Nine titles with short but rich interior journeys

Irena Smith is the author of the award-winning memoir, The Golden Ticket: A Life in College Admissions Essays and Troika: Three Generations, Three Days, and a Very American Road Trip. Her obsession with how words work began early (as a child growing up in Soviet Russia, she was known to occasionally stand on furniture and recite Pushkin poems), and her writing focuses on migration, memory, motherhood, generational expectations, the petty indignities of middle age, and the importance of embracing a broader, more generous vision of what it means to succeed.

At Electric Lit Smith tagged nine books that take "circumscribed journeys: across a parlor, through a single unruly sentence, back into a childhood bedroom.... But even when hemmed in by economic exigency, physical disability, or cultural constraints, these protagonists show us that nothing is more heroic than a consciousness finding a way forward on its own terms." One title on the list:

We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby

Why go outside when you can hang out in your apartment with the internet, the TV, and your garbagemonster cat? Samantha Irby sees no reason for it. Her bowels are irritable, her arthritis is flaring, the dating scene is “fucking dire,” and her job skills are limited to—in her words—surly phone answering, playing the race card, and eating other people’s lunches in the break room. Also, her mind is a “never-ending series of shame spirals” leavened with depression and anxiety, which is why she’s staying home in her day pajamas, eating the snacks she ordered online, and spinning the dross of daily life into gold.

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

--Marshal Zeringue

Five expansive horror stories set in New York City

Vincent Tirado is a nonbinary Dominican born and raised in the Bronx. They are a Pura Belpré Award winner, Bram Stoker and Lambda Literary award finalist known for their
books Burn Down, Rise Up (2022), We Don't Swim Here (2023), and We Came to Welcome You (2024). You Should Have Been Nicer to My Mom (2026) is their sophomore adult novel. When they’re not writing new spine-chilling horrors, they can be found making another pot of coffee and harassing their cat, Bugsy.

At CrimeReads Tirado tagged "five Big Apple horror novels to get a taste of what expansive terrors you can find in just one city." One title on the list:

Victor LaValle, The Changeling

Though this novel tells the tale of first-time father Apollo Kagwa–starting from his own childhood and all the way to the birth of his very own son–the story doesn’t really start there. It starts on a sloop, carrying fearful immigrants across an unforgivable sea to a new world. That new world later becomes New York City. This is the start of many people. Their history, culture, hopes and dreams intertwines, imbuing the city with a magic that is as unfathomable as it is transformative.

But as the Brothers Grimm are apt to tell you, not all magic is good. When tragedy strikes Apollo’s household, robbing him of both his wife and child, he comes to know the city’s sinister enchantments intimately. He travels all over, from Manhattan to Queens and even North Brother Island.

He meets both suspicious allies and honest enemies and learns how that little sloop did not just carry immigrants. It carried something powerful. Something that promised safe passage over an impossible ocean. Something that would come to collect its bloody due, time and time again.

Apollo’s story doesn’t really start from himself–it starts from those who came before him, a long chain of people who have laid the foundations he walks upon. It takes him time to dig deep inside and find his own great power, and when he does, it’s a reckoning that was always a long time coming. Beware–this gothic horror is one that would rival any Grimm’ fairytale.

Read about the other entries on the list at CrimeReads.

The Changeling is among Andrew DeYoung's eight top sketchy-spouse domestic thrillers, Lucy Foley's six stunning tales of folk horror, Brittany Bunzey's twenty-five "must-read, truly bone-chilling" horror books, Nat Cassidy's eight top unconventional coming-of-age horror novels, Benjamin Percy's top five novels about dangerous plants, James Han Mattson's five top dark and disturbing reads, A.K. Larkwood's five tense books that blend sci-fi and horror, Leah Schnelbach's ten sci-fi and fantasy must-reads from the 2010s, T. Marie Vandelly's top ten suspenseful horror novels featuring domestic terrors and C.J. Tudor's six thrillers featuring missing, mistaken, or "changed" children.

--Marshal Zeringue

The best historical fiction titles of the century so far

The lit pros at Book Riot tagged the best historical fiction books of the century so far. One of Vanessa Diaz's picks:

A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes

I've loved just about everything that writer, classicist, and comedian Natalie Haynes has ever written, but this is the book that made a fangirl out of me. Hayne's retelling of the Trojan War gives voice to the women involved in the conflict, telling a non-linear tale through a dozen or so perspectives that include goddesses and both Greek and Trojan women. Spoiler alert: there are no winners here, as there rarely are for women in war. Haynes drives this fact home in a feminist retelling that gives a voice to the silenced, and that's witty where you'd least expect it. If you're a mythology nerd, this trip to ancient times is worth the price of admission.

Read about the other books on the list.

