Tag: Literary Fiction

Book Reviews, Find Your Next Read

Queenie Is Working on It by Candice Carty-Williams: Growing older doesn’t always mean growing up

Mandy Webster

Some characters are easy to love even when they’re making terrible decisions. Queenie Jenkins has always been one of those characters. But while I adored watching her stumble through her twenties in Queenie, I found myself sharing her friends’ frustration in Queenie Is Working on It, Candice Carty-Williams’ highly anticipated sequel releasing July 2, 2026.

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Nearly ten years after readers first met her, Queenie is thirty-three and appears to have her life together. She’s the editorial director of a successful media network dedicated to amplifying Black women’s voices, she’s completed years of therapy, and she’s spent time intentionally stepping away from dating while she worked on herself. Compared to the woman readers met in Queenie, she’s come a long way. Or at least that’s what it looks like on the surface.

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Writers on Writing

Occult satire, unreliable men, and a very bad cat: A deep view inside the novel, One Bad Cat

Mandy Webster

One Bad Cat is a novel that grew out of a simple premise and ended up somewhere far stranger, funnier, and more psychologically tangled than it first appeared. At its core, it’s an occult satire built around two intersecting storylines: a psychology professor who is turned into a cat by members of his coven, and a man trying to keep his life from falling apart after he lets a persistent stray cat into his apartment.

Dr. Stephen Scott begins the story in a position of intellectual authority. He’s a psychology professor with an interest in the occult, someone who believes he understands systems and people well enough to stay a step ahead. That control collapses when a group of female coven members cast a spell that transforms him into a cat. From there, his storyline tightens into something immediate and claustrophobic: a mind trapped in a body that no longer obeys it, focused on revenge, survival, and the recovery of a charm bag that contains the source of his power.

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Book Reviews, Find Your Next Read

The Summer of the Serpent by Cecilia Eudave review: A haunting novel that needed more room to breathe

Mandy Webster

Some novels leave you wanting more because they are so immersive you never want them to end. Others leave you wanting more because they feel unfinished. Unfortunately, The Summer of the Serpent by Cecilia Eudave falls somewhere between those two experiences.

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Set in Guadalajara during the sweltering summer of 1977, The Summer of the Serpent unfolds through a series of interconnected vignettes narrated by children, adults, ghosts, and even a snake. The result is a fragmented portrait of a neighborhood haunted by disappointments, strange encounters, and the lingering weight of memory. Drawing heavily from myth, folklore, and surrealism, Eudave crafts a work that feels less like a traditional novel and more like a collection of stories circling a common emotional center.

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Book Reviews, Find Your Next Read

Death Do Us by Ruthy Mason: A haunting body horror novel about marriage, identity, and the slow death of a dream

Mandy Webster

What if the most terrifying thing lurking beneath your skin isn’t a curse at all, but the possibility that you’re becoming the person society always expected you to be? Ruthy Mason’s Death Do Us is one of those horror novels that works on multiple levels at once. On the surface, it’s a deeply unsettling story about a woman who begins physically deteriorating after accepting a marriage proposal. Underneath the body horror, however, lies a sharp examination of marriage, patriarchy, identity, and the ways women can slowly lose themselves while trying to fit into roles that were chosen for them long before they ever had a say.

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Bea is a promising archaeologist whose future seems bright. She has a loving boyfriend, Jake, and a clear vision for her academic career. She’s preparing to pursue a PhD and dreams of participating in archaeological digs around the world. Marriage has never been her primary goal. In fact, she has spent much of her life resisting expectations that she should settle down, define herself through a relationship, and prioritize a man’s ambitions over her own.

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Book Reviews, Find Your Next Read

It Could Have Been Her by Lisa Jewell: A thriller that proves why she remains the genre’s best storyteller

Mandy Webster

A missing teenager, a mysterious house, and a woman forced to confront the darkest corners of her past collide in It Could Have Been Her by Lisa Jewell, a gripping and emotionally rich thriller that reminds me exactly why she remains my favorite author working in the genre today. Releasing June 23, 2026, this latest novel begins with a seemingly simple mystery involving a lost dog before spiraling into something far more layered, unsettling, and deeply personal.

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Thriller novels often follow familiar patterns. There’s a reason readers keep coming back to them. Like a favorite comfort food, the genre offers recognizable tropes, satisfying twists, and reliable entertainment. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Not every book needs to reinvent literature, and sometimes readers simply want an engaging story that delivers exactly what it promises.

But Lisa Jewell has never been that kind of writer.

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Author Interview

Interview: Leslie Baird on Salomé, literary suspense, and the allure of charisma

Mandy Webster

Leslie Baird’s debut novel Salomé is a hypnotic blend of literary suspense, psychological intrigue, and gothic atmosphere, following a young American woman who becomes entangled in the orbit of a charismatic French family and the enigmatic woman at its center. When I reviewed the novel, I was struck by its dreamlike sense of place, its exploration of longing and vulnerability, and its willingness to venture into stranger, more unsettling territory than readers might expect. In this interview, Baird discusses the cult-like power of charisma, the French landscapes that inspired the novel, the emotional foundations beneath its mystery, and why she is drawn to stories that take risks and embrace the unexpected.

