Literary fiction! Horror! Queer romance! Historical fiction! Non-fiction! Thrillers! Brain candy books about rich moms! Last year, I read it all. I’m excited to share my top 25 books of 2025 with you!

1. In Memoriam by Alice Winn

I could write an essay on why this book was my best of the year, but I’ll spare you. It means so much to me. It is heartbreakingly beautiful, and I couldn’t recommend it more.

2. The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon

3. Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid

   

4. All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker

   

5. Hidden Pictures by Jason Rekulak

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6. Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall - historical fiction! romance! loss! my heart was not ready!

7. Mean Moms by Emma Rosenblum - like The Real Housewives? read this.

8. Pilgrim’s Wilderness: A True Story of Faith and Madness on the Alaska Frontier by Tom Kizzia - true crime. alaska. christian extremists. a jack nicholson cameo. (yes, I’m serious.)

9. The Three Lives of Cate Kay by Kate Fagan - queer! hollywood! reinvention!

10. The River we Remember by William Kent Kreuger - moody, murder, family.

11. All We Were Promised by Ashton Lattimore - pre-civil war philly! abolitionist girlies!

12. What Kind of Paradise by Janelle Brown - computers are scary! living in the woods isnt the answer!

13. The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah - more alaska. coming of age. tragedy. KH at her best.

14. You Deserve to Know by Angie Blum Thompson - my favorite domestic thriller of the year. so smart

15. First Time Caller by B.K. Borison - the cutest romance! funny! characters that feel real!

16. A Well Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy by Tia Levings - a true story about escaping christian extremism

17. One of Us is Dead by Jeneva Rose - southern! funny! murder mystery!

18. Play Nice by Rachel Harrison - the main characters: an influencer and a haunted house

19. The Mother Next Door: Medicine, Deception, and Munchausen by Proxy by Andrea Dunlop and Mike Weber - true stories about MBP set in Dallas-Fort Worth

20. A Home for the Holidays by Taylor Hahn - cute and festive (save this for later!)

21. Too Old for This by Samantha Downing - old lady serial killer? say less

22. Women and Children First by Alina Grabowski - atmospheric, tragedy in a coastal town, all about the ladies

23. Everyone is Lying to You by Jo Piazza - trad wives thriller? yes!

24. The Mistletoe Mystery by Nita Prose - a fun wintery read!

25. Heartwood by Amity Gaige - One day I want to thru hike the AT and this took me right back there!

PS: Links are affiliate with Bookshop.org (:

Two girls, two countries. Together, we look up at the dark sky. How beautiful is it to know, despite where we are and where we came from, that still, we see the same stars. If we see any at all.

Below, we share our thoughts on home, on belonging, and what the night sky can teach us. <3

Kayleigh Thorpe. London, UK. 51.5072° N, 0.1276° W

I stopped last night. I tilted my head back and tried to count the stars.

I got to 0 before I gave up.

There was heavy cloud cover and I couldn’t see the moon anyways.

Not that it would have made a difference.

In London, the only lights in the night sky are planes.

I miss them. I grew up in a place where the stars gave more light then the moon did. They turned orange when smoke hung in the air from where the bush burned.

I remember holidays, before we moved on campsites near the beach. Too shy to smoke or drink like the others but still by the fire. I can still hear it, sounds of laughter, wood popping and the soft crashing of waves on the sand. The perfect soundscape for staring at the stars feeling giddy due to getting to hang out with the older teenagers by the beach after the sun went down.

Decembers in London were different. White Ace (god I fucking hate White Ace) on a park bench in a puffa jacket (don’t ask was totally a phase grew out of it really fucking quickly) shivering with freezing hands as we shared cigarettes. No stars, just the lights of planes if I was lucky if not just more clouds. Laughter for sure, but. British laughter is different, more angry, more defensive. No fire. No waves. No stars, just the sounds of cars and dogs going crazy for no reason.

I miss the stars.

I have found them, outside of London. Barrow in Furness in summer, Durdle’s Door on the Jurassic Coast.

Portobello Beach Edinburgh, should have had stars. I was there, living in Leith for a few months. It was one of the three days of summer (not even fucking lying) no wind, the water was like glass. I stayed there all day, got sun burned apparently that’s a thing in Scotland. But as the sun went down and everything cooled, I laid on the sand eyes drifting skywards and no. Not quite. Not that night. Would have made it perfect.

The last time that I stared at the sky and it felt close to home was the furthest I’d been to London in some time. It was Janów Lubelski in Poland. I was there for Christmas an invitation I wasn’t allowed to turned down, tickets were thrust into my hands by a close friend. I took some time to escape from sitting politely, smiling vapidly as everyone spoke Polish around me and went for a walk in the frozen farmland.

As I was heading back as the light faded my feet crunching on the snow beneath me I looked at the sky and was rewarded with a deep black purple with a star scape I hadn’t seen for years.

So far from home.

Shannon Black-Youel. Texas, USA. 32.7767° N, 96.7970° W.

There’s a song about the Texas stars, I don’t know if you’ve heard it.

It’s sung at baseball games and other large gatherings here as a state anthem of sorts. It’s full of twangy, country refrains and simple rhymes and a lot of clapping.

As the song goes, the stars at night, are big and bright, deep in the heart of Texas. (I’ll spare you the clapping that comes next.)

But right now, I look up at the rich navy sky, I can’t say I agree. The stars aren’t really all that big here after all.

