Solid Second Stage. The easiest way to describe this series, for those who haven't read the first book, is to imagine the TV show Blue Bloods... but instead the family is Hispanic and lives in Phoenix. If you're even vaguely familiar with that show (and to be clear, I've never watched a single episode of it, just seen several ads and a few clips over the years), that gives you a reasonably solid idea of what to expect in general with this series.

In this installment in particular, we get what appears at first glance to be just an accidental overdose... except, well, it comes to the Angelharts' attention and Margot in particular smells a rat.

Over the course of 400+ pages, Brennan never really lets the story drag at all. There is enough mystery and danger here to carry the tension, and enough familial interaction to give the tale depth, heart, and even a touch of humor at times.

This noted, the 21 Jump Street (both movie and, at least according to my understanding - the show came out when I was still a young kid - the show) parallels are so obvious here in this particular mystery that Brennan actively leans into them, openly having her characters talk about the show at a point or two.

Overall this really is a solid second outing for these characters, and it will be interesting to see what Brennan comes up with for them next.

Very much recommended.

Solid Book Three Is So Different From Others In Series That It Can Serve As An Introduction. This book is very different than most third books in a series in that it is so very different from the first two that if two of the main characters didn't also appear in the prior books, you would almost say these books weren't in the same universe at all.

And yet, the book still absolutely works - and even works as a way of a more "real world" type introduction to these characters before you dive into the more paranormal-ish realism of the prior two books. Apparently several other Advance Review Copy readers didn't realize this was Book 3 of the series - a series I've been reading since the beginning, though with on average 200 ish books read between reading installments of this series, even as I've read them all as Advance Review Copies myself - and they all claim that this book works well as a standalone, so there's that perspective as well. :)

Overall, even with the toned down paranormal aspects here - and perhaps because of the toned-down paranormal aspects here, Mejia has crafted a particularly compelling missing person/ found family thriller that doesn't bend your mind the way the prior two books do... but perhaps makes your pulse pound that much harder because of it. Particularly through one sequence late in the text, my own heart was racing enough that I actually glanced at my smart watch to make sure I was actually fine and didn't need to call 911. Seriously.

In the end, truly a creative and compelling third book in the series that leaves open the possibility for more books without explicitly setting anything up, it will be interesting to see where Mejia chooses to go from here.

Very much recommended.

The Dust In The Room Slowly Builds Up. This is one of those books where the first half in particular is rather slow... but you can feel the room getting slightly dustier the entire time you're reading the book. By the end, the room will be quite dusty indeed and it will be difficult to read due to the water your eyes are producing to try to protect themselves from the dust.

Truly an amazing tale well told, with great respect to the Amish community it uses as part of its base and also of rural America it uses as most of the rest of the base of the tale.

This is the story of how one life can impact so many people, of how one community can both shape and be shaped by one extraordinary person... and how even small rural communities cope with the secrets in their midst.

This is one of those tales that will give you hope. That will restore your faith in humanity... and maybe even higher. One where you're going to laugh. You're going to cry. You're going to stare into the void in wonder and amazement. And maybe, just maybe, you'll find a degree of peace.

Very much recommended.

Among The Best Wrestling Memoirs Ever Written. I've been reading wrestling memoirs roughly as long as Niedhart has been a professional wrestler - beginning roughly in 2001 when we were both in our late teens, maybe slightly earlier - whenever Mick Foley's first book hit mass market paperback. And yes, I've read both of Foley's early books. I've read at least one of Jericho's books, I've read Batista's book and at least one of HBK's books. I even read The Rock's dad ("Soulman" Rocky Johnson)'s book and Hornswoggle's book. More recently, I've read Rousey's 2024 book along with Lynch's book released at nearly the same time. Earlier this year, I had a chance to do an Advance Review Copy of Killer Kross's book that released about a month ago as I write this review.

In other words, I have a lot of experience reading wrestler's memoirs, though there are still several I've yet to get to.

And y'all, I absolutely put this one right up there among the top.

This one is full of everything that makes a good wrestling memoir great - the history, the peeks behind the scenes at various points and from Niedhart's view from whatever age she was at the time growing up, her own story from the first time she ever picked up The Anvil's championship belt through becoming a multi-time Champion within WWE herself. We see more of her struggles with her dad than even Total Divas really had any capacity of showing. We see her fears - shared by fellow third generation Superstar who also wrote a forward to this book, "some kid named Dwayne" (as Soulman said in his book) - of whether she could live up to her family's legacy. We see how that legacy shaped both the woman and the professional Neidhart has become - for good and not so great. We even get a friends to lovers romance for the ages that few even fictional romance authors can replicate, showing the first time TJ first showed up at Hart House through their struggles together when he broke his neck in the ring and beyond.

This book seems very transparent - yes, many of us thought we knew Niedhart particularly from Total Divas (though as with all "reality" shows, that one became quite obviously barely anything resembling reality rather quickly, particularly after the first season), but here we see even more of her story, particularly her absolute love and admiration for her dad... and all the heartache this caused as his mental condition deteriorated over the years.

Bookending with the 2019 WWE Hall of Fame Induction of Neidart's uncle Bret 'The Hitman' Hart and her dad Jim 'The Anvil' Niedhart as The Hart Foundation seems a deliberate editorial choice, a way to stop before the pandemic / "Thunderdome" era of WWE... and perhaps lay the groundwork for a later memoir to pick up exactly there, ala Foley, Jericho, and even HBK's follow-up books?

Wrestling fans of any stripe are going to love this book. There's simply too much history here for you not to, including Niedhart's own interactions with one Vincent Kennedy McMahon, Jr over the years. More than that though, this is going to be one for a lot more people. For the Millennial cat moms - yes, Niedhart briefly touches on why she chose not to have human children. For the woman afraid to stand up for herself in her own career - Niedhart shows that even with a legendary legacy in your industry behind you, standing up for yourself is still daunting, but sometimes absolutely must be done. For those interested in women in sports - Niedhart shows the path she made through some family connections but also several shit tons of hard ass work... and a bit of luck even, at times.

Very much recommended.

Flawed Premise And Weirdly Exacting Time Selection Move Interesting Premise To Garbage Narrative. This is one of those books that I wanted to like. I strongly believe, based on my own historical studies over the years, that there is a truly strong case to be made for how violence has shaped the modern world in ways that most humans alive today simply aren't aware of. There is a case to be made for how violence and conquest shape almost literally every facet of everything we currently know, up to and including the most bleeding edge sciences all largely having their origins in military research and applications - including all of computing and very nearly everything we as humanity are doing both in astronomy and in particle physics.

Unfortunately, this book doesn't even begin to attempt to make that case.

Instead, this is yet another anti-capitalist polemic wherein a "historian" attempts to reframe history... and yet provides a bibliography one would typically expect from a more mundane and well trod "this is what happened at this event" type history book. In other words, it is far from meeting the Sagan Standard of "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". And yet, at roughly 22% bibliography (in addition to several more pages of front matter listing many dozens of people and events covered in the text), this text sufficiently meets my 20-30% documentation expectations for nonfiction books generally, so actually doesn't lose a star there. Note even here though that while there is technically enough bibliography, it is also extremely cherry picked to show exactly the narrative Crais is trying to frame without ever even hinting at other possible interpretations of the events at hand.

No, the two star deductions are distinct enough (in my mind at least) to warrant two separate deductions, but also linked in that they form the basis of how Crais approaches his entire narrative.

For one, Crais blames all of captialism's rise on slavery... without even going into the 20th century to try to frame the various labor debates there as also slavery or even including the rise of mass incarceration or fast fashion or any other well known labor abuses as also slavery, choosing to instead end his narrative at the end of the 19th century. Thus, even though Great Britain ended slavery relatively early in the time period Crais does choose to focus on and the US fought a civil war near the end of it to force the end of slavery... Crais still blames all of capitalism's ills on, according to him, capitalism being based on slavery and absolutely nothing else.

For another, and yes, I hinted at this above, Crais is oddly specific in his choice of time period and even areas of focus, choosing to examine only Great Britain and the United States and to begin specifically in 1750 with the publication of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations and end at the end of the 19th century, well before capitalism really took off... and yet also before communism caused the deaths of literally millions of people itself... often via direct State violence. This odd specificity allows Crais to openly ignore other violences even within the period he chooses to examine, such as the Napoleonic Wars.

There is great promise in a book that truly and fully explores the history of human violence in its totality and shows how that violence has created and shaped our modern world as we know it.

