Deadly Little Lessons by Danielle Valentine (Review)

Posted on August 16, 2026 by John

Deadly Little Lessons - Danielle Valentine (Front Cover)Deadly Little Lessons
by Danielle Valentine

Pub Date Sep 15 2026
Penguin Young Readers Group | G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers
Mystery & Thrillers | Teens & YA
Pages: 320

DESCRIPTION/SYNOPSIS:

Squid Game meets boarding school in this electric young adult thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of Two Sides to Every Murder and How to Survive Your Murder.

Luminary is more than just a school. It is a test of moral fiber, strength of will, and human resilience.

Lia Michaels can pick any lock and break into most computer systems. But a life of delinquency has her bouncing between foster homes and juvie. So when she applies to Luminary Prep, a new experimental school created to challenge academic conventions, Lia is surprised by the acceptance letter that follows.

With state-of-the-art technology, fancy cafeteria food, and a campus that looks like a painting come to life, Luminary seems to be the break Lia needs. That is, if she can excel in class and be one of only five students who will be allowed to graduate.

But classes at Luminary are . . . odd. And dangerous. There is a death-trap obstacle course in Physics, a Chemistry exam with explosives, and guillotines in Political Science. As students keep vanishing, one by one, Lia starts to wonder if it’s not that five students will graduate—but that only five will survive.

REVIEW:

Either I didn’t realize or had forgotten that Deadly Little Lessons was a YA novel, which is not to say that I don’t read YA novels. I have and still do. When I read the description initially, I was expecting something along the lines of The Hunger Games (a YA trilogy which I’ve read and enjoyed) or Battle Royale, which follows a similar theme. So, based on the novel’s description, I was expecting violent, winner-takes-all confrontations between students in a mysterious academic setting, whereas Deadly Little Lessons actually pits the students against tests via its unique curriculum delivery system: real life stakes.

Why does this matter? It’s how the whittling down takes place. The students don’t need to survive each other, for the most part, they need to survive academic categories. Tests in chemistry or history can prove injurious or even fatal. That was enough of a hook to make Valentine’s story entertaining and the book is a quick read, as rebel-slash-juvenile-delinquent Lia tries to play by the rules for once in her life to win entry into her dream university. Nevertheless, most of the incidents where students who go missing (and possibly die) happen “off screen,” (technically “off-page”) in other class tests, leaving Lia unsure if they failed or literally died, their bodies disposed of by the schools teachers or TAs.

I recall only one overt act of violence against a student—for breaking the rules rather than failing a test. Some other portrayals of violence or harm are implied or partly witnessed. While the mystery about what is actually happening at Luminary and the fate of the students who disappear day after day keeps the pages turning, the narrative skews to a younger YA readership than the types of YA I usually read. Granted, I’m a horror author and reader, so I’m often primed for shock and trauma on the page. The lessons in Deadly Little Lessons fall into the cautionary categories of “if something seems too good to be true, it probably is” and, maybe, “be careful what you wish for.” Overall impression? Entertaining and suspenseful for YA readers, though not unsettling in content, other than the idea that these academic theories would be put into practice.

 

Note: I received an eGalley of Deadly Little Lessons from the publisher via NetGalley in consideration of an unbiased review.

This site is a member of the Amazon affiliate partnership program. As such, any sales resulting from links to Amazon products on these pages might generate a small commission for the site, which helps keep the proverbial lights on—but does not affect the price you pay at Amazon.

 

 

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The Infinite State by Richard Swan (Review)

Posted on August 2, 2026 by John

The Infinite State - The Decurion Saga1 - Richard Swan (front cover)The Infinite State
(Book One of the Decurion Saga)

by Richard Swan

Pub Date Aug 04 2026
Tor Books | Sci Fi & Fantasy
416 pages

 

DESCRIPTION/SYNOPSIS:

In this blistering science fiction epic, international bestselling author Richard Swan presents a thrilling tale of survival and an eviscerating examination of totalitarianism.

THE INFINITE STATE begins at a flashpoint in the lives of a widowed party member, a disgraced investigator, and a hypersled pilot—entangled in a plot to escape the suffocating authority of a fascist state.

Katherine Fuller’s husband is dead. As an esteemed member of Pater Aeternus—governing party of the fascist, galaxy-spanning Decurion Empire—he has left behind an estate of immeasurable wealth. And Katherine is going to inherit it.

Life under the Eternal Father is rigidly stratified, surveilled, and controlled—each new day to be endured, not lived. But with Katherine’s newfound fortune, she is presented with a rare and dangerous opportunity: purchase a virgin world, and create a better, fairer society.