They’re there, and they glimmer. But they’re swallowed by the vastness that surrounds them. The sky, it shrinks the stars here to specs.

I have always felt the sky is bigger in Texas than anywhere else. I’m not sure if it’s because the cedar trees here are the size of bushes or if it’s the proximity to sea level, but it’s as though the sky has room to spare. The stars have more room to play.

Maybe it’s just that simple: perhaps the sky is just further away. It wants to keep its distance. Lord knows I’ve wanted to keep my distance from Texas, too.

I used to look up at this sky and wish it were so many others. My heart would ache to see these stars shine from a different angle, from another shore. To enjoy them at the beginning of their journey through each timezone. To flip the sky on its head and view them from another hemisphere.

Would the stars be different from England? From Australia? Surely, the answer is yes.

But I don’t know if I had paid enough attention the night sky above me when I stood in these places I now miss so deeply. Still, if I stood there now, I imagine I would feel the difference. That if I moved myself and my life to those places, the stars would speak to me and tell me I am home.

But now in the moment, I breathe the Texas air. And as I gaze into the dark Dallas night, I feel grateful. Grateful for the people I love who rest beneath it. For the balcony I stand on, and my ability to gaze upwards. For the warm breeze that still grazes my cheeks in mid-December.

For these Texas stars, I can be grateful.

And maybe that’s enough.

A calving glacier is a sight to behold, a massive release of energy. It is the end of holding on. For weeks before, the glacier creeks and moans in anticipation; growing pains of colossal magnitude. The terminus of a thousand year journey. What’s left after the fall is fresh, unscathed. A new glacial wall. Its creation is the product of pain and pressure, snow compacted over generations into brilliant turquoise ice.

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I’ve been lucky to see glaciers calve. Once, a curtain of ice, so big it could cover a football field, fell before my eyes. No matter the size, the phenomenon is incredible. The ice dislodges, and in a sudden exhale, it breaks from the glacier. Sometimes the falling piece is so large, it floats for a few heartbeats in midair, as though neither the wall nor the newly disembodied ice know what to do next. But soon it remembers. As the ice falls from the sky, it groans, a primal noise that shakes the air so fiercely you feel the reverberation in your chest.

Cut free, the fallen ice sends waves through the waters below. They are enveloped in their own liquid form, emerging from the water reborn as icebergs. Then, as if to formalize the separation, much of the fallen ice begins to float away. It remains beautiful, from a distance. And it will grow in beauty as it drifts further still.

I imagine the glacier mourns its loss, the memories, the pride, the history it had in the lost ice. The ice that now floats away, a berg in the tidewater. But I also believe it must feel fresh, lighter. Like it can finally unclench its jaw. Like after years of ache, it can move forward. A fresh new layer of blue is ready and waiting to glitter in the sun.

I feel myself creaking these days. I’m sensing it is time to shake something that has long been a part of me, intrinsic. Something welded into my being through pain and dedication. My eagerness to change scrapes against my desire to stay the same. And I feel change winning. For so long I let myself believe my only choice was to endure. People often comment on by my ability to persevere, to press on when things get hard or complicated or painful. It’s not quite pride that keeps me hanging on, more a fear of quitting, and a hope that things could be better again. But perhaps, through this mindset, what I’ve really done is punish myself. I don’t have to be beholden to one facet of my life simply because it was right for me at one time. I allowed to grow and move and shift. I allowed to change.

Up until last winter, I was a vegetarian for about ten years. I care about the environment and love animals so it was an easy shift to make after watching Forks over Knives with a friend in my college dorm. I really thought I would be a vegetarian forever. It wasn’t a burden, I brought my own food to parties, I learned how to cook all kinds of greens, and I genuinely love tofu. I had found all the hacks—how to get all the protein, vitamins, and minerals I needed from just plants. Or so I thought. I learned I had a blood condition that was causing me to have low iron, and the choice was to take a handful of iron pills each morning or to start introducing meat into my diet. Honestly, I knew I could never keep up with the pills, so I chose the meat. My husband filmed me having my first bite of steak in ten years. And it was delicious. I don’t have a single regret from that time and still adore vegetarian cuisine. I still love that version of me, but I’m glad I let her go. I’m glad I am taking care of myself.

Right now, for reasons unrelated to vegetables or meat, I’m aching for change again. To shed a part of me that no longer aligns with my path. I am desperate to free myself of the exhaustion and grief in my chest, to let go of a burden I no longer need to carry. I think often of how I show loyalty to people I love. I’m realizing letting go is a way to show loyalty to myself. And I feel like soon, I will find my exhale. I can see my energy moving towards it, my heart soaking up the permission to reinvent this part of me.

But I can’t shake the fear of how this calving will change the way I am perceived. I feel as though I’m removing a name tag the outside world uses to identify me. Without it, will I still be viewed as compassionate, kind, understanding? I like to hope the answer is yes. Just because I retire a label does not mean I shake the parts of me that remain wholly and utterly true. I often forget that to remove one label brings with it the opportunity to adorn another. One that I can imagine placing on my chest with pride, with ease.

And so, I creak. I anticipate. I breathe. I remind myself, and I remind you, that it’s okay to shed what no longer feels true. No matter how hard we worked for it. No matter the sacrifice, the tears, the pride, or the love. Even, and especially, the parts that once felt so integral to our identity that to remove them feels like reinvention. They can be shed, too. We owe it to ourselves to make choices that align with our values, our dreams, and our hearts. And sometimes this means saying goodbye to what once meant everything.

