Review: Death in Utopia by Phillip Vega

September 21, 2026 ~ likelystory18 ~ 1 Comment

Synopsis:

An idyllic paradise. A deadly secret. A detective who can’t escape the past.

When Detective Karen Skaryd and her husband arrive at a luxurious Caribbean resort to celebrate their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, they expect sun, relaxation, and romance. But when a prominent guest drops dead in the middle of lunch—with a cryptic biblical message left behind—Karen is thrust into a web of lies, power, and murder.

As she navigates law enforcement politics, elusive suspects, and a retired senator with secrets of his own, Karen soon realizes that this case may be tied to something much darker than she ever imagined. With danger lurking in paradise, she must uncover the truth before the killer strikes again.

Because in Utopia, nothing is what it seems.

Favorite Lines:

“Honey, never forget—a keen mind will always be your best tool.”

“Panicking won’t help. We simply stick to the facts and let them chase the shadows.”

“You can’t come to the Dominican Republic and not eat your weight in food.”

My Opinion:

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

Death in Utopia has a setup I’m almost always going to enjoy: a detective goes on vacation, fully intending not to be a detective, and then someone dies. Karen Skaryd and her husband Brock are in Punta Cana celebrating their twenty-fifth anniversary while also attending an international rose society event, thanks to Brock’s very serious interest in growing roses. The resort is beautiful, the drinks are flowing, there are plenty of eccentric personalities around, and then one particularly unpleasant member of the rose society suddenly dies under suspicious circumstances. Karen may technically be off duty and very much outside her jurisdiction, but there is basically no chance she is going to ignore what she sees.

Karen was probably my favorite part of the book. She is observant, stubborn, experienced, and constantly slipping into what Brock calls her “detective eyes,” even when she is supposed to be relaxing. Their marriage also gives the story a nice grounding point. They have been together long enough that their conversations feel comfortable and familiar, with the kind of teasing and minor irritation that makes them seem like an actual married couple rather than two characters who exist only to move the mystery forward. Brock is also more than just the spouse waiting back at the hotel while Karen investigates. His rose obsession is what brings them into this particular group of people in the first place, and their relationship helps keep the story lighter even as the situation around them becomes increasingly dangerous.

The mystery itself gets much bigger than the first death suggests. There are biblical messages, a growing list of people who may or may not be telling the truth, suspicious resort employees and guests, international law enforcement complications, and someone who seems very interested in making sure Karen knows she is being watched. I liked that the book gives you a lot of possible directions to look without making every suspicious person feel like an obvious red herring. Karen is also at a disadvantage because she has no real authority in the Dominican Republic, which leads to some friction with Inspector Montenegro. She wants to investigate the way she normally would, while he is understandably not thrilled about an American detective inserting herself into his case.

The tropical setting is a fun contrast to the darker material. One minute Karen and Brock are surrounded by ocean views, elaborate floral displays, resort restaurants and a competitive group of rosarians, and the next Karen is looking at a crime scene or following someone through a crowded tourist area. The book also has a fairly large supporting cast, including Montenegro, Wolfram, Alvarez and a number of resort guests and staff, so there is usually another relationship or secret being introduced as the investigation progresses. At times there is a lot happening, especially once the mystery expands beyond the resort itself, but that also keeps the story moving and gives it more of an adventure-thriller feel than a quiet traditional whodunit.

What surprised me most is that Death in Utopia doesn’t really wrap itself up like a completely self-contained vacation mystery. The immediate investigation builds toward a much larger threat, and the opening scene makes more sense once you see where the story is headed. I think readers who enjoy series mysteries will probably appreciate that more than readers looking for everything to be neatly tied up by the final page. This feels very deliberately like the beginning of Karen Skaryd’s story, with her family life, police career and a particularly dangerous adversary all positioned to continue into future books. There are some darker moments along the way, but the overall reading experience still feels accessible and entertaining rather than grim. I am excited to see where Vega takes Karen’s story next!

Summary:

Overall, this is a vacation mystery that gradually turns into something much bigger. Readers who like amateur-out-of-necessity investigations, police procedurals, tropical destination mysteries, married protagonists, large suspect pools, serial-killer elements and mysteries that continue into a larger series may enjoy this one. Happy reading!

Check out Death in Utopia here!

Review: The Confessor: A Logan Hollister Novel by Noah Christopher

September 15, 2026September 16, 2026 ~ likelystory18 ~ 1 Comment

Synopsis:

A killer is making Los Angeles confess.

The Confessor is never wrong. He has built his whole life around being sure of it.

He chooses people who got away with it — never charged, never even suspected. The charity director who gutted his own foundation. The smiling influencer who built an empire on a lie.

He sits them down alone with a pen and a yellow legal pad, and waits as long as it takes for the truth in their own hand.

Then he balances the account.

The confessions are real. But on paper, nothing connects the victims — separate lives, separate crimes, no thread that should tie one death to the next.

Detective Logan Hollister has every reason to stay out of it. The money came a long time ago; the house is an hour down the coast, the kind of quiet other men spend their whole lives chasing. Logan can only tolerate it in small batches before he wants back in. He keeps the badge, works the cases that still mean something, and this is the one he can’t walk away from.

On the surface, he and the man he’s hunting are opposites. One has everything a life can hold. The other spent years making himself into no one at all.

But the bodies keep coming, and the difference between them keeps thinning — until Logan can’t always tell whether he’s hunting the man or recognizing him.

Favorite Lines:

“Everybody with a secret and a blazer had done a TED talk.”

“The truth had to come on its own, the way water finds its level.”

“The days of chasing a ghost were gone. Now he was hunting a man, and the hunt was drawing close.”

“Some part of him, far down, mistook a train leaving its rails for the feeling of being free.”

My Opinion:

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

The Confessor starts with a killer who doesn’t simply want his victims dead. He wants them to admit what they’ve done first. His targets are people hiding behind carefully constructed public images, and he does an unsettling amount of homework before confronting them with the truth. The opening, involving a respected charity figure and some very questionable finances, immediately establishes what makes this killer interesting: there’s a twisted logic behind what he’s doing. He doesn’t see himself as indiscriminately violent. In his mind, he’s exposing people who deserve to be exposed. That makes the moral line running through the book considerably messier than your standard serial killer thriller.

