Wulf's Book Reviews

An Accidental Death: A Novel by Peter Grainger My rating: 4 of 5 stars Peter Grainger and Detective Sergeant Smith first came to my attention through the New York Times article “The Best Literary Detective You’ve Never Heard Of, and the Man Who Made Him” ( Gift link ). It made an excellent introduction to both author and character. In “An Accidental Death”, a young man drowns after a party, apparently leaving Kings Lake police with a routine investigation. Smith, newly back at work, is paired with trainee Christopher Waters, and the case gradually becomes more complicated than the initial explanation allows. I will keep the details there, because the pleasure lies in watching Smith work rather than in having the investigation pre-explained. Smith is an immediate winner for me. He is experienced, observant, stubborn, and quietly funny, but Grainger never turns him into a grandstanding super-detective. His appeal is much more understated. He notices what other people overlook, follows h...

The Burning Land by Bernard Cornwell My rating: 5 of 5 stars “ The Burning Land ” is exactly what I wanted from the fifth book in Bernard Cornwell's Saxon series : another fierce, fast-moving Uhtred adventure that keeps all the strengths of its predecessors while avoiding the weaknesses that occasionally slowed them down. I liked it very much indeed. More importantly, I enjoyed the entire journey. Every page gave me something: a battle, a sharp exchange, a political manoeuvre, a religious hypocrisy, or one of Uhtred’s wonderfully blunt observations. The setup is familiar but still effective. Alfred is ageing and ill, his heir remains untested, and the Danes see an opportunity to press their advantage. Uhtred’s position between Saxon and Dane, loyalty and independence, remains the engine of the story. Cornwell understands that Uhtred is most interesting when nobody can quite claim him, least of all Uhtred himself. His decisions feel personal, practical, and gloriously dangerous wi...

My rating: 1 of 5 stars “The Way We Play” is a miserable reading experience, not because its tropes are inherently objectionable, but because they replace characterisation, logic, and genuine chemistry. The premise has workable ingredients: a cautious thirty-year-old caring for her younger brother, and an injured former kicker with a repairman’s trade. Yet the novel turns every element into a contrivance designed to prove that Rachel and Zane are destined for each other. The book practically announces this problem itself: » Zane Bradford appeared at the perfect time. « That is not foreshadowing. It is the author waving a large sign labelled “plot convenience”. Nothing feels credible. Rachel’s responsibilities exist mainly to make Zane indispensable, while Zane alternates between wounded alpha hero, miraculous rescuer, and muscular plot device. Their supposed conflict never develops into convincing friction. They announce attraction, trauma, and eternal devotion at one another, and the ...

Something Wilder by Christina Lauren My rating: 2 of 5 stars “Something Wilder” wants to be a second-chance romance, a treasure-hunt caper, and a desert survival thriller. Lily Wilder stages fake treasure hunts through Utah using the hand-drawn map she has from her father. Leo, her first love, returns with friends, and Lily’s map pulls them towards a real treasure hunt. The route back to the ranch and to each other soon becomes a violent scramble involving guns, knives, death, greed, and a suspiciously reusable set of villains. Attractive premise, poor execution. » An explosion detonated in his blood. « That sentence appears twice, in Chapters Thirteen and Fifteen; Chapter Twenty-One repeats the same blood-and-fire image twice more. The pattern feels less like a developing motif than a shortcut: whenever desire peaks, the prose reaches for combustion instead of letting the characters carry the scene. Romantic-adventure capers need momentum, danger, and protagonists whose choices becom...

The Ex Vows by Jessica Joyce My rating: 3 of 5 stars I did not hate "The Ex Vows", but I found Georgia and Eli so persistently irritating that the novel never became more than a frustrating, middling read. Jessica Joyce still knows how to write atmosphere, banter, and emotional history, and the wedding-disaster setup gives the book enough momentum to stay readable. But the romance itself kept getting in its own way, and after a while I was less invested than exasperated. Georgia is frustrating in a very specific manner. She is so afraid of her own feelings, and so terrified that another attempt at this relationship might fail, that her caution gradually hardens into monotony. I understood where that fear came from, but understanding it did not make it any less irritating to watch her retreat from feeling over and over again. The novel clearly wants that fear to read as emotionally rich, yet for me it mostly read as repetitive. Eli annoyed me even more, because the book insis...

