Demon Copperhead is a 2022 novel by Barbara Kingsolver, a co-recipient of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Fantastic.

I went back to read her first novel ➙ The Bean Trees (1988)

Fantastic, as well.

A white trash 18-year-old sets out to leave backwoods, Kentucky, and travel west, and finds herself in Oklahoma near Cherokee territory.

As she stops in the town, an Indian woman suddenly approaches, deposits a small child, and leaves without explanation.

Not knowing what else to do, Taylor decides to care for the child.

The two travel to Tucson, Arizona, where she meets Lou Ann, a woman with a young son. Lou Ann had been married; her husband abandoned her and their child.

The novel traces the experiences of Taylor and the child, … named Turtle.

The Bean Trees is a coming-of-age novel.

Barbara Kingsolver uses a nonstandard perspective to share the characters’ adventures and the world they live in. The use of nonwhite mythology, anti-western sentiment, and not using the typical form of male adventure, allowed the author to explore the world where women were powerful and had a voice.

The novel shares negative traumatic experiences of the characters and people they meet, like Native Americans and Guatemalan refugees. …

It’s often assigned in High School classes though I’d not heard of this modern classic.

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I downloaded the sequel … good, but not nearly as good IMHO.

Pigs in Heaven

I t continues the story of Taylor Greer and Turtle, her adopted Cherokee daughter.

It highlights the strong relationships between mothers and daughters, with special attention given to the customs, history, and living situation of the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma. 

I can see why the author wrote this book. No doubt MANY wanted to know what happened to Taylor and her daughter.

In fact, the final resolution of the second book is satisfying.

BUT getting there I found too slow and tedious.

I did enjoy Turtle getting on Oprah !

Taylor’s Mom, Alice, is the character with the most important role.

Author Kyla Stone specializes in apocalyptic and dystopian fiction.

I’d call this series Young Adult — but with plenty of violence. Very little sex.

Any students of literature would find the writing laughable. Simplistic. Good v Evil.

Cliche.

BUT they are never boring.

Here’s my review of the first 3 books in series.

The final battle for Fall Creek looms. Not everyone will make it out alive.

With enemies closing in on every side, the survivors of Fall Creek find themselves facing impossible odds. Do they flee for their lives? Or, do they defend their town and risk losing it all? Some things are worth fighting for, even dying for. This may be their last stand. 

When the country goes dark, ordinary people find themselves facing the end of the world as they know it. With society collapsing before their eyes, they’ll have to risk everything to protect their home and the people they love.

Good marketing. You can probably get the first 3.5 books in the series as audio in your library — but must buy the rest, or listen FREE online on Kyla’s YouTube channel.

Tell No One is a 2001 thriller novel by American writer Harlan Coben.

David and Elizabeth Beck, both 25 years old and married for less than a year, are celebrating the anniversary of their first kiss at a secluded lake when Elizabeth is abducted and later murdered.

Although the killer is found and prosecuted, David never gets over the tragic incident.

On the eighth anniversary of Elizabeth’s death, two long-dead bodies are unearthed at the same lake where the kidnapping occurred.

In addition, David receives a shocking email from an unidentified source that mentions a phrase only David and Elizabeth should know.

Tell No One was adapted for a French film in 2007, well received both critically and commercially.

The It Girl (2022) would seem to be yet another psychological thriller.

But it’s better than most.

A respectable murder mystery that will keep you guessing.

It is too long. Too slow.

And the protagonist is constantly annoying. I regret spending so many hours with that woman.

April Clarke-Cliveden was the first person Hannah Jones met at Oxford.

Vivacious, bright, occasionally vicious, and the ultimate It girl, she quickly pulled Hannah into her dazzling orbit. Together, they developed a group of devoted and inseparable friends—Will, Hugh, Ryan, and Emily—during their first term.

By the end of the year, April was dead.

Now, a decade later, Hannah and Will are expecting their first child, and the man convicted of killing April, former Oxford porter John Neville, has died in prison.

Relieved to have finally put the past behind her, Hannah’s world is rocked when a young journalist comes knocking and presents new evidence that Neville may have been innocent.

