One of my goals this year is to help you spend less time wondering what to read next and more time actually reading.

This week's releases took me everywhere.

I traveled on a twelve-day wilderness trek, fake-married my way across the globe on a reality TV show, got tangled up in Egyptian-inspired court politics, and returned to a small Florida town where long-buried secrets refused to stay buried.

As always, these are just my personal reactions. A book that didn't work for me may end up being your next five-star read, and a book I loved might completely miss the mark for someone else.

Let's get into it.

❤️ Good at Being Alive

Read or Skip: READ

Rating: 4 stars

I went into this expecting a fake-dating rom-com.

What I got was a surprisingly emotional story about grief, healing, and learning how to move forward after losing people you had complicated relationships with.

After the death of her family, Bex inherits half of her father's struggling travel company and is forced to work alongside Theo, her serious and perpetually exasperated British business partner. When an opportunity arises to save the company through a travel reality show, the two agree to pretend to be newlyweds for the cameras.

The fake marriage premise hooked me immediately, but what kept me reading was the emotional depth underneath it.

One of my favorite aspects of the novel was its exploration of grief. Not just grief in general, but the specific kind that comes from losing someone who wasn't always easy to love. The book handles those complicated emotions with a lot of honesty and nuance.

I was also completely invested in Bex and Theo. Their banter is fantastic, their chemistry feels natural, and watching Theo fall for Bex long before he's willing to admit it was easily one of my favorite parts of the story.

Final thought: Come for the fake marriage and travel adventures. Stay for the emotional depth, sharp banter, and surprisingly thoughtful exploration of grief.

🏔️ The Great Outdoors

Read or Skip: READ

Rating: 3.75 stars

This is the kind of romance that takes a character completely out of their comfort zone and then makes you cheer for them every step of the way.

After being dumped for being "too high maintenance," Sadie signs up for a twelve-day wilderness trek through the High Sierras to prove she can handle anything. Enter Thorn, the rugged trek leader who may or may not be exactly what she needs.

What worked best for me was Sadie's character growth.

It would have been easy to make her the stereotypical fish-out-of-water heroine who spends the entire book complaining, but instead she adapts, grows, and learns that she doesn't have to control every detail of her life to be happy.

The romance between Sadie and Thorn is sweet, heartfelt, and develops naturally throughout the journey. Their opposites-attract dynamic worked really well for me, and I found myself rooting for them almost immediately.

The wilderness setting also adds a lot of charm.

Did this book make me want to spend twelve days hiking through the mountains Absolutely not.

Did I enjoy experiencing it from the comfort of my couch and air conditioning? Very much yes.

Final thought: A sweet summer romance with strong character growth, forced proximity, outdoor adventure, and plenty of heart.

👑 The Shrouded Queen

Read or Skip: READ (with one caveat)

Rating: 3.75 stars

The Shrouded Queen came incredibly close to being a five-star read for me.

When a rival clan attacks the palace, Princess Amunet escapes while her maid, Samira, is mistaken for the princess and taken into enemy territory. As both women embark on separate journeys, questions of identity, destiny, power, and leadership begin to emerge.

The Egyptian-inspired mythology immediately pulled me in.

The worldbuilding feels fresh, the political intrigue is compelling, and the magical elements kept me fully invested throughout the novel.

The standout character for me was Samira. Her chapters were consistently fascinating, and I found myself deeply invested in both her growth and the mysteries surrounding her identity.

Unfortunately, I struggled with Amunet's perspective. While I understood what the author was trying to accomplish, I never fully connected with her character and often found myself impatient to return to Samira's storyline.

Thankfully, the strength of the worldbuilding, mythology, and overall plot more than made up for it.

Final thought: If you love mythology-inspired fantasy, hidden identities, political intrigue, and complex female characters, this is absolutely worth picking up. Just be prepared to have a favorite POV.

🔪 Nasty Little Secrets

Read or Skip: READ

Rating: 4.25 stars

This was a debut?!

Because if it is, I cannot wait to see what this author does next.

More than a decade after her brother was convicted of murdering his high school girlfriend, Rose returns to her Florida hometown when her younger sister suddenly disappears. As the search unfolds, old secrets begin resurfacing, and it becomes clear that the past may not be as settled as everyone believed.

This book had me hooked from the very first chapter.

The dual timelines are handled incredibly well, with each reveal adding another layer to the mystery. The combination of family drama, small-town secrets, and long-buried lies kept me turning pages long past my bedtime.

Rose is also a wonderfully complicated protagonist. She's flawed, stubborn, messy, and entirely understandable given everything she's endured.

Final thought: A gripping debut packed with family drama, small-town secrets, strong character work, and enough twists to keep thriller readers happy.

🔪 The Summer Fun Massacre

Read or Skip: SKIP

Rating: 3 stars

This may be my biggest case this year of a book not matching the version I created in my head.

Based on the title, cover, and premise, I expected a campy summer slasher packed with creepy campgrounds, ridiculous camp activities, folklore-fueled horror, and all the chaotic energy of an '80s horror movie.

That is not the book I got.

The novel opens strong, with a gruesome attack, a lone survivor, and the promise of a bloody mystery. For a brief moment, I thought I was about to get exactly the kind of summer horror read I'd been craving.

Instead, the story quickly shifts into a police procedural focused on small-town politics, sheriff's department drama, investigations, and interpersonal conflicts.

Now, that's not necessarily a bad thing. If you enjoy police procedurals, there may be a lot here for you. The problem is that the marketing, title, and premise all led me to expect something very different.

There are absolutely horror elements throughout the novel, including some genuinely gruesome scenes, but they felt secondary to the investigation. I also found myself wishing the folklore and mythical horror aspects had been explored much more deeply. The story introduces some intriguing ideas, then largely pushes them into the background.

I also struggled with the cast. There are a lot of characters, many of whom are law enforcement officers, and I had a difficult time keeping track of who was who. The main character never fully clicked for me either, which made it harder to stay invested in the slower sections of the story.

