Rosh's Reviews

AUTHOR: Stacey Lee GENRE: Historical Mystery PUBLICATION DATE: March 17, 2026 RATING: 1 star. In a Nutshell: A historical murder mystery. Not much of a historical feel, not much of a mystery. Excellent description of the location and the sea creatures. Boring plot. Bland characters. Annoying love triangle. Very disappointed. I didn't realise this was a YA book when I got it, but even as a YA book, I doubt teenagers will actually enjoy such a storyline. Plot Preview: 1918. Orcas Island, Washington. Eighteen-year-old Lucy Nowhere has spent her entire life working on the estate of the rich shipbuilder named Daken Sanders who took her in after she was orphaned as a baby. As she longs for a life beyond the island, she has applied for college in Washington. Her benefactor isn't thrilled with her decision. Just a couple of days before she has to leave, she finds his severed head on the beach. Locals blame a mysterious spirit and the sea wolves for the killing, despite evidence of huma...

AUTHOR: Cornelia Funke GENRE: Middle-Grade Fiction PUBLICATION DATE: April 1, 2025 RATING: 3.25 stars. In a Nutshell: A middle-grade adventure mystery about some botanical wonders and some enigmatic old letters. Decent characters, excellent plant-related information, epistolary interludes, fun riddles, clunky plotting, too much of attraction/crush talk. I mistakenly assumed this to be a fantasy. Recommended to the target age group. Plot Preview: Twelve-year-old Caspia isn't happy when her parents tell her that they'll be spending the three months of summer in New York City. Caspia is not fond of big busy cities, and it's even worse to experience the New York heat after the cool Maine days. Things change when Caspia finds an old bundle of letters in their tiny new rental apartment. Probably belonging to the sisters who lived there long ago, each letter, written in the 1950s, contains a 'green' riddle with many clues and the answer always being from the plant kingdom....

AUTHOR: Kelly Barnhill GENRE: Fantasy-horror. PUBLICATION DATE: February 28, 2023 RATING: 4.5 stars. In a Nutshell: A horror-fantasy with elements of surrealism. Retelling of the Japanese folktale ‘The Crane Wife’. Set in an imagined dystopian near-future. Understated yet mindblowing. Love how it handles the characters, the folktale, and even the dark theme. Suspension of disbelief required. Much recommended, but not to those who steer clear of weird stories. Check the triggers listed below if needed. Plot Preview: A fifteen-year-old girl is forced to be the support of her family after the death of her father, taking care of the household as well as of her six-year-old brother Michael, while her mom, a talented but somewhat oblivious artist, weaves stunning tapestries to pay the bills. The mother randomly brought “guests” home, but none stayed for long. Until now. Her latest guest is a tall crane who seems to have captivated her heart even though the daughter finds him manipulative and...

AUTHOR: Yume Kitasei NARRATOR: Eunice Wong GENRE: Science Fiction. PUBLICATION DATE: September 30, 2025 RATING: 3.5 stars. In a Nutshell: A near-future literary eco-thriller about two sisters who go on an epic sea journey to search for their missing third sister. Character-oriented, decent pacing. Interesting plotline and characters, great worldbuilding. Three sections, with the impact of each going steadily downwards. A good option that sadly misses out on the chance to be great. Plot Preview: In a world ravaged by climate change and food scarcity, twenty-two-year-old Skipper, a skilled sailor, makes a meagre living by reselling plastic debris she finds in the ocean. Though the youngest of three sisters, Skipper lives alone with her grandmother, who isn't that kind to her. Then Skipper learns that her eldest sister Nora is missing. Nora had left home a decade ago to work with an organisation focussing on a solution to the global food crisis. Nora has been Skipper’s idol for a lon...

