Fiction

Quick Review: THE SWISS AGENT by Anna Pitoniak (Simon & Schuster)

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Amanda Cole manages a new case and a potentially-rogue friend and colleague…

CIA officials Amanda Cole and Kath Frost must work together to untangle a global bribery scheme involving murder, wealthy oligarchs, and high-level Swiss bankers — unless Kath’s mysterious past tears them apart first…

Amanda Cole’s posting as the CIA station chief in Rome is normally too quiet for her liking. But when a chef’s body washes ashore on Capri, and Amanda learns he worked for a Russian oligarch with deep Kremlin ties, her alarm bells start ringing. Even more suspicious is the fact that the oligarch had hosted a private dinner with NATO’s deputy secretary general the night the chef died.

To get answers, Amanda calls on her former partner Kath Frost, a semi-retired CIA legend who is as brilliant as she is unpredictable. As they dig deeper, they discover a web of corruption that stretches from Moscow to Geneva to Washington, eventually uncovering a Kremlin-backed scheme to bribe NATO officials and tip the global balance of power.

But when a suave Swiss banker named Julian Schmidt emerges at the center of the scheme, it becomes clear that Kath shares an intimate history with him and that she may know more than she’s letting on. It turns out that Kath’s past is full of shadows, and the choices she made decades ago, in the gray borderlands of the Soviet collapse, are resurfacing now with devastating consequences. Amanda must uncover the truth about Kath — and whether she can really be trusted at all — before it’s too late.

This is the sequel to The Helsinki Affair, which was Pitoniak’s first spy novel. I’ve been a long-time fan of the author’s work — I started with a very early ARC of her excellent debut, The Futures — and I’ve enjoyed each of her new novels. I have been particularly enjoying this pivot to espionage. While The Swiss Agent isn’t the author’s best, it is nevertheless an engaging read, and I enjoyed it. Continue reading →

Upcoming: THE BREAKUP by Kurt Andersen (Random House)

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This August, Random House are due to publish the new novel from Kurt Andersen: The Breakup. It’s been quite a while since Andersen’s previous novel, True Believers (2013), but readers may also be familiar with his non-fiction — which includes the excellent Fantasyland and Evil Geniuses. In addition to his excellent non-fiction, the author on occasion turns to fiction to explore contemporary life and issues — he did this in the aforementioned True Believers, and also in Turn of the Century (2000). This latest book is about a marriage that is cracking apart during a near-future United States that is undergoing dramatic changes following a second civil war and its own break-up.

Here’s the synopsis:

Natalie and Asher’s marriage has long been marked by fault lines, quiet rifts in how they view their fellow Americans and navigate AI-suffused life in 2045. After twenty-three years together, and after surviving the two years of civil war in the 2030s, Natalie in rural Tennessee (part of the new Free American Republic) and Asher in San Francisco (in the now smaller United States).Natalie and Asher’s relationship mirrors America’s own unraveling — confused, messy, painful, ambivalent, and impossibly intimate.

When Natalie and Asher are brought back into proximity while touring far-flung colleges with their seventeen-year-old, they find themselves on a road trip through a strange, uncertain new American landscape, transformed by both the terrorist uprising and technology, all while dealing with the flux — and resilience — within their own family. They face the questions the nation has reckoned with for a generation: what differences are irreconcilable, and when is something broken worth saving?

Razor-sharp, ambitious, ranging from tragic to comic and brimming with imagination, The Breakup is a sweeping story where the personal and sociopolitical intersect in ways bracingly plausible, keenly insightful, and surprisingly hopeful.

I’m really looking forward to this. (And have also been reminded that I need to catch up on Andersen’s other novels…)

Kurt Andersen’s The Breakup is due to be published by Random House in North America, on August 18th.