A Thousand Ships is among Megan Barnard's top eleven books about misunderstood women in history and mythology, the B&N Reads editors' twenty-four best mythological retellings, Susan Stokes-Chapman's top ten novels inspired by Greek myths, Jennifer Saint's ten essential books inspired by Greek myth, Deanna Raybourn's six top novels based on historical scandals, and Alyssa Vaughn's forty-two books to help you get through the rest of quarantine.

The Page 69 Test: A Thousand Ships.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven slow-burn romances

Laura Vogt is a historian, storyteller, and poet.

She loves all things wild and beautiful.

Vogt lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with her husband and three children.

Her new novel is In the Great Quiet.

At Lit Hub Vogt tagged seven favorite slow-burn romances, including:

Jane Austen, Emma (1815)

If you need a fix after Bridgerton, I’ve got you. You thought I would recommend Pride and Prejudice or Persuasion, right? And, sure, those both spectacularly showcase longing. Austen is the queen of the slow burn. Not only in romance, but in the gradual development of character, relationships, and prose. You must wait—but an Austen book is always worth it.

Emma follows a matchmaker as she wanders the picturesque English countryside. Emma meddles with the romantic life of her entire village—while completely misunderstanding her own romance. In Pride and Prejudice, we have Darcy’s confession of love at 55%, while in Emma we’re on the edge of our seats wondering until the last chapters. Emma is a slow burn of misrecognition. We’re biting our nails, turning those pages. The brilliance of Emma is that she herself is the obstacle—she’s so busy arranging other people’s happiness that she nearly misses her own.

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

Emma is on John Mullan's list of ten of the best wines in literature, and among Daniel Mendelsohn's six all-time favorite books, Lucy Worsley's six best books, Sophie Kinsella's six best books, Tanya Byron's six best books, Judith Martin's five favorite novels, and Monica Ali's ten favorite books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven titles about sibling rivalries

Lisa Lee is the recipient of the Marianne Russo Emerging Writer Award from the Key West Literary Seminar, an Emerging Writer Fellowship from the Center for Fiction, and a Pushcart Prize. She has received other fellowships and awards from Kundiman, Millay Arts, Hedgebrook, the Rona Jaffe Foundation, Tin House, Jentel Artist Residency, and the Korea Foundation. Her work has appeared in Ploughshares, VIDA, North American Review, Sycamore Review, Gulf Coast, and elsewhere. Lee holds an MFA from the University of Houston and a PhD in Creative Writing and Literature from the University of Southern California. She lives in Los Angeles.

Lee's new novel is American Han.

At Electric Lit she tagged seven books in which we see "characters who look to their brothers and sisters with uncertainty, envy, and love, looking for clues as to who and how they should be."

One title on the list:

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

Identical twins Desiree and Stella Vignes grow up in Mallard, Louisiana in the 1970s, in a Black community where light skin confers status and a modicum of protection from the virulent racism that surrounds the community. At age 16, the Vignes twins run away to New Orleans to chase their dreams. Over a decade later, their lives have completely diverged. Desiree is back in Mallard with her dark-skinned daughter after fleeing an abusive husband. Stella is passing as a white woman in California, where she lives with her businessman husband and their daughter. Stella chose to abandon her sister and give up her history and identity for a chance to claim the privilege that comes with whiteness. Desiree spends much of her life searching for her missing sister, who has vanished into whiteness as much as she has physically vanished from the sisters’ Louisiana home. In the divergent fates of Desiree and Stella, Bennett traces how race and racism shape the possibilities of life in America.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Vanishing Half is among Charlene Carr's six top books on belonging and identity and Beth Morrey‘s top ten single mothers in fiction.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten books that changed a librarian's life

New Jersey librarian Martha Hickson is a central figure in Kim A. Snyder’s film, The Librarians, a new documentary executive produced by Sarah Jessica Parker about librarians fighting back against the rising tide of book bans.

For Vogue Hickson tagged ten "books that have indelibly shaped her life," including:

My Salinger Year by Joanna Rakoff

I first read J.D. Salinger’s frequently banned The Catcher in the Rye as a seventh grader. Holden Caulfield’s voice hooked me, and I spent my adolescence becoming a J.D. Salinger completist. Joanna Rakoff’s memoir about the year in her early 20s when she worked in the literary agency that represented Salinger offers a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the publishing world that he kept at arm’s length. Responsible for shielding Salinger from his incessant fan mail—gatekeeping that silenced readers in its own ironic form of censorship—Rakoff grows to love both the reclusive writer and his wounded correspondents. Her memoir captures that time of life, with one foot leaving adolescence and the other flailing for solid purchase in adulthood, when we begin trying on identities and careers. I loved this book and its forgiving look back at the challenge of finding one’s way.

Read about the other entries on the list.