To the book's credit, it is incredibly readable. I flew through it in just a few sittings because the pacing moves quickly and there's always something happening.

Final thought: If you're looking for a police procedural with horror elements and small-town intrigue, this may work much better for you than it did for me. But if you're hoping for a campy summer slasher packed with campground chaos, folklore horror, and classic horror-movie energy, I'd probably point you elsewhere.

Also Hitting Shelves This Week

Didn't see your next read above? Here are a few other releases arriving today that caught my attention.

🔫 Three Hitmen and a Baby by Rob Hart

If you enjoy found family, action-comedy, and stories that somehow manage to be both heartfelt and completely ridiculous, this one sounds like a blast.

The premise alone sold me: three reformed assassins are tasked with babysitting a toddler while their friend searches for her missing brother. Naturally, everything immediately goes wrong. Add a Russian mob boss, fabricated identities, a police manhunt, and a group of killers desperately trying not to kill anyone, and you've got what looks like a chaotic, high-stakes crime caper.

Pick this up if you enjoy: found family, action-comedy, quirky crime novels, and The Hitman's Bodyguard-style energy.

🌊 Meet Me at the Seaside Cottages by Jenny Colgan

This sounds tailor-made for readers who want comfort in book form.

A mother rebuilding her confidence after divorce. A daughter returning home after her life falls apart. Rescue dogs, seaside renovations, pub quizzes, and a second-chance romance.

Everything about this screams cozy, heartwarming summer read.

Pick this up if you enjoy: women's fiction, small-town settings, family relationships, found community, and uplifting stories about fresh starts.

☀️ The Lake Club by Lina Patton

Give me wealthy people behaving badly and I'm already interested.

Set in an exclusive lakeside country club, this debut follows two women whose lives become increasingly entangled with a charming male nanny. As tensions rise, long-buried scandals begin surfacing and threaten the carefully curated image of the community.

This feels like it could be the perfect beach read for fans of messy people making questionable decisions.

Pick this up if you enjoy: domestic drama, wealthy communities, gossip, scandals, and books that feel like binge-worthy television.

🖤 Such a Lucky Girl by Wendy Heard

When a successful influencer leaves her former best friend behind, a chance encounter with an occult self-help book unleashes something far darker than either of them expected.

This sounds like it could land somewhere between YA horror, social commentary, and supernatural revenge story.

Pick this up if you enjoy: horror with modern themes, influencer culture, dark magic, friendship betrayals, and books with strong Tiffany D. Jackson energy.

🥃 The Pinnacle by Abir Mukherjee

An aging Hollywood actor wakes up beside his murdered wife in a luxury Mumbai apartment.

If that premise doesn't hook you, I don't know what will.

Part murder mystery, part international thriller, part examination of fame and privilege, this one sounds packed with tension. The Bollywood setting also gives it a backdrop that feels refreshingly different from many thrillers hitting shelves right now.

Pick this up if you enjoy: murder mysteries, unreliable narrators, international settings, celebrity scandals, and stories where absolutely nobody is having a good time.

Final Verdict

• 🏆 My favorite of the week: Nasty Little Secrets

• 💔 Most emotionally surprising: Good at Being Alive

• 🏕️ Best summer escape: The Great Outdoors

• 👑 Most intriguing worldbuilding: The Shrouded Queen

If you've read any of these, I'd love to know where you landed. Did we agree? Or am I about to be politely yelled at in the comments?

If you like horror, romance, and sapphics, then boy do I have the book for you. LETHAL KISS by Taylor Grothe (out October 20, 2026) is a horrormance with sapphic characters. It's also a monster romance, which was my first! I'm not generally a romance kinda person, but when you mix it with some horror and mystery, apparently it's right up my alley! Let's get into it.

WHAT WORKED (for me!):

• Characters

  • Marcella is DIVINE omg, step on me please

  • Lacie is adorable but also relatable

• Setting

  • Dark academia? Hell yeah

• Pacing

  • It didn't feel like it moved too fast or too slow!

• Spice

  • Okay so generally smut in published books gives me the ick for some reason but this was soooooo good.

WHAT DIDN'T WORK (for me!):

• Honestly? The only thing that didn't really work for me was the way Marcella called Lacie "little lamb" all the time. That was it. (I'm not a big fan of cutesy nicknames like that, babe works just as well lol)

Thank to Tor Nightfire for the e-ARC which I devoured in April on a business trip. This was just what I needed at that time and I loved every minute of it. I highly recommend for your spooky season line up and please consider ordering it from us!

Till next time!

Happy Tuesday, mis internet amigxs!

We're deep into World Cup fever has taken over Discord. If you're looking for a place to chat during matches, we have a thread lead by Nani and G for every match and it's been a delight to read their recaps and conversations after the matches I miss. And you didn't hear it from me, but you may start seeing some giveaways on Discord very soon.

Speaking of Nani, they have been putting together World Cup content for over a month and I am collaborating with them on Instagram on their posts highlighting books from ALL participating World Cup countries. Be sure to follow Nani (@LibrosMeansBooks) if you haven't already on Instagram.

BOOK CLUB

We're only halfway through June, so a reminder that we're currently reading:

• Fiction: And I'll Take Out Your Eyes by A.M. Sosa

• Nonfiction: Accordion Eulogies by Noe Alvarez

In July, we're going to summer school and reading 2 nonfiction books:

• Main read: P FKN R: How Bad Bunny Became the Global Voice of Puerto Rican Resistance by Vanessa Diaz and Petra R. Rivera-Rideau

• Nonfiction (2 month read): Cuba: An American History by Ada Ferrer

In August, we're picking up The Intrigue by Silvia Moreno-Garcia and September book polls will be up soon!

Support My Work!

If you'd like to receive an early version of this newsletter and help me as a full-time content creator, you can join for as little as $5 a month!

And, now, onto this week's books!