But the Empire cannot allow its wayward daughter to succeed. And as Katherine works in secret, recruiting allies she’s not even sure she can trust, she will discover exactly how far Pater Aeternus is willing to go to stop her. Because Katherine is going to create something nobody has seen for many years. A democracy.

 

REVIEW:

The Infinite State plunges the reader into life on Leonis, a technologically advanced fascist state, home world to a oppressive empire that controls and monitors the lives of everyone,  from senior party members to the lowest “monos,” or anyone considered “unproductive,” a designation that also applies to anyone with an unapproved lifestyle. Having children is mandated and necessary to advance, even for those who struggle with fertility issues and must therefore resort to technological interventions, assuming they have the means. The grip of the state on the society is so complete that even mourning periods for lost loved ones are dictated down to duration and level of decorum exhibited in public.

Katherine Fuller’s husband had all the perks of being a senior party member, high in the stratified society, but neither he nor his wife experience true freedom despite lives of relative privilege. They must be careful about anything they say, do or read. After she experiences a personal tragedy followed by the sudden (an unexplained) loss of her husband, she inherits his fortune and decides there has to be a better way to live. Through a chance meeting at a library, she finds a loophole, a way to use the wealth to purchase an entire planet and mold it into a better society. She stumbles upon the idea of democracy, a system of government so foreign to the empire that is almost lost to memory. But she needs help to realize this dream and wonders who she can trust, and to what degree, while under the watchful eyes of state.

Most of the book conveys a feeling of paranoia, the psychological and emotional equivalent of walking through a minefield every minute of every day. Because one false step can lead to an abrupt death by state-approved execution for any seditious thoughts or actions.

Humanity rediscovering democracy provides a spark of hope for the future, a feeling that leaps off the page into the mind of the reader. Once Katherine begins setting up her new world’s society and installing basic defenses, there is a profound sense of relief, an ability for these people to breathe again, to speak without fear of brutal reprisal. Knowing that tiny flame of hope stands against an empire that could snuff it out at any moment keeps the tension high. Allies become enemies, and enemies allies. There is a rollicking climax when a provocateur within the empire finally makes a stunning move, triggering a breathtaking battle in space and on the ground.

Knowing this is “book one” in a planned ongoing saga, I worried that The Infinite State would end on a cliffhanger, but fear not. There is a resolution to the plot. In that way, this is a standalone tale, but obviously there is more to come.

 

Note: I received an eGalley of The Infinite State from the publisher via NetGalley in consideration of an unbiased review.

This site is a member of the Amazon affiliate partnership program. As such, any sales resulting from links to Amazon products on these pages might generate a small commission for the site, which helps keep the proverbial lights on—but does not affect the price you pay at Amazon.

 

 

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There Are No Giant Crabs in This Novel: A Novel of Giant Crabs – by Jason Pargin (Review)

Posted on July 8, 2026 by John

There Are No Griant Crabs In This Novel: A Novel of Giant Crabs (John Dies at the End Book 5)There Are No Giant Crabs in This Novel: A Novel of Giant Crabs
(John Dies at the End Book 5)

by Jason Pargin

St. Martin’s Press
Pub Date Nov 03 2026
Horror

DESCRIPTION/SYNOPSIS:

New York Times bestselling author Jason Pargin’s nightmarishly hilarious John Dies at the End series is back to entertain all who dare enter.

A massive, sticky pile of severed human limbs suddenly appears in the parking lot of a vacant department store in a desolate small town. A set of footprints is found trailing away in the snow, as if a single pair of bare feet had wandered off the pile. If this wasn’t puzzling enough, the cops soon find that no one seems to be missing the limbs. Some of the fingerprints on the severed arms belong to living people with all their appendages intact, others match no one on file, and the rest of the limbs somehow have no prints at all.

This sounds like a case for local weirdos John, David, and Amy, partly because the cops don’t want the headache and partly because David’s own arm is in the pile, despite an identical copy of it still being attached to his body. When a mysterious man then shows up at David’s home claiming to be in pursuit of an entity he calls “the Penetrator,” it seems clear the trio is in for a long weekend.

In addition to stopping whatever this nonsense is, the gang will also have to quell the panicked headlines that threaten to ensue, which could prompt the feds to try to just wipe the whole town off the map (again). As such, the first thing you need to know is that, contrary to whatever ugly rumors you may have heard, there are no giant crabs in this novel.

