Ten thrilling titles about women on the verge

Holly Baxter is an executive editor and staff writer at the Independent in New York. She has experience in generating clicks on both sides of the Atlantic, having worked in the Independent’s London office as a reporter for three years. Her work was shortlisted for a Press Award for Feature of the Year in 2019 and she often appears on British radio and television.

Baxter lives in Brooklyn, New York. Clickbait is her debut novel.

At Electric Lit she tagged ten thrilling books about women on the verge. One title on the list:

The New Me by Halle Butler

The New Me is a dark novel with a wink-wink-nudge-nudge light-sounding title. It follows Millie, a young woman whose anxieties and depressive tendencies interfere with her ability to pretty much bond with anyone or anything, as she navigates a job she hates yet can’t help wanting to succeed in.

The petty characters Butler writes feel familiar, and even though most of their behaviors and impulses are loathsome, you can often understand exactly how they got there. Millie refuses to feel grateful for her own fairly privileged position—the financial support of her parents, for instance—and she has a serious superiority complex about the people who she encounters at her awful job. She’s someone you want to pick up and shake, but she’s also someone you end up feeling sorry for, despite yourself. The gap between what she expected her life to look like and what it looks like for the duration of the novel is painful, and we’ve all felt a semblance of that pain.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten heist novels

Mailan Doquang has published extensively on the art and architecture of medieval France.

She is an avid traveler, photographer, and runner.

She is a Canadian transplant and longtime resident of New York City.

Doquang's debut novel is Blood Rubies.

At The Strand Magazine she tagged ten recent standout heist novels. One title on the list:

Blacktop Wasteland, by S. A. Cosby (2020)

Cosby’s award-winning book sees Beauregard “Bug” Montage, the best getaway driver on the East Coast, resume his life of crime to save his family from financial ruin. When a daring diamond heist goes wrong, Bug is drawn into a gritty underworld that upends his entire life. Fast-paced and atmospheric, Blacktop Wasteland was one of the most celebrated crime novels of 2020.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Blacktop Wasteland is among The Amazon Book Review editors' ten favorite books to celebrate Black History Month, Lee Matthew Goldberg's seven stellar heist tales, Lisa Unger's five novels revolving around dysfunctional families, Nick Kolakowski’s five best getaway drivers in contemporary crime fiction, and Kia Abdullah's eight novels featuring co-conspirators.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six sci-fi thrillers about AI

Lois Melbourne is the author of “STEM Club Goes Exploring” and “Kids Go To Work Day,” illustrated books helping students explore careers. Formerly a global software CEO, she is a pragmatic optimist willing to push the risks for technology, when it can help people. She reads and writes in an eclectic variety of genres. Melbourne serves her community through working at the voting polls, voter registration drives, and mentoring students and entrepreneurs.

Melbourne wrote her debut novel, Moral Code in collaboration with her husband Ross.

At CrimeReads she tagged six sci-fi thrillers about Artificial Intelligence, including:

Dark Matter, by Blake Crouch

I love a story that challenges us to consider, would we really like the life we dream of living? The mechanisms Crouch uses in “Dark Matter” to make us consider this question are gripping and unexpected.

Read about the other entries on the list at CrimeReads.

Dark Matter is among John Marrs's seven novels that effortlessly blend travel and crime.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top books about female friendship

Michaela Makusha is a freelance writer and journalist, writing about culture, politics, racial and gender politics in Britain and more.

At the Guardian she tagged five "stories about the highs and lows of female friendship," including:

Conversations With Friends by Sally Rooney

Rooney is known for her ability to dive into the messiness and complexities of relationships. In her 2017 debut novel, she applies this to the friendship between Bobbi and Frances, who are also exes. Their relationship is tested as they become increasingly involved with an older couple and long-held feelings – love, lust, envy and anger – come to the surface.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Conversations With Friends is among B&N Reads's fifteen top books about unforgettable friendships.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nine titles about women leaning into darkness to find power

Dawn Kurtagich is the award-winning author of The Dead House, And the Trees Crept In, Teeth in the Mist, and Blood on the Wind. She leaves her North Wales crypt after midnight during blood moons. The rest of the time she exists somewhere between mushrooms, maggots and mould. She is enjoying life with her new liver, Lucy, her husband, two black cats, and those moldy forest mushrooms.

Kurtagich's debut adult novel is The Madness.

