This novel portrays the relationship of five college roommates who’ve stayed relatively close for 20 years. They decide to enjoy a reunion in Palm Springs, where each of the four are dealing with the particular challenges of middle age: careers, children, marriage and even politics.
Every once in a while, I'll take advantage of tools provided by NetGalley for books that have been or are available for review on the platform, or to help reviewers keep track of not only their reading but their lives.
It would be hard to write a whole review on a book club guide or a reading journal, but I wanted to take the opportunity to highlight how NetGalley makes reviewing there fun.
1. Book club kit for Christina Lauren’s Tangled Up in You. I didn’t get approved to read this book, despite being a devoted Christina Lauren Fan, but I did get the book club kit, which frankly made me want to read it even more. With everything from discussion questions to recipes, it makes the whole leading a book club thing easy.
2. Net Galley Reading Journal. I love the idea, but this was too labor intensive and …analog?.. to be of much use for me. I think most reviewers take the time it would require to enjoy this journal as it should be enjoyed, to read and review. If I were starting over and looking for a way to be organized, this would be much more helpful.
3 NetGalley’s Book Advocate TookKit. Another great assistant to keep organized and answer questions like “how to improve your review percentage” …the inspiration for this post!
The Near and Distant World was released January 13, 2026. Thanks to NetGalley, and the publisher, Zando/Tin House, for the review copy.
I always look forward to reading Publisher’s lunch Buzz Book publications because it gives me a sneak peek at what I want to read in the coming year. I experienced my first Buzz Books panel live at Book Expo in New York way back in 2005 and have considered some of the books highlighted in Buzz Books to be must reads.
I’ll be sure to let you know what I think! Thanks to NetGalley and Publisher’s Marketplace for the advance copy!
Silvie Broder decides, based on her life experiences, to write her dissertation in philosophy on the theory that any public or public inspired performance of relationships or sexuality--any romance—at once kept women from flourishing and corroded true love. Men were fine as sex partners or friends, but not both together.
She then spends the novel quoting and studying philosophers, while telling us her theories and living the opposite. It seemed to me that what the author was trying to say had more to do with the distribution of power in relationships, but her character can’t seem to handle any of it.
I didn’t ever like Silvie, but she has some fun boyfriends!
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher, Viking/ Penguin Random House, for the opportunity to read this advanced copy. It will be released February 3, 2026.
Maeve and Therese are sisters who’ve drifted apart. Maeve is a college professor, happy to remain in her hometown of Savannah, Georgia and Therese is an actress, who isn’t exactly homeless, but drifts from job to job and man to man as she pleases. When their mother dies, the girls inherit the estate, which includes a recently mortgaged house, a coffee can, filled with cash, and a portrait of Lady Geraldine Rossington, an English aristocrat by an old master. The painting holds great value if it can be authenticated.
As neither of the sisters are employed at present, they decide to honor their mother’s wish to trace their roots in Ireland, in hopes of authenticating the portrait.
It’s a great adventure for Maeve and Therese, and the reader. Charming villages, beautiful scenery, irascible characters and of course, handsome Irishmen make the quest delightful and the mystery hard to put down. Road Trip will be released June 2, 2026, by St Martin’s press. Thanks to them and NetGalley for the review copy.
First in a new series featuring attorney Maggie Gallagher, a former Chicago prosecutor who has returned to her “safer” mid-west hometown of Kerry (fictional) Ohio, in order to spend more time with her family. As a lawyer who has grown up and practiced in the Mid-west, I had to suspend a lot of disbelief for the telling of this story, including the law and the setting. While Kirkland’s story was well written, I found it to be a bit generic in setting and unreasonably simplistic in its understanding and portrayal of the law and small-town life.
Maggie happens to see emergency vehicles at a childhood friends’ home while out on a run and stops by. There has been a shooting. Ultimately, her friend is charged with a crime connected to it, and ballistics tests show the gun involved is one used in an unrelated, and unsolved, murder a year and a half earlier.
Of course, her friend is charged with murder and the case speeds to trial. The rest of the book is basically narrative of the trial, and for me, it was about as accurate as any crime drama.
I listened to this book on audio and found the narrator a bit much. She made Maggie sound like she was always the victim, and my experience with women lawyers, especially in the criminal field, is that there may be attempts to victimize them, but those attempts do not define a mindset.
Other than a couple of backyard barbecues, I found nothing that marked this book as a Midwest representative. I think it could have stood a little more research.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher, Relay Publishing for the review copy. The Midwest Lawyer was published on November 21, 2025.
Another unapologetic romance novel om the brilliant Katherine Center. The first thing we read in this novel is the Author’s Note which begins: “Spoiler: This book will end well.” No surprise for romance readers; one of the rules of romance writing is the Happily Ever After. I suspect Center begins this way for her growing number of readers from other genres who’ve heard about this funny, smart author. She’s a graduate of one of the most respected MFA programs in the USA. She can hold her own with anyone, and she chooses to bring these funny, human characters to life, to bring joy and hope and fun to reading.
The Shippers takes place primarily on a cruise ship, but the “shippers” refers to the slang term for relationships. Jojo, our protagonist, has a habit of dumping any relationship that becomes serious—including her fiancé at the altar. Her best friend from childhood, Cooper, shows up just in time to help her make her escape, and then disappears until Jojo’s sisters cruise ship destination wedding. Jojo is convinced she has imprinted on her crush from high school and sets out to connect with him at the wedding. She enlists Cooper’s help with the project, and … shenanigans ensue!