 

REVIEW:

I’m a fan of Jason Pargin’s videos and discovered by accident that some of his assorted video topics end up in dialogue and prose passages in his books. I had previously read and enjoyed the amusing road trip novel I’m Starting To Worry About This Black Box of Doom, which is a standalone novel, not part of his “John Dies at the End” series. It wasn’t until after I was approved to receive an eGalley for There Are No Giant Crabs in This Novel: A Novel of Giant Crabs that I realized this was book 5 of the “John Dies” universe! That had me a bit worried I’d feel lost reading the volume 5 before I’d even read the first book. I checked my Kindle library and it turns out I had the first two books of the series in my vast digital TBR, so my fallback plan (if I got confused) was to read through at least those two if not a previous four books before reading the fifth book.

Fortunately, I wasn’t confused as I read “No Giant Crabs,” though I did sense references to events that had probably occurred earlier in the series. Either they were references or humorous asides. Either way, I wasn’t confused or deterred from having a blast with the wild ride of this fifth book. Anyway, in “No Giant Crabs” and now I suspect in the whole series, there is a sense of reckless abandon and anything goes with the plot, which certainly keeps things entertaining. This is an inter-dimensional free-for-all, with two sides much more advanced than our humble dimension, fighting over a third dimension where time runs at an accelerated rate and allows years-long technological breakthroughs to occur in days or weeks. One side is led by a sociopath who thrives in the glory of war and mass casualties, almost as if that’s en end in itself. The other side is run by a sentient intelligence that predicts the future and runs the day to day lives of all the people who trust its course and decisions implicitly. In contrast, our dimension is a combination of a fly in the ointment and a prize to be won—but mainly to provide our people as cannon fodder for the ongoing war.

John, David and Amy have become experts in the weird and supernatural and are tasked by a government agent to solve the problem or else the history of their town and their very lives will be rewritten before our Earth can fall prey to the technologically advanced warring forces. The playing field it tilted wildly against them, and Earth, which only adds to the joyous chaos. They approach the battle with a workmanlike sense of duty and often zig when you expect them to zag. When you’re fighting a sociopath and a sentient AI who gleefully/algorithmically toss soldiers into a literal meat-grinder of a war, it pays to be rebelliously unpredictable. It might even be required. And if you revel in plate-spinning-chaos plots, then There Are No Giant Crabs in This Novel: A Novel of Giant Crabs just might be required reading.

Update: I have since finished John Dies at the End!

Note: I received an eGalley of There Are No Giant Crabs in This Novel: A Novel of Giant Crabs  from the publisher via NetGalley in consideration of an unbiased review.

This site is a member of the Amazon affiliate partnership program. As such, any sales resulting from links to Amazon products on these pages might generate a small commission for the site, which helps keep the proverbial lights on—but does not affect the price you pay at Amazon.

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Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt by Ben Reeves (Review)

Posted on June 11, 2026 by John

Everything Was Beautiful And Nothing Hurt - Ben ReevesEverything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt
(A Novel)
by Ben Reeves

Pub Date: July 07 2026

Avid Reader Press | Simon & Schuster
General Fiction (Adult)

DESCRIPTION/SYNOPSIS:

An unforgettable and exquisitely moving novel about finding beauty, hope, and meaning in the brevity of life, as narrated by the one who knows it best: Death.

Travis is Death in the modern world. He wears jeans and a T-shirt and lives in a small, grey town. His job is to offer people comfort in their final hours of life. He’s stoic, gentle, and a little naive, despite everything he knows. He’s young and handsome, despite who he is. Each death he witnesses is meaningful to him; he listens, never judges, and most importantly, never tries to change anyone’s fate. He knows that every life must eventually end to maintain the balance of the universe and he respects the cycle.

Then he meets Dalia, a midwife, and her boisterous eight-year-old daughter Layla, who live across the hall. As Dalia and Layla come to embrace Travis, it becomes more difficult to maintain the detachment that’s allowed him to function for so long. Their time together teaches him what’s truly important in life—and what might be irrevocably lost in death.

Written with radiant warmth, wisdom, and compassion, Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt is a timeless story about appreciating life, accepting its end, and finding our place in the universe—especially when it feels most impossible—that will resonate with anyone who has ever loved and lost or worried at time’s passing.

 

REVIEW:

Travis is Death, personified. It’s right there in the book description but I, as a genre enthusiast, was hoping for a bit more information about the business side of Death (the character) and  Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt remains relatively vague on that aspect of Travis. What I mean is that I was expecting an urban fantasy telling of the nuts and bolts of Death’s job. (For example, I speculated that he might be one of many “Deaths” in the world, or that he assumed the role for a certain period of time before handing off the responsibility to the next in line.) It’s intimated that he’s everywhere, all the time, in a ‘death is ubiquitous’ explanation. And the author tells us in so many words that conceiving of Death in those terms would be too hard for mortal minds to comprehend. Or relate.

