The Frenzy, by Joyce Carol Oates****

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Joyce Carol Oates is a venerable name in the world of literature, and so I actually gasped when I saw that her short story collection, The Frenzy, was available to review. I have read short stories of her in the past during teacher’s workshops, and so I already had a sense of the power of her work. My thanks go to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for the invitation to read and review. This collection is for sale now.

All nine of the stories in this collection have to do with mental illness or collapse, and there’s a chilling quality to most of them that gives me goosebumps. Often, I find that a book of short stories will feature the best two stories first and then last, with the rest of the work sandwiched in between. That wasn’t what happened to me as I read them. The first two were my absolute favorites. The first is about a married, middle-aged man that has gone to a hotel at the beach with his friend’s nineteen-year-old daughter. He is angry that she has not been answering his calls, and has chosen a very private location where he can punish her. The ending is deeply satisfying. The second is about a girl who, while still quite young, becomes jealous of, and repulsed by, a close friend that has cancer; she gets all of the attention and is definitely no fun now. A reckoning occurs when they are at college.

There are seven more, and I liked them all, but in descending order, with the third being the third-best and so forth. I don’t remember this happening with any other short story compendium I’ve read. I enjoyed all of them, but would have liked them more if the first or second had come last, instead.

Readers that enjoy psychological fiction cannot go wrong here. The figurative language is brilliantly crafted, and the characters are resonant and entirely believable. To all that enjoy short stories or excellent fiction, I recommend this book.

Country People, by Daniel Mason*****

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Author Daniel Mason is on a roll. He’s won nearly every possible literary award and accolade; my first encounter with his writing was with his last book, North Woods, which is complex, brilliantly crafted, and droll. But I may have had even more fun reading his latest novel, Country People, which is less intricate, easier to read, and even funnier than the last.

My thanks go to NetGalley and Random House for the review copy. This book is for sale now.

The story opens with several well-chosen quotes, and the main narrative begins like a fairy tale. We have the wife, the husband, a son and a daughter. We also have the dog; we are told its name, Giuseppe, before we see anyone else’s. And although the wife is mentioned first—perhaps because she is the breadwinner—the protagonist here is actually Miles, the husband.

Miles is in a rut. He’s been working on his dissertation for fourteen years, although “working” is a euphemism for uh, not. He is easily distracted; he has no real idea what he wants to write about. And because he is the house husband, it is his job to look after the children, who are distractions unto themselves. So, while everyone is told that Miles is working on it, Miles isn’t. He is frustrated by his own lack of progress, and feels more and more dwarfed by his wife, a full professor with many admirers. And because of her admirable achievements, they are currently in the car, leaving California headed to Vermont, where she has been offered a one year visiting professorship.

And so our story is of the family’s experiences in Vermont, and their introduction to New England weather and smalltown life. In the hands of a less capable author, this might be a blah story, but luckily for us, it’s Mason’s story, and it’s massively entertaining!

They learn to ski, sort of. And while Kate is caught up in her professional obligations, Miles meets the more eccentric townsfolk and is invited to join their secret organization. As things progress, Miles has the occasional second thought about his new friends:

“It was all very mysterious, and to be honest, even a little sinister. One didn’t have to be getting a Ph.D. in literature to recognize the outlines of the story: the innocent city person, on what sems to be an innocuous foray among simple country people, happens upon a dark conspiracy, with predictably horrific consequences. We’ve read the book, we’ve seen the movie. If the hero escapes, it is only after some gory climax, stumbling out into the night to stare, blood-bespattered, into the high beams of the state police. Not for me! thought Miles.”

That’s a small sample. You’ll have to get the book to experience the rest. As for me, I had a fine time reading it, and was wistful when it ended. Highly recommended.

You’ll Love it Here, by Natalie Sue****

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You’ll Love it Here is a wry, strangely intimate novel by Canadian author Natalie Sue. My thanks go to NetGalley and William Morrow for the review copy. This book will be available to the public August 11, 2026.

