Lovely prose – Ring Reads

‘Japanese Gothic’ Bloody and Tender

The cover of Japanese Gothic, featuring a Japanese-style watercolor of a house surrounded by foliage, all in dripping black and red.

Baker’s pacing is quick enough, and the story compelling enough to keep the violence and characters’ hopelessness from bleeding too heavily into the reader.

In ‘Infamous,’ Minutiae Gives Meaning to Family Life

Painted portraits of five children peek out from torn antique-looking wallpaper with the title and author of the book in yellow cursive in the foreground.

The Gilberts and Thornwalk are fictional, but the equivalents in our own homes and families and lives aren’t. These bits and bobbles, these trinkets and signs of wear that mean nothing to anyone else and might not even mean a thing to ourselves but nevertheless bear aching witness to, well, life.

‘Magician’ A Pleasant, Low-Stakes Romp

The cover of The Magician of Tiger Castle, which features illustrated tigers among gold filigree around the edge of a dark-green background and the book's title and author.

Magician isn’t exactly a “cozy” fantasy, per se, but it didn’t seek to keep me on the edge of my seat in a way that was really nice, given the current geopolitical climate.

‘Fever’ a Layered Gothic Novel

The cover of Cape Fever by Naia Davids, on which the title and author are superimposed on what looks like peeling wallpaper, gold in color with branches and birds printed on it.

The growing closeness between Soraya and Mrs. Hattingh seems at first harmless, though this wouldn’t be a very good gothic novel if it stayed that way.

‘Before I Forget’ A Pleasantly Gentle Story of Forgetting

An illustration of a loon on a small bit of blue water is in the center of this otherwise tan-colored cover, which also features the title and author name in hot-pink sans-serif font.

Before I Forget is a sweet, swift read that focuses on the emotions surrounding memory and self, though it shies away from some of the gnarlier aspects of end-of-life caregiving.

‘Bug Hollow’ Gives Its Characters Nuance

The cover of Michelle Huneven's latest novel, Bug Hollow, featuring the title and author over a blurry, 1970s-era picture of a white girl in blue pants and a pink coat sitting in a blue station wagon and presumably her father loading suitcases while a woman walks from a house toward the car.

It’s easy to draw heroes and villains from the members of this family, but nuance is more interesting than caricatures, and Huneven gives each character plenty of shades of gray with little narrative judgement.

‘Ghost Fish’ a Slim Novel with a Punch

The cover of Ghost Fish, featuring the title above and the author below an image of an orange-ish fish diving into teal-and-orange waters.

Opening up this slim novel gives the feeling of unknowingly sinking into cool, deep water; closing brings you back to the surface, gasping for air.

‘Alchemy’ Is As Sweet As Its Flowers

The cover of The Alchemy of Flowers, featuring a large keyhole containing the title and author name, which is surrounded by dark florals.

Resau’s descriptions are lush, making the scent of jasmine or lavender, the feel of a refreshing stream, or the taste of a character’s cooking almost come off the page (or the phone screen).

Moreno-Garcia’s Latest a ‘Bewitching’ Tale

The cover of The Bewitching, featuring black filigree in the fore of a dark green background. A pale hand tinted green reaches up for a gold bird surrounded by sewing pins. The cover is between hand and bird, also in gold.

The Bewitching expertly weaves the supernatural and the pedestrian together across generations into something rich and haunting in all the best ways.

‘Fortune’ Pits Truth Against Reputation in Murder Mystery

The cover of Tricks of Fortune features a bright red background with indistinct black tarot-style cards and gold four-sided stars in indistinct constellations. The title is in white and black text, and the author's name, Lina Chern, is in black text.

Rather than being simply a vehicle for plot, Chern’s writing sings with artful composition and delightful turns of phrase that not only make reading easy but pleasant, too.