Book Review: Once and Again by Rebecca Serle
🐾🐾🐾🐾 — Paradise isn’t peaceful when the wrong guests move in.
Review Date: February 22, 2026 | Release Date: March 10, 2026
Rebecca Serle has a gift for asking impossible questions and then answering them in the most human way possible. Once and Again feels intimate and ocean-salted, like standing barefoot on the Malibu shore and realizing the tide doesn’t just move forward—it pulls back, too.
The Novak women are born with a single, astonishing power: once in their lives, they can turn back time and redo one moment. Not a lifetime. Not a series of regrets. Just one choice. And that restraint is what makes this story ache.
Lauren Novak has grown up in the shadow of that gift. Her mother, Marcella, used her redo to save Lauren’s father from a fatal accident. The consequence? A lifetime of anxiety over what can’t be undone. Meanwhile, Lauren’s grandmother Sylvia carries her spent power with glamour and mystery, proof that regret and resilience can coexist. Lauren lives between these two women—one ruled by fear, one by freedom—waiting for her own inevitable catastrophe.
When Lauren returns to Broad Beach Road in Malibu with her husband, she thinks she’s coming home to something stable. Surf sessions with her dad. Long, golden evenings by the water. A chance to mend the quiet fracture between her and her mother. What she doesn’t expect is Stone—the boy next door, her first love, the heartbreak she never quite metabolized—walking back into her life.
This is not a loud, dramatic love triangle. It’s quieter than that. More dangerous. Serle writes longing like it’s muscle memory. The pull toward Stone isn’t about fireworks—it’s about recognition. About who Lauren was before she made certain “forever” decisions. And that’s where the novel shines: it isn’t asking who Lauren loves more. It’s asking who she is when she loves.
The magic element is subtle, almost secondary to the emotional stakes. The power to redo one moment hangs over every page like an approaching storm. Lauren begins to question whether the most devastating mistakes are the ones we make—or the ones we don’t dare to make. The tension doesn’t come from spectacle; it comes from choice.
Serle’s Malibu setting is luminous. The waves, the salt air, the soft ache of summer nostalgia—it all feels cinematic without overpowering the intimacy of the family dynamics. At its heart, this is a story about mothers and daughters. About inheritance that isn’t just genetic, but emotional. About the stories women tell themselves to survive.
If In Five Years was about fate, Once and Again is about agency. About the terrifying beauty of knowing you only get one chance to rewrite something—and choosing whether you should.
It’s wistful. It’s reflective. It’s the kind of book that makes you stare at the ocean and think about the person you might have been.
I had the opportunity to read this book ahead of publication, and these are my honest thoughts.
Book Review: Strangers in the Villa by Robyn Harding
🐾🐾🐾🐾 — Paradise isn’t peaceful when the wrong guests move in.
Review Date: February 22, 2026 | Release Date: March 3, 2026
There’s something especially unsettling about a thriller set somewhere breathtakingly beautiful. In Strangers in the Villa, Robyn Harding masterfully weaponizes sunshine, sea views, and the illusion of escape.
Sydney and Curtis Lowe’s marriage is already splintering when the novel opens. Curtis’s “meaningless” affair hangs between them like humidity in the Spanish heat—thick, suffocating, impossible to ignore. His solution? A secluded hilltop villa on Spain’s Costa Brava, far from New York and the humiliation of betrayal. The plan is simple: renovate the house, reconnect, rebuild.
But isolation doesn’t heal fractures. It magnifies them.
When two young Australian travelers show up at their door—charming, attractive, seemingly vulnerable—Sydney sees opportunity: company, distraction, and desperately needed help with the renovations. Curtis sees something else entirely. And that’s when the unease begins to coil.
Harding excels at psychological slow burns. The tension here doesn’t explode; it simmers. Every shared meal feels loaded. Every glance holds subtext. The villa, perched high above the Mediterranean, becomes less of a sanctuary and more of a gilded cage. The longer the visitors stay, the more the boundaries blur—between hosts and guests, loyalty and desire, victim and manipulator.
What makes this thriller hit hard is its emotional realism. The marriage feels painfully authentic—raw conversations, passive-aggressive barbs, moments of tenderness that make you almost believe reconciliation is possible. Sydney is complex: wounded yet observant, lonely yet calculating. You’re never entirely sure who holds the power at any given moment—and that shifting dynamic keeps the pages turning.
Harding also taps into a deliciously modern fear: inviting strangers into your life under the guise of generosity. Hospitality becomes vulnerability. Kindness becomes leverage. And when secrets begin surfacing, it’s clear that not everyone arrived at the villa by accident.
By the final act, the slow burn ignites into something far more dangerous. Alliances fracture. Truths surface. And the idyllic setting becomes the backdrop for survival.
Moody, tense, and razor-sharp, Strangers in the Villa proves that sometimes the most dangerous thing isn’t isolation—it’s who you let inside.
I had the opportunity to read this book ahead of publication, and these are my honest thoughts.
Book Review: The Only One Who Knows by Lisa Matlin
🐾🐾🐾🐾 — Saltwater secrets. Sharp teeth. And a past that refuses to stay buried.
Review Date: February 22, 2026 | Release Date: March 3, 2026
There is something uniquely terrifying about water you can’t see through.
