Month: May 2025

Title: The New Neighbor

Author: Karen Cleveland

Genre: thriller

Thank you, NetGalley, for this book.

WOW!! I loved this book and listened to it in two days. Beth works for the CIA and has been investigating “The Neighbor,” who is a spy for Iran. However, Beth has been taken off the case, and she doesn’t know why.

But that’s not going to stop Beth. She continues investigating and begins to suspect that the woman who moved into her home, Maddie, is the spy. Everyone in her cul-de-sac has ties to the CIA, so maybe Maddie didn’t just move in for the house and its good schools.

This book was so much fun. Beth sounds like a lunatic for most of the book because she’s pulling at strings that may or may not actually exist, but don’t be fooled. Beth is much smarter than people give her credit for.

Title: The Sun Sets in Singapore

Author: Kehinde Fadipe

Genre: Literary Fiction

Thank you, NetGalley, for this book.

I had no idea what to expect with this book about three Nigerian women living in Singapore, but this story was really great, and I was captivated by their stories.

Dara is an attorney who is fighting for a partnership at her firm, but they hire a man as the new partner, so Dara has to figure out where she now fits in her world. Amaka is a banker who has an extreme spending habit. And Lillian followed her husband to the country and has lost who she is.

The story really just follows these three friends and what happens to them as they navigate their lives. None of them are following the path they expected, and the new attorney ends up impacting all three of them in very different ways. I really enjoyed this one.

Title: Come Out, Come Out

Author: Natalie C. Parker

Genre: YA horror

Thank you, NetGalley, for this book.

I hate that books like this have to exist, but I’m so glad this book exists. Mallory, Fern, and Jaq are friends who explore the woods. Mall never comes out, and Fern and Jaq have no memory of her or their time in the woods.

At a party, they both go back into the woods, and their memories begin to return. Turns out, all three identified as queer in some form (gender fluid, gay, pan, etc) and those memories were taken from them.

This book deals with religious trauma, gay conversion, and parents who refuse to accept their children for who they are. While this is horror due to supernatural elements, the worst horror in the book is the one that is real and present for many LGBTQIA+ kids. This book was really wonderful, but also really difficult to read because of the real-life horror so well represented.

Title: This Skin Was Once Mine and Other Disturbances

Author: Eric LaRocca

Genre: horror

Thank you, NetGalley, for this book.

Eric LaRocca isn’t for everyone, but he’s definitely for me. I’ve read and loved Everything the Darkness Eats and Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke, but goodness, he is dark. Consider yourself warned!

In this novella set of four stories, each one packs a heavy punch. One story, Prickle, might stick with me for a long time. Two elderly men meet at a park to play a game they used to, called “Prickle”, where they do something to irritate and ruin a stranger’s day. But one of them takes it way too far. “Seedling” deals with death and the relationship between a father and son. The titular “This Skin Was Once Mine” also deals with death and fathers, but with Jillian, who uncovers a massive secret.

Finally, the Stoker-nominated “All The Parts of You that Won’t Easily Burn” was easily the most disturbing and fascinating story of the four. Enoch wants to buy a knife for his husband, but the knife-seller offers it for free, under one condition. Enoch must allow him to cut his arm and insert a tiny piece of glass. Enoch can take the glass out when he gets home, so it seems like an easy decision. However, Enoch finds he loves having the glass in his body and wants to have more, know more, becoming obsessed.

This was my favorite of LaRocca’s books so far. I’ve been very impressed with his ability to balance dark with comedy, tragedy with hope. I’ll defintely be reading more of his work.