These parts of us can still be beautiful. They fall because we don’t need them anymore, but as they float away, they remain gorgeous. They are still impressive and vast and an integral part of our story. But now, we can let the weight go. We can marvel in the way things moulded us, we can hold the pride and the hurt and the fear together.

Then we can shed them.

And we can admire them as they drift away.

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The view beyond our window changed often and abruptly. Some times, the harsh northern Virginia wind and snow blinded us through the panes. Other years, we saw the grey clouds and early darkness of the English countryside, stars twinkling above us before we gathered for dinner. Through an apartment window in Germany, before I had brothers and there were just three of us, we looked past our tree and out over frozen sunflower fields. Then later, the bright, cloudless blue sky of Texas met us through the glass, the air pregnant with humidity even in December.

Different windows, different trees. These houses passed through my life as if on a conveyer belt, always slipping past me, no time for me to cling on in hopes of a consistent life. Even now, I find my memories of place, my ideas of home, are disjointed and non-linear. Perhaps it was for this reason my mother took such care in decorating our home for Christmas. Anchored in tradition, she must have thought, we could build an idea of home that withstood time and place.

I can still see her as she decorates. She is magical. I look up at her as the unravels tangled lights, a sparkling, knotted mess that would soon turn to brilliance. I kneel beside her as we arrange the tree skirt, just so. We dance together to George Michael as our mugs of tea grow cold and we stuff miniature British chocolates into our mouths, aching for a place we once called home. If we had a bannister, we would work together to wrap it delicately in (more) synthetic pine. We adorned shelves and counters with snowmen—not Santas—sending winter greetings despite the weather. Then, once the tree was trimmed, we enjoyed every inch of our work, reading books together amongst the lights and popping open advent calendars a few days early, just because.

For twenty-three days of December my mother’s house moves in this gentle festive rhythm, dressed in its best crimson plaid, glittering in candlelight and smelling of cinnamon. Then would come Christmas Eve, or rather, then would come my father’s birthday.

I’ve heard it said that my father’s older sister cried when he was born. “I don’t want a brother for Christmas,” she wailed, “I want presents!” And so began the annual phenomenon of his birth being overshadowed. His birthday gifts were forgotten in the rush of Christmas shopping. There were no birthday parties, because what child can attend a party on Christmas eve? In a picture of my dad, perhaps on his fifth birthday, he sits grinning behind a white sheet cake adorned with figurines of Santa and his reindeer. The red piping reads “Happy Birthday, Ricky.” I can only imagine how big that grin would have been if it was GI Joe instead.

But my mum would not allow my dad’s birthday to meld with Christmas. They were separate things to her, both worth celebrating properly and well. So while others sang carols and made Christmas cookies on December 24th, in our home, wherever it was, we celebrated one thing. And it was not Christmas.

Early each December 24th, my mother removed the snowmen, the garland, and the candles from the dining table. In their place, she laid a table cloth covered in Starwars spaceships (my father’s favorite) along with cards and gifts wrapped in flamboyant colors, no red or green to be seen. The speakers played classic rock. She draped bright streamers across the ceiling, and hung more around the Christmas tree. We ordered Chinese and wore party hats as we sang ‘Happy Birthday.’ She lit candles on his ice cream cake, and he let one of us children make the wish. We celebrated fully, and without distraction, as he had always deserved.

There is no greater gift you can give a person than to let them know they are seen. That they are remembered. That nothing comes before them. That they are worth the effort, the time, the thought. I am so, so very grateful to have been raised by a woman who held this value in her heart, and that she passed it along to me. I love to celebrate my people, and I love to celebrate big. Perhaps this love, this eagerness to shower our loved ones with affection, is the true tradition my mother passed to me.

Now, I spend every other Christmas with my in-laws. Their Christmas Eve looks different. So, I Facetime my parents on December 24. I see their faces and the streamers and the tree. And I am rooted in myself. In who I am, and in who I love. All by the sacred tradition of seeing and loving my father on his birthday.

Like all things, as I grow older the way I celebrate changes. I take some things from my parents, leave others behind. But I know my children’s Christmas tree will say Happy Birthday, too.

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The thing with takeout is you’re always given a triple helping. I don’t know if it’s because when you eat in, the restaurant has no reason to worry about if, or why, you’re being a recluse. But us takeout people, we might not step outside again for several days. We also might not bathe or talk to another human. They can’t help much with the latter aforementioned symptoms of depression (seasonal or otherwise), but they will be damned if they fail to make sure we’re fed.

In my kitchen, I peeled the lid from my styrofoam container of yellow curry and let the warm aroma of turmeric, cumin, ginger, and onion waft over me. I scooped a dollop of rice into a bowl and married it with the delightful yellow soup. Recognizing the likelihood that I would be back for seconds, and noticing the deckhands on television were already asleep on the job, I left the rest of the curry on the counter for later. I brought my bowl to the couch and snuggled in.

Now, if you have a cat, at this point in my story, you already know what is about to happen. No trick of suspense or red herring will blindfold you to the antics my small, curious girl kitten will get up to next. If you don’t have a cat, don’t worry, I won’t leave you out. Here’s an important prerequisite fact for your understanding: cats love to knock things off counters. And they love to do it on purpose.