On the other side of the story is LAPD detective Logan Hollister, who is probably the biggest reason I enjoyed this as much as I did. Logan has money, a Tesla, a house in Laguna Beach, and enough independence within the department to operate a little differently than everyone else, but he also seems almost incapable of actually enjoying the quiet life he has built for himself. Los Angeles and the work keep pulling him back. His partnership with Curt Alton gives the book some much needed humor and personality, especially because Curt is one of the few people who seems completely unimpressed by Logan being Logan. Their dialogue feels easy and lived in, and I liked their relationship almost as much as the investigation itself.

There is also more going on with Logan than the other characters realize. He secretly owns WLTLH, an investigative news site that has grown far beyond the little local operation he originally created. That becomes much more than an interesting character detail once The Confessor and WLTLH begin brushing up against each other. Logan suddenly has access to information as a journalist that he cannot exactly walk into the police department and explain without exposing a huge part of his life. I thought this was one of the more original pieces of the book because it gives him two different ways of hunting for the truth, while also creating a pretty significant problem when those two identities collide.

The story alternates between Logan’s investigation and The Confessor himself, so this isn’t really a mystery where you spend the entire book trying to guess what the killer is doing. A lot of the tension comes from watching both sides work and wondering when their paths are finally going to meet. The Confessor studies people with almost obsessive patience, while Logan is similarly good at noticing the tiny details other people overlook. That parallel makes them feel strangely well matched. The book also has a very strong sense of Los Angeles, moving between expensive Westside shops, diners, churches, freeways, ordinary neighborhoods and Logan’s quieter life down in Laguna. It gives the story a contemporary, very lived-in feeling rather than using LA as generic crime-thriller scenery.

At a little over 400 pages, The Confessor is substantial, but it reads quickly because the chapters tend to keep pushing you into the next piece of the investigation. There are stretches where the book gets very detailed about how Logan or The Confessor thinks through something, which may be more procedural than some readers want, but I actually think that detail is part of the appeal here. You get to understand how both men think rather than simply watching clues appear when the plot needs them. More than anything, this feels like the beginning of a crime series rather than a standalone thriller with a detective who happens to solve one case. Logan, Curt, WLTLH and the larger world around them all feel built to continue beyond this story, and I would be interested in seeing where the series takes them next.

Summary:

Overall, The Confessor is a smart, fast-moving crime thriller about an LAPD detective hunting a killer who forces seemingly respectable people to confess the ugly truths they have been hiding. The alternating perspectives make the cat-and-mouse element especially fun, while Logan’s secret life as the owner of an investigative news site adds a genuinely interesting complication. Readers who like police procedurals, serial killer thrillers, morally complicated villains, clever detective work, strong partner banter and contemporary Los Angeles settings may enjoy this book. Happy reading!

Check out The Confessor here!

Review: Crossingsbrook Georgians by L. Gale

September 12, 2026 ~ likelystory18 ~ 1 Comment

Synopsis:

In Crossingsbrook Georgians: the crossingsbrook series prequel, the back-story is told to the series, explaining how the Reverend and Clara James met, how Dr. Walton and Lady Greenfield met, the impacts of war and loss on Victor’s youth and young adulthood, the childhood friendship of Beatrice and Clara, and Beatrice’s experiences raising children that were not hers by birth. Also featured is a romantic episode between a freed slave and a free-born individual. Readers discover some of the better medical treatments available at the turn of the 19th Century, and the psychological impact that astronomical events may have had on ordinary individuals, if only by the power of suggestion. This novella fills in seventeen years, or nearly a generation, of the early lives of some of the key Crossingsbrook villagers, and introduces others who will have larger roles to play later in the series. All is told against a backdrop of the impacts of technology, legislation and cultural developments in Britain of the time.

Favorite Lines:

“After all, we’re entering the modern era now, and many people consider affection between a couple to be more important than the marriage of bank accounts and bloodlines.”

“When Victor left to return to school, Constance temporarily ruined the dog in his absence by dressing him up often in doll clothes, such that when his master returned for Eastertide and summertime of 1804, a good many hunts were required to recover the canine’s sense of masculinity.”

“Though the comet apparently did not end the world, it might have been said to have coincided with the ending of the old earth…”

My Opinion:

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

Crossingsbrook Georgians is one of those historical novels that is less interested in sweeping drama than in making you feel like you’ve been dropped into the everyday life of a small community. And honestly, I think that’s where it works best.

The story begins in 1798 with Lady Clara Godfrey, the daughter of a bishop who has been promised since childhood to another young bishop, Bernard Bartholomew. Unfortunately for everyone involved, Bernard is exactly the sort of man you’d hope Clara doesn’t end up marrying. He’s irritable, self-important, and generally unpleasant to have around. Clara’s father’s household staff seem to agree, and their efforts to make his visit as uncomfortable as possible give the opening chapters a surprisingly funny, slightly mischievous energy.

But the heart of the story quickly becomes Clara and Theodore “Theo” James, her father’s chaplain and secretary. Their relationship has a very gentle quality to it. These are two people who already know each other well and genuinely like one another, so their connection feels rooted in friendship and familiarity rather than instant attraction. Theo is also much more interested in actually serving people than in climbing the church hierarchy, which eventually brings Crossingsbrook itself into the center of the story.

And Crossingsbrook really does become a character of its own.

Once the story settles into the village, the book expands into something closer to a family and community chronicle. We see parish life, births and marriages, funerals, holidays, dinners, church gatherings, household routines and the small dramas that come from living in a place where everyone knows everyone else. There are even things like a village magic lantern show and excitement over early steam transportation, which I enjoyed because they make the historical setting feel lived in rather than simply decorative.

The Greenfield family becomes especially important as the book progresses. After tragedy strikes Greenfield Hall, Lady Beatrice steps into a family situation she wasn’t exactly prepared for, including caring for young Victor and his baby sister. Victor’s grief is handled with more patience than I expected. He’s angry and somewhat wild at first, and the adults around him don’t immediately try to force him into behaving as though nothing happened. His friendship with the newly arrived Dr. Rex Walton is particularly sweet and becomes an important source of stability for him.

