Jal Persad is an actor just finding success in the business when his mother dies. Although their relationship was never close, this devastating loss knocks his world off its axis. After a year of grieving, Jal’s agent is trying to convince him it’s time to work again. Impulsively, to placate his agent, Jal says he’s been considering writing a story about his mother’s early life in Guyana—and her connection to Jonestown, Jim Jones’s religious commune for The Peoples Temple.

The promise of such an explosive idea sets Jal’s agent on a mission to make it happen. Who wouldn’t want to hear a never-before-told story intersecting with the cult leader and con artist responsible for the death of over 900 followers? When Jal realizes what he has set in motion, however, it’s too late. Before he knows it, he’s been paired with a screenwriter named Kate to help him capture his story on the page.

As bits of their early work trickle out to the public, sparking a buzz about the forthcoming memoir, Jal waivers between feeling compelled to tell the truth and forced to stay the course. Yet he is also bolstered by the admiration of others and the idea that perhaps, just perhaps, this is the act that will change his life—even if it’s all one big lie.

When Jal attempts to tell his writing partner, Kate, the truth and walk away from the project, she urges him to continue. In a moment that eerily echoes the cultish influence of Jim Jones himself, Kate appeals to Jal: “People are starving for something to believe in. For some reason, they believe in you. Something is starting up. And I’d hate for you to not see it through.”

This decision is the crux of False Prophet: Will Jal proceed forward to release the memoir or admit the truth? The novel tags itself as a consideration of what one might be willing to sacrifice in order to find success, but there is something deeper to this story than just a power grab. Jal uses the fabrication of his memoir as a way to create meaning in his life—meaning that he never seemed to find in his actual relationship with his mother. By rewriting her life story, he can make her the type of mother he always wanted, and thereby make himself the successful and well-loved son his mother never seemed to recognize.

It seems like a shocking risk to take, changing the narrative of one’s life … but don’t we all do this in some way or another? The truth can be a slippery concept. It is formed by one’s own perceptions and filtered through one’s own life experiences. It is shaped by how we’ve learned to see the world and assign meaning to what we see. The truth can even vary from person to person in relation to the same events—although typically not as drastically as Jal stretches the truth here.

Despite his questionable ethics, Jal is a compellingly well-written character. Farhadi has created a unique individual who does something unimaginable, but manages to make the story believable. From the very first chapter, as Jal flashes back to his mother’s death, Farhadi brings the reader into Jal’s mind: “As my mom’s ashes blew away from me, I was sorry to have failed so miserably at commemorating her life, telling her story, which was supposed to be the final gift a child gives a parent. But I didn’t know her story. All our years together had amounted to so much less than they should have.” With this understanding, Jal’s future actions are almost forgivable.

It’s not just Jal who carries this tale, though. Readers will find themselves fully invested in the story of his mother, Rita. The novel’s structure is brilliant, a book within a book. Each chapter alternates between Jal’s present day life, as he writes his mother’s story, and the memoir itself, aptly titled “The Fear of Being Human.” Farhadi carefully builds the tension in both storylines page by page, keeping the reader hungry to learn what will happen next.

False Prophet brings something fresh to the literary thriller genre. Whether you are curious about cults, seeking out a story of self-examination, or enjoy tales of family and loss, you will find what you are looking for here. It’s the type of book that quietly settles into the back of your brain, one your mind will linger on for days, and Farhadi is a writer to pay attention to in 2026 and beyond.

False Prophet is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of July 7th 2026.

Will you be picking up False Prophet? Tell us in the comments below!

Synopsis

The cult drama of The Girls meets Yellowface’s searing exploration of lies, immigration, and identity in this propulsive literary thriller debut.

A grieving actor-turned-memoirist reimagines his mother’s encounter with Jim Jones, the deadliest cult leader of all time—the only problem is, it’s mostly all lies . ..

Actor Jal Persad is enjoying moderate success when the death of his mother, Rita, sends him into a tailspin—after all, how could he grieve a woman he barely knew? Rita had grown up in Guyana during the rise and fall of the Jonestown cult, but never spoke of her home to Jal, always keeping him at a distance.

After months of avoiding work, a misunderstanding at lunch with his manager leads Jal into a web of lies. He soon finds himself writing a memoir of his mother’s adolescence, one that places her in direct contact with Jim Jones himself. There’s just one issue–Rita never met the man. Suddenly, the book goes viral, and Jal must face the looming threat of exposure, and his own guilt.

Alternating between Jal’s rapid rise and Rita’s distorted story, False Prophet confronts the intergenerational legacy of colonialism, the allure of power, and the age-old question–how much of yourself are you willing to lose in order to succeed?

The post Review: False Prophet by Afsheen Farhadi appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Sasha lands a huge job casting a lipstick commercial for the premier global beauty company Seraphina. To get a feel for their brand, the company is even flying her to Paris for their international summit. The last thing she expects is to find a love connection in first class, yet that’s exactly what happens when a hot, wealthy Italian man slips into the seat across from her. With the help of a few glasses of wine, Sasha unexpectedly lets her guard down and, by the time they land, she feels something for this man. But when he disappears without giving her his name or any helpful identifying information, how will she ever find him?

Never fear, drunk Sasha has an idea. Impulsively, she reaches out to her HR contact, asking for help to track down her dream man, “Seat F.” Only, she doesn’t just email her contact … she accidentally sends a rambling, lovestruck email to every single Seraphina employee. Talk about instant mortification! HR helps curb the crisis, but Sasha still can’t seem to get Seat F out of her head. It was more than just meeting an attractive man on a flight—he broke her open, helped her see she still has a shot at happiness out there in the world.

