Book Reviews – Page 2 – Write on the World

Man of My Dreams by Olivia Worley is a twisty thriller that may frustrate romance readers—but thriller fans looking for chaos and curveballs will probably have a blast

May 25, 2026May 15, 2026 Mandy Webster

There’s a very specific kind of thriller setup that immediately hooks me: an intense romantic connection that feels just a little too perfect to trust. Man of My Dreams by Olivia Worley initially seemed poised to deliver exactly that kind of story. Ivy Harcourt, a bestselling romance author unlucky in love, meets Liam—an attractive British architect who eerily resembles the male lead from the novel she’s currently writing. What follows at first feels like the beginning of a glossy psychological thriller in the vein of the 1995 film Never Talk to Strangers, with mounting suspicion, romantic tension, and the creeping sense that something underneath the fantasy is deeply wrong. Then the book swerves hard.

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About a third of the way through, Man of My Dreams reveals what kind of story it actually wants to be, and that pivot will likely determine whether readers end up loving or hating the novel. For me, the transition didn’t entirely work. I didn’t feel like there was enough groundwork laid to support the shift, and several developments later in the novel left me questioning the internal logic of the narrative. By the end, there were enough loose ends dangling that I found myself more distracted than shocked.

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The Children by Melissa Albert is a haunting story about the danger of becoming someone else’s myth

May 22, 2026May 15, 2026 Mandy Webster

There’s something deeply unsettling about the idea of growing up inside a story that never really belonged to you. In The Children by Melissa Albert, releasing June 2, 2026, childhood becomes both a performance and a prison as two siblings struggle to survive the legacy their mother built from their lives. The result is a darkly hypnotic literary fantasy that feels as though it’s flickering between reality and nightmare the entire time you’re reading it.

Guinevere and Ennis Sharpe grew up as the unwilling inspirations for their mother Edith’s wildly beloved Ninth City fantasy novels. To the world, they were magical children adventuring through an enchanted realm. In reality, they were neglected kids growing up isolated in rural Vermont, half-feral and largely abandoned while their mother disappeared into the mythology she was creating around them. Albert builds both timelines—the children’s traumatic upbringing and adult Guin’s unraveling in the present day—with a sense of inevitable catastrophe. Every chapter feels like a countdown toward something terrible waiting just beyond the firelight.

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A Dark and Wild Wood by Sarah Nicole Lemon is a haunting gothic fantasy about the illusion of male power

May 20, 2026May 15, 2026 Mandy Webster

In A Dark and Wild Wood, women survive by making themselves smaller for men who were never as powerful as they seemed in the first place. Inspired by the Bluebeard fairy tale, A Dark and Wild Wood is a lush, gothic historical fantasy drenched in ghostly visions, dark magic, and decaying beauty. The novel follows Salomé, a young woman cursed—or perhaps gifted—with the ability to see spirits. After witnessing her foster mother burned as a witch, she and her beloved sister Rochelle are sent to live in a convent, where silence, obedience, and repression become the conditions of survival. But the convent is only the first prison Salomé inhabits.

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When Rochelle vanishes, Salomé eventually escapes and spends five years working in a brothel, surviving at the whims of the men around her while continuing to hide her supernatural abilities for fear of suffering the same fate as her foster mother. The novel smartly presents the convent and the brothel as two versions of the same confinement. One is built around religious authority, the other around male desire, but both demand submission and self-erasure from women in exchange for survival.

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Dead Weight by Hildur Knútsdóttir: A chilling Icelandic horror thriller about friendship, violence, and the cost of letting someone in

May 18, 2026May 15, 2026 Mandy Webster

Dead Weight by Hildur Knútsdóttir, translated by Mary Robinette Kowal, releases May 26, 2026, and it wastes no time pulling the reader into a Reykjavík night where loneliness, affection, and something far more dangerous blur together. An Icelandic night may hide secrets and affairs—or even bodies—in this gruesomely cathartic horror thriller from the author of The Night Guest, where a black cat’s arrival quietly unspools a chain of choices that can’t be undone.

Unnur is living a small, contained life until she’s chosen—almost accidentally—by what can only be described as the cat distribution system. When she finally lets the stray into her home, she doesn’t realize she’s also opening the door to Ásta, the cat’s owner, or to everything that follows. Ásta arrives like a cold wind off the harbor: compelling, damaged, and carrying trouble that clings tighter than either woman initially understands.

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Bone of My Bone by Johanna van Veen is a haunting folk horror novel about faith, fear, and the stories people choose to believe

May 15, 2026May 8, 2026 Mandy Webster

War turns people into monsters long before anything supernatural enters the picture, and Bone of My Bone understands that better than most horror novels. Set during the devastation of the Thirty Years’ War, Johanna van Veen’s latest is brutal, atmospheric, and deeply philosophical, blending folk horror with theological questions about morality, sainthood, and the terrifying power of blind faith.

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The novel follows Sister Ursula, a young nun fleeing the destruction of her convent, and Elsebeth, a sharp-witted peasant woman trying to survive a countryside ravaged by soldiers, starvation, and death. After escaping a violent attack, the two women come into possession of a skull believed to belong to a saint. Legend says reuniting the skull with the saint’s body will grant a wish, and the pair set off across the Bavarian wilderness hoping salvation might still exist somewhere in the ruins of the world.

