A Book A Week

My introduction to Ann Patchett came a few years ago with Tom Lake. That novel contemplated the lives we live, the lives we imagine, and the choices that separate the two. I was captivated by the subtle power of Patchett's writing and knew it wouldn't be long before I returned to her work. With Whistler, her latest novel, Patchett once again turns her attention to memory and the ways our lives are shaped by seemingly fleeting moments. Through the story of two people looking back on the brief period when their paths crossed, she explores how a single encounter can ripple across a lifetime.

Daphne and her husband, Jonathan, are visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art when Jonathan casually remarks that they're being followed. Daphne is skeptical at first. Why would anyone be following them? Jonathan is a retired hospital administrator, and she's a writing teacher at a private girls' school. But as she notices an elderly man tracking their—or rather, her—every move, she realizes Jonathan is right. Someone is following her.

Daphne has no interest in confronting the stranger, but Jonathan does. He approaches the man and returns a few moments later with him in tow. The stranger is Eddie Triplet, Daphne's former stepfather. She hasn't seen him in forty-five years.

Suddenly, memories come flooding back. Eddie was the second of the three men her mother married. A book editor by trade, he encouraged Daphne's love of reading and writing. The two shared a frightening experience that bound them together, and then, one day, he was simply gone.

Now, after nearly half a century apart, Daphne and Eddie have a chance to reconnect. As they do, Daphne begins to uncover the truth about the man who was briefly her father and the events that altered the course of both their lives.

With Whistler, Ann Patchett writes a novel about memory—how the things we experience as children may not be the way they actually unfolded, and how those perceptions can shape the course of our lives. We can never fully know why others make the choices they do, even when those choices have a profound impact on us. Patchett explores this idea through the relationship between Eddie and Daphne, revealing how their differing versions of the past shaped who they became.

Like her previous novel, Whistler is driven less by plot than by the relationships between its characters. I'll admit that its contemplative nature occasionally felt a bit slow for my tastes, but Patchett's sharp dialogue, warmth, and quiet humor made every page rewarding

What impressed me most was the way the novel gradually revealed its intentions. It wasn't until the final moments, when an ending emerged that felt so perfectly full circle for both Eddie and Daphne, that I fully appreciated the precision of what Patchett had been building all along. Emotionally and thematically, the ending hit every note it needed to. Patchett has an extraordinary ability to uncover the significance hidden within ordinary lives, and that gift is on full display in Whistler.

For more information, visit the author's website, Amazon, and Goodreads. 

(2026, 50)

Lisa Jewell's novels are the literary equivalent of quicksand. You step in intending to read a chapter or two, and suddenly it's midnight, you're waist-deep in the story, and every attempt to stop reading only pulls you in further. So when her latest novel, It Could Have Been Her, was announced, it immediately shot to the top of my TBR pile. Thankfully, her publisher provided me with a copy, and I'm happy to report that it's another addictive thriller from an author who seems incapable of writing anything less than a compelling page-turner.

Jane Trevally lives a quiet life. Divorced, with her children grown and gone, she spends her days rattling around the decaying family home in the countryside. One afternoon, while out walking her dogs, she comes across a small white terrier wandering alone on the trail. Jane recognizes the dog immediately. It belongs to a teenage girl who has been renting a room on a neighboring property. The dog is there. The girl is not.

By the time the teenager is officially reported missing, Jane finds herself saddled with a dog she neither wanted nor has room for. Fortunately, the animal's registration records point her toward its owner, and Jane reluctantly agrees to make the trip to London to return it.

The journey leads her to Thornwood, a crumbling house tucked away in the deepest corners of Hampstead. The moment Jane lays eyes on it, she's overcome with a mixture of fear and recognition.

She's been here before.

Twenty-five years ago, Jane narrowly escaped a deeply unsettling encounter at Thornwood and never expected to see it again. The man who answers the door is not the man she remembers, but he's evasive and claims to know nothing about the missing girl. Jane returns the dog anyway, relieved to put both Thornwood and its memories behind her once and for all.

Then, just as she's about to leave, Jane catches sight of a haunted-looking woman through one of the house's windows.