Mona is a workaholic. She has no private life; she has no time for one. She’s putting in an intolerable number of hours every week to build herself a strong position in the firm that employs her; she also needs the money. She’s earning money for herself, but also to pay off her mother’s debts. Is it any wonder, then, that her only friends are her work buddies?

Meanwhile, she’s living in an older building gone slightly to seed, and she dislikes it so much that she refuses to add any personal touches. No pictures on the wall; no cute curtains. After all, her main goal is to get out of here and into somewhere more impressive. And maybe that’s why she has never bothered to learn her neighbors’ names. Instead, she identifies them by their habits, and by her own impressions of them. So while she knows no one’s name except that of the owner, she does know them as Fighting Couple, Old White Perve, Weird Girl Beside Me, etc.

Then one day, the unthinkable happens. Mona snaps during a meeting with her most important client. She thinks something unforgivably snarky, then realizes she’s said it out loud. There’s no walking it back, either. Her boss kindly suggests she take six weeks of bereavement leave, as her father has recently died. She’d prefer not to, but it’s not actually a suggestion, it’s an order. And so Mona is spinning her wheels a little, crazed from the lack of work and routine, when she is offered a chance to do some work for the landlord in return for a better apartment in a better building. Sweet! Say no more; Mona is in.

I’m not telling you where it goes from there, only that it’s captivating. Sometimes I find myself reading a galley from duty, but this book is sheer pleasure. In fact, had it not been for a technical distraction (editor? Hello?) I would have rated this book five stars.

If you need a light but absorbing feel good book, then look no further. This is a great story to take on vacation, or even just bury yourself in over the course of a weekend. You’ll come out happier at the end.

Don’t Cross Mo Ellery, by Birdie Horne**-***

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Don’t Cross Mo Ellery is a wacky girl detective novel by Birdie Horne, which is a pen name used by co-writers Eden Robins and MW Garguilo. Mo is a twenty-something hot mess. The story opens with her simultaneously getting dumped by her better-off boyfriend of ten years and getting fired from her job. It’s loaded with cringe humor and appears to be a new series entering the general lane of Stephanie Plum and Finlay Donovan, only not as good.  Nevertheless, I thank NetGalley and William Morrow for the invitation to read and review. This book will be available to the public August 11, 2026.

The book starts with sex, ends with sex, and has sex in the middle. There’s awkward sex, hot sex, and interrupted sex, with a fair amount of crossover between these types and between genders. Oh, there’s also sex with just one person. I’m not using the word for this. There are some that will enjoy it, or at least find it funny, but it leaves me with a mild headache from rolling my eyes so often.

The premise here is that Mo gets a job as a crossing guard because that’s all she can find. In the course of her duties, she is harassed by a difficult driver who then dies behind the wheel while she’s on the job. In order to find out who killed him, she teams up with an insistent older neighbor and a (precocious, of course, of course, of course) elementary school student, which she doesn’t realize is illegal and unprincipled until midway through. I believe none of these characters even slightly.

It’s possible that I am in the wrong demographic for this book. My memory harks back to the early female detective series that were well written and empowering. At a time when young women needed to hear that they could do anything, including occupying traditionally male occupations, these were a balm. Mo Ellery, on the other hand, can’t find her butt with both hands.

There are poodles in this thing, and they are the characters that I enjoy.

The narrator is Cia Court, who does as good a job as is probably possible.

So there you are. If you still want this thing, you can pre-order it; as for me, I’m out.

God’s Country, by William Kent Krueger*****

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“In the myth of Windigo, there is only one way to kill the creature. A man has to become a Windigo himself.  His heart has to turn to ice. The danger is in the possibility of that man remaining a Windigo forever. What must happen is that once he’s killed the monster, someone has to be waiting with hot tallow for him to drink, to melt his icy heart.”

God’s Country is the 21st entry in William Kent Krueger’s long running Cork O’Connor series. My thanks go to NetGalley and Atria Books for the review copy. This book will be available to the public August 18, 2026.

