Prince Zayd of Dakaria doesn’t have time to grieve his dying father or savor a hard-won battle before he’s thrust into assuming a throne he isn’t ready for. Between fending off silver-hungry pirates trying to avoid an unwanted engagement and concealing a wound from a deadly poisoned arrow that’s curable only by a rare antidote Zayd who has warm brown skin and dark hair is stretched thinner than his depleted army. Seventeen-year-old dark-haired amber-eyed Princess Layla of Sawan arrives in Dakaria reeling from the loss of her father the shock of her mother’s forcing her betrothal to a prince from Fallowmere (the empire that once colonized and nearly exterminated her people) and the weight of keeping a dangerous secret. She finds an unlikely confidante in the equally overburdened Zayd. As their wary bond deepens into something neither can dare to entertain whispers of long-suppressed magic resurface and old prophecies stir Zayd and Layla must decide if they’re willing to risk their hearts. In her YA debut Hafiza balances palace machinations battlefield tension and a slow-burn romance with confidence grounding her South Asian–inspired fantasy in the geopolitics of trade colonization and resource scarcity that give the plot real stakes. Zayd’s voice—weary and self-deprecating—carries the narrative well while Layla’s sharper more guarded affect and clipped retorts mask her real vulnerability.

Seeking a holiday gift for their landlady Mrs. Hudson Sherlock Holmes takes Dr. John Watson to Whiteley’s where screams and blood alert them to a startling tableau: A man is dangling from the upper branches of the half-decorated Christmas tree adorning the emporium’s main floor. Inspector Darke the Metropolitan Police officer called to the scene by officious owner William Whiteley pronounces Albert Robinson’s death accidental even before his body has been taken down and identified but Holmes quietly corrects him: The carotid artery of Whiteley’s jack-of-all-trades has been cut. The reciprocal expressions of condescension between Holmes and the Met continue as the day unfolds with Darke and his colleagues dismissing the amateur detectives as bunglers out past their depth and Holmes imperturbably calling them out time after time. He has plenty of chances to do so because another corpse that of socialist postman Jonathan Orman is found hanged in a Regent’s Park changing room very soon thereafter and retracing Orman’s steps that morning promptly leads to the discovery of author Sarah Martin her throat cut and her mouth crammed full of Christmas pudding and the undiscovered Jenny Martin her missing niece and housemate. Holmes links all the murders (a fourth will follow) to the Christmas holiday and a long-ago scandal without breaking a sweat winning the grudging acclaim of Inspector Darke and delighting fans who’ve been waiting for another Sherlockian Christmas ever since “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle.”

Over its tenure from 2009 to 2025 WTF Marc Maron’s interview podcast became a meaningful model for the medium—a line late in the book succinctly states that in the podcast universe “in terms of one-on-one interviews there was a lot of Maron in the primordial ooze.” He steadily honed his craft connecting with guests by taking a page from his sobriety journey. Many of his first guests were friends from the comedy world with whom Maron would reflect on their relationship “to see where he may have hurt them…and [get] their perspective on it.” This relational approach helped broaden WTF’s appeal. A 2010 interview with Robin Williams revealed a candid calmer side of the entertainer—one-on-one Maron recalls Williams “didn’t have to do a dance for anyone.” In 2015 President Obama’s visit to Maron’s humble Los Angeles garage studio provided an exponential boost to listenership and more high-profile guests. Episodic rather than exhaustive this retrospective hones in on WTF’s defining moments. In the mid-2000s he struggled to find his voice at Air America but also formed a supportive long-lasting partnership with producer Brendan McDonald. In the 2010s a patent troll threatened the burgeoning podcasting medium and in 2017 Maron reckoned with the cultural cancellation of his friend Louis C.K. The book refrains from digging too deep into the extensive (1600-plus episodes!) archives of the show but gives a satisfying look into why WTF became such a phenomenon. Brown’s subtly meticulous cartooning sets a visual tone at once intimately comedic and wryly journalistic a highly appropriate mood for Maron and McDonald’s longtime labor of love.

