Rosh's Reviews

AUTHOR: Megha Majumdar NARRATOR: Soneela Nankani GENRE: Dystopian Fiction PUBLICATION DATE: October 14, 2025 RATING: 4.25 stars. In a Nutshell: A near-future literary dystopian novel set in India. Character-oriented, steady-paced (but not fast). True to present reality despite being set in an unknown future time. Excellent exploration of human behaviour. Much recommended. Not for those looking for light, relaxing stories. Plot Preview: Near-future Kolkata, India. Ma, her two-year-old daughter Mishti and Ma’s elderly father Dadu have to stay just a few days more in their climate-battered city with its heat and food shortage. They have finally procured their climate-approved visas, and a week later, they will join Ma’s husband in Michigan USA. To their horror, the next morning, Ma’s purse is stolen, and with it have gone their visa-stamped passports. Can Ma somehow find those valuable documents before their flight? The story is set over the course of one week, and comes to us in parallel...

AUTHOR:  Caroline James GENRE: Romance. PUBLICATION DATE: January 15, 2026 RATING:  3.25 stars. In a Nutshell: A contemporary fiction set on a cruise. Decent plot with multiple character POVs. Looks like a typical romance, but is more of a general fiction. The “romance” involves senior citizens, which isn't indicated by the cover or the blurb. Ensemble cast, but each character is slightly one-noted. Has some dark themes. Some of the writing choices didn’t work for me. But I grabbed it for the promised Arctic cruise, and that worked well. A good option for those who like ensemble stories with older characters. Plot Preview: Frequent cruiser Joy, 63, was supposed to go on an Arctic cruise with her husband Tom for their fortieth wedding anniversary. Now widowed for more than a year, Joy is convinced by their daughter to go on the cruise anyway. Retired teacher Henry, 70, is a lifelong bachelor who wants to fulfill his dream of seeing the Northern Lights. This is his first ti...

AUTHOR: Bree Harlow GENRE: Parody Romantasy PUBLICATION DATE: November 17, 2025 RATING: 3 stars. In a Nutshell: A parody of a Sapphic romantasy with portal magic and an adventurous quest. ‘Alice in Wonderland’ with a twist. Works better if you keep the ‘parody’ angle in mind. Some stricter editing and some more fleshing-out of the quest would have helped this short novel deliver better. Still, it could work more for NA fantasy enthusiasts looking for some mindless entertainment. Plot Preview: Twenty-one-year old Liss loves reading but hates the romance genre for all its tropes. So when she is sucked into the pages of a romantasy book that she had been explicitly told not to touch, it is like her worst nightmare come alive. Foreverland seems strange and its denizens, even stranger. As Liss guessed correctly, she is expected to complete some trials – one each in the four kingdoms of Foreverland – if she wants to return home. The only people she has for help are the gorgeous guide Tarran,...

AUTHOR: Veronika Dapunt GENRE: Dark Comedy-Mystery. PUBLICATION DATE: January 6, 2026 RATING: 4.25 stars. In a Nutshell: A speculative, darkly comic mystery with Death as the narrator. Funny at the start, mysterious in between, somewhat deeper and philosophical towards the end. Creative throughout. Enjoyed the characters, the humour and the flow. Unexpected religious angle, but it was highly interesting. Didn’t like one particular aspect of the plotting, but otherwise, this offered an entertaining ride, as long as you read it in the right spirit of going with the flow without asking too many questions. An excellent debut that overly conservative Christians better avoid. Plot Preview: Death is tired of humans picturing her as a skeleton with a black ‘potato sack’ and a scythe. No matter how well she does her job, she still doesn’t get welcomed with joy or treated with respect. So when she learns from a newly departed soul that there’s something called a work sabbatical, Death immediatel...

AUTHOR:  Karmen Špiljak GENRE: Story Collection PUBLICATION DATE: January 23, 2026 RATING: 4.05 stars. In a Nutshell: A short story collection containing some dark speculative fiction tales. The darkness isn't outright paranormal, more like suspenseful or atmospheric. Creative plots, good writing, mostly good endings. A tad repetitive and/or confusing at times due to flashbacks, but this isn't a major issue. I enjoyed most of the stories. Much recommended.  I am very much a judge-a-book-by-the-cover reader. ( Feel free to judge me for this! 🤭) This often results in my missing out on some exemplary works just because the cover didn’t catch my eye. This is one such case. Had an offer to read-&-review this book not popped up through another source, I would have missed out on an entertaining collection of dark suspense.  This indie collection contains ten stories from varied speculative fiction subgenres. None of the stories are outright paranormal, though there are...