Beatrice was probably one of the more entertaining characters for me. She’s proper and particular, but not nearly as stuffy as she initially seems. Her interactions with Rex add another little thread of romantic tension, while her attempts to figure out how to suddenly become responsible for two children give her some much needed vulnerability.

There’s also a longstanding feud between the Greenfields and Fairhavens running quietly through the background. I liked that the book doesn’t immediately turn this into some huge melodramatic conflict. Instead, you start noticing little cracks in the wall between the families, particularly as the younger generation grows up. By the later portion of the book, you can pretty clearly see how these relationships and old grudges are laying groundwork for whatever comes next in the Crossingsbrook series.

One thing readers should know going in is that this isn’t really structured like a conventional historical romance with one central couple and one major conflict driving everything toward a climax. It’s much more episodic. Years pass, children grow up, people leave for school, historical events creep into village life, families change, and characters who seemed secondary earlier become increasingly important. In that sense, it really does feel like a prequel. Its job is to introduce the families, relationships, history and little bits of baggage that will matter later.

There’s also quite a lot of historical detail woven throughout. Religion plays a particularly large role because Theo is a clergyman and Clara is a bishop’s daughter, but the book also touches on education, class, household servants, medicine, technology, politics, village traditions and changing social attitudes. Occasionally the historical information becomes more prominent than the plot itself, so readers who want a fast, tightly plotted story may find the pacing leisurely. But if you’re someone who likes the everyday details of another era, there’s a lot here to enjoy.

What I liked most was probably the sense of continuity. You aren’t just watching one romance happen. You’re watching a community take shape across years. People marry, have children, lose people they love, grow older and gradually hand more of the story over to the next generation. By the end, characters we first encountered as children are moving into adulthood with histories and relationships that already feel established. It makes Crossingsbrook Georgians feel less like a standalone adventure and more like opening an old family album and finally learning the stories behind all the people in it.

Summary: Overall, Crossingsbrook Georgians is a gentle, character driven Georgian historical novel that follows several interconnected families in the village of Crossingsbrook beginning in the late 1790s. There’s romance, family life, grief, village gossip, religion, old family rivalries and a surprising amount of everyday historical detail. Readers who enjoy gentle, character driven historical fiction where the pleasure comes from spending time in a community and watching relationships develop over years, rather than racing through a single dramatic plot may enjoy this book. Happy reading!

Check out Crossingsbrook Georgians here!

Monthly Features – August 2026

September 7, 2026 ~ likelystory18 ~ Leave a comment

The Weight of Snow by Sal Nudo

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

Synopsis: The past doesn’t wash away. It just freezes over.

For fourteen years, Alex Neitzel has lived a life built on a foundation of silence and blood money. To the residents of Champaign-Urbana, he is a wealthy, solitary remote copywriter. To his teenage children, Sammy and Cecelia, he is a ghost—a cold, self-absorbed father who nurses a bottle of Scotch in a silent house where nobody truly talks.

But Alex is living in a prison of his own making, haunted by a brutal midnight memory: his brother Trevor, dead at the bottom of a frozen playground structure in Cameron Park. Every night at exactly 2:49 a.m., his fracturing mind punishes him with the phantom echoes of that horrific winter night.

Then, a knock comes at the front door.

Two local cold-case detectives are rattling old trees, armed with a deathbed confession from a witness who knows too much about the money Alex inherited after the “accident.” As the psychological chess match with the police tightens around him, Alex panics. Desperate to find an escape hatch, he risks everything on a shadowy, international investment opportunity in Brazil—only to find himself blindly stepping into the trap of a lethal predator.

With his fortune stolen, his children severing ties, and the authorities closing in, Alex is forced to engineer the ultimate exit strategy: staging his own death on the freezing waters of Lake Michigan.

A haunting, slow-burn exploration of guilt, isolation, and familial decay, The Weight of Snow is a gripping literary noir character study that asks a terrifying question: How far can a man run when the monster he’s fleeing is himself?

Summary: The Weight of Snow is a short psychological crime thriller about guilt, paranoia, family dysfunction, and the impossibility of escaping your own past. Rather than building its suspense around the question of whether Alex committed a crime, the story focuses on what happens when the consequences of that crime finally begin closing in fourteen years later. I especially liked the irony of Alex, a man who has spent years living a lie, becoming the victim of an elaborate con when he desperately searches for a way to disappear. The ending is bleak but fitting and reinforces the idea that Alex’s real prison has never been a physical place.

I would recommend this to readers who enjoy morally complicated protagonists, psychological crime fiction, dysfunctional family dynamics, stories about guilt and consequences, and shorter thrillers that move quickly. Readers who prefer traditional mysteries with a concealed culprit may find this less mystery driven than expected, since Alex’s guilt is revealed relatively early. It is much more about watching a guilty man unravel.

See the full review here: The Weight of Snow
Purchase here

Daughter of the Golden Realm by Eva Barber

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

Synopsis: Emery inherits a mystical necklace and a cryptic warning of its importance to humanity’s survival. When her mother’s body vanishes, Emery leads a band of refugees into a desolate, post-apocalyptic world and an eerie underground city, ruled by unscrupulous and immortal beings. Grieving her mother’s death, haunted by visions emitted by the necklace, and pursued by assassins enhanced by the technology her mother had invented, she uncovers a conspiracy that stretches from a dying Earth to the fabric of the universe itself. But things get even more complicated when a mysterious woman kidnaps her beloved Peter. She and her small group race against time to find him and stop a cosmic threat. Once again, destiny forces Emery to embrace her fate, which is far greater and more terrifying than she ever imagined, and to make an impossible choice.

Summary: Daughter of the Golden Realm is an ambitious mix of post-apocalyptic science fiction, dystopian rebellion, fantasy, mythology, romance, and family drama. The story follows Emery as she and her companions continue searching for answers about the destroyed Earth, the Masters, the mysterious golden necklace, and Emery’s own connection to forces she still does not fully understand.

I think this book would appeal most to readers who enjoy genre-blending speculative fiction, complicated world-building, found and biological family dynamics, environmental themes, supernatural or science-based powers, dystopian resistance stories, and romances built around the idea of soulmates finding one another across impossible circumstances. Because this story continues a much larger series mythology, I would definitely recommend reading the preceding Dark World books first rather than treating this as a standalone.

