Book Review: "The Delivery" by Gregg Hurwitz

“What if you could have something that knows everything about you, everything you want, and could get it for you? While staying totally under your control?”

File this under “careful what you wish for, you just might get it!” This was a bit creepy and compelling, one of Amazon’s First Reads for June.

Rebecca and Mark have been trying to get out from under the grief following a miscarriage. But with pressure mounting from Mark’s boss and the needs of Maddy, their neurodivergent daughter, neither feels like they have a handle on their lives. So when they’re offered an opportunity to purchase a solution developed by a technology company, they take the leap.

Several months later, they take delivery of “Mr. Man,” an AI companion who looks surprisingly human. Mr. Man was grown from their family’s DNA, and he can anticipate their every need. At first, it’s a complete pleasure: laundry is done, dishes are washed, meals are prepared…

But then, as tragedies start occurring, they realize that Mr. Man not only fulfills requests, but he also takes care of things they’ve only talked about in passing. In some cases, they haven’t even clearly said anything, but it appears Mr. Man’s job is to protect them. No matter what.

Gregg Hurwitz is one of my favorite thriller writers, but I realized that I’ve only read his Orphan X series. So to experience his writing in a different genre was definitely a pleasure. I know sometimes I wish I had some help, but I’m good without an AI companion! (Trigger warning: animal cruelty but you can skim over it.)

This will publish 7/1/2026.

Book Review: "Train Dreams" by Denis Johnson

What’s this? Two backlist books in a matter of a few days? What about all the shiny new ones, lol?

Robert Grainer is an ordinary man living in the American West in the early days of the 20th century. He’s not particularly smart or ambitious; he just wants to provide a good life for his young wife and infant daughter.

He has always been fascinated by trains. While he doesn’t know exactly what happened to his birth parents, he knows he was put on a train and sent to live with his aunt and uncle. But he has little recollection beyond that. Still, from time to time, he makes a living clearing trees and doing other manual labor so that railroad tracks can be built out west.

Grainer remembers being part of an attempt to kill a Chinese man accused (rightly or wrongly) of stealing. The Chinese man curses those who try to kill him. When tragedy strikes Grainer’s life, he wonders if it is the manifestation of the curse, or perhaps it’s punishment for not helping an injured man he found in the woods when he was a teenager.

This is a bleak story punctuated by moments of levity. I’ve never read Denis Johnson before, but his prose—particularly his imagery—is luminous. I don’t know if I enjoyed this per se, but it definitely made an impression on me.

Book Review: "Keeping it Casual" by Jax Calder

“Apparently, the whole town of Mineral Creek is just a giant Grindr site where all swipes lead to Jeremy King.”

Dustin is worried that his teenage son Lachie is heading down the wrong path, so he moves them to the small town of Mineral Creek. No sooner have they gotten the keys to their rental house than Dustin hears from townspeople—repeatedly—that he should meet Jeremy, since Jeremy is the town’s other single gay dad.

When Dustin and Jeremy meet, there’s instantaneous chemistry. But during his last relationship, Dustin found his focus drifted away from Lachie, and he doesn’t want that to happen again. The two men decide just to be friends.

Of course, they decide just to be friends and then they run into each other everywhere. And after a casual lunch at Jeremy’s office, their attraction ignites and they wind up becoming friends with benefits. Because that always works, right?

The more time they spend with one another, the more they both realize how strong their feelings are for one another. But when Lachie gets himself in trouble, Dustin has to decide if being a good father has to mean sacrificing his own happiness.

I’ve really been enjoying Jax Calder’s books over the last year or so. I love the balance of banter, emotion, romance that leaves me grinning, and steam. Even though this was predictable, I loved every minute of it.

Book Reviews: "Holiday Hideaway" by Mary Kay Andrews and "The Mistletoe Mystery" by Nita Prose

Sometimes I just need an escape, and it seemed like the perfect opportunity to read some Christmas novellas. And given that I heard Our Lady Mariah for the first time in the holiday season, what better sign could I get?

Molly the Maid returns in Nita Prose’s The Mistletoe Mystery. She and Juan Manuel are getting ready for Christmas, both at home and at their jobs at the Regency Grand. Juan Manuel is full of Christmas spirit, but Molly is a bit melancholy, as she’s missing her grandmother, who always did her best to make the holidays special.

Just as Molly is getting ready to surrender to the Yuletide merriment, she notices that Juan Manuel starts acting strangely. He’s disappearing at odd times, seems to be keeping secrets, and Molly is convinced he’s hiding something from her. It comes to a head during the annual Regency Grand staff holiday party, when all of Molly’s anxieties transform into something unforgettable.

In Holiday Hideaway, Tilly finds herself at loose ends. Her landlady kicked her out of her apartment because she was hiding a dog, and while she’s found a new place to move to, it won’t be ready for a few weeks. So she’s been staying (err, squatting) in one of the homes her employer rents out.

Imagine how surprised she is when George, a handsome man, comes to stay at the house, which apparently hasn’t been rented in years. Turns out he’s the owner’s great-nephew, although no one seems to know he existed. He’s determined to fix the house up and put it on the market ASAP.

Tilly hides in the attic while George is around, but dashing around in secret isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. And when an accident forces her out of her hiding place, sparks fly between the two. It turns out the two have more of a connection than either realized.

Book Review: "Love Language" by Jax Calder

“If someone tells you that they want you, knowing you won’t understand, do they really mean it?”

The idea of concentrating on a heavier book while the election results flow in a manner I wasn’t quite expecting definitely seemed daunting. So I turned to an author whose books have brought me lots of joy lately, Jax Calder.

Ash has been sharing an office with Dominic for 3-1/2 years, even though Dominic is a coding wizard and should have an executive office all to himself. But the two squabble, poke fun at, and make each other laugh, intentionally and unintentionally. Every day comes with some banter, some silly insult.

To nearly all of their colleagues, Dominic is a moody, grumpy genius whose work is necessary to their company’s success. But some people think Ash must have Stockholm Syndrome, because even when they annoy each other, Ash keeps coming back for more. Could what his friends and colleagues think be true? Is he obsessed with Dominic?

But it takes a video of a colleague breakdancing at their company’s midwinter holiday party for Ash to realize how he feels about Dominic. Is it possible that he feels the same way? And if so, will taking the next step jeopardize the good thing they have?

I found this really sweet and fun. My only criticism—even though it is a novella—is that I wanted more, as everything just happened so quickly. But Calder knows how to capture my heart.

Book Review: "Table for Two" by Amor Towles

Amor Towles is a tremendously talented storyteller, with the ability to create vivid, unique characters and evoke time and place in your mind’s eye. I loved Rules of Civility and A Gentleman in Moscow, and still think of those books.

One word rarely used to describe Towles’ books is concise. The Lincoln Highway is just under 600 pages; A Gentleman in Moscow is approximately 500 pages. Even this, his new collection of not-so-short stories and a novella, runs about 450 pages.

Table for Two includes six stories set, or ultimately winding up in, New York City. Some of these stories are absolutely beautiful. “The Line” focuses on a Russian man in the early 1900s who goes far simply by being nice; “Hasta Luego” tells the story of two men who meet in an airport during a winter storm, and one man’s life is more complicated than meets the eye; “I Will Survive” is about the damage secrets can do to a relationship; and “The Bootlegger” is a poignant story about grief and moving on.

The novella, “Eve in Hollywood,” focuses on Evelyn Ross, a character from Rules of Civility. Eve decides to go to Los Angeles rather than return home to Indiana with her parents. While there, she connects with a variety of people, famous, infamous, and ordinary, including legendary actress Olivia de Havilland.

“Eve in Hollywood” is told from seven points of view, which was too many for me. It takes a LONGGG time to get going—there’s lots of narrative that I wasn’t sure would ever get me to the story’s main focus—and not all the characters are as fascinating as I hoped.

I definitely had high hopes for this book that didn’t quite come to fruition, but I’m still glad I read it for the four stories I loved. And of course, I’ll be looking to see what comes next for Towles!

Book Review: "Owning Up" by George Pelecanos

Ever since I read one of his first books in the early 1990s, George Pelecanos has been one of my absolute favorite crime writers. Although he has done well as a writer and executive producer of shows like The Wire, Treme, and The Deuce, he really should be more of a household name for his books.

He hasn’t published a book since 2018, so I was really excited to find his latest book during a bookstore visit this weekend. Even if this is more fiction with a dash of crime, it is so good to read his work again.

Owning Up is a collection of four novellas, each of which follows its main characters for a number of decades. In “The Amusement Machine,” two former inmates meet in a completely different environment since they’ve turned their lives around, at least until one finds money more tempting than freedom. In “The No-Knock,” a crime writer’s life is turned upside down when federal agents ransack his house, looking for evidence that his eldest son committed a crime.

Family history, as well as the history of some major acts of violence and disaster in Washington DC, are at the core of “Knickerbocker,” when a woman leading her grandmother through reminiscences brings her into a whole different world. And in the title novella, a young Greek man comes of age during two hostage crises in Washington, and he learns a valuable lesson from a coworker.

While I missed the whipsmart intensity of Pelecanos' crime novels, these novellas reminded me how well he creates characters that reside somewhere in the grey space between good and bad. There are familiar themes in this book, of family and heritage, over the struggle to do the right thing, and issues of racism and racial inequity. I’ve always loved the research he does for his books, and it’s gotten to the point where I’ve been here long enough to remember many of the places he writes about!!

Book Review: "Foster" by Claire Keegan

This short novella is beautifully written, poignant, and quietly powerful.

It’s summer in Ireland. A young girl is taken by her father to live with distant relatives, the Kinsellas. The girl’s mother is expecting another baby, and things at home with her other siblings are very chaotic.

When her father drops her off, she has no idea how long she’ll be staying with the Kinsellas, or whether she’ll even return home. And it’s not long before her fear of living with strangers turns to feeling, for the very first time, as if she belongs somewhere and is cared for.

Who are these people, and why does caring come so easy to them when it doesn’t for her parents? Will her parents forget her or leave her behind? And how does she feel about either prospect?

I loved Claire Keegan’s last book, Small Things Like These, so I was excited to read Foster. There is simplicity to this story yet at the same time, you can feel the emotions so vividly. I would have loved for the story to be longer, but I’ll be thinking about it for a while.

Book Review: "The Office of Historical Corrections" by Danielle Evans

Danielle Evans' The Office of Historical Corrections includes six beautifully written, powerful stories and a novella which move you and leave you thinking.

These are stories about race, racism, family, love, relationships, identity, history, and how we are perceived. In many cases they touch on complex, thorny subjects but they are never heavy-handed.

While not all of the six stories worked equally for me, my favorites included “Anything Could Disappear,” about a woman who finds herself in some unexpected roles; “Boys Go to Jupiter,” in which a woman inadvertently winds up in the middle of a furor when a photo of her wearing a Confederate flag bikini goes viral; "Happily Ever After," which followed a woman with a life-altering decision to make; and “Richard of York Gave Battle in Vain,” about a photojournalist in the midst of wedding drama (not her own).

The title novella is fantastic as well. It follows a former university professor now working for a federal agency committed to correcting historical inaccuracies. It’s particularly meaningful and powerful in a time when we’re plagued with claims of “fake news” and people worried about rewriting history when monuments and statues are taken down.

Danielle Evans is an amazing storyteller. The Office of Historical Corrections will stick in my mind for a while.