I simply wish Crais had made even a modicum of an attempt at writing such a history. Perhaps this book would have been better with a different title and more honest and specific premise?

Not recommended.

Quite Possibly Walker's Best Yet. I've been reading Walker's books for several years now, finding him with An Unfinished Journey, which was apparently his next book after the Red Mountain saga. Because of my own reading schedule - 90% of which, including Unfinished Journey and every other book from Walker I've read, including this one, is Advance Review Copy based - I haven't had a chance to go back and read that saga yet.

With this book... I really need to. Not because I needed it in order to understand this book, quite the opposite. This book is so compelling and so well told that it really makes you feel for Mr. Otis Till and all that he has gone through - stuff that apparently is largely history by the beginning of the Red Mountain books, as this is his "origin" story and apparently he is a key player in the rest of the saga.

Told in a dual timeline manner with a touch of the supernatural/ magical realism, this is one of those books that uses those components well enough that even people who claim to not like any book that uses them - and yes, I've seen some of those types of readers over the years - shouldn't have any difficulty with this book and indeed, I would even go so far as to say that if you allow yourself to miss this book because of your own hangups on those types of issues, you're doing yourself a great disservice and missing out on a truly terrific book.

This is one of those tales that so very many men can relate to - the same type of story that made The Greatest Showman so truly spectacular. A man struggling to attain his life's desires, finding it... and finding what really matters after all. Many of us have either been there or are somewhere along that path and can identify all too well with these desires, and Walker captures that struggle across the decades perfectly.

And yet there is more than enough here for female readers as well, as we see how Till first meets the love of his life and how she shapes the life they lead together across all the years they have left together... and then some.

Those looking for ghost pepper level spice won't find that here, but also those looking for no more spice than a warm glass of milk may get quite red in the cheeks at times, or perhaps even get the vapors. There is nothing here that I would hesitate at all to put in front of a mid-teen or so, though it is likely a bit much for those younger than that. (To be fair, it is also one that those younger than that won't be able to relate to as much either, but most any adult should be able to relate all too well to.)

Truly quite likely Walker at his absolute best to date, this is one that both makes me want to go back and read the Red Mountain Saga... and hope that there are more books in this particular series forthcoming.

Very much recommended.

Academic Meta-Analysis Of The Fall Of Nuclear Terror As Primary Societal Scare In The United Kingdom. First off, this is both quite short and quite well documented - clocking in at just 175 or so pages and 34% or so documentation in the Advance Review Copy I read weeks before publication. So it absolutely has that going for it, for any reader. :)

As to the subject, Gardiner does a remarkable - and remarkably focused - job of taking the reader through the last 70 ish years of British entertainment/ zeitgeist history and showing how while once (during the Cold War and its immediate aftermath) nuclear terror was a driver in the overall consciousness of the British people, of late those concerns have become a background as the populace is more focused on other issues, including immigration and difficulties caused by it.

Gardiner, appearing based on the text here to be a Scotsman and perhaps even a member of the Scottish National Party - whom he refers to favorably in several instances herein and with whom he seems to share a focus on the UK's Trident nuclear missile program (apparently based primarily in Scotland?) -, clearly doesn't like the lack of focus on the nuclear threat, seeing it as a looming threat even now that, according to him, eclipses all other concerns even today.

Even with the excellent documentation here, I don't feel that Gardiner was convincing in his arguments, but that could well be a "me" thing. To me, it seems that he is glossing over quite a few very real concerns in his exacting focus on "the nuclear threat is THE primary existential threat we face!!!".

(To be clear, I am an American from the Southern US whose every traceable-so-far ancestor was in the US for the last 150 or so years, but who largely came from either Great Britain or Ireland before that. (And yes, here I said "Great Britain" quite intentionally - to date, I've traced none of them to Scotland itself.) While I am very familiar with US politics, certainly this Millennium, I readily admit to being only extremely vaguely familiar with UK politics. To the level that a UK reader may find much more here to agree or disagree with than I have, and may quite likely find this review to be quite idiotic.)

Overall this is an interesting enough look into an area I hadn't really considered beforehand, and with its brevity works well for those open to nonfiction who are looking for a rather short, rather quick read. Indeed, I seem to have read this book in barely a couple of hours, as a rough benchmark for what you might expect here.

Very much recommended.

Lots Of Moving Parts Combine For One Explosive Thriller. This is one of those books where you know from Page 1 that little is going to actually be as it seems... and yet Marsh is going to keep you guessing and keep the reveals coming all the way until almost literally the very last words of this just-shy-of-300 page tale.

This is one where pretty well every character has some dark secret they are trying to protect, which is where most of the tension throughout the text comes to bear. Everyone thinks they know everyone and everyone thinks this is a titular "perfect family", except we know as readers that this is far from what is actually going on.

This does all happen in Australia, and apparently the narrators thus use Australian accents in their reading. I actually explicitly chose an Australian voice on my Text To Speech reader for this book because of the setting and Marsh herself being Australian, and it absolutely worked well for me.

There is also quite a bit of teen/ new adult drama to be had here, including one scene in particular that while some may find distasteful also is and has been far too common. Marsh actually plays the scene well both in what she chooses to actively show - and not - and in how she shows its impact throughout our "perfect" family, which drives a large portion of the narrative here.

Overall truly a fun, twisty family suspense/ thriller with oh so much going on on so many different levels, this really is a great end of summer/ start of the new school year read, and is thus fairly well positioned for its print release on the day after US Labor Day, when even Yankee schools start back. Southern US schools have generally been back for at least a few weeks already by this point, and indeed all of my nephew and nieces started school nearly a full month before the Kindle edition release of this book.)

Very much recommended.

Solid Examination Of The Topic. I've read books before where when you read the publisher's description of the book and then read the book, you wonder what whoever within the publisher actually wrote that description was smoking... and if you can get your hands on some of that clearly mind altering stuff.

This book is not that. Instead, here the publisher's description as I write this review nearly three weeks before publication is truly spot on exactly what you're getting here - all the way down to the fact that this is very clearly a 2020s Academia level book both in styling and in what it emphasizes.

The overall writing here is a touch dry and absolutely more dense than the casual reader will likely prefer, and yet it is still a very readable tome in the same way that fruitcake is technically edible and lead is great for many applications... and not so great for others.

Thus, if you're interested in a detailed history of exactly how this particular spirit came to be and how it became such a sought-after commodity in its era (and how it helped actively create markets in said era, along with spawning at least a few idioms known even today), this is absolutely going to be a book to pick up. You're going to learn a lot, and you may be a hit at Rum Trivia.

If you're a more casual reader looking for a history of an alcohol related topic to perhaps read while sipping your favorite refreshment at the beach (because here in Florida, we truly have (nearly) Endless Summer) or perhaps while overlooking the changing fall colors (as this book will be published in mid September, when if I remember correctly some leaves in more northern areas start to turn) from your porch with a fire burning in the fireplace... this book may be a touch too dense, but certainly close enough to at least use the "Look Inside" feature on Amazon to get an idea of how the prose works for your own tastes.

Overall truly a solid and well documented (roughly 29% of the Advance Review Copy edition I read, right around the upper range of what I consider normal in that regard) look at the liquor, its history, and its impact on history, with just a few brief mentions of anything beyond the 19th century in the closing notes of the epilogue. Well worth the read for anyone, even as realistically I know it will mostly be read by actual historians and academics or perhaps others with strong professional interests or perhaps hyper-fixations on the topic.

Very much recommended.

The Publisher Used The Perfect Review Tagline! I'm not joking on that headline either. As I write this review just over a month before this book publishes, the very first line of the current description of this book says "Untangling the Sunday School Stories You Learned from the Biblical History You Haven't". And dammit, had they not used that line, I WOULD HAVE!.

That book is the singular PERFECT way to describe this book in a succinct manner. It really is exactly what you're getting here.

In this book, an actual field archaeologist goes through the Bible nearly cover to cover showing what the field of archaeology has discovered... and what it hasn't. Written from an unequivocally Christian perspective, this is a book that doesn't try to destroy faith - and yet also actively debunks claims that the evidence simply can't support, even while fully acknowledging and even actively embracing the supernatural in instances where there is wiggle room. (Absence of evidence not being evidence of absence and all that jazz. ;) )

In many of my reviews of Christian books I've deducted a star for prooftexting, and while Haley does in fact cite Bible verses frequently throughout this text... she never actually engages in that practice. Indeed, she cites the verse specifically to place it within its context both Biblically and historically and archaeologically. Thus, she's actually doing quite the opposite of prooftexting, even while employing a similar mechanism.

No, the star deduction here is simply the dearth of the bibliography, clocking in at just 8% or so of the text I have in my Advance Review Copy - vs the roughly double that that would be an acceptable (ish) minimum per the documentation standards of other nonfiction books I've read over the years. (And indeed, many of the remaining nonfiction ARCs I have clock in at or north of 30% documentation, a few even hitting the 40% and above mark!)

Overall though, this really is a particularly strong book that may potentially be controversial for the hyper religious (both Christians and those who oppose anything remotely related to Christianity), but is well within the Overton Window for most readers. The writing style is very approachable, far from the dense and dusty academy-speak one might fear they would be getting into here, and thus truly very much approachable for most any reader capable of reading chapter books at all.

Very much recommended.

Masterful Thriller That Will Keep You On The Edge Of Your Seat. McKinnon has become a true master of the kind of suspense/ thriller where you're still on the edge of your seat and trying to figure out what comes next... when their suddenly is no more "next" to be had in the book.

Now, don't get me wrong, she tells a complete story every time. She's just also become a master of telling that story and then leaving just enough dangling so well that you want that story to continue, even though it has reached its final point for the story she was telling in this particular tale.

Arguably one "weakness" here - more something I've just never gotten into and don't really understand the "appeal" of - is the podcast base of this tale. McKinnon uses it particularly well to tell her story, both in featuring actual podcasts within the tale and in using the relationships of the various personalities that create and work on and around podcasts to great effect.

For me though, the strength of this tale really is the relational. McKinnon creates here a woman with several crucial relationships... and one she isn't aware of that is about to push her to her limits. Because the best relationship in this book isn't the marriage or the friend or any of the other usual suspects.

It is the antagonist our leading lady finds out through this tale that she has. While our leading lady is no (Sherlock) Holmes or (Aloysious) Pendergast or (Charles) Xavier or even (Clarice) Starling, our antagonist here absolutely is one that fans of Moriarty or Diogenes or Lensherr or Lecter will absolutely love. Because yes, the antagonist McKinnon creates here is that good.

And yet... if our antagonist is that damn good and one way to measure someone is by the strength and ability of their enemies... doesn't that mean that our leading lady actually is that damn good herself?

How about you read the book and write your own review on whatever platform you're reading this review on and let us know. :) Feel free to tag me in it, assuming that is possible on said platform.

Overall though, this book really is very well done, exactly as fans of McKinnon expect from her... and may even be her best yet.

Very much recommended.

Action Packed Island Adventure With Heart. This is one of those books that is going to be great for damn near any reader. If you're more a women's fiction type... well, there's a lot of aspects of that happening here between one of our main characters coming to the island specifically over some trauma she is trying to heal from and one of our other main characters and the reasons she lives on the island permanently. Both of which play central roles in this tale.

Then for the action/ adventure/ mystery crowd, suddenly the tale spins and becomes much more action/ suspense/ mystery based, with unexpected newcomers threatening to kill everyone currently on the island. Through this section - much of the rest of the book, with the relationship drama folded into this new survival/ action pacing - we get a near Atomfall / early Tomb Raider/ Lara Croft type tale wherein the islanders have to evade their captors and sneak their way around as they work to find some way back to safety.

Both sides of the storytelling work well with each other, with richly detailed main characters providing a lot of the heart even as their various and conflicting motivations also lead to some of the difficulties being faced here.

The Pacific Northwest island setting also plays a strong role here and Hodge describes it so wonderfully that you'll likely want to consider vacationing out there yourself... without the drama and survival tale taking place within the setting of this particular tale. :D

Truly an excellently written tale that works superbly on many different levels.

Very much recommended.

Solid Maddie Evans Clean Romance. I've been reading Evans' books for a few years now, and this first entrant in a new series is a perfect exemplar of her style... with references (and a few cameos) to what I think was the first series I read from her (the Brighthead Running Club). And yes, if you like what you see here, that series offers several great books to read while you wait for this trilogy to complete out over the next couple of months. :)

What you get here is a small town romance where everyone knows everyone... except when they don't, because suddenly there is a new guy in town. Foodies will absolutely love all of the restaurant details in this book, and knitters/ crocheters will love all of the yarn talk herein (by an author who is an avid knitter and crocheter herself. Seriously, wait until you see the author's note at the end here. :D)

Those looking for anything more spicy than a warm glass of milk will be disappointed here, but "spice" and "Maddie Evans" have never really gone together. There are other authors that offer that, but Evans always manages to create a compelling romance that does not shy away from the fact that her characters would like to go there... without ever actually going there. So in this book, for example, there is some heavy kissing... and that is as far as anything actually goes. Seriously, my 10yo niece has seen more in the TV shows she watches these days.

There is one common romance element employed here that turns some off, but revealing it feels a touch spoilery so I'll simply note that it is so common that it is used across every trope I'm aware of, which is why I refer to it as an 'element' rather than a 'trope'. So those that are hyper sensitive to this particular one can probably guess what I'm referring to here, but this should note should be vague enough that it doesn't actually spoil anything. :)

With the epilogue both closing out this story and blatantly setting the next one in motion, this is absolutely going to be one series where you'll be glad that the next book is just a few weeks away. (Indeed, I was sent ARCs of all three books at once, so I can personally verify that all three are at least ready enough to release to ARC readers, which is a significant step to making them fully ready. :D)

Again, truly a solid romance full of the joy of creating and arts that will make you fall in love with both these characters and this world, thus serving as an almost "Iron Man" level tale. (Ok, I'm a dude. I had to get something in here to save at least a modicum of my man card! :D)

Very much recommended.

Appropriately Weighty Look At Life After Loss. This historical fiction novel set in 1960s era Maryland - which plays a role in both some of the story and in some of the things that happen herein, and thus why it is worth mentioning - really does a rather terrific job of giving an appropriate amount of weight to moving on after the death of a spouse. It has its moments of comedy, as all life should, but it is far from a comedy book. It has its moments of utter despair, as life truly does, but it isn't a super heavy book either.

Instead, Confino finds that near perfect balance between the two and uses both to show how life sucks at times - but there is also hope and joy to be found. There is peace. Moving on is so hard - but it is doable, and ultimately must be done.

As seems common across Confino's books (now having read this one and 2024's Behind Every Good Man), bigotry towards Jews in that era and their experiences coming out of not just Germany but also Russia and Eastern Europe in the years not-then-distant, do in fact play a role here, and Confino does an excellent job making these situations realistic without going into preachy territory. Similarly, once again this book is a celebration of all things Jewish as they relate to the time and place at hand in all its shades of good and not so great, from celebrating various cultural practices to discussions of the then-still-happening creation of suburbia and its implications for this specific cultural community.

But ultimately the true heart of this tale is family - a very specifically and intentionally Jewish family, yet still a family that anyone can relate to on that level. And it absolutely works. Most adults are going to have living parents that sometimes exasperate them. They're going to have at least one in-law that can sometimes be difficult or meddling. (For what its worth, I got particularly lucky there. Seriously, my mother in law is damn near a saint, and my father in law is a fellow tech geek that I can nerd out with about tech any time. :) ) They're going to have kids that have their own lives and needs and wants - and grandparents that spoil them and have their own attitudes about how said kids should be raised. They're going to have friends and pets and neighbors and people they know by sight because they're always in the school pick up line or the grocery store or what have you at the same time. They're going to have work colleagues that are amazing and work colleagues that are... let's go with "not so amazing" ;). And all of this is here, making this book have that much more life and making it feel that much more real.

And when we get into the endgame here... well, it aint "Avengers! Assemble.", but instead hits more along the lines of "My name is Andrew Shepherd, and I am the President.". (An ancient reference and yet a damn fine movie with several excellent points in its climactic speech even ignoring the more explicitly partisan and plot based points.) In other words, you may be tempted to cheer out loud. I encourage you to do so, even in a library. If the librarian shushes you, tell them that this reviewer told them to shush, that this book needed that at that moment and that more importantly, you needed to do it in that moment. And yet, in the end, for all the bombast and comedy, it really is the quieter moments that really make this book everything that it is.

Very much recommended.

Solid Examination Of The Topic. This is a book written by a sailor that goes deep into all things rope, including its earliest known histories through to its future uses as currently known and planned. We get a lot of history from eras from prehistory through Egypt and the Greeks through the Age of Exploration (and even some about the Chinese exploration expeditions) through rope's uses in executions both sanctioned by governments and not all the way into bleeding edge rope tech taking us into the future of humanity. Through this narrative, I guarantee you that you are going to learn at least something you didn't previously know - I know I did. I appreciated that the chapter titles were themed to the idea of individual strands in a piece of rope, as that was both perfect theming and a great way of organizing and thinking about the overall history being presented.

Ultimately, this book had two weaknesses for me, though only one worthy of a star deduction. The other, simply a discussion here in the review - a warning, really, to other readers who may be less prepared for it.

The warning is that Queeney is a sailor and really knows his rope - and knots. He can get quite technical, particularly when he's talking about how to rig ropes for sailing - which is a significant topic in the book. Through these sections, I recommend the literary/ reading equivalent of the social "nod and 'uh huh'" when someone is talking about some passion that you're interested in, but clearly nowhere near as interested in as they are. Read every word - don't skim it - but allow yourself to not focus on "I must remember every detail of this!".

Outside of these hyper detailed sections though (and even within them, really), the book really is quite well written and very fascinating indeed in all that it reveals. I'm not joking whatsoever when I mentioned above that even I learned from this book. I really did. Quite a bit that I had never even considered previously. So absolutely go into this book preparing to learn more about this particular subject than at any time since you left formal schooling, whenever that may have been for you.

The star deduction is for the dearth of a bibliography, coming in at 12% or so of the text - still over 30 pages of documented sources in a book of this length, to be clear - which falls just short of even my relaxed-ish standard of 15% and further short of the 20-30% documentation I had been expecting earlier in my reviewing efforts several years ago.

So... that's it. That's the review. Go read this book, even if you had never considered the topic and don't necessarily want to learn anything new. Because this book may be hyper focused, but that actually increases its overall quality and ultimately usefulness.

Very much recommended.

Strong Tale Packs A Punch - And Leaves Enough Left For An Exciting Followup. This is one of those books that packs such an emotional weight that I think the best comparison I can make goes back nearly a decade now - to Laurie Breton's Coming Home, which I read circa 2017 or so and was the first book I ever used the term "tour de force" to describe.

This one doesn't hit quite as hard as that one, but it'll still land a few haymakers. Maybe Mike Tyson vs George Foreman when both were in their primes. In other words, "mere mortal", prepare for an emotional beatdown with this book... in the best possible ways.

Seriously, this has "summer romance that can go so much further" written all over it, and thus its release window - just before Labor Day in the US, after at least some kids (including my nieces and nephew) have started back to school already but right there as college Fall Semester is starting up and summer is coming to a close - is damn near perfect for exactly this story. Even now literally 20 yrs post college and having been married for the vast majority of that time (18 yrs this Fall vs graduating 20 yrs ago this past May), I don't know, for some reason this season of the year just evokes those kinds of emotions for me, and always has.

There isn't really any comedy here, so the levity is more in the fact that we're not in the middle of an emotional scene and are thus riding the swell to the next one (ha! a surfing metaphor, in a book that does include some surfing!). And yet the book works perfectly well because of this, rather than in spite of the lack of comedy. Not all tales need to be romcoms, and this one in particular is well served by keeping the comedy out. It allows the emotions to have the heft and also the breathing room they need to really work well.

Some may argue that in at least one somewhere between jalapeno and habanero scene that "they're only 17!!!!". A valid point, in that exact scene. But it also reflects reality going back essentially as long as humanity itself, and that scene helps give the overall tale the weight it needs for what happens later in the timeline. (I don't remember where this exact scene is in the actual storytelling.) If you're going to 1 or 2 star this book over that scene, it really says more about you than Wiesner, her storytelling abilities, or this tale in particular, and now that I've told you the scene is there, it really is on you, the reader of my review, to just avoid this book if that truly is a dealbreaker for you. I'll tell you right now you're depriving yourself of one of the more emotional romance tales I've read in my life - maybe even beating out Nicholas Sparks on the emotional side - but that is completely on you, and you do what you need to do. Just don't be unfair to this book when I specifically made you aware of the existence of this issue here. :D

Overall, again, truly one of the more emotional and thus stronger overall romances I've read in quite some time, and even though it leaves a few threads unanswered, it does so in ways that make it clear that they will be explored in Book 2... which I am very excited to get in my hands ASAP. Per Wiesner herself on social media gearing up for the release of this book, that one is titled All The Ways You Break Me and releases in February 2026 - roughly six months from now. I tell you now that unless Bookouture (the publisher) or Wiesner prevent me from doing so, I will be reviewing that book and on its blog tour as well. I wish it were already in my hands. And you're very likely going to say that last sentence yourself if you read this book near release date, as hopefully you see this review in time to do. :)

Very much recommended.

Tight-Set Story Packs Hefty Punches. This is one of those tight set stories where it isn't a locked room, but the overall setting for much of the story isn't more than a handful of buildings/ places seemingly separated by as many blocks - in other words, a lot tighter than many of Lane's other historical fiction (always WWII based) stories, many of which span countries. Yes, a few scenes - notably in the beginning and ending of the tale - are set in other areas, but the vast bulk of the story takes place along a few key streets in Lisbon over a period of just a few weeks or so, thus using the location and time as an effective way to increase both the tension and the suspense of the tale.

Yet again, Lane takes great care to craft fictional yet also all too realistic characters with all too common backstories and motivations, place them in very real situations within WWII, and allow us, her readers, the chance to see how these situations very likely played out in all-too-real manners for our parents/ grandparents/ great grandparents. (Yes, it is hard to believe that that era is now great and in some cases even great-great grandparents, but that is the nature of time. ;) )

While not as harrowing as some of Lane's more recent historical fiction novels and by no means a spy-thriller ala Ludlum's Bourne books, this is also a solid spy drama showcasing intelligence gathering by atypical people in completely typical situations, and Lane does a solid job of showing just how much people of this era were willing to and ultimately did sacrifice for the good of all.

Very much recommended.

Interesting And Atypical Use Of Time. Admittedly, I'm a sucker for a "glimpse" based story. What makes this one stand out is that instead of spending an extended period of time in the alternate world and coming back to some realization or another, here our main character jumps sporadically and uncontrollably somewhat similar to The Time Traveller's Wife, and just like in that tale, it turns out she is seeing at least one possible future. Unlike Time Traveller's Wife, the expansions really are just a few moments at a time before the "snap back" to the actual reality/ timeline. So it presents a very interesting dynamic and storytelling choice.

As to the overall tale itself, kind of a Gilmore Girls/ Hallmarkie type mashup where you've got a woman with an interesting yet quirky (by the time we encounter her) career in a seemingly small ish town with a single dad parent with a tragic backstory of his own that is full of family and banter. There's a lot here that hits a lot of solid notes for many readers, and I do think most readers will enjoy this book.

One thing to note is that there are a few moments throughout where the room gets a bit dusty, or perhaps a few onions are being cut in the middle of the page. If the light to moderate dust/ onions don't get to you, be prepared for quite a bit more in a much more concentrated dose in the Author's Note after the end of the tale. Seriously, if the tale itself doesn't break you, the Author's Note will.

Overall a solid romantic drama more than anything, with enough comedy to keep it from being too heavy. Perfect for a late summer release (and it is, in the middle of August), as it hits those "beginning to get more serious" notes quite well while still having just enough light "there's still fun to be had" after notes.

Very much recommended.

Solid Family/ Psychological Drama/ Suspense. This tale takes the concept of twins - always interesting to me given that my grandfather was a twin and two of my nieces are twins - and spins a solid psychological/ suspense family drama in and around them in ways that are unfortunately all too realistic in at least some circles in the Southern US.

This is a richly complex tale with a lot going on, even as it has only a few central character and only two primary viewpoints - that of both of the twins. One twin is written in a manner that reads a touch unusually, which can be a problem for some readers, but I thought that view written in that manner actually worked quite well for the story being presented here. The other twin uses a more standard writing style and should pose little difficulty for most readers.

Overall one of the more rare and inventive ways to tell this type of tale I've come across, both io the use of twins and in the overall setting involved - the titular locked ward. Pekkanen easily has a solid hit here - I'm not sure that I would quite call it a home run, particularly given the struggles some will have reading the one twin, but I would absolutely call this a solid stand up double. (A baseball analogy, in case it wasn't clear from the "home run" bit. What can I say, I am a dude. :D)

Very much recommended.