The half gallon cup of curry hit the floor without a sound. There was no thud, no whoosh, no rush of liquid across linoleum. I did not see a waterfall of yellow liquid begin to fill my shoes with curry, drowned vegetables floating to the surface only to be stuck within my shoelaces. I was not privy to the cascade, to gravity asserting its dominance, returning the soup to the ground from which its spices and seasonings came.

And thus, I can only give my best to guess what took place. That my cat’s tiny, white-mittened paws gently tap-tap-taped the curry across the counter. How her head cocked to the side, as she contemplated what one more nudge could do. How she then raised her right paw, lined it up with the container, and became the catalyst for the force that would send the curry off the counter and into my favorite pair of shoes below.

These sneakers were perfect. A composition of leathers dyed creamy, bubblegum pink and cherry red—the world’s ‘it’ color combination ever since America Ferrera articulated the impossibilities of being a woman in that glorious, feminine summer of 2023. The vibrant hues popped against opaque rubber soles and white laces. I loved them because they were cute and fun. A delightful dichotomy of comfort and chic.

But mostly, I loved these sneakers because they were on my feet during some of life’s most special moments: when my husband proposed to me on New Years Eve along the Thames as fireworks sparkled overhead, when I saw the Eiffel Tower for the first time, when my best friend and I wandered the shelves of every bookstore in Edinburgh.

I stared into the two small bodies of water my shoes now held within them. You could have picked up either shoe and drank a half serving of curry from the achilles-shaped groove in its collar. I had to turn away. I was too distraught to even look at them. I began to cry, hot fast tears. I cried harder out of embarrassment from what felt like a pathetic attachment to a physical object.

I told my husband that I was so sorry, but that I would need him to clean this. I couldn’t bear to discover how badly the turmeric had stained my sneakers or if my feet would smell like curry should I ever try to wear them again. He obliged, but it was a task. Later, he would tell me he had to use 1.5 magic erasers just to get the small patch of kitchen floor back to its normal millennial grey.

My cat, in her wisdom, had made herself scarce. I began to walk around our two bedroom apartment to find the tiny demon. I was consumed with anger. I imagined picking her up, holding her to my face, and glaring at her asking, “how could you do this to me!?” I planned to inform her that I was not going to speak with her for at least two weeks. That I wouldn’t pet her next time she asked.

But then I saw her, crouched under a desk in our spare room. The poor girl knew she had done something wrong, and dare I say it, she was embarrassed. Her eyes were full pupil, her ears flattened into perfect airplane wings. She mewed at me quietly, mouth closed.

I looked into her sweet eyes, and all my anger washed away. How could I be angry at this perfect little cat? I picked her up and held her, telling her I was sorry, that I knew she didn’t understand why I was upset. I kissed the top of her tiny head and cuddled her into my chest. My frustration had lasted all of five minutes.I could feel nothing but compassion for this tiny girl.

I would later come to wonder why I couldn’t be so quick to show myself the same grace and kindness in response to my own failures. Why instead, I torture myself with thoughts about not being good enough, being worthless, being unlovable. Had I knocked the curry from the counter myself, I don’t know if I could have ever met myself with forgiveness. Even over something so small, the shame would be too big to face.

For as long as I can remember, any mistake I made, regardless of the size, was cataclysmic. My failures awake me in the middle of the night, disrupting my dreaming to remind me of my shame.

But now, I try to think of the curry bowl. How my darling cat deserved love and kindness in the wake of her mistake, and how I do too. I deserve to be held and told I am loved. And that I deserve to speak kind words to myself.

It’s hard, but I try to love myself first, even when my first instinct tells me I am unlovable. Sometimes, this means looking into my own eyes in the mirror and offering myself forgiveness. Sometimes its wrapping my hands around a warm cup of tea and reminding myself I deserve this. Self-love is a practice, and I struggle with it often. But this memory helps me struggle a little less.

So, in the wake of curry ruining my shoes, I learned a little something about loving myself. And almost as good, with a new pair of shoelaces and a few goes in the washing machine, my shoes are good as new. A second chance for them, too.

A lifeguard came up beside me, offered me her paddle board to hold on to and catch my breath. My hands have never gripped anything so tightly. I felt my heart rate steady.

There are times my life feels like that triathlon swim. These books are my paddle boards. They are my life rafts for when I don’t know if I have the strength to make it through. They are re-readable and wrap me in hope each time.

But know these three books are not beach reads. They are not escapes to a happy fictional town where everyone loves each other and no one is sad or excluded or hurt. No, none of these books shy away from the darkness. That’s one of the reasons I turn to them—they acknowledge the pain. These books have brought me to tears as I saw myself in them—lonely, despondent, fearful—and it is for this reason they are sacred to me.

I find that, in these pages, hope shines more brightly than anywhere else. A hope that reminds me we all belong, we all deserve to be ourselves, and we all can find happiness.

Things feel heavy right now. But please don’t forget, this world is for all of us. It is for you. Let one of these books be a reminder <3

Each book link below takes you to Bookshop.org. If you purchase a book through my affiliate link, I get a small percentage and Jeff Bezos gets nothing! Or even better—check it out at your local library! <3

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

In the 1980’s, two high school Mexican-American boys find friendship, love, and support in each other and their families as they navigate the complexities of young adulthood. Benjamin Alire Sáenz writes in the most beautiful, yet accessible, prose. The first person narrative presents an emotional depth that is straight-froward and honest. More than anything, this book reminds us that love should be open and free. That relationships, romantic or otherwise, thrive when we are honest and accepting of one another. I lean on this book when the world feels full of hatred. I recommend it constantly.

