Adult Fiction

Public Access Afterworld

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by Jane Schoenbrun
First sentence: “This book is not my own.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Release date: October 27, 2026
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Content: There is a super high body count, on-page (but not graphic) sex, lots of swearing (including multiple f-bombs), drug use, and just plain weirdness. It will be in the Fiction section, but could easily be found in the Science Fiction/Fantasy section.

The plot of this book is unnecessary. It’s probably best if you go in knowing very little (as I did), in order to experience the whole thing. It’s really a book that’s about vibes – and the vibes are weird and highly unique. Know that for a 600-page book, it goes really fast (I don’t usually read books this big!), mostly because it’s emulating a TV series – it’s broken up into Episodes, each with its own little arc, but connected to each other. I’ve never seen any of Schoenbrun’s films, but if they are anything like this, it would be wild and wierd, but thought-provoking.

The best comparison I can make is There is No Antimemetics Division: it isn’t the same, but it has a similar weird vibe. And if you liked that one, you will definitely like this one.

The only drawback is that the ending is ambiguous, and I would like a sequel (I’ve been spoiled over the years). But if this is all there is, I’m content with it.

The Someday Garden

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by Ashley Poston
First sentence: “There was once a house on the cliffs that grew the most beautiful flowers.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There is swearing, including multiple f-bombs, and on-page sex, plus talk of death. It’s in the Romance section of the bookstore.

Ten years ago, Sophie and her best friend, Harriet, visited the Lilymoor estate in Maine and made a plan to return. But life got in the way, and only Sophie has made it back. This time, though, it’s in the role of Head Gardener, helping the estate get ready for the bicentennial. She just wants to do this temporary job and go back to her life, but there’s something about this place. And then a magic door appears, and behind the door is an intriguing man… and maybe there’s more to Lilymoor than even Sophie thought,

I like Ashley Poston; I really do. However, this one just felt derivative. She’s already written this story (The Seven Year Slip, which is excellent), Sure, this is a different place with different characters, but it’s really not a different story. I was more interested in Juliette’s story. I wanted this to be sapphic. Or a straightforward tale of grief. I just didn’t want what I got. I did start this one on audio, and I stalled out, losing interest. But I had it in print already, and I didn’t want to bail – maybe it would get better? – so I finished it that way.

It didn’t get better, but it didn’t get worse either. It was just an overall meh. I really need Poston to do something completely different.

Hollywood, Ending

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by John Green
First sentence: “When I got the news that Matthew Malone wished to make my acquaintance, I was rereading the script for Andy Warhol Never Gets Old in a bare-walled apartment the studio had rented for me.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There is swearing (including multiple f-bombs) and fade-to-black sex. There is also talk of sexual and emotional abuse. It’s in the Adult Fiction section of the bookstore.

John said no spoilers, and I agree: the less you know going into this, the better it will be. Know it’s about fame and the things that Hollywood insists must be done in order to have it. It’s about the business of making movies – not the actual making of them as much as the machine surrounding it. It’s probably based on John’s experiences with the Hollywood machine, and the way the whole fame surrounding The Fault in Our Stars impacted him. And it’s a good book. It’s got characters that are sympathetic, a story that is compelling, and it’s thoughtful and funny (I’d forgotten that I like funny John). It deals with trauma and anxiety and abandonment, but it never feels heavy-handed. And I think John’s writing suits 20-somethings really well; I was never annoyed that they felt too pretentious, which is a feeling I got a lot when reading his YA fiction.

In short, I enjoyed this quite a bit.

A Snake Among Swans

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by Hannah Kaner
First sentence: “I was born in war.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: The book’s trigger warnings include: war, trauma, violence, self-harm, mild body horror, and sexual violence. It’s in the Science Fiction/Fantasy section of the bookstore.

Tilde is the only surviving heir of a conquered land, and so it is her lot to be married to the conquering swan king, whose wife recently died. He’s basically disinherited his sons, and wants a new heir. However, his sons – and one surviving daughter – aren’t happy with this arrangement. Not to mention the swan priest, who has decided that he wants to help one of the princes with a coup. It’s up to Tilde to be smarter, and wilier, than all of that, and to stay as true as she can to her heritage in the process. It’s not an easy task.