Translated Literary Fiction

Medea Sang Me A Corrido by Dahlia De La Cerda and translated by Heather Cleary and Julia Sanches

YA Novel In Verse

Together We See by Ari Tison (Audiobook)

Middle Grade Fiction

Tangled Roots & Wild Dreams by Angela Velez (Audiobook)

YA Fantasy

The Hero Twins in the Realm of Fright By David Bowles, Charlene Bowles: Fantasy (Tales of the Feathered Serpent #3)

xo,

Carmen

I want to start with an apology. I haven’t been as present here as I wanted to be. The last few months have been heavy in ways that are difficult to summarize: personal struggles, challenges at home, and a depression that has made even ordinary things feel harder than they should. Writing has often happened in fragments, between moments of exhaustion and survival. But even when I’ve been quiet, I’ve been thinking. One idea in particular has refused to leave me alone, circling back again and again until it demanded to be written down.

The timeline planned for our lives was never neutral. Western society teaches adulthood as a sequence: date, partner, marry, buy property, have children, advance at work, stay productive, stay healthy, stay cisgender, stay grateful, and never fall behind. But the shame people carry about being “behind” is not a personal failure. It is social before it becomes personal. People feel behind because they have been measured against a life script built for straight, cisgender, able-bodied, financially stable people with access to safety, whiteness, property, institutional approval, and uninterrupted selfhood.

Compulsory heterosexuality, heteronormativity, ciscentrism, ableism, productivism, and white supremacy work together to create the “approved” adult: straight or straight-passing, cisgender or cis-passing, partnered, productive, financially independent, able-bodied or performing able-bodiedness, and respectable under white social norms. But not everyone started with the same safety, body, resources, rights, family support, racial access, healthcare, or freedom to know themselves. Some people spent years surviving. Some people did not have language for their gender or desire until adulthood. Some people had to choose safety before authenticity. Some people are not late. They were delayed by systems that benefited from their silence. The life script says there is one correct path into adulthood, but what if the path was built to exclude us?

I’m publishing an expanded five-part series on the paid tier for those who want the full exploration, but I wanted to share the heart of it here too.

Compulsory heterosexuality, ciscentrism, ableism, white supremacy, productivism, and the lie of the “correct” life timeline.

The timeline planned for our lives was never neutral.

By thirty, you are supposed to know.

By thirty-five, you are supposed to have chosen.

By forty, you are supposed to have evidence.

A spouse. A mortgage. Children, or at least a clear answer about children. Career growth. Financial stability. A body that works on command. A gender other people find easy to categorize. A relationship structure other people recognize. A life that looks successful from the outside.

Western society is obsessed with the idea that adulthood should arrive on schedule. We are taught that life has a sequence, and every respectable adult should move through that sequence at the expected pace.

Grow up.
Date.
Partner.
Marry.
Buy property.
Have children.
Advance at work.
Stay productive.
Stay healthy.
Stay attractive.
Stay cisgender.
Stay grateful.
Do not fall behind.

You are not behind.

You are queer. Trans. Nonbinary. Disabled. Neurodivergent. Poor. Grieving. Deconstructing. Healing. Racialized. Caregiving. Divorced. Estranged. Starting over. Coming out late. Changing your names. Relearning desire. Rebuilding after trauma. Choosing a life that doesn't look like the one they were handed.

The shame people carry about being “behind” is often treated as a personal self-esteem issue. It is framed as insecurity, comparison, low confidence, or lack of motivation.

But shame is social before it becomes personal.

People feel behind because they have been measured against a life script built for straight, cisgender, able-bodied, financially stable people with access to safety, whiteness, property, institutional approval, and uninterrupted selfhood.

That timeline was never neutral.

It was built from multiple systems working together.

Compulsory heterosexuality teaches people to treat heterosexuality as the default path, whether or not it reflects their actual desire. It trains people to confuse approval with attraction, safety with love, and compliance with identity.

Heteronormativity treats cisgender heterosexual couplehood as the expected center of adult life. It assumes that dating, sex, romance, marriage, parenting, and family should follow a straight, gendered script.

Ciscentrism treats cisgender identity as the norm and trans, nonbinary, genderfluid, and gender-expansive identities as deviations from the expected path. It assumes everyone will identify with the gender assigned to them at birth, move through life under that label, and become an adult in a way others read as properly masculine or feminine.

Compulsory able-bodiedness treats able-bodiedness as the expected and preferred state. It assumes the adult body should work consistently, produce consistently, recover quickly, and avoid needing too much care, rest, adaptation, or accommodation.

Compulsory productivism teaches that worth depends on output. You prove adulthood through labor, efficiency, career progress, financial independence, discipline, and constant improvement. Rest becomes suspicious. Disability becomes failure. Care needs become burdens. A nonlinear life becomes a moral problem.

White supremacy shapes the script by deciding which lives are treated as respectable, mature, safe, desirable, professional, moral, and worthy of protection. It has long organized family, gender, labor, property, sexuality, and citizenship around whiteness as the standard. It rewards proximity to white, middle-class, Christian, cisheteronormative respectability. It punishes people whose families, bodies, cultures, kinship structures, labor, gender expressions, and survival strategies fall outside that standard.

These systems do not operate separately.

They braid together.

Heteronormativity tells you what kind of relationship makes you legitimate.

Compulsory heterosexuality tells you what kind of desire is acceptable.

Ciscentrism tells you what kind of gender makes you believable.

Compulsory able-bodiedness tells you what kind of body deserves respect.

Compulsory productivism tells you what kind of pace makes you valuable.

White supremacy tells you whose adulthood is recognized as civilized, responsible, beautiful, safe, and worthy.

Together, they create the approved adult.

Straight or straight-passing.
Cisgender or cis-passing.
Monogamously partnered.
Married or marriage-bound.
Parenting or planning to parent.
Employed in a recognizable way.
Financially independent.
Able-bodied or performing able-bodiedness.
Gender-conforming enough to avoid discomfort.
Respectable under white social norms.
Always progressing.

The timeline is not a neutral checklist.

It is a sorting system.

It tells people whether their bodies, relationships, genders, families, desires, homes, work, and pace count as adult.

And when people do not fit, the system rarely questions itself.

It asks the person, “Why are you not there yet?”