My Salinger Year was one of Laura Lippman's four favorite reads of 2014.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five true crime titles featuring forgers, fraudsters, and con artists

Born in London, J. R. Thornton graduated from Harvard College in 2014 where he studied history, English, and Chinese. An internationally ranked junior tennis player, he competed for Harvard and on the professional circuit. He was a member of the inaugural class of Schwarzman Scholars, obtaining an M.A. from Tsinghua University in Beijing. He now lives in Italy, working for AC Milan. Lucien is his second novel.

At CrimeReads Thornton tagged five books "on forgers and conmen—on trauma and personality disorders—on imposters and fantasists." One title on the list:

Tom Wright & Bradley Hope, Billion Dollar Whale

The story of Jho Low and the looting of Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund, 1MDB, is the con artist story of the Millennial era, and Wright and Hope tell it with the propulsive energy it deserves.

Although Jho Low became adept at navigating the opaque and secretive world of offshore banking, asset laundering and shell companies, his primary tool was not financial sophistication but social engineering and performance. Rather than attempt to fly under the radar Jho Low did the opposite and hid his crimes in plain sight. He threw parties. He gave extravagant gifts. He befriended Leo DiCaprio, Paris Hilton and Miranda Kerr (and paid them to associate with him). He commissioned a super yacht for $250m. He bankrolled the production of The Wolf of Wall Street. All with stolen funds.

His story is also one of institutional failure—from the failure of financial regulators to the complicity of banks like Goldman Sachs and Rothschild to the involvement of high-ranking political figures including Najib Razak, the sitting Prime Minister of Malaysia (now serving a twenty-year prison sentence for his culpability).

Wright and Hope’s account is meticulously researched and demonstrates a deep understanding of the international shadow-banking system, yet it unfolds with the pace and tension of a thriller.

Read about the other entries on Thornton's list at CrimeReads.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven of the best dark academia titles

Melissa D’Agnese is a senior editor at FIRST for Women, Woman’s World, and various a360media special interest publications.

At Woman’s World she tagged seven of the best dark academia books, including:

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

When Donna Tartt wrote The Secret History in 1992, she had no idea she was writing a book that would one day be considered the blueprint of dark academia. The compelling premise centers around a group of six students studying at a New England university under a charismatic professor, Julian Morrow. Their studies in Greek lead them to discover a new way of thinking and living—one that’s far away from their everyday life. As morals slip, obsession leads to betrayals and, ultimately, murder.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Secret History is among Nora Garrett’s five titles that take you deep inside the ivory tower, Chris Wheatley's six best dark academia novels, Ali Lowe's six best campus crime novels, Edwin Hill's six perfectly alluring academic mysteries, a top ten Twinkies in fiction, Kate Weinberg's five top campus novels, Emily Temple's twenty best campus novels, and Ruth Ware's top six books about boarding schools.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five books that blend hilarity and escapism

Victoria Dillon is a former research scientist, current pediatrician and writer with a passion for exploring the intersections of politics and science. She has a unique ability to blend speculative fiction with thought-provoking social commentary, creating prose that speaks both to the heart and the mind. She currently resides in Middle Tennessee.

Ava is her debut novel.

At CrimeReads Dillon tagged five favorite books that blend hilarity and escapism. One title on the list:

Stephen Colbert, I Am America (And So Can You!)

This book leans fully into satire, using Colbert’s exaggerated public persona (prior to his talk show) to mock politics, media, and American self-importance. The humor is intentionally ridiculous, but there is a sharpness underneath that makes the jokes land harder than you expect. It’s hard to pick a favorite line from the book, so I went with something timely: “Here’s an easy way to figure out if you’re in a cult: If you’re wondering whether you’re in a cult, the answer is yes.”

When the news starts to feel surreal, this book feels like meeting that surrealism at its own level. It does not fix anything, but it does offer the relief of laughing at the spectacle when taking it seriously feels exhausting. It’s a great book to keep on your nightstand. You can open it to any page and enjoy Colbert’s sharp wit as a great alternative to doom-scrolling on your phone.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight top works of fiction set in Maine

Elise Juska’s latest novel, Reunion, was named one of People Magazine’s “Best Books to Read in May 2024.” Her previous novels include The Blessings, a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, and If We Had Known. Juska’s fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The Gettysburg Review, The Missouri Review, Ploughshares, The Hudson Review, Electric Literature, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of the Alice Hoffman Prize from Ploughshares, and her short fiction has been cited by The Best American Short Stories and Pushcart Prize anthologies. 

[The Page 69 Test: Reunion; My Book, The Movie: Reunion]

At Tertulia Juska tagged her favorite fiction set in Maine. One title on the list:

Beneficence by Meredith Hall

Doris and Tup and their three children live on a dairy farm in the 1950s. Theirs is an idyllic existence, focused on the satisfactions of work and family, until an unspeakable tragedy befalls them, marking the end of life as they knew it. The aftermath is painful but described in some of the most beautiful prose I’ve ever read.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top sci-fi books like "Project Hail Mary"

At Book Riot Megan Mabee tagged five sci-fi titles like Project Hail Mary, including:

All Systems Red by Martha Wells

Andy Weir excels at interweaving humor within sci-fi, so I’d be remiss if I didn’t include a more humorous option as well. Like Project Hail Mary, there’s also a bit of an endearing Rocky-Grace dynamic found between the crew of this book and Murderbot, a company-issued droid who secretly hacked its own system. As a team of scientists tests the surface of a distant planet, Murderbot must begrudgingly keep them alive. Before long, though, they’ll instead begin investigating what happened to another nearby mission.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Also see Liberty Hardy's five books for fans of Project Hail Mary.