Instead, we follow Travis/Death through a curated series of deaths in all different types of circumstances, some tragic, some melancholic, others as a relief to suffering. These episodes make the novel feel like a series of unrelated anecdotes, with the one throughline being Travis’ relationship to Dalia and her two children (who live across the hall from him), especially Layla, the older, eight-year-old daughter. Dalia becomes, in a way, Travis’ true north in his desire to feel what humans feel, to comprehend love and death and the magnitude of grief, all of which remains beyond his understanding.

The anecdotal nature of the novel also provides camouflage for a bit of legerdemain, or sleight of hand, in the plot, which delivers the gamut of emotional responses to the lives lived—and the deaths witnessed by Travis. Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt reads like a mood poem, forcing us to witness death in all it’s permutations so that we learn to celebrate life, to seize the day, reminding us until the last page that the number of our days are limited, our time here finite. And how even twenty minutes of living is a gift beyond measure.

 

Note: I received an eGalley of Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt from the publisher via NetGalley in consideration of an unbiased review.

This site is a member of the Amazon affiliate partnership program. As such, any sales resulting from links to Amazon products on these pages might generate a small commission for the site, which helps keep the proverbial lights on—but does not affect the price you pay at Amazon.

 

 

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Hell to Pay by Lora Beth Johnson (Review)

Posted on May 17, 2026 by John

Hell To Pay - Lora Beth Johnson (cover)Hell to Pay
by Lora Beth Johnson

Pub Date Jul 28 2026

Penguin Young Readers Group | G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers
Sci Fi & Fantasy | Teens & YA

DESCRIPTION/SYNOPSIS:

Oceans Eight meets Six of Crows in this YA fantasy heist novel about a teenage con artist and her ragtag crew teaming up for their toughest job yet: stealing a soul from the Afterlife.

Elle Fields comes from a long line of thieves who specialize in breaking into the Afterlife to steal secrets—and magic—from the dead. But after her parents’ disappearance and her brother’s death, Elle is left adrift, without even her crew to rely on.

Until a mysterious stranger offers her a job she can’t refuse: stealing a soul from the Afterlife. If Elle can get it done, it could be the key to restoring the life she lost.

The only problem is getting her crew back together. Oh, and the fact that the job’s impossible—but Elle is confident that she’ll be able to work it all out.

After all, how hard could it be to raise the dead?

REVIEW:

While I’m not usually a big fan of the “heist” genre in general in any form—books, TV, movies—I did love Money Heist on Netflix and I want to read Six of Crows (which is on my Kindle’s virtual TBR pile), Hell to Pay is a fun and engaging cross-genre mix of heist, horror and fantasy, with a snarky heroine and an interesting crew. In this world, trips to the underworld are possible, even though gangs, endowed with magic from repeated such trips, rule above and below, and trace their lineages to living gods rooted in our so-called myths. On an apparently fruitless and solo quest to bring her brother back from death and the underworld due to her guilt over his death, Elle finds a client whose interests overlap with her own and give her the opportunity to have the client (inadvertently) fund her own supernatural reclamation mission.

Elle manages to reassemble her disbanded crew to accomplish both goals, but first they must steal a frustratingly magical book (er, grimoire) rumored to contain the spell needed to resurrect the dead, then invade Tartarus to free the client’s sister’s soul as a sort of proof of concept that they can bring back her brother, the former leader of the crew. Elle and her crew have a fun esprit de corps, filled with enough humor (and a dollop of angst) to go along with the dark subject matter (death and eternal torment) to keep things moving along for the inevitable twists to catch you off-guard.

The last book I reviewed ended in a clear cliffhanger. I almost expected a similar situation with Hell to Pay, but rest assured the author definitively ends this story, while leaving the door open to turn this into an ongoing series. If she does, I’ll be sure to check out the further adventures of Elle and her crew.

Note: I received an eGalley of Hell to Pay from the publisher via NetGalley in consideration of an unbiased review.

This site is a member of the Amazon affiliate partnership program. As such, any sales resulting from links to Amazon products on these pages might generate a small commission for the site, which helps keep the proverbial lights on—but does not affect the price you pay at Amazon.

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Nonesuch by Francis Spufford (Review)

Posted on May 3, 2026 by John

Nonesuch by Francis Spufford CoverNonesuch: A Novel
by Francis Spufford

Pub Date Mar 10 2026

Scribner

DESCRIPTION/SYNOPSIS:

A spellbinding tale about an ambitious young woman who must thwart an occult plot by time-traveling fascists during the chaos of the London Blitz—from “one of our most powerful writers of wayward historical fiction” (The Washington Post).