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

As a trigger warning, this book begins with a suicide attempt. Because of this I almost couldn’t get through the first chapters. But I am forever glad I did. The grief in this book is vivid, but the joy is just as tangible. This book healed parts of my heart and I turn to it when I feel consumed by sadness or despair. The Midnight Library contemplates what (and who) makes life worth living. It is extremely poignant in a world that is eager to remind us that we should be striving for something better, that what we have isn’t good enough. It stuck with my husband so much he suggested we name our future daughter after the main character.

The House on the Cerulean Sea By TJ Klune

This is a book for anyone who has ever been left out or othered. It is also for anyone who has loved someone who has been treated differently. I’d say, with that, this is a book for everyone. Hope abounds in these pages! Let this book wrap you in a big hug.

The House on the Cerulean Sea explores the danger of being complacent in the face of discrimination and hate. It reiterates the beauty of being different. And it speaks to the power of love. The cast of quirky, delightful characters will win you over in approximately three seconds and their story will stick with your forever. And guess what, when you’re eager to spend time with them again, there is a sequel that is just as sweet.

Both of these feelings, the missing and the longing, are worth exploring and nurturing. But please, don’t fall so deeply into these holes that you wish away the very life you are living. Don’t forget to soak up the magic existing right before you.

To us, our own life is stale. I think this is why we talk so much about romanticizing our life. We want to jazz things up, wear the fancy robe and eat the expensive olives. I think we crave the idea of seeing ourselves through a lens that’s not our own. We imagine being someone else, viewing our life through a series of stories lighting up in the palm of their hand. We take mental pictures (and real ones) and consider if someone else would think our life worth living.

I do wonder, why do we feel a need to look through someone else’s eyes to feel gratitude and joy for our own experience? Perhaps it’s because we’re dreamers, romantics in love with the story. But has social media and commercialism removed us from actively experiencing our own life? I don’t want to prove to myself that my life could be beautiful when viewed from someone else’s eyes. I want it to be beautiful for me, right now. And I want to feel it all.

I think what I crave is richness; I want the morsels of my life to overflow with meaning in the moment. I want to feel things, and I want to feel them big and often. I want to make the most of the time I have with the people I love. I want to stuff my mouth full of ragu that my husband made on a Tuesday night and I want to sprinkle extra cheese in my mouth because it tastes good. I want to run in new places and touch rocks I haven’t seen before and think about all the people who touched them before me. I want my house to be full of little knick knacks my friends made or I collected or my mom found at the farmers market and said reminded her of me. I want to play and jump and laugh and feel the sweat on my back as laugh with my girlfriends on the beach. I want to do things that scare me, because despite my fear of heights, some of the best views in life are from the canyons edge.

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I love the soft parts of my life. I am an introvert, after all. I love the quiet cups of tea and the moments while I wait to cross the street and a leaf falls into my hair. There are few things that heal me like a roaring fire, a good book, a little chocolate to savor. But there have been years when exhaustion lived in my bones and I craved nothing but to retreat into myself. When the gentle soft moments were all I had to latch on to. I think of eating ice cream from the carton and watching the sunset with my best friend, not a word exchanged between us. Of the mornings when I played jazz music through the speaker and decided to sway my hips as I made breakfast alone in the kitchen. When I listened to an audio book in bed with only my precious cat asleep in my arms. These moments served me and held me, they guided me from my most vulnerable places and into healing. These days, I want the softness in my life not to be the main course, but to be a delightful desert, gentle and warm and magical. Bookends on a perfect day. Because I also need something more—I have to sink my teeth into the richness of this earth and taste all it has to show me. I don’t want to just watch the sunset, I want to soak up its rays.

I think we lose so much when we spend time thinking of other people before we ground ourselves in our own life. I’ve been there — so focused on how I will be perceived, that the joy is ripped from me. As an army daughter, I’ve adopted more personalities than I can count. I’ve also been too focused on how things were in my past, overflowing with envy for people living a life I once had. It took me a long time to learn that just because one chapter is over, doesn’t mean the one you’re in can’t be incredible, too. Your story remains inherently valuable and special because it is yours, despite where you are on your journey. Don’t rob yourself of your today wishing for another.

I don’t want to spend each day wishing it away, only to wish away my life. When I catch myself hoping for an agonizing work day to end, for the stress to end, I think of my cat. How short his life is. How each day I wish away is wishing away a day with him. It’s ridiculous of me, to measure my life against his. But doing so made me realize I was selling myself short, that I wasn’t giving my days the attention they need and that I wasn’t filling them with anything worth savoring. I grieved the weeks I moved through robotically, numb to the pain, in an effort to simply get to the end of it. I have grieved them for past me, who had to endure so much. But today, I choose joy and presence. What a kind gift to give myself.

What I want, at the end of it all, is to say I lived. To say I explored and savored and rested and loved and held others when they needed me. I want to look back through scrapbooks from my wedding and see pictures of moments that were so full of joy I don’t remember smiling for the camera. I want to have been able to say no to a business dinner without a second thought to drive to my heartbroken friend. I want to touch each ocean and marvel at the depths of the water and the history I can’t possibly imagine. And more than anything, I want to say I was present for it all.

I pressed play on the recording and watched as my shoes hit the pavement over and over and over. Each little step bringing me forward. It was Michigan in the fall; the ground covered in bright yellow leaves, the sky a murky grey, my cheeks rosy with the brisk morning cold. I watched the video again, bewitched. When I saw my legs on that tiny screen, I saw power and strength. I didn’t see something to shrink or hide.