All Systems Red also appears among Justin C. Key's nine top depictions of AI in fiction, Debbie Urbanski's nine books that center asexuality, Lorna Wallace's ten best novels about Artificial Intelligence, Deana Whitney's five amusing AI characters who should all definitely hang out, Andrew Skinner's five top stories about the lives of artificial objects, Annalee Newitz's list of seven books about remaking the world, Tansy Rayner Roberts and Rivqa Rafael's five top books that give voice to artificial intelligence, T.W. O'Brien's five recent books that explore the secret lives of robots, Sam Reader's top six science fiction novels for fans of Westworld, and Nicole Hill's six robots too smart for their own good.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six mysteries featuring mother-daughter sleuth duos

Stacy Hackney lives in Richmond, Virginia, with her husband and four sons. She graduated from Wake Forest University and University of Virginia School of Law—after her legal briefs started bordering on a little too dramatic, she started writing fiction and never stopped. When she’s not reading or writing, you can find her out on the water, watching romantic comedies, online shopping for beautiful shoes, or making an enormous mess in the kitchen.

Hackney has published two children’s books, Forever Glimmer Creek and The Sisters of Luna Island. The Primrose Murder Society is her first book for adults.

At CrimeReads Hackney tagged six top mystery novels with mother-daughter sleuths. One title on the list:

Karin Slaughter, Pieces of Her

Pieces of Her by Karin Slaughter is an expertly plotted mystery-thriller where daughter, Andrea, discovers the secret past of her mother, Laura, after her mother kills a gunman in a diner. Andrea is forced to go on the run and unravel her mother’s secrets to protect them both.

This book explores the themes of how well we know the people in our lives and the lengths a mother will go to in order to protect her daughter.

Read about the other entries on the list at CrimeReads.

Pieces of Her is among Kimberly McCreight's five thrillers about charged mother-daughter relationships.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six fairy tale retellings

Bar Fridman-Tell has a BA in art history and an MA in English literature. (She gleefully wrote her thesis about Victorian vampires.) She has worked as a bartender, a bookseller, a translator, and a library assistant. She is currently studying for a master's in library and information sciences, hoping to stay in a library for good. She lives in Toronto with her professor husband and two very fluffy cats. Honeysuckle is her debut novel.

At Lit Hub Fridman-Tell tagged six books that "take a fairy tale and pull one thread loose, to see what happens next, or tip the story on its side and see what new shape emerges." One title on the list:

S. M. Hallow, How To Survive This Fairytale

In How To Survive This Fairy Tale, a novella tiptoeing on the border between fantasy and horror, S. M. Hallow at turns unravels fairy tales and stitches them together. Hallow starts with a question: what happens after the fairy tale ends? After Hansel escaped the forest witch, after the hunter let Snow White go, after the six swans turned back into humans (mostly), and their sister proves her innocence. And what would happen if one character, Hans, tripped through all three of these stories, plus a few more?

From this starting point, Hallow tackles subjects such as the line between villain and victim, the possibility of redemption, living in a body that no longer fits who you are, and what a happy ending really looks like in these circumstances. Tears (the good kind) guaranteed.

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

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten crime novels featuring female duos

Elle Cosimano is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, an International Thriller Writers Award winner, and an Edgar Award nominee. Cosimano’s debut novel for adults, Finlay Donovan Is Killing It, kicked off a witty, fast-paced contemporary mystery series, which was a People magazine pick and was named one of New York Public Library's Best Books of 2021. The third book in the series, Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun, was an instant New York Times bestseller. A TV show based on the series is now in development by Tina Fey and Lang Fisher for Peacock. In addition to writing novels for teens and adults, her essays have appeared in HuffPost and Time. Cosimano lives with her husband and two sons in Virginia.

[Q&A with Elle Cosimano; My Book, The Movie: Seasons of the Storm]

Her new novel is Finlay Donovan Crosses the Line.

At CrimeReads Cosimano tagged ten favorite crime novels featuring captivating partners in crime. One title on the list:

Colleen Oakley, The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise

A surly octogenarian and a disillusioned college dropout take an unforgettable road trip when they find themselves on the lam from the law. Perfect for fans of the TV series Hacks.