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Instagram, BlueSky

Upcoming: MUDLARK by Mary Helen Specht (Ballantine)

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This summer, Ballantine Books will publish Mudlark by Mary Helen Specht (author of Migratory Animals). I’ll admit that it was the cover that first caught my attention (well done, artist/designer — unfortunately, not sure who it is), but the synopsis further piqued my interest. The book is a “dystopian novel about the fall of a troubled rockstar, her long-lost solo album, and her daughter’s epic search for redemption in the ruins of New York City”. Here’s the full synopsis:

Jenny Sweet’s marriage is ending — and with it her band and maybe even her fragile relationship with her thirteen-year-old daughter, Neko. A reluctant wife and mother, Jenny plans a new journey of self-discovery after one more gig at Burning Man. But when Neko disappears amid the chaos of the festival, Jenny fears that everything that mattered to her has been lost. As she races against the dark, Jenny finds herself thrown into the past, and into the heart of a gathering storm.

Now twenty-five, Neko is a mudlark: a trained recruit who braves the rival factions and feral survivalists in the ruins of a crumbling, flooded Manhattan for resources that grow scarcer by the day. When she stumbles upon the master of her mother’s long-lost solo album and later hears that someone else is searching for it — someone who could be her mother, missing for over a decade—she embarks on a perilous adventure with a ragtag crew that will take her from treetop societies to decadent raves to the underground bunker where she will, finally, confront her mother’s fate — and her own.

I’m very much looking forward to reading this. I think it’ll probably appeal to fans of Emily St. John Mandel and other authors of “literary SFF”.

Mary Helen Specht’s Mudlark is due to be published by Ballantine Books in North America, on July 21st.

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Instagram, BlueSky

Quick Review: LAKE EFFECT by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney (Ecco)

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A story of two families navigating scandal

It’s 1977 and an air of restlessness has settled on the residents of Cambridge Road in Rochester, New York, a place long fueled by the booming fortunes of Kodak and Xerox and, for some, the mores of the Catholic church. When Nina Larkin is given a copy of The Joy of Sex by her newly divorced friend, she can no longer dismiss the nearly nonexistent intimacy of her marriage. Just as her oldest child, Clara, is falling in love for the first time, Nina finds herself longing for the forbidden: a midlife awakening. An intoxicating fling with a prominent neighbor brings Nina a freedom she never thought possible—but also risks the reputations of both families and unravels Clara’s world, just as she stands on the threshold of adulthood.

Years later, Clara, now a successful food stylist in New York City, has never been able to move past the long-ago scandal. Drawn back home by the pull of a family wedding and wrestling with her own demons, she makes a pivotal decision that turns her life upside down. Written with Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney’s signature humor and insight, Lake Effect is a wise and probing look at love and desire, mothers and daughters, loss and grief, and what we owe the people we love most. 

I’ve been a fan of Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney’s novels since her debut, The Nest, and she has been a Must Read author ever since. In the author’s excellent third novel, we get another engaging and moving portrait of a complicated family. Absolutely met my high expectations. I really enjoyed this. Continue reading →

Excerpt: STAN ON GUARD by K. R. Wilson (Guernica Editions)

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In March, Guernica Editions are due to publish Stan on Guard by K. R. Wilson: a “tragical-comical-historical novel” and follow-up to Call Me Stan. To mark the upcoming release, we have an excerpt to share with our readers. First, of course, here’s the synopsis:

Ishtanu (call him Stan) is a Hittite immortal keeping his head down in Toronto and recounting some of his experiences. Tróán is an immortal Trojan princess who thought she’d killed Stan in post-war Berlin but who now knows he survived. Yes, technically Stan can die. He has just managed not to for 3200 years.

As their stories braid together toward a final reckoning they take us through, among other things, a subversive retelling of the Odysseus story, the resistance of pagan Lithuania against Papal crusaders, the decline of Friedrich Nietzsche in a German clinic, the arts scene in belle epoque Paris, and the descent of Europe into the horrors of the Great War.

Strap in.