As Hannah reconnects with old friends and delves deeper into the mystery of April’s death, she realizes that the friends she thought she knew all have something to hide…including a murder.

A great 2024 book. Murder mystery / psychological thriller.

Set during Covid, it’s very up-to-date in terms of social media.

In this twisty thriller and “compulsive page-turner” (Harlan Coben) … a woman thinks she’s waking up to a romantic vacation—only to find a body in her rental home and her boyfriend gone.

It was supposed to be a romantic getaway weekend in New York City. Breanna’s new boyfriend, Ty, took care of everything—the train tickets, the dinner reservations, the rented four-story luxury rowhouse in Jersey City with a beautiful view of the Manhattan skyline.

But when Bree comes downstairs their final morning, Ty is nowhere to be found and there’s a stranger dead in the foyer—the missing woman the entire Internet has become obsessed with: Janelle Beckett.

Soon, both the police and an army of Internet sleuths are asking questions Bree doesn’t know how to answer.

Desperate to find Ty and to keep her own secrets buried, Bree realizes there’s only one person she can turn to: her ex-best friend, a lawyer with whom she shares a very complicated past.

Fierce, smart, and thrilling to the end, Missing White Woman not only explores “Missing White Woman” syndrome and traveling while Black, but deftly inverts the hallmarks of the domestic suspense genre to ask: How well can we truly know the people we love? And what happens to these stories when seen through the eyes of a Black woman?

Surprisingly, I haven’t read many of the Alex Cross series.

He has a Ph.D. in Psychology from Johns Hopkins University and has worked for both the Washington DC Police Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation. …

… trying to solve difficult cases while attempting to maintain a relationship with his family. 

Target: Alex Cross (2018) is 26th in the series.

Kinda dumb and absurd — yet I quite enjoyed the thriller.

Someone is killing the nation’s political leaders.

Alex Cross is now on assignment to the FBI and his wife, Bree Stone, is now the chief of detectives for the DC Police.

Alex and a team of FBI agents, as well as Bree and the Secret Service must find who is behind the killings and why.

Before all the mayhem is done, the new president and many in line to succession to the Presidency have been felled.

The plot is discovered and when it is, those who solved this case are truly shocked at who was behind this and why.

T Canyon (2005) is brainless but entertaining.

A typical “thriller“.

Too much action. Too many gun shots.

Characters are cliché.

However, the setting and basic plot appeal.

The murder of a dinosaur “treasure hunter” in New Mexico.

It’s a bit confusing with too many threads:

• A moon rock missing for thirty years.
• A scientist with ambition enough to kill.
• A monk who will redeem the world.
• A dark agency with a deadly mission.
• The greatest scientific discovery of all time.

On the upside, Douglas Preston is an expert in palaeontology, working as a writer at the American Museum of Natural History for many years. A lot of his books are grounded in actual science.

Hmm. Not nearly as good as the previous novel.

In the 12th book of the Ruth Galloway series, everyone is surprised.

Ruth has a new job, home, and partner, and she is no longer North Norfolk police’s resident forensic archaeologist.

That is, until convicted murderer Ivor March offers to make DCI Nelson a deal.

Nelson was always sure that March killed more women than he was charged with. Now March confirms this and offers to show Nelson where the other bodies are buried—but only if Ruth will do the digging.

Curious, but wary, Ruth agrees.

March tells Ruth that he killed four more women and that their bodies are buried near a village bordering the fens, said to be haunted by the Lantern Men, mysterious figures holding lights that lure travelers to their deaths.

Is Ivor March himself a lantern man, luring Ruth back to Norfolk?

What is his plan, and why is she so crucial to it?

And are the killings really over?

Silly and entertaining. I’d call this a Young Adult novel.

Jesse Q. Sutanto is a Chinese-Indonesian author.

She grew up in Singapore, Indonesia, and Oxford.

In 2021, Sutanto published her hit novel, Dial A for Aunties. 

The Good, the Bad and the Aunties (2024) is one of the sequels. A comedy.

On Meddy Chan’s honeymoon travels, the happy couple flies to Jakarta for a Chinese New Years family reunion.

… theft, hostage taking, and abduction. But it’s nothing the aunties can’t handle.