Meg Dowell Writes

Everyone has already made up their mind about how Desiree Pierce died. But Lena isn’t convinced the story about her sister’s suspicious death is true.

Even though Lena and her sister Desiree don’t have much of anything in common, that hasn’t stopped Lena from caring about the reality TV star everyone thinks they know. In fact, she must know Desiree better than anyone! At least … that’s what she thought before Desiree was found dead.

The police and the public are quick to rule the tragedy as an accidental overdose and close the case. But Lena isn’t convinced that’s what really happened — and she’s going to do whatever it takes to figure out the truth.

Continue reading “Like a Sister Will Keep You Guessing Until the Final Chapter” →

Your best friend is gone. But you have the ability to bring her back — sort of — with the power of AI. Very Black Mirror, sure. But there’s so much you never got to tell her. There’s so much she never had the chance to tell you. Do you bring her back? Just for a little while?

Bailey is smart enough to capture the essence of Vanessa forever thanks to years of text messages and Instagram posts. Her best friend may be gone, but she could live on forever thanks to machine learning.

Although … that Black Mirror reference wasn’t just for jokes. Things could go very, very wrong. Very, very fast.

Continue reading “‘Message Not Found’ Will Make You Feel Better About Being a Messy Human Being” →

We all long to be understood. Not on a surface level, but in that in-depth way that creates unbreakable bonds between people. Imagine feeling like no one will ever know you, and then finding the one person who might know you better than yourself.

Bastián and Lore aren’t your average teenagers — and that’s a good thing. At least, it should be. But the world isn’t as accepting of “different” as it should be. Which is why these two friends are the only ones who have ever seen the world beneath the lake.

It’s hard enough growing up as it is. But being non-binary and living with ADHD sure doesn’t help. Perhaps the universe brought Bastián and Lore together because it knew they both needed a friend who understood what it was like to be everything the world said they couldn’t be.

Continue reading “Our World Needs More Books Like ‘Lakelore’” →

When your mother goes missing, the last thing you’d expect would be to blame your father for her possible murder. But that’s exactly what happens to the Delaney children when their mother walks out of the house and doesn’t return.

An investigation into Joy’s whereabouts forces the Delaney family to look back not just on the past year but at their whole past as siblings, sons, daughters, and spouses.

But there’s nothing more suspicious than a mysterious woman who has also disappeared after appearing at their mother’s doorstep, wrecking everything, and leaving a shattered mess behind.

Continue reading “‘Apples Never Fall’ Offers the Best Kind of Twist at the End of a Mystery” →

I used to tell myself I hated happy endings. That I, like April, would be better off walking away before I knew the turnout of a would-have-been chapter of my own life.

Of course, my life isn’t a book and my story doesn’t have a conclusion the way April’s does. But I suppose books like The People We Keep are, among so many other wonders, a reminder that even though our lives take sharp turns and the world often crashes down around us and it seems nothing could ever turn out right, eventually at least one thing always does.

But Allison Larkin’s novel is more than a reminder: It’s a promise. Perhaps you haven’t been through everything April has. I haven’t. But we all have something. We all want better, even when we deprive ourselves of everything that could get us there.

Continue reading “The People We Keep Is Allison Larkin’s Case for the Necessity of Happy Endings” →

What would you do — how far would you go — to save the person you loved most in the world?

In The Dead and the Dark, Courtney Gould paints a chilling picture of an imperfect family who must depend on each other now more than ever.

Logan, the daughter of celebrity ghost-hunter dads, wants nothing to do with small towns, ghosts, or worst of all, her parents. Watching them detect paranormal activity in front of cameras was never the life she signed up for, and she wants out.

So why has she found herself in a town full of ghosts?

Continue reading “Courtney Gould’s THE DEAD AND THE DARK Explores the Haunting Heartbreak of Love and Loss” →

How many times have you been told you couldn’t do something because of who you are?

Marian Graves is a woman with a dream. But it’s the early 20th century, a time in which women with ambitions had no choice but to fight to transform their hopes into realities.

When she first expresses interest in learning to fly planes, Marian meets a level of resistance that would convince even the strongest-willed to give up and settle for more “appropriate” work.

Marian Graves did not give up.

In fact, she persevered so intensely that decades later, the book’s second main character accepts the job of playing her in a biopic about her disappearance.

Continue reading “Feel Empowered with GREAT CIRCLE, Maggie Shipstead’s Inspiring Story of Female Perseverance” →

If you were told you were destined for nothing, what would you do to prove your prophecy false?

Shelley Parker-Chan’s new release She Who Became the Sun begins with destiny at its forefront. A fortune-teller stands over two siblings, a brother and his sister. The boy is promised greatness; the girl, nothing at all.

Then the boy dies. And instead of letting herself waste away into the nothingness the world set up for her, she takes on the identify of Zhu, joins a monastery, and vows to achieve the greatness her brother never would.

She has no idea what achieving greatness will truly ask of her until everything goes wrong.

Continue reading “Shelley Parker-Chan’s SHE WHO BECAME THE SUN Is a Tale of Desperate Persistence in a Dark, Unforgiving World” →