Read about the other entries on the list at CrimeReads.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nine novels about women in the wild

Laura Hulthen Thomas’s deeply human, emotional storytelling explores blue and white collars, lovers and spouses, mothers and children, and the unique Michigan places that shape these relationships. Her novels, stories, and essays reveal the complexities of home, work, and the Midwestern landscape. Thomas is a Teaching Professor in the undergraduate creative writing program at the University of Michigan’s Residential College. Her first book, States of Motion, was a finalist for a Foreword Reviews Indie Award.

Thomas's new novel is The Meaning of Fear.

At Electric Lit she tagged "nine novels [that] tell the stories of women who find themselves battling their own wilds." One title on the list:

The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff

The Vaster Wilds pits woman against the wilds from its first lines. Set in 1609, young Lamentations flees from Virginia’s Jamestown colony into the “great and terrible wilderness” to escape starvation and a crime that deprivation drove her to commit. More Lot’s wife than Robinson Crusoe, the girl flees north through the dense forest without looking back. As she fights the cold, malnutrition, and the toll of past trauma, Lamentations chops fish from the ice and shelters in fallen logs. At first, survival means outrunning the men who pursue her. Later, as her health and stamina slip, true survival means learning when to flee and when to shelter in “one of the quiet good places of this new land.” Throughout the novel, Groff cuts to the nearby Powhatan gathering food and building communities as a reminder that this world is only wild to the woman not born to it.

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

The Vaster Wilds is among Peggy Townsend's five notable wilderness thrillers featuring fearless women and Daniel Schreiber's top ten books about solitary living.

--Marshal Zeringue

Four great sci-fi novels with ragtag crews

At Book Riot Liberty Hardy tagged four "fun sci-fi escapades featuring motley crews." One entry on the list:

A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe by Alex White

Last but not least is this action-filled story of a ragtag crew of two. They’re both outcasts: a former treasure hunter and a champion racer who are no longer relevant. They’re searching for a legendary warship they heard about, which was supposedly lost or destroyed many moons ago, but if found, could turn their fortunes around. And it could also give them the ability to destroy anyone and anything that dares to cross them, if they desire, nbd.

Read about the other titles on the list.

A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe is among Liberty Hardy's five great sci-fi titles about competitions.

My Book, The Movie: A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe.

The Page 69 Test: A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven titles with astronaut protagonists

Cecile Pin is a writer living in London. Her debut novel Wandering Souls was published in twelve languages. It was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, the Prix Femina Etranger, and shortlisted for the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize. She has won the Fragonard Prize for Foreign Literature, a Somerset Maugham Award, and a London Writers' Award. In 2025, she was selected as one of Forbes’ 30 Under 30 Europe. Her new novel is Celestial Lights.

At Lit Hub Pin tagged seven novels with astronaut protagonists, including:

Andy Weir, The Martian

Again, this isn’t the only one of Weir’s book that could have made it onto this list – and many readers might be familiar with Ridley Scott’s Oscar-nominated adaptation of it. Mark Watney, a NASA astronaut, gets stranded on Mars after a

dust storm sweeps through the planet. How will he survive against all odds? I particularly admire how well-researched the novel is. Weir, who has a background in computer programming, checked a lot of the maths and science himself, and initially published chapters on his blog, crowdsourcing readers to correct any inaccuracies.

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

The Martian is among Paulette Jiles's seven top post-apocalyptic sci-fi escapist titles, Joel Cunningham's five favorite invented locations that don’t plan to let you leave, Tim Peake's five top books to take to space, Jeffrey Kluger's five favorite books that make epic drama out of space-faring history, Elisabeth Delp's seven classic science fiction space odysseys, Alexandra Oliva's five novels that get important aspects of survival right, Jeff Somers's seven works of speculative fiction that don’t feel all that speculative and  five top sci-fi novels with plausible futuristic technology, Ernest Cline’s ten favorite SF novels, and James Mustich's five top books on visiting Mars.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven titles that explore whiteness in intimate relationships

Lisa Low is the author of Crown for the Girl Inside, winner of the Vinyl 45 Chapbook Contest from YesYes Books. She is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize and a Gulf Coast Nonfiction Prize, and her poems have appeared in Copper Nickel, Ecotone, The Massachusetts Review, Poetry, The Southern Review, and elsewhere. She lives in Chicago.

Low's full-length poetry collection is Replica.

At Electric Lit she tagged seven "cross-genre books explore interracial relationships by inverting the white gaze." One title on the list:

Just Us: An American Conversation by Claudia Rankine

Rankine challenges herself to ask white men what they think of their privilege early on in Just Us, a hybrid text containing essays, poems, images, and research, in the lineage of her 2014 collection Citizen. Several airport/airplane interactions later, Rankine recounts her findings to her white husband, who “believes he understands and recognizes his own privilege. Certainly he knows the right terminology to use, even when these agreed-upon terms prevent us from stumbling into moments of real recognition.” This white husband is a minor character in a book that advocates for messiness, that probes the intimacy of conversations on whiteness with strangers and friends alike. But “lemonade,” a small section on their relationship and a session with a marriage counselor, deepens previous and subsequent conversations in the book and adds meaning to the title “just us.”

