Book 8: The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt

My husband’s book club picked this novel, and while I am not invited to be in said book club, I decided to read it anyway so that Mr. K and I could talk about it. Have we talked about it? Not really, but that’s beside the point, right?

The Sisters Brothers, Charlie and Eli, are assassins in the 1850s sent on a mission by a man known only as the Commodore, their mysterious employer. They traverse the Old West, encountering a variety of interesting characters along the way, which takes them all the way to San Francisco and the ongoing gold rush. As they track their quarry, it becomes clear that the brothers have some notoriety. Eli faces some existential questions as his horse Tub sickens during the journey, questioning whether he wants to continue as a hitman after the job is done. Charlie, meanwhile, is convinced it’s the best job he could ever have. Tub is as much a character as the two brothers; I’m not entirely sure if that was the author’s intent. I found myself caring more about what happened to him than several other characters. It was an engaging read apart from one chapter on a different character’s backstory that abruptly switched styles. I do think there are better books about the Old West. (See Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry).

Book 9: A Fate Worse than Hell: American Prisoners of the Civil War by W. Fitzhugh Brundage

Andersonville, in Georgia, was the most notorious POW camp during the Civil War, but Brundage’s meticulously researched book makes it very clear that prisoners held by both the Confederates and the Union suffered mightily. He uses first person accounts, contemporary journalism and photographs/artwork from the 1860s to illustrate the conditions in POW camps and how the prisoners were used as bargaining chips in a much larger conflict. POWs routinely died from starvation due to meager rations and poor nutrition, from exposure to the elements (in some cases, they had no choice but to burrow into the ground for cover), and from dysentery and other gastrointestinal illnesses as there was basically no separation between living areas and “sanitation” areas for bathrooms. Prisoners were forced on long marches between prison locations, railway stations and boat departures as advancing armies approached and necessitated movement away from preestablished camps. Prisoner exchanges, initially occurring with some frequency, wound down as Union generals insisted that Black soldiers captured by the Confederates were indeed citizens of the Union and most be included in exchanges. The Confederates were loath to part with the Black soldiers in their camps; re-enslavement was their preferred treatment. Many of the men who survived the camps remained ill, mentally and physically, until their deaths months or years later. The book is excellent, but a difficult read emotionally. I would recommend some familiarity with the major battles/events during the war as a prerequisite.

Book 10: Departure 37: A Novel by Scott Carson

I don’t recall where the recommendation for this book came from, but I’d like to send it back with my regrets. Part science fiction, part revisionist history, all pretty lame, Departure 37 feels like it was written by a college student using AI. It starts with a promising mystery that immediately turns into the story of a plucky 16 year old girl who is somehow more clever than the entire US government. The story alternates between two timelines that eventually converge in a completely unsurprising way. Why did I read all 400 pages. Just so you won’t have to! Consider this an anti-recommendation.

Book 11: Shattered: A Memoir by Hanif Kureishi

I read Intimacy: A Novel and Midnight All Day: Stories years ago, so the author’s name looked familiar to me when it popped up on Substack. I discovered Kureishi journaling (via dictation) the aftermath of a terrible accident that left him a tetraplegic. It occurred while he was on vacation in Italy - a bout of dizziness, a bad fall, a life completed changed. Shattered is a collection of those early writings. In retrospect, I never should have purchased the book. It just could not compare to reading the posts in real time. They are profane, full of graphic depictions of medical procedures and the indignities one suffers when no longer in control of one’s body. The memoir felt sanitized, perhaps an attempt to appeal to a larger audience. As a regular consumer of medical memoirs, I appreciate his bluntness. I would highly recommend subscribing to his Substack, “The Kureishi Chronicles”. He posts about a variety of things beyond his health, revealing an astute mind trapped inside an as yet unhealed body.

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At least, that is the story that is usually told (see James Ellroy’s The Black Dahlia), and the one glommed onto by the local media. Mann goes back to the beginning to search for the real Elizabeth, describing her childhood, her family and her desire to spread her wings from Massachusetts and seek real agency in post WW2 America. His research is meticulous and informed by interviews with the families of the detectives and witnesses involved in the case. The LAPD’s investigation was bounced around to different departments and police offers, as well as one very unscrupulous “doctor” seeking a higher profile in the world of psychology. Mann does an excellent job laying out the steps taken to try and solve the murder and how the department’s relationship with the press both hindered and helped.