See the full review here: Daughter of the Golden Realm
Purchase here

Blood Gilt by Jessica Housand

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

Synopsis: In a world shaped by war, blood, and betrayal, Alejandro Whitmore has spent years trying to outrun the ghosts of his past. Torn from his family during the brutal Salvadoran civil conflict and raised in the shadow of cartel power, he now lives between two identities—American on paper, but haunted by the violence that forged him.

When a dangerous assignment forces him back to El Salvador, Alejandro is thrust into a web of corruption, political manipulation, and buried family secrets. As he reconnects with the sister he lost, confronts the father who weaponized his life, and falls for a woman who may be hiding secrets of her own, Alejandro must decide whether redemption is possible for someone born into bloodshed.

Dark, gritty, and emotionally charged, Blood Gilt is a sweeping crime drama about survival, loyalty, generational trauma, and the cost of freedom. Perfect for readers who love layered antiheroes, cartel thrillers, and emotionally complex literary suspense.

Summary: Blood Gilt is a dark, character-driven crime thriller that blends historical fiction, romance, and psychological drama. It has the conspiracies, betrayals, organized crime, and high-stakes confrontations you’d expect from the genre, but it spends just as much time exploring the emotional cost of living inside that world. Readers looking for an action-heavy thriller should know this is a slower burn, while those who enjoy layered characters, morally gray decisions, and suspense built around relationships as much as danger will likely find a lot to enjoy.

See the full review here: Blood Gilt
Purchase here

Echoes of a Wild Girl’s Drum by Tiffini Johnson

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

Synopsis: I was seven when they tied me to the stake.

They wanted me to burn, burn, burn like Nángi. I threw blackjack petals in her ashes, but not even the strongest herbs can make dead mothers come back. Nobody threw blackjack petals for me, but when my turn came, a boy broke rhythm for me instead — the village drummer, the Commander’s ward — and he was scarred for it.

So I ran. Into the forest, into the dark. I learned to sleep where nothing could find me and eat what the forest gave and trust tree kangaroos and cuscuses before people. I forgot almost everything — except the boy who cut me loose from the stake. Except the tree where we carved a spiral with hair and blood and a poem nobody knows. Except the night we climbed so high the whole sky cracked open and I told him there were a million hundred stars. Except our beat — tap boom tap, tap boom boom tap — that belongs to no one else in the world. He was the only thing I kept.

Women burn in this village. They burn for sick children. For failed crops. For the herbs they keep. Some are tired. Some are angry. Some pass secrets. But I didn’t decide to come back. Something small needed me to.

And now they know: the witch’s daughter didn’t die twelve summers ago.

I know the sound the drum makes before whispers spread like fire.
The air already smells like smoke.

Only now the boy who once broke the rhythm is a man.
And I am no longer seven years old.

Summary: This was a beautifully written and emotionally powerful novel that stayed with me long after I finished it. It’s the kind of book that asks difficult questions about humanity while still leaving room for hope. I’d recommend it to readers who enjoy emotional historical fiction, character-driven stories, literary fiction, and novels that explore resilience, culture, and hope after unimaginable loss.

See the full review here: Echoes of a Wild Girl’s Drum
Purchase here

A Cakewalk to Memphis by Brenda C. Wilson

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

Synopsis: In the sweltering summer of 1958, the Jim Crow South is a landscape defined by danger, secrecy, and the need to survive.

A Cakewalk to Memphis, the debut novel by Charlotte-based author Brenda Wilson, follows Big Sallie Morning, a determined Black cleaning woman from Memphis who becomes caught up in a desperate search for her pregnant niece’s missing husband. What starts as a personal mission quickly turns into a dangerous journey across a segregated South, where each bus stop presents new risks and every encounter holds hidden significance.

Big Sallie is a force of nature. Intelligent, observant, and shaped by a past she has never fully escaped, she navigates a world of smoky nightclubs, backroom gambling halls, bootlegging routes, and counterfeit schemes operating just beneath everyday life. As she seeks answers, she is also forced to confront buried parts of her own history, including the reputation that follows her from town to town.

Brenda Wilson vividly details the era with rich Southern textures. The novel moves through dry county beer joints with deceptively cheerful names, crowded juke joints where blues music carries both joy and sorrow, and a society defined by strict racial boundaries and constant danger. Each setting reveals another layer of a world where survival depends on quick thinking, tough choices, and knowing when to speak up or remain silent.

Inspired by family stories, including an aunt who was jailed in the 1940s and a cousin who became a blues singer, Wilson weaves personal history into a broader story of resilience and reckoning. Cakewalk to Memphis is a compelling historical novel about one woman’s journey through a fractured time and the strong pull of truth, memory, and responsibility.

Summary: A Cakewalk to Memphis feels like historical fiction crossed with a Southern mystery, with a little noir and a lot of family drama mixed in. It’s funny in places, genuinely tense in others, and much more interested in complicated women than perfect ones. Sallie’s journey starts as an attempt to find one missing man, but underneath that is a story about guilt, faith, motherhood, secrets, and how difficult it is to keep the people you love from making mistakes of their own. Readers who enjoy Southern historical fiction, strong older female protagonists, family secrets, historical mysteries, blues and Memphis settings, and books about complicated women trying to make peace with who they used to be may enjoy this one.

See the full review here: A Cakewalk to Memphis
Purchase here

Review: A Cakewalk to Memphis by Brenda C. Wilson

August 31, 2026 ~ likelystory18 ~ 1 Comment

Synopsis:

In the sweltering summer of 1958, the Jim Crow South is a landscape defined by danger, secrecy, and the need to survive.

Favorite Lines:

“Folks talked. There wasn’t much else in small towns except work, church, and gossip.”

“A woman has the right to some secrets.”

“She knew women who were willing to do anything to keep a man. But it was loneliness and the absence of love. The lucky ones learned that it was sorrow masquerading as love before it was too late.”

“I chose who I wanted to be.”

My Opinion:

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

A Cakewalk to Memphis hooked me pretty quickly because Big Sallie Morning is such a great character to follow. She’s stubborn, funny, suspicious of basically everyone, deeply religious but not exactly saintly, and carrying around enough regret to fill the battered bag she takes with her across Alabama.