It has been a while since I’ve read short stories but a number of these really moved me and made me think. I know short stories don't appeal to everyone for various reasons, but if you’re thinking of giving them a shot, this book might be worth a try!

Book Review: "Elevation" by Stephen King

When I decided to read Stephen King's new novella, Elevation, at around 11:00 p.m. last night, I will admit I wondered what I was thinking. Would my reward for checking out King's latest be a nightmare or two?

I needn't have worried. While Elevation is a little eerie, it's more a story about interpersonal relationships, about how one small action can ripple and truly make a difference in the lives of so many. And while King is a master of triggering our fears and creating horrifying situations, the kinder, gentler King provided thought-provoking moments and moments of poignancy, too.

Scott Carey has been losing weight pretty steadily. There's little argument he could stand to lose a few pounds, but he seems to be losing weight every day, no matter how much he eats or how little exercise he does. It's not just that—he weighs the same amount whether or not he's fully dressed, even if his clothes are laden down with coins or other heavy things. He knows it could be something serious, but he's more convinced it's something mysterious, and he has no interest in being kept in the hospital while he's poked and prodded over and over again.

With nowhere else to turn, he confides in his old doctor and friend, Doctor Bob. Doctor Bob cannot believe what he's seeing, although he can't think of a logical explanation for what Scott is going through. Once he realizes he can't convince Scott to go to his real doctor (Bob has been retired for some time), he's willing just to observe what's going on, so someone other than Scott knows what he's going through.

"You could feel weight, yes—when you were carrying too much, it made you ploddy—but wasn't it, like time, basically just a human construct? Hands on a clock, numbers on a bathroom scale, weren't they only ways of trying to measure invisible forces that had visible effects? A feeble effort to corral some greater reality beyond what mere humans thought of as reality?"

As much as Scott is focused on his weight loss issues, he's also flummoxed by the tension between him and his neighbors in Castle Rock, a married lesbian couple who moved to town to open a vegetarian Mexican restaurant. Their dogs seem to be fond of leaving their calling cards on his lawn, and he'd like it to stop, but he had no idea that simple request would cause such bad blood between him and one of the women. While her wife is friendly, she is icy cold—and isn't interested in anything Scott has to say, even if he's trying to be hospitable or helpful.

Little by little, Scott realizes what a difficult battle these women face in a town that doesn't mind if they "keep to themselves," but the fact that they say they're married, and want to be part of public life—well, that just won't do. As Scott confronts his own prejudices and tries to help the townspeople realize how backwards their thinking is, it actually causes more tension—until he makes a split-second decision during the town's annual 12K race, which changes everything.

Scott's own problem doesn't go away; in fact, it starts escalating. But suddenly he's surrounded by a group of people who once thought the worst of each other and themselves, and they help him accept the reality of an unreal situation, and decide how to handle things once "zero day" arrives.

Elevation is utterly compelling, and at 160 pages, I couldn't stop reading until I finished. I had no idea what to expect, and given my experience reading King's books, I kept waiting for everything to go off the rails. While it was a relief that it didn't, at the same time, I'm not sure if the book was meant to be more a story of human kindness with a little oddity thrown in than anything else.

Perhaps it could have used a little bit of a jolt, although it might have altered the heart of the story. I'm just going to assume that in the midst of a world growing ever more angry, more divided, more disappointed, and more pessimistic, King provided the antidote we needed—the reminder that the smallest action can make a positive change.

It's a good message, and at least I didn't have to worry about Pennywise the Clown visiting my dreams.

Book Review: "Good Behavior" by Blake Crouch

Blake Crouch blew my mind and threw me for a loop with Dark Matter (see my review). When I decided to read Good Behavior, a collection of three interlinked novellas, I wondered if lightning would strike twice for me when reading Crouch's books.