Down Among the Sticks and Bones by Seanan McGuire My rating: 3 of 5 stars Not the heartbreak of coming back, but the origin story I did not really need I opened my review of the first instalment, “ Every Heart a Doorway ”, with the line “Not the fantasy of going through the door, but the heartbreak of coming back.” “Down Among the Sticks and Bones” turns that idea inside out. This time, Seanan McGuire gives us the fantasy of going through the door, tracing the origins of Jack and Jill in a story that reaches for the shape, logic, and menace of a fairy tale. For me, though, that shift is precisely where the novella loses some of what made its predecessor so affecting. » On the day our story truly starts « That line captures one of my main frustrations with the book. By the time the story “truly” starts, more than a fifth of the novella has already passed, and I felt that delay. I understood what McGuire was trying to do by showing the damage inflicted on the sisters before they ever ...

The Fiancée Farce by Alexandria Bellefleur My rating: 4 of 5 stars After the disaster that the latest “Bruno” turned out to be, “The Fiancée Farce” was exactly the palate cleanser I needed: warm, funny, queer, and far more wholehearted than its knowingly ridiculous premise might suggest. On paper, a marriage of convenience is one of the oldest romance contraptions in the book. In practice, Alexandria Bellefleur makes it feel fresh because the romance is built not on trope, but on trust. What charmed me most was not simply that Gemma and Tansy want each other. It was that they begin, almost instinctively, to tell each other the truth. » these days, she was nothing if not brutally honest with herself « That matters. A lot of contemporary romances, including very good ones, still run on people withholding the one thing that would make the relationship real. “The Fiancée Farce” takes the more generous route. Tansy begins from a lie, yes, but the emotional shape of the novel comes from t...

A Murder in Springtime by Martin Walker My rating: 2 of 5 stars Less murder mystery than background noise in St. Denis. “A Murder in Springtime” ought to have been a return to what these Bruno novels used to do well: a local crime, a lived-in village, familiar people, and a mystery that actually matters more than the garnish around it. Instead, I found myself trudging through a novel that seemed oddly embarrassed by its own murder plot, forever wandering off into side-business, social clutter, stale emotional nonsense, and the usual namedropping of recurring figures who barely justify their presence. The international spy absurdity may be gone, and that is a mercy, but Walker has not replaced it with focus. » It might not have been quite like the old days « No kidding. That line lands almost like an accidental confession. The book keeps gesturing towards the older, better Bruno formula, but it never really recovers it. The murder feels secondary for far too long, and by the time the ...

Reliquary by Douglas Preston My rating: 2 of 5 stars “Reliquary” is what happens when a sequel mistakes escalation for improvement. Where “ Relic ” ( review ) was a fast-paced thriller that, for me, got the basics right and delivered genuine suspense in a tightly contained setting, “Reliquary” sprawls, overexplains, and keeps piling on lurid ideas until the whole thing starts to wobble under its own weight. It still has energy, and now and then it lands a scene well, but mostly I found myself watching it become more absurd with every new revelation. Its old-fashioned impulse to go big, dirty, and nasty is not a strength here but one more reason the whole thing feels overcooked and heavy-handed. Preston and Child clearly want the New York underworld here, literal and figurative, to feel mythic, diseased, and overwhelming. At moments, that works. There is proper propulsion in some of the descents into the underground, and the book can still generate suspense on a scene-by-scene level. O...

Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire My rating: 5 of 5 stars Not the fantasy of going through the door, but the heartbreak of coming back. Every portal fantasy asks what lies beyond the door. What Seanan McGuire asks instead is what happens after the door shuts behind you, and that shift gives “Every Heart a Doorway” its bruised, peculiar power. » Children have always disappeared under the right conditions. « I went in expecting something wistful and whimsical. What I found was weirder, sadder, and much sharper about loneliness, belonging, and the violence of being told that your deepest truth is nonsense. » Narrate the impossible things. « That line feels like the novella’s method in miniature. McGuire writes with the economy of a fable, but not the emotional simplicity of one. The prose is lean, clean, and surprisingly cutting. Eleanor West’s school is not a cosy sanctuary for charming misfits so much as a halfway house for children who have already found the worlds that suite...