That question assumes everyone started from the same place, with the same body, safety, resources, rights, identity freedom, racial access, family support, and self-knowledge.

They did not.

Some people spent years surviving homes, churches, schools, medical systems, workplaces, and communities that taught them to disappear.

Some people did not have language for their gender until adulthood.

Some people did not know their desire because desire had been buried under fear, doctrine, violence, or expectation.

Some people had to choose safety before authenticity.

Some people had to care for others before they had space to know themselves.

Some people were never given the option of being soft, rested, protected, believed, or free.

Some people’s bodies changed the plan.

Some people’s families rejected them.

Some people never had generational wealth, housing stability, healthcare access, or a safety net.

Some people are not late.

They were delayed by systems that benefited from their silence.

The life script says there is one correct path into adulthood.

But what if the path was built to exclude us?

What if the shame was never proof of failure?

What if the panic of being behind is what happens when a person starts to wake up inside a timeline that was never designed for their life?

This ended up being a really long essay when I was writing it so I'm breaking it up into five parts, yes five, I have a lot to say, so stay tuned for part two.

There will also be conversations about books in here at some point, because obviously.

Friends,

I have the most exciting news. What Feeds Below has earned a KIRKUS STARRED review!

Congrats to Tatiana! This book is so incredible and I'm so glad others are able to experience

what I did the first time I read it! Scroll down to read full review.

Why is this important?

Only 10% of books reviewed by Kirkus earn a STAR. This signifies to booksellers and librarians that the book is of exceptional merit. This could mean bigger orders from bookstores!

Speaking of bookstores, as you know, we love indie bookstores. We have partnered with 3 of our favorite stores for our PREORDER Campaign and our personal goal is to have at least 100 preorders from each store. Prairie Lights is currently at 59 preorders. Let's get them to 100 today!

If you preorder from Prairie Lights, you get a signed edition, a sticker, and poster of the book cover. You can order here: https://prairielights.com/book/9781967967247

Kirkus Star Full Review

Best friends Petra and Jade live in an orphanage on the outskirts of a rundown city that’s grown up around the Void, a mysterious chasm that’s miles deep and wide.

Desperate to escape their grinding poverty, the 17-year-old girls work together as divers, guiding wealthy, thrill-seeking tourists on excursions into the complete darkness of the Void, with its carnivorous plants and vicious, cunning predators. The divers risk losing limbs—and their lives—and few ever reach the Void’s Sixth Layer, where lies the ancient city of Obscuris, which sank into the earth long ago, taking a mysterious power source and advanced technologies with it. A successful dive to Obscuris would secure the girls’ financial futures, but dark-haired, timid Petra is too afraid to try, despite Jade’s pushing. Only when green-eyed Jade, who’s pale-skinned with auburn hair, goes missing during a botched dive does Petra screw up her courage. Together with fellow diver Flint, who has dark-brown skin and a prosthetic leg and to whom she was once close, Petra heads back into the Void for what she promises herself will be her very last dive—all the way to the Sixth Layer. But what she finds in the deep is peril, pain, and something genuinely shocking. This gory novel moves at a fast pace, and its strengths include its lush and innovative worldbuilding, gruesome body horror, and unflinching commitment to the bleakness of its narrative.

A nail-biting tale set in a beautifully rendered world of darkness and danger. (Horror. 14-18)

JOIN ME IN CONGRATULATING TATIANA BELOW!

A guy once charmed me on our first date by griping about an upcoming cruise he was taking with friends. His disdainful critique of what seemed to be a pleasant vacation tickled me.

After we'd been seeing each other for a month, I learned the cruise was actually no laughing matter. Every day he'd give me a report on the rising sea level of his dread. You’d think he had been charged with a crime, and the sentence passed down by the judge was this all-inclusive trip to the tropics. 

If you're confused why he agreed to go, I was too. So was he. 

It wasn’t a bachelor party or a 30th birthday celebration or some other invitation laden with social obligation. No, his friends asked if he wanted to join them on their vacation, and he agreed. He thought it had sounded fun at the time, but his feelings soon morphed and turned on each other. There was some part of him still in touch with this initial optimism, but that part was drowned out by his distaste for too much forced fun and intimacy. He eventually confessed to me that his mom had forbidden him from mentioning the cruise because even she was tired of hearing him perseverate – the conversational equivalent of treading water. 

When I look back at our short-lived relationship, I always return to this cruise quandary as it so clearly revealed our incompatibility. Because me and ambivalence? I don't know her. I applied early decision to college. After only a couple weeks of knowing each other, I asked my husband, “Should we just run away and get married and have babies?” I’ve always prided myself on my ability to order off a menu in less than 20 seconds. I refuse to let a decision spin me in circles or turn me to stone. 

Motherhood has bucked me off this high horse. These days I am often stuck between two competing impulses. As I write this, I can hear my baby crying in the other room. This cry (he is very tired and he wants to sleep, but he doesn't know how because he is a baby) is a normal step in his nap ritual, which my husband is facilitating right now. I am fighting the instinct to go comfort him. I am also grateful that it's not my turn to deal with his tears right now. These two feelings arm wrestle inside of me, equally strong, perfectly matched. 

I know I'm not alone in this. If you search the social media trend "Top 5 Horror Movies," you'll see a lot of videos from moms. Many of them follow the same pattern:

I jumped on this trend with my own version:

In all of the education on birth and postpartum I did while pregnant, breastfeeding was treated like a footnote. Do you want to see a midwife or an OBGYN? Do you want to give birth at a hospital or at home? Do you want an epidural? Oh, and do you plan to breastfeed? 

Labor lasts a day (two or three, if you're unlucky). Breastfeeding lasts for months. Potentially years. Breastfeeding is relentless. Even if everything goes well (your baby latches consistently and your supply matches their demands), breastfeeding entails mental, emotional, and physical labor around the clock. 