That summary doesn’t do this book justice. I was in a bit of a slump, until I realized that Kaner had a new book out, and I devoured this one. It’s so well-written, complex with the politics, but keeping Tilde and the women at the center of it. It’s about colonialism and trauma and imperialism, and what it takes to make it in a world that is not yours. It’s brutal, but I couldn’t help but care for the characters.

And I’m pretty sure it’s at least a duology, because there is still more story to tell. And I’m here for it.

Audio book: The Hocus Pocus Handbook

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by Ann Aguirre
Read by Nikki Grey and Sebastian York
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: There is some mild swearing (maybe an f-bomb, but I don’t think so) and some mild violence. It’s in the Romance section of the bookstore.

Thea Winter is a changeling in the Winter Faerie court. She’s always kept her head down, mostly, and stayed out of trouble. But all of a sudden, she’s roped into court politics, being forced into marrying someone from Summer, in hopes of stopping a war. However, that person has disappeared, and Thea and Winter’s Hound, Kerboros, are sent off to find the person and make good on Thea’s marriage. Which is inconvenient, since Thea is developing feelings for Kerboros and (honestly) doesn’t want to be married. As they search through the lands, and collect a wide array of friends and companions, their attraction grows. But what will happen when the Lord of Winter finds out.

First, the complaint I had all the way through: a book titled Hocus Pocus should not be about fae. It’s a bad title. And secondly: There is a magical handbook, one that Thea’s foster father made her, that is much too conveniently tied to the chapters. Every chapter started with a spell (or a description of an art piece, if it was Kerboros’ chapter), and it just dragged after a while. And then there was no chemistry between the characters. At. All. This would have been better as a friendship story, just a plain road trip story, something that didn’t lead with expectations of romance. Because, there was none. Oh, she told me there was, but I just didn’t feel it. At. All.

That said, I liked the narrators, I liked the side characters and I was interested enough to finish it. Just not to like it.

Audiobook: The Blonde Identity

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by Ally Carter
Read by Emily Ellet & Andrew Eiden
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: There is some swearing, including a few f-bombs; violence; and fade-to-black sex. It’s in the Romance section of the bookstore.

In Paris, in the middle of a blizzard, a woman wakes up with a headache and no memory of who she is. She finds herself caught up with spies – mostly because she looks like her identical twin sister, Alex, who IS a spy. She ends up teaming up with Sawyer, Alex’s partner, to help her 1) figure out who she is and 2) find Alex. What they didn’t expect was that sparks would fly between the two of them.

I’ve had this one on my shelf since it came out, but I just never got around to reading it. I was looking for a new audiobook, though – after I started and bailed on several (as well as print books! Gotta love a reading slump), and I realized that this one might be fun. And I was right: it was the perfect mix of action/adventure, of women being smart but also being vulnerable, and romance. I’ve loved Carter’s YA books, and this is – like she pitched it when it came out – just a grown up Gallagher Girls book. And I adored it.

It was exactly what I needed at exactly the time I needed it. (See? THIS is why I have shelves of TBR books. So I can pick them up when it’s the “right” time!)

Audiobook: Carmilla

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by Sheridan Le Fanu
Read by Katherine Press
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: There’s not much, though there is talk of death by vampires. It’s in the Horror section of the bookstore.

In Austria in the late 1800s, Laura leads a solitary life with only her father for company. That is, until a stranger happens upon their isolated schloss and needs her daughter to stay with them to recover from her illness. This daughter, Carmilla, becomes Laura’s closest companion, her bosom friend (as Anne of Green Gables would put it). The problem is that deaths among the peasants from a mysterious disease start happening, and then Laura starts succumbing to it as well. The thing is: Carmilla is a vampire.

The tagline on the book is “the story that inspired Dracula”. I’m not sure if that’s the case, but it’s definitely a vampire story in the vein of Dracula. It’s all insinuation (it’s very sapphic – Carmilla doesn’t just want Laura for her blood, but also for herself) and conjecture. Its narration is in the form a recollection by Laura after the fact, so you know going in that she survives. It’s not gory or graphic. But it is compelling. I think that helps because of Press’s narration: she is very good at what she does. She gave the text an ominousness that helped with the vibe, and kept me interested in listening to it.

