Reader and Her Coffee

02/06/2026

Nick Radcliffe is good-looking, charming, polished, and exactly the kind of man you should never let through the door. Three women are about to find out why.

The multiple POVs and repetitive buildup left me emotionally exhausted by the end. That said, Lisa Jewell does a masterful job making the villain genuinely despicable and sleazy. You just wish the story got there faster.

The ending was okay. Audiobook, however, is excellent. Richard Armitage's narration elevates the whole experience and is worth it for that alone.

⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 5

02/06/2026

📣

30/05/2026

Camille Bayliss has the picture-perfect life: a wealthy Louisiana family, a handsome, hotshot lawyer husband. Except she suspects Ben has been hiding dirty secrets for years, and he’s been watching her every move, so she can't prove it.

Aubrey Price has her own reasons to believe Ben knows something about the night that destroyed her life a decade ago.

So the two women hatch a plan: for 12 hours, Aubrey will take Camille's place. Camille will spy on Ben. Simple enough. Except the next morning, Ben turns up dead. And only one of them has an alibi.

Genuinely compelling premise, and I really did want to love this. But the ex*****on didn't work for me. The story meanders, and the plot feels convoluted (the intended misdirection just exhausted me). I found myself bored more often than not, waiting for something to grab me.

If you loved First Lie Wins, this might still be worth your time. But for me, this was a 2-star read.

24/05/2026

Courtney Gray is a few days into a family vacation in a small, isolated town in rural Wisconsin when a scream in the early hours of the morning changes everything.

She finds her brother, Nolan, and sister-in-law, Emily, dead. Her niece, Reese, is nowhere to be found. Her nephew, Wyatt, is asleep upstairs. How he slept through any of it is a question nobody can answer.

And this quiet resort town has secrets of its own. Reese is not the first girl to disappear here, and the locals seem to have known that long before Courtney did.

This is a great summer read with characters and events that will keep you guessing. Mary Kubica peppers the story with red herrings and a wide cast of suspicious characters, making it tough to pick out the killer before the reveal.

It is a little formulaic in how it sets everything up, but it works. The layers keep you turning pages. For a genre that can be predictable, the twist landed well. A satisfying, easy-to-devour read.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 5

18/05/2026

After four months of hooking up, Lillian is convinced she and Henry are in a relationship.

Henry is convinced they’re done.

So, armed with a hex tutorial she found on YouTube, Lillian performs a drunken hex on him.

She expects him to come crawling back. What she does not expect: Henry to actually die, herself to become a murder suspect, and the discovery that he had a girlfriend all along.

But does any of that stop her? Absolutely not.

Lillian is completely convinced she’s the main character, because in her head, she absolutely is. She is the kind of person you don’t hate at first sight. It’s gradual. Every interaction, decision, and justification she makes for herself, you slowly realize just how rotten she is.

She also loves her booze, which does nothing to make her more likable or reliable. And yet the spiral is so good you can’t look away.

For all of Lillian’s chaos, Henry is his own kind of villain. The book doesn’t let you forget that.

One of the most fun reads I’ve had this year! This is an unputdownable whodunnit with a full character study on delusion, ego, and the very human need to be chosen. Makes you laugh at yourself a little for ever being like Lillian—even just a little.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 5

12/05/2026

Belle Burden is a Harvard-educated lawyer and descendant of the Vanderbilts. It was March 2020, and the Burdens were riding out the pandemic at their Martha's Vineyard home. Cozy, safe, together.

Then her husband of 20 years dropped a bomb: an affair, a divorce, and an exit so clean it was almost surgical.

The opening is the strongest part of the book. James's announcement is jarring, and the immediate aftermath is genuinely gripping. But after that, it runs out of steam.

Everyone raves about the writing, but it didn't do anything for me. Nothing made me want to slow down and sit with a sentence. The audiobook, narrated by Burden herself, didn't help either. The narration was flat and didn't add anything to the experience.