Personally, I rank the physical labor as the most difficult to endure. I found the sensation of having milk sucked out of my nipples initially painful and now uncomfortable, so having to do it multiple times a day for months has been less than ideal. I'm embarrassed to write this. I fear you’ll think there's something wrong with me for experiencing breastfeeding as strange. I mean, biologically, it’s the furthest thing from strange. It's completely normal. Mundane even.

Perhaps you're not judging me, but you might wonder: if you don't like it, why don't you just stop?

First, weaning is hard. At five months postpartum, I'm down to one night feed, and the process of getting my boobs to this point took the same amount of planning and effort as training for a marathon. If I push the endurance of my boobs too much too fast, they get injured (clogged ducts, which can lead to mastitis). It's not as simple as "just stop". Even if I nailed the physical process, then I would need to contend with the mental load of juggling my weaning schedule and a new feeding routine for my baby. 

Second, when I seriously consider stopping, an amorphous sadness rises in me. I cannot identify what bums me out about the thought. I don't enjoy the physical act of breastfeeding, and I don't consider it particularly bonding. My son drank formula for the first week of his life, and feeding him via bottle didn't dampen my fiery attachment to him. 

And yet, there is my mysterious grief.

I have spent many therapy sessions circling this ambivalence, determined to defeat it. I want to understand it, so I can overcome it. This is the formula I’ve used all my adult life: Identify problem → Take action to solve problem → Feel better. 

During all this rumination on ambivalence, I remembered reading Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in college. When prompted by our professor to share our analysis, my fellow students and I were basically like: these old-timey people are sooo scandalized by Mr. Hyde's antics. 

One day, seemingly fed up by our shallow interpretations, our professor dropped a new one: Stevenson wasn't condemning Mr. Hyde's behavior. Rather, he was condemning Dr. Jekyll’s attempt to deny his dark impulses by splitting himself in two. Disowning our shadow selves, he suggested, was a form of violence, and violence begets violence.

I was relieved to find that Lucy Jones addresses ambivalence in Matrescence (the quintessential text of my early motherhood): "According to psychoanalysts such as Parker, maternal cruelty may be the result of unmanageable ambivalence. When unreconciled feelings of love and hate go unaddressed, they can intensify, and then explode into helplessness and violence."

Like my professor suggested in his analysis of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hydes, Jones proposes there are dire consequences to denying mothers' internal conflicts. 

"The assumption that ambivalence is abnormal has also affected the direction, framing and focus of science," Jones writes. "[It] boxes maternal ambivalence into the study of 'the odd' (psychoanalysis), rather than the study of 'the natural' (evolutionary biology)."

Did you know that normally one breast produces more milk than the other? I didn't learn this until I started nursing. I can't help but project a story onto my boobs; one is much more committed to this new milk production job than the other. Even my mammary glands are at odds. One boob in, one boob out.

Now that I'm figuring out how to embrace my ambivalence, I've become aware that much of my discomfort lies with how my indecisiveness makes me come off. Do I seem weak-willed or oblivious complaining about doing something I could technically stop doing? 

Several weeks ago, a friend texted me asking if I had figured out a solution to my breastfeeding ambivalence. The impulse to lie – tell her I planned to wean or claim I turned a corner and started disliking breastfeeding less – swelled inside my chest. Instead, I let out a long breath and wrote her the truth.

"No, I've just stuck with BFing lolol I've talked it over with my therapist and I think I've just come to terms with the fact that I feel very ambivalent about the whole situation. Like, I do want to continue but I also want to still complain about it. Probably a combo that makes me an extremely annoying person to be friends with right now."

(Please note my gratuitous "lolol")

Maybe I need to give up my impulse to be palatable and simply let myself be the dull conversation partner. Excising this part of myself may result in something much more distasteful.

This novella is perfect for those who:
• want more of the dirty delta series
• enemies to lovers
• sweet novella
• some spice

It was nice to see Angelo and Mia’s story get a little bit of extra attention.

I do wish I re-read the previous book to remember more details but I think novella did a great job of refreshing my memory.

To be honest, this isn’t my favorite couple. I think I enjoyed the other books more just because they were longer, slightly unhinged, and a great time during reading!
Despite being a novella, I did struggle a bit to want to finish 😅 but I am glad I did, as the last 10% did help me increase its rating.

I am looking forward to what’s next in the series despite this not being my favorite one (I absolutely loved CICC and had a good time when reading FPOW).

This episode my guest is Emma R. Alban, the author of queer historical romances Don’t Want You Like a Best Friend; You’re The Problem, It’s You; and Like In Love With You. Her first contemporary paranormal romance Happily Ever Afterlife hits shelves this September. We talked about writing pop-forward historical romances for Gen Z readers, how fan fiction influenced her as an author, and the logistics of sapphic ghost f*cking. Happy pride month everyone!

Follow Emma on Instagram, Threads and TikTok at @eraofemma, or on her website www.emmaralban.com

Listen on:

• Apple Podcasts

• Spotify

• Castbox

• Libsyn

P.S. I hung out with Laura Piper Lee (left) and Emma (right) at LoveLitCon back in February. Emma and I talked about the omegaverse by a fire pit with such enthusiasm that a hotel guest near us got up and left. His loss!! I'm so glad I got to chat with Emma on the mic so that all of you could experience her wisdom and silliness.

Today for Must Read Monday, I bring you The Revisioners by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton. The story follows two women from three time periods - Josephine, both during and after her enslavement, and 100 years later, her descendant Ava. Josephine, in 1925, lives on land she used to work, and strikes up an uneasy friendship with her new white woman neighbor. Ava, in 2015, is a single mother who moves in with her white grandmother - fraught, as she is the mother of a black boy around an old woman slowly losing her grip on time and reality.

The three story threads weave together beautifully, making time bend in on itself. The women are extraordinary, each survivors in their own way.

There is a slight magical element to this story, which puts this book almost directly in conversation with THE WATER DANCER by Ta-Nehisi Coates, which came out around the same time. Both explore time and memory and how racism drains a community, but THE REVISIONERS puts women's power at the center. It's not only their powerful need to be free, but their relationships with friends, family, and their own selves.

#harperperennialpartner

✨ 6/10

This one I would categorize as romance fiction, than a romcom, and you'll understand why soon.

Marc and Cassie are enemies (who have hooked up once in the past). Now they are forced to work together to plan the best party for their friends - Lucy and Russell. It has to be best because Russell does not have much time left.

Honestly, the book talks about death and how people cope with it. Especially the family and friends of cancer patients. Russell has decided not to take treatment and enjoy the rest of his life. It is such a delicate subject but the author has presented it beautifully.
The first half of the book is really heart warming. Cassie, as a character, is very well-written, very heart warming. Marc irritates you but in a you-know-he-means-well way.
The book is very slow paced. That's why things continue in the same manner in second half. It's only towards the end when something different takes place. If Marc and Cassie got to know some deeper stuff about each other in the middle of the book, it would have made their relationship even more impactful.

Author - @sarra_manning

Thank you so much @harperperennial for this gifted copy

I'm very excited to share our first Books Right Now book club pick: Burn the Sea by Mona Tewari!

Burn the Sea is a historical fantasy novel that retells the story of the South Indian queen Abbakka Chowta. A story of survival, political machinations, and colonial resistance, Burn the Sea hits all of the right marks!

This book will be our selection for July, and I encourage all book club members to discuss the story in both the spoiler and non-spoiler channels on the Discord!

Early in August, I’ll be conducting a virtual interview with Mona Tewari, which will be available to subscribers within the week. As an exciting exclusive opportunity for Bindery subscribers, I will be asking you to submit any questions you may have for Mona, which I will then ask her during our interview. The only guidelines are to keep your questions positive and limit them to two per individual.

Thank you so much for being a part of the Books Right Now community, and I’m so excited to kick off our book club in July! 

Hi Friends,

I thought I would make my May reading update public this month. I typically will keep these paid members only, mostly so I can be a little more honest than I can on social media. I'm not saying now is the time to upgrade, but today I released a WHAT FEEDS BELOW update, an update on the THIRD book from our imprint and will likely be doing a cover reveal for our second book CRACKS soon (so yeah, maybe I am saying now is the time to upgrade!)

Before I get into the update: I LISTED 150 books for sale, many under $5

Shot out to anyone who buys multiple books at once because I have a ton of big boxes I'm dying to get rid of!

I read 15 Books in May. And got a little bit of everything this month.

1. Old School Indian by Aaron John Curtis

   This was our book club pick for Good Day To Read Indigenous and I thought it was fantastic. It's a coming of middle age story, and to be honest, I think we need many more of these! It follows Abe, a man with a debilitating autoimmune disease who in a last ditch attempt to get healed, goes back to the Rez to consult a healer. The prose here is perfection. The characters are SOMETHING ELSE. There is so much about language and love. If you didn't get a chance to read along for book club, I still suggest checking this one out.

1. Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke

   Well, it was a book. Anyway. There are 2 things that are true about me. One, if everyone is talking about it, I want to talk about it. And 2. I LOVE BOOKS ABOUT INFLUENCERS. This book was...fine. I was entertained for at least 65% of the book. The ending totally fell apart and pissed me off. I don't think it is worthy of all the hype, but I also don't find it interesting enough to be worthy of all the attention and criticism either.

2. Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas

   There are times when you read a book and you know this book is going to be for me, but other people might hate it and this is definitely one of these books. It's a book for anyone who loves a book with immaculate vibes over plot. It's dark academia gothic that is impeccably written. Do we need to know what the hell is going on anyway?

3. Lethal Kiss by Taylor Grothe

   TAYLOR IS A MASTER AT HORRORMANCE. This book made me want to read 10 more books just like it. Sapphic. Gory. Dark Academia. Monsters. It drops 10/20 and it is one I THINK YOU SHOULD PREORDER RIGHT NOW.

4. Heartbeat Braves by Pamela Sanderson

   This is an Indigenous romance that centers around the Crooked Rock Urban Indian Center, it's book one of a four book interconnected series. We follow Rayanne who is just trying to do a good job and make changes and then a new leader puts his nephew, Henry, is charge and Rayanne has to work with him. I usually do not care for workplace romances, but because of the unique setting and the cultural significance this one really worked for me. I enjoyed all of the characters here, so I'm looking forward to continuing the series.

5. Native Love Jams by Tashia Hart

   Short and sweet Indigenous romance. This follows Winnow and Niigaani and they have a rough first meet, but end up working so well together. I love a book that centers on FOOD. This is a very sweet story, with memorable characters that is LAUGH OUT LOUD funny.

6. When Stars Have Teeth by Dani Trujilio

   WHOA this Indigenous romance was STEAMY. Buffy does not want a man, but she finds one anyway. Buffy works at the Urban Indian center and just wants to get her job done but is struggling with a non-native board. Santiago is a HOT immigration lawyer. She wants a booty call. He wants BUFFY.

7. The Maiden and Her Monster by Maddie Martinez

   This is an atmospheric fantasy reimagining the golem story. It's folklore. It's sapphic. There is political intrigue and yearning. It's a moving tale with impressive prose.

8. Bad Words by Rioghnach Robinson

   HOLY SHIT. THIS IS THE BEST ROMANCE I HAVE EVER READ IN MY ENTIRE LIFE. This book releases October 6. PREORDER IT IMMEDIATELY. This is a romance about a book critic and a debut author who gets DESTROYED by said critic. This is ENEMIES to FRIENDS to THIS BETTER LAST FOREVER OR I WONT SURVIVE. A lot of interesting stuff about creativity, on the publishing industry, the book world, social media. I NEED MORE PEOPLE TO READ THIS. The banter. Did I mention the banter? WHEN THEY FINALLY BECOME LOVERS. OMG. Every time I put this book down, I would think about it. I will 100% reread this annually.

9. We Are All Guilty Here (North Falls #1) by Karin Slaughter

   Karin Slaughter is the best living thriller writer. You can disagree in these comments, but you'll be wrong. Everything she writes blows me away. The twist at the end of this book. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? No, not that twist. The twist after that twist. Two teenage girls vanish. A detective with baggage thinks she's solved it. Fast forward, two more girls vanish.... but it can't be the same man? Can it? Just give Karin Slaughter the awards every time she picks up a pen. Please.

10. Girl, Forgotten (Andrea Oliver #2) by Karin Slaughter

    So, naturally, I had to go on a Karin Slaughter binge. Who killed Emily Vaughn on prom night in 1982? All of her friends are suspects. This is a sequel to Pieces of Her and while I think they can be read as separate stories, there are connections to the first book that just make starting there worth it. PLUS, all Karin Slaughter's thrillers are to die for.

11. Every Summer After by Carley Fortune

    Wow, I think Carley Fortune just unseated Emily Henry as my fave contemporary romance author. This book was perfection to me. A second chance romance about Persephone and Sam, told in the present and as their time as teens. All we know is they split up because of something Percy did...and MY GOD when we learn what. I thought I would hate that. I didn't. It worked so well for me. This couple. Could NOT put it down.

12. Meet Me At The Lake by Carley Fortune

    Decided I was going to read all of her books in pub order. This should have been a book for me. Dirty Dancing references. A couple who spends an entire day together like the Before Sunset/Sunrise movie trilogy but NO. NO. What. NO.

13. The Lemon Twist by Élan Les Vies

    This is mystery set in the 80s that follows an ice skater suffering memory loss who gets a postcard from her sister that's been missing, with one word written on it: HELP. Lots of puzzles to solve. And a TWIST like no other.

14. This Summer Will Be Different by Carley Fortune

    Heck yes. The joy I felt reading Every Summer After is back! This follows Lucy who falls for her best friend's brother (A trope I thought I would hate. NOPE!) They have to stay apart, but yet they hook up every year. I LOVE SUMMER ROMANCE. What can I say?

    Have you read any of these? What's on your June TBR?

I'm not sure where this week went. Oh right I think I shipped out over 50 packages between the preorders for Headlights and Twisted Tales to Tell in the Night: Another Halloween Horror Anthology. I've been working on a lot. As of today A LOT of our own preorders are now open! Check them out on our website to preorder now HERE! Preorders help so much especially during the slow summer. <3

Twisted Tales to Tell in the Night: Another Halloween Horror Anthology 6/23
Small Town Slasher (Woods Bay 1) 8/4
I Wish I Was a Vampire by Stephanie Rose 9/15
Twisted Tales to Tell in the Night: A Yuletide Horror Anthology 11/17

2027
Twisted Tales to Tell in the Night: A Slasher Horror Anthology 4/27
Werewolf Summer (Woods Bay 2) 5/11

BOOKS
Dead & Breakfast by Kat Hillis & Rosiee Thor
It Could Have Been Her by Lisa Jewell


Currently reading: I'm almost done with the audiobook for The Elsewhere Express by Sotto Yambao and The Devil and Mrs. Davenport by Paulette Kennedy. The second is a buddy read with @Ashly

SHOWS
NEW
MasterChef
Widows Bay
Something Bad is Going to Happen

FILMS - I'm on LetterBoxd - horrormaven13
3 Ninjas
The Babysitter's Club
Find My Friends

Rewatches that I'm enjoying as I pretend to live in the late 90s/early 00s.

TV
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
The X-Files
Law and Order: SVU
Owl House

FILMS
River Wild
The River Wild
The Shallows

That's all for this week! I'll be putting up an exclusive post about StokerCon on Wednesday. I hope you get some time to read and watch and relax.

xoxo

Spooky Girl

Hi pals! Happy Sunday!

I just wanted to pop in to remind you of our inaugural Beyond The Rainbow chat with Dr. Kaila Story Tuesday, June 16th, from 12-1pm CST/1-2pm EST. This will be a live event, and only for subscribers of Not A Phase Books, so please do not share this link with anyone. ALSO, if you have any questions you'd like me to ask Dr. Story, please ensure you drop a comment or join the Discord (free as you're a subscriber) to discuss more in depth the book, any topics you'd like me to hit, etc. You can also hit that Interest button on the event in the Discord to serve as a reminder to join the zoom, as well.

The zoom link and information can be found here:

Sawyer Cole (They/Them) is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: Beyond The Rainbow Chat with Dr. Kaila Story
Time: Jun 16, 2026 12:00 PM Central Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84720199405

Meeting chat link
https://us06web.zoom.us/launch/jc/84720199405

Meeting ID: 847 2019 9405

Join by SIP
• 84720199405@zoomcrc.com

Join instructions
https://us06web.zoom.us/meetings/84720199405/invitations?signature=3nCQjAwo_6sPGcZwArrGYUD1Z4GeKIAJ-88tuGMyCLY

I hope you come prepared to be absolutely blown away. This book, The Rainbow Ain't Never Been Enuf: On The Myth of LGBTQ+ Solidarity left me reeling in the best possible way - the book is jam-packed with much needed information, nuance, and important steps to take as white people part of the queer community and as white people that consider themselves an "ally". I truly hope you can make it Tuesday afternoon to tune in; if not, again, please feel free to drop your questions in the comments below or in the Discord channel for this chat.

Upcoming events for Not A Phase Books:

Friday, July 17th, 6-7 pm CST/7-8pm EST, Beyond The Rainbow with DeAndra Davis discussing her book The Lovers, The Liars, And Me (which releases June 23). I just started this book and let me tell you, the dedication and author's note ALREADY have me in my feels. I just know this book is going to destroy me in the best way.

ALSO happening in July, is our Quarter 3 Behind The Book chat with our Q3 book club selection, which is Lamya H's Hijab Butch Blues. This chat with the author will take place Friday, July 31, 7-8pm CST/8-9pm EST. There will also be a UK edition of the paperback version of Hijab Butch Blues for quarter 3 (July, August, September.) We will take our time reading this book throughout the quarter, so if you have any questions you'd like to ask Lamya H next month, please head over to our discord to enter the chat.

I also just wanted to say - thank YOU for being here. For engaging, for showing up, for being authentically yourselves. It's truly amazing to see and I'm so thankful you're part of my community.

I hope you all have a restful day, and (hopefully) I will see your faces Tuesday at 12pm CST for the Beyond The Rainbow chat with Dr. Kaila Story.

Drop your questions in the comments down below!

With all my trans joy,

Sawyer Cole

Welcome back to After the Walk, where Link and I return from our Sunday morning stroll, and I attempt to organize my thoughts about everything I've been reading.

This week took me through horror, fantasy, romance, thrillers, and one very chaotic dungeon.

It Came From Neverland

Peter Pan was one of my favorite movies growing up, which is exactly why this book worked so well for me.

Cynthia Pelayo takes a story most of us know by heart and asks a deeply unsettling question: What if we got it wrong?

What if Peter Pan isn't the hero? What if he's the monster?

This isn't simply a fairy tale retelling. It's historical horror wrapped around childhood nostalgia and slowly transformed into something terrifying.

What impressed me most was how effectively Pelayo weaponizes familiarity. Before Peter Pan even appears on the page, you're already afraid of him. Every mention of Neverland feels wrong in a way that's difficult to articulate but impossible to ignore.

The result feels less like fantasy and more like a childhood nightmare you've somehow forgotten until now.

Headlights

I picked this up because of the cover, but I kept reading because I physically could not put it down.

Headlights begins as a dark, atmospheric serial killer thriller. A broken detective. A frozen landscape. A disturbing murder investigation.

Then the book mutates.

Every time I thought I understood what kind of story I was reading, CJ Leede pulled the rug out from under me. What starts as crime horror gradually becomes stranger, darker, and far more unsettling than I ever expected.

The body horror is intense. The imagery is unforgettable. There are scenes I genuinely wish I could remove from my memory.

And yet somehow there is also an oddly beautiful emotional core underneath all of it. I still don't know exactly how to describe this book. I only know I'm not going to stop thinking about it anytime soon.

Obstetrix

Some premises immediately grab your attention.

An OB-GYN who survives a highly publicized abortion trial is kidnapped by a religious compound and forced to provide medical care to the women living there.

I mean...how do you not pick that up?

The tension here is excellent. Once Liz arrives at the compound, the story becomes incredibly difficult to put down. The pacing moves quickly, the danger feels immediate, and the constant uncertainty kept me turning pages.

What ultimately held this back for me was emotional depth.

The situations Liz experiences are traumatic enough that I wanted a deeper exploration of her psychological state. The story raises fascinating questions about reproductive healthcare, bodily autonomy, and religious extremism, but often stops just short of fully exploring them.

Still, as a fast-paced thriller, it absolutely succeeds.

The Great Outdoors

This was exactly the palate cleanser I needed.

After being dumped for being "too high maintenance," Sadie signs up for a twelve-day wilderness trek to prove she can survive outside her comfort zone.

As someone who enjoys indoor plumbing and a cozy pillow, I found this deeply relatable.

What I appreciated most was that the story never asks Sadie to become someone else. Her growth comes from learning that she doesn't need complete control over every aspect of her life.

The romance between Sadie and Thorn develops naturally, the mountain setting is gorgeous, and the entire book feels like summer.

Did it make me want to go hiking? Absolutely not.

Did it make me want more books like this? Absolutely.

Good at Being Alive

This was the biggest surprise of the week. I expected fake dating and a travel romance. And while I definetly got those things, what I didn't expect was such a thoughtful exploration of grief.

One of the things this book does particularly well is acknowledge that grief isn't always straightforward. Sometimes the people we lose were complicated. Sometimes our relationships with them were messy. Sometimes love and resentment exist side by side.

Theo and Bex are fantastic together, but what stayed with me most was the emotional honesty underneath the romance.

This ended up being much deeper than its premise initially suggests.

The Shrouded Queen

This is one of the easiest almost-five-star books I've read recently.

The Egyptian-inspired mythology, political intrigue, hidden identities, divine powers, and shifting loyalties all worked incredibly well for me.

And then there was Samira. I LOVED her.

Every chapter from her perspective pulled me further into the story. Her growth, her secrets, and the impossible position she finds herself in made her one of my favorite fantasy protagonists I've encountered this year.

Unfortunately, the other POV had the exact opposite effect. I found Amunet frustrating, selfish, and nearly impossible to root for. Every time the narrative shifted away from Samira, I found myself impatiently waiting to return to the storyline I actually cared about.

It's a testament to how strong the rest of the novel is that I still enjoyed it so much despite that disconnect. Because make no mistake: I will absolutely be reading the sequel.

The Butcher's Masquerade

At this point, Dungeon Crawler Carl has become something much bigger than a survival story.

Early in the series, Carl was trying to survive the dungeon. Now the dungeon is trying to survive Carl.

The Butcher's Masquerade feels like a turning point. The politics become more complicated. The moral questions become murkier. The consequences become more personal.

What struck me most was how much this series continues to ask readers to think about power.

Who has it? Who deserves it? Also, I am increasingly concerned about future emotional damage.

Nasty Little Secrets

This was one of those books that reminded me why I love mysteries.

A missing sister. A decades-old murder conviction. A family that has never fully recovered from either.

The dual timelines worked beautifully here, gradually revealing information without ever feeling repetitive. Every answer created new questions, and every revelation added another layer to the mystery.

I guessed one of the twists early, but I absolutely did not guess the other.

For a debut novel, this is incredibly confident work, and I'm already looking forward to seeing what Gabbie Hanks writes next.

Final Thoughts

The books that resonated most with me this week were all asking variations of the same question: Who are we when the life we expected disappears?

• A woman confronting the horrors of her childhood.

• A detective uncovering truths he was never meant to find.

• A hiker discovering she doesn't need to control everything.

• A grieving woman learning how to move forward.

• A maid becoming something far greater than anyone expected.

• A crawler becoming a revolutionary.

Different genres. Different worlds. Same question.

📚 Full ratings, reviews, and reading updates can always be found here on Bindery and over on Goodreads.