So what is the next obvious step? Track down a different handsome man, of course. Enter Wes Dane: a private detective from her past—the private detective who saved her life, in fact. During the intervening years, Wes dropped his detective gig to launch a food truck and become the barbecue king of Brooklyn, but he can’t say no when Sasha asks for his help.

There’s one big question, though: Does Sasha really just want Wes’s help tracking down Seat F … or is there more than one missed connection in her life?

Thus begins Williams’ twist on the classic romance trope of a (potential) love triangle. Flashing back and forth between the original case that brought them together and the present day, Williams builds out the dynamic between Sasha and Wes so effectively. Alongside this, Sasha continues to yearn for her mystery man as Wes does the footwork to track him down, adding a layer of complexity to the story. Fit these two puzzle pieces together and you get every romance reader’s favorite word: tension!

Here’s the thing about romance books: For the most part, they follow a formula. It’s part of the contract you enter into when you pick up the book. When it’s done right, you don’t even care that you know where the story is going, it’s all about the journey. In fact, it’s comforting to know that, in the end, you’ll get your happily ever after. (As Sasha herself says, “The horrors persist. Might as well have a giggle.” And she’s not wrong. Truly, we all need a little joy wherever we can find it and romance books are a safe place!)

Simply put, Williams does everything right with this journey. She snags the reader with witty chapter titles and keeps them hooked with even wittier banter. I’m talking laugh-out-loud moments, which can be difficult to pull off in books compared to on-screen rom-coms. She also creates a lovable female main character in Sasha. By page two, she is already relatable to the reader and by the end of Chapter 1, she’s a fully formed character with depth and heart.

The Missed Connection is simultaneously romantic and sexy, full of delicious chemistry and connection. Tia Williams’ writing just keeps getting better and better with each new novel, so trust me when I say this one is going to be your favorite yet!

The Missed Connection is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore.

Will you be picking up The Missed Connection? Tell us in the comments below!

Synopsis

New York Times bestselling author Tia Williams returns with an intensely romantic, deliciously sexy tale about a woman searching for her handsome seatmate on a European flight—and the unexpected places her hunt for love leads her.

Sasha Cruz knows types. As a booked-and-busy casting agent, she’s always casting—at happy hour, the grocery store, everywhere. She’s all about finding the perfect person to slot into the perfect role. What she doesn’t do, however, is relationships. Too much energy, not enough time.

On a flight to Paris for work, a chance encounter with her type changes everything. Sasha’s seated next to a broodingly attractive mystery man, and sparks fly—but they never exchange contact information. Convinced she’s lost out on her soulmate, Sasha emails her work friend for help, but accidentally writes to the entire company worldwide! The international manhunt to find Seat F begins.

Meanwhile Sasha takes matters into her own hands. She hires a smoldering detective she knew in another lifetime—who complicates matters in unforeseen (and irresistible) ways.

With a worldwide search underway, will love take flight for Sasha?

The post Review: The Missed Connection by Tia Williams appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Warning: If you haven’t read book one, Tourist Season, take the exit now and check it out—spoilers lie ahead. If you’ve been anxiously awaiting the next book in the series, though, pop in your headphones, turn on the brilliant chapter-by-chapter playlist at the beginning of the book, and dive right in.

Unlike The Ruinous Love trilogy, Seasons of Carnage follows the same male and female main characters for all three books. In Tourist Season, readers met Nolan Rhodes, the handsome killer who traveled to Cape Carnage with one mission: avenge his brother’s death by getting rid of Harper Starling. Except Harper wasn’t at all what he expected. She came with her own baggage (read: trail of bodies), roped Nolan into helping her protect the town, and his master plan was completely derailed as he found himself falling for the woman he originally intended to kill.

Now that Nolan knows who Harper really is, things get even messier in Harvest Season. Harper is trying to balance the responsibility of caring for Arthur, her aging serial killer mentor, with what she wants for herself—the first thing she’s wanted in a very long time: Nolan. As the body count rises around them, and a group of true crime nerds come searching for their missing leader (who is part of said body count), the big question is this: Will Harper and Nolan’s love save them or will their blinding obsession ultimately bring about their downfall?

Obviously, you’ll have to read to find out.

Let me just say this for fans of book boyfriends everywhere, though. Nolan is the definition of “if he wanted to, he would.” Not only does he do a complete 180 from wanting to kill Harper to falling madly in love with her. He abandons his job to stay in Cape Carnage and explore this budding relationship, while also running a search and rescue operation for their collective victims in order to make sure they both don’t get caught. And then there’s all the hot, hot sex they have during their non-existent downtime. When does the man sleep?!

As always with this genre, and per the author’s recommendation, it’s a good idea to check out trigger warnings first before jumping in.  The juxtaposition of horror and dark themes with pleasure is a unique combination that’s not for everyone. Weaver has a list of everything readers need to know at the start of the novel, covering all the bases with what violent and explicit material lies ahead.

You’ll also find a good heart at the core of this story, though. Beyond the devotion and trust-building in the novel’s romantic relationship, Harper’s relationship with her father figure, Arthur, is also a driving storyline. Weaver even notes in her content warnings that a portion of the royalties from the Seasons of Carnage trilogy goes to Alzheimer’s charities in the U.S. and Canada—a cause near and dear to the author, as her maternal grandparents’ experiences with dementia inspired this part of the story.

The only drawback of Harvest Season for me is that it feels a bit drawn out. Trilogies are a popular trend these days in the romance and romantasy genres, so perhaps there’s a push to flush out stories into three installments. At times the dynamics of Harper and Nolan’s relationship seem repetitive, and perhaps the length of the novel could have been shortened.