It’s miraculous, really, the weight our legs and feet carry and the force they can withstand. Tens of thousands of steps over a lifetime. I’ll be honest, when I think about this too much, it makes me emotional. There are so many places my feet have brought me but I’ve never thanked them for—into my husband’s arms, before our first kiss; out of my bed, when I was too depressed to leave it; across the stage, to receive the diploma I fought so hard to earn.

To think I spent years hating this body. I hated its size, its shape, how it moved, how it looked when it stood still. For so long, I couldn’t comprehend a version of myself that ever met the standards I measured it against, the standards I imagined society held me to. I spared myself no compliments; I knew only of criticism and shame.

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I remember looking at a pair of jeans once in American Eagle. It must have been 2007. I can picture them to this day: light wash, some sequin detail on the pockets. I loved them. They were out of my budget, but I told myself if I lost enough weight to squeeze into a size four, they could be mine. I shared my plan with my mom and she agreed. She said it was great to have a goal.

I thought of those jeans every day. How I could best shrink myself to deserve them, to be worthy of displaying them on my body. I weighed myself and measured the inches I needed to shave from my hips. I did a diet with my mom where we only ate boiled eggs and cottage cheese and jello for three days. And I began to run.

I decided running would be the catalyst to achieving smallness. I jogged through the neighborhood, desperate to damper the shouts of my anxiety and self-loathing. I ran in Soffe shorts in the middle of Virginia winter and felt my thighs burn ruby red from the wind. I think that’s when I first remember reading that if your stomach felt cold to touch after working out, it meant you were burning fat. I felt the chill of my own soft middle. I left no calorie unburned.

I never did get those jeans. I don’t remember if a size 4 never fit or I didn’t have the money. But I kept running. I found that when I ran long enough, somehow, I could outrun the tightness in my chest, the thrumming in my mind. I wasn’t particularly fast but I could run far, and for a long time. So I would. It kept my sensitive emotions out of other peoples way and my ass in a size small.

I said no the first two times a friend asked me to train with them for a marathon. By then, I was 27, but I was convinced there was no way I was capable of something that big, that incredible. But the third time I said yes. I was feeling very single and very lonely and needed a way to channel my sadness. Might as well channel it into skinniness, too!

I signed up for a training group with my local run club. We met in a dark, empty parking lot at six am to run ten miles together, two by two. For a few miles, we ran in silence. Then as the sun began to creep up over the horizon, so did bits of conversation. People started to discuss what snacks they’d brought with them for the run. I had nothing to contribute to the conversation—the point of running was to burn food off, after all—so I just listened.

“I’m trying out these new gels, they’re 24g of carbs and have caffeine in them too”

“I shoved a bag of pretzel sticks into my belt, the extra salt is huge for me.”

24g of carbs!? Extra salt!? Had these people never seen a magazine? My brow creased in confusion. Maybe these people are delusional from running. I’d heard that was a thing.

A woman running behind me popped Sour Patch Kids into her mouth every few miles. I remember in elementary school we watched some movie on the roll-out TV about how many times you have to run around the track to burn off a bag of gummy bears. It seems I was the only person in this group who remembered this video.

At around mile seven, I began to feel the pangs of hunger tug at my stomach and the bubbling, stinging feeling of dizziness in my head. I had another sip of water but it didn’t help. I looked around me and thought about how unfit I was compared to the rest of them. I should have said no to this marathon business like I had the first two times.

I couldn’t tell you who it was that offered me a gel at the next water stop, but all I know is that I took it. Before this I couldn’t have fathomed the idea of eating while running. But there I was, swallowing the cold, chemical strawberry flavored gloop, instead of literally running on empty. I was able to come back to myself. This was my first step in discovering I couldn’t out-discipline my body’s needs. Marathon training doesn’t have room for that kind of deprivation.

I look back and can’t help but think of this as some very good karma. A couple minutes later I struck up a conversation with a girl running ahead of me; she had a cat tattoo on the back of her arm. She quickly became (and remains) one of my closest friends in the world. People in our running group will look back on that first run and laugh, saying they “will never forget the moment Shannon and Sarah fell in love.” That conversation is something I might have missed out on if I hadn’t defied my disordered eating. I think of the other things I’ve missed out on by letting food dictate my choices. But I’m learning to replace past guilt with present gratitude.

Over the next several months of long runs and tempo workouts, I began to learn that when I am well fueled by food, I am at my strongest. Eating carbs and sugar and salt meant choosing power over restriction. Fueling well meant showing myself the self-respect that deprivation never could.

Smallness never really brought me peace. It brought me stress and fear and self-hatred. But trusting my body, giving it the calories and the energy it asked for, did. Choosing strength, physically and mentally, became the most radical, freeing act of self-love I could imagine. My lungs began to breathe more deeply than they had in decades.

That December, Sarah and I ran 26.4ish miles side by side to cross the finish line of the Dallas marathon together. I think I ate like ten gels on that run. We hugged each other after we got our medals, chocolate milk and bananas in our hands. I ran a marathon and I wasn’t a size four with abs and a tight ass. I ran a marathon and I was me, just how my body asked me to be. I’m crying now, writing this. Thinking about how transformative running has been for me.

We’ve got it all backwards. Food isn’t something to delete. Our craving for food is natural, it is our body turning on the gas light and asking to be refueled. And each time we honor it, we’re giving ourselves the love we deserve.