Continue reading →

Excerpt: THE UNRAVELLING OF OU by Hollay Ghadery (Palimpsest Press)

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The Unravelling of Ou is the latest novel from Canadian author Hollay Ghadery. Due out next month, via Palimpsest Press, the publisher has provided CR with an excerpt to share with our readers. First, here’s the synopsis:

Moving on is hard. Even harder when it’s from a make-believe friend — someone, or in this instance, some thing — who’s been your strongest source of support. On what should be one of the happiest days ever, the day her granddaughter is born, Minoo is faced with a terrible choice: make a clean break from her constant companion, a sock puppet named Ecology Paul, or lose her daughter and granddaughter, and maybe all of the people she loves.

On an emotional drive home from the hospital, Ecology Paul shares the story of how Minoo got to this point, recalling Minoo’s early teenage pregnancy in Iran, her exile to Canada, her questions about her sexuality, and how a ragtag sock puppet came to her when she desperately needed to be seen.

Full of imagination, whimsy and heart, The Unravelling of Ou follows Minoo’s struggles to justify the puppet’s existence and untangle herself from her dependence on it, and reconnect with the people she loves.

Continue reading →

Quick Review: LIKE THIS, BUT FUNNIER by Hallie Cantor (Simon & Schuster)

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Interesting premise, but ultimately a strangely familiar story

TV writer Caroline Neumann is thirty-four and mired in professional envy and self-hatred. Even Harry, her usually supportive therapist husband, thinks it’s time for her to press pause on her career ambitions and focus on getting pregnant, despite Caroline’s serious ambivalence about having children.

When Caroline accidentally stumbles on Harry’s patient session notes and offhandedly mentions what she finds in a meeting with a producer, the momentum of Hollywood takes over. Before she knows it — and unbeknownst to Harry — Caroline finds herself pitching a TV show about the deepest, darkest secrets of her husband’s favorite patient, a woman known to Caroline only as the Teacher.

Amid the indignities of the Hollywood development process, Caroline must balance her burning desire for professional validation against her own morality and the health of her marriage. And when Caroline forms a real-life relationship with Teacher herself, the lines between art and life begin to blur further, shaking up Caroline’s understanding of what it means to be the “likeable female protagonist” of her own life.

One of my most-anticipated novels of the year (yes, I’m a big fan of Hollywood-related books), and this one had a very promising premise. It’s well-written, and the characters are believable and mostly well-composed. However, most of the commentary about and critique of Hollywood felt familiar, which made this a less-satisfying read than hoped. Continue reading →

Quick Review: TELEVISION by Lauren Rothery (Ecco)

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An interesting look at a Hollywood and relationships, told with an unusual premise

Some people you meet them and you imagine this movie together. The two of you make a kind of movie and then it’s over. Other people, what you imagine isn’t a movie, because it keeps going. It’s television… If you can’t see how romantic television is, you’re blind.

An aging, A-list movie star lotteries off the entirety of his mega-million blockbuster salary to a member of the general viewing public before taking up with a much younger model. His non-famous best friend (and often lover) looks on impassively, while recollecting their twenty-odd years of unlikely connection. And an aspiring filmmaker, unknown to them both, labors over a script about best friends and lovers while longing for the financial freedom to make great art.

Told in their alternating, intricately linked perspectives, Television is a funny, philosophically astute novel about phenomenal luck, whether windfall or chance encounter. Like Joan Didion’s classic Play It as It Lays, but speaking to a since irrevocably changed Hollywood, it portrays a culture in crisis and the disparities in wealth, beauty, talent, gender, and youth at the heart of contemporary American life. In this glittering but strange new world, lit up by social media and streaming services — what, if not love, can be counted in your favor?