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six medieval horror books

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 medieval horror books to take you back in time, including:

Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman

You can’t talk about Medieval horror without mentioning Between Two Fires, which seems to be everywhere I look lately. What began as a BookTok sensation was recently rereleased with the renowned horror publisher Tor NightFire.

Between Two Fires begins in the year 1348, and the knight, Thomas, finds an orphaned girl of the plague in a dead Norman village. The girl believes the Black Plague is part of a larger religious cataclysm, and her visions convince Thomas to escort her to Avignon. But Thomas soon realizes that the girl is more than just promises of salvation for himself and the world. This is a medieval horror-adventure that plays on the religious intensity and upheaval of the Middle Ages.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top titles about running

At PopSugar Helen Carefoot tagged ten books "that tackle running as both a recreational pursuit and a necessity... stories that include running as the catalyst for finding love, building community, finding purpose and oneself, and carrying oneself to safety." One title on the list:

Slow Horses by Mick Herron

You may think of spies as glamorous, skilled professionals, but the spies that populate Mick Herron's "Slough House" series are the opposite: a motley crew of disgraced, dysfunctional agents who've been demoted and suffered some mess up or humiliation that placed them on the outs. But under the guidance of brilliant but curmudgeonly spy Jackson Lamb, they do somehow manage to save the UK repeatedly, despite committing bungling missteps along the way.

River Cartwright, a promising young agent, is constantly trying to prove himself. This means placing himself physically in harm's way, which includes him running all the time: through crowded public spaces to (try) to catch suspects, away when he breaks into high security spaces to gain intel, and even on jogs to clear his head.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Slow Horses is among Mike Lawson's political thrillers where the good guys don’t always win and Bernard Cornwell's six best books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight memoirs about the childhood loss of a mother

Jacque Gorelick is a California native who has moved too many times to count. She’s lived all over the West Coast from Santa Barbara to Alaska. Now firmly rooted in the San Francisco Bay Area, she lives beside a creek under redwood trees with her husband, two boys, and a mélange of rescues.

Before freelance writing, Gorelick spent two decades as an elementary school teacher helping students turn ideas into stories. Her debut memoir, Map of a Heart: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Finding the Way Home, is about hearts (medical and metaphorical) and discovering—through a traumatic medical event and motherhood—the meaning of family.

At Electric Lit Gorelick tagged eight memoirs that "explore the ripple effects of early mother loss on womanhood, motherhood, identity, and belonging. A loss that shapes daughters for a lifetime." One title on the list:

Living Proof by Tiffany Graham Charkosky

Tiffany Graham Charkosky’s girlhood unfolded against the backdrop of her mother’s cancer diagnosis and declining health. Eighteen years later, as a woman finding her footing in marriage and motherhood, Charkosky’s grief and fear resurface when she discovers her mother’s illness was a result of a specific and rare genetic mutation. What follows is a familial excavation, genetic reckoning, and heartrending reminiscence of what is lost when a mother dies, leaving her young children with unanswerable questions that cannot be quieted, no matter the years that pass. Charkosky faces genetic testing and uncertainty as she unravels the mystery of her family’s legacy through her own DNA. Living Proof is a profound story of what we inherit through genetics, memory, and time.

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

--Marshal Zeringue

Five crime novels where objects and houses remember

C. L. Miller is the internationally bestselling author of the Antique Hunter Series. She started working life as an editorial assistant for her mother, Judith Miller, on The Miller’s Antique Price Guide and other antiquing guides. She lives in a medieval cottage in Dedham Vale, Suffolk, with her family.

The author's newest novel is The Antique Hunter's Murder at the Castle.

At CrimeReads Miller tagged five crime novels "where houses act as witnesses, objects function as evidence, and history is not background texture but an active participant in the mystery." One title on the list:

S.A. Cosby, All the Sinners Bleed

S.A. Cosby’s All the Sinners Bleed is one of my favorite crime reads–although I would argue that it’s not a traditional historical mystery, but it brilliantly uses the legacies of the Southern landscape—its racial fault lines, its layered memory of violence and resistance to anchor its powerful narrative.

The small Virginia town isn’t just a backdrop; its history amplifies the tension and moral conflict faced by a sheriff hunting a serial killer whose crimes feel rooted in long-standing community wounds.

Read about the other entries on the list at CrimeReads.

