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THE RACHEL INCIDENT by Caroline O’Donoghue

One of our booksellers at Wonderland Books is constantly handselling The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoghue, and when I asked her for a book rec that would grab me from the start, she handed it to me too. She wasn’t wrong. The Rachel Incident is about Rachel and her roommate James, who work together at a bookstore in Ireland. Rachel is about to graduate from university, and she develops a naive crush on one of her professors, which James encourages. However, things get complicated, and Rachel and James’s lives get intertwined with the professor’s – and his wife’s – in

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THE RACHEL INCIDENT by Caroline O’Donoghue

One of our booksellers at Wonderland Books is constantly handselling The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoghue, and when I asked her for a book rec that would grab me from the start, she handed it to me too. She wasn’t wrong. The Rachel Incident is about Rachel and her roommate James, who work together at a bookstore in Ireland. Rachel is about to graduate from university, and she develops a naive crush on one of

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THE BRIGHT YEARS by Sarah Damoff

Oh man. This book. The Bright Years by Sarah Damoff is the story of a Texas couple – Lily and Ryan – whose marriage is plagued by Ryan’s addiction to alcohol. Despite the love that they share, as well as Jet, the daughter they adore, Ryan’s addiction simply becomes too big to overcome, and he abandons the family. The Bright Years is a wrenching, beautiful book about so many things – grief, forgiveness, acceptance, addiction,

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THE COMPOUND by Aisling Rawle

The Compound by Aisling Rawle is a vaguely dystopian novel about Lily, a woman who competes in a reality TV show that is a mashup of Survivor, Big Brother and Love Island. It takes place in a compound located in a remote desert area where contestants win prizes by completing group and individual challenges, and they remain in the compound only if they wake up each morning next to a member of the opposite sex.

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THE MAD WIFE by Meagan Church

The Mad Wife by Meagan Church is historical fiction set in the 1950s about a housewife named Lulu who has just learned she is pregnant with her second child. The first half of the book nicely sets the scene of what it was like to be a suburban wife at that time: the expectations for women as far as motherly and wifely duties; the conformity within neighborhoods and the microscopic scrutiny from those around you;

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HOW TO READ A BOOK by Monica Wood

How To Read A Book by Monica Wood had been on my radar for a while, and I got it on audio and decided to pick it up this month. It’s a found-family book about three lonely people living in Portland, Maine – Frank, a 60-something widower whose wife was killed by a drunk driver; Violet, the 22 year-old who was driving the car; and Harriet, a 60-something widow who runs a book club at

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BEST OFFER WINS by Marisa Kashino

Marisa Kashino’s juggernaut thriller Best Offer Wins takes place right up the street from me in Bethesda, MD (home of Wonderland Books!). It’s about Margo, a woman who is desperate to land her dream house so that she and her husband can start a family. Unfortunately, they are facing an extremely competitive housing market, with houses going way over asking price and some never even being listed publicly. Margo decides that she will do whatever

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WRECK by Catherine Newman

If you read Sandwich by Catherine Newman, her popular 2024 novel about motherhood, family, the passage of time and how to let things – and people – go, then you know exactly what you are going to get with her latest novel Wreck, which picks up the same characters two years later. Rocky’s mother has died, and her two adult children are now relatively settled. Like in Sandwich, not a lot happens in Wreck, other

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A FINE LINE BETWEEN STUPID AND CLEVER by Rob Reiner

If you are a Spinal Tap fan, even a casual one, I highly recommend picking up Rob Reiner’s memoir about the making of the movie, A Fine Line Between Stupid And Clever. In retrospect, with its cult glory and eternally-quoted lines, This Is Spinal Tap makes perfect sense, but when Reiner and his trio of improvising heavy metal musicians (Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer and Michael McKean) first came up with the idea for this mockumentary

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SOME BRIGHT NOWHERE by Ann Packer

This is going to sound like one of the saddest book in the world – and it is sad, for sure – but I liked Ann Packer’s new novel, Some Bright Nowhere, which is about a 60-something couple dealing with terminal illness. Eliot and Claire, married for decades with grown children, are facing the final stages of Claire’s terminal cancer. Eliot has settled into the caretaking role, after years of Claire’s treatments, recession, recurrence and

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AWAKE by Jen Hatmaker

Before I picked up the memoir Awake, I hadn’t heard of Jen Hatmaker, who was well-known as an evangelical Christian media personality who also had an HGTV show with her husband and five kids. Instead, I was interested in her book because of her story about leaving her marriage to a pastor upon learning of his affair with another woman. Her life completely crumbled the night she overheard him whispering on the phone from their

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BUCKEYE by Patrick Ryan

Oh, Buckeye. I have such a book hangover from this lovely historical fiction by Patrick Ryan about two couples in a small town in Ohio. When Cal – married to Becky – and Margaret – married to Felix – cross paths in a hardware store in the mid 1940s, all four lives are changed in ways that cause repercussions down the road for decades. I adored this novel, which is infused with empathy and kindness

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DISCONTENT by Beatriz Serrano

Discontent by Beatriz Serrano (translated from Spanish) is a darkly funny condemnation of the modern workplace. Marisa lives in lovely apartment in Madrid, having worked her way up to a senior creative strategy role at an marketing agency. Despite her success, she dreads going to work, loathes her coworkers and spends her days holed up in her office watching YouTube videos and farming her work off onto junior employees and students in a marketing class

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THE LOCKED WARD by Sarah Pekkanen

Every now and again, I find it good to throw a thriller into the mix, amongst the literary fiction and memoirs. The pace, the lack of detailed and complicated character development, the twists – this is a different type of reading than what I usually do. The pages fly by faster and I get engrossed in finding out how it will end. I read Sarah Pekkanen’s latest thriller, The Locked Ward, in preparation for a

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MAGGIE, OR A MAN AND A WOMAN WALK INTO A BAR by Katie Yee

Maggie, Or A Man And A Woman Walk Into A Bar, is a novel by Katie Yee about a woman who has had a terrible year. First, her husband tells her he is leaving her for another woman, and then she is diagnosed with breast cancer. The novel is told vignette style, almost stream-of-consciousness, and jumps around the narrator’s life – her childhood, her Chinese parents, her relationship with her husband, her sickness, her kids.

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HEART THE LOVER by Lily King

Heart The Lover by Lily King is a quietly devastating novel about two romantic relationships that the main character, a fortysomething woman, had in college with Sam and Yash, two men (who happen to be best friends). The first part is a pitch perfect depiction of young(ish) love, with its intensity and complications. Decades later, the novel picks up with Yash coming back into her life when she is settled and married with kids. I

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Read in 2026

The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden

The Rachel Incident by Caroline O'Donoghue

The Bright Years by Sarah Damoff

The Compound by Aisling Rawle

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About Me

I have been blogging about books here at Everyday I Write the Book since 2006. I love to read, and I love to talk about books and what other people are reading.

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