Tantalizing Tales — March 2026 — Part Two

Welcome to the second week of March, where my part of the world experienced all the temperate seasons over the course of two entire days. I’m used to being tired all the time (I do, as my friends constantly remind me, A Lot) but being sick on top of everything has really poleaxed me these last two cold months. Hopefully, this latest in a series of illnesses is the last, and I can enjoy my upcoming Aidil Fitri celebrations in the best of health.

And in the meantime, we have so many wonderful books to read! I just received Natalie Haynes’ No Friend To This House and I am Obsessed. Perhaps not quite as obsessed as our main character, the legendary Medea, is with vengeance, but certainly in the vicinity, as Ms Haynes explores and unpacks the myth of that monstrous mother in her latest exciting novel.

Much as with the original tales, the Medea of this book is a princess of Colchis and renowned healer. She agrees to help the hero Jason in his quest for the Golden Fleece that her father guards. In exchange for her aid, Jason promises to marry her and take her away with him once the Fleece is won. After a series of deadly adventures, they escape Colchis with the Fleece, and eventually settle in Corinth, married and in love.

Ten years and several children later, Jason announces that he has the chance to move up in the world by setting aside Medea and their children, and marrying Glauke, the princess of Corinth, instead. Unwilling to accept this fate, Medea plots to bring as much pain to Jason as he has to her. Death ensues.

I’m so excited to see what Ms Haynes will do with this material. She’s got a terrific reputation for reworking classical myths for modern audiences, and I can’t wait to read her interpretation of one of the most feminist and audacious legends of the Ancient Greeks.

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For something a little more tame but just as deeply felt, check out Masateru Konishi’s My Grandfather, The Master Detective, translated into English by Louise Heal Kawai.

Kaede is a twenty-seven year-old schoolteacher with a love of classic crime novels and a penchant for stumbling across mysteries. Finding these conundrums is one thing: solving them, however, is quite another. For that latter endeavor, she needs the help of her brilliant and beloved grandfather, whose keen intellect shares space in his brain with Lewy Body Dementia, an illness that causes him to experience hallucinations so vivid that he often can’t differentiate them from reality.

Together, Kaede and her grandfather weave “stories” that help them solve impossible locked room murders and mysterious disappearances reminiscent of the detective stories they both admire. But a shadow from Kaede’s past is slowly drawing closer to her…

Inspired by the author’s own experience caring for his dementia-stricken father, this mystery novel is both an homage to the Golden Age of mysteries and a testament to living with dignity and joy even in the face of cognitive decline. An award-winner in Japan, this bestseller has already sold over 200,000 copies in its original language.

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Family ties of a different kind are the subject of Joanna Margaret’s The Daughters, as a grieving archivist explores the history of a small New York town still haunted by the shadows of its past.

Genevieve Tompkins has abandoned her PhD and come to the faded spa town of Wilton Springs following the deaths of both her father and her ex-fiance. The prominent Wilton family, descended from the town founders and now proprietors of a pharmaceutical business, have hired her to catalog their records.

The further she goes through their papers, however, the more she learns about their history of tragedy. Three hundred years ago, Wilton Springs was the site of a particularly brutal witch trial which, curiously, someone has tried to scrub entirely from the town’s official history. Could this have something to do with the rash of weird disappearances and mysterious deaths of women currently plaguing the town? As Genevieve explores this connection, she becomes caught up in the throes of an unsettling conspiracy, even as she begins to fear that she may be the next woman to go missing.

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The last of our upcoming books is of especial interest to me. Samantha Chong’s Young Adult contemporary fantasy debut Prodigal Tiger is an action-packed celebration of Malaysian magic and folklore, and what it feels like to come home after being part of the diaspora.

Caroline Chua has lived the past five years in exile, at a magical academy in New York City where her powers can’t be used to hurt the people she loves. But when she’s abruptly summoned home to Penang, she discovers that her beloved older brother Aaron — the next in line to become Protector Of The Island — has disappeared. Both the Council and the rest of her family want her to stay home and out of trouble, but stubborn, self-sufficient Caroline knows that if she has any chance of finding and rescuing her brother, she has to take it.

Her resolve to go solo in this endeavor is challenged when she learns that Aaron has been kidnapped by vengeful ghosts. Reluctantly, she must turn to the very friends she ran away from — including her first love JJ — to help get her brother safely home. She’ll have to ask herself, however, what home truly means for her now. Very little has felt the same since she’s returned, and she doesn’t know if the change is due more to herself or to the island, as she and her friends race against time to save not only Aaron, but all of Penang.

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Looking back now at 2025 titles I really wish I’d had more time to read, we have first H Lee Justine’s queer horror debut You Watched In Silence.

From the publicity materials:

“After a tragic death rocks her fandom, popular family vlogger Bella Greene retreats to the secluded Salmon Island off the coast of Washington, hoping to ride out the worst of the scandal and plan her comeback. Knowing there are few people she can really trust, Bella reaches out to her most loyal fans seeking a nanny for the influencer’s seven-year-old twins. Caitlyn, whose world has recently been upended by her ex-best friend, is glad for the opportunity to start fresh working for a woman she’s idolized for years.

“When Caitlyn arrives on the island, she quickly settles into life with Bella and the family, forming a strong bond with the twins and even a romantic connection to the family’s chef, Hannah. It feels perfect…until she catches a glimpse of a mysterious girl in the house that nobody else can see. Caitlyn quickly descends into constant terror, unable to tell if she is losing her mind or being haunted by a past she’d rather forget. Worse, terrifying signs begin to appear on Salmon Island—mysterious pentagrams, animal sacrifices, and scrawled threats right in Bella’s backyard. Has one of Bella’s disgruntled followers found her hideaway to seek justice, or could the threat be closer to home?”

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Finally we have an extremely topical thriller in Holly Seddon’s latest novel 59 Minutes. That title time span corresponds precisely with the fifty-nine minutes left before the impact of a nuclear missile in the south of England, as three different women in three different cities navigate this unthinkable threat to their lives and the lives of those they love.

Carrie is a young mother desperately trying to get to her daughter before the bomb hits. Frankie is newly pregnant and on a romantic vacation when things take a terrifying turn. And a mysterious older woman will stop at nothing to protect her teenage daughter Bunny. Will they all be able to reunite with their loved ones and get to safety before time runs out?

One of my best friends and I were just talking about this subject, having for some reason meandered into a discussion of nuclear fiction of the 20th century. It’s terrible that a threat that subsided after the end of the Cold War has now come roaring back to the forefront of our lives. In addition to being ill and fatigued, I’m pretty sick and tired of our current political climate as well.

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All these books are either available or available for pre-order now, so let me know if you’re able to get to them before I do, dear readers! I’d love to hear your opinions, and see if that will spur me to push any of them higher up the mountain range that is my To Be Read pile.

And, as always, you can check out the list of my favorite books in my Bookshop storefront linked below!