Morrell received a comprehensive education in food and drink from parents who ran a wine business. Moreover her mother schooled her in social graces and an appreciation for beauty and knowledge telling her “Being erudite will only help you in life.” Morrell is erudite indeed dropping $10 words (exuded charlatan unctuous) exactly where they fit. She’s also spectacularly unlucky throughout this memoir from a terrible accident that ended her girlhood dream of being an equestrian to attaching herself to men who had “a tendency to fuck things up.” Her mother imparted “a restless sense of striving and possibility in what was to come.” That striving is constant beginning with Morrell’s determination to become an actor with such serendipitous moments as a dance with Sam Shepard “amid a sea of coked-up hipsters” and an admonition from Sigourney Weaver not to waste her time going to drama school but instead to light out to Hollywood. Never mind that the one actor she knew had to hold down three jobs in order to get by (“but heaven forbid I should read the signs”). Acting didn’t work out but there was always the “inevitable” waitressing—and then culinary school which taught her plenty of techniques but led to the resolve not to become a chef but a writer about food. Morrell takes an often rueful tone fittingly with ever-growing self-awareness about the things that make life worth living when it’s so short tragic and often disappointing. But as she has it “Who could stay sad and full of self-pity while eating an open-faced pile of mortadella thin as hand-sewn lace with shaved Comté for a hat all atop a little brioche raft?”

English actor director and motion-capture pioneer Serkis is a thrill-seeker in life—he writes here of his successful “solo assault” on the Matterhorn—and also in his art. His attitude is distilled in his initial response to being asked to play Ulysses Klaue in Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015): “Charismatic South African villain who gets his arm chopped off? Count me in.” Such an adventuresome spirit can’t be expected to write a straightforward memoir or even to give it a straightforward title. (This one plays on Gollum’s catchphrase “my precious.”) Periodically interrupting Serkis’ chronological account of his life which began in a London suburb in 1964 are scripts in which the author converses with a handful of characters he has played on-screen. These exchanges tend to take the book to darker places than the good-natured Serkis seems to want to go—e.g. British serial killer Ian Brady says to Serkis who played Brady in the TV movie Longford (2006) “You can’t face living with who you are so you have to leech off the lives of others who are so much more truthful than you.” Might it be that as is posited on the book’s last page these scripted interactions are included because Serkis doesn’t “trust that his own story is interesting enough?” That would have been a fear unfounded. Serkis is an engagingly self-effacing chronicler and readers will likely leave this book seeing the humor as the author seems to in the fact that this mainstay of multiple film franchises hawked Socialist Worker newspapers on the streets of London not long before his acting career took him to otherworldly places.

“The world does not need another parenting book” writes Grimm in her own parenting book where she likewise notes that parenting can be so exhausting and baffling that it can use all the advice manuals it can get. “Every day of parenting is Saigon in 1975” she writes. “It is often defeating sometimes humiliating and you are left to ponder at the end of the night whether you made the right decisions.” In these pages she relates some of the lessons she’s learned in her years of raising her three children—Hugo André and “explosive” Lulu (“a Mussolini in a tow-headed body”)—comically stressing the severity of the struggle by invoking military manuals like The Art of War. “As a parent” she writes “you already know what it feels like to negotiate with terrorists.” Here she lays out some advice for other parents who may be feeling overwhelmed giving them tips on how to get back their power by reestablishing authority setting consistent boundaries creating clear lines of communication and building a proper balance between parental militarization and the wilder tendencies of children. She even proposes the SAFE model for hostile negotiations: Substantive Demands Attunement (“building trust between the subject and the negotiator”) Face (“the projected self-image of the subject”) and Emotional Distress. Grimm uses this juxtaposition—between the warm family emotions of most child-rearing guides and the tough language of military manuals—to excellent comic effect mentioning at one point that “no class pets need to get hurt in the process” while dispensing genuine advice on serious subjects. Her willingness to be frank about the defeats she’s suffered at the hands of her little terrorists is bracing. Parents who are perhaps ashamed of feeling as if they’re trapped in a war of nerves with enemy forces will likely appreciate hearing from a fellow combatant particularly one with a smile on her face.