The case is technically still active, so much of the LAPD’s files were off limits. Based on the evidence available, Mann evaluates the known suspects and discards them one by one. He makes a compelling case for one person in particular. I was afraid the book would conclude without his opinion and was relieved when it didn’t. There is a real emotional payoff.

I would definitely recommend this to anyone interested in true crime and this case in particular.

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Book 1: The Martians: The True Story of an Alien Craze that Captured Turn-of-the-Century America by David Baron

I was familiar with the Orson Welles’ radio show broadcast of of HG Wells’ “The War of the Words” which triggered panic among some listeners, so when this book popped up I knew I had to dive in. David Baron chronicles our obsession with our neighbor, whose vibrant red color casts a spell on amateur and professional astronomers alike. From the late 1800s to the early 1900s, one man in particular (Percival Lowell) causes intense speculation about alien life with his insistence that there are canals on Mars. His claims are repeatedly debunked, but the public’s fascination with Mars does not waver. In fact, it drives interest in a relatively new genre - science fiction. This book is particularly timely as Elon Musk [spit] and others investigate whether the planet could provide a second home to humanity. It’s a fun read and the scientific elements are particularly engaging.

Book 2: What Can We Know: A Novel by Ian McEwan

I love a good post-apocalyptic story, and this novel picks up in the United Kingdom in the 2100s after a devastating flood swallowed up a good portion of the world. As always, I am disappointed when the actual apocalypse doesn’t feature very much into the story. A historian is searching for a lost poem written by a famous artist in 2014. It has only been described, never seen, and he is determined to follow the clues left behind to unearth it and win acclaim. The book is a little dry. Writers love writing about writers the same way Hollywood loves movies/tv shows about Hollywood (I’m looking at you, “The Studio”). The second half of the book flips back to 2014 and the woman to whom the poem is dedicated. I enjoyed that section quite a bit more.

Book 3: Killing the Dead: Vampire Epidemics from Mesopotamia to the New World by John Blair

Vampires? Yes please! What I didn’t expect was a full on historical treatise about types of vampires and their strange behaviors. Shroud chewing? Check. Pristine corpses? Check. Blood? Check. Haunting the living with absolutely terrifying hallucinations? Check. The “vampire” we think of today is mostly likely Bram Stoker’s Dracula or Anne Rice’s Lestat, but those characters are very recent inventions (and typically much easier on the eyes). This book was not easy to get through because of the ungodly number of footnotes. I eventually gave up on those and stuck to the narrative. It is extremely interesting to learn what the term “vampire” means in different cultures and how the word itself evolves over time. John Blair presents archeological evidence showing that victims of an attack often desecrated graves with the staking, burning, and chaining of limbs to prevent the vampires from rising again. He generally chalks up this behavior to mass hysteria that really derived from the social upheaval happening in each region at the time.

Book 4: Everything Must Go: The Stories We Tell About the End of the World by Dorian Lynskey

As someone who is relatively obsessed with the idea of an apocalypse (see Book 2 above) I found this book to be incredibly therapeutic. If you suffer from anxiety, please skip it. Dorian Lynskey discusses doomsday scenarios from film and literature starting with the Book of Revelation, and weaves these examples together with more contemporary fears. Each part of the book focuses on a different calamity, including nuclear war, machines (robotics/AI), pandemic and climate change. “War of the Worlds” pops up here too, as does “The Day After Tomorrow”, my favorite cheesy disaster movie. My favorite chapter is on Y2K, which I distinctly recall people freaking out about when I was 17 (dating myself here). Witty and melancholic, this is the best book I’ve read so far.

