Few series hook me as deeply as AJ Lape’s Darcy Walker mysteries, and Nuclear Blonde is another explosive, emotionally charged ride that proves why this is one of my all-time favorites. Darcy’s signature blend of snark, smarts, and vulnerability shines through as she dives headfirst into a murder investigation that’s as personal as it is dangerous. The stakes are high, the twists are relentless, and the emotional fallout hits just as hard as the crime-solving.

This time, Darcy’s world collides with a chilling series of sniper attacks where her coworkers are the targets. What makes Nuclear Blonde stand out isn’t just the twisty plot—it’s the emotional depth beneath the chaos. Darcy’s voice is sharp, vulnerable, and fiercely authentic, especially as she navigates lingering grief, friendships with people she probably shouldn’t be friends with, and the messy beauty of growing up. Whether you’re here for the crime-solving or the character evolution, this book hits hard in all the right places.

But what keeps me coming back isn’t just the adrenaline or the clever plotting—it’s Darcy herself. Her voice is raw, real, and fiercely loyal, especially when it comes to the people she loves. And yes, I’ll say it again: I’m absolutely rooting for more page time with her boyfriend. The dynamic between Darcy and Dylan adds a layer of tenderness and tension that balances the chaos beautifully, and I’m eager to see where AJ Lape takes their relationship next now that Dylan is almost out of college and has his eyes set on a professional football career.

I give Nuclear Blonde a five out of five. I really enjoy how Darcy is settling in as a police officer, while I do worry about how long she can remain friends with sketchy people without those connections becoming known to the world. The subplot of Darcy finally starting to come to terms with her mother’s murder was emotional, and I enjoyed seeing Darcy not being able to push that down any longer. The action and danger were front and center in Nuclear Blonde, which made the book fill with tension while I couldn’t wait to turn the page. There’s yet to be a Darcy book that I haven’t enjoyed. Author A.J. Lape brings something new and fresh for each installment.

Find NUCLEAR BLONDE

Sniper shots spark the fire. One cop makes it nuclear.

In the brutal streets of Los Angeles, cops responding to gang murders are walking into carefully laid traps. A ghost-gun sniper is picking off officers with chilling precision, shattering an uneasy peace between three rival gangs and pushing the city toward open war.

Rookie Darcy Walker gets a rare break when she’s pulled into Homicide to help hunt the shooter. But the deeper she digs—grilling gang leaders and chasing leads—the more the case turns personal. The sniper knows her name. Knows her movements. And despite multiple chances, she keeps walking away from encounters that leave other cops bleeding.

With veteran officers eager to see her fail and a city sliding toward all-out gang warfare, Darcy must stop a killer whose interest in her makes no sense—before learning why puts her exactly where he wants her.

Nuclear Blonde is the eighth book in the Darcy Walker Crime Thriller series. A dark, hard-boiled mystery with a sharp sense of humor—because sometimes the only thing standing between you and the body count is sarcasm and bad instincts.

Buy Nuclear Blonde to chase the action today!

Amazon | Barnes & Noble (Nook) | Google Play | Bookbub | Goodreads

About A.J. Lape

A. J. Lape is the author of the top-rated Darcy Walker Series, Detective Ruby Rivera Novella Series, and 15 Saddles Motor Cycle Club novellas. She lives in the unpredictable and chaotic weather of Cincinnati with her husband, two daughters, a dog, and hamster.

Graduating from the hills of Morehead State University with a Master’s degree in Communications, she double-majored in English and journalism but basically went to grad school because she wasn’t ready to grow up. A PI wannabe, she stops crime daily through her characters while adding a dose of hope, humor, faith, and edge-of-your seat thrills. If the FBI ever checks her computer, she may be wearing prison-orange due to the “wiki” articles she researches—all, of course, in the name of career research, insomnia, and straight-up boredom.

A perfect day for A. J. consists of writing in her favorite recliner, feeding her addiction to Coca-Cola, then lounging in her pajamas by 8PM. And sometimes a late night walk with her husband where she stares at the sky and contemplates the mysteries of the universe. She swears by two things: God is real, and so are aliens—and she hopes to one day be beamed up.

Find A.J. Lape

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The post Nuclear Blonde by A.J. Lape appeared first on Bewitched Bookworms.

Patrick’s newest novel is equal parts heartwarming and enchanting, inviting readers to step into a café where every cup holds a story and every moment might just change your future. It’s the kind of book that makes you want to linger over your coffee, savor the sweetness of memory, and believe in the magic of everyday encounters.

Enjoy this excerpt from The Time Hop Coffee Shop.

2005

MAPLE GOLD COFFEE COMMERCIAL SCRIPT

VOICEOVER: ‘Maple Gold is here for endings and new beginnings . . .’

The scene opens with a young woman, Greta, standing on the pavement, waving as a car pulls away. She’s holding a small cardboard box.

GRETA (WHISPERING): ‘Bye Mum.’

She turns to face a pretty white house, straightens her back and smiles bravely. She’s ready to enter a new phase of her life—moving into her first home.

The front door is ajar, and she enters a hallway, then a sitting room. We can see there are more, bigger boxes sitting around the place, sealed and ready to unpack.

VOICEOVER: ‘It’s here for the good times and the even better ones . . .’

Greta looks apprehensive but takes a moment to take in her new surroundings. She switches on the kettle and opens a cupboard, disappointed to find it empty.

She spies her name written on the side of the box she carried in and opens it. Inside is her old teddy bear and a jar of Maple Gold coffee, a gift from her mum. Greta takes the jar out, becoming misty-eyed as she makes herself a cup of coffee. Wrapping her fingers around the cup helps her to feel more at home.

The doorbell rings, and she opens the door to find a group of her new neighbors gathered outside. They present Greta with flowers and another jar of coffee as a welcome present. It’s Maple Gold, of course.

They all laugh, and she invites them inside for coffee.

 

A CAPPELLA GROUP (SINGING): ‘You’re always at home with Maple Gold.’

Chapter 1

Present Day

GRETA PERKS LOVED three things in life more than anything—her family, the thrill of performing, and a fine cup of coffee. When she could combine all three, it was as satisfying as a frothy cappuccino on a cold day. But recently, a happy home life and sparkling career seemed to be slipping through her fingers.

‘I wish you could stay longer,’ she said, glancing between her husband, Jim, and their daughter, Lottie, as coffee cups clattered in the background. ‘Tonight’s important to me.’

She’d volunteered to be the guest speaker at Brewtique’s monthly Coffee Lover’s Night Out, talking about her acting career. It had been a while since she’d last performed in public, and her nerves were jumping around like frogs in a pond.

Jim offered her a smile. ‘I wish we could, too. But I promised Lottie I’d get her back to school.’ He passed Greta a shopping bag like it was a peace offering. ‘Just brought a few things you might need . . .’

‘Talent show rehearsal,’ Lottie muttered, not looking up from her phone. ‘Total waste of time.’

Greta and Jim shared a glance, a silent understanding of the challenges of raising a fifteen-year-old together while living apart.

‘A talent show? Sounds fun.’ Greta gave Lottie’s arm a quick reassuring rub. ‘What are you doing? A show tune, or a monologue? Perhaps even a Shakespeare sonnet?’

Lottie shrugged a disinterested shoulder.

Greta’s spirits dipped a little. ‘Well, whatever you do, I bet you’ll be great,’ she said.

‘We’ll grab a burger afterward, then I’ll drop her back at your place.’ Jim opened his mouth slightly, as if wanting to say something more. ‘Stay safe returning to your car tonight, okay?’

Greta nodded, hoping for a word of encouragement, perhaps a ‘good luck,’ ‘break a leg,’ or even a quick hug. But Lottie was already heading toward the door.

Jim’s fingers lightly brushed Greta’s arm, but didn’t linger.

Then he turned and followed their daughter outside.

Through the window, Greta watched as her family dashed across the road without her. She smiled brightly and waved, even though her stomach was twisting.

‘Drop her back at your place.’ The words stung like a paper cut.

She and Jim were over four months into a trial separation, with just a few weeks left until their self-imposed New Year’s Eve deadline. At that point they’d agreed to make a final call on the future of their marriage.

It didn’t seem as clear-cut as Greta had hoped. What had once felt like a simple decision—to try to rebuild their marriage or let it go—now felt tangled with uncertainty. After almost twenty years together, was she still in love with Jim? Was he still in love with her?

Greta peeked inside the bag, her mood lifting when she saw Jim had brought her herbal throat lozenges, a new notebook, and a spare pen.

Outside, the wet, grey pavement was the same color as the inky November sky, and she suddenly craved a rich mocha.

Greta turned to face the room. In half an hour, the place would hopefully be buzzing with people. She was determined to deliver an entertaining talk, even if it wasn’t exactly her kind of coffee shop.

She preferred cozy spaces where she could curl up with a good book, sipping coffee from mugs the size of plant pots. The type of place that served homemade rocky road and had a corner dedicated to board games.

Brewtique, on the other hand, had industrial-style light- bulbs and blackboards showcasing quirky concoctions, such as rhubarb and custard lattes. A pink neon coffee cup on the wall cast an eerie pink glow on her face. The spindly branches of a Christmas tree on the counter looked like they’d been pecked by crows.

Her long-time agent, Nora, had applauded Greta for spotting Brewtique’s Facebook post asking for local speakers. ‘Putting yourself forward shows brilliant initiative, darling. Well-done,’ Nora had gushed. ‘You never know who might be in the audience. Any exposure could help give your career a little boost. Plus, it’s a great way to plug your acting classes.’

A boost? Greta knew her career needed a defibrillator. If one human year equals seven dog years, the same rule definitely applied to actors out of the spotlight. She felt like her career had been on pause for too long, and she was ready to hit Play again.

Greta missed the camaraderie on set, filming the iconic Maple Gold coffee commercials she’d starred in with Jim and Lot- tie a decade ago. Nothing compared to the soar of her senses when the director called, ‘Action,’ and everything clicked into place. She longed to find that spark again, not just for herself, but in the hope of pulling her family back together again.

If Greta was honest, she also missed the attention. Champagne on ice in a silver bucket, fans queuing around the block for her autograph, and the occasional limousine whisking her to grand events had been cherries on top of the cake. Those memories felt almost unreal now, as if they belonged to someone else.

The students she’d coached since then seemed to enjoy her acting classes, but it wasn’t the same. Guiding nervous amateurs through voice projection techniques or stage presence didn’t give her the same buzz as stepping in front of a camera or an audience. Hopefully, tonight would rekindle some of that feeling, proof she still had something to offer.

The sound of dropped cutlery pulled her out of her thoughts. Greta turned to see Brewtique’s owner, Josie, rushing around, a dusting of flour in her hair. Meanwhile, her young pink-haired assistant, Maisie, dawdled in a corner, glued to her phone.

‘Need a hand with anything?’ Greta called out.

‘Oh gosh, no.’ Josie shook her head frantically. ‘You’re the talent. I’m just running a bit late with everything . . .’

‘Are you sure? I’ve already prepped for my talk.’

Josie bit her lip, tempted. ‘Well . . . setting up the refreshment table would be helpful, while I get changed. I’ve just popped fresh brownies in the oven. Maisie knows to keep an eye on them.’ She gave Greta a pointed look. ‘She’s new here.’

‘Sure,’ Greta said, catching her drift. ‘Leave it to me.’

Greta set out coffee cups with vigor, arranged cookies on plates, and laid out napkins. Her pulse quickened when she saw the time. ‘Maisie!’ she called out. ‘We need to hurry. There’s only fifteen minutes left until showtime.’

The young woman barely raised her eyes. ‘Didn’t your family once star in some coffee ads or something?’ she asked. ‘One day, I’ll get discovered like that. Want to see my latest TikTok audition?’ She held out her phone.

‘Yes, we starred in them.’ Greta briskly polished a spoon on her apron. ‘I’ll look at your clip later. Now, please check all the glasses. Some of these are scratched, and Josie said you’re in charge of the brownies…’

When Josie reappeared wearing fresh clothes, she glanced out of the window and sighed. ‘Looks like we’ve got a smaller crowd than usual.’

‘How many are you expecting?’ Greta asked, joining her. ‘Six or seven. I’ve just checked my messages and had quite a few cancellations. Christmas is coming, and it’s the Strictly Salsa final on TV tonight.’

Greta chewed her lip. Disappointment was part of an actor’s life—the rejections, the scathing reviews, and the occasional inappropriate behavior from a director she’d once respected. She hadn’t expected a theatre-sized crowd, but six?

‘An intimate gathering,’ she said with a nod. ‘I’ll make it work.’

Josie welcomed the guests inside. When they were settled down around tables with coffee and cake, she launched into her introduction.

‘Welcome to the monthly Brewtique Coffee Lover’s Night Out. We’ve been fortunate to hear some incredible stories from our speakers this year—conquering Mount Everest, training guide dogs for the blind, and a brain surgeon who worked in war-torn countries. And tonight we’ve got the former star of the Maple Gold coffee commercials. Let’s bid a warm welcome to our special guest, Greta Perks.’

No pressure, Greta thought, smiling brightly as she stepped forward.

‘G . . . good evening, everyone,’ she started, feeling woefully out of practice. ‘Thanks for coming.

‘I’m going to tell you a story about how I became the face of the Maple Gold coffee commercials. Yes, for ten years, I was the lady who made you believe coffee could make your life perfect.’

A few chuckles rang out, and Greta soon found her flow. She paced up and down, commanding the little coffee shop as if starring in a West End theatre production.

‘Did you know that Maple Gold was born in 1950, as a humble roastery in the back streets of London? Over the years, it became a household name, beloved for its delicious blends and vintage appeal.’ She leaned in, as if sharing a secret. ‘And who wouldn’t want to live in Mapleville, the idyllic town from the commercials? The sun always shone, the grass was emerald green, and the whole town thrived on cups of Maple Gold.’

She took out her phone and played the jingle.

When you wake at sunrise,

and open your eyes.

You’re ready to start your day, the Maple Gold way.

You’re always at home with Maple Gold.

From the faraway looks on a few faces, it seemed like nostalgia was working.

‘I locked eyes with my love interest, Jim, when he painted my garden fence in the commercial, and things went a bit further off-camera,’ Greta said with a wink. ‘We got married and then had Lottie, our own little star. We were such a happy family, on-screen and off . . .’

She paused as a twinge of sadness crept in, like how bitter- ness stays on the tongue after an espresso. A screech of metal chair legs against wooden floorboards made her flinch.

A woman in the audience called out, uninvited. ‘Are you guys still working?’

Greta blinked, the question taking her by surprise. ‘Yes, everything’s going wonderfully,’ she said, feeling guilty at embellishing the truth. ‘Jim’s still gracing the stage and screen,

Lottie’s currently rehearsing for a school Christmas talent show, and as for me . . . well . . . I run some excellent acting classes, if anyone is interested?’

A few seconds of silence followed before more questions flew at her like arrows.

‘How’s Lottie?’

‘Where’s Jim?’

‘How do you feel about Maple Gold replacing you with a different family?’

‘Does Lottie resent you putting her on-screen at such a young age?’

‘Those are some great, um, deep questions,’ Greta said with a swallow. She grabbed her notes, hurriedly trying to recover her thread. ‘I think my talk will cover most of them . . . Now, where was I?’

Then, suddenly, the shrill scream of the smoke alarm pierced the moment. Greta jumped and spun around to see smoke billowing from the oven.

Josie shouted out over the bleeping alarm. ‘Maisie. Did you forget about the brownies?’

Maisie’s head snapped up, her eyes widening when she noticed the grey clouds. ‘Oops.’

A flurry of activity broke out.

Maisie darted behind the counter and yanked open the oven door, waving her arms as the grey smoke curled out. ‘It’s fine. Totally under control.’

Josie grabbed her oven gloves and pulled out the tray. The burnt brownies looked like steaming lumps of coal, and she tossed them into the sink.

Greta rushed over to help, spinning on the tap so the brownies spat and sizzled. She threw open the front door to let in some fresh air, then grabbed a tea towel and wafted it in front of the smoke alarm until it stopped. ‘Is everyone okay?’ she called out.

An elderly couple had already put on their coats and scuttled outside. The remaining four guests had drifted toward the buffet table, their focus now on cake rather than conversation. Greta followed them, trying to salvage what was left of the evening.

One man wrapped cake into a napkin and slipped it into his pocket. A couple of women wearing matching blue anoraks conversed loudly.

‘I didn’t recognize Greta at first, did you? She’s put on quite a bit of weight,’ one said.

‘I know. Age isn’t kind to some ladies,’ her friend replied. ‘Ahem.’ Greta stood beside them and picked up a cookie.

‘I’m forty-five and proud of it,’ she said, biting it into it. ‘Worth every extra pound, don’t you think?’

The women paused with their cakes suspended mid-air, before nodding sheepishly.

Greta attempted to spark interest in her acting classes, but the attention was elsewhere, mostly on the kitchen, which looked like it had been trampled by a herd of buffalo.

She joined Josie at the door, wearily bidding goodnight to the guests as they filtered out.

‘Sorry everything didn’t go to plan. I can’t thank you enough,’ Josie said. She handed Greta a brown envelope containing her small fee. ‘I’m not sure I’m cut out to run a coffee shop . . .’

Greta mustered a tired smile. After tonight, she felt the same way about performing in public.

She said goodnight, then called Lottie while trudging to her car, leaving a message on her voicemail. ‘Hi, sweetheart. I’ll be home soon. Hope your rehearsal went well.’

Rain pelted down, and Greta hunched her shoulders against the cold. The streets were empty and quiet, and icy droplets snaked down her neck, making her shiver. In the dark, she noticed a hunched figure approaching, and Jim’s warning about staying safe echoed in her mind. She tried to swerve, but the person bumped her arm.

Startled, Greta dropped her car keys and stooped to pick them up. When she looked up, a woman in a long, dark coat stood over her. Her face was part hidden by a voluminous hood, and long tendrils of her damp white hair hung down. With a quick muttered apology, the stranger handed a piece of paper to Greta and hurried across the road.

As she stood up, Greta’s heart thudded in her chest. Under the dim street lamp, she uncurled her fingers and glanced at the flyer. It was probably just a pizza menu, but the vintage-style design caught her eye. It featured an illustration of a white rabbit and the words ‘Looking for the Perfect Blend?’ Beneath it was an image of a jar with the label ‘Drink Me.’

She gripped the flyer tighter, unsure what it was even promoting. A strange feeling of curiosity rippled through her body. Looking for the perfect blend? In her life, she most certainly was.

She climbed into her car and tossed the flyer onto the passenger seat. Sitting there for a moment, she flopped her head against the steering wheel as the evening’s events raced through her mind. Was she ever going to get her life back on track?

With a deep sigh, Greta turned the key in the ignition and waited for the engine to rumble to life. The light from the street lamps twinkled orange in the raindrops on the wind- screen, and she released the handbrake.

It was probably just a trick of the light, but as Greta pulled off the car park, she could have sworn the white rabbit on the flyer gave her a wink.

From The Time Hop Coffee Shop by Phaedra Patrick. Copyright © 2025 by Phaedra Patrick. Published by Park Row Books, an imprint of HarperCollins.

 

About HOW TO GRIEVE LIKE A VICTORIAN

On Sale: December 9, 2025; 320 Pages, Park Row Books Paperback Original

About PHAEDRA PATRICK

Phaedra Patrick is the bestselling author of several novels, including The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper, which has been translated into twenty-five languages worldwide. Her second novel, Rise and Shine Benedict Stone, was made into a Hallmark movie. An award-winning short story writer, she previously studied art and marketing and has worked as a stained glass artist, film festival organizer and communications manager. Phaedra lives in Saddleworth, UK, with her family.

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The post Time Hop Coffee Shop by Phaedra Patrick appeared first on Bewitched Bookworms.

This isn’t your average self-help guide; it’s a peek into a world where sorrow was worn on your sleeve and mourning rituals were as intricate as lace collars. Reeves blends history with wit, showing us how Victorians turned grief into an art form. And maybe even offering us a few lessons on slowing down, honoring loss, and embracing ritual in our own modern lives.

Enjoy this excerpt from How To Grieve Like a Victorian.

OUT OF OFFICE REPLY—

Thank you for contacting me. However, for an undetermined time period, I will only be corresponding through letters. (Yes, the kind with paper.) Thank you for understanding.

Dr. Lizzie Wells

Professor of Victorian Literature—Willoughby

College

Author of The Heathcliff Saga

she/her

 

After typing the message, I drum my fingers on my desk, contemplating the elegant stack of black-and-gold-rimmed stationery pages and envelopes in front of me. They seem appropriate for a recent widow like me, and I’m grateful for the niche Etsy shop specializing in antique stationery.

No more emails.

The thought of not reading or answering campus emails from hateful asshats like Bill Rhodes, chair of philosophy, feels like a giant fucking albatross has slid from my shoulders, feathers cluttering the floor of my coffee-stained office carpet.

Since Philip’s sudden death last month, I’ve learned I don’t have much headspace other than to parent and grieve. And I’ve barely time to parent. Heathcliff ate a Pop-Tart for breakfast this morning. A chocolate Pop-Tart, not even a fruit one. I couldn’t summon the energy to cook his regular oatmeal.

What am I going to do?

I look up at the signed Heathcliff Saga movie poster on the wall behind my desk and stare into the glassy blue eyes of teen heartthrob Everett Dane. He sneers rakishly, dark hair tousled over his forehead, rumpled shirtsleeves open to reveal the top of his Greek-god chest. He played the role well.

When Hollywood optioned film rights for my Twilight-y young adult version of Wuthering Heights—written during sleepless nights breastfeeding Heathcliff—Philip had been so proud. He took me out to a too-expensive restaurant, the kind where the servers wear crisp, ironed white dress shirts and say ridiculous things like the wine has “hints of leather and tobacco.” We split a bottle of cabernet over a large platter of roasted duck and asparagus. We even splurged on the overpriced cranberry tartlets; the cranberries, of course, were “raised in organic, sun-kissed hills near Asheville.” After dinner, we walked through a nearby pocket park. The evening sky glowed rose-hued beyond the sprawling Carolina oaks; Philip skillfully skipped rocks across a tiny, landscaped pond as we talked about a future where we could pay off student loans and take our long-postponed trip to Paris.

My email dings, and I jump, blinking away tears.

Against my better judgment, I check the message.

Ugh.

Brad McGregor.

 

Hey Miss Wells,

I’m really struggling with P and P. I mean I thought this chick lit was like more straightforward. But geez . . . why do they have to write so many letters? Can I like have extra credit or something if I don’t pass the Final?

Thks

B

 

My blood pressure rises a little bit every time I have to deal with Brad McGregor. The dean’s son needs one more English credit to graduate on time, so he enrolled in my spring Jane Austen seminar because it was the only literature class over before his “epic” Cancún vacation funded by his dad’s bloated administrative salary. His sense of entitlement has no end. He makes little effort to disguise his distaste for my class. He addresses me as “Miss” instead of “Dr.” And last, but not least, he’s Willoughby College’s most notorious man-slut; last year he cheated on one of my brightest students, Kayla, with her dorm RA. (Kayla sobbed during my office hours after she found out.)

I log out of my email, close my laptop, pull out one of my new stationery pages and a black fountain pen, and begin a furious response to Brad. A soft rap on my door, and my department chair, Patrick, enters, steam wafting from the top of his Edgar Allan Poe mug.

“Letters only?”

“This first one is going to Brad McGregor.”

“He’s the worst.” Patrick groans and takes a sip of coffee as he slumps in the worn leather armchair opposite my desk. “I had him in American lit last semester. He came to class smelling like weed, called Edith Wharton a frigid old spinster, and I’m pretty sure he slept with my TA.”

I see red as I stare down at my angry letter.

Patrick’s quiet. Although my age, thirty-nine, he sports a graying beard. He strokes it for a few seconds as he considers me worriedly. He’s trying not to look at my new black blouse with ruffled wrist sleeves and black pencil skirt. I might have gone on a widow shopping spree for black clothes in the days after Philip’s death. Patrick doesn’t need to know about the small silver bird keepsake urn containing Philip’s ashes in my leather satchel. That might make me too peculiar.

He clears his throat awkwardly and gazes into his coffee.

“You doing okay, Lizzie? I mean . . . I know you’re just back from leave, but you can take more time . . .” I wave my hand dismissively. “Everything will be worse if I don’t work. It will be all-day pajamas, and tears, and bingeing Outlander episodes.”

“Well, if there’s anything I can do for you—watch Heathcliff, send takeout . . . If there’s anything I can do to lighten your load, just let me know. I’ve already taken you off the Curriculum Management Committee and the Committee Oversight Committee.”

“Thanks,” I mutter, bewildered, as always, at how my studies of Brontë and Dickens novels prepared me for such gripping daily tasks.

I shift the topic away from me and my ongoing sadness. “Did you have your meeting with the provost today?”

He gives me the dismal summary of this month’s meeting. Each monthly provost report becomes a little more doomsday than the one before, and the jumpy junior faculty start sending out résumés to community colleges and local high schools. In our department, we just lost a fairly new full-time hire to a neighboring new technical school. (Teaching business writing is more lucrative . . . she’d said. I had no counterargument.) Now the tiny English department is just me, Patrick, a small army of adjuncts, and our MAGA-supporting administrative assistant, Sandra. (Every time I pass her desk, I try not to look at the framed illustration of Jesus sitting on a bench by the White House.)

“But it looks like Willoughby will stay open for at least another year?” I ask.

He shrugs. “Let’s just say I’m keeping my résumé updated.” He glances up at Everett Dane’s searing blue eyes. “You, on the other hand, will have plenty of options should the ship sink.”

It’s true. Although The Heathcliff Saga hadn’t exactly made me rich, as the only faculty member to appear in People magazine, I’m a reluctant darling to a struggling institution. And plenty of other schools will take me if we close.

After he leaves, I finish penning my letter to Brad. I worry it’s a bit too harsh, so I slip it into my bag. I can always revise later. 

I take a late lunch outside, numb after the latest Fiscal Oversight Committee meeting, where the provost announced proudly that she was siphoning off 90 percent of the humanities department budgets for an Admissions Advancement Task Force. Her lipstick-rimmed Cheshire-cat grin stretched wider, looking directly at me as she said it. Everyone waited breathlessly for me, the committee chair, to retort. Instead, in front of all thirty faculty and ten administrators, I pulled my favorite lavender-scented ChapStick from my sweater pocket next to Philip’s miniature keepsake bird urn. I applied it thoroughly and carefully amid the silence, snapped the cap back on, and said nothing just to show how few fucks I give anymore.

Alone, in the campus garden, I sit on a mossy stone bench in the shade of an oak. Bees hum loudly through the blue flag irises and bulblike pink blossoms of the small magnolia near me. I open my Tupperware dish of macaroni casserole. As a Midwest transplant, I’m always amazed at Southerners’ culinary zest for the grieving. I have about twelve macaroni casseroles and five lasagnas in my freezer. Heathcliff can’t digest dairy, so I’ll be eating these myself in the forthcoming weeks.

Even in the shade, my armpits sweat in this Carolina May heat. Still, I’d choose this over my windowless office any day. Through the garden gate, I see Bill Rhodes storming into the administration building—no doubt to unload on the president about me and Patrick. I can’t care. No one will ever option film rights for his latest book—Metaphysical Intellectualism in Neoclassical England.

Last fall was such a bright star for me when The Heathcliff Saga film premiered and my book spent several weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Writing that book six years ago, postpartum, kept me sane. I gave everyone A’s that semester. With the hormone shifts, lack of sleep each night and an insatiable Heathcliff hanging off my breast, I’d escape into my alternative Wuthering Heights world. In my book, Emily Brontë’s love-triangled teenagers learn that Heathcliff inherited warlock powers from a distant Yorkshire ancestor. My Linwood is less milquetoast than the original character. He bastardizes ancient Fae supernatural powers from the moorlands and starts a spell war with Heathcliff. Cathy, caught in the middle, asks Nelly Dean to train her in the supernatural arts. She teams up with Heathcliff, helping him purge Linwood’s magical darkness for good. There’s lots of teen angst, desperate kissing, and disengaged parents. The adults churn butter and argue with no idea their teens could destroy Great Britain with their dark fairy arts war.

My literary agent, Sarah, took me on and sold the book in two days. I loved my editor, my only complaint being that he wanted to change the title from The Cathy Saga to The Heathcliff Saga. I groused. After all, I wanted my heroine to be the book’s star. But he said “Cathy” wasn’t distinct enough—it sounded like the comic-strip character—and he wanted my Heathcliff to be the new Edward Cullen.

Then I thought about my forthcoming advance check and gave in. The timing couldn’t have been better. Over the next few years, film rights sold, then foreign rights in Spain, Germany, and Japan. By the time the movie came out last year and I had my red-carpet moment, Willoughby’s president offered me immediate tenure and a promotion.

Putting the lid on my Tupperware, I scroll fondly through my Instagram page. Thanks to the movie, I have about 100,000 followers, and I pick up a few hundred more every time one of the stars tags me. My last Instagram post was a repost of Everett Dane’s pic of him hugging me at the premier after-party: “Love this woman! Brainiest person I’ve ever known.”

I’m suddenly back in that moment, slight champagne buzz, surrounded by the glamorous and Botoxed. I wore a rented teal Vera Wang and teetered on strappy gold Jimmy Choos; I was in this young British heartthrob’s arms, and yet I locked eyes with Philip, standing just beyond the photo’s edge. With his soft, sandy blond hair and glasses, my shy lawyer husband never seemed more mine than in that moment. He wasn’t a crier—ever. It’s a weird Southern guy thing. But his eyes shined happy tears. There was no professional or personal jealousy there; it was pure celebration of me, of us—of how profoundly lucky we were to have each other and that moment.

My phone dings.

Mirabel: Hi Elizabeth, you’ve been on my mind so much. Lunch tomorrow? My treat

I groan.

My Steel Magnolia, passive-aggressivemother-in-law has been trying to get me out to lunch since the funeral. Lunch. I stare down at my Tupperware of mostly uneaten macaroni. Apparently, the grieving have to eat.

There’s been a persistency in her texts.

Something’s off.

And I just can’t even with her because it will make me think of that night—Philip

was leaving her house when his car ran off the road.

There was the call from him, just before the accident. The voicemail he left: My god, Lizzie, we have to talk.

The spongy casserole feels like a lump in my stomach. I’d rather face ten meetings with Bill Rhodes than think about that night and all the factors involved: rain, lightning, deer, emotional shock, the million random sparks that might have made Philip’s 2017 black Camry slide off the road between Summerville and our home in Columbia, South Carolina. But painful as it might be, I need to know what happened at her home to upset Philip. Mirabel’s been acting cagey, and I’ll have to tread carefully.

My mother-in-law loves her azalea gardens, her large home, the Methodist Women’s League. She likes lipsticks and Talbots dresses.

Unfortunately, the one thing Mirabel doesn’t like (besides me) is the truth.

 

Excerpted from How to Grieve Like a Victorian by Amy Carol Reeves. © 2025 by Amy Carol Reeves, used with permission from Canary Street Press, an imprint of HarperCollins.

 

About HOW TO GRIEVE LIKE A VICTORIAN

On Sale: December 9, 2025; 320 Pages, Canary Street Press

About AMY CAROL REEVES

AMY CAROL REEVES has a PhD in nineteenth-century British literature and finds joy in teaching classes and writing. She’s published several academic articles as well as a young adult book trilogy about the Jack the Ripper murders in Victorian London. She lives in a quirky old house in Indianapolis with her three children. www.amycarolreeves.com

Connect with Amy Carol Reeves

Website | Facebook | Instagram | Goodreads

The post How To Grieve Like a Victorian by Amy Carol Reeves appeared first on Bewitched Bookworms.

Enjoy this excerpt from Dawn of the Firebird.

Before…

Year 495 after Nuh’s great flood,

Era of the heavenly birds

Tezmi’a Mountains, Azadniabad Empire

I would inherit the power of the Heavens, Uma had said so.

But my power was a curse, this she did not have to say. Like any great legend, my tale began with tragedy.

In the stories later recounted from my maternal uncle, my uma had a glad-tiding the night of my birth, as all mothers of gifted children did. It was near the winter solstice in the year 495, she dreamt of light emanating from my infant body, bathing her in a cool glow. She knew the Divine had shown the power I would come to inherit: nūr, cold Heavenly light, the same spiritual power that flows through the firebird.

But that night when I sprang free of Uma’s womb, our chieftains dreamt of a world of darkness. War and destruction. She is an omen, the tribe murmured, despite my uncle the khan reprimanding their frivolous superstitions. Her mother refuses to name her, nor does her father, the Great Emperor, accept her. With his many wives and heirs, this child is but one of many. But Uma knew in her heart that blessings came with a little suffering, that was the Divine’s way. My child is neither cursed nor omen. She has the affinity of light. Uma liked her secrets. This one she tucked close to her chest.

In the spring pastures of our valley Tezmi’a, that year brought a drought that starved the lands, killing portions of herd. Other peculiar happenings sowed fear in the tribe: more raids, more deaths. When Uma suckled me, wild birds would encircle the yurt before flapping into the felt tents, spilling dried meat, spoiling the yak milk and provoking our hunting birds.

‘The girl is cursed,’ my clansmen argued.

‘The girl is simply a girl. And we are God-fearing men,’ my uncle would reprimand. ‘We blame misfortune on no one but our own sins.’

‘But the birds,’ the tribe would insist, ‘they surround the babe. She is unnatural!’ It was true – wherever I was carried there was the sweep of wings above, and birdsong from the trees.

Swaddling me close, the khan’s most favoured wife spoke. Babshah Khatun. To her, not one dared argue. ‘Enough, you superstitious fools. She is a blessing who has brought forth more birds for hunting. She is unusual; but, unusual children bear the greatest gifts. However I hear your fear. The chief folkteller has the hearts of their kinsmen, for they carry the histories of our sorrows. As your folkteller, Divine as my witness, I will make this babe my apprentice. She will carry with her the tales of your greatest joys and fears until the end of her days.’

The stern lady, though young, never broke her oaths. In irony, her oath became my curse.