And while I understand why many readers connected with Burden's story, the bubble our author lives in made it hard to fully empathize. She acknowledges her privilege but never truly confronts how lucky she remains despite everything.

Whatever my issues with the book, James earns his villain status. The way he walked away from his family without looking back is cold, even by divorce standards.

If you come from a similar world or are drawn to stories about women reclaiming their voice after betrayal, this might resonate with you. For everyone else, it's a hard sell.

⭐️⭐️ / 5

11/05/2026

Eighteen years ago, the three Esmie siblings, Violet, Vail, and Dodie, fled their hometown of Fell, New York, after their little brother Ben disappeared during a game of hide-and-seek. Every nook and cranny of the house was searched, the police were called, the entire community turned out to help, but Ben was never found.

The disappearance broke their family apart, and each of them left carrying their own haunting. Now, 18 years later, Violet receives a call from the landscapers maintaining their uninhabited family home. After years of maintaining the property without incident, they are suddenly terminating the contract.

The landscaper reported inexplicable incidents on the property, including a sighting of a little boy at the front door. And the siblings know exactly who it is.

The opening is strong. Creepy atmosphere, compelling premise, and St. James doing what she does best. Then the pacing wobbles, the multiple POVs start to drag, and I never felt close enough to any of the siblings to really care.

The ending resolves everything, but it felt smaller than the story deserved.

If you're a Simone St. James fan, it's still worth a read. She's too good a writer to put out something unenjoyable. But if you're new to her, start with The Sun Down Motel or The Broken Girls. This one is more of a 3-star read for me.

⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 5

05/05/2026

Macy Mullins is broke, exhausted, and running out of options when she answers a vaguely ominous ad for a three-day caretaking job. The pay is too good, so she accepts the job even if it’s not exactly the caretaking job she had in mind, and despite her sister’s protests and warnings.

The location along the Oregon coast is remote, and the homeowner’s instructions are vague.
No explanation is given for what they do. Only that they must be done exactly as instructed.

But as the hours pass, the odd rituals become increasingly terrifying. They start to feel like safeguards, and the house like something that’s quietly watching her perform them.

I found it genuinely creepy and atmospheric. You’re not entirely sure what you’re supposed to be afraid of, but you’re scared sh*tless anyway.

I was constantly rooting for Macy to get every step of the ritual right, while also feeling this morbid curiosity about what would happen if she slipped up. This tension carries the whole book. It creates this high-pressure, suffocating environment where even the smallest mistake feels dangerous.

How much this book works for you will depend on what you usually look for in horror. I loved how this freaked me out so much that I needed to put my Kindle down and look at something funny and wholesome for a quick sanity break.

I can live with not having all the answers to my burning questions. But better this than a really sucky ending.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 5

30/04/2026

Cricket Campbell is 26, stuck in a life that doesn’t quite fit, and still carrying the weight of a tragedy she hasn’t fully faced.

When her father, Arthur, is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, she volunteers to move back home and become his caretaker. Partly to help, partly to finally deal with everything she left behind.

What she doesn’t expect is that as her father loses his grip on the past, he becomes something of an unlikely oracle. And that going home means facing everything she’s been running from.

The writing is beautiful but never overwrought. Simple, clean, and quietly devastating.

Cricket is easy to root for. Her guilt over a tragedy she’s been carrying since she was a teenager is woven into everything she does. Watching her slowly untangle that grief while caring for her father was genuinely moving.

The new romance she finds is gentle and hopeful, exactly what she, and honestly, I, the reader, needed by that point.

Arthur is wonderful and full of surprises. His relationship with Cricket is the heart of the book. And by the last 10%, I was crying, and it was cathartic.

The supporting characters are also so well written that I feel like I’ve met them before. The kind of characters you want to text and grab coffee with. Except that one do***ey cousin and that insufferable boss.

And the setting! Can someone please tell me how to get to Catwood Pond, because I need to go. 🥹

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 5

30/04/2026