Tag: Book Blog

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The Missing Half by Ashley Flowers: A story of sisterhood, loss, and a twist that left me stunned

Mandy Webster

In The Missing Half, two women connected by tragedy team up to uncover the truth about their missing sisters—and what they find is far darker than either expected. Ashley Flowers, best known as the host of the Crime Junkie podcast, delivers another haunting mystery in The Missing Half, a New York Times bestseller that blends emotional depth with a compelling, small-town suspense plot.

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The story follows Nicole “Nic” Monroe, a twenty-four-year-old still reeling from the disappearance of her older sister, Kasey, seven years earlier. When Jenna Connor, whose own sister vanished under eerily similar circumstances, reaches out, the two women form an uneasy bond rooted in shared grief—and a mutual determination to find answers.

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Gothic horror and generational curses collide in House of Monstrous Women by Daphne Fama

Mandy Webster

Daphne Fama’s House of Monstrous Women is a lush and terrifying gothic horror novel set in 1986 Philippines, where revolution outside mirrors the quiet rebellion unfolding within a house that may as well be alive. Set against the backdrop of the People Power Revolution, this novel layers political upheaval with supernatural dread in a way that feels both intimate and epic.

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Radios hum with news from Manila as protests rise and a dictator’s hold begins to crumble—but inside the labyrinthine Ranoco home, another kind of battle is taking place. The connection between the two is unmistakable: both are revolutions built on desperation and the dream of escape. The hopelessness that Alejandro feels about the People Power movement echoes Hiraya’s belief that she can never escape the legacy of her cursed family.

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Blood, sisterhood, and sanity: Blood on Her Tongue by Johanna van Veen #spooktober

Mandy Webster

If you’re looking for a haunting, atmospheric read to carry you through the end of #spooktober, Johanna van Veen’s Blood on Her Tongue offers the perfect blend of gothic unease and creeping dread. Set in the Netherlands in 1887, this novel follows Lucy, whose twin sister Sarah has fallen into a disturbing illness that blurs the line between madness and possession. As Sarah’s behavior becomes more erratic—and more violent—Lucy must decide how far she’ll go to protect her sister, even as something monstrous seems to take hold of her.

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The story unfolds in shadow and candlelight, in grand halls filled with whispers and secrets. Van Veen’s prose feels appropriately decadent and claustrophobic, wrapping the reader in the same feverish confusion that grips Lucy. The decaying corpse unearthed on Sarah’s husband’s estate provides more than a physical mystery—it becomes a mirror for the moral rot beneath the surface of polite society, particularly the suffocating gender expectations that hem Lucy and Sarah in.

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Finding her voice: The Writing Room by Marcia Argueta Mickelson

Mandy Webster

In The Writing Room (releasing November 4, 2025), Marcia Argueta Mickelson delivers a powerful coming-of-age story about finding your voice, claiming your space, and learning that silence in the face of injustice is its own kind of complicity.

Get your copy of The Writing Room from my independent online bookstore today!

Eighteen-year-old Maya has just graduated high school when her wealthy, self-satisfied father kicks her out of his New York City apartment to “make her own way.” With her mother living in Guatemala and her father’s emotional abuse still echoing in her head, Maya spends the summer sleeping on her friend Yoly’s couch while she works, writes, and counts the weeks until she can move into the dorms for college. Her life changes when she gains access to a shared workspace known as “the writing room,” a place that gives her both the structure and sense of community she’s been missing.

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When going home means facing the ghosts you tried to forget: Do Not Follow by Surbhi Bansal

Mandy Webster

Returning home after years away can feel like stepping back into a life you no longer recognize. In Do Not Follow by Surbhi Bansal, that homecoming forces one woman to confront the choices, expectations, and silences that have shaped her entire life.

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Seema, once a promising surgeon, is now a consignment store owner living far from the path her family imagined for her. When her father dies, she returns to Albany after seventeen years to help her mother sort through their family home. What follows is a deeply emotional story about grief, identity, and the unspoken costs of cultural and familial duty.

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Pam Kowalski is a Monster! by Sarah Langan — When memory lies and the world unravels

Mandy Webster

There’s something deliciously unsettling about realizing your memories might be wrong. Sarah Langan’s Pam Kowolski Is a Monster! turns that unease into a full-blown psychological and supernatural meltdown. This novella barrels through themes of memory, trauma, and rivalry with the manic energy of an apocalypse that might already be happening — or might only be in the mind of its unraveling narrator.