The Only One Who Knows drops us into Kangaroo Bay, a gritty coastal town where secrets sink deeper than the ocean floor—and where something with teeth is circling. Minnow Greenwood has spent years crafting a polished, controlled persona as a morning show co-host. But when her on-air unraveling goes viral, she retreats to the last place she ever wanted to return: home.
And home is not forgiving.
Matlin does an exceptional job blending psychological suspense with survival horror. The shark attacks are visceral and cinematic—you can feel the churn of the tide, the sudden stillness before violence strikes. But the true menace isn’t just in the water. It’s in the town’s collective silence. In the missing people no one talks about. In the history Minnow has spent years trying to outrun.
Minnow is not a pristine heroine. She’s messy, defensive, guarded. Her shame and ambition clash constantly, and her “public meltdown” becomes more than a career scandal—it’s the crack in a carefully constructed identity. Watching her navigate both professional ruin and personal reckoning gives the novel emotional weight beyond the thriller elements.
The dynamic with her former colleague adds tension without softening the stakes. Their reluctant partnership feels charged—not romantic-first, but wary, layered, and built on half-truths. Trust is fragile here. Everyone is hiding something.
What elevates this beyond a shark-attack thriller is the theme of buried trauma—both personal and communal. The ocean becomes metaphor as much as menace: what’s hidden, what resurfaces, what devours you when you refuse to confront it.
The pacing tightens beautifully in the final act. Every chapter feels like the tide pulling back before a massive wave. And when the truth finally crests, it lands with emotional impact rather than shock-for-shock’s-sake.
This is suspense with salt in its wounds. Atmospheric, sharp, and deeply unsettling.
I had the opportunity to read this book ahead of publication, and these are my honest thoughts.
Book Review: Missing Sister by Joshilyn
🐾🐾🐾🐾 — A gripping and emotionally layered thriller that explores the devastating bond between sisters and the dangerous line between justice and revenge.
Review Date: February 22, 2026 | Release Date: March 3, 2026
There are thrillers that rely on shock. And then there are thrillers that unsettle you slowly, pressing on the tenderest parts of love and loyalty until you’re not sure what justice even means anymore. Missing Sister is firmly in the second camp—and it absolutely wrecked me in the best way.
Penny and Nix Albright were the kind of twins who didn’t just share a birthday—they shared a heartbeat. When Nix dies shortly after college, Penny is left with grief and a voicemail that feels like both a clue and a curse. Five years later, Penny channels that grief into becoming a cop, determined to live out Nix’s dream of protecting others. But when one of the men she’s long blamed for her sister’s death turns up murdered—and the killer whispers something cryptic about sisters before vanishing—the past explodes back into her present.
What makes this story hit so hard is how personal it feels. This isn’t just about catching a murderer. It’s about survivor’s guilt. It’s about the weight of memory. It’s about what happens when revenge disguises itself as righteousness.
Penny is a fascinating protagonist—smart but raw, determined yet haunted. The tension builds not just from the cat-and-mouse chase, but from the growing realization that the truth might be uglier than she imagined. Every time I thought I understood the dynamic between the sisters—between the past and present—another layer peeled back.
And that ending? The kind that makes you stare at the wall for a minute before you can even form a coherent thought.
This is a twisty, emotionally charged thriller that asks a devastating question:
If someone avenges your sister… does that make them a monster—or an ally?
Dark, intimate, and razor-sharp.
Thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.
Book Review: I Did Not Kill My Husband by Linda Keir
🐾🐾🐾🐾 — A fast, media-savvy thriller that asks: who controls the narrative when everyone is watching?
Review Date: February 22, 2026 | Release Date: March 3, 2026
If you love thrillers that blend influencer culture, media frenzy, and a desperate fight for survival, I Did Not Kill My Husband is the kind of book you’ll devour in one breathless sitting.
Cara Campbell has built her life—and her brand—on luxury. Designer handbags, cosmetic procedures, curated “perfect” moments with her wealthy plastic surgeon husband, Karl. She’s fully aware that the internet sees her as a gold digger. But when Karl is found dead and Cara is convicted of his murder, the narrative flips from aspirational to incriminating overnight. Her carefully filtered life becomes Exhibit A.
The brilliance of this novel lies in its dual tension. On one side, we have the courtroom verdict and public condemnation—trial by jury and trial by TikTok. On the other, we have a literal survival story unfolding in the Sierra Nevada mountains after a catastrophic prison transport crash gives Cara a slim chance at freedom.
The wilderness arc is gripping and visceral. Stripped of glam squads, sponsorships, and Wi-Fi, Cara is forced to confront who she is without her followers. The cracked phone she finds becomes both lifeline and symbol—connection and exposure intertwined. The pacing is relentless, but what surprised me most was the emotional depth. Beneath the headline-ready scandal, this is a story about identity, reinvention, and the terrifying question: What if everyone believes the worst about you?
Sheriff Jordan Burke adds another compelling layer. His pursuit isn’t just about justice—it’s about politics, reputation, and reelection. The media circus, podcasters, armchair detectives, and online “murderinos” create a sharp commentary on our obsession with true crime and instant judgment.
The twists land with impact, but the real power of this story is how it dismantles perception. Cara may not be innocent of vanity, ambition, or carefully crafting her narrative—but murder? That’s another story entirely.
Fast-paced, timely, and razor-sharp, this thriller asks: when the whole world is watching, who gets to control the truth?
Thanks to NetGalley and Blackstone Publishing for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.
