Would read again – Ring Reads

‘Captain’s Dinner’ Focuses on Legal Drama, Not Cannibalism

The cover to Adam Cohen's Captain's Dinner, which features the title, subtitle, and author on a detail of what looks like an 18th-century painting of four men in a rowboat on choppy sea with dark clouds overhead.

There’s a delicacy in writing about history. For one thing, having the benefit of knowing the end of a series of events from the beginning makes it easy for us to criticize the actions of those who lived it. It can be tricky, too, to not overlay the norms and expectations of today to thoseContinue reading “‘Captain’s Dinner’ Focuses on Legal Drama, Not Cannibalism”

‘Heat’ Examines Food in Multifaceted Way

Cover of If You Can't Take the Heat: Tales of Food, Feminism, and Fury, which features a bubblegum pink background with red and white lettering of title and author on the top and bottom. In the center is the red-manicured hand of a slender white woman crushing a white-glazed pastry with a maraschino cherry on top.

Food is nutritional, but it’s also cultural, spiritual, creative, historical, and meaningful in a hundred different ways. Geraldine DeRuiter reminds us with humor and heart that the way we interact with it is just as varied and meaningful, too.

‘Orchard’ a Twisty Mystery in Small-Town Appalachia

The cover of The Witch's Orchard by Archer Sullivan, with the title and author in white sans-serif text in the fore of a dark photo of indistinct apples and twigs.

Annie is a delight of a modern-day PI, with all the crustiness and baggage of any private dick in the genre, though Sullivan manages to make her feel more human than trope.

‘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.

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.

‘Creek’ a Spooky Summer Tale of Grief and a Curse

A painting of semi-stagnant water with leaves and grasses on it. In the background, we see bones floating (skull, what looks like a tibia, what could be an ulna). In the foreground, a white teenage girl with wet medium-brown hair has half of her face above the water, as if she's about to stand up or go under. The reflection in the water is of a skull.

In the same way grieving is often harder on anniversaries and holidays—times when things feel the same as always except for the loved one’s absence—Glory’s haunting of the titular town feels perfectly fitting in a metaphorical sense well before it becomes literally true.

‘Nightmare Box’ Tinged With Real-Life Horror and Fictional Justice

A bright yellow background with a pair of brown hands lifting a blue lid on a pink box. Monstrous eyes peer out from within while black goop drips down the side of the box.

There are few happy endings in The Nightmare Box, though it does seem that Gómez intentionally left off on one of the more optimistic stories—an unexpected choice but one that ultimately informs the way we leave The Nightmare Box: Fully aware of the horrors, but pressing forward nonetheless.

‘Sounds’ a Captivating Journey of Music and Devotion

The cover of Between Two Sounds, featuring a simply drawn adult Arvo leaping from a precipice, implying that he is jumping to the next sound. Arvo and the precipice are in black, while the background is in simple strokes of tan and brown. The title is in the upper left-hand corner, with the author in the lower-left corner.

This is not a story of the Soviet Union versus Arvo Pärt, but about an authoritarian regime demanding performative patriotism against those who have far more interesting things to think about.

‘Bat Eater’ Brings New Fears to Pandemic Lockdown

A realistic-looking bat with flowers on its back and its wings outstretched flies diagonally across a black backdrop. The title, Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng, is in large white font in front of the image. Smaller and at the bottom in green text is the author, Kylie Lee Baker.

Bat Eater is a marvelous friendship bracelet of plot threads that sometimes take turns and sometimes work in tandem but are always engrossing, and all feel like facets of a terrifying and claustrophobic world.