It’s the summer of 1939, and the air in London is thick with the tension of impending war. Iris Hawkins, a fiery young financial secretary, has a chance encounter with Geoff, a genius engineer from the new technology of television. What was supposed to be one night of abandon draws her instead into a nightmare of otherworldly pursuit—into a reality where time bends, spirits can be summoned, and history hangs by a thread.

Soon there are Nazi planes droning overhead. In a time when death falls randomly from above each night, when the streets are darker than the wildest forest and all the men are away in uniform, the defense of the city is in the hands of its women. But Iris has more to contend with than just the terrors of the Blitz. Over the rooftops of burning London, in the twisted passages between past and present, through the vast night sky and across the tiny screens of early television, a fascist fanatic is traveling with a gun in her hand, and only Iris can stop her from altering the course of history forever.

REVIEW:

Nonesuch took me longer to get to than I had hoped but I really enjoyed reading this novel from an author unfamiliar to me. The supernatural-mixed-with-World-War-II-London premise seemed interesting and drew me in. I haven’t read much at all about what England experienced during the bombing in the early days (months) of the war, though I had seen it portrayed in various films. It comes across as simultaneously surreal and terrifying, yet the Londoners adapted to the nightly horror of random death and destruction while maintaining their daily routines with admirable courage. Watching other countries fall to Hitler’s forces one after another like a row of falling dominoes getting closer and closer to their home and country is a recipe for encroaching dread even without the supernatural threat of the timeline being wiped out of existence and being replaced with… what? A world in which defeat has not only come, but without a whimper of protest.

Iris, a thoroughly modern woman for her time, decides that uncertainty in the face of war is eminently better than having the world rewritten with surrender a fait accompli. Despite her own modern sensibility, she falls for Geoff, an earnest, old-fashioned young man who is a talented engineer but spends much of the story fighting for the country by employing his technical acumen. This leaves Iris on her own, by day working for a financial investment firm where she demonstrates her own talent in the world of finance, attempting to rise above the expectations of her gender, and by night trying to thwart those who want to rewrite the timeline to accommodate the fascists. Seems Geoff’s father was a functionary in a cult that stumbled in the ability to imprison angels in architecture, specifically large sculptures adorning large buildings, to serve their own purposes. A daughter of one such cult member becomes Iris’ nemesis in the battle to preserve/rewrite the timeline.

Iris is an engaging and involved protagonist, while her nemesis is suitably frightening and determined despite her comparatively diminutive stature. Though the tension of the encroaching forces of the Third Reich is mediated by our knowledge of how the war ended, the possibility of someone changing the timeline creates an existential threat that makes such knowledge irrelevant and adds considerably to the tension. I was expecting more in the way of time travel during the course of the story, rather than preparations to allow time travel to occur, but the difficulties of setting the pieces in motion was effectively suspenseful throughout.

As I neared the end of the novel, I sensed a poignant ending approaching — and I was prepared to absorb that as the end of Iris’ story… but, I must reveal, the book ends in a cliffhanger! A promised second book is coming. Stay tuned…

Note: I received an eGalley of Nonesuch from the publisher via NetGalley in consideration of an unbiased review.

This site is a member of the Amazon affiliate partnership program. As such, any sales resulting from links to Amazon products on these pages might generate a small commission for the site, which helps keep the proverbial lights on—but does not affect the price you pay at Amazon.

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Sibylline by Melissa de la Cruz (Review)

Posted on February 21, 2026 by John

Sibylline Sibylline
by Melissa de la Cruz

Pub Date: FEB 03, 2026

Penguin Young Readers Group
G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers
Romance | Sci Fi & Fantasy | Teens & YA

DESCRIPTION/SYNOPSIS:

Three teens infiltrate the magical ivy league in this heart-stopping dark academia romantasy from #1 New York Times bestselling author Melissa de la Cruz.

Raven, Atticus, and Dorian have dreamed of attending Sibylline for as long as they can remember. But when the magical university rejects them, the friends’ plans for a future studying the arcane together begin crashing down.

Until they decide to steal an education.

Getting jobs on campus, they sneak into lectures and swipe forbidden texts, dodging the administration’s watchful eye. In the quiet of night, in the thrill of secrecy, their magic awakens. And so do long-buried attractions that turn their friendship into something more.

But like magic, love can create, and it can destroy. As unrequited feelings and resentment threaten to fracture their bond, the trio discovers an insidious magic that has sunk its claws into Sibylline, killing students and corroding the very bones of the university. Now the three intruders may be the key to saving the institution from wreckage . . . if they don’t wreck one another first.