At Electric Lit she tagged nine "favourite novels that feature unhinged women," including:

Diavola by Jennifer Marie Thorne

In this delicious vacation-horror, we follow Anna as she navigates a dreaded family holiday to Italy. Anna’s voice is dry, jaded and wholly refreshing as she attempts to survive her boisterous, often irritating family. The location of their vacation is the beautiful Monteperso villa. It has everything you could want: gorgeous views, proximity to a vineyard, pool, vengeful ghost. The usual. Anna is such a fun anti-hero—villain, even—and watching her navigate a haunting both by her family and a vengeful la dame blanche was the icing on a very delicious cake. Anna’s casual acceptance of her own haunting was hilarious and truly unhinged.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top campus novels

At B&N Reads Isabelle McConville tagged ten "books that capture the messiness of love and friendship and the uncertainty of life in your early twenties." One title on the list:

Anita de Monte Laughs Last by Xochitl Gonzalez

A sharp and rollicking read about the power of art and the lasting legacy of those who make it, from the bestselling author of our previous Discover pick, Olga Dies Dreaming.

Read about the other novels on the list.

Also see Elise Juska’s list of eight of the greatest campus novels ever written, Ali Lowe's list of six of the best campus crime novels, Kate McCusker's five top campus novels, Michael Woodson's ten top campus novels, and K.D. Walker's eight top campus novels set in grad school.

--Marshal Zeringue

Four top screwball thrillers

Sandra A. Block graduated from college at Harvard, then returned to her native land of Buffalo, New York for medical training and never left. She is a practicing neurologist and proud Sabres fan, and lives at home with her husband, two children, and impetuous yellow lab. Her work has been published in the Washington Post. Little Black Lies is her debut, a finalist in the International Thriller Awards, and The Girl Without a Name and The Secret Room are the other books in the Zoe Goldman series. What Happened That Night is her stand-a-lone novel, and Girl Overboard a Young Adult thriller. The Bachelorette Party is her newest novel.

At CrimeReads Block tagged four favorite screwball thrillers, including:

Janet Evanovich, Stephanie Plum series

With her Stephanie Plum series, Janet Evanovich is the queen of the screwball thriller. Bounty hunter Stephanie Plum quips her way through outrageous plots, with kooky (and hilarious) sidekicks, a spattering of romance, and of course some bad guys who need catching. When reviews call the series “banana-pants crazy,” you might be dealing with a screwball thriller. My one complaint with the books? They are disallowed in the bedroom, as the excessive laughter that they provoke bothers my “honey, please-I’m-trying-to-sleep-here” spouse.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Stephanie Plum is among Elizabeth Breck's five of the most realistic PIs in fiction.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven books about badass medieval women

Molly Aitken grew up on the south coast of Ireland. Her first novel, The Island Child, was longlisted for the Authors’ Club First Novel Award. Her short fiction has appeared in Ploughshares, for which she won the Alice Hoffman Prize for Fiction, and has been dramatized for BBC Radio 4. She is currently studying for a PhD in Creative Writing and History at Sheffield Hallam University.

[Q&A with Molly Aitken]

Aitken's "second novel, Bright I Burn, is about the loudest of ghosts: a wildly intelligent, ravenous and angry woman from history."

At Electric Lit the author tagged

a small list of fiction and non-fiction books about “badass” medieval women, so that you too, if you wish, can experience the middle ages through the eyes and ears and hearts and minds of women. Let’s remember these women, not as faultless, but complicated and messy, terrifying and clever, brilliant and badass.

One title on the list:

She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England by Helen Castor

In medieval England, men ruled women, and the King was ruler of everyone. Yet, royal power ended up in the hands of women. Of course, not all historians agree with this delicious and convincing reading of the past by Helen Castor, but we shan’t concern ourselves with them. In She-Wolves Castor tells the dramatic histories of four women who wielded great power: Matilda, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Isabella of France and Margaret of Anjou. Castor fleshes out the lives of these four who have, with the exception of Eleanor of Auiquitaine, were overlooked in history books because they were wives, and their husbands, the kings, were considered to be more important than them. Castor maps out how each of these women shaped the England that followed, laying the way for Mary Tudor and Elizabeth I to become sole ruler of England. Throughout the book, the writing is fluid and full of verve. It is clear in every sentence what pleasure Castor takes in the written word, illustrating that beautiful sentences are created not only by novelists. I predict you will be won over by the she-wolves, and Castor too.

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

--Marshal Zeringue

Eleven riveting nonfiction books for Erik Larson fans

Jeff Somers is the author of Writing Without Rules, the Avery Cates series, The Ustari Cycle, Lifers, and Chum (among many other books) and numerous short stories.