Despite this, Brynne Weaver knows how to write a fun book to read and her particular brand of dark romance works. There’s angst. There’s plenty of steamy scenes. There’s blood. And there’s some weird, weird stuff. (Like everyone’s favorite “pretty little murder bird”). In the end, Harvest Season ramps up into a hell of a cliffhanger, and these characters are fantastic, so you better believe I’ll be back for book three to find out how Harper and Nolan’s story ends.

Harvest Season is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of June 9th 2026.

Will you be picking up Harvest Season? Tell us in the comments below!

Synopsis

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author Brynne Weaver comes the second book in the devilishly steamy Seasons of Carnage trilogy where dark romantic comedy meets thrilling suspense—and where love is ripe for ruin.

It’s time to reap what you sow.

Cape Carnage is blooming with secrets, and they’re ready to harvest. But every time Nolan Rhodes digs one up, another grows in its place. Harper isn’t who he thought she was. Arthur might be more sinister than he first thought. And Sheriff Yates? The man is everywhere he turns. When true crime fanatics descend on the town looking for answers about the death of their leader, Nolan finds himself at the center of a search and rescue operation for missing people he knows are already dead. Cape Carnage teeters on the brink of chaos. And the harder Nolan tries to keep it together, the closer Harper comes to unraveling.

Harper Starling has risked everything to bury her trauma in Cape Carnage. But now that Nolan has unearthed her past, her whole life seems ready to break apart. And who can she trust? The enigmatic man she’s falling in love with? He came to kill her. The serial killer mentor she’s vowed to protect? He’s become an unpredictable menace. The woman in the mirror? She might be the most dangerous of all.

Loyalties are tested. Bonds are bent to a breaking point. And love? That might be the deadliest trap of all.

Harvest Season is a dark romance with mature themes. Please check content warnings at the beginning of the book.

The post Review: Harvest Season by Brynne Weaver appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Winslow’s debut novel, In West Mills, garnered immediate attention, winning the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize in 2019 and the American Book Award in 2020. In 2023, he brought readers back to the fictional North Carolina town of West Mills with the murder mystery Decent People. Now, three years later, he’s spinning a bit further away from his southern roots with a suspenseful new tale set in upstate New York.

The Fervent Whites capitalizes on a popular trope in the subgenre of domestic thrillers—you never really know what your neighbors might be hiding. It’s June 1982 when James and Ella White are freed from a wrongful murder conviction. After a long year and a half spent locked up, they return to their home in Fervent—a seemingly peaceful Hudson Valley hamlet comprised of just a dozen homes—but nothing can ever be quite the same.

Sylvia “Syl” Upshaw and her best friend Lafayette “Fate” Jolly cared for the Whites’ adopted son, Morgan, in their absence. Syl adored Morgan from the moment she met him, so it was only natural that she stepped in to provide for him as if he were one of her own children. Fate did so in kind, despite his rocky history with the Whites. Perhaps they cared too much, though. Thinking the Whites were destined to spend the rest of their lives in prison, Syl and Fate decided to share a family secret with Morgan—a secret that would change the course of all their lives.

As the Whites settle back into the neighborhood, they express gratitude to Syl, genuinely thankful she cared for their son when they couldn’t. Syl, however, can’t shake the deep guilt she feels for revealing their secret to Morgan. As the days pass, the Whites grow colder toward Syl and Fate, flaming Syl’s fear that her own secretive actions have been discovered.

Then, the community is rocked by another life-altering event: a resident of Fervent turns up dead, murdered, sending the tight-knit community into a tailspin.

Winslow knows exactly what he is doing here and he executes it sharply in just 200 pages. Each chapter is taut and suspenseful. The big secret that Syl told Morgan is revealed fairly early in the book, but this doesn’t take away from the story—it drives the plot forward, leaving the reader questioning what is really happening. Is Syl’s guilt overtaking her and making her paranoid or are the Whites really onto her? Is she reading too much into the comments they make or do they know that she shared their secret with Morgan? Part of what makes this work is the way Winslow allows the narrative to drift back in time, showing the reader key moments in the characters’ pasts, then piecing together how these moments gave the way to the present.

The Fervent Whites isn’t just a thriller, though. While keeping readers on the edge of their seat, Winslow also digs into deeper themes of racism and homophobia within the Fervent community. He deftly explores the tension between the Whites—one of two white families living in a predominantly Black community, while also raising a young Black man—and Syl’s concerns for how they’ve gone about taking on this role. He also casts Fate as Syl’s lovable best friend, who has endured horrific treatment from his neighbors simply for loving who he wants to love.

Even the play on the novel’s title is smart. It’s more than just a nod to the hamlet of Fervent and the White family who live there. As defined by Merriam-Webster, the adjective fervent means “exhibiting or marked by great intensity or feeling.” The Whites as characters certainly display this in a number of ways throughout the novel, but the title implies even more than that. The connection to not just their surname, but also race, cannot go unnoticed the deeper one gets into the story.

Like winding the crank on a jack-in-the-box, the tension in this novel builds and builds, page by page, until the reader is fully enveloped.  This slow, steady build ends in an explosive climax that will leave readers gasping aloud. If you are looking for a novel that takes neighborhood drama to the next level, an entertaining summer read with true depth, you definitely won’t want to miss out on The Fervent Whites.

The Fervent Whites is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of June 9th 2026.

Will you be picking up The Fervent Whites? Tell us in the comments below!

Synopsis

“The truth is closer than you think—just beyond the fence.

The year is 1982, and the people of the Hudson Valley community of Fervent have begun to move on from a homicide that upended the once quiet town. When the former neighbors who were convicted of the crime, James and Ella White, are proven innocent, released from prison, and return to Fervent, some people have cause for concern.

Sylvia Upshaw and her best friend, Lafayette “Fate” Jolly, are uneasy about the Whites’ return. While the Whites were incarcerated, Sylvia revealed an explosive secret to their adopted son, Morgan, with devastating consequences. During the murder trial, Fate’s testimony helped seal their fate. James and Ella won’t let the betrayals go unpunished. Sylvia and Fate quickly become victims of harassment from the Whites, and when another murder is committed in Fervent, the town is left to fend for itself.

Intimate and chilling, The Fervent Whites examines how small communities with long-simmering tensions behave when pushed to the limits of civility.”

The post Review: The Fervent Whites by De’Shawn Charles Winslow appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

This is how Claire Fuller sets the stage for her sixth novel, Hunger and Thirst.

Ursula Major is no stranger to an untethered existence. Her early days were spent moving from place to place as her young mother eked out a meager existence playing music. When Ursula was just 8 years old, however, her mother unexpectedly died. The remainder of her formative years were spent in the care system, bouncing back and forth between foster homes and children’s homes.

Now a young adult, aged 16, Ursula wants to take charge of her life. She has a steady job working in the mail room of a local art school. Her social worker found her a bed in a halfway house, Yet she longs for a more stable home. She is desperate—hungry—to belong.

Enter Sue, a fiercely wild young woman who becomes the closest thing to a best friend Ursula has ever known. Sue convinces their co-worker Vince to let Ursula become his roommate—not in a rented apartment or shared flat, but squatting in an abandoned house known as the Underwood. At first, Ursula embraces her newfound independence, but the more time they spend in the house, the stranger things become. Sue begins pushing Ursula to do something dramatic and unforgivable, and when she finally acts on these dares, things spiral out of control.

Hunger and Thirst is gripping from the very first sentence and the success of the novel hinges on two literary devices: the structure and the murky line between what is real and what is not. The story is told by Ursula from the present day, flashing back to that fateful summer at The Underwood. Now a famously private sculptor who goes by the name Uschi, she is forced to privately recall these events when she learns of an upcoming documentary that chronicles the experience for public consumption. This juxtaposition of Ursula’s present with her past makes for an intriguing read.

Fuller leaves the reader questioning if Ursula’s version of these events is the truth she believes it to be. A thread of constant second-guessing is woven through the novel, echoing the same question over and over: What really happened? This technique is incredibly effective at pulling the reader into the story, making the book extremely difficult to put down.

Each page builds on the last to create an all-consuming world and cast of characters. Even with the potentially speculative elements of the story—which you must read to learn about—the novel reads as authentic and believable. Perhaps this is due, in part, to the connections to the author’s own life. Fuller herself says: “Of all my novels it’s the one that has the most of me in it.” Hunger and Thirst is set in the town where she once resided, in the art school she once attended, and even in the squat where she once lived.

One of the most interesting aspects of this story is this house as a character itself. The novel echoes—both overtly and through implication—some of horror’s most iconic works, including The Shining. The Underwood gives everyone who enters an unsettled feeling not altogether unlike The Overlook Hotel—a whisper of something unnatural, a wild impulse, or a gut instinct that warns them away. Fuller even plays on specific details from the film, like the squeaky voice and pointed finger Danny Torrence uses for his creepy imaginary friend Tony. In the course of the novel, Ursula’s friend Sue even compares the house’s influence to Hitchcock’s infamous film Psycho, saying: “That’s how the Underwood makes me feel. You must feel it too. Like I want to tear the place down and break my own rules.”

Hunger and Thirst is an exploration of the lengths humans will go to in order to quench their hunger and thirst to belong. Some may say this extended metaphor, as well as the literal incorporation of hunger and thirst into the story, are perhaps a bit on the nose—but it really works. If you are looking for a striking new work of literary horror, a psychologically twisted coming-of-age tale, Claire Fuller delivers.

Hunger and Thirst is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of June 2nd 2026.

Will you be picking up Hunger and Thirst? Tell us in the comments below!

Synopsis

From the celebrated author of Bitter Orange and Swimming Lessons comes an “atmospheric, psychologically vivid, and unputdownable” new novel of complicated friendship and the desperate need to belong (Alice Winn).

1987: After a childhood trauma and years in and out of the care system, sixteen-year-old Ursula finds herself with a new job delivering mail at a local art school, a bed in a halfway house, and some new friends, including wild-child Sue. When Ursula is invited to join a squat at the Underwood, a mysterious house whose owners met a terrible end, she can’t resist this hodgepodge family. But as Sue’s behavior and demands become more extreme, Ursula, who has always been hungry—for food, but more importantly for love and acceptance—carries out her friend’s terrible dare. And, for this, Ursula finds herself literally haunted.

Thirty-six years later, Ursula is a renowned but reclusive sculptor living under a pseudonym in London when her identity is exposed by a true-crime documentarian researching an unsolved disappearance. But the filmmaker is not the only one who has discovered Ursula’s whereabouts, and as her past catches up with her present, Ursula must work out whether the monsters are within her or without—and if they will finally make her pay for her past mistakes.

Part gothic horror, part coming-of-age, and with a contemporary twist on the haunted-house story, Hunger and Thirst is a chilling tale of loneliness, of the dangerous line between wanting and needing, and of how far a person will go to truly belong.

The post Review: Hunger and Thirst by Claire Fuller appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Fans won’t have to wait that long for more of Center’s signature romantic tropes, though. This May she’s back with her latest novel The Shippers, a fun romance readers will want to pack for summer vacation alongside their swimsuits and sunscreen.

JoJo Burton is a brilliant mathematician … but her love life has always been anything but logical. Her most recent fiasco takes the cake, though. When JoJo’s estranged childhood bestie Cooper Watts surprises her just as she’s about to walk down the aisle—and convinces her this marriage isn’t meant to be—JoJo leaves her groom at the altar.