My verdict? Crouch really is one hell of a writer. While this book didn't quite take my breath away like Dark Matter did, he proved once again that he knows how to create some fantastic action scenes and ratchet up tension until you are absolutely dying to know what's going to happen next. And in Letty Dobesh, he has created a fantastically memorable character I hope we'll see again soon. (The adaptation of some of these stories, starring Downton Abbey's Michelle Dockery, is currently airing, and Crouch provides some insight into the creation of the television show in this book.)

Letty Dobesh is fresh out of prison. She has a son she's not fit to see, a drug habit that she can't quite seem to shake, and while she needs to get herself back on the straight and narrow, she realizes more and more that she's happiest when she's in the middle of a scheme—or using drugs. The sad thing is, despite a few missteps, she's generally really good at being a criminal.

In "The Pain of Others," Letty has returned to her old pastime of robbing hotel rooms when she overhears a conversation between two men, one who has just hired the other to kill his wife. Letty is unsure what to do. Should she contact the police, despite the compromising position she was in when she heard the murder being agreed upon? Should she just walk out of the room when she can and pretend she heard nothing? Or should she try and warn the wife of what is imminent?

In "Sunset Key," Letty is offered a multi-million dollar scheme from an old friend and fellow criminal. A very wealthy banker has been found guilty of defrauding millions of people, and he has been sentenced to a long prison term. He'd like to spend his last night of freedom with a special woman, and Letty can be that woman—for a price. And in "Bad," Letty gets the chance to be part of a heist unlike any others, but it is far from what she expected.

Each of these novellas has a lot of twists and turns, and while you think you know how Crouch will wrap things up, you're not always right. The first and the third novellas in particular ("The Pain of Others" and "Bad") really threw me for a loop a few times. I don't know what it will be like watching the television adaptations knowing all I know, but I'm definitely going to have to see Letty in motion.

Don't go into this expecting Dark Matter or even the Wayward Pines series (which I've definitely added to my list). These are more straightforward crime stories than anything else, but they're still fascinating and utterly compelling. I'm seriously a huge Blake Crouch fan now, not that I wasn't before!

Book Review: "A Familiar Beast" by Panio Gianopoulos

In the wake of an affair gone wrong, Marcus has destroyed both his marriage and his career. Unsure of what he wants in his future, and paralyzed by feelings of loss, guilt, and loneliness, he winds up agreeing to visit Edgar, a former classmate, in North Carolina. He and Edgar haven't kept in touch over the years, but thanks to the wonders of social media, they were able to reconnect, and even though he isn't particularly enthusiastic about traveling across the country, Marcus makes the trip.

He finds that Edgar's life isn't much different than his own, although Edgar avoids talking about his problems in the typically stoic way men do. Left on his own in Edgar's big, lonely house, Marcus has far too much time to brood over the wreck of his life and his marriage, and confronting how far off course his life has gone. An encounter with a woman at a bar in North Carolina leaves him feeling more bewildered, guilty, and angry about all that has happened.

When Edgar proposes taking Marcus on a deer hunt, he agrees, despite his revulsion for killing anything, which has been an effective enough buffer to help him avoid hunting to this point. As he ponders a way to disentangle himself from yet another situation he has found himself in, he confronts an even greater challenge.

Panio Gianopoulos' A Familiar Beast is billed as a novella, and from what I've read on Amazon about the actual physical book, it's apparently a beautifully printed, 72-page long text. However, on my Kindle, it feels more like a slightly longer short story. But whatever you call it, Gianpoulos does a phenomenal job creating a memorable character in a familiar but complicated situation. He is a terrific writer and his use of language to convey emotions and events we've seen before is tremendously effective, and his storytelling really packs a punch in a short number of pages.

I've always said that the mark of a terrific short story is when you're left thinking about the character(s) and wondering what happened once the story ended, plus you're invested enough to want to read more. This was definitely the case with A Familiar Beast, and I look forward to seeing what else Gianopoulos writes in what I believe is a tremendously promising career.