Book Review - King of Ashes by S.A. Cosby

Title: King of Ashes
Author: S.A. Cosby
Genre: Thriller/ Crime
Published: 2025
 
Description: Roman Caruthers left the smoke and fire of his family’s crematory business behind in his hometown of Jefferson Run, Virginia. He is enjoying a life of shallow excess as a financial adviser in Atlanta until he gets a call from his sister, Neveah, telling him their father is in a coma after a hit-and-run accident. When Roman goes home, he learns the accident may not be what it seems. His brother, Dante, is deeply in debt to dangerous, ruthless criminals.
 
And Roman is willing to do anything to protect his family. Anything.
 
A financial whiz with a head for numbers and a talent for making his clients rich, Roman must use all his skills to try to save his family while dealing with a shadow that has haunted them all for twenty years: the disappearance of their mother when Roman and his siblings were teenagers. It’s a mystery that Neveah, who has sacrificed so much of her life to hold her family together, is determined to solve once and for all.
 
As fate and chance and heartache ignite their lives, the Carithers family must pull together to survive or see their lives turn to ash. Because, as their father counseled them from birth nothing lasts forever.
 
Everything burns
 
Review: “King of Ashes” by S.A. Cosby is a gripping, gritty crime thriller that explores the boundaries of family loyalty and moral corruptions. Powerful yet tragic, though its explicit rawness requires a strong stomach. But if you read from S.A. Cosby you know what to expect.
 
The story revolves around Roman Caruthers, a successful asset manages in Atlanta who thought he had left the darkness of his hometown, Jefferson Run, Virginia, far behind him. When his father falls into a coma after a mysterious accident, Roman returns to the family business: a crematorium. He finds a mess, His brother Dante is deeply in depth to the violent Black Baron Boys gang, and his sister is struggling to keep the family together.
 
The raw and poetic style of Cosby is one of the reason why I love his stories so much. He describes Jefferson Run as a town slowly rotting away, which perfectly mirrors the characters’ inner struggles. The core of the book isn’t just action, but the traumas that have haunted the family for twenty years since their mother’s disappearance. The dynamics between the brothers and sister feel painfully real.
 
Roman is not your typical hero, but an intellectual anti-hero who uses his financial skills as a weapon in a deadly game of chess against criminals.
 
The book is extremely violent at times. Trigger warnings for readers who have a hard time reading about severe abuse and violence.
 
“King of Ashes” is a blood-curdling thriller about how far you’ll go for you own kin. It didn’t hit me as hard as “Razorblade Tears” and “All the Sinners Bleed” did, but if you’re a fan of S.A. Cosby, you should definitely pick it up.
 
Rating: 4/ 5

Book Review - Best Offer Wins by Marisa Kashino

Title: Best Offer Wins
Author: Marisa Kashino
Genre: Thriller/ Fiction
Published: 2025
 
Description: Eighteen months and 11 lost bidding wars into house-hunting in the overheated Washington, DC suburbs, 37-year-old publicist Margo Miyake gets a tip about the perfect house, in the perfect neighborhood, slated to come up for sale in one month. Desperate to escape the cramped apartment she shares with her husband Ian – and in turn, get their marriage, plan to have a baby, and whole life back on track – Margo becomes obsesses with buying the house before it’s publicly listed and the masses descend.
 
A little stalking? Harmless. A bit of trespassing? Necessary. As Margo infiltrates the homeowners’ lives, her tactics grow increasingly nhinged – but just when she thinks she’s won them over, she hits a snag in her plan. Undeterred, margo will prive again and again that there’s no boundary she won’t cross to seize the dream life she’s been chasing.
 
Review: With “Best Offer Wins” Marisa Kashino delivers a debut that is as timely as it is terrifying. While many thrillers rely on classic motifs such as jealousy and revenge, Kashino opts for a much more modern monster: the unattainable housing market. The result is a razor-sharp, unhinged page-turned that makes you reflect on the question: how far would you go for you dream home?
 