Book 5: A Fractured Mind: My Life with Multiple Personality Disorder by Robert Oxnam

I read a decent amount of medical memoirs and I always feel vaguely guilty when I don’t care for one. Robert Oxnam suffers from is now called DID - dissociative identity disorder. The book details his struggles with alcoholism and how he discovers he has DID, which was the primary cause of his blackouts and rage. The book is told from the point of view of his 11 different alters, which is more than a little confusing. Over years of treatment, his psychiatrist helps him to integrate to a point where he has only 3 different alters. Not one I would recommend.

Book 6: The School of Night: A Novel by Karl Ove Knausgaard

This is book four of Knausgaard’s “Morning Star” series, translated from the original Norwegian. This installment is about a 1980s photographer, Kristian, who is initially terrible at his chosen profession. His trajectory changes when he meets a random acquaintance named Hans. Kristian eventually finds critical and commercial success, but an incident from his past threatens to ruin everything he’s built. It’s a remix of Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe, so some familiarity with that play is a prerequisite. Personally, I imagine a certain scene from the movie “Tombstone.” Now, the truth: I am basically hate-reading at this point. The author never explains anything and leaves you to chew over what you just consumed with impotent rage. Why do I still torture myself? Because I hope at the end, all will be revealed.

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If I’m not reading non-fiction about WWII and the Holocaust, I’m reading fiction about WWII and the Holocaust. The book is split between two timelines. The first is about a Nazi laboratory headed by Major Lichtblau, and two young Jewish prisoners who are experimented upon (Anton and Shlomo). The Nazis commandeer a castle to set up their experiments, which mostly focus on creating a super soldier with LSD. As the Soviets approach in 1945, Lichtblau manages to escape and travels to the United States. Anton and Shlomo are rescued by the Soviet Army, but their suffering is not over. Their homes and families were utterly destroyed. The creation of the Israeli state in May 1948 eventually brings them some sense of peace.

The second timeline is set in the 1980s. Lichtblau is recruited to the CIA and becomes Mr. Huberman, a hard partyer who works to support the Contras against Nicaraguan government. He uses LSD to train better rebels and finances their operations by shipping cocaine back and forth to the US. Anton and Shlomo are brought together again to assassinate Lichtblau, hired not by the Mossad but a secret Jewish group who leverage their wealth to find revenge.

Anton and Shlomo track Lichtblau/Huberman to the jungles of Honduras and Nicaragua, and a delicious cat and mouse game ensues. Who will emerge victorious?

Highlights:

• The fencing scenes are rendered beautifully. I don’t know much about it and it was interesting to learn. The title of the book comes from the French saying le sentiment du fer, a feel for the iron, that you must have while fencing. The blade should be a part of you.

• Alonge eerily captures the dichotomy of the Nazi scientists; they believe they are conducting vastly important work for the good of their country, with absolutely no regard to the human cost.

Criticisms:

• New characters are introduced in almost every chapter, which makes it difficult to discern who is actually important to the story.

• Everything comes together very neatly at the conclusion. Just a bit too tidy for my liking.

Rating: 4 stars out of 5. Hypnotically written, it felt more like I was watching a movie than reading a book. It only took me a couple of nights to get through.

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Atmosphere is the story of Joan Goodwin, a scientist who has always felt the pull of the stars. An astronomer and professor, she never felt an inclination toward romance, instead focusing on her career. She is thrilled to discover that NASA is now recruiting women in 1980. Her second application is accepted, and she leaves behind her sister Barbara and her beloved niece Frances in order to pursue her dream. She works to balance her family life with astronaut training at Houston’s Johnson Space Center. Unlikely friendships spring up between the ASCANs (astronaut candidates) despite the competition between them to be chosen for upcoming missions. Joan is especially drawn to engineer Vanessa Ford, an enigmatic woman with a quirky smile.

Joan discovers that she is passionate about something other than space as her relationship with Vanessa deepens into a full-fledged romance. They must keep their involvement secret to avoid being labeled “sexually deviant” by NASA. Despite her history of keeping things casual, Vanessa allows herself to be drawn into Joan’s life with Frances when Barbara prioritizes her new marriage with a wealthy man over her own daughter.