AUTHOR:  Eva Glyn SERIES: Bookish Escapes, #3 GENRE: Contemporary Fiction PUBLICATION DATE: January 16, 2026 RATING:  3.5 stars. In a Nutshell: A contemporary fiction set on a floating library travelling across the Croatian islands. Character-oriented, slow-paced. Good use of the found family trope. More focus on the humans behind the library than the library itself. Some great themes, but slightly repetitive at times. A few scenes felt unnecessary. Not much romance, which I appreciate. A nice choice for fans of the genre.  Plot Preview: Thirty-five-year-old Ana Meštrović has accepted a new government contract to use her catamaran as a library carrying books across various islands of Croatia. She needs to make this project a success so that she can prove to her parents that she can have her own career independent of their oyster farming business.  Two new crew members will join Ana for this summer project: fifty-three-year-old British national Lloyd – the l...

AUTHOR: Thomas Nowak ILLUSTRATOR: Alberto Miranda GENRE: Humour PUBLICATION DATE: March 3, 2026 RATING: 3.5 stars. In a Nutshell: A collection of Dad jokes. Mix of puns, riddles, and smart one-liners. Some jokes were familiar to me, but many were new. Some were a bit too esoteric, especially for children. If you love Dad jokes, you'll find some great ones in this book. Better suited to adults. My younger daughter is fond of dad jokes, and we have a gala time at home cracking each other up with our quips. As such, when I saw this book listed on NetGalley, I immediately asked her if she wanted me to get it and read it together. There wasn’t even a moment’s hesitation before her ‘Yes!’ rang out. We ended up having a lot of fun with this buddy read, but also wished some things were different. The book starts with a humorous dedication – the perfect start to a joke collection. It then moves on to the jokes, with the table of contents indicating the ten topic areas the jokes are distribu...

AUTHOR: Lisa Papp SERIES: Madeline Finn, #3 GENRE: Children's Picture Book PUBLICATION DATE: September 1, 2020 RATING: 5 howls-of-happiness stars! In a Nutshell: The third picture book in the Madeline Finn series, and just as beautiful and impactful. I’ve run out of adjectives to praise this series, so just go for it. Plot Preview: Star has a test, and Madeline is doing everything she can to prepare him for it. On the big day, Madeline and Star are off to Walker Oaks, a retirement community, where Star will be tested on his potential as a therapy dog. The tests have a smooth start, and Madeline’s mom is confident that Star did well. But Madeline herself can't help but think about an elderly man in a wheelchair who never smiled or looked their way. Can Star do better with him? Can she help in any way? The story comes to us in Madeline’s first-person perspective. By now, I expect the sun and the moon and the *Star* from this book series, and it delivers every time! Yet again, the...

AUTHOR: V.E. Schwab GENRE: Fantasy PUBLICATION DATE: June 10, 2025 RATING: 2 stars. In a Nutshell: A multi-timeline vampire fantasy about needs, wants, and desires. Triple POV, but only one was interesting. Good prose, lacklustre plot, repetitive scenes. Mostly boring. Only the finale has a few thrills. This is an outlier opinion. Plot Preview: 1532. Spain. Maria. A beautiful girl married to a viscount who views her only as a vessel to bring forth his future children. She longs for freedom. 1827. England. Charlotte. An idealistic girl who's sent away to her relatives in London to hide a clandestine affair. She longs for love. 2019. USA. Alice. A Scottish girl who joins college in Boston hoping for a fresh start and a clean break from the past. But one mistake imperils her plans. She longs for revenge. How do the lives of these three girls intersect? The story comes to us in their third-person perspectives spread across multiple countries and centuries. In all honesty, had I realise...

AUTHOR: Carola Schmidt ILLUSTRATOR: Dian Ovieta GENRE: Children's Inspirational Book. PUBLICATION DATE: February 6, 2026 RATING: 4 stars. In a Nutshell: An inspirational picture book aimed at young girls. Nice uplifting message, fabulous illustrations. A bit too vague, but this can also work to its advantage. Recommended. As the cover indicates, this is a “letter to a powerful girl”. Addressed directly to the young girl reading the book, the content offers a motivating note about how to tackles the various stones that life may throw in their path. I found the tagline quite interesting. The adjective “powerful” is a minor addition but a major game-changer in that line. It highlights how even confident children can face hurdles on their way. At the same time, it serves as a reminder that the little reader is powerful, whether they believe it or not. As far as messages go, the content is obviously as expected. But there are a couple of things that set this book apart. For one, the con...

AUTHOR: D.A. Holdsworth GENRE: Poetry PUBLICATION DATE: December 5, 2025 RATING: 3 stars. In a Nutshell: An illustrated epic ballad aimed at children but better for adults. Innovative in concept and implementation. Great language and rhymes, good structure, quirky simian characters. Had I been a poetry person, I might have enjoyed this more. Recommended. I never knew epic ballads are still being written, that’s how much of an ignoramus I am when it comes to poetry. The only epic ballad I have read is Coleridge’s ‘The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner’, and that too, with a lot of hesitation. As such, I was a bit apprehensive when this book came my way. Given my aversion towards anything poetic, I didn’t trust myself to be able to focus on a lengthy piece of poetry. Keep this in mind because the rest of my feedback is influenced heavily by this regrettable shortcoming. This ballad poem comes to us from a first-person narrator who bumps into an aging chimpanzee at a tavern. Nudged by the narra...