The Caretaker

 

Marcus Kliewer just cemented himself as one of the most unsettling voices in horror. I mean that as the highest possible compliment.

Marcus Kliewer’s 2024 debut We Used to Live Here was great. The Caretaker is something else entirely.

This book creeped me out in the best possible way, and I am here for every second of it. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Macy Mullins is broke, responsible for her younger sister, and not in a position to be picky. So when a strange job posting appears for a caretaker needed, three days, competitive pay — she takes it. How bad could three days in a house on the Oregon Coast be? Bad. Very, very bad.

What starts as a weird but manageable gig turns into something she couldn’t have prepared for. There’s an evil on that property that defies explanation, and Macy may be the only thing standing between it and everyone else. No pressure.

Kliewer keeps you off-balance the entire time, and the ending? It pulls the rug out from under you and melts your brain. I sat with it for a while after.

This isn’t splatter horror. There’s some bloodshed, but what Kliewer is really doing is messing with your head. He builds dread slowly and layers in the tension. He makes the atmosphere feel almost suffocating. The pacing is tight. The main character is compelling. And the creepiness never lets up.

The audio production deserves its own mention. Narrator Corey Brill gives a raw, emotionally charged performance that made this already-unsettling story hit even harder. Jeremy Carlisle Parker has a smaller role but strikes exactly the right note. I couldn’t tell if his character was frightening or just a frightened old man. That ambiguity is everything in a book like this. No notes. Truly.

If you love horror that gets under your skin and stays there, this one’s for you. It also works beautifully if you’re drawn to atmospheric family dramas with a dark edge.

The Caretaker is out April 21. Thank you Simon Audio for the gifted early listen!

QOTD: Have you ever finished a book and just had to sit with the ending for a while? What was it?

#horrorbooks #audiobookreview #psychologicalhorror #horrorbookstagram #bookstagram

About the Author

Marcus Kliewer is a writer and stop-motion animator. His debut novel We Used to Live Here began life as a serialized short story on Reddit. Film rights were snapped up by Netflix, and it was acquired by Simon & Schuster in the US for publication even before it had been extended into a full-length novel. He lives in Vancouver, Canada. 

Shibby Magee

 

This book will make you laugh out loud and then quickly break your heart.

And somehow Carrie Kabak pulls it off on every single page.

Some books just get under your skin. Shibby Magee by Carrie Kabak is one of them.

When Shibby and her twin sister Dorah are eleven, their mother vanishes — dropping the bombshell on her way out that she’s an Irish Traveller returning to her community. What follows is a lifetime of fallout. Nanna Magee never forgives her son Benny for marrying a Traveller woman, and she makes sure everyone feels her contempt for it. Shibby spends decades chasing love and acceptance from people who seem constitutionally unable to give it — her cold, prejudiced grandmother, her emotionally absent father — all while carrying the wound of a mother who chose to leave.

The discrimination against the Traveller community is woven throughout the story, and Kabak handles it with real nuance. Shibby and Dorah’s lifelong friendship with Kitty, a Traveller girl, shows the other side. Kitty has all loyalty, love, and warmth that Shibby’s own family rarely offered. In a desperate bid for connection, Shibby eventually marries a Traveller man. It’s a disaster. But it’s also the thing that finally cracks Benny open. He comes to her rescue, and in doing so, gives Shibby something she’d been waiting her whole life for.

The twins themselves are a study in contrasts. Dorah shrugs off every upheaval; Shibby takes everything to heart. Their saving grace is Alice Duffy, the family housekeeper, who becomes the mother figure they never had. 

The writing is sharp, the Irish setting is atmospheric, and the characters feel so real they could walk right off the page.

This one is absurd and heartbreaking in equal measure. Highly recommend for fans of literary fiction, women’s fiction, and family dramas with real emotional weight. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you Carrie Kabak for the #gifted ebook. Out now.

Shibby and Dorah cope with the same childhood trauma in completely opposite ways. Are you more of a Shibby — someone who feels everything deeply — or a Dorah — someone who rolls with the punches?