Cooper wasn’t wrong in his assessment, but a runaway bride moment is enough to throw any girl’s life into a tailspin. Never fear, though, JoJo’s sister Ashley has a plan to save the day. A therapist in-training, Ashley claims she has finally figured out the root of her sister’s lifelong intimacy issues—and has the perfect solution to end this relationship losing streak. If JoJo can reconnect with her childhood crush (and oh-so-memorable first kiss!), Finn Turner, her love-life curse is sure to be broken.

The plan seems foolproof. Ashley is getting married and Finn, who is recently divorced, will be in attendance. So, the whole crew boards a cruise ship for Ashley’s destination wedding, with elaborate plans for JoJo to reel Finn in and live happily ever after. But when Cooper shows up unexpectedly—again!—and gets roped into being JoJo’s wingman, things become more complicated than anyone is prepared for. Who knew Cooper would look so distractingly hot in a vest? Or that he would fake flirt well enough to not only make Finn jealous, but also get JoJo second-guessing if she’s focusing on the right childhood crush.

Center herself acknowledges in the author’s note for The Shippers that this story will “end well,” so there’s no fear of spoilers here. In fact, that’s part of what romance readers love so much about the genre. It’s the journey to a guaranteed happily-ever-after that makes these stories so fun—and Center handles this journey in an ever-entertaining way.

Part of her magic is pulling together a combination of everyone’s favorite romance tropes. Here you’ll find friends-to-lovers, fake dating, and a G-rated version of the one bed sleeping arrangement that everyone loves. Cooper is also an absolutely swoon-worthy book boyfriend, both caring and protective with a hint of possessiveness. Readers will love the epic adoration and hints of longing he drops along the way,  while silently shouting at Jojo, who remains oblivious to what has been right in front of her the whole time.

This isn’t my favorite Katherine Center book to date, as the plot was drawn out at times, which slowed the build-up a touch more than I would have preferred. Nonetheless, The Shippers is a fun, fast warm-weather read for fans of closed-door romantic comedies. Center has a knack for immediately hooking readers with her characters’ undeniable chemistry, so you’ll have no choice but to keep turning the pages to watch the sparks fly.

The Shippers is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of May 19th 2026.

Will you be picking up The Shippers? Tell us in the comments below!

Synopsis 

After a lifetime of being bad at love, JoJo Burton vows to solve her intimacy issues once and for all at her sister’s destination wedding on a cruise ship. Armed with pop psychology, she diagnoses herself with a fixation on the neighborhood guy who was her first crush and first kiss (and who just happens to be a newly-divorced wedding guest). Determined to woo him for closure, she ropes in her childhood bestie, Cooper Watts, as her wingman. Cooper: who RSVPed no, but showed up anyway. Cooper: who moved to London without a word four years ago. Cooper: who broke her heart.

Shipboard antics abound in this witty, heart-tugging, childhood-friends-to-lovers romance, as JoJo and Cooper team up, fake flirt, slow dance, share a cabin, sing duets, get jealous, answer long-held questions, and finally, at last, discover truths about each other that will change everything.

The post Review: The Shippers by Katherine Center appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

It’s this kind of horror Sarah Gailey brings forth in their new novel, Make Me Better.

Celia lives a shadow of a life. With a long history of profound loss, broken relationships, and failed attempts working various pyramid schemes, she doesn’t have much to lose. So, she decides to take a chance and visit enigmatic Kindred Cove—a place many have heard of but few have ever seen.

Kindred Cove is a small island on tranquil Lake Vetiver surrounded by a great coral reef. Once each year, the community there allows a small number of visitors to participate in their annual Salt Festival. Rumours suggest this mysterious locale offers an opportunity like no other for a truly transformational, life-changing experience. Although visitors are not allowed to stay, Celia hopes to be the exception and start fresh with a group of people who know nothing about her. She hopes that, finally, this will be the way to break free from her hardened shell of a life and become the person she always wanted to be.

As the days unfold, Celia is invited to see Kindred Cove as its residents do: A place where people can heal, where no one needs to be sad or in pain. A place where no one is ever lost. A place that shuns the world’s propensity for selfishness, valuing community over all else and caring for its own in a way the outside world fails to understand. But we are talking horror here, so of course everything on this beautiful island isn’t quite what it seems to be on the surface.

A remote island populated by a group of people who work hard to keep themselves separate from the outside world? A group that claims to have all the answers to peace and happiness in life, if only you trust in them and follow their ways? In the real world, if it sounds too good to be true, it often is. In the world of Sarah’s Gailey’s darkly clever mind, if it sounds too good to be true, it just might be a cult. No one likes spoilers in a book review, though, so you’ll have to read to find out how Celia navigates this newfound community.

Make Me Better falls firmly in the slow burn category and this works really effectively to build tension throughout the novel. Although readers may sense where the story is going, it’s a deep dread of the inevitable that will keep your eyes glued to the page chapter after chapter.

The structure also really helps drive the narrative along, stringing the reader out. The novel is divided into six parts, jumping back and forth in time between present day Kindred Cove, Celia’s past, and the history of the island residents. With this, an incredible range of primary and secondary characters draws the reader into the story. Each one is intriguing in their own way—and you’ll find yourself alternating between loathing many of them and sympathising with them at various points throughout the book.

This is arguably Sarah Gailey’s best writing to date and Kindred Cove is perhaps the most full and complete world they’ve built on the page. So, if you’re looking for a quiet horror, a story with some speculative elements that is also insidious and realistic to our own world and experiences, you won’t want to miss Make Me Better.

*Trigger warning: If you decide to venture into the world of Make Me Better, please keep in mind pregnancy loss is part of this story, including some graphic and difficult to read scenes.

