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O’Neill, a poet and writing coach, brings her skills to her compelling debut. Siblings Alice, Maggie, and Cait have been through their share of tragedy. Years ago, their brother, Topher, took responsibility for a teenager’s death on his boat. Not too long after, Topher took his own life. There is a hole in the family, and the three sisters have tried to fill it with very different lives. Alice is married with two sons and still lives in the town of Port Haven on Long Island, where the siblings grew up. Cait moved to England, had twins, and ended up in a messy divorce. Maggie is still trying to find herself after her mother’s disapproval of her queer relationships. As the family gathers for Thanksgiving, each sister must navigate her unique challenges. The central story question is whether or not the women will reconcile their differences and come to terms with their past trauma. This melancholy yet loving novel is perfect for fans of Jennifer E. Smith’s Fun for the Whole Family.
Booklist (August 2025 (Vol. 121, No. 22))
From chaotic bloodshed emerges a coherent struggle for freedom in this sweeping second volume of Pulitzer winner Atkinson’s Revolution Trilogy (after The British Are Coming). He recaps the war’s muddled middle years, focusing on three inept British campaigns: Gen. John Burgoyne’s 1777 expedition down the Hudson River from Canada, which ended with a humiliating surrender at Saratoga that emboldened the French to ally with America; Gen. William Howe’s 1778 defeat of George Washington’s Continental Army and occupation of Philadelphia, which the British then fecklessly abandoned; and British efforts to capture Savannah and Charleston in futile hopes of galvanizing Loyalist support. Atkinson also tracks international developments, following Benjamin Franklin’s sly diplomacy in Paris and escalating tension between Britain and France. Through vivid battle scenes ("Ghostly, muddy figures illuminated by British muzzle flashes... began climbing... their bayonets pricking the night") and complex portraits of key figures (from Washington-a paragon of honor but also a consummate spin-doctor-to neurotic British commander-in-chief Henry Clinton, who repeatedly begged to be relieved of command), Atkinson distills a larger interpretation: though the British were winning more battles, they were losing the ideological war, partly due to the Patriots’ brutal suppression of Loyalists and America's already robust tradition of self-goverance but also because the fight for liberty inspired passionate solidarity abroad. Epic in scale but rich in detail, this captures the drama and world-historical significance of the revolution.
Publishers Weekly (February 10, 2025)
Meta is a cesspool of petty tyranny and moral callousness, according to this explosive tell-all. Wynn-Williams recaps her seven years as Facebook’s manager of global public policy, which entailed dealing with foreign governments on censorship, regulation, and other hot-button issues, as well as ensuring executives didn’t make fools of themselves on the world stage (she once scrambled to prevent CEO Mark Zuckerberg from following Big Bird at the Global Citizen Festival). More seriously, Wynn-Williams describes how her idealistic enthusiasm for connecting the world soured as she witnessed the company collaborate with the 2016 Trump campaign to target users with political ads; bow to the Chinese Communist Party’s demands to censor criticism; and refuse to take action when Myanmar’s military used Facebook to spread disinformation that fueled the ethnic cleansing of the country’s Rohingya minority. She hangs a witty picaresque of Facebook life around colorful profiles of its executives-Zuckerberg is "smaller, paler, and... angrier than I anticipated"-while taking aim at rampant overwork and sexual harassment at the company, claiming that she was forced by former COO Sheryl Sandberg to draw up talking points for a meeting while in labor with her first child and was fired after complaining about her boss Joel Kaplan’s sexually charged comments. The result is a withering takedown of Facebook’s hypocrisy.
Publishers Weekly (April 14, 2025)
Rachel is on the outs with her friends, so she decides to spend the awkward summer between high school and college at her aunt’s beautiful home in upper-crust Greenwich, Connecticut, under the guise of looking out for her aunt and helping to watch her three-year-old cousin, Sabine. Rachel is a people-pleaser who hasn’t figured out what makes her happy in life, and she is drawn to the surety of Sabine’s nanny, Claudia, who seems to know how to handle any situation despite being only a recent college grad. Looking back at this late 1990s summer from the present, Rachel sees some troubling undertones in the way Claudia, who is Black, is treated, all while a mysterious traumatic event looms over the story, so that the reader knows that by the end of this summer, something terrible will have happened. This gothic and atmospheric debut novel is absorbingly paced with cutting depictions of dysfunctional family dynamics, exploring societal expectations, how hiding the truth corrupts and corrodes, and the truism that money does not buy happiness.
Booklist (June 1, 2025 (Vol. 121, No. 19))