Rosh's Reviews

AUTHOR: Silvia Moreno-Garcia GENRE: Horror-Fantasy PUBLICATION DATE: July 15, 2025 RATING: 2.5 stars. In a Nutshell: A multi-generational horror-suspense focussing on three women and their dark experiences with witchcraft. Good historical atmosphere and a couple of compelling characters. Needlessly intricate, guessable antagonists, dragged pacing. One incestual relationship (not sure if it’s culturally/historically accurate). The horror comes only in bits and spurts. I liked some parts of this novel but wasn’t too impressed. Not sure if this was because of the audio version. Plot Preview: 1998. Minerva is a graduate student who wants to write her dissertation on the life of Beatrice Tremblay, a talented but relatively obscure horror author with one famous novel and who had been a student at the same college in the 1930s. As Minerva tries to find more information on Beatrice, she finds herself grappling with the same dark forces that Beatrice once did and referred to in her novel, which...

AUTHOR: Tiffany Crum NARRATORS: Sean Patrick Hopkins & Julia Whelan GENRE: Domestic Thriller PUBLICATION DATE: March 10, 2026 RATING: 2.75 stars. In a Nutshell: A domestic mystery-thriller involving a missing couple, one of whom is a famous podcaster. A mostly typical book for its genre, with plenty of twists, miscommunications, secrets, and about-turns in stance. Too many subtopics. One character has narcolepsy – an interesting addition that could have been utilised better. The first half is stronger than the second. Suspension of disbelief mandatory. Fans of the thriller genre might enjoy this more but I again stand as an outlier. The audio version is outstanding. Plot Preview: Benny and Joy, best friends since ages, are the hosts of a successful comedy podcast titled ‘This Story Might Save Your Life’, which focusses on one wild survival story each week. Thanks to the financial expertise of Joy’s husband Xander, their podcast business has been quite lucrative. But in the recent p...

AUTHOR: Aubrey Hartman GENRE: Middle-grade Fantasy PUBLICATION DATE: February 25, 2025 RATING: 3.25 stars. In a Nutshell: A middle-grade fantasy with an undead fox guiding souls towards the next phase of their “lives”. Good anthropomorphic animal characters, interesting concept, atmospheric writing. Dark in themes and tone. Somewhat ableist in a few scenes. Has some life lessons, though these might be more relevant to adults. I am not sure about its appeal to kids. Plot Preview: Clare the fox is the only resident of Deadwood Forest. That is to say, the only *undead* resident. The forest, which is in a perpetual state of autumn, is where souls come to be guided to their final resting place in one of the four realms of the afterlife. Clare is their guide, making sure they reach the realm most suited to them. He has been doing this ever since his own death, and has almost always sent the souls to the right realm. But when a new badger soul named Gingersnipes comes to his door, Clare’s day...

AUTHOR: Samantha Downing NARRATOR: Elizabeth Wiley GENRE: Crime Thriller. PUBLICATION DATE: August 12, 2025 RATING: 3.25 stars. In a Nutshell: A crime thriller about a retired serial killer forced back into action. Unlikeable but compelling lead. Interesting at the start, slightly repetitive in the second half. Somewhat lopsided in its character development, though there are some interesting side characters. A decent one-time read for me, which is a slightly outlier opinion. Plot Preview: Seventy-five-year-old Lottie Jones lives a calm retired life, talking regularly with her son Archie, rolling her eyes at his upcoming wedding to a girl half his age, and enjoying bingo and gossiping with her friends from church. No one knows that Lottie had a past life as a serial killer. So when a young and ambitious documentary producer named Plum Dixon turns up at Lottie's doorstep wanting to tell her life story, Lottie knows it's time to say goodbye to her retirement from murder, even if P...

AUTHOR & NARRATOR: John Fugelsang GENRE: Religious Nonfiction PUBLICATION DATE: Jun 04 2026 RATING: 4.5 stars. In a Nutshell: A nonfiction that does exactly what the title declares: separates the church from the despicable version sold to us by fascists and fundamentalists. Insightful, incisive, accurate, brilliant. Hard truths delivered with a good dash of humour. The book (as well as this review) might create allergic reactions in certain *Christians*, but to the fellow sane believers out there, this is a must-read. Much recommended! When I see religion-based nonfiction books ( any religion, not just Christian ones ) with titles that call out strongly to me, the first thing I do is check the credentials of the author. Any person who behaves like an extremist on their social media ( most conservative evangelicals in case of Christianity ), who spreads hate against other religions or minorities, who uses demeaning words to refer to people of other faiths, and who misinterprets scri...

AUTHOR: Katherine Applegate ILLUSTRATOR: Charles Santoso GENRE: Middle-Grade Fantasy PUBLICATION DATE: September 9, 2025 RATING: 4.25 stars. In a Nutshell: A middle-grade fantasy featuring many toys full of heart and one cat full of ‘cattitude’. Lovely story and mostly loveable characters. Great balance of fun and seriousness. Highlights the pain associated with war then and now. Much recommended. Plot Preview: Pocket Bear “became” from a thimble during WWI, when he was created to fit into the pocket of a soldier’s jacket to offer comfort and love. Now, more than a century later, Pocket Bear is the unofficial head of the ‘Second Chances Home for the Tossed and Treasured’, a place where its two humans – a mother-daughter pair who are refugees from Ukraine – refurbish discarded or unwanted soft toys and give them a fresh lease of life with a new owner. Accompanied by his best friend, a cat named Zephyrina who is the prime source of the toys, Pocket Bear ensures that everything in the Sec...

