Tag: Book Reviews

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The Exes by Leodora Darlington: A wickedly fun debut that doesn’t quite stick the landing

Mandy Webster

Who hasn’t fantasized—purely figuratively—about exacting a little revenge on an ex? The Exes by Leodora Darlington leans hard into that universal impulse, opening as an explosive, darkly entertaining thriller about love gone wrong, bad men getting what they deserve, and the stories women tell themselves to survive heartbreak. Natalie wants what she’s always wanted: the perfect partner, the stable family she never had, a life that finally feels settled. Instead, she’s left with a growing list of exes, each crossed out for reasons that grow more unsettling as the novel unfolds.

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After the mysterious “Big Fallout” leaves Natalie more isolated than ever, she meets James—handsome, charming, seemingly everything she’s been waiting for. Their relationship feels like a second chance, a reset. But as Natalie tries to perform the role of a “normal” wife, unsettling truths begin to surface, forcing her to question not just her marriage, but her own identity. Are her dead exes connected by coincidence, by guilt, or by something much darker? And is Natalie the monster in this story—or is someone else pulling the strings?

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The Room in the Attic by T.M. Logan: A domestic thriller powered by male entitlement and bad decisions

Mandy Webster

The Room in the Attic by T.M. Logan arrives with a premise that should be irresistible to fans of domestic suspense: a struggling family stretches itself to buy a rambling Victorian villa, only to uncover a hidden room filled with unsettling clues to someone else’s life. Secrets buried in the walls, secrets inside a marriage, and danger creeping closer with every chapter. On paper, it works. In practice, the novel hinges on a protagonist whose greatest flaw isn’t malice—but an unshakable belief that he knows best, even as he proves again and again that he doesn’t.

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Adam and Jess move into their new house with their three young children, already under financial strain. Almost immediately, Adam discovers a concealed door hidden behind a fitted wardrobe. Inside the secret room are several random items, including a wallet, an expensive watch, and an old mobile phone. Jess’s reaction is sensible and adult: get rid of them and move on. Adam, however, becomes fixated. He needs to know who they belonged to and why they were hidden, and that curiosity becomes the engine that drives the entire story.

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Such Sheltered Lives by Alyssa Sheinmel: Celebrity rehab, buried secrets, and a thriller that finds its footing late

Mandy Webster

Such Sheltered Lives by Alyssa Sheinmel opens inside an ultra-exclusive Hamptons rehab center built on discretion, money, and the promise that no one on the outside will ever find out what happens within its gates. From the opening pages, we know a body will be found on a nearby beach—and that inevitability hangs over Rush’s Recovery like a threat the staff can’t quite contain.

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I’ll be honest: this book gets off to a rough start. The early writing feels tentative and occasionally amateurish, and there are factual errors that pulled me sharply out of the story. One in particular made me stop and reread in disbelief: a character’s academic background is described in a way that suggests someone earned—or was earning—a PhD through night classes at a community college. That’s not a minor slip in phrasing; it’s a fundamental misunderstanding of how higher education works. No one is getting a doctorate that way. Errors like this made me question the author’s lived experience and research, and they chipped away at my trust in the narrative early on.

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No One You Know by Emma Tourtelot: Grief, motherhood, and the quiet violence of being blamed

Mandy Webster

No One You Know by Emma Tourtelot is one of those novels that quietly proves how wrong first impressions can be. I’ll admit it: I almost passed this one by because the cover looks oddly amateurish, the kind of design that suggests something lightweight or underbaked. I’m genuinely glad I didn’t. What’s inside is a sharp, unsettling literary debut that digs far deeper than its packaging suggests.

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Set in the Hudson Valley, the novel opens on what looks like a carefully curated life. Kate is a successful realtor and momfluencer with a devoted husband, Ethan, and a close relationship with her teenage daughter, Indie. That surface-level perfection shatters when Indie’s best friend, Maddy, is killed by a drunk driver right in front of her. From that moment on, Tourtelot is less interested in the tragedy itself than in the slow, corrosive aftermath—the way grief destabilizes families, marriages, and entire communities.

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Trad Wife by Saratoga Schaefer: A ferocious horror novel about motherhood, patriarchy, and the cost of being “good”

Mandy Webster

Trad Wife by Saratoga Schaefer is a horror novel that knows how to tell a gripping story while quietly dismantling the cultural myths propping it up. Scheduled to release on February 10, 2026, it’s the rare book that makes you start mentally planning your year-end “best of” list before you’re even finished reading. Trad Wife is an unsettling, deeply intelligent literary thriller that uses horror not just to disturb, but to say something urgent about womanhood, motherhood, and the performance of femininity in the age of social media.

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Camille Deming presents herself online as the ideal #tradwife: cooking from scratch, tending her homestead, centering her life around her husband and home. The problem is that she’s missing the one thing her followers—and the ideology she’s bought into—demand most: a baby. When Camille discovers a mysterious well behind her farmhouse and makes a wish, her desire is answered in ways that are grotesque, intimate, and impossible to undo. Her pregnancy brings skyrocketing engagement and validation, even as her body begins to change in frightening ways and her marriage quietly continues to rot.

