Five suspense novels with heart

Allison Winn Scotch is the New York Times bestselling author of eleven novels, including Cleo McDougal Regrets Nothing, In Twenty Years, and Time of My Life.

She graduated cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania with a BA in Honors History and Concentration in Marketing from the Wharton School of Business.

Scotch lives in Los Angeles with her family and their two rescue dogs, Hugo and Mr. Peanut.

Her new novel is The Insomniacs.

At CrimeReads Scotch tagged five mysteries that pack an emotional punch, including:

Razorblade Tears by S.A Cosby

I know that Cosby is a smash success but if you haven’t read this masterpiece, please correct that immediately. Two fathers go searching for justice for their murdered sons. It’s a beautiful exploration of biases, prejudice, love, acceptance and the lengths parents will go for their children. I listened to this one, and I highly recommend the audio. Genuinely exceptional.

Read about the other entries on the list at CrimeReads.

Razorblade Tears is among Leodora Darlington's five top thrillers by Black writers, David Bell's five great thrillers about domineering parents, Robyn Harding's seven unlikely friendships in crime fiction, Lesley Kara's six crime novels about settling old scores, and Liz Nugent's top ten first lines in fiction.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight titles about women with secret lives

Bonnie Friedman is the author of the bestselling, widely anthologized Writing Past Dark: Envy, Fear, Distraction, and Other Dilemmas in the Writer’s Life. She is also the author of the memoirs The Thief of Happiness: The Story of an Extraordinary Psychotherapy and Surrendering Oz.

Her essays have been selected for inclusion in The Best Writing on Writing, The Best American Movie Writing, The Best Buddhist Writing, and The Best Spiritual Writing. Her new novel is Don’t Stop.

At Lit Hub Friedman tagged eight "books that reveal covert lives, truths that society forbids or shames, and an effusion of vibrant spirit." One title on the list:

Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert, translated by Lydia Davis

“You cannot understand that,” said my high school English teacher when her glance fell on this novel on my desk. I rankled. I understood it perfectly! It was about a woman having an affair. Because I knew the literal meaning of the words, I thought I understood the story they told. And I wondered at this teacher’s greedy need to own and to mystify.

But of course she was right. Since then I’ve read this book at least four times, once a decade. Even now I feel Emma Bovary’s novel has more to teach me, about the ways that fantasy can pollute one’s mind, about how appetites aroused can grow ever larger, ever more corrupt, about how ordinary, mundane life itself can seem an affront, and, beyond this, about the construction of magnificent sentences that are marvels of precise detail: “the musicians cooled the tips of their fingers on their tongues” “she put away . . . her satin shoes, whose soles had been yellowed by the slippery wax of the dance floor. Her heart was like them: contact with wealth had laid something over it that would not be wiped away.”

Every story of an affair has some point of contact with Madame Bovary, and one feels somehow the way that high school English teacher did, possessive, wishing to make special claims, as if the book itself had a tender, intimate message that the Charles Bovarys of the world—i.e. everyone else—can’t understand.

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

Madame Bovary is on Alastair Campbell's six best books list, Paul Theroux's six favorite books list, Peter Brooks's list of favorite Flaubert's works (at #1), Ed Sikov's list of eight great books that got slammed by critics, BBC.com Culture's list of the three of the worst mothers in literature, Alex Preston's top ten list of sex scenes from film, TV and literature, Rachel Holmes's top ten list of books on the struggle against gender-based inequality, Jill Boyd's list of six memorable marriage proposals in literature, Julia Sawalha's six best books list, Jennifer Gilmore's list of the ten worst mothers in books, Amy Sohn's list of six favorite books, Sue Townsend's 6 best books list, Helena Frith Powell's list of ten of the best sexy French books, the Christian Science Monitor's list of six novels about grand passions, John Mullan's lists of ten landmark coach rides in literature, ten of the best cathedrals in literature, ten of the best balls in literature, ten of the best bad lawyers in literature, ten of the best lotharios in literature, and ten of the best bad doctors in fiction, Valerie Martin's list of six novels about doomed marriages, and Louis Begley's list of favorite novels about cheating lovers. It tops Peter Carey's list of the top ten works of literature and was second on a top ten works of literature list selected by leading writers from Britain, America and Australia in 2007. It is one of John Bowe's six favorite books on love.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight mysteries about cryptids and cryptozoology

Elisa Shoenberger is a freelance writer and journalist. At Book Riot she tagged eight "mystery books [that] explore the wide world of cryptids, from werewolves to Big Foot and the Loch Ness Monster." One title on the list:

Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch

Probationary Constable Peter Grant was in the right place at the right time … or wrong place, wrong time. He’s keen to make something of himself in London’s Metropolitan Police. But when he gets assigned guard duty over a crime scene, it’s not the kind of work he wants to be doing. That is, until he talks to a witness, who turns out to be a ghost. He finds himself the newest member of the Folly, a formerly dormant part of the Met focusing on magic or weird things. Now he’s befriending genius loci in rivers and other waterways, facing off with otherworldly beings, and trying to stop more horrible crimes. The series has 15 books and novellas so far, including graphic novels; the most recent is Stone and Sky (2025). Peter and his mentor, Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale, have to solve cases involving a wide range of mythical creatures and cryptids.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven music-themed books

Delphine Seddon, a graduate of Faber & Faber’s writing academy and studied poetry at Goldsmiths University, writes female-driven contemporary fiction and poetry.