It’s also short, which is kind of what I want right now. Even though I don’t think I’m much of a vampire person (or werewolf, really), I did like this one.

Audiobook: Eric

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by Terry Pratchett
Read by Colin Morgan, Peter Serafinowicz & Bill Nighy
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Others in the series: It’s in Discworld, and the fourth in the Unseen University series. But, like all of Discworld, you can read it out of order.
Content: It’s Sir Terry. There’s nothing objectionable. It’s in the Science Fiction/Fantasy section of the bookstore.

Eric is your typical demon summoner, except that he’s 14 and not very good at it. He’s attempted to summon a demon to grant him three wishes, and all he got was Rincewind, who isn’t a very good wizard at the best of times. And, in attempting to grant Eric’s wishes, they unravel time and space back to the beginning. Before ending up in hell, of course.

There’s really not much to say about this, mostly because it’s Terry Pratchett. It’s funny, it’s sweet, the footnotes (read by Bill Nighy!) are hilarious, and it’s an utterly pleasant way to spend 4 hours on a road trip. Highly recommended, especially if you’re driving somewhere.

Audiobook: Moon Called

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by Patricia Briggs
Read by Lorelei King
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: There is some swearing, including multiple f-bombs, as well as violence with a pretty high body count. It’s in the Romance section of the bookstore.

Mercy Thompson is a shapeshifter, but she was raised by werewolves, so she knows a lot about them. And so when a newly changed wolf shows up at her garage in the Tri-Cities, Washington, she knows there’s going to be trouble. And she’s right. She teams up with the Alpha of the Columbia Basin Wolfpack, Adam, but when he’s severely injured, she returns home to Montana and her first love, Samuel, for help.

First off: this is much more world-building than actual story. There was a lot of explaining (no, please: sum up!) about wolf habits, wolf law, and pack politics. (The words “I’m not pack” were uttered more times than I cared to hear.) It was a decent mystery: who was at the heart of kidnapping kids and turning them into wolves, and how they were developing tranquilizers that worked on werewolves, was interesting. But, it wasn’t a romance. Not really. Sure, there were hints of a love triangle between Mercy, Adam, and Samuel, but it didn’t really go anywhere (yet). I liked Mercy as a character – she was smart and resourceful and didn’t let the men push her around. So, there’s that. But will I read more? Probably not. It was fine, but not exactly something I really want to spend a lot of time with.

Audiobook: Rasputin Swims the Potomac

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by Ben Fountain
Read by Ron Butler
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: There is swearing, including multiple f-bombs and some off-page sex, as well as talk of violence. It’s in the Fiction section of the bookstore.

This one is going to be a hard one to sum up.

President *** (It was “President Bleep” on the audiobook) is running for a third term. Except people keep breaking out in what is called “the weeping sickness” at his rallies. A professional wrestler who goes by Gregori Rasputin (who really believes he is THE Gregori Rasputin) can heal those people. Somehow. So **** brings him on. Then it gets complicated. Rasputin gains in popularity, so he decides to run for president. The White House asks a staffer, Faith, to go spy on Rasputin, but she ends up believing more in him than in ****. And then there’s Clarence Thomas (not the Supreme Court judge), an independent journalist, who gets wrapped up in all of this.

And then the book ends.

This was very much a WTF book. I think, in large part, it’s because I don’t get/appreciate/like satire, and this is satirizing something. I talked to K and R about it at dinner, and we tried to figure out what Foutain was doing – was he satirizing the willingness of the American public to go with whatever is big and popular, despite red flags? (Maybe.) Is he satirizing the nature of the current political system – the way no one was willing to stop **** from defying the Constitution and running for a third term? (Maybe.) Was he satirizing the way that politics has become more of an entertainment gig than actual governing? (Maybe.) Did he do any of this well? (Uncertain.)

I liked it enough to finish it, which is saying something (I don’t know what, though). I’m just sure I didn’t “get” it.