book review Archives

More: A Memoir of Open Marriage

"My heart is open enough to hold it all.” Author: Molly Roden Winter Molly’s late-night disagreement with her husband opens a door to a new kind of marriage. In More: A Memoir of Open Marriage Molly ostensibly tells the story of encountering freedom in her marriage, but the actual truth of this supposedly ethically non-monogamous relationship seeps from between the chaotic lines of love sought and lost over the Internet and in shady meetups. What we really get is a story of less: a story of gaslighting and a woman trapped in a bad marriage that she desperately wants to both [...]

Frances Carden2025-10-17T13:01:08-07:00October 17th, 2025|Tags: book review, botm, marriage, memoir, Molly Roden Winter, open marriage, read, reading|

Beautiful Ugly

“Fear can make something beautiful appear ugly.” Author: Alice Feeney Author Grady Green is a ruined man. He can’t write anymore. He can’t think of anything anymore except his disappeared, presumed dead wife, and the night that everything happened. He was on the phone with her, elated to tell her his good news, when she slammed on the breaks, got out of the car, and then exited his life forever. Her coat was found in the waves below the cliff she was driving up. Now, at the behest of his agent, Grady is going to a reclusive cabin on a Scottish [...]

Frances Carden2025-10-16T10:53:02-07:00October 16th, 2025|Tags: Alice Feeney, Beautiful Ugly, book review, botm, mystery, read, reading, thriller|

Wild Dark Shore

“Here is the nature of life, we must love things with our whole selves knowing they will die.” Author: Charlotte McConaghy Shearwater, a tiny island near Antarctica, has a brutal shoreline. This is a place only fit for seals and penguins, a place slowly being reclaimed by the choppy ocean, a place that is gradually being drowned. It’s a space haunted by bad memories, bitter weather, and one doomed family who are trying desperately to move the world’s largest seed bank before it is swallowed by the uncaring tide. This family – the Salts – consists of a grieving father and [...]

Frances Carden2025-10-12T10:16:39-07:00October 12th, 2025|Tags: book review, botm, literary, read, reading|