Make Me Better is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of May 12th 2026.

Will you be picking up Make Me Better? Tell us in the comments below!

Synopsis | Macmillan

Sarah Gailey’s MAKE ME BETTER is an eerily seductive look at the desire for community connection and self-improvement—and the darkest places inside us all. Urgent and yet timeless, this read is perfect for fans of Shirley Jackson, Ari Aster, and Patricia Highsmith.

An exclusive invitation.

A remote island infamous for its miraculous ecology.

A once-in-a-lifetime chance to fix everything that’s broken.

But sometimes growth requires sacrifice….

WELCOME TO KINDRED COVE.

Celia is so tired of being alone. All she wants is to have a family—to belong to someone. That’s why she’s going to Kindred Cove for the annual Salt Festival held by the secluded community that lives there. They promise that healing is possible. They promise that transformation is inevitable. There is no grief at Kindred Cove, because there is no suffering. Nothing is ever lost.

Celia knows that, at that mysterious island surrounded by that impossible, ever-growing reef — she will find herself.

She’s ready to be healed. She’s ready to be transformed.

She’s ready to believe.

The post Review: Make Me Better by Sarah Gailey appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

The USA Today bestselling author is back this May with a captivating new slow-burn horror. Make Me Better follows Celia to Kindred Cove, an isolated island community where she believes she can finally heal from the past and become the person she is meant to be. 

Keep reading to learn how Sarah Gailey’s desire to explore community turned into a novel about cults and how this story reflects the world around us today, plus check out the worst writing advice they’ve ever been given.

Hi Sarah and thanks so much for joining The Nerd Daily again to discuss your new book! To start, what have you been up to over the past few years, professionally speaking?

Trying to figure out a remotely sustainable pace of work. I know, not the sexiest answer I could give, but that’s my current project. I realized in mid-2024 that I was in a state of severe burnout, and I took a sort of sabbatical for the first few months of 2025 to try to fix it. I didn’t quite succeed at the part of the sabbatical that was supposed to involve not-working, but I worked quite a bit less than normal, and I learned a lot about myself as a creative person. I’m doing my damndest to apply what I’ve learned to my current practices, so I don’t die with my hands fused to my keyboard.

Tell readers a bit about the premise of your new novel, Make Me Better.

Make Me Better explores the dynamics of a high-control community on an isolated island. It’s a book that invites readers into the feeling of yearning and desperation that makes people seek out answers in dangerous places. If you’ve ever thought ‘I would never join a cult,’ this book is written for you.

You write quite broadly—from fiction to nonfiction and even comics—and each of your works brings something new and interesting to the table. What sparked the idea for writing about high-control groups, or cults as they’re often called in popular culture?

I started out not aiming directly at high-control groups, but at community in general. I was observing a pattern of community dynamics in my own circles, and I wanted to explore it more. As I learned more about how communities function, though, it became clear that the best setting for this story would be a high-control group. What better way to dive into a tight-knit community with limited variables and intense consequences around every corner?

Make Me Better has a sizable cast of characters, and readers may find themselves feeling both sympathy for and an aversion to many of these characters throughout the novel. Do you have a “favorite” character that you found most interesting to write? If so, what intrigued you about developing this character?

I loved writing Easy. She’s spent her whole life being labeled a disaster by her community, trying her best to hold onto who she is in a group that is determined to mold her in their own image. In this kind of system, that tension can really only have two outcomes. One of them is to be destroyed. The other is to become the person Easy is when we meet her.

I know a lot of research on high-control groups went into writing this novel and it pays off in how you portray the dynamics of these groups. What did the research process and your writing process look like? How long did the novel take to complete?

This novel is the most intensely-researched thing I’ve ever written. It took me six years of rewrites to finish, and I’m still not sure I managed to do justice to the research involved. I did a lot of reading up-front, before I even started to outline, about the attachment dynamics of authoritarian groups, the language of manipulation and control, the history of closed communities. And, not to say too much here, but I read a lot of grisly medical research about experiments grafting coral onto bone. I also immersed myself in folk horror media, knowing that this book would be in that conversation. Religious linguistic patterns by day, The Wicker Man by night.

Like any good horror story, Make Me Better has some definite social commentary woven into it. Without giving too much away, can you speak to how the novel reflects what is going on in the world around us today?

Living in this world is hard and getting harder every day. The systems that are meant to support us are being vaporized by people who don’t care if we live or die; sources of simple joy are increasingly hard to afford and access; danger seems to loom ever-closer with each breaking news item. Many of us feel powerless, helpless, and exhausted. And beyond the day-to-day logistics of survival – many of us feel increasingly bewildered by the question of how to be a good person. It feels increasingly difficult to know what the right thing to do is. It would be such a relief if someone could just offer some simple instructions.

That’s the draw of the high-control environment. We are all, especially right this moment, susceptible to that appeal.

Fill in the blank: If you liked (name a comparable book/books), you will definitely want to read Make Me Better.

I recently read Lauren Groff’s Matrix and thought: this book and my book are walking in the same direction. Whether I deserve to be on the same path as that title, though, I couldn’t say. I thought it was really stunning

What are some of your favorite books and/or authors that have inspired you in the horror genre?

Of course Shirley Jackson and Clive Barker are powerfully influential voices to me. Current horror authors I’ve been loving lately include Lee Mandelo, Hailey Piper, Alison Rumfitt, and Hiron Ennes. Those four are changing literature with their work.

Let’s Get Nerdy: Behind the Writer with 5 Quick Questions

(Since this isn’t Sarah’s first rodeo doing a Q&A with me, here are a few new and different questions to give readers a sneak peek behind the writer!)