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Janet Chow’s life didn’t exactly pan out the way her classmates might have predicted back at Sewanhaka High. Once destined for greatness, she’s now middle-aged, adrift, and licking the wounds of a career in journalism that has long since crashed and burned. Then she spots her old nemesis — Pam Kowolski, the girl she used to despise — who has somehow transformed into “Madame Pamela,” America’s psychic sweetheart and doomsday influencer. Pam is rich, beautiful, and adored, while Janet is invisible. Convinced that Pam’s fame is built on lies, Janet sets out to expose her as a fraud. But digging into Pam’s past also means unearthing the pieces of her own history that she’s conveniently buried — and the deeper she digs, the more she starts to question what’s real, what’s remembered, and what’s imagined.

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The Gallery Assistant by Kate Belli: A twisty, sinister thriller with a uniquely New York perspective

Mandy Webster

Kate Belli’s The Gallery Assistant is a thriller that keeps readers on edge, blending the tension of a murder mystery with the complexity of a city and world forever changed by tragedy. Chloe Harlow, a young gallery assistant in New York, wakes up one morning in November 2001 with hazy memories of the night before—and quickly discovers that an up-and-coming painter and the gallery’s newest artist has been murdered. Pulled between her life in Williamsburg and the high-stakes Upper East Side art world, Chloe is thrust into a dangerous web of deceit, secrets, and deadly intrigue.

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While the story is undeniably gripping, it does fall into the familiar—and sometimes frustrating—trope of a main character holding crucial information back from the authorities. Chloe’s insistence on solving the murder herself, despite having no investigative training and facing serious danger, is occasionally hard to swallow. Her reluctance to report even life-threatening incidents strains believability, though it does drive the narrative tension. A bit more insight into her reasoning could have made these choices feel more grounded.

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Her One Regret by Donna Freitas: A feminist thriller that dares to question motherhood

Mandy Webster

Motherhood is supposed to be the pinnacle of womanhood. At least, that’s what society keeps telling us. But what happens when a woman doesn’t want to be a mother? Or worse—what if she becomes a mother and regrets it? Donna Freitas takes on this taboo head-on in Her One Regret, a feminist thriller that is both riveting and deeply necessary.

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The story begins with Lucy Mendoza, a successful Rhode Island real estate agent who vanishes, leaving her baby behind in a grocery store parking lot. It’s the kind of headline that grips national attention and instantly frames her as a monster in the public eye. But Lucy’s best friend Michelle knows something the rest of the world doesn’t: Lucy once confessed that she regretted becoming a mother, so much so that she had fantasized about faking her own kidnapping.

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The Ordinary Bruja by J.E. Ortega shows us the histories we’ve been taught to forget

Mandy Webster

What do we inherit from the generations before us—magic, shame, resilience, silence? In J.E. Ortega’s novel The Ordinary Bruja (coming November 4, 2025), Marisol Espinal returns to her hometown of Willowshade, Ohio, after her mother’s death and finds herself face-to-face with the family secrets she’s been running from. The story unfolds with an atmosphere of both dread and wonder, as Marisol confronts not only the haunting presence of Hallowthorn Hill but also the pieces of her own identity she’s been taught to bury.

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The novel is steeped in Dominican folklore and written with a lyricism that brings the supernatural to life. The hill itself becomes a character—watching, waiting, whispering—and what it wants is Marisol’s surrender to fear. But Ortega makes clear that the greater threat isn’t the folklore itself, but the way Marisol has been taught to erase herself: her culture, her curls, her curves, her magic. The suspense is as much psychological as it is spectral, and the real horror comes from how shame and generational trauma can consume us if we let them.

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Night Watcher brings Halloween horror vibes to a storm-soaked thriller

Mandy Webster

Sometimes a thriller doesn’t just keep you on edge—it crawls under your skin and lingers like a nightmare. That’s exactly what Daphne Woolsoncroft achieves in Night Watcher, a dark, atmospheric suspense novel set in Portland, Oregon, where the rain never stops and neither does the fear.

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Nola Strate has spent her adulthood trying to outrun the shadows of her past. As a child, she narrowly escaped a notorious Pacific Northwest serial killer known as the Hiding Man. Now she’s a late-night radio host, fielding calls about hauntings and strange sightings on the show her father once made famous. It’s the perfect job for someone who wants to talk about fear without facing it directly.

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