Category Archives: family stories

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.

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.

Returns and Exchanges, by Kayla Rae Whitaker*****

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Kayla Rae Whitaker is the author of The Animators, her 2017 debut which remains one of my favorites after 13 years and over a thousand reviews. Now she has returned with Returns and Exchanges, a more complex, ambitious novel, yet written with the same mastery of the language and the heart. My thanks go to NetGalley and Random House for the review copy; this book is for sale now.

Our story is set in Kentucky and begins on Christmas Eve in 1979. We have a hardworking family that owns and runs a good-sized store; think of something like a mom-and-pop version of Target. The Baker-Taylor store is hopping on Christmas Eve. The owners, Fred Taylor and Fran Taylor, nee Baker, are frazzled but satisfied. The two older sons are working registers; the two little kids are playing in the stockroom. They close up, clean up, and leave to celebrate the holiday.

During the recession of the 1980s they do well; theirs is an unpretentious business that bargain hunters love. As they succeed, they expand, and soon Fred is full of himself, trying to fit in with the local movers and shakers. He joins a rightwing fraternal organization and lives to impress. Fran, on the other hand, is doing most of the work. She knows what money is coming in, what’s going out; which stores are doing well, which are struggling. She is not trying to impress anyone, but falls hard for an employee named Wendy.

Nobody expected this!

And so the beginning of the book focuses primarily on Fran, and I begin to see her as the protagonist, but this is one of those epic family tales, and so as time moves forward, we begin to see different points of view. The elder sons begin to hate the business. It prevents the children from having social lives, and Fred is hard to please. Josiah, the eldest, decides to leave for college, and Baker-Taylor stores don’t loom large in his future plans. Sam, the second youngest, is an artist, and he suffers from mental health issues that Fred cannot accept. Fred thinks Sam is weak, and he doesn’t make the family or the business look good in the public eye. The two young children, Benny and Birdie, grow up largely cared for by others, because their parents are always working (or with Wendy.)

In many ways, it’s like watching a traffic accident in slow motion. I’m leaning forward, as if I might climb into the book itself and shout warnings.

The nearest thing we have to an objective observer is Fran’s brother-in-law, Jack. Jack is gay, but he keeps it quiet and hidden, and so does his loving, understanding wife. He catches onto the changes occurring within the family, including between Fran and Wendy. He tells Josiah privately,

Were your father to find out, God help us, it might break him. But it also might do something else…he’s running with a different crowd now. It’s made him a little rougher. But that’s not my big concern. It’s the board. It’s the shareholders. People who see all the fun family commercials. Do I have to elaborate on what could happen to her if folks caught wind of this?

Truer words were never spoken.

But the most critical aspect of this story, with all of its moving parts, is the way the characters are built. I feel as if I know them all deeply. Fred is the least developed character here, but I know that’s because not that much inward development happens when you’re shallow and not as smart as the rest of the family. And hopefully, that statement reveals how effective the alchemy is here: I’m not thinking about what Whitaker does with the characters. I’m thinking of the characters themselves, as if I might walk around the corner and bump into one of them.

Of course I won’t tell you how it ends, but it feels right to me, strangely satisfying.

For those that love epic family stories with deep, layered characters, this book is highly recommended. It’s one of the year’s best.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/8028043777

Road Trip, by Mary Kay Andrews***-****

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3.5 stars rounded upwards.

Road Trip is a new spring romcom novel by prolific author Mary Kay Andrews. My thanks go to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, and Macmillan Audio for the invitation to read and review. This book will be available to the public June 2, 2026.

The premise is that two sisters must bury their late mother and deal with her estate. Maeve is the good girl who put her life on hold to care for their mother during her final illness; Therese is an actor, and hasn’t even called home for a good long time. The sisters have become estranged over the years, but now they are back in the home they grew up in. Their mother left behind a painting that she says was done by a famous artist, and should be worth a great deal, but to establish its origin and its worth, they must go on a road trip in Ireland together. In fact, neither of them gets a dime if they don’t! She’s left them very little but the painting itself and some travel money. They aren’t happy about it, but they go.

The first half of this story just about wore me to bits. It seemed formulaic, and I felt like my IQ became lower with every tiresome page. The effect was heightened by the narrator, Kathleen McInerney, whose high-pitched little girl voice grated on me. I reminded myself that I’ve encountered this narrator before while reading the same author, and I eventually got used to her voice, and so I soldiered on, vowing to finish this thing, write my review, and stay away from this author in the future unless I was reading her Christmas novels, which always please me. I promised myself that next time, I’d only use the digital review copy, thereby bypassing the narrator.

But then a funny thing happened in the second half. Gradually I found myself warming to the story—and yes, I became more acclimated to the narrator as well. By the seventy percent mark, I was actively looking forward to it. And this is the reason why I have rounded my rating upwards; I would much rather have a book start out a bit slow and build to something bigger, than to have it start out like gangbusters and then fizzle later on.

I suspect that the author’s faithful readers will like this book just as much as her others; for those not previously initiated, you may enjoy this if you need something on the light and breezy side. It is to those readers that I recommend this story.

Marion, by Leah Rowan*****

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Marion is the kick-ass debut novel for author Leah Rowan, and it’s hugely addictive! My thanks go to St. Martin’s Press, Macmillan Audio, and NetGalley for the invitation to read and review. This book will be available to the public June 2, 2026.

The story is a retelling of the 1960s smash, Psycho. I am not generally a fan of retellings unless they’re brilliantly done, and as it happens, this one is. We have two points of view here; one is Marion, and the other is Hannah, a budding private detective searching for a missing girl that was last seen near the motel. However, Marion is the protagonist.

Her real name isn’t Marion, but she adopts it as an alias early on, and so it might as well be. When we meet her, she’s an overworked and underappreciated office worker, and she’s also a concerned sister. Her older sister Lauren is in an abusive marriage, and cannot afford to leave for at least a year. Marion is frantic, trying to protect Lauren. Their parents are gone, and her mother made her promise to become the big sister and look after Lauren. It is that good intention from which everything else arises.

When her bus breaks down before reaching her destination, and when all of the nicer lodgings fill up with other stranded passengers, our protagonist is guided to this motel—yes, that motel. And that’s where things get real. She adopts the name Marion because she doesn’t want her boss to know where she is, but as things become more intense, she has additional reasons for remaining anonymous.

Eventually, Marion and Hannah meet.

That’s all I’m going to tell you, because surprise is everything here, but I do want to give a shout out to the audio narrators, because they are how a very good book becomes a great one. Natalie Naudus and Tawny Platis do exceptional jobs. I did most of my reading this way, pulling weeds with ear buds in, and I stayed out in the sun way too long, because I knew that once I was in the house, I had to stop listening!

The whole thing winds up with a couple of surprising twists at the end that make it even better.

Highly recommended to anyone that likes a scary book with some dark, feminist moxie.

Yesteryear, by Caro Claire Burke****

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There’s so much buzz about the debut novel Yesteryear, by Caro Claire Burke, and it’s easy to see why. When a wife and mother decides to make bank off of being a tradwife, except that she really isn’t, the irony is thick and darkly funny. I was immediately absorbed by this story, and I have lots of company.

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

Natalie doesn’t fit in well or make friends easily, but when she meets Caleb, she thinks she’s found a man that wants the same things she wants. Caleb comes from a wealthy family; his father has presidential ambitions. He buys them a farm in Idaho, and she promises to bear lots of little grandchildren and keep her man happy and out of trouble.

While she doesn’t connect well with new friends in person, the magic of Instagram changes everything! She posts photos of her darling family, the big red barn, the cow and the chickens, and she creates videos of herself making bread in the kitchen. But this is difficult to do when there are children to take care of, so she hires nannies. She hires a producer to help create her content; her children are home schooled, alright, but not by Natalie. And behind the wall of her kitchen, there are commercial quality appliances that grease the wheels of her production; the tradwife is not what she seems.

She hardly knows her own children. And underneath the Instagram smiles and the aphorisms about gratitude, she is every bit as angry as the feminists that decry her platitudes.

Then comes the day when she wakes up and finds that she’s living in the 1800s. Her farmhouse really is an old school farm house. There’s no central heating, only chopped wood for burning. There is no electricity or washing machine. Life is hard, and so is her husband. “A lifetime of drowning, and then you are dead.”

I could hardly stand to put this thing down; I had to know how it would end. Unfortunately, the ending is not as smooth or well-paced as the rest of the book, and I didn’t find it as satisfying. Still, this is a great read, and I recommend it to you.

True Crime, by Patricia Cornwell*****

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Legendary mystery writer Patricia Cornwell didn’t intend to write a memoir, but when someone decided to put her life’s story on television, she realized that if she didn’t write it, they’d make it up as they went. What began as a treatment for television writers to use as a guide morphed into a full-length book, and this is a perfect example of what an overachiever Cornwell has become.

My thanks go to NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing for the review copy. This book is for sale now.

Cornwell grew up in Miami, but moved with her mother to Montreat, North Carolina following her parents’ separation when she was five years old. It’s a miracle that anyone whose childhood was so riddled with trauma could grow up and pass for normal, let alone accomplish the things that she has done. First, her father had a breakdown, kidnapped her and her brothers, and then tried to hand them off—permanently—to his law partner. Her mother was a hot mess most of the time, and so there were periods when there was no food prepared, and she and her brothers made do by scrounging raw hamburger out of the freezer and eating it raw! Then there was the time her mom went into a fugue state and began systematically burning all of the children’s clothing—and there was no money to replace it with. Neglected children are often a lightning rod that attracts bad actors, and so the local security cop began molesting her—up until he was caught by her older brother, who put a stop to it. And the list goes on.

Nobody walks away from such experiences unscarred, but since Cornell—who was then Patsy Daniels—was a good kid, she internalized all of it, aided by a dreadful first grade teacher that told her that her constant talking in class was probably why her father had left! (As a teacher, this reviewer wants to find that person and have her license pulled, although she is probably gone from this earth by now.) Patsy gained control of her life—sort of—by developing eating disorders. She was hospitalized, but medical science actually didn’t know what to do about anorexia or bulimia, and after months in the institution with no improvement whatever, she gave up and went home. The problem vanished many years later when other aspects of her life changed.

Her love of writing and her feverish work ethic are what has made her such a success (along with great intelligence, though she doesn’t say as much.) She rode with cops and served as a volunteer in order to gain insights into that world; she went to Quantico and studied profiling; and of course, worked in the medical examiner’s office so that she could legitimately view autopsies, which are of course not open to the public. Anything she needed to learn, she found a way to do, leaving no stone unturned. She was aided and mentored by what seems to me an unlikely cast of friends and surrogate parents, including Senator Orin Hatch, Ruth and Billy Graham (mostly Ruth,) and President H.W. Bush.

The thing I appreciate about this memoir, apart from its outstanding prose and organization, is Cornwell’s willingness to disclose personal information. Sometimes, when someone is deeply private but finds herself writing a memoir anyway, she will stay on the surface and give up as little of herself as possible. Such memoirs are frustrating to read and for those that pay money for the privilege, a bit of a cheat. But once Cornwell decided to do this thing, she really did it right. And while, on the one hand, there’s a certain amount of namedropping and braggadocio, even that aspect of it is interesting; given everything she went through to arrive at the station she’s gained in life, one can hardly begrudge her.

For those that love her books, and also for those that simply enjoy a well written memoir, this book is highly recommended.

Wolvers, by Taylor Brown*****

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Taylor Brown has become one of my favorite authors. He creates believable characters and memorable plots, and his recurring themes have to do with championing the poor and dispossessed, and an urgent sense of environmentalism. My great thanks go to NetGalley, RB Media, and St. Martin’s Press for the review copies. This book is for sale now.

Trace Temple hates wolves. His family has spiraled downward since losing its New Mexico ranch, a ranch that was in the family for generations, because of a massive legal penalty incurred by shooting an endangered wolf. It’s legal to kill a wolf that has preyed on one’s livestock, but the circumstances under which that can be done are very specific ones. Trace’s father thought he was shooting the wolf that had eaten his sheep, but he accidentally shot the wrong wolf, and it cost him and his family everything. The patriarch went to prison, and Trace’s mother developed an addiction that has become all consuming. So when some sketchy characters approach Trace and propose to hire him to shoot One-Eleven, the legendary alpha of a wolf pack that ranchers have long hated, he’s all in. But an experience that occurs while he’s on the hunt causes him to change his mind.

Once Trace is out of the running, the organization hires someone else, a man called Murdoch. Murdoch wants to kill the wolf, and he wouldn’t mind killing Trace, too.

The story starts a bit slow, then gathers steam as it goes. The Gila wilderness where all of this takes place is resonantly depicted, and given that nearly everything that Brown has written to this point is set in the Appalachians or some other part of the American South, this is all the more impressive.  The dialogue pops! There aren’t many characters in this story, and the two-legged characters that get the most ink are males; it’s all the more amazing, then, that Brown’s respect for women shines through, and it does so naturally. By the last quarter of this story, nobody could have kept me from finishing it.

There’s some gore here; the story could not have been told authentically without it. Humans get hurt, and some get dead, and so do wolves; but none of the damage is superfluous or titillating. And I loved the ending.

Brown explains what’s real and what’s fictional at the end of the book, and he even includes a two page bibliography for those interested in the subject matter.

I was lucky enough to have both the digital and audio versions of this story, and it’s the first time I’ve listened to one of Brown’s books. Ramiz Monsef does an outstanding job as narrator, and for that reason, I recommend this format for those that like audio books. But whatever your preference is, this novel is highly recommended.

More Than Enough, by Anna Quindlen*****

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More Than Enough, the new novel by Anna Quindlen, packs a great deal of intimacy into a relatively short book. My thanks go to NetGalley and Random House for the review copy. This book will be available to the public February 24, 2026.

The story arc here is not a traditional one in that there are several threads relating to the protagonist, and it’s hard to identify one as central. Instead, all of them are interwoven around a theme of knowing how to let go and move forward. Our protagonist, Polly Goodman, wants a baby desperately. She and her husband, a zoo veterinarian, have been trying for years. They’ve done blood tests, fertility treatments, and even in vitro procedures, but in the end, she comes away with an empty womb and no baby. The hardest thing is when she feeling vulnerable and someone is gentle with her: “I was one kind impulse from a kidnapping or a crying jag.”

In the midst of it all, she is momentarily distracted by the results of a gag gift given to her by her book club buddies. They present her with an ancestry kit, and the results are surprising. At the same time, she struggles with her parents. Her mother, a judge, is wedded to her career, and Polly has never been able to connect with her emotionally. Her father, whom she loves more than nearly anyone, suffers from dementia and lives in a facility. She visits him nearly every day.

And the best friend she has—one of the book club pals—has cancer, and it’s not going well.

All of these threads blend seamlessly within the narrative; Quindlen has such an engaging writing style that I’m not thinking about a central storyline because I feel as if I’m hearing from a friend. Usually I don’t enjoy reading stories about people that might be called upper middle class, because I cannot relate to them at all, but Quindlen magically bridges that gap.

I could go on, but I’m not sure I should, because I love this story enough that I want to tell you every single thing that happens, and that’s not a good idea. The one additional thing you should know, if you don’t already, is that Quindlen has a great heart for teachers and for teens, and so she portrays both in a way that is authentic and immediate. Again, I should not relate well to the private school where Polly teaches girls that come from well to do families, but Quindlen reminds me that all children have needs, and all children deserve not only an education, but an adult sensitive enough to understand them.

I hope Quindlen lives—and writes—forever, but when she goes, as we all must, she should be made the patron saint of high school teachers.

Highly recommended.

Evelyn in Transit, by David Guterson**

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Maybe we should call it the Harper Lee syndrome; you write one absolutely amazing novel. It becomes iconic, and then, nothing else ever works again. I hope that’s not what has happened to David Guterson, the author of Snow Falling on Cedars. For whatever reason, his new book, Evelyn in Transit, is a complete wash for me.

My thanks go to W.W. Norton, RB Media, and NetGalley for the review copies. This book is for sale now.

We have two protagonists, Evelyn and Tsering. Evelyn is a curious and somewhat oppositional child in Indiana; Tsering is in Tibet. We see their separate stories in the beginning, but the transitions are abrupt and I cannot find any emotional connection with either of them. Ultimately, they are connected within the story when a group of lamas (people, not llamas) turn up on the now-grown Evelyn’s porch to tell her that her kindergartener is the reincarnation of the Dali lama that has recently died.

The promotional blurb tells us that the story is written in “a spare, precise style of extraordinary beauty, full of surprising humor and luminosity.” I’ll vouch for the “spare” part; I think of it as a “see Spot run” style, reminiscent of early grade school reading texts. The humor and luminosity, however, have eluded me.

 It might have helped to have more of an internal monologue, particularly for Evelyn; she did and said so many things that were surprising and inappropriate, and if I had a better handle on her motivation, she might have seemed more like a seeker and less like an antisocial outlier. Tsering was even worse.

I had access to both the audio and digital review copies; the reader did a competent job, but couldn’t save the narrative. I don’t think anyone could have. I can’t recommend it.