REVIEW:

I’m of two minds about Sibylline by Melissa de la Cruz. I thought the premise was clever. We’ve all read or heard about books detailing student life at a magical school or university. Many readers grew up waiting for the next installment of a very famous series about a young orphan with a lightning scar on his forehead, to name one of the most prominent magic school series. So, right away, Sibylline flips that on its head. The three main characters have all applied for admission and all three are summarily rejected. But, rather than taking ‘no’ for an answer and going to a backup non-magical school, they decide to get jobs on campus and absorb-by-proximity whatever magical lessons they can covertly attend or magical books they can beg, borrow or steal.

A mystery grows as all three discover they have magical abilities that exceed those of many actual students, and that something nefarious is going on with one of the school’s buildings. They team up, exchange ideas, and take it on themselves to find out what’s going on and how to fix it. All that stuff was sufficiently compelling.

But—yes there’s a ‘but’ here—when the story switched to the relationship track, my attention and interest waned. Because the story comes with a love triangle of sorts, but it’s almost circular: Raven is in love with Atticus, while Atticus only has eyes for Dorian, who is smitten with Raven. My issue with all of this was that they’ve all known each other since childhood, but only now is this an issue. And each one reacts with pouting disappointment when the object of their individual affection rebuffs their interest and advances, or expresses feelings for the member of the trio they desire. Oddly, the book reads like a New Adult novel until the relationship drama takes center stage, whereupon the story feels more YA than NA. It’s not so much that this circular triangle exists, but that it seemed to be in stasis until it was needed to add drama to what was already an interesting story. Eventually, the evolution of this relationship dilemma serves a plot purpose, but it almost seemed too convenient that it waited to be an issue to address until the worst possible time, given what was at stake with evil roaming the halls of magical academia. So, come for the inverted premise and magical plot but, as far as the relationship melodrama, your mileage may vary.

Note: I received an eGalley of Sibylline from the publisher via NetGalley in consideration of an unbiased review.

This site is a member of the Amazon affiliate partnership program. As such, any sales resulting from links to Amazon products on these pages might generate a small commission for the site, which helps keep the proverbial lights on—but does not affect the price you pay at Amazon.

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Pendergast: The Beginning by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child (Review)

Posted on January 2, 2026 by John

Pendergast: The Beginning - Preston & ChildPendergast: The Beginning (Agent Pendergast Series)
by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Pub Date: January 27, 2026
General Fiction | Mystery & Thrillers

DESCRIPTION/SYNOPSIS:

From the #1 New York Times bestselling duo Preston and Child comes the Agent Pendergast origin story—a golden opportunity for longtime fans and new readers to learn about Agent Pendergast’s strange and shocking first case.

It only took six months for the life of Special Agent Dwight Chambers to crumble around him. First, he lost his partner, and then, tragically, his wife. Returning to work at the New Orleans Field Office, Chambers is dismayed to find himself saddled with mentoring a brand new FBI agent—a certain A. X. L. Pendergast. As Chambers tries to pull himself together, his enigmatic and exasperating junior partner pulls an outrageous stunt that gets both of them suspended.

Pendergast welcomes the banishment, because it gives him the opportunity to investigate a peculiar murder in Mississippi that has captured his fancy. Chambers grudgingly goes along. What starts off as a whimsical quest swiftly turns into a terrifying pursuit, as Chambers and Pendergast uncover a string of grisly, ritualistic killings that defy any known serial killer profile.

Thanks in large part to Pendergast’s brilliance and unorthodox methods, they solve the case and find the killer… and that is when the true horror begins.

REVIEW:

Pendergast: The Beginning is billed as the origin story of Agent Pendergast. As a long-time fan of the Agent Pendergast series, I was thrilled at the opportunity to get an advanced reader copy for review.

The story begins with A. X. L. Pendergast already working as a junior agent for the FBI. There are hints about his time in the “Ghost Company” performing top secret black ops but only a shading of information, though this does reveal the connection to Pendergast’s ‘sponsor’ in the FBI and how he met met Proctor who, as those already familiar with the series know, becomes Pendergast’s competent factotum.

A lot of the early going in the story deals with Proctor’s abduction and imprisonment by an apparent technically detailed, surgically trained serial killer, which ties into the cold case that Pendergast and his FBI mentor, Agent Chambers end up investigating after they are kicked out of the New Orleans field office due to Pendergast’s unsanctioned but successful corruption sting. Initially, Pendergast’s mentor is more than willing to let Pendergast take the lead in interviews, etc., then pointing out course corrections for the young agent. But eventually Pendergast’s out-of-the-box investigative skills and penchant for skirting rules and regulations drivers Chambers to distraction, to the point where he wants to wash his hands of the young agent.