Her debut novel is Darkening Song.

For the past 20 years she has worked in the music business.

At The Nerd Daily Seddon tagged seven favorite books with a music theme. One of the novels on the list:

A Visit From The Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

Brilliant, funny, poignant
This book won the Pulitzer Prize. I don’t know if I’d describe it as music fiction exactly – one of the characters is a record label executive, so there is an element of music business, but it felt to me like this was more a book about human behaviour and why we are who we are and the choices we make. There’s an entire chapter which is made up of diagrams on power point slides. Truthfully, I never really understood what that chapter was saying, but big respect to the author for doing something so radical – I love that. Sasha is an incredible character – another strong, flawed, female protagonist (I clearly love a strong, flawed female protagonist!). A Visit From The Goon Squad is to my mind a modern day classic.

Read about the other entries on the list.

A Visit From the Goon Squad is among the Amazon Book Review's list of ten books for fans of Daisy Jones & the Six, Julian Gough's ten top books to help you survive the digital age, Marina Benjamin's ten top books about middle age, four books that changed Alison Lester, Jeff Somers's five top books that blur the line between the novel and short story, Gillian Anderson's six favorite books, and Julie Christie's seven favorite books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten must-read titles for "Devil Wears Prada" lovers

At People magazine Shyla Watson and Lizz Schumer tagged ten must-read workplace dramas for Devil Wears Prada lovers. One title on the list:

Love on Paper by Danielle Parker

At a prestigious teen writing retreat, Macy and Caleb are destined to clash — their parents have been literary rivals for years. But when they’re paired up as critique partners, they’ll have to set aside their differences for a shot at publication. This year’s theme is romance, at least on the page, but as the tension between them turns into something more, Macy and Caleb may find themselves caught in a love story that might just surpass fiction.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven titles featuring self-sabotaging characters

Pardeep Toor is a winner of the PEN America Dau Prize. His writing has appeared in Best Debut Short Stories: The PEN America Dau Prize, Southern Humanities Review, Electric Literature, Catapult, and Longreads. His new short story collection is Hands (Cornerstone Press). Toor grew up in Brampton, Ontario, Canada, and now lives in Colorado.

At Electric Lit the author tagged seven

stories of characters who can’t get out of their own way. These characters are both the aggressors and victims of their circumstances. They are hard to love, but it’s still painful to read about their collapses. In the end, readers are left feeling queasy, hoping for the best while realizing that the worst is inevitable.

One title on Toor's list:

Whiteout Conditions by Tariq Shah

The setup: Ant returns home to Chicago to attend the funeral of his friend’s cousin, who was killed by a neighborhood dog. It’s a complicated setup that is enriched by childhood memories sprinkled throughout the short novel. All Whiteout Conditions’s characters are drunk, high, and unhinged as they mourn the sudden loss in their family. But it’s not Ant’s family. So what is he even doing there? Ant’s unexpected and often unwanted arrival causes drug-induced chaos at the funeral as a family tries to move forward while Ant pulls them back and drowns them in the past. But of course, Ant doesn’t realize his own part in the oxy-laced toxicity of this emotionally and physically violent novel.

Read about the other entries on the list at Electric Lit.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five historical fiction titles featuring older women

Rachel Brittain is a writer, Day Dreamer, and Amateur Aerialist. Her short fiction has appeared in Luna Station Quarterly, Andromeda Spaceways, and others. She is a contributing editor for Book Riot, where she screams into the void about her love of books. Brittain lives in Northwest Arkansas with a rambunctious rescue pup, a snake, and a houseful of plants (most of which aren’t carnivorous).

At Book Riot she tagged five historical fiction books in which "older women prove that it’s never too late to begin a new adventure." One entry on the list:

The Woman Next Door by Yewande Omotoso

Neighbors Hortensia James and Marion Agostino share a hedge and an animosity that belies their eighty-odd years of age. Both women, one white and one Black, have led good lives with impressive careers but have been failed by their late husbands. Now living out their golden years in post-Apartheid South Africa, the women pass their time in committee meetings, volleying thinly veiled insults back and forth. But when unforeseen circumstances force them together, their bickering begins to turn into deeper debates and reminiscences of the lives they’ve both lived. Will it be enough to bridge the divide of racism and animosity that has kept them at each other’s throats all these years?

Read about the other books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six titles that explore the machinery behind celebrity culture

Candice Wuehle is author of Monarch, Fidelitoria: Fixed or Fluxed, Death Industrial Complex, and BOUND. She lives in Iowa City, Iowa.

Her new novel is Ultranatural.

