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The Aosawa Murders (first published in Japan in 2004 and translated to English in 2020), by Riku Onda, centers on a mass poisoning at a birthday party in 1970s Japan, which killed 17 people including every member of the Aosawa family except for their daughter Hisako, who is blind.

Ladies in Waiting (2025), perfectly timed for Jane Austen’s recent 250^th birthday, is a charming collection of short stories featuring minor characters from Austen’s novels, such as Miss Bates, Georgiana Darcy, and Eliza Brandon.

In The Passengers on the Hankyu Line (2025), we meet some people who travel on a train line in the Kansai region of Japan and hear their lightly interconnected stories. A man named Masashi develops an attraction for Yuki, who has similar reading tastes to his own.  Meanwhile, Shoko is on the train in a wedding dress, having just been to the wedding of her former fiancee.

When Hazel gets the lead role in a slasher film, she's excited for the opportunity to prove herself as an actress and star in a horror movie, her favorite genre. The only issue is that the movie takes place in Pine Springs, the home of her father-- a convicted murderer known as the Pine Springs Slasher. But when strange "accidents" start happening on set, followed by an actual murder, Haze starts to wonder if her father was actually the killer all along.  

I really enjoyed Bunny (2019) by Mona Awad! For fans of dark academia and psychological thrillers, it’s one you can’t miss. It was so engaging that I finished it in about two sittings.

Written by Steph T., Tech Services

Get It Together: An Interior Designer’s Guide To Creating Your Best Life (2018), by Orlando Soria, is a nonfiction book about interior design. HOWEVER, it is also a super sarcastic, hilarious, self help masterpiece. Every page hits somewhere deep inside.

I'll Come to You (2024) chronicles one year in the lives of the characters connected by the marriage of Paul and Corinne. Paul's mother, Ellen is trying to adjust to being single after his father divorced her a year ago. Gary, with whom Ellen goes on a date, would like to have something more serious with her. Paul, in addition to becoming a father himself, reflects on the breakup of his parents' marriage.

I stumbled upon the novel Shy Creatures (2024), by Clare Chambers, while browsing Libby for my next audiobook listen. I am so glad I added it to my library--the writing was lovely and insightful, and the plot, setting, and characterization, which are loosely based on a true story, interested and moved me.

Pachinko (2017), by Min Jin Lee, follows multiple generations of a Korean family from living in Korea to Japan.

Sometimes the Girl (2025) had me hooked with how densely packed the pages are with the main character’s thoughts. After Holiday’s brother’s attempted suicide, and her girlfriend becoming her best friend, and planning on moving to New Zealand with said friend, her days are packed. She gets a job organizing the attic of an aging famous writer.

In 1938, Ellie is stunned when her husband, Lionel, tells her he is in love with someone else and wants a divorce. With their two sons grown, Lionel expects that Ellie will move out of their home and into a small cottage in the village or move to London. Ellie instead decides to travel to France with Mavis, her former housekeeper, and Dora, an older woman that she's known for many years. With the South of France as their destination, the trio end up in Saint-Benet, a small fishing village near Marseille.

In her moving memoir, Suleika Jaouad shares the story around her leukemia diagnosis at 23 and what comes next. Filling journals regularly helped Suleika compose her memoir with details of her brief time in Paris after college, her worsening illness, her diagnosis and treatment, and her life thereafter.