Author Leslie Baird discusses the inspirations behind her debut novel Salomé, including cult charisma, the allure of France, and her fascination with the ways people become vulnerable to mystery and belonging.

Q: Courtney is drawn into Salomé’s world almost immediately. Were you interested in exploring why intelligent, perceptive people can still be captivated by charisma and mystery?
A: I’m fascinated by cults. Not only organized groups, but how even something as ubiquitous as marketing copy can leak over into cultiness. (Shout out to Cultish: the Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell.) How quick we are to align with something, as humans seeking a safe group. And there are so many levels to this, which is fun to tease out in writing. Courtney may be able to scoff at a person who subscribes to Marco’s vitamin MLM subscription, but wasn’t she just as naive when a pretty French woman paid attention to her?

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Book Reviews, Find Your Next Read

The Lowe Job by Grace Alexander: Celebrity culture and feminism collide in this sharp debut

Mandy Webster

Fame has always been a commodity, but The Lowe Job by Grace Alexander asks what happens when a family decides to cash in on scandal before anyone else can profit from it first. Funny, smart, and packed with pointed observations about celebrity culture, this June 16, 2026 release transforms a viral affair into a fascinating exploration of ambition, misogyny, and the price of public attention.

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The Lowe Job begins when twenty-seven-year-old Lili Lowe is caught having an affair with her married boss, an up-and-coming politician. Overnight, she becomes the center of a media firestorm. Most people would retreat from public scrutiny. Lili’s mother Lydia has other ideas. Rather than managing the fallout, she weaponizes it, transforming Lili’s notoriety into a family brand and launching the Lowes into celebrity status.

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Book Reviews, Find Your Next Read

Vervain Hollow by Catriona Silvey: A haunting cult novel about addiction, belonging, and the price of escape

Mandy Webster

Sometimes the most unsettling horror novels aren’t about monsters lurking in the dark—they’re about the things we desperately want, even when we know they’ll destroy us. In Vervain Hollow by Catriona Silvey, a burned-out cult, a charismatic leader who may never have been human, and a young woman unable to let go of the power she once possessed combine to create one of the most compelling and emotionally complex horror novels I’ve read this year.

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Two years ago, Laura escaped Vervain Hollow after the sprawling house burned to the ground with its enigmatic leader trapped inside. Since then, she’s returned to a normal life, but “normal” isn’t the same thing as healing. She still longs for Vervain and the extraordinary power he shared with his followers. When her former friend Aliyah contacts her with shocking news—that another former acolyte has returned to the hollow after receiving a message from Vervain himself—Laura sees only one possibility. Somehow, he’s still alive.

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11 contemporary literary novels that explore grief, identity, ambition, and the quiet ways people come undone

Mandy Webster

Some contemporary literary novels announce themselves loudly, built around shocking twists or sweeping drama. Others work more quietly, slipping under your skin through emotional precision, unsettling atmosphere, and an understanding of how ordinary lives can become emotionally unbearable. The novels on this list belong firmly in the second category.

These books explore grief, isolation, class, motherhood, ambition, memory, friendship, and the impossible expectations people inherit from families and society. Some blur the line between realism and psychological horror. Others stay grounded in everyday life while exposing the emotional fractures hidden beneath routines, relationships, and carefully maintained appearances. What connects them is their interest in interior lives—the private fears, compulsions, disappointments, and longings people carry even when outwardly functioning just fine.

If you’re looking for contemporary literary fiction that feels emotionally intelligent, psychologically rich, and deeply human, these novels deserve your attention.

The cover of the novel Mercy Hill by Hannah Thurman features a tree.

Mercy Hill by Hannah Thurman

A tense and emotionally layered novel about family loyalty, inherited expectations, and the quiet damage caused by control disguised as care. Hannah Thurman explores how obligation and manipulation can shape entire lives, especially for women expected to endure without complaint. Mercy Hill is intimate, unsettling, and deeply perceptive about the ways families can trap people long after they believe they’ve escaped.

Read my full review.
Buy this book.

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Book Reviews, Find Your Next Read

I’ll Take the Fire by Leila Slimani: A fascinating literary excavation that never quite becomes a novel

Mandy Webster

Some novels pull you into a character’s inner life so completely that you feel as if you’ve lived beside them. Others keep you at arm’s length, asking you to observe rather than emotionally participate. I’ll Take the Fire by Leila Slimani, which releases June 9, 2026, firmly falls into the latter category. And while there’s a great deal here to admire intellectually, I often found myself wishing the book had trusted readers with less exposition and more intimacy.

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The novel follows Mia Daoud, a young Moroccan woman searching for sexual, political, and personal freedom as she moves between Casablanca, Paris, and London against the backdrop of major historical upheavals. Slimani explores feminism, class, identity, religion, colonialism, family expectations, and artistic ambition, all through a lens that feels deeply autobiographical. The book is filled with sharp observations about power and liberation, and the historical material woven throughout the narrative is genuinely compelling.

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