The book flips back and forth between “current day” and a future mission in 1984, where Joan is the CAPCOM at Mission Control and Vanessa is onboard the space shuttle Navigator. The two timelines eventually converge with a fast paced ending that left me surprisingly emotional.

Highlights:

• I’ve done a bit of reading on astronauts and the space shuttle program (see below), and Reid does a great job capturing the intensity of their training without getting bogged down in the details.

• While Barbara and Joan’s relationship isn’t the driving force of the novel, it is very fleshed out and satisfyingly drawn.

Criticisms:

• The basic outline of this plot happened on For All Mankind, the Apple+ TV show about the space race between the US and Soviet Union, so it didn’t feel particularly original.

• The scene where Joan realizes she’s a lesbian doesn’t feel organic at all.

Rating: 3 stars out of 5. It was a fun read and a nice break from . . . everything . . . going on in the outside world. I still prefer The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, if I had to pick a favorite by Reid.

Further Reading:

A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts by Andrew Chaikin

Bringing Columbia Home by Michael D. Leinbach and Jonathan H. Ward

Challenger by Adam Higginbotham

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The Antidote is set in a fictional town but bookended by two historical events in 1935: the Black Sunday dust storm and the Republican River flood. Uz, Nebraska is slowly being crushed by the Great Depression and many residents are giving up. One spot of hope is the imminent execution of a tramp for a series of previously unsolved murders. Another is the presence of a prairie witch operating as a “vault”. Anyone can deposit their unwanted memories with her, receive a deposit slip, and obtain them again later if desired. The vault, who calls herself “The Antidote”, takes on the recollections but is ignorant of their content. On the day after the storm, the prairie witch wakes up with her vault emptied. She must now find a way to placate anyone who comes looking for a withdrawal, and retrain herself to take on new memories.

Helping her to do so is an 15 year old orphaned basketball player living with her uncle, a Polish immigrant, on a farm whose land was granted by the US government. Her sport is her only escape from the memories of her murdered mother until she meets the prairie witch and becomes her apprentice.

Her uncle, a lonely bachelor, wishes to connect more deeply with his niece but is unsure how to go about it. His wheat field is the only one to survive the dust storm, and he desperately wonders what he has done to deserve it and if his good fortune will last. The deposit slip he discovers hidden in his home reveals a tragedy he is determined to bring to light.

A photographer sponsored by Roosevelt’s New Deal makes a stop in Uz to document the bucolic life of its inhabitants. Instead, her pawn shop camera creates otherworldly images of what could be the past or the future, including of the Pawnee Indigenous Americans who previously lived on this land. Her photos also cast doubt on the identify of the supposed killer caught by the town sheriff.

Drawn together by circumstance, these four people are determined to show Uz’s residents its town’s true origins. This year’s Remembrance Day celebration should be one for the books. . . .

But at that point I was too perplexed by the chapters from the points of view of a scarecrow and a cat that I had lost my taste for the story. I appreciated the originality of The Antidote but it became a little too mystical for my liking. While it is mostly clear that the vault is meant to represent white Americans’ collective forgetting of stealing Indigenous Americans’ lands, there are climate change warnings and antiracist sentiments mixed in as well. The Antidote tried to do too much and in doing so watered down its meaning.

Highlights:

• Yes, I complained about the cat but I was still a little tickled by it.

• The budding romance between Dell, the basketball player, and her teammate Valeria is lovely.

Criticisms:

• There were multiple chapters set in the Milford Industrial Home for unwed mothers (a real place in the early 20th century) that could have been from a different book altogether.

• The most interesting plot (Dell’s) had the least satisfying ending.

Rating: 1.5 stars out of 5.

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Book 23: Presumed Guilty by Scott Turow

Presumed Guilty is the third book in a series about lawyer Rusty Sabich, who in books one and two was tried for murder of his mistress and then his wife. Now retired and remarried, he seeks a peaceful third act to his life. This simple desire is shattered when his stepson Aaron is accused of murdering his girlfriend Mae. Rusty decides, after an insane amount of pressure, to defend him. The courtroom scenes are dramatic and engrossing. All of Turow’s books hinge on a twist, and this one did not disappoint.

