The 2025 debut novel by Rachel Paris — See How They Fall — is a hit.
Personally, I’m not a fan of rich people behaving badly.
Some of the actions taken by characters are inexplicable.
When Skye married into the wealthy Turner family, she thought she was entering paradise. But now, several years later, she remains uneasy amid the opulence of her husband’s world, struggling with her own secrets and working to maintain a normal life for their young daughter, Tilly.
Skye’s delicate balance is undone when the family patriarch, Sir Campbell Turner, dies suddenly and an illegitimate heir comes forward to stake his claim in the luxury goods empire the old man leaves behind.
The characters are unlikable. And make inexplicably dumb decisions.
A Box Full of Darkness (2026) is frustrating.
The narrative alternates perspectives among three adult siblings—Violet, Vail, and Dodie Esmie—who share a traumatic and neglected childhood.
The Disappearance: Eighteen years prior, their six-year-old brother, Ben, vanished without a trace during an innocent game of hide-and-seek inside their family home.
The Call Home: After decades of estrangement and running from their past, the siblings are forced into a reluctant homecoming. The vacant house’s terrified groundskeeper quits after witnessing the ghost of a young boy.
The Supernatural Burden: Each sibling has been uniquely tormented by distinct paranormal phenomena since childhood. Violet can see the dead and is haunted by a menacing spirit called “Sister”. Vail is plagued by memories of beaming lights and probing figures. Dodie suffers from violent nightmares of drowning.
The Mystery: Back at Fell House, the trio must piece together their fractured memories to uncover what truly happened to Ben. However, they soon realize that an even more ancient, sinister entity is waiting for them in the dark
Her 2020 psychological thriller, One by One, is fast-paced with twist & turns.
Simplistic writing. But I enjoyed it.
Try to ignore the plot holes and irrational decisions made by the unlikable characters.
The Premise: Three married couples pack into a minivan for a week of hiking and hot tubs at a remote, luxury wilderness resort.
The Turn: The minivan breaks down on a isolated dirt road with no cell service, forcing them to hike the rest of the way on foot.
The Trap: The group quickly becomes hopelessly lost in the dense forest. As hunger and paranoia set in, secrets unravel and the friends are mysteriously targeted and killed off one by one.
The Perspectives: The narration alternates between Claire Matchett—a stressed mother and special-education teacher trying to fix her rocky marriage—and a deeply unsettling, anonymous killer recounting their childhood
State of Wonder (2011) by Ann Patchett, set in the Amazon, is an interesting book.
Dr. Marina Singh is a 42-year-old research pharmacologist working for Vogel, a large pharmaceutical corporation based in Minnesota.
Her stable, quiet life is upended when she learns that her lab partner and close friend, Anders Eckman, has died of a mysterious fever deep in the Amazon rainforest. Anders had been sent there to investigate the progress of a highly secretive, multi-million-dollar research project funded by Vogel.
The Mission
At the center of this project is Dr. Annick Swenson, a brilliant, uncompromising 73-year-old gynecologist and Marina’s former medical school mentor. Dr. Swenson has cut off all communication with the outside world while living among the remote Lakashi tribe.
The tribe’s women possess a miraculous trait: they remain fertile and can bear children well into their seventies. Vogel wants to harness this trait to create a revolutionary, multi-billion-dollar fertility drug.
Driven by grief and pressured by her boss (with whom she is having a secret affair), Marina is sent to Brazil.
The Journey
When Marina arrives in the sweltering, chaotic port city of Manaus, she finds herself deliberately stonewalled by Dr. Swenson’s eccentric gatekeepers. To get answers, Marina must leave civilization behind and journey into the heart of the Amazon jungle.
Once she reaches the remote Lakashi village, Marina is forced to confront the harsh realities of the rainforest—poisonous insects, treacherous rivers, and overwhelming isolation. More importantly, she must face Dr. Swenson herself, a formidable woman who rules her research camp like a private fiefdom. As Marina embeds herself with the tribe, she uncovers shocking ethical dilemmas, medical secrets, and unexpected truths about her own past that force her to question the true cost of human progress.
Original. Smart. Funny dialogue. I really liked this book.
Go Gentle is the 2026 novel by bestselling author Maria Semple.
The story follows Adora Hazzard, a 50-something divorced Stoic philosopher living a carefully curated, highly content life in Manhattan’s historic Ansonia building.