All The Sinners Bleed is among Amber and Danielle Brown's five top thrillers with social commentary and Publishers Weekly's best mysteries and thrillers of 2023.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five titles for fans of the "Project Hail Mary" novel and/or movie

At Book Riot Liberty Hardy tagged five "great reads about searching for new habitable planets, or encountering aliens, or both." One entry on the list:

The Best of All Possible Worlds by Karen Lord

[W]hen the homeland of an alien society is destroyed, they realize their only chance for survival is to ask for help from the indigenous life forms on their adopted planet. Soon, it’s a race to keep the species from dying out, while long-kept mysteries are unraveled and the two cultures are forced to work together.

Read about the other titles on the list.

The Best of All Possible Worlds is among Ceridwen Christensen's eleven adult SF novels to turn teens into genre fans for life.

--Marshal Zeringue

The five best celebrity/normal person romance novels

Haruka Iwasaki is a writer and bookseller living in Brooklyn, NY. She writes personal essays about her Japanese American identity, grief and growing up in NYC. One essay has appeared in print this year in Oh Reader magazine.

At Lit Hub she tagged five favorite celebrity/normal person romance novels, including:

Rachel Reid, Game Changer

Scott Hunter, the star hockey player of the New York Admirals, is having a bad streak of games and steps into a smoothie place after a run where he meets Kip, a twenty five year old who works in food service while he decides what to do with his history degree. Scott wins that evening’s game and, crediting the smoothie with his changing luck, visits Kip at his smoothie shop again (this time with more flirtation), Later they meet again at a fancy gala where Kip is working as a caterer. They decide to go out for burgers after and quickly start a fun, loving relationship but have to operate completely in secret since Scott is not out as a gay hockey player. The happy scenes between Kip and Scott show that happiness and steadiness in a relationship is not boring at all and getting to know your new partner is a fascinating process.

This romance novel explores the long distance part of being in a relationship with a celebrity: there are tons of spicy scenes that involve Skype or old-school talking over the phone and reunions after many days apart. Because Kip feels a little lost in his career, there is a bit more of a Cinderella dynamic with an enormous class difference between the two men and higher stakes because of the danger in publicly outing an athlete before Scott and Kip are ready for what comes afterward. This is a really sweet love story and the first book in the Game Changers series that helped create the popular show Heated Rivalry.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven darkly surreal Irish books

Eoghan Walls is a Northern Irish poet from Derry. He has lived and worked in Ireland, Britain, Germany and Rwanda. He won an Eric Gregory Award in 2006, and his poetry has been shortlisted for multiple international awards, including the Bridport Prize, the Manchester Poetry Prize and the Piggott Prize. He has published the first major translation of Heidegger’s poetical works and currently teaches Creative Writing at Lancaster University.

Walls's new novel, Field Notes from an Extinction, "deals with ecological disaster, weaponized starvation, and anti-immigrant sentiment."

At Electric Lit the author tagged seven favorite darkly surreal Irish books, including:

The Wild Laughter by Caoilinn Hughes

The bleak desperation of a more recent Ireland is conjured in Caoilinn Hughes’s The Wild Laughter; a novel set in post-Celtic Tiger Ireland’s financial collapse, where a father in Roscommon, “the Chief,” is dying of age and poor investments and asks his sons to assist in his suicide. The pains in the book have a grand mythic scope—as of Cain and Abel or Saturn and his kids. There are intimate blood ties: Brothers are troubled in wild fields. Dogs howl at the damp horizons. The wild laughter of the title is the absurd—defiant? hopeful? despairing?—response to the new darknesses that drive us into the earth.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six books to read if you loved the movie "Sinners"

Erica Ezeifedi is a writer, editor, and advocate currently serving as an Associate Editor at Book Riot. For the site she tagged six "books that each touch on the major themes and feelings in Sinners," including:

The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones

The release of this book being so close to Sinners is too perfect. It also has vampirism as an analogy of European violence against Indigenous and non-white populations, but this time, one of the brown bodies it consumes bites back.

Read about the other titles on the list..

The Buffalo Hunter Hunter is among V.E. Schwab's five top modern vampire novels.

Also see Brittany K. Allen's top ten books for fans of Sinners.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six thrillers that feature contagions and pandemics

Alice Martin is a writer, reader, and teacher from North Carolina. She holds a PhD in Literature from Rutgers University and works as an Assistant Professor of English Studies at Western Carolina University, where she teaches fiction writing and American literature. She lives outside of Asheville, North Carolina with her husband, her son, and too many typewriters.

Westward Women is Martin's debut novel.

At CrimeReads the author tagged six novels that are

stories about societies on the edge in the face of contagions, stories made pulse-pounding not only because of the way they demonstrate contagion as a threat but also the way they reveal how contagion can be a catalyst for social change, a reminder of the potential reckless delights in being free of social constraint.

One title on Martin's list:

Chuck Wendig, Wanderers

Like Westward Women, Chuck Wendig’s Wanderers features a biologically mysterious contagion that compels people to trek across the United States in a zombie-like fashion. Unlike in Westward Women, detaining the infected causes those very infected to explode (yes, really). The result is an unstoppable movement that inspires loved ones, called “Shepards,” to join the trek.

