5 Books to Break Your Reading Slump

Reading slumps are real, and sometimes the only cure is a book that grabs you by the collar and refuses to let go.

These five did exactly that for me. Different vibes, different genres, but every single one of them made me forget what time it was.

Whether you’re in the mood for a sweeping emotional thriller, a twisty legal mystery, or something atmospheric and dark, there’s a book on this list for you. 

All the Colors of the Dark — Chris Whitaker

1975, a small Missouri town, girls going missing, and a one-eyed boy named Patch who does something brave and pays a price for it for decades. This one is part serial killer thriller, part love story, part gut punch. It spans 25+ years and somehow gets more gripping as it goes. Warning: you will ugly cry.

The Violin Conspiracy — Brendan Slocumb

A Black violinist from rural North Carolina discovers the beat-up fiddle his grandmother gave him is actually a Stradivarius worth millions — and then someone steals it days before the most important competition of his life. It’s a mystery, it’s a coming-of-age story, and it’s a look at racism in classical music that will stick with you. The author is an actual violinist, and it shows.

Those Empty Eyes — Charlie Donlea

A teenager is found holding a shotgun at the scene of her family’s massacre. She didn’t do it — but the media dubs her “Empty Eyes” and decides she did. Ten years later, she’s changed her name and is working as a legal investigator when a new case starts connecting to her own unsolved past. Fast-paced and twisty, with an ending I genuinely did not see coming.

The Return of Ellie Black — Emiko Jean

A girl vanishes without a trace. Two years later, she’s found wandering out of the woods — alive, but refusing to talk. Detective Chelsey Calhoun is desperate to find out why, partly because she lost her own sister to violence years ago. Atmospheric, dark, and the twist will drop your jaw. Stephen King called it a “page-turning suspense novel.” He’s not wrong.

The Marsh King’s Daughter — Karen Dionne

Helena has a normal life — husband, kids, jam business. Then she hears on the news that the Marsh King has escaped from prison. Her father. The man who kidnapped her mother and raised Helena in a remote Michigan marsh, completely off the grid. Now she knows the police can’t catch him. But she can. This one is deeply unsettling in the best way.

Looking g for more recommendations? Check out 5 Fast Paced Thrillers You Can Read in a Weekend. 

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Reality Bites

 

A scientist walks onto a reality dating show. No, this isn’t a joke. It’s her only shot at saving her lab.

Thank you Harper Perennial and NetGalley for the gifted ARC.

Reality Bites by Amy Mass is the romcom your beach bag is waiting for. 🐸

Grace Lambert is a serious scientist dedicated to saving an endangered frog species from extinction. Her entire family? A bunch of influencers. Her mom has an HGTV-style Instagram, her dad runs a yoga YouTube channel, and her brothers are all over TikTok and Twitch. Grace has never had social media a day in her life, and she’s perfectly fine with that.

Then her lab loses its funding and suddenly the cash prize on a reality dating show looks a lot more appealing.

So Grace shows up on set with zero idea what a reality show is and no interest in the other contestants. And absolutely no intention of falling for anyone. Especially not Andrew, the show’s attorney, who she immediately annoys and who immediately annoys her right back.

You can probably guess where this is going. And it’s a blast getting there. Reality Bites hits every romcom trope you love: fish out of water, nerdy girl who doesn’t realize she’s gorgeous, enemies to lovers, the third act breakup, the grand gesture, the HEA. It hits them well. The banter between Grace and Andrew is sharp and genuinely funny. But my favorite part was watching Grace’s family, the influencers she never quite understood, rally around her when she needed them most and use their skills to fight for her lab. That family dynamic gave the book a little extra heart.

This is a debut novel, and Amy Mass (a TV comedy writer who worked on Last Man Standing and The Goldbergs) clearly knows how to write funny. It shows. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Out May 12. 

If you liked this review, you might enjoy my review of Fangirl Down. 

About the Author 

Amy Mass began her career in advertising in New York City. She moved to Los Angeles, where she wrote for hit television comedies, including Last Man Standing and The Goldbergs, for twelve years. During the pandemic, she moved to rural Georgia, where she writes romcom novels and films and lives with her family.

The Counting Game

 

The woods have taken girls before. When it happens again, the only witness is a boy. And he won’t talk. 