Margo Miyake is the kind of character you initially want to hug, but soon find yourself wanting to avoid at all costs. She is 37, successful in PR, but deeply unhappy because she just can’t seem to buy a home in Washington, D.C. After eleven failed bids, she’s at her wit’s end. When she gets a tip about a house that isn’t yet on the market, she becomes obsessed with the current owners. What starts as innocent online stalking spirals into a feverish nightmare of blackmail and violence.
 
Kashino, herself a former real estate reporter, knows exactly what she’s writing about. The strength of this book lies in its sharp social observations.  The way she describes the pretensions of the upper middle class is satirical gold.
 
In addition, Margo’s psychological decline is masterfully portrayed. As a reader, you’re drawn into her logic. But Margo is also highly unlikeable. This could be a reason for people to dislike the book. I just couldn’t put this book down because of how crazy this woman was, probably especially because I hated her.
 
The book begins as written social commentary, but it transforms in the second half into a blood-curdling thriller with a finale so bizarre that you never see it coming.
 
The transition from “desperate house hunter” to “full-blown sociopath” happens rather quickly toward the end of the book. While the escalation is entertaining, it requires a considerable dose of suspension of disbelief from the reader. Some plot twist, though very entertaining, feel a bit less credible than others.
 
“Best Offer Wins” is a really good thriller, and gave me exactly what I needed and I was missing in thriller lately. A must-read for thriller fans who want to get out of a reading slump, you will not be able to put this one down.
 
Rating: 4/ 5

Movie Review - Hamnet

Director: Chloé Zhao
Genre: Drama
Runtime: 125 minutes
Year: 2025
Starring: Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal, Joe Alwyn, Emily Watson, Jacobi Jupe, Noah Jupe
 
Description: In late 16^th-century England, Agnes (Jessie Buckley), a healer sensitive to the world around her, builds a home with William (Paul Mescal), a local tudor and aspiring playwright. As their lives fracture, they are tested by distance, silence, and grief.
 
Review: The film adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s best-selling novel “Hamnet” by Oscar winner Chloé Zhao is a rare example of an adaptation that not only understands the soul of the source material but also amplifies it. It is a visually stunning and emotionally devastating portrait of grief, love, and the transcendent power of art.

Although Paul Mescal portrays a fragile yet powerful William Shakespeare (never named until the very end), this is unmistakably Jessie Buckley’s film. As Agnes, she is the emotional anchor; a woman with a powerful connection to nature. Zhao wisely chooses not to show the rise of the famous playwright in London, but to focus on the raw reality of family life in Stratford. The chemistry between Buckley and Mescal is palpable and makes the impending tragedy all the more painful.

The cinematography by Łukasz Żal is nothing short of sublime. He captures the English countryside in 1596 with a sensory richness that immediately transport the viewer into the mud and sunlight of the Elizabethan era. The scenes in which the plague slowly creeps into the household are portrayed with a suffocating tension. Max Richters’s music enhances the melancholic atmosphere.

The absolute highlight is the finale, in which the film shows an indescribably personal loss – the death of eleven-year-old Hamnet – is transformed into the universal masterpiece Hamlet. Zhao succeeds in giving familiar monologues from the play a new, deeply moving meaning that will bring even the most stoic viewers to tears.

“Hamnet” is a tearjerker of the highest order, but its more than that. It’s a story of loss and the aftermath of this, how people grief differently. The narrative structure of the middle section is somewhat uneven, but the emotional impact of the final scene more than makes up for it. I have only just read the book (which I gave a 5-star rating) and it always makes me happy to see a director succeeding into translating it to film. Beautiful film and a well-deserved Academy Award for Jessie Buckley.