The story is set in 1958 and follows Sallie as she leaves Memphis to track down Tony Earley, the missing husband of her pregnant niece, Rebecca. Sallie already doesn’t trust Tony, and she has a very personal reason for being terrified that Rebecca is about to repeat the mistakes she made when she was young. Twenty years earlier, Sallie went looking for her own husband after he disappeared and that decision ended with her serving ten years in prison. So when Rebecca becomes desperate to find Tony, Sallie decides she’s going to get to him first.

I loved that this isn’t really a straightforward “find the missing husband” story. Sallie’s search takes her into juke joints, boarding houses, gambling, whiskey running, blues clubs and some genuinely dangerous situations. Pretty early on, she realizes Tony hasn’t simply wandered off. He’s tangled up with people who have money, secrets, and very little interest in a middle-aged woman from Memphis asking questions.

But the mystery was almost secondary for me because Sallie herself is so interesting. She is constantly judging everyone else’s bad choices while very clearly trying to outrun her own. She’s found religion, stopped drinking, traded her old clothes for church dresses, and would very much like to believe the woman she used to be no longer exists. Except that woman keeps showing up. Sometimes literally, when Sallie finds herself back in places and around people that remind her exactly who she once was. Her friendship with Annabelle especially brings that out because Annabelle knew her before she was “saved” and isn’t particularly interested in letting Sallie rewrite history.

There’s also a really interesting generational piece to the story. Sallie thinks she’s protecting Rebecca, but a lot of what she’s doing is actually about trying to prevent her niece from becoming her. That creates this tension between wanting to save someone you love and realizing that you can’t make their choices for them. Sallie’s past marriage, her prison sentence, her relationship with her family, and even the things she has never told Rebecca keep circling back into the present.

The setting is another huge strength. This book feels very rooted in Memphis and rural Alabama in the late 1950s. You get buses and railroad towns, dusty roads, church fans, rooming houses, jukeboxes, blues singers, cheap beer, cigarette smoke, cotton fields and neon spilling out of juke joints. There’s music running through the whole thing too, with blues and jazz becoming part of the atmosphere rather than just historical name dropping. At the same time, the book never lets you forget how dangerous this particular journey is for a Black woman traveling alone in the Jim Crow South. Sallie’s awareness of where she can go, who she can trust, and when she needs to keep her head down is always sitting underneath the story.

I also appreciated that Sallie isn’t written to be endlessly admirable. She lies. She steals. She meddles. She carries knives around and has a slightly alarming willingness to use them. She can be judgmental and hypocritical, and she has a habit of convincing herself she’s doing things entirely for somebody else’s benefit when guilt is obviously pushing her just as hard. But that messiness is exactly why she worked for me. She feels like someone who has lived a whole life before page one.

The book does get a little busy once more characters and old relationships start coming into the story. There were moments where I had to remind myself who was connected to whom, and some of the plot developments get pretty dramatic. But I was invested enough in Sallie that I didn’t mind much. The larger question of whether she can actually protect Rebecca without first dealing with her own past kept the story grounded for me.

Summary:

Overall, A Cakewalk to Memphis feels like historical fiction crossed with a Southern mystery, with a little noir and a lot of family drama mixed in. It’s funny in places, genuinely tense in others, and much more interested in complicated women than perfect ones. Sallie’s journey starts as an attempt to find one missing man, but underneath that is a story about guilt, faith, motherhood, secrets, and how difficult it is to keep the people you love from making mistakes of their own. Readers who enjoy Southern historical fiction, strong older female protagonists, family secrets, historical mysteries, blues and Memphis settings, and books about complicated women trying to make peace with who they used to be may enjoy this one. Happy reading!

Check out A Cakewalk to Memphis here!

Review: A Heart That’s True by Mark Guillerman

August 29, 2026 ~ likelystory18 ~ 1 Comment

Synopsis:

When all is taken, what remains?

In 1912, twelve-year-old Joseph Cross and his cousin Elizabeth White Cloud are torn from the foothills of Montana and sent across the country to the Carlisle Indian School, where children are stripped of their language, their traditions, and even their names.

Separated from home and forced into a world that sees them as something to be remade, Joseph and White Cloud must learn to survive in ways they never imagined. They face loneliness, danger, and a system determined to erase who they are. Yet through friendship, courage, and the teachings of their people, they begin to discover a strength no one can take from them.

Where courage walks, the spirit follows.

Along the way, their journey becomes intertwined with the legend of Big Black, a powerful wolf whose story mirrors their own struggle to belong in a world that fears what it does not understand.

A Heart That’s True is a moving and unforgettable story of resilience, identity, and the unbreakable bond between family, culture, and spirit. Inspired by real historical events, this novel shines a light on a chapter of history that must never be forgotten—and celebrates the courage to remain true to who you are.

Favorite Lines:

“The human spirit will never die in a heart that’s true.”

“The smell of the fresh morning air was strong medicine for Joseph.”

“Her grandfather had taught her many things in her young life, and one thing stood out: always remember and learn from her past.”

My Opinion:

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

A Heart That’s True is historical fiction that takes on a part of American history that is incredibly difficult to read about, but important to remember. The story follows twelve-year-old Joseph Cross, a Lakota boy taken from his home in Montana and sent across the country to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. Before he leaves, his grandfather gives him a piece of advice that basically becomes the heart of the entire book: no matter what happens to him, he has to hold onto who he is.

I think what worked best for me was that the book doesn’t only focus on the cruelty of Carlisle itself. A lot of the story is really about Joseph’s fear of losing his identity. There’s a moment before he even reaches the school where he meets an older Native student who has already adopted the clothing, speech, and mannerisms expected of him, and Joseph is genuinely terrified by what he sees. He’s been warned that people will try to “wash” his spirit away, and suddenly he understands what that might actually look like. That fear follows him throughout the book and makes even some of the quieter parts of his time at Carlisle feel unsettling.

Joseph’s relationship with his cousin White Cloud was another part I really liked. They’re separated after arriving at Carlisle, but their connection to each other and to their grandfather gives the story an emotional anchor. White Cloud is also a compelling character on her own. She’s older, more guarded, and much more aware of what is happening to them, while Joseph still has a little bit of childhood innocence left.

