Five mysteries that skewer the worlds of wellness and self-help

Asia Mackay is the author of A Serial Killer's Guide to Marriage and two additional novels published in the UK. After a career in television in China, she returned to London, where she worked for Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman on their round-the-world motorbike documentaries. She started writing her debut novel, Killing It, on maternity leave—it was the runner-up in Richard and Judy's Search for a Bestseller competition and runner-up and exceptionally recognized for the Comedy Women In Print Prize.

Mackay's latest novel is Self-Help for Serial Killers.

At CrimeReads the author tagged five "excellent books [that] focus on what happens when the wellness world and the criminal world collide." One title on the list:

Lawrence Block, Hit Man

John Keller is an ordinary New York City resident who does crosswords, watches television, and visits a therapist when he has a mid-career crisis. He is polite, deeply introspective, and entirely relatable—except for the fact his chosen profession is contract murder.

Hit Man is a linked collection of stories with Keller at the center of each and we’re given such a complete picture of him we start to not only understand but forgive him for his violent occupation. Keller might be an incredibly efficient hitman, but he also collects stamps, frets over the price of earplugs, and frequently turns to his handlers and life coaches to reconcile his mundane personality with his grim profession. He frequently daydreams about retiring to a peaceful life in the countryside.

Block brilliantly pulls off making a ruthless assassin thoroughly charming and deeply sympathetic.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven notable dark academia thrillers

Ande Pliego began writing stories when she discovered she could actually wield her overactive imagination for good. A lover of stories with teeth, she writes books involving mind games, dark humor, general murder and mayhem, and most importantly, finding the hope in the dark.

When not reading or writing, she can usually be found dabbling in art, scheming up her next trip, or making constant expeditions to the library. Born in Florida, raised in France, and having left footprints all over the globe, Pliego is settled in the Pacific Northwest, USA, with her craftsman husband and little son.

She is the bestselling author of You Are Fatally Invited and The Library After Dark.

At Oprah Daily the author tagged seven top dark academia thrillers. One title on the list:

The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill

Strikingly creative and delightfully crafted, The Woman in the Library follows four strangers—an aspiring writer, a psychology student, a law student, and a mysterious established author—whose peaceful moment in the Boston Public Library comes to a screeching (screaming?) halt when they hear the shriek of a woman soon found dead. Their friendship blossoms in the unlikeliest of circumstances, and they band together to use their individual skills and studies to uncover—or conceal—which of them is the killer.

Even more delightful than this cat-and-mouse setup is the meta-narrative of the novel. Between each chapter, we have a one-sided correspondence from a reader named Leo to Hannah, an Australian author writing the story of the woman killed in the library we are in the process of reading. Leo’s letters grow increasingly sinister as he argues with her decisions for the characters and offers, shall we say, alarmingly specific advice on writing crime scenes. Whip-smart, tongue-in-cheek, and full of bookish debates, Gentill’s novel is an academia-infused murder mystery with a delicious twist.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Coffee with a Canine: Sulari Gentill & Rowly, Alfie, Miss Higgins and Pig.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six historical fiction titles set in the Middle East

Katie Moench is a librarian, runner, and lover of baked goods. A school librarian in the Upper Midwest, Moench lives with her husband and dog and spends her free time drinking coffee, trying new recipes, and adding to her TBR list.

At Book Riot she tagged six historical fiction novels set in the Middle East, including:

The Blood of Flowers by Anita Amirrezvani

In seventeenth-century Isfahan, Persia, a young woman’s future is shattered when her father dies without leaving her with a dowry. With a lack of marriage prospects, she must move in with her uncle, a rug designer for the Shah’s court, and work in his household as a servant. Told with an emotional, first-person narrative style, The Blood of Flowers follows her growth as a gifted rug maker and the choices she must make in order to achieve autonomy in her life.

Read about the other novels on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six crime fiction books set in Florida

Erica Wright's novel Hollow Bones, a contemporary retelling of Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, came out in 2024. "Daniela Petrova called it a "twisty and engrossing thriller." Snake was released as part of Bloomsbury's Object Lessons series. Her mystery Famous in Cedarville received a starred review from Publishers Weekly and was called "a clever little whodunnit" in The New York Times Book Review. She is the author of five other books, including the poetry collections Instructions for Killing the Jackal and All the Bayou Stories End with Drowned. Her poems have appeared in Blackbird, Denver Quarterly, New Orleans Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. Wright was the senior poetry editor at Guernica Magazine for more than a decade and currently teaches at Bellevue University. Her latest novel is The Museum of Unusual Occurrence.