Rating: 4,5/ 5

Book Review - Ring Shout by P. Djèli Clark

Title: Ring Shout
Author: P. Djèli Clark
Genre: Horror/ Historical Fiction
Published: 2020
 
Description: In 1915, “The Birth of a Nation” cast a spell across America, swelling the Klan’s ranks and drinking deep from the darkest thoughts of white folk. All across the nation they ride, spreading fear and violence among the vulnerable. They plan to bring Hell to Earth. But even Ku Kluxes can die.
 
Standing in their way is Maryse Boudreaux and her fellow resistance fighters, a foul-mouthed sharpshooter and a Harlem Hellfighter. Armed with blade, bullet, and bomb, they hunt their hunters and send the Klan’s demons straight to Hell. But something awful’s brewing in Macon, and the war on Hell is about to heat up.
 
Can Maryse stop the Klan before it ends the world?
 
Review: “Ring Shout” by P. Djèli Clark is a devastating novella that completely blurs the lines between historical fiction, folklore, and cosmic horror. It is a rare kind of book that is both an adrenaline-pumping action thriller and a razor-sharp social commentary.
 
Clark makes a brilliant artistic choice by portraying the Ku Klux Klan not only as an ideological threat, but as a literal infection. In this story, the “Ku Kluxes” are monsters from another dimension on hatred and fear. By turning Klan members into physical monsters, Clark exposes the inhumanity of their ideology without trivializing the horrific historical reality. It shows that racism is not an abstract concept, but a force that distorts people into something unrecognizable.
 
The story is set in 1915, the year the film “Birth of a Nation” was released. Clark masterfully weaves this historical fact into the plot: the film serves here as a form of dark magic, a “shout” that propagates hatred and empowers the monsters. He contrasts this hatred with the Ring Shout, a deeply rooted tradition of enslaved Africans. As a result, the race issue becomes not only a struggle for survival, but a spiritual war in which culture and shared history are the most powerful weapons.
 
The horror element in “Ring Shout” is in a league of its own. Clark draws from the tradition of Lovecraft’s cosmic horror, but strips it of Lovecraft’s biased worldview. The descriptions of the Butcher Boys and the transformations are visceral and terrifying. Here, the horror serves a higher purpose: to visualize the trauma inflicted over generations. It is bloody, imaginative, and at times deeply unsettling. The story reminded me of a mix of “Sinners”, BlacKkKlansman” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”.
 
Maryse, the sword-wielding protagonist, is one of the most compelling characters I have read about in a while. Her struggle against the monsters outside her and the rage within her gives the story an emotional depth. “Ring Shout” is a masterfully written book that proves horror is the perfect medium for exploring the darkest pages of history. The book is short, under 200 pages, but packs a punch.
 
Rating: 5/ 5

Book Review - Penpal by Dathan Auerbach

Title: Penpal
Author: Dathan Auerbach
Genre: Horror/ Thriller
Published: 2012
 
Description: A man investigates the seemingly unrelated bizarre, tragic and horrific occurrences of his childhood in an attempt to finally understand them. Beginning with only fragments of his earlier years, you’ll follow the narrator as he discovers that these stranger and horrible evens are actually part of a single terrifying story that has shaped the entirety of his life and the lives of those around him.
 
Review: In “Penpal” we see a series of short stories, told by our narrator. These seemingly unrelated stories are part of his past and he is beginning to realize they might have a link.
 
The story starts of strong and manages to draw the reader into a nostalgic yet ominous childhood. The book greatest strength is its atmosphere. There are a number of genuinely creepy moments that gave me the chills. Dathan Auerbach managed to turn eeryday situations into something sinister.
 
Still, I was left with mixed feelings after finishing the book. The structure of the book is sometimes confusing. Because these were originally standalone stories, the chronology often feels fragmented. Additionally, the plot holes become increasingly noticeable as the story progresses. Some of the decisions made by the parents and the authorities are hard to swallow and only feel logical within the plot, not in reality. Although the climax hits hard emotionally, the gaps in logic leave a sense of dissatisfaction. It’s worth a try because of the chilling moments, but as a cohesive horror/ thriller, it falls short.
 