And then there’s Big Black, who honestly ended up being one of my favorite parts of the book. He’s a huge black wolf/Newfoundland mix Joseph meets during the journey east, and their immediate connection initially seems like a sweet little break in an otherwise bleak situation. But Big Black becomes much more important than that. Joseph connects him to Lakousa, the Wolf King from one of his grandfather’s stories, and the wolf becomes tied to this larger idea of home, freedom, and the part of Joseph that Carlisle can’t take away. I really liked how that storyline brought a slightly mythical feeling into what is otherwise pretty grounded historical fiction.

There are also quite a few real historical figures and events worked into the story. Jim Thorpe has a particularly meaningful role rather than just popping up for the sake of having a recognizable name. His quiet friendship with Joseph becomes another source of encouragement for him, especially when Joseph is able to tell the stories his grandfather taught him instead of being ashamed of them. I thought those scenes were some of the strongest because they show resistance in a much quieter way. Joseph isn’t necessarily making some huge rebellious stand. Sometimes simply remembering and telling his people’s stories is the rebellion.

I did think the writing could be a little heavy on historical explanation at times. There are sections where the story pauses to give quite a bit of background on people, places, and events.. At the same time, I understand why so much context was included, especially because Carlisle and the broader history surrounding Indian boarding schools may be unfamiliar to some readers.

Summary:

Overall, A Heart That’s True is a moving story about identity, family, survival, and refusing to let someone else decide who you are. There are some genuinely painful parts, but there is also a surprising amount of warmth in Joseph’s relationships with White Cloud, Big Black, and the people who show him kindness along the way. It isn’t necessarily a light historical fiction read, but it has a lot of heart. I’d recommend this to readers who enjoy American historical fiction, coming-of-age stories, books about Indigenous history and boarding schools, animal-human bonds, and stories centered around resilience, family, and finding your way home. Happy reading!

Check out A Heart That’s True here!

Review: Echoes of a Wild Girl’s Drum by Tiffini Johnson

August 26, 2026 ~ likelystory18 ~ 2 Comments

Synopsis:

I was seven when they tied me to the stake.

And now they know: the witch’s daughter didn’t die twelve summers ago.

I know the sound the drum makes before whispers spread like fire.
The air already smells like smoke.

Only now the boy who once broke the rhythm is a man.
And I am no longer seven years old.

Favorite Lines:

“We are strong. We are brave. We are women.”

“The wind blows against my skin while my heart beats fast. In my head, I imagine tapping against the drum, keeping the pressure of the beat just so. The first time I played the Heartbeat and people spilled out into the streets, opened their shops, hitched wagons, and began their day, I felt it. Power. The drumbeat gave the village the knowledge that it was time to begin a new day. The drumbeat acts as the village’s sun. I am the village’s sun. And now I will learn to be its moon.”

“I’m talking in circles, jumping from one thing to the next, just like Salu, but you said spirals lead us home. You are my home. Listen to me.”

My Opinion:

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

This is one of those books that grabs you from the first few pages and really doesn’t let go. The opening is heartbreaking, but it’s also the kind of scene that tells you exactly what kind of story you’re stepping into. It’s heavy, emotional, and not afraid to sit with uncomfortable realities.

The story is set in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea, and that setting never felt like just a backdrop. It becomes part of everything, from the traditions and village life to the way the characters understand the world around them. I especially loved how the drum wasn’t just an instrument. It became a language, a responsibility, and a symbol that carried so much meaning throughout the novel. The cultural details felt woven naturally into the story instead of stopping everything to explain them.

I was a really big fan of the dual perspectives. Seeing the world through young Soryelle’s eyes is absolutely devastating because of her innocence. She notices smells, sounds, plants, animals, and little moments that make the tragedy around her hit even harder. On the other side, Maikel’s chapters add a completely different layer as he wrestles with duty, tradition, and what kind of man he wants to become. Watching those two perspectives slowly build toward each other kept me invested the entire time.

The writing itself is very sensory. You can practically smell the smoke from the mumu fires, hear the rhythm of the drums, and picture the forests and mountains. At times it almost reads like someone telling you a story around a fire rather than a traditional historical novel, which fit the atmosphere really well.

This is definitely not an easy read though so get ready to cry. Johnson doesn’t shy away from trauma, grief, or the lasting effects of violence, and there were several scenes that were difficult to get through emotionally. At the same time, the book never felt hopeless. Underneath all of the pain is a story about resilience, healing, connection, and choosing compassion over fear. Even some of the quieter moments between characters carried just as much emotional weight as the bigger ones.

Summary:

Overall, this was a beautifully written and emotionally powerful novel that stayed with me long after I finished it. It’s the kind of book that asks difficult questions about humanity while still leaving room for hope. I’d recommend it to readers who enjoy emotional historical fiction, character-driven stories, literary fiction, and novels that explore resilience, culture, and hope after unimaginable loss.

You can find the book trailer here
Check out Echoes of a Wild Girl’s Drum here!

Review: Daughter of the Golden Realm by Eva Barber

August 9, 2026August 9, 2026 ~ likelystory18 ~ 1 Comment

Synopsis:

Emery inherits a mystical necklace and a cryptic warning of its importance to humanity’s survival. When her mother’s body vanishes, Emery leads a band of refugees into a desolate, post-apocalyptic world and an eerie underground city, ruled by unscrupulous and immortal beings. Grieving her mother’s death, haunted by visions emitted by the necklace, and pursued by assassins enhanced by the technology her mother had invented, she uncovers a conspiracy that stretches from a dying Earth to the fabric of the universe itself. But things get even more complicated when a mysterious woman kidnaps her beloved Peter. She and her small group race against time to find him and stop a cosmic threat. Once again, destiny forces Emery to embrace her fate, which is far greater and more terrifying than she ever imagined, and to make an impossible choice.

Favorite Lines:

“Have hope. We’ll see stars again.”

“You need to be vicious to protect the ones you love.”

“Don’t be afraid…I’ll be with you all the way.”