The reverberates of this phenomenon are widespread: the development of an AI to predict other pandemics, the formation extremist groups who see the Walkers as a threat, and the rise of a smalltown preacher who tries to take charge of the situation while under the influence of a white supremacist. The outcomes are explosive, but so is the subtler truth the contagion embodies: that sometimes we are drawn to compulsion; that despite our better judgements, sometimes we, too, wish to submit to forces beyond our control.

Read about the other entries on the list at CrimeReads.

Wanderers is among Vanessa Armstrong's seven top books featuring frightening fungi and Mark Skinner's ten top reads for Stranger Things fans.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five mystery titles set in the aftermath of WWII

Shaina Steinberg is the author of the Bishop & Gallagher Mysteries, as well as a film and television writer who’s worked on Malcolm in the Middle, Everwood, Cold Case, Bionic Woman, and Spartacus. Named to the Young and Hungry List in 2013 and the WriteHer List in 2017, she has developed pitches, pilots and features with companies such as Temple Hill, Endgame Entertainment, Fremantle, eOne, Blondie Girl, Josephson Entertainment and Alcon.

At The Strand Magazine she tagged five mystery books set in the aftermath of World War Two. One title on the list:

Evergreen – Naomi Hirahara

The follow-up to Naomi Hirahara’s brilliant Clark and Division, Evergreen continues Aki (neé Ito) Nakasone’s story. Aki and her family returned to Los Angeles, after being forced into internment camps. While somewhere able to find housing, many people were forced into camps located in Burbank. They were dirty, crime-ridden places, that proved hard to leave with the shortage of affordable housing.

Aki is working as a nurse’s aide when an old man, who has been badly beaten, is brought into the hospital. To Aki’s surprise, he is the father of her husband’s best friend, Babe, from the war. She cannot help but suspect him of elder abuse. When the old man killed a few days later and Babe goes missing, Aki is determined to unravel this mystery. The bond Aki’s husband developed with Babe while serving as soldiers in the 442nd is something Aki cannot understand. It makes her realize how much she still has to learn about her husband. They got married during the war and are only now living together for the first time.

Aki’s quest to find the killer reunites her with old friends from Chicago as she navigates Los Angeles from Pasadena to Little Tokyo, in search of answers.

Read about the other novels on the list.

Q&A with Naomi Hirahara.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five books about breaking up... with your friend

Sarvat Hasin is a novelist and dramaturg from Pakistan. She has a masters in creative writing from the University of Oxford. Her first novel, This Wide Night, was published by Penguin Random House India and longlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. Her second book, You Can’t Go Home Again, was published in 2018 and featured in Vogue India's and The Hindu's best of the year lists. Her third novel, The Giant Dark, was a runaway critical success, won the Mo Siewcharran Prize, and was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature Encore Award. Strange Girls is her US debut. She lives in London.

At Lit Hub Hasin tagged "five novels [that] are a kind of canon for the friendship breakup," including:

Kamila Shamsie, Kartography

This novel is full of friendship breakups, both past and present. It’s about a quartet of young Karachiites, whose parents all know each other and have a shared and knotty history that our heroes discover over the course of the book. Shamsie’s early novel is an elegant portrayal of breakups, coloured by many different things: bigotry, misunderstandings and shame are all things that tear people apart in this book. Raheen and Karim are at the heart of the book, friends first and an eventual love story. Even when they both leave Pakistan and move to American, they continue to satellite each other. The friendship breakup in the diaspora is its own particular haunting: representing not just your past relationship but the home you’ve left behind.

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

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight historical fiction titles about women fighting fascism

Susie Dumond is a queer writer originally from Little Rock, Arkansas. She is the author of Queerly Beloved, Looking for a Sign, and Bed and Breakup, and she also talks about books as a senior contributor at Book Riot and a bookseller at her local indie bookstore. Dumond lives in Washington, D.C., with her spouse, Mickey, and her cat, Maple. When she’s not writing or reading, you can find her baking cupcakes or belting karaoke at the nearest gay bar.

At Book Riot Dumond tagged eight works of historical fiction about women fighting fascism. One title on the list:

The Library of Legends by Janie Chang

One of fascism’s most powerful tools is the erasure of history from conflicting viewpoints. Janie Chang puts a magical spin on the real history of a group of Chinese students tasked with protecting ancient books from fascist attacks. As Japanese bombs fell on 1937 Nanking, an entire university’s students, faculty, and staff were forced to walk 1,000 miles west to safety. Each person was tasked with carrying a different volume of the 500-year-old Library of Legends. Their brave journey awakens spirits that accompany them along the way in this luscious, fantastical tale inspired by real events.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Library of Legends is among Bryn Turnbull's seven top books about life under occupation in WWII and Megan Mabee's eight books about magical and mysterious libraries.

--Marshal Zeringue