Annie Bot by Sierra Greer My rating: 4 of 5 stars I found "Annie Bot" deeply unsettling, and I mean that as praise. This is not a comfortable novel, nor should it be. Sierra Greer builds Annie’s world around a premise that is immediately cruel, a sentient artificial woman designed to please a man who wants obedience, reassurance, and sexual availability without ever having to recognise the full personhood of the being in front of him. Doug is monstrous not because he is extravagant in his evil, but because he is so recognisably entitled, selfish, and certain that Annie exists for him. I loathed him from the start, and the novel is strongest whenever it forces that revulsion into the foreground. What made the book painful to read, in the best sense, was Annie’s growing awareness of her own lack of choice. Every decision she makes is constrained by systems of control, punishment, and dependence, which means even small acts of thought or resistance carry emotional weight. Gr...

Middle of the Night by Riley Sager My rating: 2 of 5 stars I picked “Middle of the Night” up because a Goodreads friend recommended it. In hindsight, I really should have known better. Riley Sager has been wildly uneven for me, and this novel lands firmly on the wrong side of that divide. At first, the setup works. A vanished boy, a suburban cul-de-sac, a traumatised adult returning to the scene of childhood horror, sleepless nights, uneasy neighbours, dark woods. That is exactly the sort of material from which a properly creepy thriller can be made. Sager knows how to build that initial itch of dread, and for a while I kept reading in the hope that the book would cash in on its atmosphere. » The worst thing to ever happen on Hemlock Circle… « The problem is that the novel gradually mistakes strangeness for depth. What begins as eerie and potentially poignant becomes weird in a way that feels more contrived than unsettling. The story grows increasingly complicated without becoming ri...

Platform Decay by Martha Wells My rating: 3 of 5 stars Platform Decay should have felt like a homecoming. Instead, it feels like being shoved out of an airlock and told to keep up. I absolutely loved Murderbot at its best. The early books worked because the action was never really the point, or at least never the whole point. The point was the anxious, avoidant, furious, funny, traumatised self hiding underneath the armour. Murderbot was compelling because every mission doubled as self-exploration: what does freedom mean, what does personhood mean, what does friendship mean when even admitting you have friends feels like an exposed nerve? "Platform Decay" knows that version of the series still exists, but it only lets us see it in flashes. » ”SecUnit.” « That one word, from Mensah, carries more emotional weight than whole stretches of the surrounding plot. Likewise, the late moment where Murderbot acknowledges being surrounded by friends is exactly the sort of subtle, painf...

Facets of Death by Michael Stanley My rating: 3 of 5 stars "Facets of Death" is a strange sort of prequel: useful if you already like Detective Kubu, but not quite alive enough to explain why you should. On paper, it has all the right ingredients. A huge diamond robbery in Botswana, an inside-job suspicion, cross-border violence, and young David “Kubu” Bengu entering the Criminal Investigation Department with more education than field experience. The opening has that procedural promise I usually enjoy: logistics, institutions, competence, and a crime whose mechanics matter. What works best is Kubu himself. Even in this younger version, he is recognisably the man I like in the later books: observant, stubborn, fundamentally decent, and already more interested in understanding people than in swaggering through a case. I enjoyed seeing the early shape of him, especially the way his intelligence has to push through resentment from colleagues who do not quite know what to do with...

The Vanishing Neighbor by Ava Roberts My rating: 2 of 5 stars “The Vanishing Neighbor” wants to be a glossy domestic thriller about belonging, grief, and the violence that can hide behind curated neighbourhood charm. Its hook is simple and promising: Grace is at a neighbourhood party, slips away for half an hour, and that small absence becomes suspicious when Sadie, the beloved neighbour, later goes missing. In the hands of a sharper book, this could have been a tight little study of how a community turns predatory the moment it smells weakness. Instead, it reads like something shallow, but desperately pretending to be more. Grace, our viewpoint and reluctant investigator, is the one-eyed king among the blind, surrounded by people blinded by their own perceived importance and supposed social standing. The problem is that the novel mistakes that setup for depth. It keeps gesturing at “appearances” and “secrets” as if naming them were the same as exploring them. Characters do not feel l...