My Opinion:

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

Daughter of the Golden Realm throws you immediately back into Emery’s complicated world, where every answer seems to uncover even more questions. She is still dealing with grief, uncertainty, and the strange golden necklace left to her by her mother, while also trying to understand what the Masters have done to the world and what role she is supposed to play in whatever comes next. There is a lot happening in this installment, but underneath the science fiction, dystopian conflict, and mythology, I thought this was really a story about Emery trying to understand where she belongs and how much of herself she is willing to give for the people she loves.

One of my favorite parts of the book was watching the world gradually open up beyond the gray underground city. The ruined landscape Emery and the others travel through is bleak, and some of the imagery makes the destruction feel much more tangible than simply being told that the planet has died. At the same time, the group begins encountering more survivors and learning that the situation is not as simple as humans versus monsters. I appreciated that the story allows for more moral gray area here. Emery can be impulsive and incredibly stubborn, but her refusal to completely give up on people is also one of the things that makes her feel like herself.

The middle of the book leans more heavily into the rebellion against the Masters and feels like a larger-scale dystopian adventure. The group uncovers more about how the gray world operates, who benefits from it, and how much control has been built into this supposedly improved society. The book has a fairly pointed environmental and social message, especially around power, inequality, immortality, and the idea of preserving a select few while everyone else suffers. It is not always subtle, but it fits the exaggerated scale of the world and gives the conflict more weight than a simple good-versus-evil setup.

For me, though, the strongest material is the more personal side of the story. Emery’s relationships with Peter, Sebastian, Tirg, Danuta, and her mother remain central even as the plot becomes much bigger. There is a constant tension between Emery wanting to protect everyone herself and the people who love her refusing to let her carry everything alone. The romance also has a bittersweet quality because Emery and Peter’s connection has always existed alongside questions about time, dimensions, and whether two people can really continue finding one another no matter what happens.

The final portion of Daughter of the Golden Realm becomes much more mythic and blends science fiction with fantasy, ancient symbolism, prophecy, and cosmic mystery. The book’s scope expands considerably, but it still comes back to Emery and the people she is fighting for. I liked that the story never completely loses sight of that emotional core, even when the world-building becomes much stranger and more ambitious. This installment answers some major questions while also opening the series into something much larger, and I think readers already invested in Emery’s journey will probably find a lot here to enjoy.

Summary:

Overall, Daughter of the Golden Realm is an ambitious mix of post-apocalyptic science fiction, dystopian rebellion, fantasy, mythology, romance, and family drama. The story follows Emery as she and her companions continue searching for answers about the destroyed Earth, the Masters, the mysterious golden necklace, and Emery’s own connection to forces she still does not fully understand.

Check out Daughter of the Golden Realm here!

Review: The Weight of Snow by Sal Nudo

August 5, 2026 ~ likelystory18 ~ 1 Comment

Synopsis:

The past doesn’t wash away. It just freezes over.

For fourteen years, Alex Neitzel has lived a life built on a foundation of silence and blood money. To the residents of Champaign-Urbana, he is a wealthy, solitary remote copywriter. To his teenage children, Sammy and Cecelia, he is a ghost—a cold, self-absorbed father who nurses a bottle of Scotch in a silent house where nobody truly talks.

But Alex is living in a prison of his own making, haunted by a brutal midnight memory: his brother Trevor, dead at the bottom of a frozen playground structure in Cameron Park. Every night at exactly 2:49 a.m., his fracturing mind punishes him with the phantom echoes of that horrific winter night.

Then, a knock comes at the front door.

Two local cold-case detectives are rattling old trees, armed with a deathbed confession from a witness who knows too much about the money Alex inherited after the “accident.” As the psychological chess match with the police tightens around him, Alex panics. Desperate to find an escape hatch, he risks everything on a shadowy, international investment opportunity in Brazil—only to find himself blindly stepping into the trap of a lethal predator.

With his fortune stolen, his children severing ties, and the authorities closing in, Alex is forced to engineer the ultimate exit strategy: staging his own death on the freezing waters of Lake Michigan.

A haunting, slow-burn exploration of guilt, isolation, and familial decay, The Weight of Snow is a gripping literary noir character study that asks a terrifying question: How far can a man run when the monster he’s fleeing is himself?

Favorite Lines:

“Inside the foyer, Ratatouille was whining, her little tail thumping against the floor in a frantic welcome, but Alex walked right past her, staring blindly into the dark hallway, the ghost of his brother breathing heavily down his neck.”

“He needed this. He needed a new sky.”

“What am I not running from?”

My Opinion:

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

The Weight of Snow is a dark, surprisingly compact psychological crime story about a man who has spent fourteen years waiting for the worst thing he has ever done to finally catch up with him. Alex Neitzel has money, a beautiful home, and two children who will never have to worry financially, but his actual life is pretty miserable. His relationship with his son, Sammy, is openly hostile, his daughter, Cecelia, is basically holding the household together by herself, and Alex spends most of his time drinking, hiding in his office, and being haunted by the death of his brother Trevor. When two detectives show up asking questions about Trevor’s supposedly accidental death, Alex immediately knows exactly how much trouble he is in.

What I found most interesting about this book is that it doesn’t really try to make Alex’s guilt a mystery. We learn fairly early that Trevor’s death wasn’t an innocent accident and that Alex’s fortune is tied to what happened that night. Instead, the tension comes from watching someone who has gotten away with something terrible for fourteen years suddenly realize that the walls might finally be closing in. Alex is not an especially sympathetic character, but he is an interesting one because there are moments where you can see that he genuinely loves his children and recognizes how badly he has failed them. Then, almost immediately, his fear or anger takes over and he treats them horribly again. The scenes between Alex, Sammy, and Cecelia were actually some of the strongest parts of the book for me because the damage Alex has caused isn’t limited to the people who died. His guilt has seeped into every part of the family’s life.

The Brazil storyline takes the book in a direction I wasn’t initially expecting. Alex becomes so desperate to escape the reopened investigation that he jumps at what appears to be an opportunity to invest in a legitimate Brazilian gardening business, only to discover that Francisco Silva is supposedly running a massive criminal operation behind it. What makes this section work is how quickly Alex is willing to accept it. He has already convinced himself that he crossed the moral line years ago, so becoming involved in something even darker doesn’t seem like much of a leap if it can buy him a new identity and a way out. Of course, the irony is that Francisco is not actually offering Alex salvation at all. He is a con man who specifically targets wealthy, desperate people with secrets, and Alex is almost the perfect victim. Watching a man who built his entire life on deception get spectacularly deceived himself was probably my favorite twist in the story.

I also liked that the book doesn’t give Alex an easy redemption arc. Even when he loses his money, stages his own suicide, abandons his children, and flees halfway around the world, there is no sense that he has actually escaped. The final scene in the Akatarawa Forest brings the story back to its central idea in a way that worked for me. Alex has managed to leave behind the police, his identity, his wealth, and even his family, but none of those things were ever the real source of his imprisonment. He is still carrying Cameron Park with him. I thought the ending was appropriately bleak because Alex technically succeeds at running away while also completely failing to escape the one thing he cannot outrun: himself.

Summary:

Overall, The Weight of Snow is a short psychological crime thriller about guilt, paranoia, family dysfunction, and the impossibility of escaping your own past. Rather than building its suspense around the question of whether Alex committed a crime, the story focuses on what happens when the consequences of that crime finally begin closing in fourteen years later. I especially liked the irony of Alex, a man who has spent years living a lie, becoming the victim of an elaborate con when he desperately searches for a way to disappear. The ending is bleak but fitting and reinforces the idea that Alex’s real prison has never been a physical place.

Check out The Weight of Snow here!

Review: Fire Breathes Stone and Storm by Teresa Hakaraia

July 31, 2026 ~ likelystory18 ~ 1 Comment

Synopsis:

Sekya has spent her life making herself small.

Raised in an orphanage alongside Khala, Riva, and Lio, she has done whatever it takes to keep her found family together — even if it means surviving in Silk House, a pleasure house in the fire dominion of Eratari.

On the world of Thyra, power belongs to the Taniva: rare shapeshifters who carry the blood of the first elemental creatures.

Sekya is not one of them.

Then one night, watching from the balcony, Sekya sees the Queen return in phoenix-drake form, her Taniva wings cutting through the dark, her wounded son carried on her back.

Then time just stops.

The city is motionless.

The Queen hangs suspended above the lake, her great wings caught in mid-beat. And on her back, wounded and dying, Prince Kairon lifts his head — and turns to find Sekya, as though he knows exactly who stopped the world.

From that moment, Sekya’s attempt to remain unseen becomes impossible. She begins to share dreams with Kairon, drawn into a connection neither of them understands and neither can ignore.

When the Queen comes searching for the girl from her son’s visions, she finds more than Sekya. She finds four young people who carry something she cannot name: a strangeness in them, a power she can feel but not identify. Whether they are the answer to saving her son, or a threat to him, the Queen does not yet know.

What follows will change everything they thought they were.

Khala holds fire.
Riva holds water.
Lio holds stone.
And Sekya — Sekya can hold time itself.

Four orphans. Four powers that should not exist. And a world of four dominions holding a peace none of them fully trust.

But the thread between Sekya and Kairon runs deeper than magic. Deeper than blood. Deeper than anything either of them knows how to name.

Some connections cannot be undone.

Some costs cannot be survived.

Favorite Lines:

“What I do know…is that you are not some mistake Silk House made. You and your family love each other fiercely. You protect each other. You are Eratari.”

“Last night, I had not wanted to become another thing a man wanted from me. I wanted to be seen. Wanting, on its own, was too easy. Men did it all the time.”

“You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. And you love me.”

“I only hope tomorrow finds us worthy of what comes after.”

My Opinion:

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

Fire Breathes Stone and Storm is the kind of fantasy that throws you into a fairly expansive world but keeps the emotional center of the story surprisingly intimate. At the center of the story is Sekya and the family she has created with fellow orphans Khala, Riva, and Lio. They have grown up relying on one another, and I liked that the story establishes those relationships as something worth protecting before their lives begin changing. As Sekya discovers there is more to her own identity and abilities than she realized, the world around the four of them starts opening up as well. What begins as a more personal story gradually introduces elemental powers, divided dominions, political tensions, and a mythology that suggests their lives are connected to something much older and more complicated than any of them know.

I thought Sekya’s struggle with belonging was one of the more interesting parts of her character. She’s fiercely protective of the people she considers family, but she doesn’t always extend that same confidence or sense of worth to herself. Her growing connection with Prince Kairon complicates things further, especially as the line between dreams and reality becomes increasingly difficult to understand. There is romance here, but I appreciated that Sekya’s story isn’t entirely defined by it. Her bond with the other orphans remains an important part of who she is, and there is an underlying tension between the life and family she already knows and the unfamiliar world that seems determined to claim her.

The world itself has a lot of moving pieces, and this definitely feels like the first installment of a series that plans to keep expanding. The elemental magic is only one part of it. There are four dominions with their own histories and conflicts, strange creatures, the mysterious Shell, and questions surrounding a sleeping god and the characters’ origins. I was particularly interested in the way the story touches on what happens when a society’s understanding of its own history is incomplete. Ariki’s experiences add another perspective to that idea, bringing prejudice and cultural identity into a story that could otherwise have remained focused primarily on magic and political conflict. There are still a lot of questions left unanswered, but I get the sense that many of the smaller details introduced here will become more important as the series continues.

The pacing does take its time, particularly as the story works to establish both its characters and a fairly complicated fantasy world. There were places where I thought things could move a little faster, but I also understand why so much groundwork was necessary for what appears to be a much larger story. I found myself more interested in the mysteries surrounding the characters and their connections to this world than in having every answer immediately. By the end, it becomes clear that what happens in this book is really only the beginning, so readers should go in expecting the start of an ongoing story rather than something that wraps everything up neatly.

Summary:

Overall, I thought Fire Breathes Stone and Storm was an interesting introduction to a fantasy world with plenty of room to grow. For me, the strongest aspect was the idea of these four young people who have already chosen one another as family finding themselves pulled toward identities and destinies they never asked for. The magic and mythology create the larger mystery, but it’s the questions of belonging, identity, and what makes someone your family that give the story its emotional foundation. There is clearly much more waiting to be uncovered about the Shell, the characters’ powers, and the history connecting everything together, and I think readers who enjoy settling into the beginning of a larger fantasy series will find plenty here to make them curious about what comes next. Happy reading!

Check out Fire Breathes Stone and Storm here!