The regular characters are all here; we have the (now retired) cop himself, along with his wife, who is a member of the Ojibwe (Chippewa) tribe. His grandson, affectionately called Waaboo, has visions, and has recently dreamed of a wolf eating Cork’s heart. The boy is shaken, and the family takes it seriously; after a trip to the doctor and some tests, Cork has the green light to proceed with the trip into his favorite wilderness area, known as the Boundary Waters. He goes along with generations of other men in his family, but not until he has first seen Henry, the tribe’s centenarian wiseman, with whom Cork has a close bond. But Henry isn’t big on straight answers; he merely asks Cork whether Cork himself might be the wolf.

A side note: is this an established practice within the tribe, that the men all go to the wilderness while the women all stay home? I’ve read a few of the books in this series, and though they are written with respect for women, the roles are always sharply divided by gender.

Moving on.  

The expedition hasn’t traveled far when they find an alarming sight. Various aspects of their first camping location show that someone has been there before them, and that it hasn’t gone well. Cork concludes that the previous group is led by Cordell Bishop, a close friend; Cork believes his friend may be in danger, and the group trip is aborted, with the other men herding the young boys safely back home while Cork searches for his friend and whoever is with him.

From this point, I won’t tell you much except that in addition to confronting the enemies that lurk in the Boundary Waters, Cork also is forced to confront the enemy within himself. In that respect, this book differs from the earlier ones, and I can see the sense in it. Most of these books have featured Cork going off into the wilderness and meeting up with baddies. I’ve enjoyed all of them, but breaking up the trend before it becomes monotonous was smart thinking on Krueger’s part.

From previous experience, I knew this was going to be a solid mystery, and so I shook off the summer doldrums by jumping over some galleys with earlier publication dates to get to this one. I’m not one bit sorry, either.

Highly recommended, whether you’re a faithful fan of the series, or heading into it brand new.

How to Be Okay When Nothing is Okay, by Jenny Lawson****

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Jenny Lawson is queen of the mental health memoir. I’ve read her for years and appreciated her candor, wit, and willingness to shine a light on the kinds of experiences that historically, others have mostly kept mum about. Her latest book, How to Be Okay When Nothing is Okay, is not her strongest work, but this says more about how remarkable her earlier books are than anything detrimental about this one.

My thanks go to NetGalley and Viking Penguin for the review copy.

I first encountered Lawson through her blog over a decade ago when she wrote about gifting her husband with a huge metal chicken sculpture. There’s something truly cleansing about laughter, not the gentle or wry type, but the gut-busting type that leaves us gasping for breath. I encountered this on subsequent occasions when she wrote in her quirky, sometimes bizarre way that was, at the same time, absolutely relatable and crystal clear. And I have to confess that I missed that quality this time around.

Instead, Lawson has written practical suggestions, ones that she has utilized herself, to help her get past stressful situations in which her mental health has threatened to melt her down. And in that sense, this book is more of a self-help book and perhaps less of a memoir. It may be tremendously useful to others encountering similar situations. I’ve been there; a great many others have, too. But right now, my own mental health is fine, and perhaps that accounts for some of the disconnect I experienced in reading this one. I suspect, however, that a whole lot of people will get a whole lot of help from this slender little book.

Recommended for those in a space where they need support and ideas for getting through a difficult time or situation.

Killer Vibes, by Jack Friday*****

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Peter Key is an ambition-free stoner dude living in a pal’s garage until he pushes a boundary or two and gets tossed out on his butt. His parents are gone, his sister’s had it with him, and he has nowhere to turn. That is, until the uncle he barely knew dies and leaves him a whole lotta assets, a whole lotta debts, and a whole lotta questions. This remarkable debut novel by Jack Friday is one of the best parts of my summer, and you want it in yours, too. Trust me.

My thanks go to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, and Macmillan Audio for the invitation to read and review. This kick-ass mystery is for sale today!