The latest novel by de Waal (My Name Is Leon 2016) was published in the U.K. last year as The Best of Everything. It reaches these shores with a new more memorable title that underscores the story’s folksy tenderness. “My Sweet Pea” is what Paulette’s grandmother called her as a girl on St. Kitts raising her after the death of her mother. Paulette came to England with Granny at age 11; she was 21 when Granny returned home leaving Paulette now working as an auxiliary nurse at Princess Alexandria Hospital to reminisce about her idyllic Caribbean childhood. When the novel opens in 1972 Paulette has taken up with Denton whose mysterious comings and goings don’t seem to dampen her ardor for him or her dreams of a large happy family. But Denton’s sudden death in a car accident—no spoiler; it occurs in Chapter 3—derails Paulette’s life again and she finds herself instead with Denton’s friend Garfield raising their son known as Bird. Paulette is unhappy and her unhappiness erupts into rage when on a walk in the park she encounters and confronts the white Englishman responsible for Denton’s death; soon she’s stalking “Shirt & Tie” and comes to understand that he’s mentally unwell and struggling to raise his grandson alone. Is it the echo of her own upbringing that draws Paulette to young Cornelius nicknamed Nellie? “You can call me Pea” she tells the timid troubled boy whose presence will complicate and ultimately transform her life. As even this brief synopsis suggests this is a novel bursting with plot but it’s also distinguished by lucid prose heartfelt emotion and moments of levity (thanks largely to Paulette’s outspoken Irish neighbor Maggie).

It’s 1979 and Bonnet Shores is slowly knitting itself back together after last summer’s rash of home invasions. The perpetrators were caught and while alarm systems now protect windows such as 15-year-old Maddie Grove’s she’s happy to once again have the freedom to stay out late with her friends and have her crush visit her secretly at night. But then one July night Maddie’s 12-year-old sister Christina fails to come home. The members of the local beach club owned by the Mancini family immediately organize searches and the Groves’ neighbor Diana González who’s studying criminal justice in college helps liaise with the police department. Christina’s disappearance draws attention to the darker undercurrents of life in sunny idyllic Bonnet; most particularly the way men watch girls walk around in their bathing suits whispering about jailbait. Four strong women—Diana Maddie Joan Mancini (who married into the beach club family) and wealthy Cricket Kelly—carry the narrative as Freitas jumps from the summer of 1979 to the previous summer of break-ins to earlier summers that defined Joan’s and Cricket’s lives and back again weaving both a coming-of-age tale and a fight-against-power story rooted in violence and normalized misogyny—but driven by resilience love and these women’s desire to take their bodies back from the male gaze. Freitas grew up in Rhode Island herself and there’s a bittersweetness to the novel; it celebrates people’s memories of paradise as well as the moment scales fall from their eyes celebrating the strength and bonds of sisterhood forged in loss and knowledge.

Poppy Sterling is used to interviewing the rich and famous in her job as a celebrity journalist in London. She stakes out the red carpet and even hosts her own interview show making her a bit of a celeb in her own right. But there’s one person who can get under her skin: Rory Wallace the man who broke her heart five years ago. A Scottish rugby player and her brother’s childhood friend Rory was the man Poppy nursed a crush on for years and eventually they even kissed. But due to a misunderstanding and a disastrous interview Rory walked away from her and never looked back. Now he despises her and makes sure she knows it. He also hates press photos and publicity of any kind—but unfortunately he needs plenty of it to promote the fundraiser he’s planning for his terminally ill friend. Luckily this is Poppy’s area of expertise so she offers to help out for a good cause. Everyone involved loves her bubbly personality and even Rory admits he’s still attracted to her but their incipient romance immediately hits a roadblock because he doesn’t trust her. While Tate shines at building tension and writing spicy sex scenes Rory’s anger and dismissiveness make it hard to believe in the love story. He reacts to perceived slights by calling Poppy stupid or insulting her career. He does grow and apologize throughout the story but he’s cruel so many times even after declaring his love for Poppy that their happily-ever-after doesn’t feel stable. The grumpy hero archetype exists for a reason but Rory isn’t merely charmingly uptight or taciturn—he’s mean. As Poppy frequently says that she deserves better it’s hard not to agree with her.

Dev a well-meaning but occasionally impetuous kid from Kathmandu is sent to Everest Base Camp to learn some responsibility after breaking a flower pot while playing cricket. Luckily he won’t be alone; his friend Joon is headed to camp too—plus their yeti pal Hiũ makes his home in the snowy mountains. After they get situated Hiũ arrives and brings them to Yetiville. Hiũ hopes the duo can help the yetis address a human-made problem: Left-behind trash from mountaineers has piled up out of control and the yetis must stay inside to avoid the stench. Relying on creativity some inventive interspecies communication and a great big trash-filled snowball (which rolls magnificently down the mountains captured in a dramatic vertical double-page spread) the youngsters find a solution that satisfies yetis and “hoo-mans” alike. Though more message-driven than the trio’s first encounter this fresh adventure captures each moment of the twisty-turny story with busy boisterous glee. The snow-blanketed setting in icy blue and white (occasionally speckled with colorful trash) is slightly more sedate than urban Kathmandu but it too has a playful anything-can-happen energy that makes for an equally lovely reading experience.