• A book on your 2026 TBR: Headlights by CJ Leede.
• One of the best movies or TV series you’ve watched in the past year: Strip Law has a joke-to-frame ratio I haven’t seen since Blazing Saddles.
• An album you think everyone should own: TOXICITY by System of a Down is medically necessary for all humans
• An internet/social media rabbit hole you can’t avoid: I’m powerless in the face of niche community drama that doesn’t concern me or anyone I’ve ever met.
• The worst writing advice you’ve ever been given: GRIND OUT WORDS EVERY DAY. Absolutely not. You know what you should do every day? Look at a living thing other than yourself, in real life. Do something to care for your body. Seek art. Find an axis by which you can exercise your free will and disobedience. Sure, sometimes you gotta grind the words out, but even millstones wear down over time. The point of art is not to suffer in the making of it. The point of art is to give language to the human soul and allow it to speak. Making that into toil is a Calvinist scam, don’t fall for it.

(The second worst writing advice I’ve ever been given, by the way, was “don’t use they/them pronouns for romantic leads, it’s unrealistic.” My response to that is less about the voice of the soul and more about that person and the horse they rode in on.)

Will you be picking up Make Me Better? Tell us in the comments below!

The post Q&A: Sarah Gailey, Author of ‘Make Me Better’ appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

This is a book King fans definitely don’t want to miss, sharing never-before-seen drafts and changes across five of his most famous works: Pet Sematary, The Shining, Night Shift, ’Salem’s Lot, and Carrie. Read on to learn more about how Bicks was granted permission to the archives, how she chose which books to research, and which classic (with a tie to King’s work!) made her first fall in love with reading.

Hi Caroline and thank you so much for taking time to chat with The Nerd Daily! To start, tell our readers a bit about yourself.

I’m a Shakespeare professor, but I love reading and writing about stories that cut across all genres and time periods. My husband and I moved from Boston in 2017 when I became the inaugural Stephen E. King Chair in Literature at King’s alma mater, the University of Maine. We have two adult-ish aged kids and one sweet, tough old rescue dog, Chuck.

Your new book, Monsters in the Archives, takes Stephen King fans where we’ve never been before—deep into his private archives, digging into original drafts of his most popular work. How did this opportunity come about and why do you think King allowed you to be the first scholar with this level of access to his private collection?

When I took the King Chair position, I was told not to expect any contact with the Master of Horror. Four years later, I got a call at home: “Caroline, it’s Steve King.” I invited him to speak to my students, and he offered to come two days in a row. He was so generous and kind that I felt comfortable asking him if I could spend my sabbatical year reading through early drafts of his works that he’d just collected and attached to his home in Bangor. I think he trusted me because he got to know me, first, as a teacher who cares about the craft of writing as much as he does.

In the book, you share that you wanted to recreate your original experiences with King’s work. You did this by seeking out the same editions you read as a child to revisit alongside your research. (I must admit you inspired me to add an old Signet paperback copy of Night Shift, complete with creepy eyes staring out from a gauze-covered hand, to my own collection!) Can you share a bit about your calling to this project and the connections it has to your own childhood and personal life?

I love that you found that old Night Shift edition! It’s the one that got me hooked on King’s stories when I was twelve. I still can’t sleep next to an open closet because of “The Boogeyman.” A whole posse of monsters followed after that one: the woman in Room 217 (The Shining), Danny Glick scratching at the window (’Salem’s Lot), little undead Gage Creed (Pet Sematary), Carrie in her blood-soaked prom dress. I still remember specific sentences and scenes from all five of those books. I started this project because I wanted to understand how King had crafted the horrifying words and images that had stuck in my head for forty years (and counting).

Toward the beginning of Monsters in the Archives, you describe being uncertain of where to start your research, even the night before your first trip to the archives. (This is absolutely understandable, considering King’s massive body of work!) Ultimately you felt drawn to begin with Pet Sematary. How did the process of selecting which books to focus on evolve from there?

I knew before I began that I’d be focusing on just those five books that had scared me the most when I was a teenager. Beyond that, I didn’t have an organized plan; I let my instincts guide me. After I finished The Shining, for example, I felt really drained by the dark journey those manuscripts had taken me on. So I took a step back and decided to explore King’s undergraduate writing (which included his newspaper columns and some of the stories that eventually made it into Night Shift). By the end of it all, I realized that I’d been moving back in time with each chapter, starting with his most recent work and ending with Carrie, his first published novel. I didn’t plan it that way, but, as a result, I was able to perceive the relationship of the works to one another —not in terms of a chronological story about artistic improvement, but as part of a recursive, organic writing process for King.

King is famous for saying “kill your darlings” in reference to how writers must mercilessly pare down their work. It must have been incredibly difficult to distill everything you learned down to just 40-50 pages per novel. How did you approach killing your own darlings, so to speak, when writing Monsters in the Archives?

The hardest part was finding the unique human story I wanted to tell in each chapter about the revisions I was seeing King make to a particular book. After that, the chapters took shape pretty seamlessly because I knew which of the changes spoke to that story. If there was a darling that didn’t fit in, I didn’t have to kill it—I could tuck it into the blind notes for safe keeping.

What did your communication look like with King throughout this year of research? Has he shared his thoughts on the finished product?

I’d usually email him. Sometimes I had a question about a margin comment I’d found, or a plot point he’d changed; sometimes I asked him about a literary reference, or an event he’d experienced, like his move to Durham, Maine, when he was eleven, or the anti-war protests he’d taken part in as an undergrad. He always wrote me back within an hour with a detailed response. (I don’t know when the man ever sleeps!) If he had time for a more extended conversation, we’d talk. At no point did he say “That’s wrong,” or “You can’t say that.”  He recently posted on social media that this is the best book he’s ever read about his writing process, which is surreal to me. I’m so grateful that I had the opportunity to bring forward a story about his writing that hasn’t been told and that resonates with him as authentic.

