Based on a True Story

Based on a True Story by Sarah Vaughan

Reviewed by Ephantus Gold

I started Based on a True Story by Sarah Vaughan, not knowing what to expect. The story follows Dame Eleanor Kingman, a hugely famous children’s writer — the kind who’s everywhere and has sold an unbelievable number of books. You can feel the weight of all that success on her right from the start, tightening around her even before the book hints at anything darker.  Purchase Here.

There’s a moment early on at her birthday event where a little boy suddenly yells that she lies and makes everything up. It’s quick, but it hits her hard. His words shake her in a way that feels almost too accurate, like he’s spotted something she’s been trying to hide for years.

Next, we witness a dreadful moment as strange emails begin flooding her personal account. Their deliberate word choice leads her to believe that the sender either knows her just too well or knows something cold about her from before her fame. Here, the reader joins her as she tries to deduce the source, flipping through rejected manuscripts and a young woman’s first identity. You sense that failure to do that will not just be an embarrassment but the total annihilation of everything she has become.

What impressed me most was how the author weaves in secondary accounts of Eleanor’s children, including Rachel, who is her accountant, and whose husband is deeply weighed down by life-threatening financial issues. As I engaged with her, I felt the tragic irony of two women, a mother and a daughter, both terrified of exposure and both hunted by versions of themselves they want to keep hidden. Their stories move with what feels like tide pacing, each adding several inches of water with every new chapter. They are, however, made more interesting to follow by a critical detail, that one of them has long learned to compartmentalize all her negative emotions and thus cannot afford to feel any sorrow. As secrets unfold about her children, one wonders whether she might drift from them as she focuses on finding the anonymous sender.

The conclusion of Sarah Vaughan’s Based on a True Story left me stunned. As someone drawn to psychological suspense that digs beneath the surface, this hit exactly the right nerve. Readers who’ve ever felt the tension between their outward persona and their inner truth will find an uncomfortable, familiar echo in these pages—and that’s part of what makes it so powerful.

 

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Goodnight Sister

Goodnight Sister by Katherine Schwarzenegger Pratt

Reviewed by Nancy Eaton

“Goodnight Sister” is a sweet, reassuring story about growing up, change, and the kind of sibling bond that makes even the scariest night feel safe.

Katherine Schwarzenegger Pratt captures a moment many families know well: the first night two siblings sleep in separate rooms. Kat is thrilled to move into her own “big girl room,” while her younger sister Tina is… not so thrilled. The mix of excitement and anxiety feels incredibly true to life, and the book handles those emotions with a gentle touch.  Purchase Here.

What makes the story work is how honestly it portrays both girls. Kat wants independence, but she also wants to protect her sister. Tina wants to be brave, but she’s not quite ready to let go. Their back‑and‑forth feels tender and believable, especially when Kat shares her stuffed animals — each one representing something comforting or empowering. It’s a lovely way to show kids how we pass courage to the people we love.

When a storm rolls in, and the girls end up needing each other, the moment doesn’t feel forced. It feels like the natural reminder that growing up doesn’t mean growing apart.

Lucy Fleming’s illustrations add so much warmth. The soft colors, cozy rooms, and expressive faces make the book feel like a hug. It’s the kind of art kids will want to linger on.

It’s the kind of bedtime story kids ask for again, especially if they’re dealing with big changes or just need a little extra comfort at night.”

 

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A Twist in the River

A Twist in the River by Stig Abell

Reviewed by Ephantus Gold

A Twist in the River starts out feeling like a straightforward mystery, but it slowly becomes something more personal — almost like you’re watching someone get pulled back into a life they thought they’d stepped away from. Jake Jackson tries to keep his distance when Livia tells him about the missing woman’s belongings turning up. You can feel him trying to protect whatever peace he’s managed to build. He knows how cases like this can take over his mind, and he’s not eager to go down that road again.  Purchase Here.

But then Claire’s husband shows up, and the whole situation shifts. The man is exhausted, scared, and clearly out of options, and Jake can’t pretend he doesn’t hear the desperation in his voice. That moment pulls him back in, not because he wants the attention or the challenge, but because he can’t ignore someone who genuinely needs help.

The pacing is steady — not slow, not rushed — just steady enough to let the characters breathe. Jake feels like someone who’s been shaped by the things he’s seen, and Livia balances him out. She’s the one who keeps him from slipping too far into his old habits, especially once she tells him she’s pregnant. That news adds a different kind of pressure, the kind that makes every decision feel heavier.

What stood out to me is how Abell mixes the personal moments with the darker parts of the story. He doesn’t gloss over the reality of violence against women, and he doesn’t turn Jake into some larger‑than‑life hero. Jake cares, maybe more than he should, and that’s what makes him compelling. As people start praising him — both in town and online — there’s this uneasy feeling that the attention might not be harmless. You start to sense that something is building underneath all the admiration.

The suspense grows quietly, almost unnoticed. It’s the uncertainty around Jake that keeps you hooked, the sense that he’s walking into something he can’t fully see. It’s the kind of book you can read in a couple of sittings, but the ending hits with enough force that you keep thinking about it afterward. The final twist lands clean and sharp, leaving a little echo behind.

 

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Sometime This Century

Sometime This Century: A Regency Rom-Com by Samantha Silva

Reviewed by Ephantus Gold

“Sometime This Century: A Regency Rom-Com” by Samantha Silva follows Annabel Blake, who has just finished writing her first novel titled “What You Wish For.” Her mother wishes she could instead focus on getting a real estate license and, in due time, move out of their house, even though she is still paying rent. Annabel is a Jane Austen fanatic and has even mashed up Austen’s heroines for her pen name.  She can’t wait to present her manuscript to her boss, Stella, who until now didn’t know Annabel writes. Stella, however, detests anything related to Jane Austen’s world. To her, Jane Austen is dead!  Purchase Here.

As a fan of Jane Austen, I couldn’t wait to see how Stella would react to Annabel’s Regency manuscript. In all honesty, the world Annabel captures made me early on agree with Silva that she might have been born in the wrong century. But what especially moved me was that Annabel had never fallen in love, so someone like Stella could easily believe she was way out of line to write about the Regency. And true to my suspicion, Stella advises her to rewrite the novel, but this time stick to what she knows.

Annabel is a woman her family believes is living in a fantasy world. I found myself appreciating what Silva does with her, including throwing her headfirst into a historical recreation of the Regency Society setting before sending her into another world where she gets to decide whether to write her love story or simply live it. Silva deliberately injects Annabel’s family’s sentiments here and there, as well as their pressure on what she should become. This made me, as a reader, care about and worry for her dream at the same time, especially for her influencer sister, Cassie.

“Sometime This Century: A Regency Rom-Com” is dialogue-heavy and is explicit in its reveal of the power of desire. It moves at a deliberate pace, every page sinking the reader into a world that some characters see as captivity but that the reader knows is the heart of the novel. It’s a great read, well-choreographed, and though dense, worth every page for a reader who’s ever wished for a world of their own.

 

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Murder Most Delicious

Murder Most Delicious: A Novel by Danielle Postel-Vinay

Reviewed by Ephantus Gold

“Murder Most Delicious” by Danielle Postel-Vinay is a novel that serves up a mystery so rich in atmosphere and intrigue that it ensnares you completely, refusing to let go until its secrets have been fully uncovered. It pulls you into a world where every scent feels like it is holding a clue and where every character seems to be hiding something, setting the stage for a charged mystery, in which the loss of one sense might just be the key to discovering a deadly truth.  Purchase Here.