It’s apparent early on that Pendergast, despite his verbal deference to the older, more experienced agent, will not be constrained and will, ultimately take on cases that hold special interest to him. His personal wealth, derived from his notorious family, allows him to treat his FBI role as a moral hobby rather than a needed vocation. The FBI badge can open investigative doors that would otherwise remained closed to him.

Soon, the case investigating the serial killer who abducted Proctor takes a surprising twist which suggests a much deeper evil to Pendergast, who senses something nefarious hidden behind the obvious ‘facts,’ but he is unable to convince his partner that they need to keep digging to get to the truth. Nevertheless, Pendergast is relentless in his own investigation. From this point, the novel shifts into an exciting one man campaign against superior forces, basically Die Hard on a steamboat. And Pendergast’s time in Ghost Company has prepared him for high risks and high stakes with low odds of success.

In summary, Pendergast: The Beginning is an exciting prequel to the main series, complete with a paranormal conspiracy, and reveals new layers of Pendergast—though not all of them. (Maybe some day we’ll get the Ghost Company stories!) And yet it seems as if FBI Agent Pendergast has always been the highly competent Agent Pendergast we’ve witnessed in almost two dozen thrillers so far, even dating back to his time as a junior/mentored agent. Would we expect anything less?

Note: I received an eGalley of Pendergast: The Beginning from the publisher via NetGalley in consideration of an unbiased review.

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Book Reviews: The Reformatory (Tananarive Due) & Worst Case Scenario (T.J. Newman)

Posted on March 24, 2025 by John

In honor of Women’s History Month, I thought I’d post reviews of two recently read books by women authors. These were books from my own TBR, not galleys/ARCs from publishers or NetGalley. Spoiler: I enjoyed them both!

The Reformatory by Tananarive DueThe Reformatory: A Novel
by Tananarive Due
S&S/Saga Press, 573 pages

DESCRIPTION: Twelve-year-old Robbie Stephens, Jr., is sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for Boys, a reformatory, for kicking the son of the largest landowner in town in defense of his older sister, Gloria. So begins Robbie’s journey further into the terrors of the Jim Crow South and the very real horror of the school they call The Reformatory.

REVIEW: Tananarive Due’s The Reformatory has a definite Stephen King vibe, so I’m not surprised Mr. King was a fan of the book and provides a solid cover blurb. Due mixes two kinds of horror with dramatic effect. The story begins with the terrifying racism of Jim Crow Florida in 1950 where a small offense sends twelve-year-old Robbie Stephens, Jr. to a meat-grinder of a reform school run by a sadistic pedophile warden. Children under his ‘care’ are treated worse than hardened criminals in a maximum security prison, whipped mercilessly for the slightest reason, worked as virtual slaves, and subject to unspeakable abuses by the psychotic warden.

Even those who die by fire, torture or failed attempts to escape, continue to suffer after death. And this is where the supernatural horrors kick in, because the reformatory is haunted by these ghosts, called ‘haints’ by the locals. Children are more likely to see them or feel their presence than adults, though the warden is keenly aware of them and wants them banished — or, more accurately, extinguished and captured. These haints function as a sort of external conscience for the warden who has no internal moral compass. Robbie often sees the haints and is particularly fine-tuned to their presence, even experiencing echoes of their pain and endless suffering. When the warden learns that Robbie can track and find the haints, which will allow him to effectively neuter and bottle them, he places the young man in an untenable situation: inflict further harm on the dead or suffer additional punishment himself. Robbie navigates a delicate balancing act, trying to appease the warden without betraying the haints while awaiting the dangerous opportunity to finally gain his own freedom.

Despite its supernatural aspects, The Reformatory is a powerful reminder that humans are all to capable of inflicting horrors on those they view as “other” or “less than” out of hate or their own unbridled depravity.

 

Worst Case Scenario by T.J. NewmanWorst Case Scenario: A Novel
by T.J. Newman
Little, Brown and Company, 321 pages

DESCRIPTION: When a pilot suffers a heart attack at 35,000 feet, a commercial airliner filled with passengers crashes into a nuclear power plant in the small town of Waketa, Minnesota, which becomes ground zero for a catastrophic national crisis with global implications. The International Nuclear Event Scale tracks nuclear disasters. It has seven levels. Level 7 is a Major Accident, with only two on record: Fukushima and Chernobyl. There has never been a Level 8. Until now.

REVIEW: I’ve read all three of T.J. Newman’s exciting airline thrillers (Falling, Drowning, and now Worst Case Scenario) and Worst Case Scenario was a definite change of pace in that the plane in question, along with the crew and passengers, is a lost cause right from the beginning, which almost qualifies as a ‘twist’ beginning. From that point, the thriller aspect takes place on the ground with the fallout, in the form of the physical wreckage of the plane and in the potential and escalating radioactive fallout from the damage done during the crash to a nuclear reactor scheduled for decommissioning. First responders race to save the lives of locals trapped and injured throughout the town and, more importantly, fight a ticking clock to stop a nuclear event with the potential to be an extinction level event.

Worst Case Scenario pulls no punches. Nobody is safe. Really. I was surprised and impressed by Newman’s commitment to the consequences of dealing with such a high-level threat. Newman raises the stakes with this one and delivers a brutal nail-biter of a novel.

 

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The Third Rule of Time Travel by Philip Fracassi – Review

Posted on March 17, 2025 by John

The Third Rule of Time Travel by Philip FracassiThe Third Rule of Time Travel
by Philip Fracassi

Publisher?:? Orbit
Pub Date: March 18, 2025
Time Travel/Science Fiction

DESCRIPTION/SYNOPSIS:

Rule One: You can only travel to a point within your lifetime.
Rule Two: You can only travel for ninety seconds.
Rule Three: You can only observe.
The rules cannot be broken.

In this electrifying science fiction thriller from acclaimed author Philip Fracassi, a scientist has unlocked the mysteries of time travel. This is not the story you think you know. And the rules are only the beginning.

“Tense, fast-moving, surprising, and above all else, entertaining.” – Owen King, New York Times bestselling author

“Part Crichton, part Bradbury, and all Fracassi, The Third Rule of Time Travel further demonstrates why Fracassi is one of the best writers working today, regardless of genre.” – Tyler Jones, author of Midas

Scientist Beth Darlow has discovered the unimaginable. She’s built a machine that allows human consciousness to travel through time—to any point in the traveler’s lifetime—and relive moments of their life. An impossible breakthrough, but it’s not perfect: the traveler has no way to interact with the past. They can only observe.

After Beth’s husband, Colson, the co-creator of the machine, dies in a tragic car accident, Beth is left to raise Isabella—their only daughter—and continue the work they started. Mired in grief and threatened by her ruthless CEO, Beth pushes herself to the limit to prove the value of her technology.

Then the impossible happens. Simply viewing personal history should not alter the present, but with each new observation she makes, her own timeline begins to warp.

As her reality constantly shifts, Beth must solve the puzzles of her past, even if it means forsaking her future.

REVIEW:

With The Third Rule of Time Travel, Fracassi puts a unique spin on time travel. Instead of physically traveling to any time period in the past or the future, the time traveler can only travel to the past, only within their own lifetime, and only to revisit their own experiences. Further, only the consciousness of the traveler makes the trip, becoming a new layer on top of their past self’s consciousness, with no ability to change the past, merely to observe. With that premise, the safety of time travel seems assured — and the ability to tell the story as a thriller made all the more difficult. Nevertheless, Fracassi succeeds. The science behind the time travel feels speculatively possible, certainly within the context of the novel. And, after a slow ‘proof of concept’ type of opening to the tale, the dangers, internal and external, begin to creep in.

Looming within each time episode is the need to keep the trip to 90 seconds or less to protect the mind of the traveler, skirting the possibility of mental damage or the inability to retrieve the traveler’s consciousness from the past event. Second, Beth always travels to times where she experienced tragedy and intense grief, which exposes another variable in the travel. She and her team don’t know how to control which WHEN the traveler experiences. So each trip for Beth is a harrowing experience, suffered in hopes of advancing the science and learning how to control which experience is revisited. Further, budget cuts have added stress to the operation while the lack of funding puts pressure on Beth to perfect the process before she loses her lab. All the while, her relationship with the CEO of the company providing the funding deteriorates throughout, eventually taking a dark turn.

The story kicks into high gear when casual comments by Beth’s daughter and her own experiences suggest the ghostly presence of her dead husband, and soon Beth realizes that the Third Rule has been broken, but she has no idea how. Despite being an observer only, she has somehow changed her own timeline in a horrific way. Everyone in her orbit believes she’s delusional, suffering hallucinations either from mental deterioration or overwork. And, appropriately, time is running out for her to restore her timeline. She’ll need to risk her life, in more ways than one, to fix her past to preserve her present.

I’m not sure if there will be a sequel to The Third Rule of Time Travel (the story has a satisfying conclusion), but the ending really expands the idea of time travel in a way that’s as exhilarating as it is frightening, providing a cautionary note about messing with things we don’t fully understand.

 

Note: I received a physical galley (ARC) of The Third Rule of Time Travel from the publisher in consideration of an unbiased review.

This site is a member of the Amazon affiliate partnership program. As such, any sales resulting from links to Amazon products on these pages might generate a small commission for the site, which helps keep the proverbial lights on—but does not affect the price you pay at Amazon.

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