I don’t typically gravitate towards fantasy with a strong horror component as a genre, but I really enjoyed the last book by Kosoko Jackson that I read (a queer romance), so I had to request The Macabre (publication day September 9, 2025) from NetGalley. He’s published at least half a dozen books already, so thereContinue reading “The Macabre”
Author Archives: bbwesquire
All My Mother’s Lovers
I thought so highly of All My Mother’s Lovers (2020) by Ilana Masad that I recommended it to my book group, so was a bit disappointed when their reviews were much more mixed. It did spark a lengthy discussion, though. As the book opens. Maggie, a queer twentysomething, finds out that her mother, Iris, hasContinue reading “All My Mother’s Lovers”
Not My Type: One Woman vs. a President
Sometimes I’m in the mood for a voyeuristic memoir, looking over someone else’s shoulder into their life. Not My Type: One Woman vs. a President (2025) by E. Jean Carroll met that mood completely! E. Jean narrates the audiobook herself, which is a treat. She begins with being deposed in the first civil suit sheContinue reading “Not My Type: One Woman vs. a President”
Shutter and Exposure
Shutter (2022) and Exposure (2024) by Ramona Emerson, feature Rita Todacheene, a crime scene photographer for the Albuquerque police department who can see ghosts. Raised both on the Navajo reservation by her grandmother and in Albuquerque with her mother, who died when Rita was 18, she started seeing ghosts when she was a young child,Continue reading “Shutter and Exposure”
Let Them Stare
Posting reviews has been slow as I recover from carpal tunnel release on both wrists. It’s going well, three weeks out, and I plan to catch up for the weeks I’ve missed. I’ve done plenty of reading, though, as that’s something I could do even when my hands were wrapped in bandages! Let Them StareContinue reading “Let Them Stare”
Lovely One: A Memoir
Lovely One: A Memoir (2024) by Ketanji Brown Jackson was a completely engrossing and inspiring American story. Justice Jackson credits many things for her success, but the first is the great good fortune of the timing of her birth–in 1970, just at the dawn of the post-civil rights era where the successes that eliminated JimContinue reading “Lovely One: A Memoir”
The Hotel Nantucket
The Hotel Nantucket (2022) was Elin Hildebrand’s 28th book and the first one I’ve read that’s she’s written. A good summer choice by my library book group, Hildebrand centers the story on 19-year old chambermaid, Grace Hadley, who died in 1922 in a fire that gutted the hotel and has haunted it since, hoping forContinue reading “The Hotel Nantucket”
Blood Caste
Blood Caste (publication date July 24, 2025) by Shylashri Shankar is an absorbing mystery set in 1895, and imagines what could happen if Jack the Ripper hadn’t been stopped in London but starts another killing spree in Hyderabad, India. Most fascinating was the interplay of all of the different royals and officials–both Indian and British–presentContinue reading “Blood Caste”
Gaslight
Gaslight (2023) is Nigerian author Femi Kayode’s 2nd installment in the Dr. Philip Taiwo series (Lightseeker is book #1), but it’s OK if you haven’t read the first book. Philip, a forensic psychologist, and his wife, Folake, a law professor, are back in Lagos, Nigeria with their three children after having spent two decades inContinue reading “Gaslight”
Wayward Girls
I was completely captivated by Wayward Girls (publication day July 15, 2025) by Susan Wiggs! It’s an epic story of friendship and survival despite the horrific conditions some girls in the United States were subjected to as recently as 50 or 60 years ago. As the book opens in 2020, we know that a fifty-yearContinue reading “Wayward Girls”
Reading While Fat 