The story follows Olivia Beech, an American sommelier, whose career in New York crumbled after Covid robbed her of her sense of taste. She is not the kind of sommelier trained through trial and error like many others, but one born with a heightened, almost inborn sense of smell. Today, she is heading to an interview at the legendary bistro Chez Jacques, where one of the most exacting French chefs in Paris will test her ability to taste wine. Passing the test will give her more than a job. She will be able to repay her debts, rebuild her reputation, reclaim her dignity, and, more importantly, have a chance to start over. But the moment the tasting begins, she detects something deeply disturbing in the glass before her. This is right after a sinister scent, which she compares to a snake hidden in a basket of cherries, hit her nostrils. Unable to truly tell what it truly is, the only thing that remains is for her to taste the wine. Jacques, however, grabs it from her, insisting that its cork was intact. However, things take an unexpected direction when, after one gulp, he collapses.

The next scene introduces Chantal, a local florist who owns a flower shop called Les Fleurs d’Amour, and who is part of a tight-knit group of locals who look out for one another. She witnesses the incident, moves in with the composure of someone already used to crisis, and objects to calling the police, arguing that they will not hesitate to arrest Olivia since she is the only person who was with Jacques at the time of his death. In a neighborhood that is as gossipy as it is protective, and where everyone knows everyone else’s habits, secrets, and grudges, the reader is drawn to the edge of their seat as the mystery suddenly explodes beyond a single death into a web of suspicion and conflicting loyalties. Here, one can’t help but wonder whether fate will, once more, extend an olive branch to Olivia and offer her a true chance at redemption, or whether the incident will wipe out every remaining ounce of hope she has left.

This book gave me an experience of sheer immersion, where I was utterly captivated by a setting that functions as a character in its own right, rather than just a backdrop to the story. The tension felt masterfully woven, striking a compelling balance between the story’s central mystery and the emotional weight of the protagonist’s sensory journey. The characters won my heart early in the read, especially Olivia, whose vulnerability and resilience anchor the story with a quiet, persuasive power. I found the prose elegant and precise, its language both sensual and controlled. The subtle incorporation of French in phrases, culinary terms, and cultural rhythms didn’t feel ornamental at all, but instead pulled me deeper into the world, making the language itself part of my sensory experience.

I have never wanted to move back into a neighborhood to see what mystery and what surprise awaited next, as I did with the one in this book. “Murder Most Delicious” by Danielle Postel-Vinay didn’t emerge as just a mystery to be solved, but as an experience to be savored. It was richly rewarding to me as a reader who enjoys lingering with uniquely-gifted characters, and who loves following carefully placed clues that persuasively invite you to solve their puzzle. I highly recommend it to readers who appreciate beautifully-crafted mysteries that engage both the heart and the mind.

 

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Mystery at Monrovia Castle: The Rebecca Orange Castle Cozy Mystery Series by Valerie Brandy

Reviewed by Nancy Eaton

This first book in the Rebecca Orange Castle Cozy Mystery Series delivers a fun, comforting escape: a charming castle setting, quirky characters, a loyal dog, and a mystery that stays light without losing its intrigue.

Rebecca Orange has a rough day at the start of Mystery at Monrovia Castle—she loses her job and her relationship almost back‑to‑back. It’s a mess, but it pushes her into this unexpected chance to work with the royal animals in Monrovia, a tiny country that feels like something out of a storybook. It’s a fun setup, especially if you like cozy mysteries where someone gets a fresh start in a completely new place.  Purchase Here.

When Rebecca gets to Monrovia, she’s not impressed. The place feels a bit weird, and the people she meets are all quirky in their own ways. She can’t figure anyone out yet. The flower shop sounds nice, though. Even though the Duke is polite, he is definitely holding back something. Her dog Joe is honestly one of the best parts. Big, calm, and just kind of comforting whenever he shows up.

The mystery starts to matter once the castle’s architect turns up dead. Someone Rebecca barely knows but already feels okay around suddenly looks like they might be involved, which throws her off balance. Even with that going on, the book doesn’t get dark. She spends a lot of time wandering around the castle and the town, trying to figure out who’s being straight with her and who’s just acting strange because that’s how the place is.

The setting sticks with you more than anything. Monrovia is easy to picture — old stone buildings, little shops, people who seem to know everyone else’s business. The writing leans more toward comfort than tension, so the mystery feels like something you can read at night without getting wound up.

If you like mysteries that are easygoing and have a main character you can root for, Mystery at Monrovia Castle is a nice start to a series that seems like it’ll only get more fun.

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Venera LTD.

Venera LTD. by Stuart Nosler

Reviewed by Lily Andrews

“Venera LTD.” by Stuart Nosler begins in 2025 in Australia, under the shadow of a global radiation crisis where Dr. Hendrick Campbell, a nuclear physicist, is pulled from university research to investigate a mysterious wreck of a sunken warship, a North Korean vessel, which was carrying radioactive material, and whose contamination is spreading quickly, collapsing fishing economies and seeding cancers in populations across the Pacific. What follows is a journey that sees him rise from an academic to a rich head of Venera Ltd, a space logistics company that begins as a student initiative to launch a satellite cheaply, before it transforms into a monopoly that dumps the world’s most dangerous waste on Venus. Alongside this ascent is his life’s slow unraveling, which slowly grows into a desperation that later threatens to consume everything that he has built.  Purchase Here.

“The amount of plutonium aboard was absurd.” Hahn continued.”  From this passage, as the reader, I understood the weight of the catastrophe, even as I was primed for a journey that would be unforgiving and test the resolve of a team of researchers tasked with containing an escalating global crisis. Campbell’s journey forms the backbone of the story. He is a protagonist whose importance, I believe, lies in his transformation and in how he reveals ambition, grief, and what happens when compromises accumulate. Watching him move from a man who gets terrified that he has poisoned his pregnant wife to someone willing to suppress uncomfortable truths felt like watching the slow death of conscience by a thousand justifications. Then there is Henry Rockford, who, unlike traditional villains, is a brilliant and charismatic figure. Seeing him discover Campbell’s capabilities and then exploiting his vulnerabilities reveals the quiet art of manipulation at play. He carries the image of a predator circling not with claws, but with a patient, unblinking assurance that everything is just business until the prey believes it too.

One of the most outstanding elements of this book is its structure, which spans several years of its characters’ phases. The story rides on a deliberate, measured pacing in the first part, which then noticeably accelerates in the second and third parts, before slowing down a bit in the fourth part. One feels like the chapters, which grow tenser with each new one, directly work one-on-one with the pacing, making the reader feel the unbearable weight of events way before they come to pass. A shorter novel feels like it couldn’t have sufficiently captured the protagonist’s transformation with the same conviction. Personally, I would have resisted the leap from professor to a compromised titan, had the novel not made me live inside the duration of that fall. “Venera LTD.” by Stuart Nosler is a book worthy of its length. It understands that life’s greatest horrors are rarely the ones that come explosively, but those that accumulate patiently, silently, and without blinking. It is a book I would recommend to fans of character-driven tragedies as well as those who enjoy slow-burning science fiction.

 

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Unmasked

Unmasking Cults: The History of Cults and Leaders that went Too Far (History with a Side of Humor) by L.E. Danvers

Think cults always start with chanting and spooky robes? Think again.

Your teen is about to have their eyes opened to the beguiling ways of influencers.

Some cults began with yoga, self-help seminars, or civil rights activism. Others started with meditation, space aliens, or a leader who just really believed they were the smartest person in the room. What they all had in common wasn’t weirdness—it was influence.

Get ready to dig into real cults from history and learn how movements that promised peace, equality, enlightenment, or personal growth slowly turned into something much darker.

Middle schoolers and teens will learn the psychology behind how charismatic leaders gained control, how good ideas got twisted, and why smart, well-meaning people went along with it longer than they should have.

You’ll learn how manipulation works, how to spot red flags early, and how to protect your brain from people who want to borrow it permanently. If you’re ever in a group where the theme of the day is “Wow… that escalated quickly,” you’ll be the critical thinker who makes a beeline for the door.

Because curiosity is great.
Critical thinking is better.

Stretch your muscles. Question everything. And maybe don’t join that “life-changing” group just yet.

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Unpacking Narcissism's Guises

Unpacking Narcissism’s Guises: Set Boundaries and Free Yourself From Trauma Bonds (Healing After Narcissism Book 1) by Riley Ellis

How do you fall in love with a narcissist? The same way you boil a frog—slowly, and with just enough compliments.

If, like so many others before you, you sit hung up, wondering if it’s possible the problem isn’t you, that it might actually be the other person, this book is for you.

Whether you’re waking up to the red flags or already planning your great escape, this book will help you:

Understand how narcissists are made (it’s not just mommy issues)
Recognize the subtle manipulations that keep you doubting yourself
Break free without losing your mind—or your sense of humor
Get divorce ready (if that’s your plan)
Heal your soul
Protect your children from generational trauma

In this honest, insightful, and at times laugh-out-loud guide to navigating the rocky road of narcissistic relationships, Riley Ellis combines personal stories, sharp wit, and psychological insight to answer the question so many survivors ask: How did this happen to me?

From growing up with a narcissistic father to marrying one (because apparently, childhood trauma likes an encore), Riley pulls no punches while walking readers through the manipulation, emotional confusion, and trauma bonding that keep people stuck.

For anyone who’s loved a narcissist and lived to tell the tale, this book is your no-nonsense, slightly sweary support group in a book.

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Saying It Out Loud

Saying It Out Loud: A Young Widow’s Triumph Over Tragedy by Amy King with Jon Land

Reviewed by Russell Ilg

“SAYING IT OUT LOUD” SCREAMS TO BE READ

So many outstanding memoirs feature a backdrop in grief. “When Breath Becomes Air,” is the first that comes to mind, but I guess you could throw the likes of “Tuesdays with Morrie” into the mix as well.  Purchase Here.

SAYING IT OUT LOUD belongs in that conversation. The widow in question is Amy King, and her book covering a year in the life of losing her superman husband in an Army Reserve training accident, leaving her to raise their seventeen-month-old daughter alone, still short of her 30th birthday, is the embodiment of human resilience in general and a young woman’s triumph over tragedy (which happens to be the book’s subtitle) in particular.

“Ma’am, I’m following behind an ambulance that has your husband in the back.”

With a sledgehammer of an opening line like that, we know we’re about to board an emotional roller-coaster and had better belt ourselves in. Amy pulls no punches in taking us along for the ride, tracing her journey over the twelve months that followed getting a phone call that changed her life forever. But she’s not asking for our tears or our sympathy. Instead, she charts the new path of her life with remarkable frankness, saying out loud what we all need to hear about the aftermath of suffering an unspeakable tragedy.

You’ll never move on, but you have to move forward. I don’t get hung up with leaving all of Andy’s things exactly as he left them. Some people may, and that’s fine if it makes them feel better, but it wasn’t for me. Accepting the new life helps honor the one I lost.

Or . . .

It was so wild to me that Adalyn was having her first little picnic at her dad’s grave, not when she’s fifty, but when she’s two. It might well have been the first burial ever to feature lollipops, and that made me angry.

That’s tough stuff, the kind of life lessons ordinarily learned the hard way. In that respect, the book is a cautionary tale aimed straight for those of us who’ve never received the kind of fateful call Amy received, but know it could come anytime the phone rings. She’s not so much standing on her soapbox as sitting at her kitchen table, inviting us into her life with the knowledge that we, too, someday may have to find the strength and resilience to overcome the unthinkable.

SAYING IT OUT LOUD is a raw, revealing, and remarkable journey through the pain of loss and challenge of rebuilding. Amy King’s year-in-the-life memoir is a testament to one woman’s ability to rewrite the rules of her own story, told in bold and breathtaking fashion. An instant classic destined to take its place alongside other time-tested tales that celebrate the enduring power of the human spirit.

 

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