Were there other books you researched in the archives and considered including? What are one or two other King novels you love that aren’t featured in Monsters in the Archives?

I considered researching The Stand (which had a huge impact on me as well at that time),  but decided it was just too huge to include. Maybe next time!

Let’s Get Nerdy: Behind the Writer with 5 Quick Questions

• The book that made you fall in love with reading: The Wizard of Oz. I write about how, as a little kid, I’d read it to my mom after school as a way to manage my fears of being away from home and from her.
• A movie you know by heart: Raiders of the Lost Ark. I was so in love with Harrison Ford in 1980. I bought an LP (that’s how old I am) of the script and listened to it on repeat.
• A song that makes you want to get up and dance: Flashdance. What can I say? I’m a product of the ’80s. I have the cut-up sweatshirts to prove it.
• Introvert or extrovert: Extrovert
• Coffee, tea, or something else: Dark roast. (And, if it’s after 5:00pm, a gin gimlet.)

Will you be picking up Monsters in the Archives: My Year of Fear with Stephen King? Tell us in the comments below!

The post Q&A: Caroline Bicks, Author of ‘Monsters in the Archives: My Year of Fear with Stephen King’ appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Lane O’Neill is a big man on campus at Sycamore Heights University. After launching the Campus Drivers rideshare app with his three best friends—Adam, Donovan, and Lewis—life is good. Lane is making plenty of money and attracting the attention of every girl on campus, while driving students around in his beloved 1969 Camaro SS. He even has a side hustle writing scripts with another friend, Carter, in his downtime.

Lois Hogan’s freshman year isn’t off to such a great start, though. After following her high school boyfriend, Kirk, to Sycamore Heights, Lois is shocked when he dumps her just days before classes start. It’s definitely not the way she planned to kick off her college career. Lois and Kirk have been together since age fourteen and she’s moulded her life around his in so many ways—perhaps too many. They even moved in together in an off-campus apartment, but now that Kirk says he “needs space” to have the full college experience, where is Lois supposed to live? And what is she supposed to do with her life after supporting his basketball dreams for so long?

As you might guess, it doesn’t take long for Lane and Lois’s very different paths to intersect. When Lane finds Lois crying in the hallway of his apartment building, he takes pity on her situation. For reasons he doesn’t fully understand, Lane offers up his couch as a temporary solution to Lois’s housing problem. However, when they learn the campus dorms are full for the foreseeable future, this temporary stay turns into much more than either of them bargained for.

Fast Lane has been tagged for fans of Hannah Grace and Elle Kennedy, and these comparisons are spot on. Much like Grace’s Maple Hills series and Kennedy’s Off-Campus series, Quill builds a college community full of characters the reader wants to know—then gives each of these characters their own book to shine. (Keep your eyes peeled throughout 2026 for books two and three, featuring Donovan and Lewis!)

Lane and Lois kick off the Campus Drivers series with a bang, hooking readers quickly. Quill weaves a compelling story of strangers who begin as quasi-enemies—the bickering and bantering is top notch!—but then slowly become friends and, of course, ultimately fall for each other. The tropes are well-executed and numerous. Forced proximity? Check. Lack of communication? Check. Bad boy falling for the good girl? Check. Fast Lane really has all the hallmarks of  a great romance novel.

Beyond the tropes, though, Quill also delivers with depth in her characters. Lane must face the ghosts of his past in order to have a chance at finding happiness in his future. Similarly, Lois has a great character arc from the beginning of the book to the end. She is forced by her circumstances to take space and learn more about herself, building confidence in who she wants to be and what she wants her life to look like going forward.

For those who like to know up front what level of spice they’ll find in their romance reads, know this: Fast Lane is an open-door romance, but it’s used in moderation. The majority of the book is full of tension and build-up, with a few well-placed spicy scenes—a good balance, no matter which way your preferences lie.

Fans of new adult romance will inhale Fast Lane and immediately be begging for the next book in the series. (It’s me, I’m a fans of new adult romance.) So sit back, buckle up, and get ready to speed through this new series … It’s a really fun ride!

Fast Lane is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of April 28th 2026.

Will you be picking up Fast Lane? Tell us in the comments below!

Synopsis

He’s the campus bad boy. She’s his neighbor’s ex. Who thought becoming roommates was a good idea?

Lane O’Neill is living the dream his senior year of college, running Campus Drivers, the ride-share app that he launched with his best friends. The concept is simple: play taxi driver for students behind the wheel of vintage cars. The girls love it, and the four drivers are deeply committed to never disappointing their clientele.

Lane has just one rule: no attachments. Ever. After everything he’s lost, keeping his emotions locked up is the only way he knows how to move forward—seeking solace in late-night drives and the rare quiet of his apartment off-campus.

So how the hell did he end up with his neighbor’s ex, Lois Hogan, crashing at his place? She’s everything he doesn’t want—clingy, directionless, and annoyingly optimistic. The type who follows her basketball-star boyfriend to college and picks a sports therapy major just to stay close to him—then acts surprised when it all blows up in her face. Lane can’t resist calling her out on it, yet despite the constant bickering, he keeps letting her stay.

Lois thought she had her life figured out, but after a messy breakup, she’s going through a full-blown identity crisis. To top it all off, she now has to deal with an infuriatingly hot, emotionally distant roommate who seems to have a knack for driving her crazy. But Lois is done playing the good girl. If Lane wants to push her around, she’s more than prepared to push right back.

The post Review: Fast Lane by C.S. Quill appeared first on The Nerd Daily.