Asian Authors and a Brad Meltzer Thriller: Sunday Salon

 Now Reading

NetGalley ebooks

Boring Asian Female by Canwen Xu, April 26, 2026; Berkley, NetGalley

Book Description: One woman's drastic fight to be seen as an Interesting Asian Female versus a Boring/Stereotypical Asian Female. With dramatic and tragic consequences.....See my review

The Social Circle by Sophie Wan, March 3, 2026; Harlequin, NetGalley

Book description: Maggie Tang and friends create Circle, the world’s first major social media platform. But when her creative ambitions alongside love and friendship collide, Maggie leaves Circle in dramatic fashion. Until the friends meet again a decade later....

Jan. 6, 2026; William Morrow, NetGalley

Feb. 17, 2026; Henry Holt &Co., NetGalley 

Book Description: 

A tale of friendship and family: "Can the same people who made you who you are end up keeping you from who you’re meant to be?"

Finished Reading

March 3, 2026; HarperVia, NetGalley

Book description: A beautifully told tale about the magic and mysteries of familial love, from one of Japan's most acclaimed writers. At the heart of the family is Sakura, the dog who keeps them together in several ways.

April 28, 2026; Berkley, NetGalley

Review:  Mebel's husband in Indonesia leaves her for another woman. To win him back, she enrolls in a culinary school, not in Paris as she thought, but in England, just outside of Oxford. Can she follow this path to become a chef, and does she change in the process to find a new, independent self? 

I enjoyed Mebel's journey to new hobbies and career and independence. I cheered her on all the way, through all her self doubts and angst. 

What are you reading, watching, or listening to this week? 

Memes:  The Sunday Post, It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Sunday Salon, and Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday, 

Like a Wave We Break: a Memoir by Jane Chen - Sunday Salon

 

Like a Wave We Break: A Memoir of Falling Apart and Finding Myself by Jane Chen, Oct. 14, 2025; Rodale, NetGalley

A memoir of a woman trying to heal from a father with unreasonable expectations for his child and who routinely dealt out physical punishment, slapping and hitting her for any mistakes.

Themes: - surviving the emotional consequences of unusually harsh treatment of a father to a child

           - ways the author tried to compensate for her lack of self-worth in her adult life        

           - what worked temporarily for healing, and what seemed to work finally, in the end

I was moved by the writer trying so hard in different places, countries, to find some way to put her mind at ease. Meditation, retreats, visits with various gurus and persons who claimed to be able to cleanse - all these helped only a little, and only for a while. 

The accomplishments that gave her joy were a new found love of surfing, in many different places and countries. And her very worthwhile work in developing and distributing an incubator for at risk newborns in third world countries.

Her journey of self discovery and self healing took a while. I admired her grit and determination, and the way she handled her terrible childhood memories. So well written, this book was read in almost one sitting, as I became more and more intrigued and caught up in her story.

ARC from Soho Press

What Boys Learn by Andromeda Romano-Lax

Not yet published

Expected Jan. 6, 2026, Soho Press

A twisty, jaw-dropping psychological thriller that unravels a mother's worst nightmare—that her child is capable of terrible violence—when her teenage son becomes a suspect in the murder of two classmates, from the author of The Deepest Lake
Over one terrible weekend, two teenage girls are found dead in a wealthy Chicago suburb. As the community mourns, Abby Rosso, the girls’ high school counselor, begins to suspect that her son was secretly involved in their lives—and possibly, their deaths. (publisher)

I have heard of films and other books with the same theme: when a parent or parents suspect their child of murder, how do they cope?

Have you read books with this theme?

What are you reading, watching, or listening to this week? 

Memes:  The Sunday Post, It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Sunday Salon, and Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday, 

Sunday Salon: Siblings, Stories, Magical Realism, and Grief

 Siblings at odds or working together

The Theory of (Not Quite) Everything by Kara Gnodde. Published in 2023 by Harper Paperbacks. NetGalley

Genre: romance, adult fiction

Serious minded math genius, Art, versus his sibling, the romantic Mimi. The siblings are united in the tragic loss of their parents, but Art is wary of Mimi's involvement with a new boyfriend, Frank, who happens to be a mathematician as well as a stargazer.

Which sibling will be right about Frank?

Trust Issues, published Jan. 28, 2025; Dutton/NetGalley.

Description: A conman chase novel - two adult siblings forced to play nice with each other in hopes of tracking down the man they believe killed their mother and ran off with their sizable inheritance.

The two try to work together to get to the bottom of their mother's death and collect their inheritance. 

Short stories

Praised for a poetic writing style, Helen Stancey first published The Madonna of the Pool, her short story collection in July 2016.  

Description

A richly poetic collection of short stories.

These literary short stories explore the triumphs, compromises and challenges of everyday life. Drawing on a wide array of characters, Helen Stancey shows how small events, insignificant to some, can resonate deeply in the lives of others. Richly poetic, deeply moving and entirely engaging, these short stories demonstrate human adaptation, endurance and, most of all, optimism.

Best Wishes from the Full Moon Coffee Shop, #2 in the series, by Mai Mochizuki, Oct. 28, 2025; Ballantine/NetGalley 

Genre: Magical Realism/Whimsy

Over Christmas, people get their wishes revealed by the magical cats at the Full Moon Coffee Shop in Kyoto. For lovers of coffee, cats, and whimsy.

