E. Lockhart’s “We Fell Apart” (2025, 305 pages in hardback format) is promoted as a YA (Young Adult) novel, but it’s really appropriate for any age, even younger teens as it is devoid of “adult” language and sex. Like the other YA books that I’ve reviewed over the years, it’s just a good story, well written. This is book #3 in Lockhart’s “Liar” series, but it’s a stand-alone.Fans of her previous books will remember the Sinclair family, but the aristocratic members are only p

As years come and go, there are fewer of us who remember World War II. In the United States, especially on the east coast, we suffered rationing and had to be sure that no light emanated from our homes after dark because of the fear that enemy planes might be passing overhead. But no bombs fell on our nation. That was not the case in London, the setting of David Baldacci’s newest novel, “Strangers in Time” (2025, 433 pages in hardback edition). His historically fictitious sto

Lisa Scottoline’s books almost always make the top tier of my favorite books. But I suppose that there’s an exception to everything. “Come Home” (2012, 368 pages in soft cover) simply isn’t up to the vaulted Scottoline standard. The theme that runs through the novel is that a stepmother is always a mother, just as a mother is always a mother. It’s sentimentality taken to the upchuck level. I kept turning pages because I thought that the standard Scottoline would come through

Imagine living in a small, quiet community that is just a few miles from a minimum-security prison. Well actually it used to be minimum security, but an escalating crime rate, overly-full prisons for serious offenders, and some administrative slight of hand has changed the prison population considerably. The facility now houses some of the most violent and dangerous prisoners in the state. In “A Small Town” (2020, 320 pages in softcover format), author Thomas Perry paints a p

Greg Iles died a couple of months ago at the age of 65. He was born in Stuttgart, Baden-Wurttemberg, West Germany, but lived his life in Natchez, Mississippi. He was one of the great American novelists to have obtained his college education at Ole Miss. And like many other best-selling authors (some in the Southern Tradition, some not) like humorist Dave Barry, Stephen King, Ridley Pearson, Amy Tan, James McBride, Mitch Albom, Scott Turow, Roy Blunt, and Matt Groening, he was

I suppose that, for at least some men, marrying the daughter of a billionaire would be a dream come true. But what if that billionaire is a Russian oligarch who has agents and influence that reach everywhere? And what if, for some reason, that “lucky” man had done something that displeased his father-in-law? Well, for Paul Brightman, a very successful hedge-fund manager, that dream became a nightmare. Joseph Finder (“The Oligarch’s Daughter,” 2025, 438 pages in hardback forma

Michael Connelly’s protagonist, Mickey Haller (formerly known as the Lincoln Lawyer) was King of the Courtroom when he handled criminal cases. However, he’s sold off the Lincolns and is now located in a warehouse with an internal chamber that is safeguarded against electronic surveillance. Connelly writes, “The cage was a twelve-foot-by-twelve-foot cube of chain link. Across the top was a crosshatch of wires supporting copper mesh that also draped down all four sides of the c

First, you may think that Lisa Scottoline has written a YA book. She has not. This book is written from several POVs, and the first fourteen chapters (99 pages) are from 15-year-old teens (Allie, Sasha, David, Julian, and Kyle). Because it’s written in their voice, it’s an easy mistake. The rest of the book is a mix of the teens and their parents (Linda Garvey, Allie’s mother; Daphne Barrow, Sasha’s mother; Bill Hybrinski, David’s father; Scot Browne, Julian’s father and the