Book Reviews

'Mormama' Is A House Built On Quicksand

Kit Reed's would-be Southern Gothic chiller starts strong, with an amnesiac man stumbling into a house haunted by family secrets — but is ultimately undone by issues of plot, pacing and voice work.

'So Much Blue' Is Percival Everett's Best Yet

By turns funny, shocking and heartbreaking, Everett's new novel follows a painter who's deeply ambivalent about his apparently idyllic life and digs into the moments in his past that shaped him.

Beach Reads You Need: Four Sandy Summer Romances

Our monthly romance roundup rolls on with four beach-appropriate reads for June, from the supernatural to the astronomical to an old-fashioned tale of family lost and found when you least expect it.

'The Essex Serpent' Spreads Its Wings

Sarah Perry's historical novel is gloriously alive, teeming with bugs, moss and marsh, unconventional spirits and a darker undercurrent of fear about a legendary monster haunting the Essex coast.