#shibbymageebook #carriekabak #irishfiction #womensfiction #familydrama

About the Author

Carrie Kabak’s novel Cover the Butter was an Independent Booksellers’ Pick, won an AudioFile Magazine Award, and was nominated for a Quill Award. Her essays appear in For Keeps and He Said What? (Seal Press), Exit Laughing (North Atlantic Books), Faith (Simon & Schuster), and Dumped (She Writes). Carrie’s latest novel, Shibby Magee, was recently released.

Carrie is a regular online visitor to Victoria Zackheim’s UCLA Personal Essay course (Extension Writers’ Program), where she discusses the art of essay writing.

Alongside her writing, Carrie works as a book cover artist for major publishers, following many years as a production designer at Hallmark Cards. Both an Irish and British citizen, she now lives in Missouri with her chef husband. They share five sons, five grandchildren, two labradors, two cockatiels, and four tanks of freshwater fish.

The Tobacco Wives

 

This book made me want to stand up and cheer for a 15-year-old girl who had more courage than all the adults around her. This was my book club’s March pick and it did not disappoint.

The Tobacco Wives by Adele Myers is set in 1946 in Bright Leaf, North Carolina. It’s a fictional tobacco town where everything looks picture perfect on the surface. Young Maddie Sykes arrives to spend the summer with her aunt, a seamstress who sews gowns for the wives of powerful tobacco executives. But the more time Maddie spends in this world of glamour and garden parties, the more she starts to notice what no one wants her to see.

What really got me about this book was how well Myers captured a pivotal moment in women’s history. During WWII, women had stepped into jobs that had always belonged to men. For many women it was the first time earning their own money and building their own identities. And then the men came home. Would women be pushed back into the roles they’d been handed before the war, or would things ever be the same again? Myers doesn’t let you forget that question for a single page.

The atmosphere is the real star here. The southern setting feels authentic, the fashion details are chef’s kiss, and the characters are drawn with enough depth that you actually care what happens to them. Fair warning: the opening chapters take a little while to get going, but once the story finds its footing, it pulls you right in.

My book club had a fantastic discussion with this one. It’s exactly the kind of book that gives you plenty to dig into.

Perfect for fans of historical fiction, women’s fiction, and family drama.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

What’s a book you’ve read that made you think differently about a piece of history you thought you already knew?

#thetobaccowives #adelemyers #historicalfiction #womensfiction #bookclubread

About the Author

Adele Myers grew up in Asheville, North Carolina, and has a journalism degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She currently works in advertising and lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband, son and their rescue dog

Celestial Lights

 

Celestial Lights by Cecile Pin isn’t the space novel you’re expecting. It’s not about the science. It’s not about the mission. It’s about a man who was always going to choose the stars over the people who needed him to stay.

Ollie is born the same moment the Challenger falls from the sky. Decades later, he’s one of the most respected astronauts of his time. When a billionaire offers him the chance to lead a ten-year mission to Europa, he says yes. Not dramatically. Not after a fight. Just… yes.

His wife Philly knows he’ll go. He knows he’ll go. But they go through the motions of a marriage that softly unravels without ever raising its voice.

This is a short book, under 250 pages, but it carries a lot. Cecile Pin writes with such economy and precision that every sentence does real work. Ollie isn’t particularly warm or likable, but I don’t think he’s meant to be. He’s ambitious, smart, emotionally distant. He’s the kind of person who’s probably great at being an astronaut and complicated at being a husband or father.

Is this sci-fi? Technically, but barely. If you’re looking for elaborate world-building and a deep dive into astrophysics, this isn’t it. If you want a literary character study with beautiful prose and a family drama that unfolds in sighs rather than slammed doors,   then pull up a chair.

I won’t pretend I figured out everything this book is trying to say. But it stayed with me in a low-key, thoughtful way.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Thank you Henry Holt and Co for the gifted finished copy. Out now. 

QOTD: Do you prefer your literary fiction to have a clear emotional payoff, or are you okay with a book that leaves things open-ended?

#celestiallights #cecilepin #literaryfiction #bookstagram #theretiredlibrarian

About the Author

Cecile Pin is a London-based writer. Wandering Souls, her first novel, was long-listed for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, the Carnegie Medal, the Prix Femina Étranger, and was short-listed 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.

Ascendents

 

Science just proved the afterlife is real. The catch? Your genes determine if you’re invited.

Today is pub day for a debut that asks what happens when the most powerful force in the world isn’t money or weapons. It’s who gets to exist after death.

Happy pub day to Ascendants by Don Schechter! 

It’s 2060, and the world has been split in two, not by war or politics, but by a scientific discovery that changes everything. An afterlife exists, but only for those with the right genetic marker. If you’re an Ascendant, transcendence awaits. If you’re a Biomass? Oblivion. And a powerful organization called the Jacobs Institute controls all of it.

This debut techno-thriller follows three characters pulled into the Institute’s web: a scientist who helped build this world, a grieving husband desperate to follow his wife into the afterlife, and a young woman fighting to survive in a society that has decided she doesn’t matter. It’s a story about what happens when science, faith, and power get tangled together in the worst possible ways.

If you’re a fan of Black Mirror or dystopian thrillers that make you think, this one is worth a look. Thank you PR by the Book and  GFB for gifted ARC! 

QOTD: If science could prove the afterlife was real but access was limited, who do you think would control it?

#ascendants #donschechter #pubday #sciencefiction #dystopianfiction

About the Author

Don Schechter is an entrepreneur, filmmaker, writer, and Professor of the Practice at Tufts University. Ascendants is his first novel and part of a larger sci-fi project that includes a short film anthology. He’s the founder and CEO of Charles River Media, co-host of the science fiction podcast No Win Scenario, and a lifelong student of speculative storytelling.

Five for Friday: Heist Novels

 

I am a sucker for a good heist novel. The tension, the misdirection, the moment you realize you never saw it coming. I’m here for all of it.

Swipe for 5 that delivered: a few you may know, a few you probably don’t, and all of them worth your time. Drop your favorite heist read in the comments. I’m always looking for my next one. 🔓📚

QOTD: what was the last book you absolutely couldn’t put down? 

#5forfriday #heistbooks #crimefiction #thrillerbooks #bookstagram

Whether you’re in it for the con, the characters, or that perfect twist, these five have you covered.

Antihero

 

What happens when a trained killer is told he can’t kill?

Antihero is the 11th book in Gregg Hurwitz’s Orphan X series, and it might be the most emotionally complex one yet. 

Evan Smoak, government-trained assassin turned vigilante protector, takes on a case that breaks every rule he’s built his life around. A young woman named Anca was violently assaulted during a seizure, the attack recorded and sold to a predatory website. Evan steps in to protect her, get her help, and track down the men responsible. But Anca extracts a promise from him first: no killing. And that single promise unravels everything.

Watching Evan squirm is something else. This is a man who was trained to eliminate threats, not feel them. Anca’s strength, her faith, her moral clarity all get under his skin in ways no enemy ever has. Her presence also stirs something paternal in Evan toward Joey, the young woman who washed out of the same brutal program that made him. These aren’t small character moments. They crack him open.

Hurwitz doesn’t let any of this slow the story down. This is still pedal-to-the-metal action from start to finish. But the emotional current running underneath it is deeper than anything we’ve seen from Evan before. Scott Brick’s narration is absolutely essential here. He captures every crack in Evan’s composure with precision.

I’m genuinely curious where Evan goes from here. This mission changed him. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

QOTD: If a character you loved made a promise that completely went against who they are — would you want them to keep it or break it?

#bookstagram #bookreviews #bookrecommendations #audiobooks #antihero #orphanx #orphanxseries #gregghurwitz #evansmoak #audiobookreview #thrillerbooks

About the Author

Gregg Hurwitz is the author of the New York Times bestselling Orphan X novels. Critically acclaimed, his novels have been international bestsellers, graced top ten lists, and have been published in thirty-two languages. Additionally, he’s sold scripts to many of the major studios, and written, developed, and produced television for various networks. Hurwitz lives in Los Angeles.