The Shippers will be released May 19, 2026, by St Martin’s Press. Thanks to them and NetGalley for the review copy. This will be a great book to kick off the summer!
This is the user manual needed by everyone taking, or considering, GLP-1 weight loss medication. Dr. Salas-Whalen is a board-certified endocrinologist and expert in obesity medicine. Unlike many physicians who’ve jumped on the bandwagon in the last few years, Dr. Salas-Whalen has decades of experience with the formulations and development of these drugs and has taken them herself. Rather than stressing the cosmetic side of weight loss, she stresses the health issues, including the mental health and genetic sides with compassion. A very informative book that stresses the need for increased protein and strength training, especially for older adults. Weightless was released December 30, 2025, and will be great support for New Year’s Resolutions. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher, Rodale books, for the review copy.
The Storm by Rachel Hawkins
Geneva has inherited the family business, the Rosalie Inn, after her father dies and her mother’s Alzheimer’s makes it impossible for her to keep it going. Set in beautiful St Medard’s Bay, Alabama, which is famous because major hurricane’s hit the small community regularly. Most of the town is regularly destroyed, except for the Rosalie Inn.
The other thing the town is famous for is that the Senator’s son died there—but whether it was murder or nature, no one know. When the woman accused of the alleged murder returns to SMB to write her memoirs, with handsome Journalist August, the old story is revived. In true Rachel Hawkins form, the mystery twists and turns as dramatically as the final hurricane to reveal the truth. Told from multiple viewpoints, including the hurricanes! This is a quick to read thriller. The Storm is published by St. Martin’s press and will be released January 6, 2026. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the review copy.
A beautiful story about the power of memory and scent. Lucy Barnes had always had a special relationship with gardens and had created a career designing them in ways even the people who hire her don’t understand. She’s able to know what they need just by listening to them, and her intuition. In fact, Lucy senses which fragrances can provide life changing memories to the people she works for.
It's a precious talent, one her recently departed mother warns her to take care of. When Lucy facilitates a memory for her boyfriend, things go terribly awry and Lucy flees her beloved hometown in shame.
After her mother dies, Lucy finds a reference in her calendar to the Oceanview Home, a senior center near her father. She’s worried about him, and accepts the task of reviving the Oceanview gardens, a monumental task. The effect she has on the gardens, the residents and herself is nothing short of magic. The Memory Gardener was released November 25, 2025, by Gallery Books. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the review copy.
Jonah Fisher and Sadie Shaw are brilliant. They have each achieved the highest levels of scholarship in their fields of literature after sharing all 13 years of their education, starting with their first class together as undergrads, and continuing all the way through their doctoral program. It would be an understatement to say they are academic rivals. But Jonah comes from and elite, overachieving academic family, and Sadie is a hard-working orphaned daughter whose sister sacrifices everything she can to make sure Sadie realizes her dream.
The problem comes when the rivals must find a way to make a living in the highly competitive academic world, both wanting full professorships in a tight market where only a few positions ever open up. When they find they are both applying for the same job, in a location Jonah needs to support his beloved, abandoned sister, and Sadie needs because the job is open to her less than traditional specialty, the competition heats up.
But when Sadie wins, she can’t leave well enough alone.
This book is a great enemy to friend romance, particularly for anyone who’s had to suffer toxic academia. The characters are fully formed, with just enough vocabulary, and footnotes! to authenticate the situation. Set in Australia, the reader learns that toxicity is as universal as a good romance. An Academic Affair was published November 14, 2025, by Atria books. Thanks to NetGalley and the Publisher for the review copy.
Death at the Door by Olivia Blacke
Ruby has overcome her squeamishness, and thinks of Cordelia, the ghost, as her only true friend in Boston. Cordelia is fond of naïve Ruby and wants to help her make her way. Only murder cases keep falling to them, and they keep figuring out the mysteries!
This is the second book in the Cordelia/Ruby series by this author. I haven’t had the pleasure of reading the first one, but that didn’t make Death at the Door hard to follow. The characters are delightful, and the book has a touch of the dark underbelly of both the tech world and Boston. Great book for people who like to “play” with ghosts! Thanks to NetGalley and St Martin’s/Minotaur for the review copy. Death at the Door was released October 21, 2025.
Vanessa Mayfield is a woman of faith, and her first thought when faced with a question is to pray on it. A devout southern mother and military widow, Vanessa sends her only child off to college and worries about what’s next. But she has a mission--to find the antique ring that has been handed down in her husband’s family for generations… the ring she lost. Her plan is to find the ring and continue the legacy by giving it to her daughter.
Her quest takes her to Ben Miller’s Antique shop and destiny takes over. Ben has lost his wife as well, and he and Vanessa strike up conversation that turns to friendship, and then more. I understand that this book has been made into a movie that releases in theaters November sixth. Fans of Hallmark Christmas movies, spiritual romances and a love story that won’t embarrass you will enjoy getting to know Vanessa, Ben and the military families of Columbus, Georgia. The Christmas Ring will be available to purchase on October 21, 2025. Thanks to NetGalley, and the publisher, Thomas Nelson Fiction, for the advanced review copy.