AUTHOR: Laura Huie NARRATOR: Ethan Fifield GENRE: High Fantasy Novella PUBLICATION DATE: September 25, 2023 RATING: 3.25 stars. In a Nutshell: The story of a dragon and his connection with the people who want him dead. Unlike what the tagline suggests, the writing approach is more like a descriptive biography with flashbacks than like a memoir. Character-oriented, with only two complex main characters. Thought-provoking plot. High fantasy but will work even for non-fantasy readers. A nice read, as long as you don't expect a "memoir". Plot Preview: The dragon Vakandi has watched the people of Vakfored for centuries, seeing them grow from refugees to self-sufficient citizens with an affinity for magic. The people have long forgotten how they first came to settle in the place they call Vakfored. But the dragon remembers. So when an assassin named Sisal comes to kill the “threat”, Vakandi convinces her to listen to his life story. The story comes to us in the alternating thir...

AUTHOR: Mara Rutherford NARRATOR: Anna Burnett GENRE: YA Fantasy PUBLICATION DATE: October 21, 2025 RATING: 4 stars. In a Nutshell: A YA Cozy Fantasy centring on the spunky young owner of a (fake) magic shop. This book took me by surprise! Whatever complaints I usually have about YA novels were mostly missing. I liked the characters, the storyline, the magic (though relatively minimal), the writing and the ending. Except for a few developments in the final quarter, I enjoyed this book. Definitely recommended, as long as you keep in mind that it is YA and has YA characters. Plot Preview: Seventeen-year-old orphan Willow Stokes has been running her father’s magical curiosity shop ever since his sudden death. So what if she too is a charlatan like her father and knows there’s nothing magical about their stock? A girl has to survive! When an outlander named Brianna Hargrave enters the shop, something about her makes Willow realise that there might be some magic in the Stokes stock after al...

AUTHOR: Kirsten Miller GENRE: Fantasy PUBLICATION DATE: October 7, 2025 RATING: 3.75 stars. In a Nutshell: A multi-timeline fantasy featuring powerful witches with a modern-day agenda. Many intriguing (female) characters, many interesting subplots. First 75% excellent, final 25% a bit too wild! A creative combination of themes not often seen together. Recommended. Plot Preview: Wild Hill, an isolated place at the tip of Long Island, has long been haunted by a ghost. For centuries, she didn’t allow anyone to settle there, until a young Scottish girl with strange powers, Sadie Duncan, was permitted to stay. Five generations of Sadie’s descendants have now known this magical place as their home, each generation more “gifted” than its predecessor. But after a terrible incident, the latest generation of Duncan women left their ancestral residence. Brigid moved to California and used her dark talent to carve a successful acting career. Her sister Phoebe settled at a remote ranch in Texas wo...

AUTHOR: Lisa Ridzén TRANSLATOR: Alice Menzies NARRATOR: Ifan Huw Dafydd GENRE: Literary Fiction PUBLICATION DATE: August 19, 2025 RATING: 4 stars. In a Nutshell: A contemplative literary fiction about a geriatric dealing with the vagaries of old age. Contemplative, melancholic, realistic, heartbreaking. Beautifully written with no filters about aging issues. This is a mood read, but if you pick it up at the right time, it can deliver all the feels. Not for those looking for uplifting stories; the book is mostly bleak. Plot Preview: Sweden. Eighty-nine-year-old Bo has only his dog Sixten for company in his home. His wife Frederika has Alzheimer’s, because of which their son Hans admitted her in a care home some time ago, even though Bo wasn’t too happy about this decision. Now Hans feels that Bo is too old to take care of Sixten and wants to take the dog away as well. Not surprisingly, Bo is very upset. The whole narrative comes to us in Bo’s first-person perspective, reflecting upon hi...

AUTHOR: Alix E. Harrow NARRATORS: Moira Quirk and Sid Sagar GENRE: Fantasy-Romance. PUBLICATION DATE: October 28, 2025 RATING: 3 stars. In a Nutshell: A standalone adult fantasy with an accurate tagline: ‘A Legend. A Lie. A Love Story’. Exceptional idea. Interesting but somewhat flat characters. An overly complex execution. Repetitive because of the POV choice. I adored the concept but wish the execution had worked better for me. Not my favourite Harrow novel, though I can see it working better for some readers, especially those who want more romance than fantasy. Plot Preview: Owen Mallory, a cowardly ex-soldier and a historian, has always been fascinated by the legend of Sir Una Everlasting, Dominion’s greatest knight whose legend lives on as one of the bravest servers of queen and country. Not much is known about her actual life except for what’s written in the ballads. When Owen finds a book that claims to know Una’s actual story, he doesn’t realise how much of her story is a part ...