At BookBub he tagged eleven "engrossing narrative nonfiction books that will keep you engaged and teach you something new," including:

Death in the City of Light by David King

In Nazi-occupied Paris, police made a grisly discovery: a group of corpses hacked to pieces in violent murders. As the Allies invaded Normandy and the Germans retreated from the city, the police launched a search for Dr. Marcel Petiot, a man previously considered above reproach in society. Once Petiot was captured, the ensuing trial spiraled into chaos — an incident that is detailed in this engrossing book that will captivate Erik Larson fans.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Page 99 Test: Death in the City of Light.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight thrillers in which the characters actually get to have fun

Rachel Koller Croft is an author and screenwriter in Los Angeles, where she has scripted projects for Blumhouse, Sony Pictures Entertainment, and Comedy Central, among others. She lives by the beach with her husband, Charles, and their rescue pitbull, Juniper. Stone Cold Fox is her first novel.

Croft's new novel is We Love the Nightlife.

At CrimeReads she tagged eight favorite thrillers "that let their characters actually have some fun amidst the drama, backstabbing, murder and all that other good stuff we readers and writers love about this genre." One title on the list:

The Next Mrs. Parrish by Liv Constantine

There is just something about the Mrs. Parrish universe that screams fun and I think it’s because Constantine lets the characters’ be nefarious and naughty in such splashy fashion. You can just tell they get as much of a kick out of themselves as the readers do. If you have a Desperate Housewives-sized hole in your fun-loving heart, this book will fill it.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five of the best books translated from Polish

Antonia Lloyd-Jones graduated from Oxford University in 1983 with a degree in Russian and Ancient Greek, and has been teaching herself Polish ever since. She has translated works by many of Poland's leading contemporary novelists and reportage authors, as well as crime fiction, poetry and children's books. Her translation of Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by 2018 Nobel Prize laureate Olga Tokarczuk was shortlisted for the 2019 Man Booker International Prize. She is a mentor for the Emerging Translators' Mentorship Programme, and former co-chair of the UK Translators Association.

Lloyd-Jones is the translator of Warsaw Tales, a short-story anthology.

At the Guardian she tagged five of the best books translated from Polish, including:

The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk, trans. Jennifer Croft

The Nobel laureate’s historical epic fictionalises the life of Jacob Frank, the bizarre but influential self-proclaimed messiah whose dedicated worshippers followed him around 18th-century Europe. This visionary novel re-creates his world in vivid, sensual detail, and can be read on many levels: as a history book exploring the development of Europe’s religions and philosophies, as a scrapbook of esoteric arcana such as alchemy and the Kabbalah, or the story of a rebel and his bewitched associates.

Read about the other books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight books about youthful mistakes that come back to haunt you

Elizabeth Staple is an attorney. Prior to law school, she worked in media relations for the New York Giants, New England Patriots, Frankfurt Galaxy, and Syracuse University Athletic Communications. She was a member of the NFL media relations staff at three Super Bowls, and has also worked in events for Madison Square Garden, the PGA, and the NCAA Men's March Madness tournament. Staple lives in Connecticut with her husband and three children.

Staple's new novel is The Snap.

At Electric Lit she tagged eight "books about youthful mistakes that come back to haunt you," including:

Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

This book is a car crash you desperately want to look away from but can’t, careening forward as the tension ratchets up and up to the point where you’re literally begging the protagonist to make any other choice. June Hayward is a frustrated middling author. She watches bitterly as her sometimes-friend Athena rockets to literary stardom, attributing Athena’s ability to break out of a crowded marketplace to her Chinese-American background. June knows her talent is on par with Athena’s; the deck is simply stacked against her as a dime-a-dozen white girl in publishing. When the opportunity comes to step into Athena’s shoes, June takes it, because it’s no less than what she’s owed. The magic trick of this book is that June’s delusion is so complete she has no idea her comeuppance is coming, although the reader unbearably feels it page by unbearable page.

Read about the other books on the list.

Yellowface is among Lauren Kuhl's eight top novels about toxic relationships, Elly Griffiths's top ten books about books, Toby Lloyd's seven books that show storytelling has consequences, Sophie Wan's seven top titles with women behaving badly, Leah Konen's six top friends-to-frenemies thrillers, and Garnett Cohen's seven novels about characters driven by their cravings.

--Marshal Zeringue

Fifteen top Appalachian stories

At B&N Reads Isabelle McConville tagged fifteen "favorite Appalachian stories, from the poignant to the magical and beyond." One title on the list:

Ramp Hollow: The Ordeal of Appalachia by Steven Stoll

This is a thorough history of Appalachia from its first settlers to pioneers and modern-day citizens. Steven Stroll delves into the past to get to the root of why our country sees Appalachia as a backward region, and what we can do to better understand the land and its people.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Ramp Hollow is among Lorraine Berry's eight books that offer a more honest approach to America's working class than Hillbilly Elegy.