At Lit Hub Wuehle tagged six books that explore the machinery behind celebrity culture. "Taken together, they suggest that celebrity has always been less about visibility and more about narrative control." One title on the list:

Bret Easton Ellis, Glamorama

Bret Easton Ellis’s hallucinatory satire of the 1990s fashion world imagines celebrity culture metastasizing into something far darker. Models, actors, and socialites drift through a world of cameras, parties, and manufactured identities until the line between publicity and conspiracy collapses entirely. As the narrator Victor Ward moves through Manhattan, he registers the world primarily through who is seen and photographed—“the better you looked, the more you were seen”—a logic that turns visibility itself into a form of capital. Glamorama anticipates a future in which fame becomes a spectacle economy, where visibility is both currency and trap. Ellis himself was hardly outside the system he was diagnosing. By the 1990s he had become a literary celebrity in his own right, his novels debated on television, his nightlife chronicled alongside the very models and socialites he fictionalized. The novel reads, in retrospect, less like exaggeration than reportage from inside a culture already learning to treat life as publicity.

Read about the other entries on Wuehle's list at Lit Hub.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten modern fantasy novels that revitalize fairy tale tropes

Moorea Corrigan holds a bachelor’s degree with honors in English literature from the University of Edinburgh and a master of publishing degree from Simon Fraser University, Vancouver. She works at an academic press in Boulder, Colorado. When she is not writing, you can find her singing, spending time with her menagerie of pets, or attending Jane Austen conventions in full Regency regalia.

Thistlemarsh is her debut novel.

At The Nerd Daily she tagged ten books that twist fairy "tales in innovative ways that engage with both the original material and the modern day." One title on the list:

Starling House by Alix E Harrow

Set in contemporary Kentucky, Harrow’s gothic fantasy Starling House engages tropes from Beauty and the Beast, the myth of Hades and Persephone, and Southern mining folklore. It is a novel that seamlessly blends its story about corruption and injustice with its fairytale tropes, making it an extremely satisfying read. Standalone.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten titles where romance meets murder

USA Today bestselling author Letizia Lorini is an Italian writer who is passionate about heartwarming books with high cackling potential. Currently based in a Scandinavian country, she lives with her partner and their fluffy Japanese Spitz. She also has a degree in sociology and one in criminology, speaks three languages, and drinks the daily recommended dose of coffee before breakfast.

Lorini's novels include the murder romcom A Killer Kind of Romance.

At The Strand Magazine she tagged ten titles for "readers wanting sparks alongside murder weapons." One title on the list:

Finlay Donovan Is Killing It by Elle Cosimano

Writer Finn can’t catch a break: the nanny quits, her ex is awful, and now someone thinks she’s a contract killer. When she accidentally agrees to “take care” of someone, things spin out of control. It’s chaotic, fun, and the best kind of love‑story‑meets‑crime adventure.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Finlay Donovan is Killing It is among M.K. Oliver's seven great titles about bad moms and Darynda Jones's thirteen must-read laugh-out-loud mysteries.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six twisty dating app thrillers

Corinne Sullivan is the senior news editor at Cosmopolitan, where she covers celebrity and entertainment news. She graduated from Boston College in 2014 with a degree in English and creative writing. She went on to receive her MFA in fiction from Sarah Lawrence College. Her stories have appeared in literary magazines such as Night Train, Knee-Jerk, and Pithead Chapel, among other publications, and her 2018 debut novel, Indecent, was included on several “best of” lists.

Sullivan's new novel is Yours Always.

At CrimeReads she tagged six twisty dating app "thrillers that are filled with twists, turns, and very few happily-ever-afters." One title on the list:

Lisa Unger, Last Girl Ghosted

In Last Girl Ghosted, Wren is devastated when she finds herself ghosted by a man she connected with on a dating app, but then she learns that she isn’t the first match that Adam has ghosted. And what’s more: After being ghosted, those women then went missing. What follows is anything but your typical cat-and-mouse game.

Read about the other novels on the list at CrimeReads.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight books about characters seeking community and connection

Wendy J. Fox is the author of five books of fiction, including What If We Were Somewhere Else, which won the Colorado Book Award; If the Ice Had Held, a top pick in audio from LitHub; and the newly released The Last Supper. She has written for many national publications including Self, Business Insider, BuzzFeed, and Ms. She authors a column in Electric Literature focusing on the big works of traditional small presses. A lifelong resident of the American West, she currently lives outside of Phoenix.

At Electric Lit Fox tagged eight books that "illustrate the complexity of finding our place in the world, all while showing that it really is possible." One title on the list:

Nadezhda in the Dark by Yelena Moskovich

Partners living in Berlin after having fled the Soviet Union as children—one from Ukraine and one from Russia—are in their apartment, not speaking on a long night. In this narrative in verse, there’s a sense of rootlessness for both women. Between Nadezhda and her unnamed partner, history surfaces and hurt surfaces. Both women process what it means to have lost a homeland. The narrator tries to understand what it means to love Nadezhda. As a writer, Moskovich places that ache the most, and she does it without apology and with a present lyricism that often leads her characters to a place of agency.

Read about the other entries on the list at Electric Lit.

--Marshal Zeringue