Vesper Fontaine attends Gossemort school where magic-wielding meigas train as future soldiers for their country a kingdom of Light against a rival land that relies on the chaotic Dark. Unlike most of the other Light-focused students Vesper also controls Dark magic as does the captain of her cohort olive-skinned Lonan Duval. On the night of the Winter Solstice dance an unexpected visitor who looks eerily like Lonan (except for his eyes which are “alive and awake in a way Lonan’s aren’t”) decrees the reinstatement of the Ridding an hourslong test from the spirits of the school that traditionally “culled the unfaithful and judged the weak.” As the students face horror after horror life-altering truths reveal deep faults in the kingdom’s leadership and Vesper’s forbidden powers. Additionally a blood-sucking creature known as a siphon begins to turn others into his kind. The narrative suffers heavily from telling rather than showing (Lonan is repeatedly described as “charming” which is less effective than if his behavior illustrated this trait). Other aspects of the story are simply confusing like Vesper’s asserted “heartless” nature a result of her mother’s magically breaking off a piece of her heart; she exhibits many emotions throughout the story including rage and grief that bely this label. The characters’ inconsistent behaviors and motivations and an excessive number of reveals may leave readers suffering from whiplash. Most characters are cued white.

At 18 the only thing Felicity knows about love comes from the stories she’s read. The upcoming Winter Formal will unfortunately spotlight her single status but Felicity who’s anxious about her mom’s plan to visit over Thanksgiving after abandoning the family to pursue her acting dreams believes that if she has a serious boyfriend her mom might decide to come home to stay. She considers hiring a dating coach but when that falls through her childhood best friend Knox steps up. Welcoming a distraction from the building pressure to take over his family’s ranch Knox faces his only fake-dating obstacle: his strong feelings for Felicity. For her part through their practice dates Felicity learns that the love she’s been dreaming of has been waiting for her all along. This strong addition to the Willow Creek series includes sweet comforting nods to the previous novel and enough space for readers to get to know Felicity and Knox. While it lacks some of the emotional depth and romantic spark of its predecessor this entry features complex characters who grapple with relatable real-world problems like tense family dynamics and obligations. The dual-perspective narrative offers swoonworthy moments and deeper insight into the leads’ minds. Readers will want to see Felicity succeed in finding the love she deserves. Felicity has golden amber skin; Knox reads white.

She’s the last member of her family in the bombed-out mountain town she and the other kids call home. The grown-ups are all dead or gone and the Sixteens (everyone born the same year shares a birthday) run their society. Each year the Valta’s army forcibly recruits the Seventeens on their collective birthday known as Recruitment Day. This year Kress and seven others are the only Seventeens in the Valta. The Eastern Order has long terrorized their country destroying most of their technology and leaving cities in ruins. Without guidance from those who came before Kress and her cohort have no idea what to expect but their shared experiences help them bond. The slow-paced narrative follows Kress and her peers as they’re trained in the Processor. With most of the chapters dealing with details of learning to handle combat weapons and escape rooms—as well as coping with tests of emotional duress—the story which was originally self-published in 2018 drags. Hints point to an obvious twist that comes too late. While the dystopian premise is interesting and each chapter ends with a cliffhanger the lethargic plot progression and the weak character development which is overexplained and often feels inconsistent with other story elements will turn off many readers. Main characters largely present white.