Also see: fifteen top books about Appalachia; seven eye-opening books about Appalachia; and Katie Pickard Fawcett's five favorite books of Appalachia.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six psychological suspense stories that feature young protagonists

M. M. (Marjorie) DeLuca spent her childhood in the beautiful cathedral city of Durham in North-Eastern England. She attended the University of London, Goldsmiths College, studied psychology, then became a teacher. She immigrated to Canada and lives in Winnipeg with her husband and two children. There she also studied writing under her mentor, Pulitzer Prize winning author, Carol Shields.

She loves writing for all ages and in many genres—suspense, historical, sci-fi for teens. She's also a screenwriter with several pilot projects in progress.

DeLuca enjoys teaching workshops in Creative Writing and the writing process.

Her latest novel is The Night Side.

[My Book, The Movie: The Night Side; The Page 69 Test: The Night Side; Writers Read: M.M. DeLuca (January 2024)]

At CrimeReads DeLuca tagged six "gripping stories of psychological suspense that feature young protagonists struggling with the legacy of growing up in the chaos of a toxic family." One title on the list:

The Turnout by Megan Abbott

This sinister Gothic drama digs deep into the seemingly pink and perfect facade of ballet to reveal the gory truth behind it: mangled feet, blackened toenails and injured joints. Darkness also lingers in the lives of Dara and Marie Durant who have been dancers since they can remember. Growing up, they were homeschooled and trained by their glamorous but unstable mother, founder of the Durant School of Dance. After their parents’ death in a tragic accident nearly a dozen years ago, the sisters began running the school together, along with Charlie, Dara’s husband. As the story progresses, the twisted truth about their childhood and adolescence surfaces; memories of parents, constantly at war with each other, of the unrelenting mother who drove them to view pain as their friend, and who forced them to live a sheltered life in which nothing but dance mattered. Who groomed her beautiful and prized student Charlie, then introduced him into Dara and Marie’s sexually-charged adolescent world. As adults, Dara and Marie are still emotional adolescents, shaped by their mother’s twisted legacy. It’s no wonder this fragile façade can’t hold together when a cunning and determined outsider infiltrates their flimsy gingerbread house of a life and threatens to expose the truth and destroy it all.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Turnout is among Lynn Slaughter's five memorable mysteries for performing arts lovers.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight titles that will leave you questioning if your memories are real

Lindsay Starck is a writer, editor, and professor based in Minneapolis. She studied at Yale, Notre Dame, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her first novel, Noah’s Wife, was published in 2016 by G.P. Putnam’s Sons. Her short prose has recently appeared in the New England Review, Ploughshares, the Bellevue Literary Review, The Cincinnati Review, and the Southern Review. Her academic articles have been published in Modern Fiction, The Journal of Modern Periodical Studies, and Adaptation.

Starck's newest novel is Monsters We Have Made.

At Electric Lit she tagged eight books that are concerned with:

What is real versus what is imagined? What is remembered and what is crafted? How do we know when to trust our perception, what do we do when our memories or our senses fail us, and what does “evidence” even mean in a world as slippery and shifting as we are?

One title on Strack's list:

The Girl I Am, Was, and Never Will Be by Shannon Gibney

“The literature of adoption,” writes Shannon Gibney, “is a fictional genre in itself.” In The Girl I Am, Was, and Never Will Be, Gibney leans into this argument by weaving together her own actual adoption story (including documents and photographs) and the story of what might have happened if she had remained with her birth mother. By intentionally combining memoir with speculative fiction, the book illuminates the multiple pathways that exist between the past and the present. Gibney’s fictionalization of memory liberates the narrator from the impossible project of perfectly reconstructing the past, provides her a new angle on the present, and reminds us that the boundaries between inside and outside, truth and dream, fact and fiction are much more permeable than they appear.

Read about the other books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Fifteen titles about the impact of Black music on pop culture

At Teen Vogue Jaelani Turner-Williams tagged fifteen books about the immense impact of Black music on pop culture, including:

Shine Bright: A Very Personal History of Black Women In Pop by Danyel Smith

Legendary journalist, editor and author Danyel Smith gives new life to her podcast Black Girl Songbook in Shine Bright, a memoir which intimately captures the impact of Black women in pop music. Beginning with a portrait of Phillis Wheatley, an 18th century enslaved woman who wrote and sang poems of freedom, Shine Bright retells the iconic careers of Aretha Franklin, Stephanie Mills, Mariah Carey and more, with Smith highlighting her own experiences while interviewing a number of the vocalists featured. While recounting her upbringing in Oakland, Smith gives reverence to Black women singers who laid the groundwork for the rising generation of modern pop acts.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue