By Kate Alice Marshall
​** Publication Date 29 July 2025**
4 stars
Mass shootings have become all too common in the US. Seems like so many try to solve their problems with guns. In this novel, a survivor of a mass shooting is front and center. Reminding us that even though physical wounds can heal, psychological wounds will remain.


Mercy feels responsible for her sister Jamie’s college fund being depleted. After all, if she hadn’t spent months in a bed recovering from a shooting, the family would still have money for Jamie’s college. But if Mercy hadn’t saved Jamie from the shooting, maybe it wouldn’t have mattered.


Still, Mercy wants Jamie to be able to attend her dream school, Stanford. So much so that when she is approached about participating in a survivor-style reality series, she jumps right in. Because everyone of the participants who does survive the challenge will receive $100,000. 


Damien Dare is the brainchild behind this teenage survival program. He is known for believing that certain events cause us to reach our crossroads and pick a path. He also thinks that our society has become soft and that we’re not going to survive any sort of apocalyptical event. His choices for the challenge are people that have experienced some sort of traumatic event Clearly Mercy has. 


When the contestants arrive at the planned location, something seems off. No one is there except the contestants. No cameramen. No producers or production assistants. Just eight young adults looking for a challenge. Then the gates close and they are trapped. The title says it all, they won’t all survive. 


Well planned and thought out, this novel tackles two elements of our society that aren’t necessarily something of which we should be proud. Reality TV and gun violence. The gun violence is not spoken of very much, as it’s only Mercy’s trauma that falls under it. Our fixation with so-called ‘reality’ TV is more the center of this story. 


The characters are somewhat well-rounded. While we get some backstory about each character, the focus is on Mercy. The tension is at a good level to be suspenseful. I did not solve the mystery right away, though I did get a gut feeling about who might be the culprit. I found this to be a fast-paced novel that I didn’t want to put down. 


It was good! Definitely would recommend to YA or others.

By Esther Chehebar
** Publication Date 22 July 2025 **
4 stars

I’m an only child, so having sisters always sounds both amazing and terrifying to me. As does being raised in a fairly strict religious community. 


Fortune Cohen is one of three girls in her family. At 21 she is considered the steady sister. Her older sister Nina, 26, is a walking time bomb, always arguing with everyone. The baby Lucy, 18 and still in high school, is the beautiful one. Fortune is the one who is dependable. The perfect middle child. 


The family lives in the Syrian neighborhood in Brooklyn. Specifically Syrian Jews. There is everything you could want in the neighborhood. Most girls are born and die in the same small section of the borough. There are those who fight the tradition, as in Nina, and those who embrace it, as in Fortune. Fortune’s wedding is coming up to her expected match, Saul. 


Only lately Fortune is questioning her choice to marry Saul. Lucy is sneaking around with a man 12 years her senior. Nina has taken a job at a record label defying the norm. The paths were planned for these three young women, but they are challenging the expectations of their strict community.


This was a great book written with so much insight into the lives of women in this religious community. The expectations and rules that everyone must follow as Sephardic Jews. It was so interesting to learn about this sector of society that flocks to specific neighborhoods in parts of the U.S. Most immigrated during the regime changes in Syria in the middle of the 20th century. Some well before that.


It’s interesting to read about a group of people who have in many ways not assimilated into US culture, but have been able to maintain their traditions in spite of living in the US. I did enjoy it. Fortune is such a ‘good girl’ that you almost want her to take a chance. Lucy is playing with fire with this much older man, but you want things to work out. And Nina, I think mostly I just wanted Nina to finally be happy.


I enjoyed this one. Kind of a slow read, and sometimes hard to grasp the language and customs, but overall it was good.

By Jamie Day
** Publication Date 15 July 2025 **
​4 stars


Nothing sounds better than a home by the lake. The sound of the lapping water. Being able to fish for your dinner. Making s’mores over a fire. Unless that lake brings terror, as so many do.


Lake Timmeny has been home to Julia’s family for years. Along with her camp crew of David and Erika, Julia has many fond memories of the lake. Even as adults they still plan two weeks at the lake, all three families. But this year something is very different. 


