Contemporary

A spoiler-free review of It's Not What You Think by Clare Mackintosh: a woman comes home to find her partner dead on the living room carpet, and then discovers the murder was never recorded.

A spoiler-free review of Love Felt Like This by Julie Olivia: a puppeteer who bought a cancelled children's show with her savings, a rock star who cannot write his album, and a craft that nobody can perform alone.

The most frightening object in this novel costs about four dollars at any office supply store. Yellow. College-ruled. A black pen laid across it,...

A spoiler-free review of Midnight Curfew by Penelope Douglas: a town splits at the railway tracks, a philosophy teacher and a coal heir have five years of history, and a weather curfew turns into a weapon.

A spoiler-free review of The Wild Beneath by Kelly Anderson: a debut built in five tidal movements around a coastal town destroyed by a tsunami, superb on grief and salvage, less sure about the man who walks out of the surf.