Rating: 2,5/ 5

Book Review - Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell

Title: Hamnet
Author: Maggie O’Farrell
Genre: Historical Fiction/ Fiction
Published: 2020
 
Description: Warwickshire in the 1580s. Agnes, a woman as feared as she is sought after for her unusual gifts. She settles with her husband in henley street, Stratford, and has three children: a daughter Susanna, and then twins Hamnet and Judith. Hamnet dies in 1596, aged elven. Four years  or so late, the husband writes a play called Hamlet.
 
Review: With “Hamnet”, Maggie O’Farrell delivers an absolute beauty of a book that approaches history not as a dusty archive, but as a living, breathing, and painfully relatable human drama. Although the name Shakespeare is never mentioned, his shadow hands over every page, even though he not the protagonist here. The honor belongs to Agnes.
 
What immediately stands out is O’Farrell’s unparalleled writing style. She employs an almost compelling present tense that places the reader right in the heart of late 16^th-century Stratford-upon-Avon. Her prose is lyrical and vivid.
 
At the heart of the novel is the death of eleven-year-old Hamnet and the devastating impact it has on his family. O’Farrell describes the grieving process with a precision that is almost physically painful. The way Agnes tries to make sense of the world as her child slips away from her is heartbreaking. The author ingeniously connects this personal loss to the eventual creation of the world-famous play “Hamlet’, several years later. The book transforms the tragedy from a footnote in history into the beating heart of a literary genius.
 
The characterization of Agnes is the book’s greatest strength. She is portrayed as a mysterious, strong woman with a deep connection to nature, in contrast to her husband, who flees to London to live in words. Their marriage, marked by distance and deep affection, feel surprisingly modern and believable.
 
“Hamnet” is an ode to the forgotten women in history and a universal story of love and loss. It is a rare kind of book that both intellectually stimulated and emotionally unravels you completely. Even for me, who is not a mother and never will be one, the book was very emotional. For fans of historical fiction with a deep psychological layer.
 
Rating: 5/ 5

Book Review - Twee Prinsen by Splinter Chabot

Title: Twee Prinsen
Author: Splinter Chabot
Genre: Fiction/ LGBTQ+/ Romance
Published: 2026
 
Description: When Richard flees to colorful, sunny Rome, he meets the angelic Matteo. As the twenty-somethings explore the city and get to know each other, Richard tries to come to terms with his past.
 
Freed from his strict conservative parents and the drab countryside, Richard seems afraid of nothing and no one, but his toughness soon turns out to be a pose, a shield with which he tries to hide his insecurities. It is the love of the playful, sensual Matteo that helps him overcome his fears.
 
For a short time, Rome is heaven on earth, until Richard and Matteo must hide there too from the stares, opinions, and fists of others. This time, Richard won’t let it go.
 
Review: “Twee Prinsen” (Two Princes) is the new novel by Dutch author Splinter Chabot (not translated into English). It’s a must-read for anyone who loves stories that go straight to the heart.
 
We meet Richard, who grows up in a conservative, religious family. At a young age, he realizes he is gay. We follow the story of him as a young boy in a strict family, and of him as a twenty-something in a romance with Matteo in Rome.
 
Splinter Chabot has a unique gift for creating, through his enchanting writing style, a world that feels both relatable and magical. Every sentence reads like a painting; it is so colorful, vulnerable, and written with passion.
 
What makes this book so powerful is its beautiful portrayal of LGTBTQ+ themes. Chabot captures the uncertainty, the euphoria, and the pure essence of the search for oneself and love for another with integrity. The story of the two princes is not just a fairy tale, but an important ode to the freedom to be who you are and to love whom you choose.
 
A beautiful, hopeful book that will linger in your mind for a long time. And that will definitely make you cry.
 
Rating: 5/ 5