David has done the unthinkable and built a three story glass monstrosity that blocks the views from both Julia’s and Erika’s homes. Julia is irate, but Erika less so. Erika claims she is practicing mindfulness, and really, what can be done now. Julia is still seeing red. Her perfect vacation ruined by David’s thoughtlessness. Add in his way too young and rather risqué girlfriend, and Julia isn’t sure she’ll get through this one.


Izzy has come along with David’s family as a nanny to his two young children. Izzy lied her way into the job, but she had reasons for wanting to be at Lake Timmeny this summer. Reasons she can’t share with anyone, especially her mother. She took the job without meeting David, but once in the car for the drive, he gives off creepy vibes. 


The lake is home to two previous disappearances. One in the 1960’s and the other back in the 1990’s. Neither girl was ever found. Now there are three young women at the lake that could be the next prey for the lake. After all, this is the sixty year anniversary of the first disappearance and the 30th for the second. As the story goes, the lake takes them.


Well written and suspenseful mystery for a great summer read. Izzy and Julia are full of secrets and suspicions. We see the story unfold from their eyes. It is easy to point the finger at just about anyone, because it seems that all have motives. I loved that this book was written from a young woman’s and a middle-aged woman’s point of view. Two clearly different viewpoints, yet their feelings merge often during the tale. 


Some of the characters give off a very bad vibe, but can just as easily turn it around and then seem great. It’s the mark of a good mystery when you struggle to define any one person as the culprit.


Great beach read. Great anytime read. 

By Lillie Vale
** Publication Date 15 July 2025 **
4 stars


Secret crushes. Secret wishing wells. Inexplicable magic. Prior’s End is full of all these things. 


Seven years ago Nova’s dad went out into the forest looking for his best friend. Neither he nor his best friend ever returned. Nova still ventures into the forest to look for her dad but never gets very far.


To get even with a psychic that has befriended her mother, Nova goes to her tent to confront her. Only Nova gets caught in the tent when her classmate Kiara comes in to ask a question. Nova thinks she’s being funny when she pretends to be Aurora and gives her a phony reading. The next day terrible things start to happen to Kiara. 


One of Kiara’s best friends asks for Nova’s help in finding the secret wishing well to try to turn around Kiara’s luck. Nova agrees, thinking it will be just the two of them. Nova and her very secret crush. When she shows up to the forest, not only is she going hiking with Kiara, but also Kiara’s posse of exes. 


Nova knows her only way out of this is to help Kiara turn around the hex, and maybe in the process she can find what happened to her father. But this won’t be some simple hike and camp in the forest. These six are going to encounter things they never imagined. Hopefully they will all make it out.


Incredible story about trusting your gut and your family. Loved this story with all its weirdness and mythology. The group of friends is very diverse, both racially and sexually. There is some violence and gore, but mostly superficial. It is definitely a tad scary. But all in a really good way.


Lillie Vale has done an amazing job of bringing together the typical ghost story but added a dimension of humanity to it. Nova is just a teenager who still struggles with having lost her dad. Kiara has always been the one who had it all. It makes for a wonderful thread running through the darkness and mirth. 

By Bruce Nash
** Publication Date 1 July 2025 **
3 stars
​

It must take a lot of effort to inhabit the mind of an elderly woman suffering from some level of dementia. I can’t imagine how Bruce Nash did this. It’s done well.


Rose is a grandmother and mother who lives in a residential facility for the elderly. When her friend ends up laying in the parking lot, Rose, in her addled mind, suspects that something is amiss in the home. Rose likes to wander the halls to find out what’s happening in the home. She has a piece of silk tied to her door handle to find her way back. Which she always seems to do.


It is comical what Rose labels things. The Angry Nurse. The Scare Manager. The nice boy who mops the floors. And the assistant comes from every country in the world and maybe some that don’t exist. There is humor in this novel. Also, sadness. Rose is quite a force for someone struggling with dementia. She’s still got enough of her wits around her to know that what’s happening in the home doesn’t add up.


I’m a huge fan of Fredrik Backman novels. This novel was compared to one of Backman’s novels, but it doesn’t quite measure up. It is funny at times, and similar in its darker humor, especially the words that Rose uses. Eventually, though, I just didn’t find it to be cute or funny, but sad. Overall, it felt like the book would have been better served as a short story or novella. It’s good, it’s just a little too slow.


Probably not one I’d highly recommend, depending on the audience.