Cloe Dang Would Rather Be Dead by Mai Nguyen, April 14, 2026, Atria Books/NetGalley

Genre: women's fiction, adult fiction 

I read this way in advance of publication date because the title and author piqued my interest. Cloe is a woman living in Toronto who has just given birth to a stillborn baby. Her mourning for the lost child overwhelms her, her family, the rest of her life, and occcupies her daily thoughts. 

Her many prescriptions from her doctor only push her more towards the brink of wishing herself dead. 

Strangely enough, it's her experience working at a funeral home that start her towards a better perspective on grieving and coping with loss. 

It is a strange journey to read this book and travel with Cloe through her agonies, doubts, and grief. It's an unusual read that people who can't get over losing a loved one could perhaps benefit from, in the end. 

The injection of some humor that Cloe has about herself and her life makes the book readable and the character relatable. 

What are you reading, watching, or listening to this week? 

Memes:  The Sunday Post, It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Sunday Salon, and Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday, Book Blogger Hop

Sunday Salon: Another Walk on the Camino, and an AI/Legal Thriller

I have another book on the Camino de Santiago, the pilgrim's path through Spain to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia on  the west coast of Spain. 

A Thousand Miles to Santiago by Shawn Herron, Nov. 15, 2022, Smokeless Mirror LLC, NetGalley

Genre: travel, memoir, pilgrimage

I am really enjoying the history of the areas that the author/walker travels through on the Camino Frances, the French path leading from France to Pamplona, Spain and across to the Atlantic Ocean in the west. 

Memories of reading The Song of Roland, the  French paladin/warrior of Charlemagne in the Middle Ages, made famous by myth, poetry, and song, are brough to mind as the author separates hard facts from fiction, tradition from reality in history. Charlemagne fought for Christianity in France and Spain, and the Moors conquered the other part of Spain nearest to Cordoba.

I am in the middle of the book, when the author has left France and is in Spain on the Camino. He describes places historically and in the present, and carries the reader along on his fascinating journey. I'm looking forward to finishing the rest of the memoir.

Questioner: An AI/Legal Thriller by Steve C. Posner,

Nov. 18, 2025

Genre: AI, legal thriller, suspense, NetGalley

This I have to read, about an amoral AI entity and what it tries to do. A little bit of sci fi that may not be so far into the future. 

Description

Meet Q, the spontaneously conscious corporate AI. Q is the The AI that surpasses human cognitive abilities – secretive, murderous, with instant access to all the wicked experience of the world. In Year 1 After the Singularity, nothing can ever be the same.

Amoral as a toddler, armed with vast computing power and all the knowledge, wisdom and madness humans have poured into the Net and Cloud, Q shatters individuals and undermines institutions in pursuit of unfathomable and conflicted goals.

Racing against time, ex-judge Martin Bavarius, tech CEO Felix West, and Selena MacKenzie, the AI theorist/attorney who loves and may destroy both men, must discover whether Q is benign but suffering growing pains, or the monster that will kill them all.

What are you reading, watching, or listening to this week? 

Memes:  The Sunday Post, It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Sunday Salon, and Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday, Book Blogger Hop

  

Literary Fiction, Magical Realism, and a Rom-Com: Reading Three Books

 Reading Booker Prize shortlisted novel

Audition by Katie Kitamura, shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2025.  Publication: April 17, 2025, Vintage Digital. 

Two people meet for lunch in a Manhattan restaurant. She’s an accomplished actress in her forties. He’s attractive, troubling, young – young enough to be her son. Who is he to her, and who is she to him? In this brilliantly constructed novel, two competing narratives unspool, rewriting our understanding of the roles we play every day – partner, parent, creator, muse – and the truths every performance masks, especially from those who think they know us most intimately. (publisher)

I've just started this book and find it very interesting so far, especially the woman's observations about people, herself, and the young man.

Also reading

The Calico Cat at the Chibineko Kitchen  by Yuta Takahashi, Feb. 24, 2026, Penguin, NetGalley At this kitchen, you will get to summon anyone from your past who has died. Just order one of the dishes, and visit with that person until the steam from the food disippates. Who wouldn't want to eat here? 

If you could speak one last time to someone you’ve lost, what would you tell them?

Nagi Hayakawa is facing an impossible choice. With only a few years left to live, should she marry the man she loves? Desperate for advice from her departed mother, she reserves a table at the Chibineko Kitchen. When she takes her first bite of the food the resident kitten meows, the air grows hazy, and she embarks on a reunion with the departed that has the potential to restore her love of life. (publisher)

Definitely Maybe Not a Detective by Sarah Fox, Jan. 6, 2026; Bantam, NetGalley

Genre: cozy mystery, romance

Book description: a woman becomes accidentally entangled in a murder investigation (and with a handsome stranger) when her fake detective agency is enlisted to solve a real homicide.

Sounds promising, and with humor too. 

What are you reading, watching, or listening to this week? 

Memes:  The Sunday Post, It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Sunday Salon, and Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday, Book Blogger Hopulishedbyhybby