Just a girl and her books
CANDY CAIN KILLS | Brian McAuley 11.14.2023 | Shortwave Publishing Rating: 4.5/5 stars Oh what fun it is to DIE! When Austin's parents drag him and his little sister Fiona to a remote cottage for Christmas, he's less than thrilled about the forced bonding exercise. But after learning that their holiday getaway was the site … Continue reading Book Review: Candy Cain Kills
I FEED HER TO THE BEAST AND THE BEAST IS ME | Jamison Shea 08.29.2023 | Henry Holt Rating: 4/5 stars Laure Mesny is a perfectionist with an axe to grind. Despite being constantly overlooked in the elite and cutthroat world of the Parisian ballet, she will do anything to prove that a Black girl … Continue reading Book Review: I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me
GOOD GIRLS DON’T DIE | Christina Henry 11.14.2023 | Berkley Rating: 4/5 stars Celia wakes up in a house that’s supposed to be hers. There’s a little girl who claims to be her daughter and a man who claims to be her husband, but Celia knows this family—and this life—is not hers… Allie is supposed … Continue reading Book Review: Good Girls Don’t Die
SILVER NITRATE | Silvia Moreno-Garcia 07.18.2023 | Del Rey Rating: 3.5/5 stars Montserrat has always been overlooked. She’s a talented sound editor, but she’s left out of the boys’ club running the film industry in ’90s Mexico City. And she’s all but invisible to her best friend, Tristán, a charming if faded soap opera star, … Continue reading Book Review: Silver Nitrate
THE GRIMMER | Naben Ruthnum 09.26.2023 | ECW Press Rating: 3/5 stars After his father returns from treatment for addiction, highschooler Vish ― lover of metal music and literature ― is uncertain what the future holds. It doesn’t help that everyone seems to know about the family’s troubles, and they stand out doubly as one … Continue reading Book Review: The Grimmer
VAMPIRES OF EL NORTE | Isabel Cañas 08.15.2023 | Berkley Rating: 3.5/5 stars As the daughter of a rancher in 1840s Mexico, Nena knows a thing or two about monsters—her home has long been threatened by tensions with Anglo settlers from the north. But something more sinister lurks near the ranch at night, something that … Continue reading Book Review: Vampires of El Norte
THE YEAR OF THE WITCHING | Alexis Henderson 07.21.2020 | Ace Rating: 5/5 stars In the lands of Bethel, where the Prophet’s word is law, Immanuelle Moore’s very existence is blasphemy. Her mother’s union with an outsider of a different race cast her once-proud family into disgrace, so Immanuelle does her best to worship the … Continue reading Book Review: The Year of the Witching
HEMLOCK ISLAND | Kelley Armstrong 09.12.2023 | St. Martin’s Press Rating: 4/5 stars Laney Kilpatrick has been renting her vacation home to strangers. The invasion of privacy gives her panic attacks, but it’s the only way she can keep her beloved Hemlock Island, the only thing she owns after a pandemic-fueled divorce. But broken belongings … Continue reading Book Review: Hemlock Island
BLACK SHEEP | Rachel Harrison 09.19.2023 | Berkley Rating: 4/5 stars Nobody has a “normal” family, but Vesper Wright’s is truly...something else. Vesper left home at eighteen and never looked back—mostly because she was told that leaving the staunchly religious community she grew up in meant she couldn’t return. But then an envelope arrives … Continue reading Book Review: Black Sheep
THE NIGHT HOUSE | Jo Nesbø 10.03.2023 | Knopf Rating: 3.5/5 stars In the wake of his parents' tragic deaths in a house fire, fourteen-year-old Richard Elauved has been sent to live with his aunt and uncle in the remote, insular town of Ballantyne. Richard quickly earns a reputation as an outcast, and when a … Continue reading Book Review: The Night House
What Jess Reads 