I enjoyed this, but book one, Presumed Innocent, is one of my all time favorites. If you want to see it on screen, please watch the movie with Harrison Ford, not the trashy David E. Kelley miniseries.

Rating: 3 stars out of 5.

Book 24: Story of a Murder by Hallie Rubenhold

I was about a quarter of the way through Story of a Murder when I realized I had already learned about the case via Erik Larson’s Thunderstruck. A serial con man named Dr. Crippen murders his wife, entertainer Belle Elmore, and he and his mistress abscond from London on a ship to Nova Scotia. Despite their disguises, the fugitives are identified on board and the Canadian police are notified from the ship via the newly invented wireless telegraph. Story of a Murder focuses more on Dr. Crippen and Ms. Elmore’s backgrounds, the early stages of their relationship and the London investigation of the murder. Thunderstruck weaves the story of Guglielmo Marconi (the inventor) and Crippen together to create a much more satisfying narrative. Larson also captures the historical context better than Rubenhold.

So . . . just go read Thunderstruck instead. That isn’t entirely fair, I know.

Rating: 2 stars out of 5. I probably would have liked this more if the material was new to me.

Book 25: Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake

Entangled Life is about fungi and the symbiotic relationship they share with humans.

Honestly, that’s about all I remember. This book just went in one ear and out the other.

Rating: 1.5 stars out of 5. The New York Times convinced me I would swoon over Entangled Life, but I was bored.

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Note: Stephen Graham Jones mentioned The Lesser Dead in his end notes for The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, so I immediately added it to my reading list. 2025 has a strong vampire theme so far.

The Lesser Dead is set (mostly) in 1978 New York City and narrated by Joey Peacock, a 14 year old turned into a vampire forty years prior by Margaret, his family’s Irish maid. Joey framed her for stealing a piece of jewelry from his mother. He joins her group (Anne Rice would say “coven”) living in the abandoned subway tunnels and learns how to control his new powers. The subway is a character all its own. Buehlman does an excellent job of capturing the sights and smells. These vampires rarely kill their victims to avoid unwanted scrutiny from the police. Instead, they “charm” their intended into allowing the vampires to feed. Joey visits one family repeatedly, drinking from father, mother and son in turn.

One evening he sees what appear to be child vampires on the subway, luring a person away. He reports the disturbing scene back to Margaret who insists on setting up a search party. They eventually locate the children and determine they are vampires, possibly of an entirely different breed. The six children feed constantly and violently, torturing and murdering their prey. Margaret’s group concludes the children are too much of a liability and must be killed, setting up an epic confrontation. But . . . it takes a little too long to get there; instead of creating suspense, the repeated clashes feel repetitive. After these detours, we get the battle royale we deserve.

A warning: CSA is referenced on multiple occasions.

Highlights:

• Joey charms a bouncer to get into Studio 54. (Anyone remember that movie with Ryan Phillipe? Good times).

Criticisms:

• I desperately wanted more background on the children (there is some).

• Joey being 14 made some of the sexuality in the book disturbing. 18 or even 16 would have unnerved me a lot less. Yes, he’s really 64-ish by the time the meat of the story takes place, but I was bothered. It didn’t feel essential to the plot.

Rating: 2.5 stars out of 5. I wanted to love it but the momentum really slows in the second half.

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Tom Zeller Jr. suffers from cluster headaches which inspired him to write The Headache. Approximately 15% of people suffer from migraines, and approximately less than 1% suffer from cluster headaches. Overall, headache disorders are estimated to impact up to 3.1 billion people. Where are the research dollars for these disorders that not only cause debilitating pain but deeply impact a person’s ability to work, socialize and live their life?

To date, no one really knows what causes a headache of any kind, let alone the most disabling conditions noted above. I assumed they were caused by the dilation of blood vessels, but there is no definitive proof. It’s likely that there is a vascular component, but the meninges, brain chemicals and different neuropeptides are also part of the story. Some scientists posit the theory that headaches don’t even start in the brain and are instead initiated by some external stimulus.

