A Mansion for Murder, by Frances Brody

Reader beware: death of a parental figure; child in danger; another child’s death (several decades prior); miscarriage or self-induced abortion; off-page rape; sudden death (heart attack) of a minor character; tangential mention of PTSD.

Disclosure: the formatting of the ARC is weird. For starters, it does not have a table of contents. At all. For a 300 pages and change book. That made it time consuming to go back to check things as I got to the later parts of the story. I presume this won’t be the case for the final product, but it makes it harder for me to review an advance copy. (YMMV obviously).

Beyond that, there are whole sections with hard returns after every sentence in the same paragraph, the name of the author appears randomly in the middle of some pages, there’s nothing to indicate transitions between narrators, and so on. (See footnote ¹)

I hope this didn’t color my opinion of the book too much, but that’s one of those things that are really hard to quantify, so do keep it in mind as you read this review.

The Mimicking of Known Successes, by Malka Older

I have been aware of Doctora Malka Older as a person for a while; though I didn’t follow her on twitter, we interacted there a few times. I’ve known, for at least as long, that she writes speculative fiction. Given that lately I’ve struggled to read, and what most of what I do read is genre romance, I hadn’t considered reading any of her work until now.

See, the publisher’s tag for this novel is, “a cozy Holmesian murder mystery and sapphic romance, set on Jupiter”. Then there’s the cover (look at it!). How could anyone resist?

So I requested this ARC in a fit of unwarranted optimism, and was absolutely delighted when I got it.

Reader beware: there’s one murder off page, and some violence on page; first-person, past tense narration.

The Third Mrs Durst, by Ann Aguirre

(I read this book on time for SuperWendy’s November 2022 TBR Challenge (theme: lies), then never finished the review. As I’m struggling to read, I’m hoping writing this will help jumpstart the reading mojo, because the next TBR day is but two weeks away!)

I was in a panic about what to read, when I remembered I had this ARC. Given that I generally love Ms Aguirre’s voice, it was a no-brainer.

The Socialite’s Guide to Murder, by S.K. Golden

This is marketed as a debut (unless S.K. Golden is a pseudonym, of course), as well as the first book in a series, and I have to say that it shows.

Reader beware: wealthy white debutante, with attendant problematic behavior and perspective; closeted gay best friend (see: period setting); agoraphobia and PTSD; car accident; parental neglect; closed door sex.