Latest Features and Contests
Bookreporter.com Bets On: EVERYTHING WAS BEAUTIFUL AND NOTHING HURT by Ben Reeves
Ben Reeves’ debut novel, EVERYTHING WAS BEAUTIFUL AND NOTHING HURT, revolves around a subject that we typically shy away from: death.
Yes, if you want a topic that no one wants to think about, death is high on the list. But here we have a book so packed with thoughts about life (as well as death), and it is written so beautifully, that you will not want to miss it. I see why it is July’s #1 Indie Next pick.
Throughout the novel, death moves into various people's lives at the final moments in a stealthy way but brings a peace with it. The dying have a moment to assess who they are and what they have done --- and, in at least one case, mourn what will be missed. These little vignettes stand alone but will touch you in various ways. What do they all have in common? What is different about them?
» Click here to read more of Carol's Bets On commentary.
» Click here to read our review.
Bookreporter.com Bets On: LITTLE WONDER by Sophie Chen Keller
There are books that steal a part of your heart. LITTLE WONDER by Sophie Chen Keller is one of them. In it, Song gives birth to a boy who she names River. Because of the availability of work, she is apart from her husband, Blue, who has headed hours away where he can find a job in construction. They eagerly plan to see one another each year at the Spring Festival and mark the time until they will be together again. But they continue to be separated. Sadly, Song gets a cryptic call one day that Blue has been killed in a construction accident, and a settlement will be made.
When this money arrives, Song buys a piano that her son, who clearly has an interest in music, can play. For years, River is trained locally, but Song realizes that his talent needs a bigger stage. So they head to Beijing where he has a chance to practice and perform. But in the very crowded Beijing Railway Station, Song and River are separated, and panic ensues. Song has all of their possessions on her back, except for the piano they needed to leave behind. Their search to find each other is futile.
» Click here to read more of Carol's Bets On commentary.
» Click here to read our review.
Bookreporter.com Bets On: SINGLE GIRLS by John Searles
SINGLE GIRLS by John Searles is a wonderful ode to Helen Gurley Brown --- and the “girls” who worked with her --- wrapped up in a brilliantly fun novel. John worked with Helen (in later days, he became comfortable calling her Helen instead of Mrs. Brown) when he started in the Books department at Cosmopolitan. Since I have known John, he has been fascinated by the mission of the magazine and its history.
This is a departure from the thrillers that we have come to expect from John, and his storytelling is spot-on. He nails the gumption and pluckiness that Helen harnessed. She wrote a book called SEX AND THE SINGLE GIRL, which encouraged women to become financially independent and experience sexual relationships before or without marriage. After its publication in 1962, she was inundated with letters from young women seeking her advice.
» Click here to read more of Carol's Bets On commentary.
» Click here to read our review.
» Click here to watch Carol's “Bookreporter Talks To” interview with John Searles.
» Click here to listen to a podcast of the interview.
Bookreporter.com's Word of Mouth Contest: Tell Us What You've Read --- and You Can Win Two Books!
Let us know by Friday, August 7th at noon ET what books you’ve read, and you’ll have a chance to win THE AMATEUR by Chris Bohjalian and CITY OF WIDOWS by Nadia Hashimi in our Word of Mouth contest.
When a young woman, a golf prodigy, kills a caddy with a stray ball at the country club, the investigation of this freak accident reveals a dark and shocking tale of secret affairs, predatory men and a teenager on trial in THE AMATEUR.
An upcoming Bookreporter.com Bets On selection, CITY OF WIDOWS is a gripping, occasionally terrifying, yet ultimately hopeful novel focusing on the women of Afghanistan in the years since the Taliban regained power.
» Click here to enter the contest.
Bookreporter.com's 22nd Annual Summer Reading Contests and Feature
Summer is here! At Bookreporter.com, this means it's time for us to share some great summer book picks with our Summer Reading Contests and Feature.
We are hosting a series of 24-hour contests for these titles on select days this summer, so you will have to check the site each day to see the featured prize book and enter to win.
We also are sending a special newsletter to announce the day's title, which you can sign up for here.
Our final prize book will be SILENT RETREAT by Sally Quinn. This sophisticated, sexy and soulful love story explores the boundary between flesh and spirit, restraint and ecstasy, and asks what we’re willing to sacrifice in the name of passion. The contest will be up at noon ET on the day of its paperback release, Tuesday, July 28th.