Many neurologists are dissuaded from specializing in headache disorders as it isn’t “sexy” enough. A small amount of money is spent on headache research, especially by the NIH. The grantmaking process is not straightforward, but many well-intentioned researchers believe that some grants are intentionally quashed, despite meeting the necessary benchmarks. Interestingly, many promising avenues for treatment are discovered through R&D at pharmaceutical firms instead of public funding.

The available treatment options for migraine and cluster headaches are poor. A drug can work for 50% of people half the time, and that is considered a success. Many people turn to alternative methods of treatment such as psilocybin, LSD and dietary modifications. Many people find that drugs lose their efficacy over time and they have to try a new regimen, which may or may not be covered by insurance. I cannot imagine what it would be like to go months or years without an attack, only to be suddenly stricken again.

Highlights:

• I most enjoyed the personal stories of headache sufferers. It was appalling to see how long it took some of them to even arrive at a diagnosis.

• The camps supporting different theories of what causes headaches were surprisingly snippy with each other. It was fascinating and at times rather amusing.

Criticisms:

• I swear I ended up with a headache each time I sat down to read this, so it took me longer than expected to finish. Clearly psychosomatic.

• Zeller got a little lost in the technical weeds once the discussion turned to neuropeptides.

Rating: 3.5 stars out of 5. An excellent and well-balanced discussion, made especially vivid by the author's personal experience with cluster headaches.

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Mick Conefrey draws on a wealth of documentation from the archives of the Royal Geographical Society and the Alpine Club along with personnel correspondence of the climbers to describe the first successful summiting of Everest. Ed Hillary and Tenzing Norgay are the recognizable names, but there are many more people involved in making the expedition a success. Eric Shipton leads a 1951 reconnaissance trip and expects to receive the nod for the summit attempt, but he is pushed aside in favor of Colonel John Hunt, a British Army officer who served in India and has more Himalayan experience. Hillary is one of several team members unhappy with the change, but Hunt’s leadership and organizational abilities quickly wins over the skeptics.

It takes several weeks for the team to acclimatize and set up the various camps. They require a staggering amount of gear and food. Their experiments with supplemental oxygen add even more baggage to the load. Hunt finds it difficult to hire all the porters they require and they often only stay for a few days at a time. Tenzing is mainly responsible for the 20 climbing Sherpas who are a more dedicated unit. They move pounds upon pounds of equipment on behalf of the climbers so that the men designated for the summit attempt can periodically rest. Who that may be changes from day to day, as the men are struck down with various maladies including frostbite, altitude sickness and dysentery.

Tom Bourdillon and Charles Evans make the first summit push, but turn back due to issues with the closed circuit oxygen sets. Hillary and Tenzing succeed on May 29, 1953. The announcement that the team reached the summit coincides with the day of Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation, leading some people to believe the Everest climb is a hoax. (Fake news!)

Speculation immediately ignites - who really made it first, Tenzing or Hillary? The press adds to the clamor, demanding to know. The men hold a united front for some time, saying it does not matter because neither could have done it without the other. Eventually, Tenzing admits Hillary was first and Hillary confirms it.

Conefrey does an excellent job of methodically laying out the expedition and who is responsible for what. It is a little dry, but the moments of excitement are vast. He bemoans how commercial the climbing of Everest is now, and how the number of permits issued impacts both safety and the environment.

Highlights:

• I was shocked at how quickly the accomplishment sank out of public view. Conefrey posited that the decline of the British Empire after World War II was partially to blame.

• I enjoyed hearing what happened to the climbers after the expedition ended. More than a couple met a tragic end in another mountain climb.

Criticisms:

• The sherpas’ viewpoints are missing apart from Tenzing. This is all too common.

• The description of Tenzing and Hillary reaching the summit was strangely anticlimactic. A little more verve would have been nice (although it was an accurate reflection of how exhausted they were).

Rating: 3 stars out of 5. I remain amazed that anyone managed to climb Everest.

