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Winter 2026 Hooked on Books

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  • Murder Your Darlings
  • Written by Jenna Blum
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0063448087
  • Harper (January 13, 2026)

Motives, Revenge, and the Story Behind the Story

What makes creativity flow? What blocks it? Whether you’re a writer, a painter, a sculptor, a filmmaker, a musician, or any other creative, you undoubtedly have an answer to the first question and life experience with the second one. I first heard the phrase “Kill Your Darlings” in a personal essay class I took in Berkeley CA in 2002. It means an artist should eliminate whatever doesn’t serve the purpose of the piece, even if the creator is particularly fond of them. Jenna Blum takes the concept to a whole new level in her newest novel Murder Your Darlings, which is partly a study of authors, partly a murder mystery, and partly a book about unintentional outcomes of bad behavior.

Sam (Simone) Vetiver is a mid-career novelist ending a lackluster publicity tour and facing a deadline for a new book. It’s not going well. She has a serious case of Writer’s Block. Successful author William Corwyn, who always crafts novels from a woman’s point of view, sends Sam a letter. She’s shocked and puzzled because he’s so flattering, and when they meet, the air is charged with attraction. Or is it?

Like character in their own novels, Sam and William are not what they seem to be. William runs a supposed support group for writers called The Darlings, and Sam is as infatuated with him as the other women in the group, but both feel threatened by a woman nicknamed The Rabbit, who is William’s #1 Stalker. When William takes Sam to his home on an isolated Maine island and orders her never to go into his office, things get scarier. Are they being watched? And if The Rabbit is watching, what could her motive be?

The story, told skillfully in the voices of Sam, William, and The Rabbit looks at writers as well as those who’ve been hurt by others and anyone seeking revenge. Is it about love of your neighbor, love of power, love of the written word, love of self, or all of the above? And how close is it to today’s world or writing and publishing?

Author Jenna Blum is CEO and Co-Founder of online author interview platform A Mighty Blaze and one of Oprah.com readers’ Top 30 Women Writers. Jenna earned her MA in Creative Writing at Boston University and has taught workshops for Boston University, Grub Street Writers, A Mighty Blaze, and numerous other institutions for over 25 years. She’s written Those Who Save Us, The Stormchasers, and The Lost Family; all novels, and a memoir titled Woodrow on the Bench.

If you’ve ever tried to write, been successfully published, are a bookseller, are intrigued by authors and their fame, love mysteries, or are fascinated by the egos of others, you’ll be drawn to this story which asks what, exactly, a writer will do to get a good story and what role revenge might take in an author’s motives.

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  • 107 Days
  • Written by Kamala Harris
  • ISBN #: 978-1668211656
  • Simon & Schuster (September 23, 2025)

Unique Circumstances Make History

What does it take to make history? What are the joys and disappointments of running for office? You can experience Kamala Harris’s short, intense journey during 2024, day by day, in107 Days. Her political memoir records the ups and downs of her experiences as a candidate for the highest office in the land.

They say that you don’t learn from victory. You learn from mistakes. Find out what she learned and all that she fought against in this unique chronicle of events.

On July 21, 2024, after much deliberation and a whole lot of urging from powerful people in his party, President Joe Biden announced he would not seek reelection. His vice-president, Kamala Harris, was playing with her nieces when she got the call asking her to take over the campaign and run for office.

Unfortunately, the people had not chosen her as their nominee and she had exactly 107 days to mount a presidential campaign, unite the Democratic Party, and take on Republican nominee Donald Trump. Because of her unique circumstances and the prominence of social media, her campaign became one of the most scrutinized races in modern American politics.

Her book reports on campaign strategy sessions, speeches, travel in AirForce 2, and the nerve-wracking experience of extensive debate prep. It includes private moments with her family, not that she had time for many during her campaign and describes their support from her nieces explaining how her name was pronounced at the Democratic Convention to her sister’s strong speeches about the family’s background.

Author Kamala Harris shares an honest assessment of the pressures, triumphs, and heartbreaks of her historic race. She’s a resilient leader who rose to the challenge of being the first woman of color to lead a major party ticket.

Harris began her career in the Alameda County district attorney’s office before being elected district attorney of San Francisco, where her Back on Track program became a national model for reducing recidivism. She served as California’s District Attorney before becoming the the forty-ninth vice president of the United States from 2021 to 2025—the first woman in American history to hold the office.

She wrote this stirring, insightful account on ridiculously short notice, kept notes, and shared her story quickly with the help of Pulitzer Prize winner Geraldine Brooks.

The structure, the events, and the tension all work effectively. Even though you already know the outcome, the story behind the news will hold your attention.

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Surviving, Thriving, and Expanding Her World

What does it take for a woman to become all she can be and to resist the opinions of those who want to tell her who she should be and how she should live? Those are just two of the questions explored in H. Lee Barnes’ Emerald City Blues.

I told myself I’d read my last book set during WWII. Then I received this one, and my opinion changed. This is a story of young women coming of age, discovering the world, and making important contributions to the war effort as they realize who they are and what they have to offer the world. 

In the summer of 1942, young Eve Halverson and leaves behind her mother’s Washington farm in search of a new life. When her train arrives in San Pedro, California, she finds an ad for a job at a boot factory and embraces the idea of contributing to the war effort. She befriends other factory workers and soon starts tucking notes to the Marines inside the boots.

A broken fire escape and an intriguing factory worker and blues singer, Hard Times (H.T.) reshape her perceptions of herself and the world. When H.T. takes her to a blues club so she can hear him sing and it’s raided, Eve finds herself surrounded with racial prejudice she’d only imagined. Two landlords and the police are against her. Her friends are wary. And a criminal who was at the raided club starts tailing her because she saw his gun drop to the floor. The racial myths that existed during the second World War are fierce and immediate, but Eve deals with each one realistically making sound and compassionate choices.

Lee Barnes worked a deputy sheriff, a narcotics agent, a private investigator, a construction laborer and a casino employee. He served in both the Dominican Republic and Vietnam as a member of Special Forces.His fiction focuses largely on working-class characters of the west and southwest, some of whom are war veterans.

Barnes’ short fiction has been awarded the Willamette Fiction Award and the Arizona Authors Association Fiction Award. Gunning for Ho, his first book, was a finalist for The Texas Institute of Letters First Fiction Award, and his Las Vegas novel, The Lucky, was a finalist for the Western Writers of America Fiction Award.

Emerald City Blues shows how Eve matures with heart and grace despite the turbulent world she’s immersed herself in.  She functions with growing compassion and grace as well as a determination to pick her battles. If you like stories that empower women, you should read this one.

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What if Unthinkable News Arrives in a Note?

What if you knew that you and your sister might have inherited a debilitating disease from your deceased mother who disappeared from your life years earlier? What if she sent this news in a note to be mailed after she died? What if that made you afraid to get back into a loving relationship for fear of the hurt that might be headed your way? What if you were safest when you were training dogs that seemed incorrigible? These are only a few of the conflicts that Caitlin Forbes explores in What Comes Next a book that is well worth your time.

With multi-faceted characters and increasing complications this is a story that will grab you. The narrator asks excellent questions of herself, and you may find yourself asking some of them about your own life. What are you afraid of? Why does commitment scare you? What are the costs of sharing a truth that cannot be changed?

What does Alex, the narrator discover about herself, her sister, and her mother? And who turns out to be “perfectly fine” in the end? What Comes Next will answer these questions and many more.

Caitlin Forbes was born in Rhode Island and grew up in the mountains of western Maine. She received her bachelor’s degree from Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire and her master’s degree in English literature from the University of Connecticut. She has a decade’s worth of experience working as a leader in healthcare technology and transformation. Forbes lives in Saco, Maine, with her husband, son, and one-hundred-pound Shiloh shepherd.

This book is perfect for readers who enjoy adult coming-of-age stories that deal with complex, emotional subjects.

This book is on tour with WOW: Women on Writing.

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The Award

  • Written by Matthew Pearl
  • ISBN #: 978-0063445277
  • Harper, December 2, 2025

What Is The Price of Success?

What will an author do to get noticed? Of course your answer depends on several factors? How creative is he? How much does she believe in her talent? How badly does he need the money that an award and fame can bring? How fearful is she that she has no real talent? Matthew Pearl’s The Award explores these questions along with a degree of fear, desperation, and professional jealousy that color the narrator’s thoughts and affect his actions. It offers us the chance to look at how much our minds may be blocking our creative endeavors.

David Trent is an aspiring novelist surrounded by a plethora of other aspiring novelists in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He’s ambitious and so are his aspiring peers. Though their genres and self-confidence varies, their hunger for recognition is strong.

Trent moves into an apartment above Silas Hale, a vindictive monster who is also a celebrated author. Although Hale doesn’t own the apartment, he controls the heat and keeps it so cold that Trent’s fiancée, Bonnie, moves out. Does his cruelty hide fear or arrogance? Or both?  

It doesn’t matter until 28-year-old David Trent wins a prestigious award for his new book. In fact he wins the same award that started Hale on his climb to fame. Silas becomes interested in his neighbor, though he’s still an arrogant boor. Just when things couldn’t be better, the administrator of the Boston Literary Award comes to David with alarming news. His convictions are shaken and he’s forced into desperate choices.

Readers will be shocked at what Trent does and what others do to him. Matthew Pearl starts his book by saying, “Some of this happened.” Did it happen to him? Was he an observer? And just how much is actually true? Readers will be drawn into the hard choices Trent, Hale, Bonnie, and others face as the saga digs deeper and deeper into right and wrong.

Matthew Pearl is the acclaimed author of both fiction and non-fiction. His books include The Taking of Jemima Boone and Save Our Souls as well as other books. He produced Cold Case: The Tylenol Murders.  acclaimed w

The Award is an incisive, engrossing novel about writing peers, publishing, greed, determination, and the dangerous acts people do to win fame and fortune.

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How to Forgive the Unforgivable

What courses of action do books suggest? Monica Wood’s How To Read a Book advises a retired person to start a group activity using one of her or his many skills acquired while working. Who wouldn’t want to find new relationships? Of course, her book club is in a woman’s prison, so there are some rules, regulations, and drawbacks.

 

Harriet has the members of her book club reading and writing when Violet is released. After a chance encounter, Harriet invites struggling Violet to her house for dinner, where Harriet’s niece offers a job as an animal attendant in a lab to Violet. The niece is leaving and hates the job, but Violet loves the parrots, their talking in the lab, and seeing the way they grow. They are wise but less complicated than the humans in the story. Still, no reader is likely to forget Ollie and his antics.

Author Monica Wood is a skilled plotter who invents characters that will touch your heart. It’s the characters who drive this novel and the plot that pushes it forward with one incident after another escalating the tension. Wood has written several other books, and her work has received several awards including a Pushcart Prize.

How To Read a Book shows readers how to forgive the unforgiveable. Whether the issue involves a public meltdown, a drunk driver killing someone or a secret past, forgiveness leads to growth. So do solid relationships, and Harriet, the book club leader, Violet, a member of the club who gets released from prison, and Frank, the husband of the woman Violet killed, eventually become solid friends who protect one another.

How does all that come about? Harriet, who used to be an English teacher, would say, “Read the book. Read it with empathy for the characters. Allow yourself to relate to those characters. See if you can find advice in there for yourself.” As the reviewer I say, “If you choose this book, you’ll be rewarded with new ideas. Reading it will be time well-spent.”

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Unexpected First Love

Do you ever fantasize about your first love, whether it was 50 years ago or hasn’t happened yet? Do you have a secret habit that’s destroying you or seriously interrupting your life? If so, you’ll identify with the teens who are fighting personal battles after being institutionalized in Angela Grey’s The Cartography of First Love.

Imagine for a moment that you’re a high school student. Now imagine that you suffer from  an eating disorder or OCD and the condition has gotten so bad that your parents took you out of your home and school and placed you in a psychiatric ward where they hope you will get better? How do you cope with the added layer of loneliness that comes with a new environment, schedule, and set of expectations?

The story is told in two voices, so readers get a double set of issues and coping strategies. Nico’s anxiety and depression have become unmanageable. Zibby has an eating disorder. The stresses imposed by the sense that they’re always being watched and everything they say and do is recorded are strong.

They personify a plant, naming it Atlas and caring for it as if it were a child. A puzzle they’re working on together takes their minds away from their problems, but their physical proximity at the same table introduces new feelings and tensions.

Always there’s the metaphor of a road map leading the two of them back to health. The author keeps it present as a reminder. It’s never overbearing and subtly gives readers hope that they will find their paths and their way out.

Author Angela Gray is an indigenous novelist as well as a poet and a painter. Storytelling can heal and she treats it like a type of medicine. She’s the author of over 20 books, and many of them deal with mental illness.

As a reader who used to teach high school students, I found myself identifying with the yearning and angst of both Zibby and Nico. I wanted them to rediscover freedom and find purpose in their lives. I even rooted for Atlas, even though it was a plant. That speaks to Ms. Gray’s storytelling skills and understanding of adolescents. Whether you’re a student, a parent, or a teacher, you’ll find an important message in this book.

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Fiction As Intimate As Memoir

When I saw the title, I knew I wanted to read Andrea Simon’s book, Did You Have the Life You Wanted?  How would people answer? What would work in their lives and how would their experiences compare to mine?

On the back I read that it was fiction, but it seemed more like the biography of a woman, maybe partly real and partly fictitious, who grew up in the same years I did. We had a lot in common: she was bright, articulate, and independent. Unlike me, though, she hung out in Greenwich Village near the Stonewall Inn where history was made, gave up her college career until later life, and got involved in copywriting as a young woman while I went into teaching in high school and college.

Anita Rappaport lived independently in New York’s Greenwich Village when school strikes with racial overtones, the Stonewall Inn battle and the Attica uprisings occurred along with the second feminist movement that created more equality in both employment and marriage. It was both an exciting and a turbulent time to be alive.

Anita grappled with gang violence when she went out on field work for the Department of Social Services. After surviving that trauma she tried other employment, became a copywriter in an office filled with sexism, sought professional help, married a doctor, and ultimately returned to school to get her MFA in Creative Writing. Her hard work brought her success, but the loss of a brother and a good friend brought deep thought about the ways she’d spent her life. As she ages, Anita asks herself and her friends the question: “Did you have the life you wanted?” Of course, she received both surprising and heartbreaking responses.

Depending on a reader’s own life experiences, Anita could seem anywhere from average or typical to exceptional. As a reader I absorbed her story so fully that I felt like I was reading a well-plotted memoir of an adventurous woman whose character grew deeper as the years progressed. The story is fiction though, not memoir. It’s well worth your time if you like stories of an ambitious and hard-working woman finding her way through the emotional evolution of a life lived between the late sixties and the present. And it’s an inspiring story as you watch her age.

Andrea Simon is a writer and photographer based in New York City. She has worked as an editor, writer, and manager on diverse projects, and was the co-owner of an editorial/production company that specialized in health-related educational materials. Having published numerous stories and essays, she has received prestigious literary honors, including the winner of the Ernest Hemingway First Novel Contest, two Dortort Creative Writing Awards, the Stark Short Fiction Prize, the Short Story Society Award, and the Authors in the Park Short Story Writing Contest and more.

This review was originally posted at Story Circle.

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