More unputdownable novels Archives

We Are the Brennans

by Tracey Lange

Five years ago, Sunday Brennan left her small New York hometown, abandoning her parents, three brothers, and devoted fiancé with no explanation. In the present, after a wildly uncharacteristic episode of binge drinking lands her in the hospital, her brother convinces her to come home for a little while to recuperate and help with the Irish American family's struggling bar. Not everyone is thrilled to see the prodigal daughter, and her reappearance eventually causes all kinds of long-held family secrets to finally come pouring out. I loved this for its portrayal of complex family dynamics (especially among the four siblings), its sweet tale of young love, the ever-interesting setting of the bar, and its hopeful—but not tidy—resolution.

Chirp

Let Me Hear a Rhyme

by Tiffany D. Jackson

Quadir and Jarrell are determined to give their friend Steph the legacy he deserves after losing him. With the help of Steph's sister Jasmine, they take his tracks and come up with a plan to release them under a new rapper's name: The Architect. When Steph's music catches the ear of a big-time producer, the Brooklyn teens scramble to prove their friend's talent, even though he's gone. Jasmine, Quadir, and Jarrell each keep secrets of their own, and as they dig into Steph's music, and his past, they must confront the truth. A powerful story of friendship with a page-turning puzzle and satisfying ending, this YA novel is excellent on audio.

Yinka, Where Is Your Huzband?

by Lizzie Damilola Blackburn

This was a delight on audio! I was inspired to pick it up after WSIRN alum Valencia Taylor mentioned it in a Patreon bonus episode with our team member Shannan. Blackburn's debut is based on her own experience as a Nigerian woman whose mother desperately wants her to find love and happiness—which means, of course, that she must find a husband. Yinka is 31, a British-Nigerian woman in possession of a degree from Oxford, a good job, and loads of friends, and yet she can't help but be bothered by her aunties' fervent prayers that she find romance. Driven by this insecurity, she tells a little white lie, which soon enough lands her in a heap of trouble with those who love her most. I enjoyed cheering Yinka on as she attempts to put things to rights and find love, happiness, and—most crucially—self-acceptance. Narrated by Ronke Adékoluejo.

Piranesi

by Susanna Clarke

Susanna Clarke's hotly anticipated second novel is a fantasy novel that plays with fantasy tropes, a mystery but not just a mystery, an altogether weird and extremely compelling book set in a strange house with labyrinthine passageways and just fifteen inhabitants, only two of which are alive. It's decidedly weird and took me a solid 20% to get oriented, but once I did I couldn't stop reading. Our narrator is Piranesi—though he suspects that's not really his name—and while I don't recommend googling the plot before you begin reading, I do recommend those reading with a literary lens google the Italian artist who shares his moniker.

Wrong Place Wrong Time

by Gillian McAllister

This was the best kind of brain bender! In the opening pages of this time travel mystery, a British woman watches in horror from her window as her 18-year-old son stabs a man on the street. A horrific scene ensues, the police take him away, she spends the evening at the station in shock and agony. But then Jen wakes up the next morning, only to find that it’s not the next morning at all, but the day before the crime occurred. When she wakes up the next morning, it’s the day before that. Jen seems to be living her life backward, and—with the help of a physicist friend-of-a-friend—determines that the only way to break out of the time loop is to “undo” whatever event put her son on the path to murder. To do that she has to go far, far back in time, getting to the roots of her most important relationships. This may end up on my best of the year list; it will certainly be one of my most enjoyable reading experiences.

Firekeeper’s Daughter

by Angeline Boulley

A powerfully layered YA debut that adroitly balances a thrilling crime plot, a fake relationship, and a thoughtful exploration of identity and belonging. 18-year-old hockey star Daunis dreams of leaving her small community on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and making a fresh start in college. But after she witnesses a terrible crime, Daunis is persuaded to go undercover to nail the dealers whose deadly new drugs are ravaging her Anishinaabe community. While seeking justice for her best friend, Daunis also grapples with burgeoning feelings for her handsome hockey player crush and navigates often-tense relationships within her own family. (While sensitively handled, triggers abound, including murder, suicide, sexual assault, and racism.) Native American narrator Isabella Star LeBlanc’s brilliant performance captures the pulse-pounding first-person narrative drive and the new-to-me Ojibwe phrases and practices in this brilliant YA debut. Narrated by Isabella Star LeBlanc.

Yellowface

by R. F Kuang

Kuang goes meta, offering a candid look into the lives of authors, the books they write, how those books are published and then wind up in our hands. Starting off slow, it quickly turns into a compulsive page-turner!

Hour of the Witch

by Chris Bohjalian

Chilling and propulsive, this Puritan-era historical thriller transports you to 1662 Boston, where accusations fly and “it was always possible that the Devil was present.” Desperate to escape her abusive husband, Mary Deerfield seeks a rare divorce from the town council—but it’s a precarious time to pursue independence as a woman. Mary is soon accused of far worse than being a rebellious wife, and realizes a separation from her husband won’t be enough to save her from his escalating cruelty. Relying on a large cast of well-developed characters and an intricate plot, Bohjalian skillfully ratchets up the tension all the way through the exceptional ending. The Puritan era feels immediate and its struggles all too timely in this urgent historical novel set in 1660s Boston, especially when voiced by a full cast of fan favorites including Saskia Maarleveld, Cassandra Campbell, Julia Whelan, and Kirby Heyborne.