Further Reading:

• Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer

• Left for Dead by Beck Weathers

• Buried in the Sky by Peter Zuckerman and Amanda Padoan

• Hidden Mountains by Michael Wejchert

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Beach Read is an entertaining novel narrated by January, a romance author who is desperate to finish her next book. She finds inspiration in an unexpected person, a former classmate named Gus turned “serious” author who just happens to be staying next door. They make a deal: she will write literary fiction, and he will write a romance to fulfill their looming publishing deadlines. Their coupling is a slow burn but the fits and starts feel natural, especially for two people who once related to each other in a college setting. January is also reckoning with another relationship in her life; her recently deceased father willed her the beach house where she is working. Gus is contending with family issues of his own, which impact his ability to be optimistic about their future. Can there be a happily ever after?

This doesn’t feature too prominently, but the topic of January’s novel makes me snicker. It’s about a traveling circus. And clowns. Yes, clowns. It could have been about literally anything, and that’s what Henry chose. Perhaps she was inspired by the late, great TV show “Carnivale” on HBO?

Romance novels are pretty far outside my comfort zone, but this was very pleasant to read while I was traveling via an overnight flight. That’s not criticism! It kept my attention and wasn’t about death.

Highlights:

• The banter between Gus and January is on point, especially when they are making signs to share through the windows of their houses in a form of primitive texting. I definitely laughed out loud at a couple of their exchanges.

• The descriptions of Lake Michigan are delightful. I want to visit.

Criticisms:

• It verges on steamy. Verges. Never quite gets there.

• I would have loved a chapter or ten from Gus’ point of view.

Rating:

2 stars out of 5. I enjoyed it while reading but it didn’t stay with me.

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Nigiri comes with rice!

My brain refuses to retain this information.

Other things I cannot remember for the life of me:

• what the double bonus means in basketball

• how sports betting works

• the name of this man, who has a rich and varied acting career

Can anyone else relate?

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Calling this book a lesbian vampire romance isn’t wrong. It’s a succinct description. Is it sexy? Absolutely. The sapphic elements are lush and sensual, not sensationalized. Is it about vampires? Yes. But it’s also about what we hunger for, whether it’s blood, love, sex or independence.

The novel covers three different timelines, each featuring a different woman: María in Spain in the 1530s, Charlotte in England in the 1820s and Alice in Boston in 2019. Their perspectives are intermingled throughout the book. They are all chafing against their place in society and the expectations placed upon them - to be seen and not heard, to make a good match with a man, to be the perfect daughter.

Becoming vampires grants them the freedom they so intensely desire. It comes with a price that’s far beyond what they anticipate. The body stays as it was at the moment of death, but as the decades and centuries pass, the mind rots. Relationships end, in most cases violently. Revenge is its own form of communication.

Schwab invents some of her own vampire lore. It’s mostly clever. However, it’s awfully convenient for the plot when vampires can move around during the day.

There’s some gore. I’d rate it as mild.

It takes a while for the disparate threads to weave together. The payoff is worth it. The ending left me reeling in a thrilling way.

Highlights:

• Schwab describes locations so richly, especially the different cities in Europe. Have you ever traveled anywhere because you were inspired by a book? (I swear I didn’t go to Scotland just because of Outlander!)

• The tender and tentative way the women begin to explore their sexuality feels achingly real.

• World War I and II are the background for a few chapters, ideal for a history nerd like me.

Criticisms:

• María has red hair, and Schwab relied pretty heavily on a Thesaurus to keep generating new descriptions of it.

• Alice’s flashbacks to her sister weren’t a value add for me until close to the end. I mostly skimmed those sections.

Rating:

• Five stars out of five. I loved it.

• The best fiction I’ve read so far in 2025 (1st out of 18 novels). I haven’t started a new book yet because I’m still basking in my enjoyment.

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The why

I’ve been doing mini book reviews on Instagram for a while now and decided Substack would provide a good opportunity for me to make those more comprehensive. I want to start a conversation about the books you hold near and dear to your heart. Please don’t feel like you can only comment if you’ve read the same books as me. Did my post remind you of something? Please share.

Let’s be honest - I also have a lot of opinions about a lot of things, so books won’t be my only topic.

The when

I read about a book about every week to 10 days on average. If I’m stuck in something super long, I’ll plan to post an update halfway though. Random musings may come at any time!

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