Lauren Rothery’s Television was one of my most-anticipated novels of 2025, so I was very pleased when I received a DRC — it promised (and mostly delivered) an interesting look at a long-time friendship in Hollywood, altered but not damaged by diverging paths and differing levels of success. While I enjoyed the novel, there were some strange choices made. Continue reading →

Upcoming: EXIT PARTY by Emily St. John Mandel (Knopf/Picador)

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The covers for Exit Party, the highly-anticipated next novel by Emily St. John Mandel, were unveiled today by Knopf (North American publisher) and Picador (UK publisher). I spotted a listing for the book a few days ago in one of Knopf’s catalogues, and it immediately shot to the top of my Most Anticipated list (metaphorically — there isn’s an actual list). It’s not out until September, which feels very far away. Here’s the synopsis:

A novel of doubles, shadow worlds, and fractured timelines as a man disappears from a glittering Los Angeles party, and a woman — a gunrunner, an art collector, an operative of the State — searches for answers.

Los Angeles, 2031: The first spring after the collapse of the United States, peacekeeping troops withdraw from the city, the Jacaranda trees blossom, and the curfew is finally lifted. Ari Waker and her roommate pass the gauntlet of bomb-sniffing dogs, the shanty towns, and the Red Cross tents as they walk across Silverlake to a party. The mood is ecstatic inside the apartment, people drink and dance, a woman wears a silver dress, pleated like tinfoil. And then: A shift. A bewildered twin, an uncanny doppelganger stumbles through the crowd and out into the night, and Kareem, the party’s host, vanishes into thin air.

As Ari Waker unravels the mystery of this inexplicable night, Emily St. John Mandel unfurls a story that takes us from a future America splintered by civil war to the seaside cliffs of Greece where weapons dealers hide in an elegant resort, and from the domed city of Paris to a colony on the moon. An unforgettable literary feat, Exit Party is a novel about the price of safety, the perils of the surveillance state, a requiem for a world not unlike our own, and a breathtaking story of resilience in the face of cataclysmic change.

I’ve been a fan of the author’s ever since I read a (very) early ARC of Station Eleven, and have been an eager reader of every new novel that’s come out. The author’s previous novel, 2022’s Sea of Tranquility, was especially great so I’d recommend you give that a read as well, if you haven’t already.

Emily St. John Mandel’s Exit Party is due to be published by Knopf in North America (September 15th) and Picador in the UK (September 17th).

Also on CR: Reviews of Station Eleven, Last Night in Montreal, and Sea of Tranquility

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Instagram, BlueSky

Upcoming: WE WILL SEE YOU BLEED by Ron Currie (G.P. Putnam’s Sons)

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The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne was the first novel by Ron Currie that I read, and it was an excellent introduction to his work: it was a gripping mystery overlying sharp and empathetic social commentary, populated by engaging and three-dimensional characters. I was therefore pleasantly surprised to learn that the author is returning to the setting, Little Canada, in his next novel: We Will See You Bleed, due out next summer. Definitely one of my now-most-anticipated novels of 2026. Here’s the synopsis:

It’s late summer 1984, and Babs Dionne’s hometown of Waterville, Maine is on the verge of collapse. A strike at the paper mill has dragged on for a year, pitting neighbor against neighbor, leaving everyone broke and exhausted. 

As head of the union local, Babs has presided over Little Canada’s decline. She’s sworn off violence since killing a man when she was a teenager, and has stuck to this vow even as it’s become clear that only violence can save their community. When Babs’ best friend Rita returns home after five years away, she is shocked by the state of things. And as the strike comes to a head, Rita notices something else: the men may be broken, but the women are furious, ready to do whatever necessary to take back Little Canada. 

They just need Babs to be the fearless woman who emerged from the woods fifteen years ago, drenched in blood. They need Babs to face what she already knows: that the only way to fix things is to assume control. Completely. Mercilessly.

Ron Currie’s We Will See You Bleed is due to be published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons in North America, on July 7th, 2026. (No UK publisher at the time of writing, but the first book was published by Atlantic Books.)

Also on CR: Review of The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads