The Kindness of Strangers

 

A dead body on page one and I still couldn’t guess how we got there.

Thank you Simon Audio for the gifted listen!

Five housemates, one mysterious stranger, and a 1950s London boarding house where everyone has a secret. 

The Kindness of Strangers by Emma Garman is going on my list of books to recommend when someone says they want something like an Agatha Christie. This is slow burning, character driven, atmospheric, and absolutely packed with secrets. It pulled me right in. 

The setting is London, 1953 and the city is still pulling itself out of the war. Honor Wilson runs a boarding house, and she’s picky about who gets a room. We’ve got George, the society girl trying to escape her debutante life. Mina, the small-village girl who came to London to be more than she was. Robbie, the would-be writer haunted by the war. And Saul, the refugee who lost his entire family in the Holocaust. 

Then Jimmy Sullivan turns up at the door one foggy night and Honor lets him stay even though she clearly doesn’t want to. Everyone can feel something is off about him, but no one can put their finger on what. Mina and Saul end up teaming up like an unlikely detective duo to figure out who he actually is, and that’s where the book really gets its hooks in you.

Olivia Dowd’s narration is wonderful. She gave every character their own distinct voice and I never once got lost in the house full of people.

If you like Christie’s group-of-strangers-with-secrets setup or the cozy-with-edge feel of The Thursday Murder Club, grab this one. ⭐⭐⭐⭐

If you enjoyed this, you might be interested in The Thursday Murder Club.

About the Author

Emma Garman, a Brighton-based writer and critic, has been a columnist for The Paris Review and a contributor to Literary Review, The Daily Beast, Lapham’s Quarterly, and History News Network. She has an MA in creative writing from the City College of New York and an MA in literature from Queen Mary University of London. The Kindness of Strangers is her debut novel.

IG Live | a conversation with Amy Mass

 

I had such a great time chatting with author Amy Mass about her debut novel 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗕𝗶𝘁𝗲𝘀. It's a fun and heartfelt romcom that comes out tomorrow. It features Grace, a scientist, who goes on a reality dating show to help save her lab if she can win the prize money. But can Grace find love too? 

Reality Bites is out May 12. 

Watch the replay of our conversation here. You can read my full review of Reality Bites here. For more information and news about Amy, visit her website.

Marion

 

Norman picked the wrong woman to mess with.

What if Marion had fought back?

Thank you to Macmillan Audio for the gifted early listen.

I watched Psycho right before listening to this one. My timing is impeccable. 🎬🔪

Marion by Leah Rowan takes the bones of Hitchcock’s classic: a woman on the run with stolen money, a desolate roadside motel, a creepy innkeeper. And blows up the ending you know. In this retelling, creepy innkeeper Norm Billings attacks Marion, but she doesn’t die in that shower. She fights back. And then things get very interesting.

What I loved most is that Rowan doesn’t just swap out the ending and call it a day. She builds a completely new story around a woman fueled by fierce love for her sister and pent-up female rage. The dual narrators, Natalie Naudus and Tawny Platis, handle the two POVs beautifully. Their narrations convey the book's creepiness and rage. 

Fair warning: Hannah’s backstory slows things down a bit in the middle, but it’s necessary scaffolding. Stick with it.

This is Leah Rowan’s debut, and if she keeps writing books that reimagine classic Hitchcock through a modern feminist lens, I’m in for every single one.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ — A tension filled, girl-power thriller that Hitchcock himself would have to respect. Marion releases June 2.

if you're looking for another thriller with a feminist angle, you might be interested in Killer Potential.

About the Author

Leah Rowan is an author living in Brooklyn and the Catskills. Marion is her forthcoming thriller.

For more news and information about Leah, visit her website.

IG Live | a conversation with Ilona Bannister

 

I had such a wonderful time chatting with Ilona Bannister on an IG Live today about her new book Five. We had a spoiler-free discussion about the inspiration for it, the characters, and her writing process. 

This is a tense and taught thriller that takes place in five minutes as a train rushed towards the platform. If you're looking for a tense and taught thriller, this one's for you. It's a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ read for me. Thank you Crown Publishing for the gifted finished copy!

Many thanks to Ilona for taking the time during this busy pub week to chat! I appreciate it! 

You can watch the replay of our discussion here. You can read my full review of Five here.

For more news and information about Ilona, visit her website.

Murder by Design

This thriller duo is the most fun I’ve had reading in months.

A detective who can’t stop insulting people + the broke actor hired to apologize for him = chaos.

Murder by Design by Lee Goldberg grabbed me on page one.

Edison Bixby is brilliant, wealthy, and thanks to a traumatic brain injury, has zero filter. Whatever he thinks, he says. He was a decorated detective until his condition cost his department millions in lawsuits, so they pushed him out. Now he works as an insurance investigator, taking on cases where you genuinely wonder what these people were thinking.

Enter Wally Nash, a struggling actor with one job: trail Bixby around and apologize to everyone he offends. The two of them are a ridiculous pair and I had so much fun watching them work.

What sets this book apart is the angle on the crimes. Every case ties back to design: how buildings, spaces, and environments are built to shape how people behave. It’s such a fresh hook for a thriller.

Bixby’s house is basically its own character. It’s this wild architectural fever dream. And yes, there’s a treehouse in the backyard that cooks you a full hot breakfast if you pull the right vines and levers. Bizarre? Absolutely. But it works because the whole book is built around the idea that design shapes experience. Goldberg’s author’s note says the house is inspired by two real storybook-style homes in the LA area. I went down a full rabbit hole looking at photos. So cool.

The pace doesn’t quit, the twists hit, and the Sherlock-and-Watson energy between Bixby and Wally is just pure fun. If you like mysteries that are clever without being stuffy, grab this one. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Out June 1. Thank you to Megan Beattie Communications for the gifted ARC.

If you enjoyed this, you might be interested in this quirky mystery. 

About the Author

Lee Goldberg is a screenwriter, TV producer, and the author of several books, including King City, The Walk, and the bestselling Monk series of mysteries. He has earned two Edgar Award nominations and was the 2012 recipient of the Poirot Award from Malice Domestic.

For more information on Lee and his books, visit his website. 

IG Live | a Conversation with Hannah Church

 I had such a great time talking with audiobook narrator Hannah Church this afternoon on an IG Live! We talked about her most recent narration The Dead Girls Book Club by Zia Rayyan. We also talked about Hannah's process for doing a narration, the accents she loves to do, and lots of other things that goes into being an audiobook narrator. 

If you’ve ever wondered what goes into the performance side of audiobooks, this one’s for you.

You can watch the replay of our conversation here.

For more information about Hannah and her narration work, visit her website.

Book mail: Five

 

Five strangers. Five minutes. One of them is about to die and you have to decide who.

Thank you Crown Public for the gifted book! 

Happy pub day to Five by Ilona Bannister!  🎉

The publisher sent Take 5 bars with this one, which is perfect. Because everything about this book is built around five: five people, five minutes, one impossible outcome.

Here’s the setup: five strangers are waiting on a train platform. In five minutes, the 7:06 to London Victoria arrives and one of them won’t make it.

A young boy. His mother. An elderly woman. A businessman. A gambler.

You get all their stories. And the whole time, the book is pushing you to decide who deserves to survive.

It even breaks the fourth wall in a really clever way. You’re not just reading. You’re judging.

This storytelling is original and tense. It's a little unsettling in the best way. You can check out my full review of the book  here.

I’m going LIVE with Ilona this Thursday to talk all about it. Come hang out! 📅