In the winter quarters, the best pastures were south of the alpine lake. That year, the khan’s tribe erected their yurts and herded thousands of yaks, wild mares and lambs at the base of the harsh snow-capped mountains, amongst the rolling green alpine meadows, thin grass growing above cold dirt. From the lake, icy streams broke through the rocky grasslands of Tezmi’a.

It was my seventh Flood Festival, commemorating the day Nuh left the ark after the Great Flood. That morning, the children competed, to see whose prized hunting bird would find the keenest prey. Before long, the khan’s favoured wife interrupted and led the children up the pastures until they reached the end of the settlement of tents, toward the thick woodland.

Some of the tribe’s warriors, who’d escorted goods and cattle across the mountain pass for the emperor’s merchants, rested against the boundary of trees, waxing their compound bows. Others sipped apricot tea to fling back the wet chill, nodding to us in greeting. The khan sat with them, my uma – his sister – beside him. When she spotted our group, Uma scowled and stalked toward us.

‘O, Babshah, what senseless idea do you have now?’

Babshah Khatun merely smiled in silence. Uma placed a hand against my back, staring at the hunting birds cowing upon my shoulder. She warned, ‘Do not go too south of the mountain pass. There are patrols from the enemy clans who snatch away children like her.’

Still Babshah Khatun continued deep into the womb of the valley, past protruding boulders, and clumps of elm, into the tall deep grasses that fattened the wild onagers. Trails where humans rarely ventured, and the jinn-folk still reigned. The wind whispered into the children’s hair. The entombed roots of wizened trees sprawled through the woodlands, and whizzing sprites, those mischievous little apprentices to the long-passed fae of these lands, showered seeds to pollinate the flora. A deceivingly drowsy day for the violence that it promised. A place where the old ways still mattered and the Divine-made boundary between jinn-folk and human blurred.

Determined, I tripped along next to Babshah, resisting the urge to clasp the long end of her yak leather tunic, lest she think me not brave. Even my hunting buzzards on my shoulders canted their heads, curious.

Babshah sat squat and brushed her pale hand across the dirt. Her black hair swung with the wind, a dozen thin braids clasped in silver beads and an array of hawk feathers, not dissimilar to my own. The only difference was a camel-skin cord around her temple with a blue wooden block indicating her status as a wife of the khan.

‘Today, we will do a new type of hunt,’ Babshah declared. ‘Hunting by folktelling.’

The children murmured amongst themselves, but Babshah did not elaborate. Instead, she latched on to my hand – ‘Prepare yourself, my apprentice’ – before continuing along the fir path.

When we stopped, and it came time for our hunting pairings, my milk-sibling Haj refused to take me as a partner. He was ten years old, only three years my senior, but the gap was large enough to fuel his arrogance. He took his complaints to Babshah.

‘My uma says to stay away from her, else she will curse my bird’s game! I train with a spotted sparrowhawk. The girl trains with a pair of sooty buzzards. Smaller and useless, just like her. With all the birds that follow her, she will scare away the prey.’

‘I may be Ayşenor’s only child, but I am not useless,’ I muttered, keeping my lip from trembling.

***

Excerpted from Dawn of the Firebird by Sarah Mughal Rana, Copyright © 2025 by Sarah Mughal rana. Published by Hanover Square Press.

 

About DAWN OF THE FIREBIRD

On Sale: December 2, 2025; 480 Pages, Hanover Square Press

About SARAH MUGHAL RANA

SARAH MUGHAL RANA is a Muslim author and student who completed her bachelors with honours at the University of Toronto and is now at Oxford University, studying at the intersection of economics and policy. She is a BookTok personality and the co-host of On The Write Track Podcast where she enjoys spilling tea with her favourite authors about the book world. Her debut YA novel, Hope Ablaze, published in February 2024. Outside of school, she falls down history rabbit holes and trains in traditional martial arts.

Connect with Sarah Mughal Rana

Website | TikTok | Instagram | Goodreads

The post Dawn of the Firebird by Sarah Mughal Rana appeared first on Bewitched Bookworms.

Dive into the excerpt below, and ride the wind into my review.

Chapter 1

Jerry Baugh

Jerry Baugh didn’t see the ship. He didn’t notice the red warning on the screen. He was, in fact, cozied up in the cockpit of his Dyer 29 lobster boat, feet propped between the rungs of the helm and hands stacked on his belly.

Jerry’s day of deep-sea fishing had been successful—a sailfish bill, broken at the hilt, currently stuck out of his bomber jacket pocket—and he was thinking about whether the meat should be marinated in lemon juice or just plain old butter.

He was too distracted to detect the boat in his path—white and gleaming, suspended between the black water of the Atlantic and the starless, moonless sky with the same sinister beauty of an iceberg.

Or a ghost.

When the boat alarm went off, Jerry jolted in his seat, sending his Bass Pro Shops cap tumbling down his chest. A single drop of sailfish blood had, at some point, fallen onto the face of his watch, which read nine minutes after midnight.

He detangled his feet from the helm and peered at the radar. He was heading two hundred and fifty-eight degrees toward Hallandale Marina. The strange white sailboat blocked his way.

Jerry switched off the autopilot and eased the throttle to slow down, his heart thumping soundly in his chest. If the alarm hadn’t sounded, he might have shipwrecked them both.

This sent a surge of anger through him. Why hadn’t the captain of the sailboat moved out of his way? Sheila 2.0 wasn’t subtle, her engine making an ugly chewing noise not unlike a trash compactor. They should have heard her coming.

Jerry allowed his boat to chug closer before he killed the engine and processed what on the devil’s blue sea he was looking at. It was a sailboat, yes, but not like the rust-laced ones that docked near Sheila 2.0 in the Hallandale Marina.

This boat was mesmerizing.

It had twin aluminum masts, a wood-finished deck, and sunbathing mattresses laid out on the chart house. The body of the boat was a blinding white, smooth, curvaceous. The cap rails were teak and coated with a glittering crust of sea salt. No one had cleaned them in some time. Cursive lettering on the side spelled out the boat’s name.

The Old Eileen

Jerry stared, a bit starstruck. Boats like Sheila 2.0 were made to choke marine diesel oil and seawater until they finally died twitching in a harbor like a waterlogged beetle on its back.

Boats like The Old Eileen were made to be beautiful.

Jerry found his radio, hooked to his waistband, and cleared his throat before speaking into it.

“Eileen, Eileen, Eileen, this is Sheila, Sheila, Sheila, over.” He waited.

There was a time when Jerry was younger (and a good bit stupider) that he wanted to buy a sailboat instead of a motorboat. It was romantic, the idea of harnessing the wind to travel the world. But in the end, it was those same winds that terrified him. Wind could overpower him, seize control of the boat and bend its course. Jerry would have had to accept that possibility. He would have had to bare his throat to the mercy of the sea.

A mercy, he had come to understand, that did not exist. “Eileen, Eileen, Eileen!” Jerry repeated into the radio. They must be asleep. Jerry leaned forward and sounded his horn—five short blasts to signal danger. He waited for the radio to crackle to life, for a silver-spooned captain to sputter apologies, or maybe for an underpaid deckhand to rush up top and get the boat moving once more.

There was only the sound of the luffing, useless sails, and the ever-shifting sea.

Jerry frowned and fiddled with the fish bill in his pocket.

He should leave.

He fumbled in the dark to switch the engine back on. He would report what he’d seen to the coast guard, get the captain in trouble for being so reckless. He’d be back in Florida by dawn.

But Steve . . .

Jerry glanced at his dash where he had taped up a photograph of himself with his younger brother. It was the last picture taken of Steve before he died. Jerry closed his eyes for a moment. He would have traded his boat, his bait, and everything he owned if someone had stopped that night to help Steve.

“Well, shit.” Jerry rubbed at his clavicle and swallowed hard. He would be in and out. Just to make sure all was well.

Jerry moved across the deck, aware of every sound his shuffling feet made. He rummaged through his fishing equipment, eyes never leaving The Old Eileen. His calloused, practiced hands fit right around the harpoon gun, and he felt a measure of reassurance with a weapon in his grasp. He wasn’t scared, he was too old for that, but there was nothing quite like a creaking, old ship on the ocean at night to make a man into a boy again.

He tucked the harpoon gun under one arm and set to work lowering his tiny dinghy. He’d take one moment to wake whoever was on board, then get right back on his boat. Good deed done for the day. Maybe the decade. Jerry grunted as he climbed up the Eileen’s porthole and over the rail. The deck was empty save for an orange life preserver tied to the stern, the boat’s name written in black on the top and a slogan in italics around the bottom.

Unwind Yachting Co. Safe to sail in any gale!

With no one in sight, Jerry located the companionway stairs that led down beneath the cockpit and gave one last scan of the deck before going below.

Downstairs, the chart house was neat and captainless, but the ship’s manifest was sitting in the center of the table, open to the first page.

SHIP’S MANIFEST—THE OLD EILEEN

SKIPPER—Captain Francis Ryan Cameron (55)

MATE—MJ Tuckett (67)

CREW—Alejandro Matamoros (54), Nicolás de la Vega (22)

PASSENGERS—Lila Logan Cameron (54), Francis Rylan Cameron (17), Taliea Indigo Cameron (17)

Seven souls. Seven souls aboard The Old Eileen, and not a single one had answered the radio, which lay next to the manifest like an amputated limb. Jerry picked it up and felt an ice-cold trickle of sweat on the back of his neck.

The cord had been cut.

Jerry’s knuckles went white against the harpoon gun. Bad things happen at sea. Storms kill and brothers drown.

But the radio cord hadn’t been severed by the ocean.

Jerry crept through the luxurious salon and to a door that must lead to a cabin. He let his trigger hand slip down for a moment so he could turn his radio to 16—the international maritime emergency channel.

Just in case.

He opened the door to the cabin.

The master bedroom. King-size bed with an indigo comforter and cream sheets. Velvet couch molded to fit the tight corner. A woman’s lipstick lay open on one bedside table, rolling back and forth as the boat rocked.

There was no one there. No sleeping captain, no apologetic deckhands, no life whatsoever. Had they just . . . left?

Jerry checked the next room. This one held two twin beds with identical navy bedspreads. One bed was unmade, with a variety of books scattered at its foot. The bedclothes on the other were tucked in, military-style.

A sketchbook was half hidden by the pillowcase, open to an illustration of some kind of monster.

Jerry mopped his brow with a rag he kept in his shirt pocket, not caring that it had dried sailfish blood caking the edges. He should have motored on by and called the damn guard.

He forced himself to concentrate. He was doing the right thing. The captain could be out cold and in need of help.

There were only a few more rooms.

But the last cabin was just as quiet.

Jerry peeked into the galley and the bilges, running out of places to check.

The heads. Each of the three cabins must have its own personal bathroom, and he hadn’t yet tried any of them. Hands slick with sweat around the harpoon gun, Jerry retraced his steps, checking first in the crew members’ head, then the master suite’s, then back to the room with the twin beds and the drawing of the monster.

He nudged open the last bathroom door and looked inside.

In the mirror, his own ref lection stared back at him, interrupted only by a string of crimson words that had been written on the glass.

A weight dropped anchor inside his stomach, flooding Jerry with a kind of dread he had avoided for thirty years. The harpoon gun slipped from his hands, and he reached for his radio, unable to peel his gaze from the message on the mirror.

Save yOur Self

The Convey

OPINION: The Ocean Is Our Great Equalizer (why the newest Atlantic disaster seems to spell K-A-R-M-A for the one percent)

MIKE GRADY

The Camerons—a family of four headed by television darling Lila Logan and business tycoon Francis Cameron—have been reported missing after their multimillion-dollar sailing yacht turned up eighty miles offshore without a single person onboard early in the morning of June 9. Authorities and reporters have leaped into extensive action. The Atlantic has already been tempestuous at the beginning of this year’s hurricane season. Potential upcoming storms have given the search a dangerous time component in an investigation reminiscent of the Titan, the infamous submersible that imploded with five passengers aboard on its way to see the Titanic wreck. The world had plenty to say about the Titan and its affluent victims, and this latest oceanic mystery has the potential to play out the same. Francis and Lila Cameron both had modest childhoods, but thanks to the entertainment industry, the business world, and the good old American dream, they have skyrocketed into the fraction of Americans who own multiple homes (Palm Beach villa, LA bungalow, and a sleek Aspen chalet, if anyone’s wondering), not to mention the multimillion-dollar sailing yacht that came up empty in the early hours of yesterday morning. While I’m not necessarily here to say that the Atlantic Ocean is doing a better job than God or taxes to rid us of the elite, I do want to pose a big-picture question while authorities are sussing out the how did this happen? and where did they go? Of it all. My question instead to you, dear reader, is this: Why the Camerons?

Excerpted from No One Aboard by Emy McGuire, Copyright © 2025 by Emy McGuire. Published by Graydon House.

 

The post No One Aboard by Emy McGuire appeared first on Bewitched Bookworms.

Harrison’s tale moves from ivy-draped libraries to the streets of Paris, weaving together mystery, romance, and the philosophical question of whether fate is written or chosen.

Today’s excerpt invites you into a tense search for a powerful book. For readers drawn to speculative twists grounded in emotional realism, Library of Fates offers a compelling exploration of how secrets shape us and how stories can both bind and free.

Enjoy this excerpt from Library of Fates.

Now

September 26, 2019, 1:15 p.m.

The Library of Fates lived tucked under the mansarded roof of a tall, charcoal- gray building in Harvard Yard. To a casual visitor, it was like any other library, lined with shelves for hours of pleasantly aimless browsing. But every student knew that if you came to the Library of Fates and asked for a book to guide you safely through turbulent times, the librarian would go straight to the shelf and put a book in your hands. And that book would change your life.

Eleanor Dennet was that librarian now, but the knowledge felt hollow. Her predecessor, Odile Vernet— her mentor, her guiding star, her best friend— had died suddenly three days ago, and she could barely process it.

Her throat still raw from crying, her brain still woozy from too much vodka, she stepped over the threshold of the library that had been her refuge for most of the past twenty-four years. On the surface, everything seemed the same: the dark oak paneling and moss- green area rugs and accents; the pearly glow that came through the recessed skylight; the sweet, faintly musty smell. The custodian had opened the curtains and blinds of the nine bay windows on each long side of the room. Sunlight bathed the books in a greenish haze and washed over the varnished seminar table and armchairs. The mural on the ceiling evoked the magic of stories.

But something felt different here. Something was wrong.

Then Eleanor saw him.

From his seat in a green brocade armchair angled toward the window, he didn’t seem to have noticed her entrance. Barely daring to breathe, she took in black hair sprinkled with gray on the headrest and long lashes outlined on his cheek as he gazed down at a sheaf of papers in his hand.

Daniel Vernet, Odile’s son.

The last time they’d seen each other, in 1995, they’d been standing here in the library. Eleanor’s view of Daniel had been clouded by tears, but she would never forget his dark eyes gazing back as if she were a stranger. The bland way he’d smiled, as if she meant nothing to him after everything they’d been through.

And here were more damned tears, rising and choking her. She would have to face Daniel eventually, to give condolences and make arrangements for his mother’s memorial. But not yet. She wasn’t ready for that. She darted to the window bay farthest from his chair, silent on the thick carpet, and slipped behind the floor-length curtain.

Daniel sighed heavily. The papers crackled. Frozen in place, Eleanor watched through a gap as he stood up. He didn’t look his age, the lines of his chin and cheekbones still firm.

A sharp click- clack of heels sounded on the stairs behind them. “Ready, Daniel?” asked a slightly accented voice that Eleanor recognized as Liliana, Odile’s housekeeper and close friend.

Daniel nodded, but his gaze was still on the papers. “What the hell is this?” he asked. “What the hell?”

As the older woman put a soothing hand on Daniel’s shoulder, Eleanor saw his body heave. Was he grieving his mother, then? Their relationship had never been smooth. Though Odile visited her son in Europe on occasion, it had taken her death to bring him back to the States for the first time in decades.

Liliana gave Daniel a hug and led him toward the door. “Everything will work out. You’ll see. We don’t want to be late for our appointment.”

“I’m just so confused!” Eleanor heard him still exclaiming as their feet thudded down the stairs.

She emerged from behind the curtain and stood very still, waiting for the tension to dissipate and the atmosphere to settle. Listening for a faint but steady thrum on the edge of her awareness, a rumble that was neither pipes nor heating. Like Odile, Eleanor was attuned to the library’s vibrations, inaudible to most people.

But now, standing dead center in the library, straining her senses in the stillness, she detected no reassuring thrum. Nothing. As if the library were an immense machine that had stopped running.

Panic gripped her. It can’t be.

She hurried to the oak door at the far end of the room and unlocked it with trembling fingers. Here in the librarian’s small office, The Book of Dark Nights was kept, secure in a safe, its pages alive with the power of the secrets trapped inside, for the library drew its power from the Book. As long as the Book remained there, the library would function.

On top of the safe, she found a sticky note in Odile’s strong cursive:

A place of pages,

A subterranean secret,

Where love is shared.

One book brought you together.

Start from there.

Eleanor stared at it for a dazed second. Odile often left literary quotes on sticky notes, but this didn’t seem like the style of poetry she would read— or write, if Odile had been a poet.

Then she knelt beside the safe to type in the code. Fumbling in her urgency, she had to enter it twice before the light turned green and she could swing the door open. Eleanor closed her eyes and said a silent prayer: Please let it be here.

The Book had been stolen only once, and the results had been disastrous. Eleanor tried not to think about them as she reached into the safe for the cracked calfskin of the Book’s binding, bracing herself to feel the usual tingle as her fingers made contact. Needing to experience that uncanny suggestion that the Book was alive. To know that it was only Daniel’s presence that had made the library feel wrong.

But there was nothing.

She knew people saw her as Odile’s mousy, adoring acolyte, hidden away in the library like a relic herself. A perennial student who had never even finished her PhD. A wan spinster, a living history display. Here in the library was the one place Eleanor mattered. In these books is your future, Odile had told her long ago. In these books are all the tools you need to live your life to the fullest. But all that depended on the magic.

And as she ran shaky fingers from corner to corner of the steel compartment, she found only shadows and a fine, powdery dust that came off on her fingertips.

The Book of Dark Nights was gone.

Excerpted from THE LIBRARY OF FATES by Margot Harrison, Copyright © 2025 by Margot Harrison. Published by Graydon House, an imprint of HarperCollins.

 

About LIBRARY OF FATES

On Sale: December 2, 2025; 320 Pages, Graydon House Hardcover

About MARGOT HARRISON

MARGOT HARRISON  is the author of The Midnight Club and The Library of Fates. She is also the author of four young adult novels, including an Indies Introduce Pick, Junior Library Guild Selections, and Vermont Book Award Finalists. She grew up in New York and now lives in Vermont.

Connect with Margot Harrison

Website | Twitter/X | Instagram | Goodreads

The post The Library of Fates by Margot Harrison appeared first on Bewitched Bookworms.

In this excerpt, we meet the fiery duo at the heart of the story: Carly and Adam. Beneath the sarcasm and stubbornness lies a tenderness that shines through. Whether you’re a sucker for slow-burn tension or love watching opposites collide, this sneak peek will leave you grinning and reaching for more.

So settle in, grab your favorite comfort drink, and enjoy a taste of the chaos, charm, and heart that Not You Again serves up so well…

Chapter 1

Carly

Day 1

Carly Hart was what one former friend had called “an emotional basket case.” She cried openly, in public, with very little concern for who saw. And it wasn’t just big moments that caused her to tear up—a breakup, losing out on a job, having to fly out from LAX—but the little things, too. Like when she tripped on a sidewalk crack and accidentally squished a caterpillar, or the time she went to take a shower after a workout and the water came out cold instead of hot. Carly felt deeply without much effort. Crying was cathartic, natural and part of her way of life.

But it had been a week since her dad died and still, not a single tear. She’d imagined his funeral would be the thing that finally broke her. Yet, here she was, sitting in front of his

casket, and . . . nothing. Flower arrangements lined the walls, white folding chairs were arranged in neat rows and a blown-up photo of her dad from thirty years ago with a film camera on one shoulder and a four-year-old Carly on the other was placed in front of the coffin. The evidence of her dad’s departure was all around, but still, none of this felt real.

Cry, she told herself, just like you’d write into a movie. Yes, if this were a scene she were drafting, the heroine would emit deep, guttural sobs, the camera would pan out and the screen would fade to black.

But this wasn’t one of her screenplays. There would be no swell of orchestral music, and no comforting hugs from a secondary character, apparently. Because no one else was there—the room was empty, except for her. Was she actually going to be the lone attendee at her dad’s service? Was this how Bruce Hart would be remembered?

A floorboard creaked and Carly stood, hopeful that a friend of her father’s had arrived, but it was just the funeral director.

“Sorry to interrupt,” he said.

Adam. His name was Adam. Now she remembered. He was probably in his thirties, tall and lanky in a fitted blue shirt with a blazer and loose tie. His floppy red hair fell just above the sharp lines of his jaw. “It’s fine,” she said, but her voice was much softer than she’d ever heard it. She cleared her throat and tried again.

“Fine.”

“Can I get you anything?” he asked.

“No, thank you,” she managed to respond.

“We’ll move outside in about twenty minutes, if that’s okay with you.” He clasped his hands, and she registered how his brown eyes had flecks of honey in them. 

Carly blinked. Outside, as in the burial. She gave a quick glance at the coffin, then studied her shoes. “Sure,” she said.

Though there was no way she’d be able to watch her dad get lowered into the ground. She just couldn’t.

Her eyes began to mist. Was this the moment she’d finally cry?

But then Carly’s knees buckled just enough for her to sway. In a f lash, Adam was next to her with his arm wrapped around her waist. “I’ve got you,” his tone was as firm as his grasp at her side.

He maneuvered her into a chair, and she was suddenly overwhelmed by the nearness of him. Who even was this guy? Why was he here, at her side, instead of anyone else in her life?

She didn’t want to be in this room, let alone be taken care of by someone who was about to bury her dad. She had a hard time getting the words, “I’m fine,” out, but she’d done it.

Instead of taking the hint and leaving, Adam opened a bottle of water that had been strategically tucked under a seat and handed it to her. “Here.”

Her hands were shaky, though, and the water dropped and began to spill all over the f loor. He deftly picked up the bottle and found a cloth to place over the spill.

Carly should’ve apologized, offered to get towels, or anything other than what she did next. “Please just leave,” her lips trembled over the words.

He stopped cleaning, looked up, and seemed to register her words. “Of course.” He stood, and his expression turned firm. “Just don’t step in the water. I don’t want you to fall—”

“I don’t need you to save me.” Her eyes narrowed at him. Carly understood that she was lashing out at Adam because of her grief, and the fact that she forgot to eat that morning probably didn’t help either. But she also didn’t care. This was her dad’s funeral. No one else had shown up. And she didn’t want to be comforted by this man she barely knew. She didn’t want his hand at her waist, or the water, or him. She wanted to get the hell away from this room.

His mouth opened to say something, but then a door down the hall opened, followed by footsteps.

“Excuse me.” Adam walked away from her all too quickly and approached the hallway. Carly’s heart anxiously beat again—finally, maybe this was someone to see her dad?

But no.

“Shireen?” Adam’s voice was surprised.

“Can we talk?” The woman attached to the voice appeared—also tall, but curvy, with the most gorgeous dark curls Carly had ever seen. Her expression, though, was concerned.

“I’m working.” He tilted his head toward the room where Carly sat. His work was the business of burying her dad.

“It’s important,” Shireen said quietly.

Adam gave Carly a genuinely apologetic look, then left.

She swallowed down a lump that had lodged in her throat.

She knew she’d been unfair to Adam and later she’d regret her words, but she was also relieved to be alone again. Carly approached the coffin and placed her palm on the closed lid. In there, Bruce wore the navy-blue suit and tie she’d picked out. Pinned on his jacket lapel was the Star Wars enamel pin she’d gotten him for his sixtieth birthday. He’d forever be sixty-four.

Carly studied her fingers instead of imagining him inside the box. She wasn’t ready to say goodbye, she realized. She wanted to explain that this was all just too much for her—too

intense, and awful. Maybe she could come back tomorrow and visit the grave, when she was ready? But that was when she heard them fighting.

“What do you want me to say, Adam? I fucked up! I slept with him. I’m sorry,” Shireen shouted.

“Keep your voice down!” Adam’s own raw with emotion.

Carly frowned. What was she overhearing?

“I don’t know what else to say!” the woman exclaimed. “I just need to know if you’ll forgive me.”

There was a long stretch of silence. Carly realized that this was a private moment between two people, and she had no business listening in. She should definitely cover her ears or something.

Problem was, Carly was nosy.

“What did you expect me to do? You haven’t paid attention to me in years! We’re basically coworkers.”

“Coworkers don’t have sex, Shireen.”

“And neither do we!”

Carly slapped a hand across her mouth to keep in whatever noise was about to tumble out. Instead of sobs, she choked back incredulous giggles. How was it that on the worst day of her life, she was overhearing some of the best dialogue? Her eyes went wide as she focused on the coffin. “What do you think, Dad? Movie-worthy?”

But she was met with silence, because of course she was. For a moment, she’d been able to pretend like her dad was still there. Like they were having one of their old brainstorming sessions, where she’d rattle off a half-baked idea that he’d punch up. Who was she going to spitball with now?

She uncovered her mouth. “I miss you.”

The words came out easily because they were pure truth. She missed him. And in that moment, she knew where she finally needed to go.

The Last Showing movie theater was located off Main Street in the small, sleepy town of Julian, California. When she’d taken the key from her dress pocket and opened the doors, Carly wasn’t sure what to expect. Her dad had sent photos of the renovations he’d done, but to see the theater in real life was . . . surreal.

The place had been closed for a week, but the red-and-gold-flecked carpet was spotless. The warm white walls held framed posters of upcoming and past film releases. Neon stars dangled from wires on the ceiling. The food counter had been wiped clean, and the glass cases that held rows and rows of candy were stacked and ready to sell. If she’d wanted, Carly could throw open the doors, turn on the overhead marquee and wait to see if anyone came in. That was probably what Bruce did every day. Used to do.

Instead, she went behind the snack counter, tore open a package of Milk Duds and dumped the chewy morsels into an empty popcorn bucket. Then she ripped open a pack of gummy worms and let them fall in. She added Skittles, Swedish Fish, Twizzlers, M&Ms, Reese’s Pieces and mini Butterfinger Bites until the bucket was nearly full. Her dad called this a candy salad, their favorite treat.

Bruce also liked to add hot, buttery popcorn on top so everything melted together. He wasn’t there to tell her that, though.

He. Wasn’t. There.

Carly looked up from her tub of sugar. A “questionable” pot of joy any other day, but the thing felt as heavy as a brick in her hands. Her dad’s whole world had been movies. He’d gotten his first job as a PA on the set of a low-budget indie horror film when he was eighteen. But after forty-some-odd years of working his way up to cinematographer, he’d wanted a change of pace. He could’ve taken a cushy role as an adjunct professor at USC’s film school—a job he’d been offered. Instead, he’d done the least sensible thing imaginable: taken his savings, uprooted his Los Angeles life and bought a decrepit movie theater in a small town three hours away.

“I want to build something special—something of my own,” he’d excitedly told Carly over a greasy pancake brunch at the Tallyrand diner in Burbank, just a few blocks from his house and her apartment. He’d already begun renovations on the theater. “You’ll see, Carly girl!”

But she didn’t see, and neither did anyone in Julian. Because as Carly recently discovered, Bruce was in massive piles of debt. He’d taken out more loans than movie tickets sold. An exaggeration, but still . . . his gamble hadn’t paid off.

A few weeks ago, her dad had asked that she come visit so they could make his famous candy salad and watch the total solar eclipse together. He’d lived full-time in Julian for a year, and she hadn’t taken the three-hour drive down to see him. But Carly had no intention of coming to watch the eclipse—even if it was “rare and cinematic,” as her dad said. Because if she traveled to Julian, then she’d know for certain that he was never returning to Los Angeles. So she’d declined the invite, hoping he’d finally understand that his leaving had been the wrong decision.

Of course, neither of them knew that seeing her would be his dying wish. Carly thought putting together her dad’s favorite movie snack would ease her pain. She thought that by coming to the theater she’d get some kind of closure. But as she looked around the empty lobby, she couldn’t help but feel complete and utter rage.

If he hadn’t moved to this cookie-cutter small town to pursue his half-baked dream, Bruce would still be alive. If he and her mother hadn’t had their first date in a movie theater, maybe none of this would’ve happened in the first place. Why were both of her parents gone from this world when so many other people got to keep theirs for longer? 

The bucket shook in Carly’s unsteady hands. Being here without him was too excruciating. For the first time since arriving in Julian, she finally understood her dad was really gone. Her throat burned. She couldn’t breathe. The hot, bubbling sorrow that had built inside her blow by blow finally tumbled out as a scream. She clenched her jaw, hurled the bucket of candy as hard as she could and it exploded against a framed poster.

Carly let out a loud sob. The flood of tears was so intense that the tightness in her throat couldn’t compete with the force of her own pain. Her body swayed from the grief, and she collapsed to the floor. Her dad, that clever, sweet bear of a man, was gone.

After what felt like hours but was probably more like minutes, Carly had no more tears left. So when the front door squeaked open and she spied Hank—the janitor her dad had told her about—she couldn’t so much as fake a hello. Hank looked at her, then at the trail of spilled candy.

“I’ll clean this up.” Her hands instinctively went to the floor.

“Let me,” Hank said as he approached. Why hadn’t Hank come to her dad’s funeral? Was Julian just filled with soulless, rude people?

But then Adam popped into her head. He hadn’t been rude. He’d tried to help. So, naturally, she’d gone and chased him off.

“You go outside,” Hank added. “Get some fresh air. See the eclipse. Your dad would’ve wanted that.”

The eclipse. Yes, Carly had forgotten about the total eclipse that was happening because, well, her dad. She wordlessly agreed to let Hank do his job, and then numbly moved toward the exit.

Outside the theater doors, the sun was low in the sky and filled Main Street with warm light. A preschooler rode a scooter down the sidewalk as her mother chased along behind.

The child’s delighted squeals blended with Carly’s own sniffling. A chunk of her life had ceased to exist, but somehow everyone else carried on like that didn’t matter. As she glanced down the street, there were a handful of people in eclipse glasses, and kids lying on their backs with their faces toward the sky, delighting in the novelty. The whole scene would be quaint if she weren’t in mourning.

The truth that Carly didn’t belong in Julian hit her like a punch. She belonged in Burbank, where she’d grown up and had a studio apartment waiting for her. The sooner she could wrap up her dad’s affairs, the sooner she could get back home and leave behind the reminders that he was gone.

Home. The thought made Carly slip her phone out of the pocket of her black midi dress. There was a text from Daniel, her closest friend. She didn’t have a ton of those.

DANIEL: Call me, okay?

She would call him, eventually.

Then she clicked into her email. Being a screenwriter was a mostly solitary endeavor. So when she saw the new email with the simple subject line of “script,” she felt compelled to

open it.

FROM: therealmarilyn@wahoo.com

TO: CarlyHartWrites@tmail.com

SUBJECT LINE: Script

Carly, I read your script. I think it has potential. Let’s set

time to discuss. Xx

She read it again. Then again. Carly had recently sent a script to Marilyn Montgomery—one of the most successful screenwriters in the business—after her dad had called in a favor. But she never expected a reply; favors were called in all the time in Hollywood, and often nothing came of them.

But Marilyn had read her script. She said there was potential.

She . . . wanted to discuss it?

Normally, knowing that an Academy Award-winning screenwriter thought her script could be something would elicit the kind of manic excitement that might frighten the nearby children. But in this moment, where Carly could barely stand from grief, all she could do was smile. A genuine smile, because she knew her dad would be so proud. Her life was about to change. She couldn’t call Marilyn, not when she might start crying if another human so much as spoke to her, so she typed a quick response back. Thank you for reading! I will send availabilities shortly! Thank you, again! She hit Send before she added another superfluous thank-you Or exclamation point, and immediately got a failure-to-send notification. 

Carly frowned, and out of sheer desperation, placed a call to Daniel. Only, the voice that greeted her was an automated recording. The number you’re trying to call is not reachable.

Before she could overthink it, voices rose around her and the people nearby pointed toward the sky.

Maybe the service was glitching because everyone was outside on their phones and livestreaming the eclipse. She’d try emailing again as soon as it was over. What the hell; she might as well see the eclipse. Her dad had been eager to watch, and if she couldn’t be with him physically, maybe this was a different way to honor his memory. Carly took a deep breath, shaded her eyes with her hand and looked up.

This, however, was absolutely a mistake. Her retinas instantly burned. She blinked back the sting and tried to open them again, but her lids felt stuck together. All she saw was black. Had she just blinded herself on top of everything?

There was a flicker of an image—white folding chairs and her dad’s coffin—followed by his voice—Come find me, Carly girl—so clear and loud her breath caught. Then, as quickly as it had all come on, her eyes opened.

“Dad?” Carly said.

Main Street came back into focus—the kids lying on top of towels, strangers pointing toward the sky. Of course he wasn’t there. She must’ve heard his voice in her fog of grief. Come find me, Carly girl echoed like a drum in her head, though. Logically, she knew that her heart wasn’t actually breaking, but how else to explain the sharp and sudden pain in her chest? She placed a hand to her forehead, let out a shuddering breath and wished the day would just end already.

Excerpted from Not You Again by Erin La Rosa, Copyright © 2025 by Erin La Rosa. Published by Canary Street Press.

If you’re a fan of slow-burn romance with a twist of magical realism and a dash of small-town chaos, Not You Again is the kind of book of book for you. I’ve enjoyed previous books by Erin La Rosa and was happy to find that I enjoyed this one too.

At its heart, this story is about two people who aren’t supposed to fall in love. But they do really slowly and quite stubbornly over the course of the book. The romance simmers with tension and tenderness when Adam and Carly aren’t butting heads. Erin La Rosa gives us a couple whose banter is sharp while their chemistry is palpable. They are both well-fleshed out and it  makes them feel like you’ve known forever. They are refreshingly relatable, and their flaws, their humor, and their attempts to survive in a confusing world is surprising and fun.

Not only are Carly and Adam reliving the same April day, but the entire town and it’s population are caught in a time loop as well. What starts as a quirky premise quickly becomes a surreal backdrop for emotional growth and romantic tension. As the loop stretches on, the townspeople begin to unravel in increasingly bizarre ways. The increasing unhingedness is hinted at and it’s weird, wonderful, and adds a layer of unpredictability that kept the pages turning for me.

La Rosa balances humor and heart with finesse, making Not You Again more than just a rom-com—it’s a story about second chances, self-discovery, and the strange magic of falling in love when everything else feels stuck. If you’re craving a romance that’s equal parts hilarious and heartfelt, with a side of time-loop weirdness and characters who feel like friends, this one’s for you.

I give NOT YOU AGAIN a four out of five. La Rosa balances humor and heart with finesse, making Not You Again more than just a rom-com. It’s a story about second chances, self-discovery, and the strange magic of falling in love when everything else feels stuck. If you’re craving a romance that’s equal parts hilarious and heartfelt, with a side of time-loop weirdness and characters who feel like friends, this one’s for you.

Find NOT YOU AGAIN

Amazon | Ripped Bodice | Bookshop.org | Goodreads

About ERIN LA ROSA

ERIN LA ROSA is the author of For Butter or Worse, Plot Twist, and The Backtrack, and on her way to writing romance, she’s also published two humorous nonfiction books, Womanskills and The Big Redhead Book. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and four daughters (two humans, two felines). Find her on Twitter and Instagram @erinlarosalit and on TikTok @erinlarosawrites.

Find Erin La Rosa

Website | Instagram | TikTok | Twitter/X | Substack | Goodreads

The post Not You Again by Erin La Rosa appeared first on Bewitched Bookworms.

Today’s excerpt invites you into Aphrodite’s world. Whether you’re drawn to mythology or feminist retellings, this glimpse into Rogerson’s reimagining will leave you wanting more.

Aphrodite I

I’m a liar, to begin with.

Well, if I’m being exceedingly honest with you – and I am trying – I was nothing at all, to begin with. Then I was my father’s testicles. Then the weaver of Fate itself, which is when the lying started. After that, it all got a bit complicated.

I was the daughter of Ouranos. The daughter of Zeus. The daughter of no one at all. A winner, a loser, though never much in between. The world standard of beauty and a crone, both. Olympus’ very own it-girl. Maybe the worst wife in all of history. A lover, a friend, a co-conspirator. A snitch. Selfless – once or twice. A bitch – more than twice. A monster, a villain, a victim – if you must. A good mother, a bad mother, a really bad mother. Lonely and famous and beloved and alone. Precious and worthless. A rival, a cheat. Afraid, often, and terrifying, also often. Oh, and I started a war. That’s very important.

The goddess Aphrodite. I was that too. I don’t think I am

anymore. Look, it’s all very knotted. Maybe I should start from the beginning.

First, there was Chaos, which meant something different then to what it does now. The time of Chaos was empty. It was a blank canvas for the optimists and an endless sinkhole for the pessimists. It was a time of absolutely nothing. I suppose I was nothing then, but we all were, so I won’t hold that against her.

Chaos was empty, until she met Nyx. I like to think that the two of them were in love, but I’ve never met my grandmothers, so I can’t say for certain. The two of them created the earth and the seas and the sky, and they had three children to gift them to.

Their daughters received the sea and the earth, and they were happy with them.

Their son wasn’t, as is the way of youngest children. He wanted to be the king of a world consisting of only five people, so they let him.

My father, given the world like a toy so he’d play nicely with his sisters. I suspect he was spoiled rotten, but then I quite like being spoiled, myself. And he did ask, before he took. He spoke with such conviction about the glittering future he would bring, the life he would spread across this world, that they believed him.

Ouranos became the first king of this world. He took his sister to be his wife and he made good on his promises. Together – let’s not give him all the credit; he didn’t carry their children – they filled the world with life. They brought forth the Titans, beings more powerful than even they were, who could control the elements around them more easily than breathing. And they brought forth the Cyclopes, and the Hecatonchires – the hundred-handed ones – who Gaia loved and who did not ask for power, only a life, which meant Ouranos did not respect them. He thought them irrelevant to the world, because they didn’t demand to own it. They lived between the oceans and created beautiful wonders with all the energy they saved from fighting.

I don’t know how many children they had together. It doesn’t matter. All that really matters is it was one child too many.

It’s always the youngest son who has the most to prove.

Their youngest was a Titan, Cronus. He wanted to be king too, only Ouranos wasn’t like his mothers. He didn’t want to give up what was his.

Cronus asked for power; his father said no. Cronus did not ask a second time.

So the world came to know a new word: war.

It didn’t last long, that first war. It couldn’t. All the Titans could be counted on fingers and toes.

Cronus armed himself. He went to the Cyclopes and asked for their support. He promised them positions in his new order, new lives beneath the sun instead of deep below the sea. He told them he would respect them as their father never did. And he let their conversation be heard just enough to build fear in his father.

It’s a bold strategy, to tell your enemy that you’re coming, but it works well with the men in my family. They’re so afraid of it, it eats away at them, into their very bones, and they forget that they’re anything other than the position they hold.

Ouranos ordered the Cyclopes sent to Tartarus, a prison in the underworld he’d had to create personally, because one had never been needed before.

(It’s a problem when you’re an immortal fighting other immortals. You have to be careful about who you piss off because there’s no getting rid of them. They’ll be there, hating you. Forever.)

How Cronus himself escaped being tied up in proto-damnation is beyond me, but he did. I suspect his mother helped. He promised her – how they promise! – he would free her sons, bring them to the power they deserved. When Cronus was king, everyone would live equally in a utopia, just below him.

He had his people behind him. He had his shining vision for the future. He had the weapons and the belief. It was only a matter of time.

He followed his father across the land, over the oceans, waited for the perfect storm to be whipping around them, for winds too loud for words – I know that for certain. I made my entrance soon enough.

I think it’s unlikely they’d have had much to chat about, anyway. When you get to weapons at dawn, what do you say?

I want power!

No, me!

No, me!

They were both armed, but Cronus’ reach was longer. That’s been true of every new generation I’ve seen, that they’re just a little bigger than their parents, trying to prove they’re better in the most

pointless of ways.

Cronus carried a sickle. I don’t know what my father’s weapon was. He lost.

There was no point in aiming to kill. There never has been, for us. Instead, Cronus thought of the worst shame he could possibly imagine, and he castrated his father.

Chopped his balls off.

De-testicled him.

I’ve heard every possible variation of the phrase, some with great solemnity and some with a snigger, and I’ve never been able to explain why I’m not laughing.

I can tell you now, though.

Those balls were me.

I grew from them. I was born from them. They were me and I am them and that will always be the truth. That is my beginning.

I made my debut at the end of the first great war, in a storm unlike any other, as the world turned itself upside down trying to find its way in the new order. All of this is true, yet my birth is reduced to a punchline.

I hid it for so long, not wanting my entire existence to be reduced to one man’s shame, but I’m over that now. I’m much more famous than him, after all.

I’ve always wondered how Cronus managed to castrate him so neatly. It was only my father’s testicles that made me – call my knowing that feminine intuition, if you want – but Cronus used a sickle.

How? Were they hanging so low? Was Ouranos’ stance so wide because he needed the world to see his mighty balls? What possible physical arrangement leads to one man being able to castrate another with a weapon made for cutting wheat?

Cronus would have had to practise, but he can’t have. Surely he had better things to do in the war, and I’ve met some of his generals. I can’t imagine them offering themselves up for the chop.

That one is a mystery for the ages, I’m afraid, but it doesn’t matter, because now I’m here. That’s it. All of the relevant history before I arrived. Done.

Cronus lifted his arms in mighty victory and bellowed so that all around him could cheer and crown him the new king of everything. Like his father, he went home and married his sister, ready to fill the world with people who looked just like him.

Ouranos, newly ball-less, gave an anguished cry.

‘You think yourself so smart, so powerful, but one day you will be just like me, dethroned by your own children.’

Cronus looked at his father’s crotch. ‘I will never be just like you, will I?’

He ordered Ouranos tied and bound in Tartarus, that prison of his own making, never to be seen again.1

So distracted were they by their respective shouting that the testicles fell into the ocean, instantly swallowed by the swells of the waves, pulled down into utter blackness, presumed lost.

Wrong. 

 

1 For a certain value of never. We are immortals, after all. —A

 

 

Excerpted from Aphrodite by Phoenicia Rogerson. © 2025 by Phoenicia Rogerson, used with permission from Hanover Square Press, an imprint of HarperCollins.

 

About APHRODITE

On Sale: November 11, 2025; 480 Pages, Hanover Square Press

About PHOENICIA ROGERSON

Phoenicia Rogerson is the award-winning author of Herc, which won the 2024 Somerset Maugham Award for young writers and was chosen as one of Waterstones’ Best Books of the Year in 2023. Though she is altogether mortal with a rather less checkered past than Hercules, she’s had a lifelong infatuation with Greek mythology and is greatly enjoying being able to claim her book purchases are for work. She lives in London.

 

Connect with Phoenicia Rogerson

Website | Twitter/X | Instagram | Goodreads

The post Aphrodite by Phoenicia Rogerson appeared first on Bewitched Bookworms.

What starts as a celebration ends in catastrophe. In The Perfect Hosts, Heather Gudenkauf delivers a thriller that turns a gender reveal party into the epicenter of a deadly mystery. Set against the sweeping backdrop of a Wyoming horse ranch, this novel blends psychological suspense with the haunting echoes of long-buried secrets.

Madeline and Wes Drake seem to have it all: wealth, status, and a sprawling ranch perfect for hosting two hundred guests. But when their “pistols and pearls” party goes violently wrong, leaving one woman dead and others injured, the facade begins to crack. Enter Special Agent Jamie Saldano, a Nightjar native with his own traumatic past who is tasked with unraveling the truth behind the explosion. As he digs deeper, the investigation exposes a community riddled with deception, strained loyalties, and unexpected houseguests who may know more than they’re letting on.

If you love thrillers that explore the dark undercurrents of seemingly perfect lives, The Perfect Hosts will keep you guessing until the final page. Check out the excerpt below.

MADELINE

“Madeline,” comes Wes’s voice, tinny and faraway-sounding. “Are you okay?”

She is lying flat on her back, the air still hazy with smoke. Is she? Is she okay? The ringing in her ears is fading, and she can hear again. In the distance she can hear sirens. Help is coming. Madeline does a mental scan of her body. Nothing seems broken, but her head is pounding. She touches her hairline, expecting her fingers to come back with blood, but instead they find an egg- sized lump. She tries to remember exactly what happened. Wes pulled the trigger, and the truck exploded. An explosion, that’s what it was. Something had gone wrong with the reveal. The baby. Oh God, is the baby okay? She presses her palms against her belly.

“Madeline, Madeline,” comes Wes’s voice again, this time more insistent. His frantic face comes into view.

“Shhh,” Madeline orders. “Please be quiet.” She needs to lie completely still, has to concentrate so she can feel the baby move. She. The baby is a girl, Madeline thinks, remembering the wisps of pink smoke she saw among the fiery black cloud. Her little girl will kick her in the bladder, one of her favorite moves, any second now. There is nothing. No cartwheels or wiggles. Nothing.

Wes kneels beside her and slips his hand into hers. “Help is coming. Stay put. Don’t move.”

Madeline nods as hot tears roll down her cheeks. “What happened?”

“It must have been the truck,” Wes says. “It must have triggered a bigger explosion.”

“But how?” Madeline asks. “You said it was safe . . . Is anyone hurt?”

“It was. It was supposed to be.” He shakes his head, be- wildered. “I don’t know what happened.”

Madeline struggles into a sitting position and looks around. Charred lumber litters the lawn. The canopy over the dining tables has collapsed and is covered in dancing flames that a handful of guests and waitstaff are trying to smother with what- ever is handy: 

cowboy hats, table linens, an old horse blanket. Other guests are gathered in small, tight clusters, holding on to one another. Some sit in the grass crying, others stand slack- faced, as if in shock. Through the smoke a rodeo clown appears, his brightly colored clothing now blackened with soot and his makeup running down his sweaty face. The clown is helping the photographer, who is bleeding from the head. But it is the old storage barn that Madeline finds herself fixated on. Huge f lames shoot from the hayloft window and the roof. Someone pulls a hose from one of the horse barns, and suddenly buckets and containers of all sizes appear. Others, including Johanna’s husband, Dalton, are running toward the burning barn and tossing water onto the structure. They know that one wayward spark could ignite the house or, worse, the barns filled with her beloved horses.

“Can you walk?” Wes asks. “We have to get you away from here.”

Madeline nods, and Wes helps her to her feet. She is barefoot. The blast had lifted her in the air and knocked her flip-flops clear off her feet. Madeline, leaning against Wes, winces with each step, the rough ground pricking at the soles of her feet. He leads her to the meadow, a safe distance from the burning barn, but still close enough for her to see what’s happening. Some of Madeline’s earlier numbness is beginning to wear away, and the enormity of what has happened begins to descend.

“Go,” Madeline says, knowing they need as many hands as possible.

Wes shakes his head. “No,” he says. “I’m not leaving you.” “I’m fine,” she says, but is she? She fell hard, and still the baby hasn’t moved.

Madeline scans the crowd. “Where’s Johanna?” she asks. “Have you seen her?”

“I haven’t,” Wes says. “But I’m sure she’s around here somewhere. Have you seen Dix?”

“No,” Madeline says. The last she saw Dix was just before he handed the microphone to Wes. “Go,” Madeline repeats. “Really, I’m fine. I just have to get my bearings,” she assures him when he turns his gaze to her doubtfully. “Go help, find your brother. And check on the horses.”

“You wait here,” Wes says. “Don’t move from this spot, and I’ll come back and find you.” He squeezes her hand and kisses her cheek before darting away and disappearing into a cloud of black smoke.

Madeline continues to eye the property for any sign of Johanna’s long dark braid, her suede skirt. In the distance the wail of sirens grows closer. Help is coming. The meadow to the left of the house was being used as a makeshift parking lot for the guests’ vehicles. One wayward spark from the fire landing on the stubbled field could set off a chain reaction where upward of a hundred cars and trucks, tanks filled with gasoline and diesel, sit idly.

The air is filled with inky smoke blotting out the face of the mountain and the setting sun. A fire truck pulls through the side yard, crushing Madeline’s lavender and Russian sage, its massive tires carving deep ruts in the soil. Madeline barely notices—it’s what she sees as a group of guests part to let the truck through that causes her breath to lodge in her throat. A woman lies on the ground, her arm thrown over her face, while someone presses a blood-soaked cloth to her abdomen. One by one, Madeline registers the carnage. Someone is doing CPR on Gary Wilson, the president of the bank that holds their mortgage. One of her equestrian students is wandering aimlessly through the smoke, tears running down her face. A fifteen-hundred- pound bull has escaped the rodeo paddock and is trotting toward the mountains. She sees Mellie, the young waitress, running and screaming, fire dancing up the front of her legs. A partygoer tackles her, smothering the flames with his body.

This is bad. So very bad. Madeline fights the urge to vomit. She wants to help. But how? Water, Madeline thinks. She can pass out bottles of water, try and keep the guests calm and reassure them that help is here, that everything is going to be okay. On unsteady feet she moves toward the party barn, where she knows there is plenty of bottled water, but someone grabs her arm. Mia. “Have you seen Sully?” she asks tearfully, her arm hanging at an odd angle. “I can’t find him.”

Madeline shakes her head. “I’ll help look for him,” she promises. “You’re hurt. Sit down.”

Mia shakes her head. “I need Sully,” she says thickly and stumbles away. There are too many injured and not enough emergency personnel.

The fire truck has come to an abrupt stop. Two firefighters are urging those guests who jumped in to try to put out the fire to move away from the blaze. With machinelike efficiency, they unroll the hoses.

Madeline is mesmerized by the flames that roll across the roof of the barn, the dense cloud of smoke, the roar of lumber being eaten by the flames. She moves closer, unnoticed by the firefighters, her face growing pink from the heat. Madeline vaguely becomes aware of more sirens and shouts of “Over here” and “Please help!” More help has arrived. The spray of water hisses and snarls as it strikes flames and wood. The barn turns into a living thing then, twisting and groaning until it collapses in on itself, turning to a big heap of charred lumber with sooty farm equipment peeking out here and there.

Excerpted from The Perfect Hosts by Heather Gudenkauf, Copyright © 2025 by Heather Gudenkauf. Published by Park Row Books

About THE PERFECT HOSTS

On Sale: November 4, 2025; 320 Pages, Park Row Books

About HEATHER GUDENKAUF

Heather Gudenkauf is the critically acclaimed author of several novels, including the New York Times bestsellers The Weight of Silence, The Overnight Guest and Everyone Is Watching. She lives in Iowa with her husband and children.

 

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The post The Perfect Hosts by Heather Gudenkauf appeared first on Bewitched Bookworms.

The story centers on two women: Shannon, newly engaged and trying to keep her news under wraps until her exuberant mother’s wedding is over, and Victoria, a stuntwoman whose strained relationship with her adoptive mother Ava is about to be tested by a revelation decades in the making. When a chance encounter at a wedding venue brings these four women together, a long-buried secret resurfaces. And it’s a revelation that links their lives in ways they never imagined.

If you’re drawn to stories that explore identity, second chances, and the messy beauty of family, Otherwise Engaged is a must-read. Dive in with an excerpt below.

How does the horse look?

Victoria Rogers pressed her good arm to her very bruised, almost broken ribs. “Dad, don’t,” she said, trying to stay as still as possible. “You can’t be funny. It already hurts to breathe. It wasn’t a horse.”

Her father frowned. “I was told you were thrown off a horse.” “I was thrown out of a truck.”

“Then how’d you get the black eyes?”

“The ground was a little bit pissy when I hit it and punched me back.”

There wasn’t a part of her that didn’t hurt. The good news was that now that the medical staff had determined she didn’t have a head injury, they were going to give her drugs to help with the pain. She’d already said she didn’t want any of that weak-ass pill stuff. She wanted a nurse to give her a shot of something that would work instantly and let her rest. Because in addition to the bruised ribs, requisite scrapes and contusions, she had a broken left leg and a sprained wrist. Her previously dislocated shoulder also throbbed, but that was kind of the least of it.

As she lay in her hospital bed, feeling like death on a tortilla, she had the thought that maybe stunt work wasn’t for her. Injuries came with the job, but this was the third time in five years she’d landed in the hospital. The first time she’d messed up, so that was on her, but the other two had just been plain bad luck. The incident with the truck had come about because one of the tires had blown, causing the however many ton vehicle to jump the curb—an action that had sent her flying up and over the side. Gravity, being the bitch it was, had flung her onto the sidewalk. Hence the injuries.

Her father studied her, his brows drawn together in concern. “None of this makes me happy,” he told her.

The incongruous statement nearly made her laugh. She remembered—just in time—that her ribs wouldn’t appreciate the subsequent movement and they would punish her big-time.

“Today isn’t my favorite day either,” she admitted, trying not to groan. “I didn’t wake up with the thought that I should try to get thrown out of the back of a pickup.” Although technically getting thrown out of the truck had been the stunt. Just not when it had happened and without warning or a plan.

“I’m worried,” her father told her.

“I’ll be fine.”

“This time.”

She winced, and not from pain. “Now you sound like Mom.”

Her father, a handsome man only a few months from his sixtieth birthday, brightened. “Thank you, Victoria. That’s such a nice thing to say.”

Given her weakened condition, she let that comment slide. Honestly she didn’t have the strength to deal with it right now, even though she knew her father understood exactly what she’d been saying. He was only pretending to not get it.

“If you’re going to act like that, you should go,” she said, then amended what could be construed as a catty comment into something more kind. Mostly because she only had the emotional energy not to get along with one of her parents, and her mother had already claimed that prize. “Besides, they’ll be bringing my drugs any second. I plan to surrender to sleep, so I’m not going to be very conversational.”

As if to prove her point, one of the nurses walked in with a syringe. “Ready to feel better?” he asked cheerfully.

“Yes, and let me say, you’re my favorite person ever.”

He winked. “I get that all the time.”

He slowly injected whatever the medication was into her IV. Victoria drew in a shallow breath as she waited to feel that first blurring of the edges of the pain. Modern medicine was a miracle she intended to embrace.

The nurse left. Milton took her good hand in his.

“I’ll let you rest,” he told her. “But I’ll be back later tonight.” He squeezed her fingers. “Tomorrow, when you’re released, I’m taking you home.”

Ugh. Victoria knew that her father wasn’t talking about the pretty condo he’d bought her when she’d turned twenty-one. Instead he meant the house where she’d grown up. The one where her mother still resided.

“I don’t need to move back,” she protested, feeling the first telltale easing of the pain. “I have a few bumps and bruises.”

“Along with a broken leg. And what about your ribs? You can barely move without wincing.”

“I have zero pain tolerance. I’m a total wimp.”

He frowned. “You’re tough and stoic. If you’re showing signs of pain, it’s bad. You’ll stay with your mother and me until you’re well enough to be on your own.” He pointed at her. “I mean it, Victoria. You don’t get a vote.”

Her father was rarely stern with her, so his sharp tone warned her he wasn’t kidding. And she knew from twenty-four years of experience that arguing with the man would get her nowhere. Milton didn’t take a stand very often, but when he did, he was the immovable object.

“I wish you loved me less,” she murmured, feeling a little floaty and stumbling over her words. “Okay, I feel drugs. Let me enjoy the experience of breathing without, you know, wanting to die.”

Oh, baby girl. You’ve always been difficult.”

“I know. It’s one of my best qualities.” Her eyes drifted closed. “Love you, Dad.”

“Love you more.” He kissed her cheek. “I’ll see you tonight.”

“Come alone.”

His soft chuckle was the last thing she heard.

Excerpted from Otherwise Engaged by Susan Mallery, Copyright © 2025 by Susan Mallery Inc. Published by MIRA Books.

About OTHERWISE ENGAGED

On Sale: November 4, 2025; 368 Pages, MIRA

About SUSAN MALLERY

SUSAN MALLERY is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of novels about the relationships that shape women’s lives―family, friendship, romance. Library Journal says, “Mallery is the master of blending emotionally believable characters in realistic situations,” and readers seem to agree―40 million copies of her books have sold worldwide. Her warm, humorous stories make the world a happier place to live. She’s passionate about animal welfare, which shows in the many quirky animal characters she has created. Susan grew up in California and now lives in Seattle with her husband and adorable poodle. Visit her at SusanMallery.com.

 

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The post Otherwise Engaged by Susan Mallery appeared first on Bewitched Bookworms.