When Burl Spoon's daughter Dee Dee goes missing, the trail leads to the Begley family. Soon two rural Kentucky crime families are at war, exacting a terrible cost. The author has an impeccable ear for dialogue--as someone raised in eastern Kentucky, I could hear these characters plain as day. Highly recommend for fans of S.A. Cosby and Eli Cranor.

When four high school friends go into the woods one night, they encounter an inexplicable staircase. One of them, Matty, climbs it and disappears. Decades later the remaining three have the chance to find out where the staircase leads, only to be trapped in a hellish house of horrors. A gruesome supernatural tale of alienation and connection, trauma and resilience, and the imperfect, essential bonds of friendship.

Free-spirited Birdie is struggling as a single mother and waitress at a backwoods lodge in Alaska when she meets Arthur, a mysterious and reclusive man with unfathomable secrets. When Birdie and her 6-year-old daughter Emaleen move to Arthur's remote cabin, their idyllic wilderness existence comes face to face with the most dangerous thing in the woods. An atmospheric fantasy vividly and realistically told.

This fascinating account describes the movement to understand and accept "intermediaries," a term of art meant to encompass gay, trans and intersex individuals in the Weimar Republic. Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld oversaw an institute that also offered community and a sense of belonging, which he hoped to someday see reflected in society. An eye-opening look at a little known history, although the justifications for intolerance sound all too familiar.

Three astronauts arrive on Mars, charged with preparing the way for a future colony, only to find that the colony lab is badly damaged and the robots who assembled the base have undergone some inexplicable changes. This novella-length horror story packs a punch--tense, full of surprises, a claustrophobic nightmare of space exploration gone wrong.

Ayanna is a twin, but when she chose to live with their father after the divorce, her sister Olivia chose their mother. While Olivia lives a conventional life and attends Catholic mass, Ayanna is raised in the ways of Pathsong, a group devoted to the study of mysterious blue doors that appeared spontaneously around the world. A reflective, deeply moving novel about grief and finding meaning through connection, although the ending was a bit evasive

In this thoughtful memoir, the author recounts her childhood as the daughter of Baptist missionaries in Haiti. Her hot-tempered father, an agronomist, applied all his missionary zeal to reforestation efforts with little regard for the effects on his family. The author uses her parents' letters, church documentation and interviews to offer a clear-eyed look at the complicated legacy and shortcomings of missionary aid, however well-intentioned.

Set in a logging community in a redwood forest in the late 70s, this heartbreaking book follows Rich, a 4th generation logger, and his wife Colleen, who has recently suffered the latest in a series of miscarriages. Their financial future depends on the destruction of the land they love, even more so once Rich takes a risk on a parcel of land with a massive redwood. A story of greed, environmental devastation, and the families caught in the middle.

Three Black women working in retail have one major thing in common: massive student loans that have caught the brutal attention of the debt police, turquoise-clad wellness bros who relentlessly pursue the indebted. After multiple run-ins with the debt police, Jada enlists the help of her coworkers to set things right. Scathing humor lightens the intensity of a story that feels all too real, especially these days.

A crash involving a self-driven car kills two people and raises questions about who exactly is to blame: the 17-year-old behind the wheel? The father in the passenger seat? The AI system in the car? The algorithm's designer? As the police close in, secrets emerge that threaten to drive the family apart in this compelling and thought-provoking look at how technology affects every aspect of our lives.

Boubacar is a chercher, a detective who finds the missing, as well as a deux-fois, his features and light eyes revealing him as half-French. When an injured woman appears on his doorstep and asks for his help, only to be found the next day floating lifeless above the city center, he is drawn into a complex web of intrigue that will determine not only his country's future, but also what it is allowed to know about the past.

In a world where the British eliminated the independence movement and India continues to suffer under oppressive colonial rule in the 1960s, Kalki is both a promising young scholarship student and the daughter of a long-vanished rebel. As the years pass, Kalki must continually weigh the cost of resistance against her desire to follow in her father's path and fight for India's freedom. A compelling and heart-wrenching story of rebellion.

"I learned how to hope at nineteen."

Just starting this one!