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Salomé by Leslie Baird is a hypnotic literary thriller that turns a dreamy French escape into something far darker

May 13, 2026May 7, 2026 Mandy Webster

There’s a particular kind of danger attached to reinvention, especially when it happens far from home. In Salomé by Leslie Baird, that danger arrives wrapped in heat-soaked French afternoons, magnetic attraction, conspiracy, and the seductive promise that maybe death itself can be outwitted. Releasing May 19, 2026, this gothic-tinged literary thriller moves like a fever dream, gradually tightening from atmospheric travel fantasy into something deeply unsettling.

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One of the novel’s greatest strengths is its setting. Baird captures northwestern France so vividly that even the oppressive heat and lack of air conditioning somehow feel intoxicating. The small-town atmosphere is lush, languid, and quietly claustrophobic, creating the perfect backdrop for Courtney’s growing obsession with Salomé and her family. The relationship between Courtney and Salomé mirrors that setting beautifully at first—warm, inviting, almost innocent in its intensity. Their connection feels youthful and sincere, the kind of intimacy that blooms quickly when you’re untethered from your ordinary life.

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Until Death by Mary Berman is a darkly funny horror novel about how easily love can become a trap

May 11, 2026May 7, 2026 Mandy Webster

There’s a moment in Until Death when it becomes clear that the real horror isn’t just the eerie chapel, the controlling future in-laws, or the increasingly sinister wedding planning. It’s the realization that Ophelia has slowly stopped trusting her own instincts. That loss of self feels far more unsettling than any supernatural element lurking in the background, and it’s what gives Mary Berman’s debut its sharpest edge.

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The novel follows Ophelia Cohen, a woman who never intended to get married after watching her parents’ relationship sour her on the entire institution. But as her mother’s dementia worsens, Ophelia becomes consumed by the fear of ending up alone. When she meets Luke—a man who seems almost custom-built to satisfy both her emotional vulnerabilities and her mother’s wishes—marriage suddenly feels less impossible. From there, the story spirals into a chaotic blend of wedding horror, psychological manipulation, family pressure, and increasingly alarming red flags.

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Hunger by Choi Jin-young: A brutal, unforgettable descent into love, poverty, and desperation

May 8, 2026May 4, 2026 Mandy Webster

There are books that entertain, and then there are books that settle somewhere in your body and refuse to move—Hunger by Choi Jin-young is firmly the latter, a slim novel that opens with a shocking act and only grows more unsettling from there. If the premise alone—compared to Parasite as a kind of dark, romantic counterpoint—sounds extreme, the reality is even harsher. This is, at its core, a tale of absolute misery. And it’s almost a relief that the book is so brief, because lingering in its world for too long would be difficult to bear.

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The story begins with Gu’s death, though the cause is initially unknown. Dam, his lifelong counterpart in a relationship defined by separation and reunion, is inconsolable. The idea of losing him—not just emotionally, but physically through burial or cremation—is unbearable. So she makes a choice that is as horrifying as it is, in her mind, logical: she will consume him, ensuring they are never apart again.

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Ask the Author

Ask the author: Should authors review other authors’ books?

May 7, 2026April 25, 2026 Mandy Webster

Dear Mandy,

Should authors review other authors’ books?

Short answer: Yes—but do it with intention, professionalism, and an awareness of the ecosystem you’re participating in.

Longer answer: I believe authors reviewing other authors’ work can be a genuinely good thing. We’re part of a shared creative community, and thoughtful engagement helps readers discover books while also raising the level of conversation around storytelling. That said, how you review matters just as much as whether you review.

An infographic that spells out the key points made by the article. — Thoughtful reviews don’t tear books down—they build better conversations.

On my own blog, I keep my literary criticism constructive. I talk about what worked for me and what didn’t, but I frame those “didn’t” moments as areas where something could have been stronger—not as the author doing something wrong. That distinction matters. It keeps the focus on craft rather than tearing down the person behind the work. If a book ultimately wasn’t for me, I’ll still highlight the kinds of readers who would connect with it, because every book has an audience—even when I’m not it.

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Make Me Better by Sarah Gailey: A hypnotic look at belonging, control, and the cost of transformation

May 6, 2026May 3, 2026 Mandy Webster

What would you give up to finally belong somewhere—and would you recognize the moment it stopped being your choice? Make Me Better is an unsettling, slow-burn descent into the seductive promise of community, where healing and control blur until they’re indistinguishable. Fans of Wife Shaped Bodies, The Unworthy, or Sorrowland will find something deeply familiar—and deeply disturbing—here.

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At the center of the story is Celia, a woman whose longing for connection overrides her sense of self-preservation. She doesn’t just develop crushes—she builds entire imagined lives around men she barely knows. When she recognizes how precarious that pattern is, she redirects that intensity toward the idea of motherhood. A baby, after all, would be hers in a way no one else ever has been. That same vulnerability makes her the perfect target for something like Kindred Cove.

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