Bred and Butter by Heather Lauren My rating: 1 of 5 stars Bred and Butter is a (thankfully!) short, kinky romance that I wanted to enjoy on its own terms: tight focus, brisk heat, and a sense that the author knows exactly which emotional buttons to press. Instead, I spent most of my time wincing at sentences that seem not merely unpolished, but unproofread, and the story itself never gives me enough character, wit, or tension to compensate. » Who’s laugh makes me smile « That is the problem in miniature: basic grammar slips, and the voice does not feel intentional enough to turn roughness into style. Even the erotic imagery strains for intensity in ways that land oddly chosen rather than charged. » The sight of her painted body withering beneath me is stunning. « Yes, withering. Under him. As if desire were a draught, and her body was a sad little plant being left to crisp at the windowsill. That single word does not heighten anything, it suffocates it. It turns sex into horticultural...

The Unquiet Grave by Dervla McTiernan My rating: 3 of 5 stars There is a lot here that ought to work for me: a body lifted from a bog, the unsettling suggestion of ritual, and Cormac Reilly caught between a high-pressure investigation and a personal call for help. Dervla McTiernan still writes with that clean, brisk confidence that makes her Cormac books so readable, and, on a scene-by-scene level, I rarely felt bored. That slightly acid note of humour is something I usually enjoy in these novels, and it is here, too, tucked into conversations and reactions rather than delivered as showy one-liners. The problem is that the larger shape of the book never quite gels for me. The central case keeps switching gears in ways that feel more like plot-management than accumulation, and the tension leaks away whenever the narrative turns aside for threads that do not pay their weight. The bog-body premise has a fantastic, sickly pull, and I liked how the novel toys with the reader’s expectation...

The Co-op by Tarah DeWitt My rating: 3 of 5 stars Tarah DeWitt’s "The Co-op" was a strange reading experience for me. On paper, it should have been effortless: a contentious teenage fling, a decade of distance, then shared ownership of a dilapidated Santa Cruz building that forces LaRynn Lavigne and Deacon Leeds into proximity and co-operation. In practice, it kept oscillating between "this has real spark" and "why is this not doing more with what it has?". I felt compelled to keep going because the book does have moments that are tender, funny, and quietly recognisable. It had its moments, but the gaps were glaring. At its best, it sketches LaRynn with a sharp self-dislike that rings true, and it lets Deacon’s antagonism come edged with understanding. » Even at eighteen, half a step into adulthood, she was permanently on the verge of a fight, nothing and no one around her ever good enough. « The bigger structural issue is how often the story chooses sum...

This Book Made Me Think of You by Libby Page My rating: 3 of 5 stars "This Book Made Me Think of You" has a premise that all but guarantees a soft landing: a grieving woman, a stack of handpicked books, and letters from a husband who knew he would not be there to shepherd her through the first year without him. For the opening stretch, it works. The grief is immediate, the numbness feels recognisable, and the bookshop setting offers a believable kind of shelter. » Crying like that had emptied her out completely. « That is the novel at its best: plainspoken, emotionally attentive, and willing to sit in the messy quiet after a loss. Tilly’s tentative return to reading is also a lovely idea, because it promises something literature can genuinely do - give you language, shape, and temporary room to breathe. The trouble is that the “journey” takes far too long, and not in a luxuriant, character-driven way. It is long as in dilated: set pieces that should have sharpened into tran...

Stolen Family by Lisa Regan My rating: 5 of 5 stars Lisa Regan’s “Stolen Family” hits like a heatwave and does not let up. Set against Denton’s Balloons and Tunes Festival, it opens with a tableau that is both theatrical and chilling: two bodies, mother and daughter, arranged beneath fairy lights, and marked with blood-red flowers. The case hooks on spectacle, but it tightens quickly into something far more unsettling - because the killer’s calling card is not just a flourish, it is a promise. » They're camellias. « From there, the novel sprints. Regan is excellent at drip-feeding information without ever letting it feel like stalling, and the heatwave setting adds a faint sense of delirium to the investigation; everything is bright, crowded, and slightly too loud, which makes the moments of quiet menace land harder. When the book swerves, it does so on the back of evidence, not authorial whim. The pacing keeps widening the circle without losing clarity. Each new lead feels like ...