Peter’s late uncle lived in Austin, and since Peter is now homeless and Uncle Forrest has left him a house, that’s where he goes. The house is a mess, and his uncle was past due on the mortgage. Everyone, whether in real estate or not, pressures him to sell. Do it now, before it’s too late! But Peter digs in his heels. He’s never owned a house before, and his late uncle’s demise has left him with too many questions, one of which is, given Forrest’s credentials in daredevil racing, how was it that he *suddenly* lost control of his car and tumbled over a cliff to his demise?

This book is fast-paced, at times hilarious, and at other times incredibly intense, like a true thriller ought to be. In the course of things, he tries to hire a detective that worked for Forrest; the detective counters that he will only take the job if Peter comes on board to work for him. Peter resists at first, but the thing is, he’s a natural. A young man that has never had, or even wanted, a marketable skill beyond peddling drugs has found his calling. And of course, he’s also made powerful enemies, a fact that bothers him hardly at all.

I was lucky enough to have access to both the digital and audio galleys, and though I begin with the digital, the audio is so well done that it becomes my go-to. Narrator Max Meyers does such a splendid job that he makes a great read even better. In fact, I used this book to make myself do some dreaded yard work, because I found that I didn’t want to stop slaving away in the July sun when I knew it meant turning off the book once I came back in the house. This doesn’t happen often!

This novel is captioned “Peter Key Mystery Series #1,” which is great news because it means there will be more, and when the next one becomes available, needless to say, I’m in.

Don’t miss it.

Monsters in the Archives, by Caroline Bicks*****

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Monsters in the Archives: My Year of Fear with Stephen King is a masterpiece in its own right. Author Caroline Bicks was named as the first Stephen E. King Chair in Literature at the University of Maine, and she is the first person to be granted access to King’s personal archives. My thanks go to NetGalley and Random House for the review copy; this book is for sale now.

Bicks bases her book on five of King’s early novels: The Shining, Carrie, Pet Sematary, ‘Salem’s Lot, and Night Shift. Initially she was told that although King authorized this book and was willing for her to go through his archives, she must promise not to attempt to contact him or disturb him in any way. She agreed, then was given a great deal of his personal time and attention anyway. Though the book is of course primarily about King and his writing, she includes bits here and there that describe her own relationship to these stories. The result is a fluid, seamless book that appears effortless to have written, and yet must have been a massive amount of work. Her documentation is first rate, and the book itself is surprisingly brief, with not a single wasted word. Although it seems thorough, I was sorry when it ended.

I have long believed that King’s books are deeper and brainier than most scary novels, and I came away vindicated. Bicks is a Shakespeare scholar, and she had more specific insights than I did; turns out, as King confirms in one interview, that The Shining is actually Hamlet!

I had previously read that King isn’t fond of the movie versions of his most iconic works. In The Shining, poor direction transforms Jack Torrance, a tragic, pathetic figure fighting to stay sober and keep the demons at bay within himself—and losing—to a sinister slasher-type figure as portrayed by Jack Nicholson. That much is fairly obvious. His young son Danny should be portrayed as a hero, fearful though he is. But King also takes issue with the casting of Shelly Duvall, who whines and screeches at her husband in a way that King describes as a misogynistic interpretation. It’s a good point. Other books and movies are discussed as well.

There are too many fascinating margin comments, anecdotes, and explanations to recount here, but the one that has stuck with me over a month after I finished it is the note that King enclosed when he sent The Shining saying not to lose it as this was the only copy. Yikes!

When I saw that Bicks had also included some autobiographical bits, I cringed initially, thinking, oh please don’t make this about you. But the way she handles it is excellent, giving the reader some small insights into the narrator while keeping the focus primarily right where it belongs; it’s done tastefully and professionally. I learned a great deal within a small span of time, and also enjoyed it tremendously.

Highly recommended.