#FirstLineFridays
@ShyBookOwl

This inventive and absorbing first contact novel follows Adaora, a marine biologist; Agu, a soldier; and Anthony, a Ghanaian rapper, as they encounter a life form with the power not only to shapeshift but to change other living creatures. An atmospheric, fascinating and sometimes horrifying account of Lagos and its evolution in the face of unprecedented evidence that aliens have arrived. I wish I'd noticed the glossary in the back a little sooner!

When Valerie, an inexperienced hiker in her 40s, disappears on the Appalachian trail, the Maine game warden office pulls out all the stops to find her. Bev, the game warden organizing the search, becomes emotionally invested in finding Valerie, trail name Sparrow, as she learns more about the missing woman & the joy she brought to those who met her. An absorbing story about the wilderness, mothers & daughters, and an increasingly desperate search.

Lily is a contestant on a reality show where contestants must bunk next to a member of the opposite sex each night or be kicked out. While the compound can provide big rewards when things go right, the contestants must complete challenges designed to create drama and follow certain rules or risk terrible punishment. Lily just wants to have nice things, relax, and escape a tedious life, but how much does she want to win? I really enjoyed this one.

In this challenging & ultimately devastating follow up to Hell of a Book, two parallel storylines converge. One follows an author on a book tour arriving at a college campus devastated by a mass shooting, while the other follows Soot, an author on tour in Europe pursued by a larger than life stalker. At the heart of this book is a gun; everything it is and can mean, every way it can destroy a life. I will be thinking about this one for a long time

When Theo travels with her wealthy fiance to his family's isolated compound in the mountains for Christmas, she hopes they won't look too deeply at her family background. Before it's over, secrets will be flying left and right, and not everyone will leave the mountain alive. I wasn't sure about this one at first--it initially seemed like the same old, same old--but by the end I was completely hooked.

Shizuka Satomi owes Hell one more soul in order to save herself and regain her music, and she thinks she's found the one: Katrina, a gifted violin player who is also a trans teenage runaway. Meanwhile, Shizuka finds herself distracted by Lan, a starship captain and galactic refugee who's also running a donut shop with her family. A lovely book about found family and connection that doesn't shy away from the heartbreak and abuse Katrina experiences

It took me a moment to get into this story with its multiple timelines and broad cast of characters, including 3-4 Peters. Once I became fully absorbed in the parallel mysteries at the book's heart--the disappearance of Bear Van Laar in 1961 and of his sister Barbara 14 years later-- I couldn't put the book down. I'm still not sure whether the answers were completely satisfying, but it was certainly an engrossing read.

In Hangzhou in 815, two snakes dream of becoming human; hundreds of years later, Su is the perfect wife to an up and coming politician in Singapore, while Emerald is wild, free and broke in New York. When Emerald's date with a would be sugar daddy makes the news, Su rushes to help, only to see her carefully cultivated self-control shatter and her secrets threaten to drive her sister away for good. A vivid, fast-paced and fascinating tale of family

As the general manager of a luxury hotel in rural West Virginia in 1942, June "Hoss" Hudson has a local accent, a talent for management, and most importantly, a gift for balancing the sweetwater, the (super)natural spring that affects the energy of everyone at the hotel. When the State Department and FBI replace the hotel's guests with detained diplomats from Germany, Italy and Japan, June comes to question everything she thought she wanted.

Hiaasen has always been the champion chronicler of Florida Man in all his incarnations; with this latest entry set in Palm Beach and the Winter White House, he takes on the Florida Man-in-Chief, a POTUS whose deranged lies turn a bizarre accident involving a Burmese python into an anti-immigrant witch hunt, until Angie Armstrong, a wildlife expert with a record, takes matters into her own hands. A hilarious, fast-paced read with satirical bite.

Stilwell, a former diver turned LA County sheriff's detective, has been exiled to Catalina Island after a run in with a colleague. Now there's trouble on the normally sleepy island, and Stil has to decide whether to risk his newfound happiness to investigate a murder that isn't his to solve. Like Connelly's Bosch novels, Nightshade is meticulously detailed and grounded in a sense of place, with a lead character who doesn't suffer fools gladly.

I listened to this audiobook and found it riveting from start to finish. A former New Zealand diplomat, the author sought out a position at Facebook because she believed it could be a force for good in the world. This story of how little the executives thought about the consequences of their actions and failure to act, how little regard they had and still have for the human beings using their products or in their employ, is genuinely horrifying.

