All The Other Mothers Hate Me, by Sarah Harman

 

 

I started this book thinking, "I wouldn't want those mothers to like me anyway!" And then I started seeing why Florence wasn't liked - she's not very likable, at least at first.
This is the story of Florence Grimes, former girl band member and divorced mother of Dylan. She lives on regrets and dreams of reviving her past. If you look up "dumpster fire" in the dictionary, you might see a picture of Florence.
On a school field trip, her son's richest classmate goes missing. Dylan, who didn't get along with the boy, had been his partner for the trip, and Florence is worried he will be implicated in the disappearance. She decides she needs to solve the crime herself.
Teaming up with the newest mom at the school, Jenny, who is the exact opposite of who Florence is, they try to figure out where the kid is and who took him. Florence constantly did things that made me cringe and just laugh at the absurdity of the situations she found herself in. A cast of colorful side characters along the way makes the story even more entertaining. I didn't like her until the last few chapters of the book - she's one of those people who is so outlandishly ridiculous that you just can't help but eventually like her.
The story never seemed to drag, and I was always turning the page, wanting to see what happens next. If you're looking for a funny crime novel, you should read this one!
Publishing date: March 11, 2025
Thank you to NetGalley, Penguin Group Putnam, and the author for the ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

 

Water Moon, by Samantha Sotto Yambao

In a world where we are allowed choices, there will always be regrets.
Would you rather avoid the regrets and live where fate has decided your entire life? Or find a way to eliminate the regrets your choices have led to.
On a back street in Tokyo, there is an unassuming ramen restaurant. But occasionally, a person - a chosen one - will open that door and walk into a very special pawn shop instead, a shop where you can pawn your regrets and life choices.
Hana Ishikawa's life was arranged from the moment she was born. Now she has just inherited her family's pawn shop from her father, but on her first day as owner she wakes up to find the shop ransacked, and her father missing, along with a precious artifact.
Expecting ramen, Keishin steps into the ransacked shop and soon offers his help to find her father and the artifact. Knowing he is from the outside world, Hana tries to dissuade him, but he is on his own journey of self-discovery and recognizes this as a chance for something new. Together, they wind through the fantastical world that Hana lives in, to find her father and return the artifact, and learn more about themselves than they could imagine.
The prose and writing style of Samantha Sotto Yambao is stunningly beautiful, unlike anything I have ever read. Is it possible to find your favorite book of the year in January? Because I think I may have. I will never look at choices - or how I use time - again the same way.

Publishing date: January 14, 2025
Thank you to NetGalley, Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine/ Del Ray, and the author for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Lost House, by Melissa Larsen

 I love a story where the environment is as much a part of the story as any of the characters. I read this book during the "big freeze" and snowstorm in early January 2025, and it was the perfect read.
40 years ago, outside a small quiet town in Iceland, a beautiful young mother and her infant daughter are found together, murdered, Their murder was never officially solved - but the townspeople collectively agreed it had been her husband. When he took their young son and moved to the United States, everyone assumed it was his guilt driving him.
Many years later, his granddaughter, Agnes, is recovering from a traumatic leg injury, an addiction to pain meds, and the death of her grandfather, whom she loved. A well-known true crime pod-caster has invited her to Iceland for the 40th anniversary of her grandmother and aunt's deaths to research the case and possibly find the truth. Her father is angry she would engage with the pod-caster, but Agnes is determined to get the truth and clear her family's name. Just as she arrives, another local young woman has gone missing. Is there a connection?
I loved Agnes, and her strength - and weaknesses. The story lagged a tiny bit in the middle, but the suspense continued its slow burn until the reveal.
I will absolutely suggest this book to anyone looking for a well written thriller.

Thank you to NetGalley and Minotaur books for supplying me with this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This Book Will Bury Me, by Ashley Winstead

 

Janeway Sharp, after the unexpected death of her father, is looking for a distraction and becomes obsessed with true crime and the online true crime forums. She quickly is invited into a small group who become her found family, and they teach her the ins and outs of armchair detective work.
When three college girls in Idaho are brutally murdered, the forums go crazy trying to solve the crime. Jane and her friends are right in the thick of it - but things take unexpected turns, and things aren't what they seem.

 
This book is well written, and although I suspected the twist before it happened, I was engrossed enough to finish in a few days. Very suspenseful, with a main character who is on-again off-again likable. Some of her decisions were maddening.
I enjoyed the found family dynamic, the slow burn pacing, and the authentic way Jane's grief was written, as well as the crime forum conversations.
There is an uncomfortable closeness to the real-life Idaho case, and there are graphic murder scene descriptions, but I would recommend this book to those who love dark thrillers.

 
Expected publication March 25, 2025
Many thanks to Netgalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for the e-arc of this book

If We Were Villians, by M. L. Rio

 The best Dark Academia books seem to have one more thing in common I wasn't expecting - a cast of completely unlikable characters.
In this book, they are at least interesting, and the Shakespeare gave it more depth than a certain other DA novel it's been compared to. I really didn't have this one figured out, and I did end up feeling compassion for the lead character in the end. A solid and entertaining read.

pub. 2017

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil, by V.E. Schwab

 Sexy, broken, emotional, and emotionless.
If you thought the world did not need another vampire story, you were absolutely wrong.
V.E. Schwab has created characters so complex, yet so relatable, they make you believe they are real.
Three women connected over many centuries, their stories at once tragic and courageous, innocent and evil.
I could not stop reading this book until it was done, and I craved more. I spent the better part of an afternoon at work to finish it. V.E. Schwab is one of my favorite authors, and this is absolutely one of her best.

Expected publication June 10, 2025
Thanks to the publisher, Tor, and Netgalley for the ARC version of this book.

 

The Will and the Wilds, by Charlie N. Holmberg

 

It was a story that totally engulfed me as I was reading, and when I stopped reading, it took a fraction of a moment for me to come back to the real world.
Unlike many fantasy stories, this one has a small cast and a small world - but it works. It is YA Romance set in a fantasy world, but it reads almost like a fairy tale.
Enna and her father live in a secluded spot at the edge of the woods, where monsters called Mystings lurk and humans must take care. She is bold and unafraid, but when she is attacked by a Gobler Mysting, she decides to summon a mysting that she can bargain with to protect her. But what she gets is more than she bargains for.

I've read several of this author's books and enjoyed them all.