This week, I’m setting my TBR pile aside and reading three newly published books. One is a debut novel that caught my eye on Amazon First Reads. One is a book that, although it’s just been published, is already being made into a series for Apple TV+ and one is the latest book in a series that I’ve been reading since 2017.
They’re from different genres: a thriller, a mainstream book wrapped in humour and an Urban Fantasy. The only things they seem to have in common are that they’re all written by American women and they’re all new.
‘Broken Bayou‘ (2024) by Jennifer Moorhead
This book is a roll of the dice. It’s a debut novel. It’s a thriller that’s largely written in the first-person present tense, which is great when it works but tiresome when it doesn’t. The setting interests me. Apart from ‘The Pelican Brief’ way back in the distant past, it seems all the books I’ve read set in Louisana involve supernatural creatures. Jennifer Moorhead comes from Louisiana, so I’m hoping she can evoke the spirit of the place.
Here’s what is says on Jennifer Moorhead’s website:
Jennifer is a Louisiana native who has written and produced three indie short films that made Top 20 at the Louisiana Film Prize and were awarded at festivals around the world. She lives with her husband, two doodles, and a head-of-the-house rescue kitty. Her grown daughters are off creating their own life stories. When she’s not writing, she’s walking the winding trails in her backyard or she’s on a tennis court laughing and providing job security for her coach.
‘Margo’s Got Money Troubles‘ (2024) by Rufi Thorpe
I got pulled in by the cover, which is one of the best I’ve seen of this type. As soon as I saw It, I wanted to know more about the woman on the couch. The premise surprised me: a young woman running an OnlyFans account that incorporates advice from her father’s pro wrestling experience. Yeah, that has ‘happily ever after‘ written all over it. What sold me on the book was that Elle Fanning is narrating the audiobook.
After I bought the book, I found out that Rufi Thorpe won a straight-to-series order at Apple TV+, with Elle Fanning playing Margo, supported by Nicole Kidman. The series will be written and run by David E. Kelley for A24. That’s a big achievement for Rufi Thorpe. I hope it means the book is going to be a lot of fun.
Rufi Thorpe received her MFA from the University of Virginia in 2009. She is the author of five novels, The Girls from Corona Del Mar, Dear Fang, With Love, The Knockout Queen, which was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner award and Margo’s Got Money Troubles. She lives in California with her husband and two sons.
‘Winter Lost’ (2024) by Patricia Briggs
I’m hoping that ‘Winter Lost‘ will be a return to normal for the Mercy Thompson series. The last book, ‘Soul Taken‘ sounded like it was going to be an action-packed Urban Fantasy Thriller but turned out to be a cosy Happy Ever After romance with regular interludes of violence and mayhem. I found it very calming to step inside the bubble that Mercy and Adam have created for themselves but one book of that was enough for me. This time I’m hoping for something a little more hard-hitting
Patricia Briggs is an American writer who is best known for the Mercy Thompson series (14 books) and the Alpha and Omega series (six books) which take place in the same universe.
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