Miranda is writing her thesis on Beatrice Tremblay, a little known horror author whose novel was based on the disappearance of her college roommate in the 1930s. As she digs deeper, parallels arise with the stories her great-grandmother, Nana Alba, told her in Mexico. A tense, gripping tale of witchcraft and survival, told in three alternating timelines. And what a beautiful cover!

I won an ARC of this slim, haunting book about five sisters, orphans who live with their nearly blind grandfather. When the local ferryman's resentment of the girls and their silence leads him to start a wild rumor that they transform into dogs, the town quickly turns against them. An unsettling and memorable fable, although readers who prefer clear and definitive resolutions may want to look elsewhere.

I listened to the audiobook of Red Scare and found it really captivating. The story goes far beyond the grandstanding McCarthy Senate hearings; so many careers and lives were ruined by anti-communist fervor and by the parallel investigations of the Lavender Scare, by Hollywood's rapid capitulation, and by the slightest association with labor or civil rights groups labeled communist-adjacent. The echoes with our own turbulent times are unmistakable

In this riveting novel, the first US plane sent to drop a nuclear bomb on Japan in WWII crashes before it can deliver its payload. When the Japanese military recovers the bomb and realizes what it actually is, Yagi, an ethnic Korean in the Japanese Navy, and Keizo, a physicist whose wife has been detained by the secret police, are caught up in a plan to use this devastating weapon against its makers. I couldn't put this one down.

The theme for book club this month was disability pride, and I'm very glad it led to me reading this engaging and often surprising memoir. Josh Miele was four when he was blinded and disfigured in a senseless attack. Miele's intelligence, creativity and insatiable curiosity led him to find ways to accomplish his goals, lead a meaningful and independent life, and ultimately make the world a better and more accessible place for other blind people.

This beautiful and elegiac book follows two timelines: ten thousand years in the future, where Nick explores a pristine world in search of any trace of human life; and 2068, where a plague has landed what may be the final blow to climate-ravaged humanity, and a team led by scientist Natalie Quist attempts a last desperate effort to perpetuate the species. This was not a long book but I had to read it in small doses because it made me so sad.

Money is at the heart of this tense drama about a pyramid scheme in the guise of a women's empowerment group. The Bishop sisters grew up wealthy until their father lost his job: now in their 40s, they are struggling: Debra, under the weight of her husband's medical bills; Pam, in battle with her duplicitous ex; and Harper, still reeling from a break up that left her with a debt she cannot pay. The Wheel promises prosperity, but at what cost?

In this dystopian satire, movies have been replaced by "advertainment," and the most popular product is the Claustrosphere, a bio-shelter designed to help the owner survive the eco-death of the Earth. Skewering Hollywoood, consumerism and corporate greed in equal measure, the story follows a screenwriter, a star, an eco-terrorist, a celebrity activist & Plastic Tolstoy, the all powerful business tycoon. Over the top but also somehow all too real.

In this sequel to The One, a near-future United Kingdom has instituted policies that greatly favor married couples who submit their relationships to AI monitoring, granting them priority access to health care, lower taxes, etc. A wide cast of characters show the consequences, intended and otherwise, including a serial killer who takes advantage of his role as a Relationship Responder to target victims. An intriguing and disturbing read.

This was a fast-paced and intriguing story of Beth, a scientist trying to keep her secret time travel project afloat after the death of her husband Colson, her partner and fellow scientist. Facing increasing pressure from the company owner, Beth makes multiple attempts in a row, traveling to moments in her own past with devastating results. Definitely recommend for fans of Blake Crouch.

In a world where the 9/11 attacks were a near miss, Nick Prasad is a Canadian teenager whose life is defined by his friendship with a child prodigy and world famous scientist, Joanna "Johnny" Chambers. Johnny has cured diseases and saved countless lives, but when eldritch horrors threaten to rise up and destroy the world, Nick learns his friend has secrets that will change everything. A wild fever dream of a book.

Big-hearted bass guitarist Rainy lives with his book-loving wife Lark in a small community on the banks of Lake Superior, where it's still just about possible to live in relative happiness despite the deterioration of the world--until it isn't. A heartbreaking, hopeful story, as big-hearted as Rainy himself, even in the face of arbitrary cruelty and rampant injustice.