Thank you Simon Audio for the gifted audiobook. 

The Counting Game, Sinéad Nolan’s debut novel, is more psychological thriller than police procedural. If you go in knowing that, you’re going to love it.

Southwest Ireland, 1995. Saoirse Kellough goes missing from a forest that has swallowed girls before. The only witness is her little brother Jack and he’s not talking. The village whispers about hauntings. 

The Gardaí are desperate. So they bring in Freya Hemmings, a psychotherapist carrying her own grief, to gently coax the truth out of the traumatized nine-year-old who has sworn to protect the forest’s secrets.

What really worked for me were the characters. Jack is heartbreaking. Freya is complex and compelling. She’s the one who ultimately drives the investigation forward, not just the detectives. And the family dynamics are complicated. The oldest sibling Kate had to leave college to raise Jack and Saoirse after their mother’s death, and that trauma comes through on every page. This family was already carrying so much before the woods took Saoirse.

The atmosphere is thick and genuinely eerie. Nolan grew up in the forests of County Dublin, and it shows. These woods feel alive in all the wrong ways.

My one honest critique: the pacing. I’m more of an action-oriented reader, so slow-burn psychological thrillers require a little patience from me. This one asks for it. If you read Tana French and love lingering in a mystery, you’ll be completely in your element.

I did figure out the whodunit before the end, but I stayed invested anyway, which says something.

The audiobook narration from Alana Kerr Collins and Jessica Regan is excellent. Their dual narration gives Freya and Jack distinct voices and makes it easy to track the shifting perspectives. The emotional weight of this story lands differently when you can hear it. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Out now. 

If you find this book intriguing, you might like Imposter.

About the Author

Sinéad Nolan grew up playing in the forests and on the beaches of leafy County Dublin, Ireland. She was a regular freelance feature writer for the Sunday World and the Irish Independent and has had short stories shortlisted for the Momaya Press Awards and the Francis McManus Awards for RTE Radio. Apart from writing, she works in private practice as a BACP Registered Counsellor seeing clients in central London.

Best Offer Wins

 

Zillow obsession, but make it unhinged. 🏡

Best Offer Wins by Marisa Kashino is one of the most fun, chaotic listens I’ve had in a while. What starts as a painfully relatable housing market struggle quickly spirals into something much darker and a lot more unhinged.

Margo Miyake has lost 11 bidding wars and she is done. When she gets a tip about an off-market house in the perfect neighborhood, she inserts herself into the sellers’ lives and things spiral fast. 

Watching her scheme and plot and rationalize increasingly unhinged behavior is equal parts hilarious and unsettling.

What makes Margo work as a character is that Kashino uses the house-hunting obsession to subtly examine the issues of race and class. This gives Margo more depth than you’d expect and makes her easier to root for than you probably should.

Narrator Cia Court is exceptional here. Her performance is controlled and sharp, which perfectly mirrors Margo’s increasingly desperate spiral. The pacing had a few uneven moments, but they didn’t derail my enjoyment at all. This was a bookstagram FOMO read for me and it lived up to the hype. It’s is a terrific debut. I’ll be looking forward to what comes next from Kashino. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

If you’re a fan of complicated, hard-to-root-for women, go read my review of In Her Defense next.

5 Books that Made Me Cancel Everything

20 years recommending books. These 5 made me cancel everything else.

I am not a fast reader. Never have been. But every once in a while a book comes along that just locks you in and won’t let go. These five did exactly that.

Alias Emma by Ava Glass — a British spy has 12 hours to get her asset across London while Russia watches every camera in the city. The whole book is one long chase scene and I was out of breath the entire time.

Lucky by Marissa Stapley — a con artist on the run wins the lottery but can’t cash the ticket without getting arrested. It sounds like a movie because it’s becoming one. Anya Taylor-Joy. Apple TV+. This summer. Read it first.

The Witch’s Orchard by Archer Sullivan — three little girls went missing from an Appalachian town ten years ago. One came back. Two didn’t. A PI heads into the mountains to find out what happened. Atmospheric, unsettling, and I did not guess the ending.

Family of Spies by Christine Kuehn — the author got a letter from a screenwriter asking about her family’s role in WWII. Her father wept when she asked him about it. Her grandparents were Nazi spies who helped plan Pearl Harbor. This is nonfiction. 

Worst Case Scenario by T.J. Newman — a nuclear power plant. A dam. Real time. That’s all I’ll say.

Five completely different books. One thing in common — I didn’t put any of them down.

Which one are you adding to your TBR?

Looking for more recommendations? Try 5 Backlist Thrillers that Deserve a Second Chance.

 

The Anniversary

 

The May Day Killer strikes every May 1st. Jules survived him once. She’s not sure she will again.

Thanks Macmillan Audio for the gifted early listen!

The Anniversary by Alex Finlay is the thriller I didn’t want to end.

One night in 1992 changes everything for Jules and Quinn — two seventeen-year-olds whose lives get tangled up in ways neither of them sees coming. Jules survives an attack by the May Day Killer, a serial predator who strikes every May 1st in small Midwestern towns. Quinn ends up in juvie after trying to break up a fight goes very wrong. Before he gets out, his mother has been murdered. 

Over the next decade, the story checks back in with Jules and Quinn on a single day each year, May 1st, as secrets slowly unravel and two mysteries inch toward the truth. 

What I loved most about this one? The killer isn’t some genius super-villain. He’s terrifying in a much more realistic way. And Jules and Quinn, total opposites who keep finding their way back to each other, are so genuinely likable that you just want things to work out for them. Finlay gives you enough time with these two that you watch them actually grow up and get shaped by their grief. Jules turns her pain into something good. Quinn channels his losses into a stubborn drive to help others. Broken, but tenacious.

The dual POVs kept things moving, and I flew through this one. Narrators Ari Fliakos and Brittany Pressley are both excellent. The narration absolutely holds up across the years-long timeline.

If you love a twisty thriller that actually has characters worth caring about, pre-order now so it’s waiting for you on May 12.

⚠️ Trigger warnings apply — worth checking before you start. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

If you liked this, you might also enjoy my review of The Secret Lives of Murderers’ Wives. 

Follow me on Instagram  for more books I couldn’t put down.

About the Author

Alex Finlay is the bestselling author of several acclaimed novels, including the 2025 instant national bestseller, Parents Weekend. His work regularly appears on best-of-the-year lists and has been translated into twenty-six languages and sold around the world. Alex’s books have been optioned or in development for film and television, including Parents Weekend, which was recently acquired for adaptation to the screen. Alex is the director of the thriller/mystery section of the Leopardi Writing Conference in Italy, and a board member of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation. He lives in Washington, D.C.

Five

 

Five strangers. A train platform. One of them won’t make it home. 🚂

I was warned. My friend Kristin raved about Five by Ilona Bannister and told me to get to it immediately. She was not wrong.

Here’s the setup: five strangers are on a train platform. In five minutes, the 7:06 to London Victoria arrives. One of them is going to die. You know it’s coming. They don’t. And the narrator, speaking directly to you, is making sure you’re paying attention.

Before that train pulls in, Bannister takes you deep into the backstory of each of these five people. A young gambler. A cantankerous old woman. A mother and her tantrum-throwing child. A successful, damaged businessman. None of them are saints. All of them are complicated. And the more you learn about them, the more you find yourself doing something uncomfortable: deciding who deserves to walk away.

This book has full Twilight Zone energy with an all-knowing narrator who pulls you into a tragedy you can see coming but can’t stop. That feeling of dread creeping in while you’re completely powerless to do anything about it? Bannister nails it.

This is not a locked room mystery, exactly. These people could leave the platform. The circumstances just make that nearly impossible. It’s a distinction that matters, and it makes the whole thing feel even more claustrophobic and propulsive.

I devoured this in less than 24 hours, which almost never happens for me. The format is unlike anything I’ve read. It pulls you in as a participant, not just a reader. Some characters had me rooting for them. Others… not so much. And the way those feelings shifted as each story unfolded? That’s the whole magic of this book.

Go in knowing as little as possible. Just trust me on this one. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you Crown Publishing and NetGalley for the early copy. Five by Ilona Bannister hits shelves May 5th and it’s worth the wait.

Looking for more thrillers? Check out Five Fast Paced Mysteries You Can Read in a Weekend.

About the Author

Ilona Bannister, born and raised in New York, lives in the UK with her husband and sons. Her first book, When I Ran Away, was longlisted for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize.