Tantalizing Tales — August 2026 — Part Two

Hello, dear readers! August has so far been less brutal for me than the past few months, and will hopefully keep going that way, knock on wood. I hope you’ve all been having a nice month of it, too!

First up of books we have to look forward to is the latest from the author of the stunning Salt Bones, set in California’s Salton Sea. In The Sleeping Sisters, Jennifer Givhan turns her attention instead to the dormant volcanic landscape outside of Albuquerque, New Mexico, to give us another searing tale of women willing to fight for and against their families, risking everything to save the ones they love.

Fortuna Miercoles thought that moving her family to a better life across the Rio Grande meant that she could also leave behind the ancestral curse that’s haunted her bloodline, ever since one of her foremothers crossed the desert with a cactus thorn splitting her throat. But her family’s legacy of violence is proving difficult to evade.

Detective Jeanette Palacio has spent decades trying to find justice for her murdered cousins, as well as for the other dead women whose ghosts continue to haunt her. When a serial killer long thought gone begins to terrorize Albuquerque once more, Jeanette is on the case, even as something in Fortuna begins to awaken. The discovery of a body in Fortuna’s backyard will force the two women’s paths to converge. They’ll have to decide how much they can trust each other in their desire to uncover the truth, while still fiercely protecting what they each value most.

Based on both true events and the urban legend of The Girl With The Green Ribbon, this is a fascinating, feral tale of murder and horror told through Ms Givhan’s poetic Chicana-Indigenous lens.

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Our next selection was a #1 bestseller in its native Brazil, and has now been translated into English by Zoe Alexandra Perry. Raphael Montes’ The Secret Dinner is a macabre, satirical thriller about four young men who discover that making it in the big city might come at a greater cost than any of them had ever imagined.

Dante, Piglet, Miguel and Hugo have been best friends ever since growing up together in rural Brazil. Eager for a taste of city life as college students, they move into an apartment in Copacabana, Rio, making ends meet with part-time jobs. But when their rent skyrockets, the young men are forced to make up the shortfall by any means possible.

What started as a joke soon sees them navigating the strange and treacherous world of the ultrawealthy, as they cater secret dinner parties designed to satiate the darkest fantasies of Rio’s elite. But as the demands increase, the stakes rise, pitting the friends against one another and jeopardizing their relationships, if not their very lives. I’ve been told that this is not a novel for the weak of stomach, so consider yourself forewarned!

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Tess Gerritsen returns with The Shadow Friends, the third installment of her Martini Club series! The seaside village of Purity, Maine, has long been a haven for retired spies like Ingrid Slocum and Maggie Bird, founding members of the cocktail-sipping book club that gives the series its name. The members have had a hand in helping local law enforcement solve bewildering crimes that occasionally involve figures reappearing from their past, so they’re not altogether unready when Ingrid is unexpectedly sucked back into the game.

It starts out innocently enough. A global affairs conference is held right there in Purity. But then a renowned disease expert — and Russian defector — unexpectedly dies. When a waitress at the conference hotel is murdered, Ingrid can’t help but see chilling links to the disastrous mission that almost killed her nearly thirty years ago.

Ingrid’s desire to uncover the truth leads her back to a magnetic former CIA colleague who also happens to be a former lover. He convinces her to come with him to Amsterdam and track down her would-be killer for once and for all. Maggie and Ingrid’s frantic husband Lloyd aren’t far behind, even as a clandestine network of assassins is intent on stopping them. As loyalties are questioned and tested, will the members of the Martini Club be able to capture the culprit and make it home alive?

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If you’re more in the mood for short stories — as I sure and perpetually am! — you have to check out the latest collection from the Crime Writers’ Association, the venerable organization founded over 70 years ago by John Creasey, with the mission to promote and celebrate the genre while supporting writers of every kind of crime fiction and non-fiction. The Flame Tree Press Beyond & Within editions of these books are always so gorgeous, and this foil-covered, sprayed-edged hardback is no different.

Edited by Martin Edwards, Guilty Secrets collects 23 tales revolving around the title theme. The list of commissioned authors includes Martine Bailey, Christine Poulson, Dea Parkin, Martin Edwards himself, C.J. Carver, Kate Ellis, Shawn Reilly Simmons, Phil Lecomber, L.C. Tyler, Glenda Young, Antony Johnston, Simon Dinsdale, Renita D’Silva, Paul Gitsham, Yvonne Eve Walus, Brian Price, Pam Plumb, Nick Guthrie, Margaret Holbrook, Andy Sykes, Cath Staincliffe, Roland Moore and Rachel Amphlett. I’ve loved every collection of CWA’s I’ve ever read, and look forward to being able to give this a full review soon: I just wanted to make sure it was on your radar since it might be a bit since I get a chance to actually read it myself!

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We come full circle to close this column with another tale of feminine rage and survival. Lauren Lee Smith’s The Night Pool is a blood-soaked horror novel set in the American Gold Rush West.

From the publicity materials:

“The American West is no safe haven for women–least of all in the Gold Rush town of Coloma, California. Not for Clara Tice, the blacksmith’s strange and stubborn daughter. Not for Mei, the healer whose calm presence in the makeshift camp for Chinese immigrants contrasts sharply with her brother’s hard-eyed pursuit of riches. And certainly not for Haloke, a Nisenan shaman’s granddaughter whose native village has been devastated by smallpox, hunger, and the relentless greed of Outsiders.

“One night, Clara and Haloke meet at the river’s edge and watch in horror as Clementine Cobbs, the town beauty, is lured across the water. Together they witness something terrible in the Night Pool. Soon after, an unseen attacker descends upon the mining men of Coloma, abandoning heartless bodies one by one. As the gruesome killings in Coloma threaten to incite further violence, Clara, Haloke, and Mei find themselves unlikely allies–without the gangs, guns, or bravado of the men who claim Coloma’s riches. The three women must work together to confront the evil that menaces them from both monsters and men.”

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All of 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!