In this tense, brutal novel set in small town Virginia, one man's efforts to protect his brother from the consequences of his actions and his sister from the weight of the truth leads to tragedy and bloodshed. Roman returns home when he learns his father is in a coma after a car crash; when he discovers how much trouble his younger brother Dante is really in, he comes up with a plan to save him, and adjusts it as necessary--no matter who gets hurt

In three alternate timelines, Cora goes to register her newborn son's name. Cora's husband Gordon is a highly respected surgeon who is domineering and abusive at home, controlling every aspect of her life; whether she names her son Gordon as he has ordered or defies him has implications not just for her son's future but for their entire family. An engrossing and often heart-breaking story of the devastating impact of domestic violence.

In a distant future, humanity expands outward in an endless quest for resources that can be exploited, and individuals must justify their existence to merit food, oxygen and even consciousness. When an accident sends Juna and Mai to the surface of a wildly inhospitable moon targeted for resource extraction, they face a hostile environment and first contact with a life form unlike anything humanity has ever encountered. Fascinating.

A serial killer is targeting the innocent and Holly Gibney is unofficially advising the officer assigned to the case. Meanwhile, a famous feminist activist on a national book tour faces intensifying threats and employs Holly to keep her safe. The tension increases page by page as Holly races to solve both cases before they hit too close to home. An engrossing entry in the Finders Keepers series.

This look at the rise of the Christian Right and its implications for society was an engrossing wake-up call but also a very tough read. In particular, the section on the use of corporal punishment, the infliction of pain upon children in order to compel unquestioning obedience, was searing and grim. Inextricably tied to the issue of women's freedom and children's rights, Christian nationalism is an all too real and terrifying force in America.

In a future Europe where most western countries have installed AI PMs to "rationalize" society, Lilia is trapped in her authoritarian homeland after what was meant to be a brief visit to see her aging father, while in possession of dangerous knowledge.This timely book explores the fate of dissidents, the price of resistance, the turmoil of revolution and the forever argument that is true freedom. Nayler is officially a must-read author for me.

Rowan washes ashore on a remote island, where Dominic and his three children live in an old lighthouse and maintain a priceless seed vault. Both Rowan and Dom are secretive and grief-stricken, but the comms are out and it will be weeks before a ship arrives, forcing them to work together. The deep appreciation of nature made this book worth it, but I found the portentous writing style and inexplicable failure to communicate grating after a while.

Set in a 1930s Hollywood where magic is both essential and dangerous, Siren Queen follows the cinematic career of Luli Wei, who gets her start with a serendipitous bit part and a stolen name. Luli pursues stardom at almost any cost, discovering her own strength and desire along the way. Ultimately, she finds a measure of freedom in her role as a deadly monster, unconstrained by the conventional roles other stars must play both on and off-screen.

Set in West Virginia during the Great Depression, this chilling book follows two young children, John and Pearl, as they cope with the loss of their father and the arrival of Preacher, a man set on winning over their mother and uncovering their father's secret. Preacher, a murderous evangelist, is terrifying, and the author's empathy for the mute helplessness of a child with no one to trust makes this an especially powerful read.

In a post-unification Korea scarred by the memory of war, Jun is a trans veteran with a bionic body and his sister Morgan is an ambitious designer with a leading robotics firm. Both are haunted by the memory of their lost brother, while in a salvage yard near a school, a robot boy named Yoyo befriends a group of children. A haunting, reflective story of identity, grief and what it means to be alive.

I read this book for book club--it's actually the community reads pick for Lexington for June. A gripping account of one family's nightmare when the father and youngest son leave for their daily walk and only the son, a non-speaking 14-year-old diagnosed with autism and Angelman's syndrome, returns home, clearly in distress. Narrated by his older sister Mia, this book explores family, happiness, disability and the mystery of the minds of others.

When Arthur Beaucarne's long lost journal falls into the hands of his descendant, the story of his visitations from Great Stab, a member of the Pikuni tribe, come to light for the first time, revealing a terrible and violent history. A tragic story of devastating loss, this gripping and original take on vampires is a must read for fans of Stephen Graham Jones.

Wow, Ione Skye was not kidding when she chose the title of this book. She is very open about her relationships with Anthony Kiedis and Adam Horovitz (Ad-Rock from the Beastie Boys), as well as her dalliances along the way (including with not one but two of Madonna's ex-girlfriends). She is both candid and unapologetic about her life, and it certainly makes for an interesting read, especially for a Gen X contemporary like me.