The studios’ vibrant yellow walls were draped in vines and hand-painted Buddhist mantras. The room was no larger than my apartment; the small space was a jenga game of tables and tools and shelves. So many shelves. Shelves rose to the ceiling, each one teeming with ceramics. I took in the talent and skill within the art around me. It hit me square in the chest that I was about to attempt something entirely new to me, surrounded by true masters of the craft.

This might sound bizarre, but before entering the pottery studio, I hadn’t been bad at anything in years. Perhaps not since I was forced against my will to be a pole vaulter for my high school track team (I was— and remain—deathly afraid of heights, so this was, simply, a match made in hell.) I couldn’t handle the shame of letting people down.

Somewhere along the way, I decided the best way to avoid failure was to just… not fail. This was actually much easier than it sounds. I stayed in my lane; I only did things I was good at or that came naturally to me. And, as a former talented and gifted child, I was fortunate to be good enough at enough things that I was content. No risks necessary.

In plain sight, I hid from my fear of failure. And in many ways, I hid from growth and opportunities for joy and play. I excelled, but I was sad. I was a lawyer and a marathon runner and I was not afraid of hard work. But the stakes and the structure ate at me. Over time, my soul began to crave the exploration of the fun and failure I had so long avoided. I was ready to revel in my newness. The pottery studio across the street called to me.

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So there I was, standing beside the pottery wheel, about to embark on what would be a sincere lesson in the sacred art of failure. I must have sensed I was on the precipice as I sat with my clay. Again, I breathed. Wet dirt. Sandalwood. Courage. The warm light and rich scents began to soothe the thrumming in my chest. Then class began.

It became quickly apparent that I was naturally suited to the opposite of everything throwing pottery requires. Instinctively, I have always approached the unknown slowly, gently, and timidly. I use a light touch to ease my way into knowing. I whisper, rather than shout, my arrival. I observe before I act. While this strategy has aided me in many areas of life, throwing pottery is not one of them. At the wheel, the art begins at high speed.

My delicate touch did little for me as I learned to throw. My ball of clay refrained from moulding into a cone or donut. It spun off my wheel and across the floor. I pressed harder and saw not much more success. While others in my class worked skillfully, I stopped to stare at my disobedient lump of clay. How it could ever become a bowl, I had no idea. I laughed to myself at my quaint, inconsequential confusion.

My teacher encouraged me to try again. As I spun the wheel to life, she placed her palms over my own and pushed, sending the force of her whole body into her hands, into my hands, into the clay. I gasped. The sheer force of this tiny woman, her whole being, all of it went into shaping the clay. I realized immediately that without being physically made to do so, I never would have applied such aggressive force to the clay. I did not have the instincts for throwing pottery, but I was eager for the journey to come.

It took many attempts for me to own my strength, not to fear my power, and to weave my energy into the clay to create a new form. And with this newfound force I created many lopsided but (somehow) structurally sound vessels. Functionally, they were nothing more than trinket trays with “character”, but I was proud beyond measure.

The next week’s class was no different. I was no longer creating small bowls, but reviewing their dried forms to prepare them for firing. The craft calls this process trimming. This time, the stakes felt high: if I trimmed too much, or not enough, I could ruin my hard-fought-for piece.

I began with caution. I spun the wheel slowly, holding my tool against the leather-hard clay. I watched spirals of clay shred from my work. They reminded me of the chocolate ribbon shavings my mother always chose to top my birthday cake. How cute! For hours, I chipped away at the rough edges of my tiny bowl (pot? Dish? Its exact classification remains up for debate). Throughout this process, I felt confident! Capable! Perhaps this was the stage of pottery I was good at, I wondered to myself.

But trimming, too, would betray me. I was crafting a foot on the base of my favorite pot, when the slightest inflection of pressure sent my tool through the vessel. A hole. I paused my wheel. Mouth ajar, I stared at my pot. How I had toiled over it. How I had ruined it. My demons washed over me: I was a failure.

Tears stung my eyes. I was a thirty-something crying in pottery class. My teacher walked to my wheel. How could I admit to this kind woman that I had failed? I had let her down. I avoided her gaze and pretended to wipe my glasses. She walked away. In my shame, I sighed with relief.

But then she was back, her gentle touch on my shoulder. She was holding a piece of mesh.

“May I?” She said.

I just nodded. I was too devastated to say more. She removed my vessel from the wheel and placed the mesh inside. She looked at me and said, “this is how I make all of my favorite flower pots. They will drain perfectly.”

I was charmed by her reinvention, but I was unconvinced. She sensed the child in me, my thoughts crying out, “but it wasn’t meant to be a flower pot! I am useless!” Her eyes met mine, and she looked at the flower pot in her hand.

“Do you remember when this pot was just a lump of clay?” She asked. I gave another nod.

“It is still clay, but now it is so much more. Your energy moulded it. Your energy is in this pot. Your cells, your fingerprints, your DNA. This pot is the earth. But this pot is also you. Don’t give up on it. Allow it to be something beautiful.”

Then she smiled and walked off to another student. I sat there soaking in her words, and I think I will continue to do so for the rest of my life. My teacher gave me permission to allow myself to be something beautiful—to allow my force, my energy, my failures to be beautiful—something that in my thirty-one years of life, I had never been permitted to do. My self-perception was entirely reframed.