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The Better Mother by Jennifer van der Kleut: A new mom’s nightmare of gaslighting, obsession, and control

Mandy Webster

There’s a particular kind of suspense novel that feels less like escapism and more like a psychological endurance test—and this is very much one of them. The Better Mother by Jennifer van der Kleut falls squarely into the latter category, delivering a fast-paced, anxiety-inducing suspense novel that taps into very real fears about boundaries, manipulation, and what happens when someone decides they know what’s best for your life better than you do.

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Savannah Mitchell is 34, freshly recovering from a devastating breakup, and finally feeling like she has her life back on track when a brief fling with a man named Max leaves her pregnant. When Savannah reaches out to tell him the news, he explains that he’s just reconciled with his ex-girlfriend, Madison, and needs time to break it to her. The twist comes quickly: Madison isn’t angry or resentful—she’s thrilled, eager to be involved, and insistent on helping Savannah through the pregnancy.

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My 5 favorite books of 2025: Fierce, compelling, and unapologetically feminist

Mandy Webster

This year has been a phenomenal one for reading. I’ve devoured dozens of new releases, and after much deliberation, I’ve narrowed down my favorites to five books that I think are particularly telling of the age we live in. Each of these novels features women at the center of the story—some brilliant, some flawed, some delightfully deranged—and together, they paint a vivid picture of modern womanhood. These are all books I have actually read this year, reviewed, and vetted as an experienced author and book reviewer. There are undoubtedly other incredible 2025 releases I haven’t yet encountered, but these five stand out for me.

Salt Bones by Jennifer Givhan

Givhan’s novel is a dark, seductive thriller that stays with you long after the final page. I loved how she navigates grief, trauma, and memory with a sharp psychological lens. The female protagonist is both vulnerable and fierce, and there’s a subtle feminist undercurrent that interrogates how women navigate power and vulnerability in a patriarchal world.

Read now!

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A Serial Killer’s Guide to Marriage by Asia Mackay: Domestic bliss, but make it murderous

Mandy Webster

What happens when the thing that bonded you as a couple is the one thing you’re no longer allowed to do? A Serial Killer’s Guide to Marriage by Asia Mackay takes that question and runs with it—through marriage, parenthood, suburbia, and the quiet, suffocating boredom that sets in when two people stop working as a team. Readers who enjoyed This Girl’s a Killer will feel immediately at home here, thanks to the same blend of dark humor, moral ambiguity, and sharp observations about womanhood and rage.

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Hazel and Fox once believed they were made for each other. Not in a meet-cute, rom-com way, but in a far more specific sense: they are serial killers who take pleasure in killing objectively bad men, saving future victims while satisfying their own darker impulses. Before pregnancy and playdates, their greatest joy came from killing—and from doing it together. Their intimacy was built on absolute trust, shared secrets, and a kind of moral clarity that only made sense to the two of them (and me, to be honest).

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It Should Have Been You by Andrea Mara: A suburban nightmare fueled by gossip, boredom, and bad timing

Mandy Webster

In It Should Have Been You by Andrea Mara, a single, careless message detonates inside a pristine, affluent neighborhood—and what follows is a sharp reminder that the most dangerous places are often the ones that look the safest. This latest thriller from the #1 international bestselling author of All Her Fault leans hard into what I like to call Suburban Gothic, where the manicured lawns and friendly group chats conceal resentment, entitlement, and secrets desperate to stay buried.

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Susan is a tired, overwhelmed mother on maternity leave, the kind of woman who feels invisible and slightly feral after too many sleepless nights. When she vents to her sisters about her neighbors—only to accidentally send the message to the entire local WhatsApp group—the damage is instant and irreversible. Even though she deletes it, the truth has already escaped, and the neighborhood’s fragile sense of civility begins to crack.

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Darkrooms by Rebecca Hannigan: A gripping Irish mystery with unforgettable, flawed women

Mandy Webster

On the night of the Summer Solstice in 1999, nine-year-old Roisin O’Halloran vanished into the Hanging Woods, a copse that had terrified generations of children in the small Irish town of Bannakilduf. Twenty years later, her disappearance remains a shadow over the town—and over the two women now drawn together to uncover the truth: Roisin’s older sister, Deedee, a rookie cop barely holding herself together, and Caitlin, Roisin’s childhood best friend and a petty criminal with a penchant for deception and risky behavior. In Darkrooms, Rebecca Hannigan delivers a lush, moody thriller that explores guilt, justice, and the dangerous ways past traumas shape the present.

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If you’re a fan of unlikeable characters and unreliable narrators, this novel is made for you. Caitlin lies, steals, and teeters on the edge of self-destruction, and you’re never quite sure whether to believe her confessions—or whether they hint at something even darker.

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