Yellowstone National Park writes investigative journalist Devereaux was ground zero for wolf reintroduction a program that began in earnest in 1995. The public comment period required for environmental policy initiatives he notes garnered the largest number of responses in history—“of the more than 160000 received 100000 were for the plan.” That count still left a solid core of opposition pitting ranchers and “many a pissed-off local” against environmentalists and biologists. The Yellowstone wolves became a symbol for that opposition of federal overreach and contempt for states’ rights. The war against the wolves became literal when the governments of Idaho Wyoming and Montana went hard right with the governor of the last shooting a captured radio-collared wolf and a flood of hunters protected by law chasing down wolves outside the park boundaries. Wolf proponents alleged the governor attempted to cover up the killing but there were no meaningful repercussions even as a Wyoming local caught on video abusing a captured wolf got a mere slap on the wrist in court. Ironically as one conservative pro-wolf advocate noted wolf tourism brings in vastly more money than hunting—$250 billion against $45 billion in 2022 alone. “I thought we were Republicans. I thought jobs mattered” he said. It seems not and as Devereaux rightly observes “The disconnect between the dominant values of the commissioner class and those of an increasing American majority was starkly apparent in the run-up to the wolf hunt on Yellowstone’s border.” Although the war on wolves has lessened he adds in his thoughtful narrative the “social conflict” surrounding them continues.

“Actively unpopular” Róisín McCaffrey feels stigmatized in the town near Dublin where she lives—first as an outsider who moved from Northern Ireland with her working-class parents when she was 12 then because her father a self-described “broken man” abandoned her mother. Red Camelin the oldest son of a respected local family is sensitive charming and troubled the quintessential bad boy girls can’t resist. Róisín’s schoolmates consider him a “delinquent” but it turns out he shares Róisín’s sophisticated taste in music film and books. Kindred spirits they spend all their time together but kiss only once—to besotted Róisín’s disappointment—before Red a Plato devotee explains that he wants them to share more than “vulgar love.” Meanwhile Red avoids his family especially his father for reasons he won’t discuss (although Róisín’s mother and readers can surmise). Red drops out of school and months later his father forces him to leave town under murky circumstances; he’s 16. Visiting London the following Christmas for an ill-fated reunion with her father Róisín finds Red living in a squat and dealing drugs. Instead of returning home to Ireland she moves in with him. Things don’t go well. Self-aware and sometimes selflessly generous but unable to overcome whatever damage he’s suffered Red spirals into addiction. Róisín manages to distance herself physically from his chaotic world but affection and guilt keep her emotionally tied to him for years. Her youthful blind innocence hardens into equally blind self-protective cynicism as she resists the supportive love others offer. The novel is ostensibly about surviving childhood trauma but Kennedy’s wit and social commentary on the Irish and British relationship broaden its scope while her complex characterizations—not only of Red and Róisín but also Róisín’s mother father sister friends and lovers—show a humanity that defies despair.

It’s been almost four years since 16-year-old Marcus Azure last saw his parents who never returned from a journey to the Northern Lands. Their absence haunts his waking moments and leaves him feeling unmoored. The patches of lighter skin on his hands and around one eye lead some to call him “the Sun Cursed child.” Marcus takes comfort in his longstanding unconditionally supportive friendships with fellow soldiers Asher who’s also a Norm and Darius who’s a Divine. But their bonds are tested when they decide to compete in the annual Trials to earn placements in higher-ranking squads. Marcus is disqualified from the competition and following an altercation he wakes up injured on an unfamiliar battlefield. From here the book is a tangled web of political intrigue and allegiances. Marcus makes for an engaging protagonist as he embraces his inner powers searches for his parents and faces obstacles. A love triangle develops among Marcus his childhood friend Ayanna and bakery owner Layla whose fates are intertwined. Detailed backstories illuminate the characters’ motives helping to flesh out the stakes of this world. Although it ends on a cliffhanger that may bring readers back for the second volume the book which centers on a Black-presenting cast contains a dizzyingly large cast of characters and gets bogged down with numerous battles among rival parties.