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: Jennifer McMahon GENRE: Psychological Horror-Thriller. PUBLICATION DATE: April 26, 2022 RATING: 3.75 stars. In a Nutshell: A psychological horror-thriller loosely inspired by Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Slowburn and intense. Good atmospheric writing, complex characters, intriguing plot with some good twists. Leaves many things unsaid. Took me some time to get into it, but it delivered well enough on dark entertainment. Recommended. Go in blind. To be read without overthinking. Plot Preview: This story is way too complicated for a short preview. Just know that it comes over two timelines in multiple first-person and third-person perspectives. You may read the Goodreads blurb for more clarity, but it's too detailed. ( For once, I can't even blame the blurb writers. ) Of all the RFReadsTogether Challenge prompts (the annual reading challenge I run in my Facebook group 'Readers Forever' ), the retelling prompt is always one I am most careful about. While making...

AUTHOR: Jesse Q. Sutanto NARRATOR: Eunice Wong SERIES: Vera Wong, #2 GENRE: Cosy Mystery PUBLICATION DATE: April 1, 2025 RATING: 3.25 stars. In a Nutshell: Officially a mystery, but practically, more of a comic drama with some dark content. Interesting but also infuriating geriatric lead. Relatively thin plot. Influencer trope, which is never my favourite. Recommended as long as you are looking for a mindless entertainer and not a mystery. The second novel of the Vera Wong series. Can work as a standalone, but better read in series order. This was decent enough, but I liked the first book more. Go in blind. Plot Preview: A year after the events of Book One. Vera is still running her tea shop and still competing with Winifred and her bakery. But with no dead bodies around, Vera is bored. So when she bumps into a girl looking for her missing friend, Vera is delighted to have a new mystery to poke her nose into. Even better when she discovers, thanks to snooping where she shouldn’t, that ...

AUTHOR: Deepa Anappara GENRE: Indian contemporary mystery. PUBLICATION DATE: February 4, 2020 RATING: 4.25 stars. In a Nutshell: A crime mystery set in contemporary India. Excellent character development, realistic setting, outstanding use of child narrators for a mystery. Incorrect expectations of fantasy because of the title and the first chapter. Literary in approach. Colloquial in writing. Recommended. Plot Preview: Nine-year-old Jai stays with his family in an overcrowded slum. He lives a carefree, uncomplicated life going to school with his elder sister Runu (an aspiring athlete) and his best friends Pari (a desi Hermione) and Faiz (who balances school and work). Everything changes when kids from the locality start disappearing. Faiz suspects that it is the work of djinns while Pari is convinced that focussing on the more immoral residents of the area might be a better idea. The trio decide to form a detective team. Unfortunately for them, some shady elements decide to tinge the...

AUTHOR: Rachel Pattinson GENRE: Teen Mystery PUBLICATION DATE: November 13, 2025 RATING: 4 stars. In a Nutshell: A teen mystery with some intriguing young characters, good mystery and investigation, and an action-packed ending. Also has a parallel track on alcoholism, which is brilliantly handled. A great option for the target audience. Recommended. Plot Preview: Seven is a thirteen-year-old with an unusual name and uncommon problems. Living with her overworked dad and worried about her alcoholic mom, Seven tries hard to concentrate on lessons, but her mind keeps getting distracted. All changes one day when Mr. O, the caretaker of Riverside Academy who is very kind to the young girl, goes missing. Seven is the last person to see him. And she has his keys. Can she find out what happened to him? The story comes to us in Seven’s first-person perspective. I think the last time I read a detective story featuring a teenager was in my own early teens, when I used to read Nancy Drew and Hardy ...

AUTHOR: Robert Harris GENRE: Religious Thriller PUBLICATION DATE: September 22, 2016 RATING: 4 stars. In a Nutshell: A contemporary religious "thriller" set around a papal election. Interesting and diverse characters, fascinating insight into the conclave and a steady pace. Gripping enough, even when the proceedings became guessable. Many good twists, but went two twists overboard towards the end. Recommended.  (The movie adaptation is so weak compared to the book!) Plot Preview: The Pope has passed away. Cardinal Lomeli, the Dean of the College of Cardinals, has the responsibility of presiding over the next conclave, wherein eligible cardinals from across the globe will gather at the Sistine Chapel and cast their votes in the world's most secretive election: the voting for the next pope of the Catholic church. It's a time where personal faith and politics are judged, ambitions and uncertainties are magnified, and past and present activities are scrutinized without me...