In that moment, she realizes her connection to Thornwood isn't over. The house sits at the center of two mysteries: the disappearance of the teenage girl and the events that drove Jane from this place twenty-five years ago. To solve one, she may finally have to confront the other.

It Could Have Been Her begins as a seemingly straightforward missing-person case. Jane is the sort of woman who prefers not to make waves, content to keep her head down and avoid stepping on anyone's toes. But lurking beneath that quiet exterior is a restless desire for purpose, a sense that there must be something more waiting for her in the years ahead.

As Jane digs deeper and Lisa Jewell widens the lens to include other perspectives, the true nature of the story slowly reveals itself. And what a story it is. What starts as a simple missing-person case soon spirals into something far stranger and more twisted than I ever expected.

Seriously, this thing goes to some dark, twisted, deeply unsettling places, and I was completely riveted by every new revelation. In the hands of another author, the sheer number of secrets and escalating twists could easily become too much. But Jewell has a remarkable ability to balance the increasingly outrageous developments with quieter character moments that keep everything grounded. No matter how wild things get, the story's emotional core remains believable.

The result is another compulsively readable page-turner that I struggled to put down. Sure, the ending wasn't quite as explosive as I expected, but it still brought the story to a satisfying conclusion. Once again, Jewell reminded me why she's become one of my automatic-read authors. By the final pages, I was sinking deeper and deeper into the mystery, desperate to uncover the truth and powerless to stop turning the pages.

For more information, visit the author's website, Amazon, and Goodreads. 

(2026, 49)

First comes love.

Luc and Oliver have come a long way in their relationship. When we first met them in Boyfriend Material, the pair were fake-dating in an effort to save Luc's job. Spoiler alert: they actually fell in love. Sure, Luc had to reconcile with his son-of-a-rock-star, caution-to-the-wind tendencies, while Oliver worked through the emotional baggage left behind by years of overbearing parents. But together, they made it work.

Then comes marriage.

When we last saw the couple in Husband Material, they were grappling with what comes next. They'd already gotten their happily-ever-after, so marriage seemed like the logical next step. Of course, nothing is ever straightforward with these two. The novel ended on a note that divided readers, even if it felt like a natural progression for Luc and Oliver's relationship.

Then comes...

What exactly comes after that?

With Father Material, Alexis Hall returns to the beloved couple once more, and as the title not-so-subtly suggests, Luc and Oliver are beginning to think about expanding their family. It's a question that starts creeping into many people's lives in their thirties. Friends get married. Babies arrive. Suddenly, the idea of children of your own no longer feels hypothetical.

For Luc and Oliver, however, the prospect of parenthood feels more than a little daunting. A child is a huge responsibility, and neither is entirely convinced they're ready for that step. So they start smaller. Much smaller. They bring home a puppy. After all, if they can keep a dog alive, happy, and reasonably well-adjusted, how much harder can a child really be?

I can't say enough great things about this series. Seriously, for someone who generally shies away from romance as a genre, I've become completely enamored with the characters that Alexis Hall has created. Not just Luc and Oliver, but the entire supporting cast as well. They all feel authentically human, navigating the emotional highs and lows of life in a way that feels far more grounded than what I've typically encountered in the genre.

Father Material brings their story to a natural and satisfying conclusion. Luc and Oliver still face challenges, and Hall continues to balance those conflicts with the sharp humor and quick wit that have become hallmarks of the series. But what struck me most was realizing just how much these characters have grown over the course of three books. The people we meet in Boyfriend Material are not the same people we leave here, and watching that evolution unfold has been a real joy.

Hall once again balances humor with genuine emotional insight, creating a story that is funny, heartfelt, and full of compassion. The epilogue landed exactly the way I wanted it to, offering one last visit with characters I've come to care about immensely. By the final page, I wasn't ready to say goodbye, which is perhaps the highest compliment I can give a series.

For more information, visit the author's website, Amazon, and Goodreads. 

