After Madeline killed the scientists that Kari was working with to make a point about obedience and took control of the remote that switched on and off Kari's telepathy, she's in a difficult position living and working with her. She is determined to find a way to pit Madeline and Henry against each other and keep her family safe while doing so, but it'll be difficult

I read Project O.R.C.A. and really enjoyed it, but I unfortunately cannot say the same for Project Duplicity. A lot of the ways that Kari's spying worked were inconsistent with the way intelligence agencies actually work, and illogical. Kari also became significantly less sympathetic in this book. I was going to rate the book 4 stars, but the degree to which she was unsympathetic made me rate the book 3 stars instead. I understand that she's traumatized and struggling with her job and keeping everyone safe, but that isn't a good reason to essentially cheat on her partners/two-time them. It promotes a negative stereotype about bisexual/pansexual women (that they're all cheaters), and additionally, Kari apparently fantasizes about having a threesome with her male lover and her female lover, despite the female lover being a lesbian and that being the reason that they can't be in a triad relationship. It's just really offensive, because of how much lesbians in our society are pressured to like men, engage sexually with them or be "flexible". It's really not a good thing to start dating the guy that the girl you rejected because you were "unable to date because you weren't ready for a relationship" introduced you to after explicitly saying you couldn't date.

I also don't really know what the author is doing with killing off so many major characters. I know that it's a thriller book, but I don't know how the plot will work with major characters being killed off in every book. One of the characters who died was very interesting to me, and their death is making me lose interest in the series, along with how unsympathetic Kari has become. I also felt that this book had more of a showing vs telling problem than the previous book — like, why didn't we actually see the scene where Belle dove into a shark tank instead of just hearing about it? That would've been cool!

If you specifically like unsympathetic characters in your spy thrillers or just aren't really bothered by that aspect, you may still enjoy this book but I did not.

I received a complimentary review copy from the author. All opinions are my own.

Read the full review with representation information and trigger warnings on my blog.

Four girls named Taylor after Taylor Swift are separating for the summer before their sophomore year of high school. TS is going to England with her girlfriend Gemma, Taylor is going to be a summer camp counselor, and Teffy and Tay are still at home in Indiana. Their relationships are all going to be tested, and Taylor has a nasty surprise when she arrives at summer camp in the form of her manipulative ex-boyfriend.

Like other readers, I thought this book was better written than the first book in the series. The main character's stories all feel more independent of each other and less confusing since the different settings are clear. My favorite of the four stories was probably TS and Gemma's story because I'm a sucker for sapphic stories about royalty and nobility, but I enjoyed all of them.

As for Taylor's story — wow, if I didn't hate Hunter before from the first book, Love Stories (I did), I sure do now. He is Taylor's supervisor/senior counselor at the summer camp she's being a counselor at, and he decides if he can't win her back he's going to sabotage her. He's very much the kind of villain that you love to hate, but he's unfortunately a realistic picture of how some men behave. And yes, he is a man — he's graduated high school and is fully an adult in this book. It's implied that he's still going after vulnerable young teenagers and a sexual predator, but it's not explicitly stated. Taylor's story is probably the darkest of the stories because of Hunter's manipulation and generally dangerous behavior in the climax of the story, but the rest of the stories are fairly lighthearted. Between Taylor and Tay's stories with their respective love interests/ex-love interests, the novel has some good messages for teenage girls about how to recognize a toxic relationship. A big theme of this book is coming of age and how much it's appropriate to change for your romantic partner, and it's explored well.

This book is a fun, fast read, and Elizabeth Eulberg again does a great job of depicting teenage girls in a way that feels like she cares about their emotional inner worlds.

Cruel Summer releases January 6 2026 from Scholastic. Thank you to Netgalley, Scholastic and Elizabeth Eulberg for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

Find the full review with representation information and trigger warnings on my blog

Kari is a teenage telepath born as the result of a ritual that gave her magical powers and genius abilities. She has been working on the theory of how to control her powers at will, but needs the money and resources in order to implement it. When billionaire Henry Wibawa offers her a job on his cruise ship working as a scientist, she jumps at the opportunity, but what she doesn't realize is that she will become involved in the criminal underworld of his business as a part of her job.

This was an engaging thriller with a romance subplot. The emphasis was more on Kari's powers and the mystery on the cruise ship she is working on, but the romance between Kari and her non-binary love interest, Finn, was well-written as well. Finn also has paranormal powers, although they are an empath and don't directly read minds like Kari does. The relationships between Kari and the side characters (her friends/coworkers and her mothers) are well-written, and feel realistic. The novel explores some of how Kari struggles to form relationships with others due to having trouble being in large gatherings and having to hide her powers. Although I'm not sure if it's intentional or not, Kari could read as resembling someone who is neurodivergent. She does at multiple times disguise her telepathy as seizures, so I think that it may be at least somewhat intentional as a metaphor.

The novel also has a lot of diverse representation. In addition to Kari being pansexual and neurodivergent-coded, her love interest is AMAB non-binary and Kari herself is a mix of Indian and Anishinaabe (a Native American tribe). Kari's mothers, the main characters from a previous trilogy by Bishop, are in a wholesome sapphic relationship. The representation adds interesting elements to the story, such as Kari's need to shave her hair holding unique challenges given her Anishinaabe ancestry, without seeming like it was there just so the author could say it was a diverse book. The novel is dark overall in theme while still having a good balance of funny moments (some of the thoughts Kari hears in other people's heads are pretty amusing). The villains, Henry and Madeleine, are villains you will love to hate. Project Duplicity, the sequel to Project O.R.C.A., comes out in November of this year, and I'm excited to read it. Fans of paranormal/sci-fi thrillers will enjoy this book.

I received a free review copy of this book from the author. All opinions are my own.

DNF @ 34%

Emma and Malcolm are descendants of rival families descended from slaves who gained their magical power in a Faustian bargain with the wife of their former slave master's wife. Every generation, a member from each of their families is forced to fight in the Tethered Gambit, a magical battle to the death where the loser's death feeds Sabine's immortality. When Emma sneaks off from her family, she meets Malcolm, and sparks fly despite them being supposed to hate each other.

This was beautifully written, but I just do not think it's my kind of novel. It was far too bleak, and the scenes between Emma and her grandmother are blatant abuse and yet these families are supposed to be loving to their family members. I just couldn't finish it when Emma's grandmother threatened her life for about the third time in order to keep Emma's brother in line. I also found some of the elements of sexism in the novel to be concerning. Sabine is clearly evil, but it's as if the author and all the characters think it wasn't traumatic to her at all to be sold off in marriage at age ten — hello, that's incredibly traumatic even if she is also evil herself. It could've made a good point about how hurt people hurt people but it was apparently just more evidence of how she doesn't care about the suffering of the slaves on the plantation. Malcolm also slut-shames her sister, and when she calls him on it it's treated as funny banter and not actually sexist.

If you enjoy stories about magical competitions and fights to the death and don't mind dark content or detailed abusive family dynamics, this book might be for you! It just wasn't for me, even if I can recognize that it is written well.