Modestly describing his book as “a series of fan’s notes” biographer Taylor examines “various aspects of Tolkien’s life work and personality.” He includes some personal experiences in his engaging investigations of the renowned author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. His wide-ranging references situate Tolkien the outsider against a constellation of other writers mostly English and in his social milieu and period. He chiefly asks how Tolkien saw or thought of himself; since Tolkien was biography-resistant and is not to be found behind his literary creations answering such questions is itself an achievement. Taylor sifts abundant material proposes reasonable answers and avoids rigid judgment (with the exception of The Silmarillion published posthumously). In biographical mode he notes the “theocentric nature” of Tolkien’s mind; the influence of his World War I service; the well-timed academic rise of philology; his friendship with C.S. Lewis “arguably the most important of his life” (and its later decline); the “rackety equipage” of other friendships; his fictional and real-life views on women; his idiosyncratic “Tory anarchism”; and what Tolkien himself recognized as his “limited sympathies.” The purview extends to his relations with his publishers; the series’ reception by fans the counterculture detractors and condescending academics; and a revealing analysis of A.S. Byatt’s use of the novels. Though the book is not literary criticism Taylor ably assesses the influence of Kenneth Grahame’s and Beatrix Potter’s worlds; the vocal range of The Hobbit; Tolkien’s poetry; and the unique place of LOTR in English literature. Taylor’s adept and well-turned prose moves both smoothly and briskly among his varied angles. Extensive research is folded unobtrusively into the text presenting evidence clearly and adroitly. Short chapters of sparkling reflection illuminate the terrain of the mountainous eminence.

Set in 1964 at the height of the Cold War the novel opens in Santa Monica where Gabriel Dax meets with the elderly poet F.T. Falkner a one-time member of British intelligence. The old poet knows that a former colleague from Bletchley Park peddled secrets to the Soviets during World War II. In this third volume of Boyd’s offbeat series Dax must trade the sunny clime and gastronomical treats of Southern California to confront the newly exposed traitor Angus Fairford in Indianapolis; otherwise the assignment seems easy enough. But things get complicated when Dax returns to England where he continues his on-and-off affair with his shifty boss Faith Green. This puts him in the sights of a gunman targeting Dax for killing the gunman’s brother—a sniper who had President Kennedy in his sights in Berlin. The action shifts to Moscow where Dax meets up with his KGB handler Varvara Suvorina who acts oddly desperate. Here Dax runs into unexpected obstacles extricating Kit Caldwell an MI6 hero who’d infiltrated the KGB while being honored as a prize defector. Though no one is as obsessed with appearances as Dax (he describes a woman’s “short-jacketed carbon-black hopsack suit with a wide Peter Pan collar and black suede square-toed shoes”) his inward view is far less revealing. “How had this happened to him?” he asks himself. “What dark grim swerve had his life taken?” A master storyteller in multiple genres Boyd here employs a classic chronological approach eschewing the usual time jumps to create the smoothest and breeziest of reads—one full of surprising turns and personalities.

In this third and final installment collecting a webcomic Milo and Liam move in together taking their relationship to the next level. Almost two years have passed since they started dating and their lives are very different from when they started off as secret boyfriends at their boarding school. They’re still in love but everyone around them is changing. With a friend’s wedding coming up Liam who quit law school confronts his own feelings about adulthood and its responsibilities when he has to write the best man speech. Milo who’s at university has just finished making an indie film. His pursuit of the arts is going well but he still has the same impulsive tendencies that sometimes violate Liam’s boundaries. The characters’ ages are reflected in the new angularity of their faces. The pleasing full-color artwork evokes late 1990s and early 2000s aesthetics highlighting the predominantly white-presenting cast. Although the couple’s banter continues to hold up this installment drags in comparison to the first two; with tensions resolved quickly the work feels more like a slice-of-life story than one driven by an engaging plot. The portrayal of the British setting remains flimsy detracting from a robust sense of place.

Drusilla Blackthorn is on the verge of death after trying to save her friend Clary from Janus the Huntsman. But a pale figure with wings saves her—Ash Morgenstern from “the hell dimension Thule” who’s the son of the Seelie Queen and Sebastian Morgenstern. Ash brings Dru to Faerie with Janus and Clary making cryptic references to their shared history and asking Dru to train him like a Shadowhunter. Something is wrong: Shadowhunters are disappearing and the doorways between Faerie and the mortal world are closed. While Dru and Clary try to survive the Seelie Court Ty Blackthorn and Kit Herondale are the only Shadowhunters who didn’t disappear. Embarking on a quest that only Kit (the true Faerie heir) can complete Ty and Kit outwit and outrun danger at every turn gathering artifacts that will allow them to open a door to Faerie and save their family. Devoted fans of the Shadowhunter series will be thrilled to revisit old storylines but others may find this book overstuffed with names and references to past events. The frequent point-of-view changes work against the formation of real emotional connections with the characters. The intrigue is fun and the tension is engaging but the ending will leave readers wanting more as the story relies on nostalgia over character development. Main characters read white.