(2026, 47)

I love it when an author can transport you to a specific place and time. That's exactly what Caitlin Mullen accomplished with her debut novel, Please See Us. Set in a struggling Atlantic City, the book captured a seaside town filled with the faded promise of glamour and reinvention, making it the backdrop for a dark, slow-burning suspense story that completely pulled me in. By the time I finished, I was left with that rare post-book euphoria that only comes from discovering an author whose voice resonates with you. Naturally, I was eager to see what Mullen would do next.

That opportunity has finally arrived with Heather, her sophomore novel. This time, she trades the neon glow and crumbling casinos of Atlantic City for the dense wilderness of the New Jersey Pine Barrens. The setting may be different, but Mullen's gift for atmosphere remains intact. From the very first pages, she creates a sense of place so vivid that it feels as though you're wandering through the story yourself, and she wraps that atmosphere around another suspenseful tale that hooked me from the start.

It’s 1994, and sixteen-year-old Annabelle has just discovered that her twin sister, Sabrina, is having an affair with an older man. At first, she’s stunned. The sisters have always been inseparable, sharing secrets and navigating adolescence side by side. How could Sabrina keep something this significant from her?

But shock soon gives way to curiosity. Who is this mysterious man? What does he want with Sabrina? And why has her sister become so secretive? As Annabelle begins searching for answers, the unthinkable happens. Both girls disappear.

Years later, in the same New Jersey town, newly appointed police chief Callie Hauser is determined to prove herself. She’s spent her entire career trying to step out from under the shadow of her family’s reputation—particularly her mother's—and is eager to lead the department into a new era. But when an arrest unexpectedly reopens questions surrounding the decades-old disappearance of the twins, Callie finds herself pulled into a mystery many people would rather leave buried. The deeper she digs, the more unsettling the answers become. Long-held assumptions begin to crumble, loyalties are tested, and Callie is forced to confront uncomfortable questions about the town she serves and the people she trusts.

Caitlin Mullen's gift for pairing atmospheric settings with multigenerational mystery is on full display in Heather. She transports readers to this isolated corner of the New Jersey Pine Barrens, where the dense woods become a character in their own right. Hidden among the trees are secrets that span generations, connecting women whose lives are separated by decades yet bound together in unexpected ways.

Mullen alternates between past and present timelines, carefully peeling back layers of the mystery and revealing the truth piece by piece. The novel reminded me a bit of Liz Moore's The God of the Woods. Like that book, Heather is dark, meticulously plotted, and interested in much more than simply solving a crime. It explores family, womanhood, inherited trauma, and the ways in which the past continues to shape the present long after we think we've left it behind. While I ultimately connected a bit more with Mullen's debut, Heather is nevertheless a compelling and richly written mystery. It's the kind of novel that slowly tightens its grip until you're fully immersed in its world, eager to uncover each secret hidden among the trees.

For more information, visit the author's website, Amazon, and Goodreads. 

(2026, 46)

Kathryn Stockett made waves when her debut novel, The Help, was released in 2009. The book became a publishing phenomenon, spending more than 100 weeks on bestseller lists before being adapted into an acclaimed film. But as the dust settled, a broader conversation emerged about the novel's perspective and Stockett's place in telling a story centered on the experiences of Black women during the Civil Rights era. Looking back on my own reading of the novel, I can see that I was largely swept up in its page-turning narrative and didn't spend much time considering those questions myself.

Controversy aside, The Help was undeniably a cultural force. That's why I was surprised when the years passed without another novel from Stockett. One year became five, then ten, and eventually fifteen. Now, after one of the longest gaps between a bestselling debut and a sophomore novel that I can recall, Stockett has returned with The Calamity Club. This time, she largely sidesteps the racial themes that defined the conversation around her first book, instead turning her attention to a girls' orphanage struggling to survive on the eve of the Great Depression.

The novel alternates between two primary perspectives. The first belongs to eleven-year-old Meg, one of the "big girls" at the Lafayette County Orphan Asylum. Meg is smart—perhaps a little too smart for her own good. She knows that older girls rarely get adopted, and she suspects that's why Garnett Pittman, the woman who runs the orphanage, seems to take particular pleasure in making her life miserable. According to Pittman, there’s no future for a girl like Meg. Instead, she spends her days confined to a sweltering, mold-infested office, counting down the years until she's old enough to leave and take a job at the local cannery.