[My Book, The Movie: Famous in Cedarville; The Page 99 Test: Snake; Q&A with Erica Wright]

At Novel Suspects Wright tagged some her favorite crime fiction books set in Florida, including:

Silent City by Alex Segura

Fans of down-on-their-luck PIs can do no better than Pete Fernandez. Silent City, the first in Alex Segura’s critically acclaimed series, finds Pete in pretty dire straights, mostly of his own creation. A missing person’s case pulls him back from the brink of self-destruction only to be thrown into the path of a vicious killer. One of the delights of this series is watching Pete evolve from an unlikely PI into a bonafide hero. Also a delight is the way Segura leans into the noir vibes of Miami.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six suspense novels about art, museums, and forgers

Called “an author to watch” by Booklist, Carol Snow has written numerous novels for teens and adults. A former contributor to Salon’s “Mothers Who Think” column, her writing has also appeared in The Los Angeles Review of Books and Park City Magazine.

Snow holds a BA in psychology from Brown University and a MAT in English from Boston College. A native of New Jersey, she now splits her time between Cape Cod and Southern California.

[My Book, The Movie: Just Like Me, Only Better; My Book, The Movie: What Came First; The Page 69 Test: Bubble World]

Snow's new novel is The Girl on the Beach.

At CrimeReads the author tagged six "suspenseful reads about art and artists worth checking out." One title on the list:

Katie Lattari, Dark Things I Adore

If you’ve ever fantasized about spending the summer at a picture-perfect art retreat, complete with towering pines, a glistening lake, and, best of all, not just “a room of your own” but your own log cabin, this one’s for you…assuming your fantasy also includes simmering class tensions, mental illness, and a young woman who may or may not have been murdered.

At the book’s center, Max Durant, a professor and renowned painter whose best work is behind him, acts as mentor—and aspiring lover—to Audra Colfax, an MFA student as inscrutable as she is gifted. When Audra takes Max to her house in the wilds of Maine, prey becomes predator as Audra’s motivations, revealed in a split timeline, become clear. Lattari uses Audra’s MFA thesis as a narrative device while exploring themes of control, authenticity, and exploitation among artists.

Read about the other entries on the list at CrimeReads.

--Marshal Zeringue

Fifty of the greatest summer titles of all time

The staff at Literary Hib tagged fifty of the greatest summer novels of all time, including:

Alex Garland, The Beach

Nothing says summer like a nice beach, and there are few literary beaches beachier than the titular beach from The Beach. Beach. Alex Garland’s 1996 debut—now rightly considered one of Gen X’s Mount Rushmore novels—is the darkly hallucinogenic tale of a restless English backpacker’s search for a fabled island paradise off the coast of Thailand, and the nightmarish unraveling of the utopian community he discovers therein.

I, like thousands upon thousands of similarly gormless Banana Pancake Trail-ers, read The Beach while backpacking around Southeast Asia. It was the summer of 2008, and I was young and wild and free… sigh… Anyway, The Beach holds a special place in my heart, as does the flawed-but-fun 2000 movie adaption. I heartily recommend both.

Read about the other novels on the list at Lit Hub.

The Beach appears on Jo Morey's list of eight thrillers with beach & jungle settings, Ivy Pochoda's lit of five books that dive into the drug-fueled darkness of the club scene, Andrea Bartz's list of seven psychological thrillers for White Lotus fans, Lucy Clarke's top ten list of books about castaways, Hephzibah Anderson's list of eleven previously hip books that have not aged well, S J watson's list of six novels that could only take place at the seashore, Cat Barton's top five list of books on Southeast Asian travel literature, Kate Kellaway's ten best list of fictional holidays, Eleanor Muffitt top 12 list of books that make you want to pack your bags and trot the globe, Anna Wilson's top ten list of books set on the seaside, the Guardian editors' list of the 50 best summer reads ever, John Mullan's list of ten of the best swimming scenes in literature, and Sloane Crosley's list of five depressing beach reads.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six top horror retellings of well-known stories

Lyndsie Manusos’s fiction has appeared in PANK, SmokeLong Quarterly, and other publications. She holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has worked in web production and content management. When she’s not nesting among her books and rough drafts, she’s chasing the baby while the dog watches in confused amusement. She lives with her family in a suburb of Indianapolis.

At Book Riot she tagged six horror retellings of well-known stories, including:

The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle
Retelling of H.P. Lovecraft’s notoriously racist story “The Horror at Red Hook.”

Victor LaValle is one of the best writers of the century, hands down. His works have been adapted to the screen. His novel, The Devil in Silver, will be airing as a miniseries on AMC later this year.

This year marks the ten-year anniversary of the novella, The Ballad of Black Tom, a retelling of H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Horror at Red Hook.” Lovecraft’s tales were often racist, reflecting Lovecraft’s own prejudices, but LaValle takes Lovecraft’s story and molds into this stunning, dark, magical tale. It follows Charles Thomas Tester, a hustler who tries to keep a roof over his father’s head and food on the table. Charles knows how powerful magic can be, and when he’s sent to deliver a magical tome to a sorceress, a journey full of sorcery and things better left buried begins.

