark is a very flawed but stand-up guy trying to find his way after retirement. Astrid, Booker, Valencia, and the others are also broken people, restarting their lives the best way they know how. 


Rob Hart is a master of keeping the book rolling along. Each chapter keeping you engaged to get to the next. Yes, these books contain some blood and gore, and some heavy subjects, but they’re good. They are page turners. Quick to read.


Can’t wait for the next one in the series!

By Jess Kidd
** Publication Date 16 June 2026 **
​4 stars




I wholeheartedly enjoyed the latest installment of the Nora Breen series. Former nun turned detective is back with yet another case from her boarding house at Gull’s Nest on the seaside in England. While this is the second in the series, there is no reason it cannot be read as a standalone. Enough background knowledge is given to keep one understanding Nora.


Nora is joined by her friend and true police detective, Rideout, and his trusty constable, Griggs.
Nora is summoned to the Spirit Lounge to assist a medium who has met her untimely end during a seance. Nora, having been a nurse, is the closest available medical person to help the remaining seance sitters. 


Over the course of time, another seance sitter will also be found dead, which now makes this a serial killer investigation, assuming that the murders are linked. The town gossip says that the medium raised a malevolent spirit bent on getting revenge. Nora doesn’t buy this for a moment. She is bound and determined to solve this crime spree before her dear friend Rideout, one of the seance sitters, becomes the next victim.


Witty, charming, and definitely mysterious, this book is fun as can be. Nora is the least likely detective ever, but she’s so good at it. We get a little sniff of romance for Nora in this one. There is also more focus on the second World War’s victims and survivors. This is historical fiction and mystery wrapped up in one. Jess Kidd does a great job of setting us in the 1940s in a small English town. Nora overstepping her expected role. Nora is a character for someone who once was a nun. 


If you enjoyed number one, you will love number two. If you want, you can just read this one. But Nora is such fun, I think you should start with Murder at Gull’s Nest and then move on to this. Fairly fast read.  

By Melissa Albert
** Publication Date 2 June 2026 **
​5 stars


As kids we love make-believe. Pretending to live out in the forest with no parental supervision. Fighting off dragons. Can you even imagine, though, if you really were a feral child? Raising yourself in a home where occasionally the parental units might remember they had children? Welcome to The Children.


Ennis and Guinevere are the children of once promising actor Llewellyn and children’s author Edith Sharpe. Edith was a child herself when she married Llewellyn and had Ennis and Guin. They lived an artist’s itinerant lifestyle, first in New York City and later in Italy. Then one day they are on a plane across the Atlantic, in the car driving for hours, to a strange land with a magical house. 


It is here that the children will become feral creatures. With an orchard and strange artistic types coming and going from the giant home. It is here that their mother will finally become the author she wants to be, writing fantastic novels about The Ninth City. 


Guinevere is all grown now, the keeper of her mother’s legacy, and recent ‘author’ of her memoir. She travels to book events and panels sharing what it was like to be one of two primary characters in her mother’s books. Guin is almost rootless. Engaged, somewhat employed, but emotionally walled off from the rest of the world. Because of Ennis. Ennis who left Guin to fend for herself. Ennis who has been missing from Guin’s life for more than a decade. Guin is emotionally rootless.


I feel like I’ve been so blessed to read so many great novels lately. This novel is captivating, flipping back and forth between adult Guin and child Guin. Sharing her life story past and present with us. The strange story of growing up with neglectful parentage. Such a beautifully written novel of loss and love and extreme sibling codependence. There is nothing to not love about this book. In ways it is mysterious and fantastical. Sometimes sad. But a captivating novel worth reading.


Definitely recommend. 

By Natalie Adler
* Publication Date 26 May 2026**
​4 stars


The late 70s / early 80s were an interesting time to be a young adult. I was a teenager at the time, but I still remember a lot of the pop culture that is contained in this novel. I also remember the beginning of the AIDS epidemic.


Renata is a 29 year old lesbian living with her gay best friend in an apartment in the East Village, New York City. Renata grew up in this part of town, moving all around it with her mother, Ruthie, who was a junkie. Renata is lucky to have a close circle of friends. These friends are who hold Renata close when necessary and pick her up when she falls. 


Mark has AIDS. It’s still not really called that, but young men, and now women are dropping like flies from it. Renata knows far too many of them. And Renata still sees many of them around the neighborhood, because Renata has the gift of being able to see the departed, or what we would call ghosts. So when Mark passes and he never comes back to see Renata, she is grieving not only his loss and friendship, but also his ghost. Renata can’t move on. Can’t let Mark go. It’s slowly eating her up inside.


Meanwhile their old neighbor François has decided to visit regularly. François also died from AIDS-related complications. Now he visits Renata and wails endlessly. When Renata thinks she can’t take it anymore, a flier appears under her door offering to rid the space of negative energy. Only once Renata has rid the space of François, she finds herself feeling guilty. So it becomes her mission to free the energy of the deceased, along with her wacky group of friends.


There is so much about this novel to love. The passionate friendships that Renata is so lucky to have. The times before which were still a tad loose from the 1970s and hadn’t yet become the buttoned-up 1980s. The Rolling Stones were in their prime. The East Village hadn’t quite become gentrified yet. There is also a lot of sadness in this novel. The wards filled with dying young men. The fears of being near anyone with AIDS because no one was quite sure how communicable the virus was.


Yet, it is a good novel. A good way to look back at that time and realize how far we’ve come, and how far we actually have to go. It’s a lesson in love no matter what. A lesson in grief and how avoiding it doesn’t really let it go away.