With My Little Eye

by Joshilyn Jackson

Jackson has long been an auto-read author for me: I’ll read whatever she writes. Here she once again pulls together things she loves and knows well: Atlanta, the theater, human nature, and autism, combining to tell a story that had me continually going WAIT, WHAT?! The plot of this new thriller revolves around an actress who was in a hugely popular show when she was 23. Now, twenty years later, she’s moved back to Atlanta with her daughter to get away from a scary stalker back in L.A. But when the stalker’s letters start showing up at her new address, she has to find a way to protect herself and her child. I loved this for its delicious misdirection, well-drawn child characters, and breathless conclusion. (Lots of content warnings here, including children in peril.)

Upgrade

by Blake Crouch

An ordinary man gets an unwelcome upgrade to superhuman status in Crouch’s latest techno-thriller. Logan Ramsay paid his debt to society for his role in the Great Starvation, a global catastrophe caused by his renegade scientist mother. Now, years later, the world is a mess. He dislikes serving the Gene Protection Agency, but his adored wife and daughter make it worth it. But on a routine raid for the GPA, Logan contracts a virus designed to slowly turn him superhuman. He soon realizes another terrifying catastrophe is looming, one with devastating connections to his past, and that he’s uniquely qualified to intervene before it’s too late—even though the cost is unbearable. An engrossing and cinematic blend of hard science and thrilling action, and a thoughtful and ultimately hopeful exploration of what makes us human—and what we stand to lose if we don’t get our relationship with our vast technological power right. For fans of Crouch’s Recursion and Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary.

The Bodyguard

by Katherine Center

A workaholic bodyguard falls for the hunky actor she’s paid to protect in Center’s swoony new read about finding love and mending fences. Hannah Brooks may look like a kindergarten teacher, but that’s just one reason she’s a sought-after executive protection agent. Reclusive but adored actor Jack Stapleton doesn’t want a bodyguard at all, and he definitely doesn’t want his ailing mother to know he needs protection from a stalker. But his manager insists. When he meets Hannah—and when she lays him flat on his back with her badass bodyguard skills—not only does he want to hire her, he wants her to pose as his girlfriend so no one will suspect a thing. Complications ensue. Happiness for Beginners remains my favorite, but with its endearing protagonists, adorable banter, winning sense of humor, and fun industry details for both leads, this one is piles of breezy fun. Closed door. For fans of Mikaella Clements and Onjuli Datta’s The View Was Exhausting and Annabel Monaghan’s Nora Goes Off Script.

The Golden Couple

by Greer Hendricks, Sarah Pekkanen

This twisty thriller is jointly voiced by favorites Karissa Vacker and Marin Ireland. The story revolves around a seemingly perfect D.C. area couple who are keeping a closetful of secrets from each other and their "therapist," who can't truly claim that title anymore because she lost her professional license due to an ethics violation. She hasn't let that loss stop her—in fact, she believes she can better help her clients with the unorthodox methods she's fully embraced since she was censured. This was a fun and engrossing listen, with an over-the-top ending that scores low on believability but high on entertainment value—because it made me walk the literal extra mile so I could find out what would happen!

Wedding Toasts I’ll Never Give

by Ada Calhoun

I blew through this essay collection on marriage, relationships, infidelity, divorce, and personal growth that came into being because of her viral Modern Love column, and made a hundred highlights along the way. This book would have horrified me when I was younger, but Will and I celebrated our 22nd anniversary this year: we're hardly newlyweds. To give you a taste: "'The first twenty years [of marriage] are the hardest,' an older woman once told me. At the time I thought she was joking. She was not." Or this: "Even good marriages sometimes involve flinging a remote control at the wall." I loved it.

The Anomaly

by Hervé Le Tellier

"All smooth flights are alike. every turbulent flight is turbulent in its own way." A 2020 international bestseller, this lockdown publishing phenomenon in France, translated by Adriana Hunter, is WILD. The author himself calls it "experimental, bizarre, and a little crazy." To American readers, the premise sounds like something out of Blake Crouch: on March 10, 2021, Air France Flight 006 passes through a storm so terrible as to have no precedent and subsequently safely lands in New York, the shaken passengers disembarking on the runway. 106 days later, Air France Flight 006 endures a terrifying storm and subsequently lands safely in New York—and no one knows what to do, because this plane, these people, have already landed. Le Tellier employs this plotty premise to embark on a deeply philosophical examination of what it means to be human, as he portrays a half-dozen individuals wrestling with the unfathomable reality they now face, and—in cheekier passages—shows governmental authorities scramble to explain the unexplainable to their citizens. Amidst global uproar, the spotlight inevitably turns to the author of a recent work called The Anomaly, whose previously obscure work is believed to hold a key to understanding what went wrong with the two flights, and what that may reveal about the human condition—if there is such a thing. I couldn't put this down.

Counterfeit

by Kirstin Chen

Now THIS was a great reading experience. I needed a good listen for my drive home from Bookmarks NC and queued up this one on a whim. (I had been listening to a broody literary novel but it was NOT the right vibe for a sleepy solo drive!) By the time I got to Louisville, I was DONE—and the journey was fabulous. On the surface this almost has a heist kind of vibe. The clever structure elevates the story, but what really wowed me was the initially surreptitious and then all at once interrogation of the American Dream. I relished the details of the fashion industry and handbags in particular. This was good, smart fun that made the miles fly by.

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