This novella has sorcery and LaValle’s signature wit and commentary. You don’t want to miss this.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Ballad of Black Tom is among Erica Ezeifedi's six books for fans of the movie Sinners, Brittany K. Allen's ten top books for fans of Sinners, Chase Dearinger's seven horror titles where the setting is a monster, and Colleen Kinder's ten titles about chance encounters with strangers.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top thrillers where writers are at the center of the action

Jamie Day, author of the new Beach Thriller, lives in one of those picture-perfect, coastal New England towns you see in the movies. And just like the movies, Day has two children and an adorable dog to fawn over. When not writing or reading, Day enjoys yoga, the ocean, cooking, and long walks on the beach with the dog, or the kids, or sometimes both.

At CrimeReads the author tagged "five books I’d recommend that give an inside look at the life (and grief) of a wordsmith," including:

The Writing Retreat — Julia Bartz

In this gripping psychological thriller, Bartz takes the cutthroat business of writing the best book quite literally when ambition turns to murder. Alex, the writer taking her last career gasp, can’t pass up the invitation to the isolated Blackbriar estate, the home of her idol, controversial feminist horror writer Roza Vallo. But when the competition is announced and the best book written in a month is guaranteed a life-changing contract, the typically collegial and supportive writing community turns inward, revealing our darker human nature.

Read about the other novels on the list at CrimeReads.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top soccer titles

One title on Tertulia's list of ten soccer books to read during World Cup 2026:

The History of the World in 12 Soccer Matches
Stefano Bizzotto

An Italian broadcaster and veteran World Cup commentator explores moments when soccer collided with war, revolution, dictatorship, and social change. From the Christmas Truce of World War I to matches shadowed by coups and national upheaval, these twelve games reveal how events on the pitch often echo far beyond it.

Read about the other titles on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nonfiction books for Caribbean Heritage Month

At Book Riot Kendra Winchester tagged three top nonfiction books for Caribbean Heritage Month, including:

Brother, I’m Dying by Edwidge Danticat

Edwidge Danticat is truly a treasure of Haitian Literature, and this is her story. When she was just a girl, her parents left her in the care of her uncle, Joseph. When her parents finally sent for her, she struggled to remember them and grieved for the parental figure she had left behind. Later in 2004, when the political situation in Haiti began to deteriorate, Uncle Joseph was forced to flee to Miami in search of safety. In a whirlwind story of family connection and the tender ties that bind one person to another, Danticat illustrates the strength of familial love, even from across the ocean.

Read about the other titles on the list.

Brother, I’m Dying is among Joe Meno's seven true tales about the journey to seek asylum in the U.S.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six thrillers with troubled parent-child relationships

Leah Rowan is an author living in Brooklyn and the Catskills.

Marion is her new thriller.

Megan Collins, author of Cross My Heart, called Marion a "pitch-perfect thriller that feels like the primal scream every woman has been holding back her entire life."

At CrimeReads Rowan tagged "six scintillating stories where the parent-child relationship is a little (or a lot) off." One title on the list:

Ainslie Hogarth, Motherthing

We’ve all heard of the mother-in-law from hell trope, but what if your vengeful mother-in-law was actually a ghost? Abby had a traumatic childhood, and so when she marries Ralph, she’s desperate to heal old wounds and bond with the new maternal figure in her life, her mother-in-law, Laura—but Laura’s cruelty and vitriol make that impossible, and when she takes her own life, her ghost threatens to destroy all that Abby cherishes.

Equal parts fierce and funny, Motherthing is a cathartic balm for anyone who’s ever had issues with their in-laws.

Read about the other thrillers on the list at CrimeReads.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five Gothic novels about cults

Catriona Silvey was born in Glasgow and grew up in Scotland and England. After collecting an unreasonable number of degrees from various universities in the UK and the US, she moved to Edinburgh where she lives with her husband and children. She is the author of Meet Me in Another Life (2021), Love and Other Paradoxes (2025), and the newly released Vervain Hollow.

At The Nerd Daily she tagged five "Gothic novels about cults, where the aesthetic and thematic tropes of the Gothic marry perfectly with the authors’ explorations of brainwashing, groupthink, and coercive control." One title on the list:

Bunny by Mona Awad

Like Catherine House, Bunny takes an elite college as its setting. But the focus here, as in Bunny’s Gothic predecessor Frankenstein, is on the perilous allure of creation. When misfit MFA student Samantha discovers that the other women in her cohort, the creepily identical Bunnies, are transforming rabbits into uncanny simulacra of men, she gets sucked into their world and into their hive-mind. As Samantha gradually loses her identity, the Bunnies cannibalize her creativity, rooted in hardship, to lend some grit to their insipid creations.

Bunny is both an allegory about privilege and authenticity, and a very funny satire of critique workshop culture. It’s also extremely Gothic, from the aching isolation that pushes Samantha toward the Bunnies, to the eldritch, horrifying version of Providence, RI that she scurries through ‘like prey from some unknown but imminent beast’. Like a classical Gothic heroine reclaiming her agency, Samantha can only escape from the Bunnies’ control once she discovers the extent of her own creative power.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Bunny is among Isabelle McConville's six novels for novelists, Chris Wheatley's six top dark academia novels, and Gnesis Villar's seven books about the struggle of being a writer.

--Marshal Zeringue