Her days are filled with raising her teenage daughter, tutoring the children of a billionaire family, and building a “coven” of close female friends.
Adora lives by the strict Stoic principle of wanting only what she already has—until a chance encounter with a handsome stranger at the ballet changes everything. Her orderly world is quickly upended and thrown into a chaotic, madcap international caper involving:
Black-market art deals and stolen statues
An explosion at the Louvre
Intrigue with a mysterious European art broker
A fast-paced, high-stakes trip to Paris
💡 Themes
Stoicism vs. Desire: The narrative comically tests the limits of ancient philosophy when confronted with real-world temptation and passion.
Mid-Life Transformation: It explores a woman’s journey of rediscovery, proving that life and romance do not end after divorce.
Quirky Female Solidarity: Adora’s “coven” of neighbors serves as a witty exploration of female friendship and community.
Several critics, including Ron Charles, described the book as a “kitchen junk-drawer of a novel,” arguing that blending a Stoic philosophy lesson, a romantic comedy, and a high-stakes art heist can feel incredibly jarring.
Fair criticism. It’s not a neat and tidy storyline. But I still recommend it.
I’m finding the A.I. mode summaries on a Google search increasingly useful:
The Clifton and Barrington families through the late 1960s and early 1970s. The novel is known for its intricate plot, multiple character storylines, and trademark cliffhanger ending.
The book explores several intersecting storylines for the main characters:
Harry Clifton As the newly elected president of English PEN, Harry embarks on a dangerous mission to free fellow author Anatoly Babakov from a Russian gulag in Siberia, a quest that puts his own life at risk.
Emma Clifton Now Chairman of Barrington Shipping, Emma must navigate the fallout from an IRA bombing on the family’s flagship, the MV Buckingham, while also fending off an old adversary, Lady Virginia Fenwick, who is determined to bring about her downfall.
Giles Barrington A Minister of the Crown with ambitions for higher office, Giles’s political career faces jeopardy after a diplomatic trip to Berlin ends in disaster. His long-standing rival, Major Alex Fisher, seizes the opportunity to run against him in the general election.
Sebastian Clifton Harry and Emma’s son is making a name for himself at Farthing’s Bank and proposes to his American girlfriend, Samantha. However, a deceitful colleague, Adrian Sloane, schemes to ruin Sebastian’s career and personal life.
The narrative builds to a climax featuring two major court trials—a libel case in London and a politically charged show trial in Leningrad—which leave the fates of the characters hanging in the balance at the book’s conclusion.
And I only made it through about 1/3 of Queen Esther.
I’d agree with this Guardian review:
The once-great author revisits St Cloud’s orphanage all too briefly, in a novel that begins with an adopted girl but wanders all over the place.
… So we approach a new Irving with caution but still a small flame of hope, which burns hotter when we learn that Queen Esther – a mere 432 pages – “returns to the world of The Cider House Rules”. That 1985 novel is one of Irving’s very best, set largely in an orphanage in St Cloud’s, Maine, run by Dr Wilbur Larch and his protege Homer Wells. …
Viennese-born Jew orphan, Esther Nacht, is another great fictional character, however. She could have made the book worth reading. But I couldn’t get into her story.
Irving has homes in Toronto and Pointe au Baril, Ontario. On December 13, 2019, Irving became a Canadian citizen. He has said he plans to keep his U.S. citizenship, reserving the right to be outspoken about the United States and his dislike of Donald Trump.
A surprise. Normally I don’t like fantasy fiction — but this one is more of a murder mystery.
A high Imperial officer lies dead—killed, to all appearances, when a tree spontaneously erupted from his body. … it’s a death at once terrifying and impossible.
Historical fiction. Good concept. Dual timelines. But not a great novel.
London, 1953. Louise is still adjusting to her postwar role as a housewife when she discovers a necklace in a box at a secondhand shop. The box is marked with the name of a department store in Paris, and she is certain she has seen the necklace before, when she worked with the Red Cross in Nazi-occupied Europe —and that it holds the key to the mysterious death of her friend Franny during the war.
Flashback to NAZI occupied Paris. Lévitan—a once-glamorous furniture store converted by the Nazis into a forced labor camp, and Helaine, a woman who was imprisoned there, torn apart from her husband when the Germans invaded France.
Rick McCharles 