» Click here to read all the contest details and learn more about our featured titles.
Bookreporter Talks To...
As part of our mission to expand The Book Report Network, we have been shooting video interviews with authors and posting them on our YouTube channel. We also have been making them available as podcasts. Carol loves interviewing authors, so this feels like a natural.
Lisa Scottoline's latest psychological thriller, THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING, will be a Bets On selection. It features two best friends, Julia and Courtney, who investigate the murder of Courtney's grandmother in rural Pennsylvania. Lisa describes the novel as the “twistiest” she has ever written, with multiple layers of plot and character development. The friendship between Julia and Courtney is the emotional core of the story. They met in high school as outsiders and have sustained each other ever since. Lisa says that female friendships are often undervalued despite being a primary source of support through life's challenges. She highlights this line from the book: “Maybe girlfriends are there to fill in your blind spot.” Bennie Rosato, who was in 17 of Lisa's previous novels, adds a third strong female voice and embodies the theme of fighting for justice over mere legal compliance. Watch the video or listen to the podcast.
Carol enjoyed talking to Rachel Beanland about her new novel, THE HALF LIFE, which will be a Bets On pick. This is the third time that Carol has interviewed Rachel. Her previous books, FLORENCE ADLER SWIMS FOREVER and THE HOUSE IS ON FIRE, were Bets On titles as well. THE HALF LIFE follows Eileen O'Malley, a 23-year-old from Charleston who marries a naval officer named Paul Archer and moves to La Maddalena, Italy, in 1974. Rachel drew heavily from her own childhood experiences living on La Maddalena as a Navy family member, as well as a 2019 research trip back to the island. She had a clear picture of Eileen from the start — a questioning, unfulfilled young woman who had not yet come of age when she married — and was thinking about her mother, a Navy wife who resisted many of the expected social obligations, as she was shaping the character. Watch the video or listen to the podcast.
SINGLE GIRLS by John Searles is a work of dramatic fiction set in the 1960s and a Bets On title. It focuses on Helen Gurley Brown and the team of women she assembled who transformed Cosmopolitan into one of the best-selling magazines of all time. John worked at Cosmopolitan and shares his encounters with Helen through the years. The novel is deeply informed by real events, Helen's memoirs, published biographies, and his personal knowledge of the editors who worked there. John had always wanted to write about Helen and had told her so during their friendship, but he had been constrained by publishing expectations to stay within his established genre: suspense/thrillers. The audiobook is narrated by his friend, Amy Ryan, who starred in the film adaptation of his earlier book, STRANGE BUT TRUE. Watch the video or listen to the podcast.
» Click here for a complete list of our "Bookreporter Talks To" videos and podcasts, along with upcoming interviews.
Latest Reviews
Handsome con artist Ulises has long charmed lonely women via letters in order to steal their money. But money is hard to come by in 1940s Mexico. Ulises knows his looks won’t last forever, and he’s desperate to get his hands on a real fortune. He thinks he’s found it when he captivates his newest correspondent, Perla, the owner of a small-town boardinghouse in picturesque Veracruz. But when he meets her, he finds something he didn’t expect. The woman has a niece, Inés, who is as observant as she is desperate to escape her aunt’s household. When Inés discovers Ulises’ true intentions, she wants in on the scheme. They’ll convince her aunt that Ulises is a great catch, Perla will marry him, and her money will vanish. But Perla is not the desperate, silly spinster Ulises imagines.
Siblings Allison and Luke have been through a lot together. They’ve always stood by each other. They’d do anything for each other. Or so it seems. When Allison’s husband, Finley, is murdered, the investigation threatens to expose the siblings’ darkest secrets. An illicit affair. A decades-old accident. A stunning deception. How do these events explain Finley’s death? How far will Allison and Luke go to keep their secrets buried? And can the siblings even trust one another anymore? As the investigation winds tighter and past and present collide, the most shocking betrayal might lie a little too close to home.
Rebecca Wright is a defense attorney living in the Lower 48 when she suddenly finds herself a widow and an empty nester. In need of a radical change, she accepts a public defender position in Utqiagvik on Alaska’s North Slope. When two well-known sisters, Bernice and Wanda Ipalook, are found murdered, Wright is tasked with representing Amos Lane, a drifter on the short list of murder suspects. Criminal charges are looming. But this is summer in northern Alaska, the season of the midnight sun, when 24-hour sunlight makes it difficult for witnesses to confirm the time --- or even the day --- they last saw anyone. Wright must navigate, among other things, an unreliable client and a prosecution willing to entrap her to get a conviction.
A strange voice from inside the woods, repeating a child’s counting rhyme. A body discovered in the water. Thirty years later, a woman begins receiving a string of anonymous text messages, repeating that same rhyme. Then she disappears. On Valentine’s Day, detectives Naia Thulin and Mark Hess are searching to find the missing woman. But when they uncover links to a decades-old cold case, their investigation takes a terrifying turn. A violent killer is on the loose. Can Hess and Thulin catch them before they strike again?
Maggie Wise will take your eyes. When Malcolm was growing up, the local kids made up that chant about his mother, claiming she was a witch. He and his siblings did their best to ignore it. Now, Maggie is dying, and those same siblings have left Malcolm and his sister-in-law, Violet, to hold a vigil at her bedside. A dark figure waits and watches from beneath the willow tree across the street. Hundreds of miles away, an ancient evil stirs in its burrow under a farmer’s cornfield. Across the country, other buried things begin to dream in anticipation of Maggie’s demise. On her deathbed, the old woman elicits a promise from Malcolm: When she dies, he and Violet must return her body to her birthplace. From the moment she takes her last breath, there are forces trying to stop Malcolm from fulfilling that promise.
When Judith Stanley shares the photos she has taken with Paul Sorenson, her new photography instructor, she's unprepared to hear his astonished praise. She has an uncanny eye, he says, and should consider publication. He could help. Except Judith has no interest in sharing her work. Still, emboldened by Paul’s encouragement, she ventures out beyond her quiet neighborhood to the city in search of increasingly striking images. When she starts to notice the dark shape of a man in the corner of her self-portraits, Judith is certain he's an attacker from her past. Perhaps it would appease the man if she were to put her camera down and give up her private passion. But she can't. Until one night when the man finally emerges from the shadows, and Judith’s story suddenly and irrevocably becomes his own.
It’s the summer of 1967, and the counterculture revolution is in full swing in San Francisco. Winnie Hartley is determined to use poetry to capture the ever-shifting world around her. Meanwhile, Winnie’s sister, Miranda, throws herself into running the family business, Hartley Vineyard. But change is in the air, and each sister will make choices that set their lives hurtling down paths neither would have imagined. Fifty years later, Dawn Hartley stays as far as possible from her family’s famous vineyard, until a work assignment requires her to research the bestselling Vineland novels penned by a famously anonymous author. Determined to discover the identity of this mysterious writer, Dawn embarks on a soul-searching journey to uncover her family’s secrets, even as she’s keeping a big one of her own.
Teenage best friends Jackie and Kayla can sell anything. Alongside their fathers, they work at a pawn shop in Cherry Beach, Florida, handling everything from luxury jewelry to chainsaws and more. When the girls learn that Kayla’s family can’t afford a private school opportunity that Jackie’s can, Jackie becomes distraught about losing her best friend. With their sharp minds but youthful lack of foresight, they scheme a way to embezzle money from the pawn shop. As the hot Florida summer unfolds, the girls steal thousands of dollars from the shop. But when their heist is discovered, Jackie is faced with a situation that no amount of negotiating or charisma can fix.
People are “popping.” Disappearing, one by one, into thin air. In a world where prospects for survival are increasingly grim, hopelessness prevails, political rifts widen, and doomsday predictions flourish. Harvey Ellis works the night shift for the Bureau of Depopulation Affairs, an ad hoc federal agency meant to contain and catalog the crisis. His job is to investigate claims of Absence, and, if validated, issue a standard government stipend to boost morale. Still recovering from losses of his own, Harvey is content in his routine --- until his life is shaken by an unexpected assignment from the central office. A woman long thought Absent has reappeared in her hometown of Dawnville, Kansas, claiming she’s been to the other side and back. But is her wild and irresistible account true?
Copyright © 2026 The Book Report, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