Vengeance, by Tom Clavin***

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Tom Clavin is the co-author of Blood and Treasure: Daniel Boone and the Fight for America’s First Frontier. I learned a great deal from that book, and decided that I was going to read everything this author writes. Although he does a creditable reporting job with his new book, Vengeance, which details the last battles of Custer, Crazy Horse, and Sitting Bull, it lacks the luster of his Boone biography. Nevertheless, my thanks go to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, and Macmillan Audio for the review copies. This book is available to purchase now.

My motivation in reading this book was in knowing that for once, Custer wouldn’t defeat the Native forces he sought to annihilate. Had I thought a little harder, I would have realized that the American Indians never came out on top in the long run, and that a hard-fought battle in which Custer is killed—primarily through his own stupidity—was not going to end well for anybody. Nevertheless, I came away feeling that this story was both duller and also more depressing than was necessary.

The facts that are used here, as well as the documentation for them, are beyond reproach. The point of view, however, leans more toward the U.S. Army than the tribes and their leaders. It would have been nice to have present day Native historians weigh in and be heard more. Also, when a hard, horrible tale must be told, a truly skilled author can find ways to break up the horror. My sense is that Clavin didn’t really try.

Johnny Heller narrated the audio version, and he did a fine job of it. Without his narrative, I might not have finished it.

For those looking for the basic facts of this conflict and its aftermath, Vengeance will serve well. For those in search of a general historical read, I’d look elsewhere.

Babylon, South Dakota, by Tom Lin*****

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Babylon, South Dakota is the sophomore novel by Tom Lin, and it blew me away. It’s the story of couple Hsiu Keng and Lee Mei, a Chinese couple in their thirties that comes to the U.S. when they inherit land from a distant relative. Hsiu adopts the American name Saul, and so Saul and Mei move into their new home, such as it is, and make plans for the future.

My thanks go to NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for the review copy. This book is for sale now.

The story begins straightforward enough, and then it gradually becomes stranger. Our enterprising couple are completely new to the United States, with very little English and not much in terms of cultural knowledge or awareness of the environment into which they have so bravely immigrated. Mao has recently come to power in China, so the time period would be the 1960s, but their home has no indoor toilet or heat, and so they must earn money for the improvements they will need. They intend to farm, and Saul is determined that their crop will be chrysanthemums, because this is what his family grew in China. They come to the States without a lot of money, but they have a good-sized supply of seeds as well as a little gold, which is the only currency Mei trusts. They have a baby girl and name her Mara.

And then the U.S. military knocks on their door.

Project Babylon is top secret, and it requires small parcels of land in a sparsely populated area; South Dakota fits the bill. They bring paperwork to be signed, and in return, the couple must sign over a small portion of their land. The price is non-negotiable; so is the sale. They are to stay away from the area once the fence is erected.

As well they should. Once the program unfolds, all sorts of other strange things begin to happen.

I am completely spellbound a short way into the story, and not merely because of the plot points, fascinating though they will become. Rather, the word smithery is so powerful and the sense of intimacy so strong that I am forever bonded to this little family. The imagery is potent, and the vocabulary is highly literate. In fact, I would suggest that recent immigrants with limited English not attempt to read this novel.

I have dozens of notes and quotes selected, but instead, I will keep them to myself, because everything here is better when you come to it without much advance preparation. At the outset, the story is interesting, but not unusually so; a bit further in, it appears to be a stronger-than-average book; and by the 67%, my notes to myself say, “I am so in love with this strange little book!” It’s the sort of tale that takes the reader through every possible emotion; at one point, the tension is so thick that I genuinely consider peeking ahead—which I nearly never do—because I just can’t stand not knowing how it’s going to come out! I refrained, and am glad I did so.

Finishing a book is usually good news for me, because I can go write my review and move onto the next one, but this is one of those rare instances in which I feel bereaved when it’s over. This sensation lasted into the next couple of days, when I wanted to read it, then realized it was done.

For those that love stories with strong character development, resonant settings, and quirky plot twists, I wholeheartedly recommend this novel. Likewise, I recommend it to those that love historical fiction, immigrant stories, and magical realism. There’s nothing else like it!