Over the next six months, my teacher eventually taught me how to be a competent potter, despite all odds. Yet the most profound lesson she taught me wasn’t really about pottery at all.

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Mean Moms by Emma Rosenblum

Shannon’s rating: Obsessed.

Mean Moms follows a clique of wealthy private school moms whose world is quickly rocked when an array of bad luck and petty crime descends on their friend group. The common denominator? New mom-friend Sofia. Is Sofia the source of their bad luck, or a symptom? This novel is a mystery wrapped in satire, an exploration of how the other half lives, and what happens when things don’t go their way. Enjoy the bizarre antics of these rich bitches as their affairs, their dreams, and their fears rise to the surface for everyone to see. If you’re anything like me (read: real housewives obsessed), you’re going to eat this UP. I loved this. It’s whip-smart brain candy that leaves you guessing. If you want to escape into the opulent world of someone else’s drama, put this on your TBR asap.

The Pilgrims Wilderness by Tom Kizzia

Shannon’s rating: Perfect.

If you haven’t heard of Papa Pilgrim and the horrific crimes he inflicted on his family in the 90’s and 00’s, buckle up. This book has a similar tone to the true crime classic In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. Tom Kizzia is a reporter for the Anchorage Daily News who also happens to have a cabin in the remote wilderness of McCarthy, Alaska, making him the neighbor to Papa Pilgrim, his wife, and his fifteen children. Papa Pilgrim presented himself as the pinnacle of the Christian ideal, yet life inside his cabin did not live up to the values of compassion, love, and service he touted. This novel follows the Pilgrim family’s journey to the Alaskan wilderness, their clashes with the national park service, and the children’s escape from Pilgrim’s violent, abusive home. This is a journalistic feat that reads like fiction and speaks to the sins that can hide within a cabin’s walls when evil is at the helm. I couldn’t put it down and am sharing this story with everyone.

All the Colors of the Dark

Shannon’s Rating: Perfect.

Everyone has already read this book, and everyone was right: it is excellent. While this novel starts out quickly with a kidnapping, its layers and lessons offer so much more than a mystery or a quest for justice. It feels as though often, the who-done-it takes the backseat to the character development taking place. Over many decades, this book follows the lives of two children as they grow up in the wake of tragedy in their small Missouri town. I was moved to tears. I am a sucker for melancholy, for heartache, and for unrequited love, and this book had it all. The cherry on top? It has some of the most stunning prose I’ve read in ages. It’s beautiful in both form and concept. If I ever recover, I will certainly read it again and be recommending it for a lifetime.

A Killing Cold by Kate Alice Marshall

Shannon’s rating: Skipable.

Theo heads to a mountain estate to celebrate Christmas with her extremely wealthy new fiancé, Connor Dalton, and his family. The Dalton’s are eager to get to know their son’s new partner, but the problem is, Theo doesn’t know much about herself either. That is, until she starts poking around the Dalton’s cabins and the memories start rushing back. Turns out, her fate has intertwined with this place before, and none of it was good.

I was able to listen to this on Libby using their skip the line feature (I love skip the line!). Honestly, this book fell flat for me. I enjoyed listening to it on my bike rides, but I just couldn’t shake the feeling that none of this was plausible. A key plot point here is a do they/don’t they: do the main character and her boo know each other’s identities, or not? Honestly, this component of the plot is really confusing, and not in a compelling “I’m solving a mystery!” kind of way. The Dalton family has a lot of dark secrets. And maybe they just have a few too many for this plot to make sense. All in all, I enjoyed this but probably wouldn’t recommend.

The Stillwater Girls by Minka Kent

Shannon’s rating: Horrendous.

This book is bonkers-and not in a good way. I love a book that features characters who spend part of their life off the grid, so I was intrigued by the premise of two girls raised 1800’s style being thrust into modern society, knocking on the door of a wealthy, childless couple for help and refuge. The book is totally fine and interesting until around page 200, when it takes a turn that is bizarre and frankly unbelievable to anyone with an elementary understanding of science. I had to turn to Goodreads for validation and confirmation that this was simply the worst reveal in a book… ever? In my opinion, it is distasteful and offensive to women with pregnancy trauma/child loss. Somehow this still has like 4 stars on Goodreads. Has anyone else read this?! If so, I need to discuss because what the hell lol.

What Kind of Paradise by Janelle Brown

Shannon’s Rating: Superb.

Okay, now this is an off-the-grid turned modern society novel done right. Jane is raised in a log cabin with her anti-tech, anti-establishment father. As Jane gets older, she helps her father publish his manifesto on the early internet. But when Jane accompanies her dad on one of his elusive trips away from the cabin, she finds herself involved in something bigger and more sinister than she ever could’ve imagined. I don’t want to give too much more away! Just know it gets *juicy.*

I thought this book was really exciting and I learned a lot about the early Internet and the early tech start-up days. I found Jane to be a really compelling protagonist. The ending was a smidge abrupt for my taste, but I still absolutely recommend!

Play Nice by Rachel Harrison

Shannon’s Rating: Superb

I featured Play Nice in my horror book guide! The novel follows Clio, a twenty-something New York fashion influencer as she navigates the aftermath of her mother’s death. Oh, and her mother was a witch (sort of?) and left her a haunted house in her will. Against the wishes of her older sisters and father, Clio decides to renovate the house that once drove her mother to madness. Clio was so young when she lived there that her memories of the abuse she endured and of the home itself are foggy. But, the house remembers her. And it lets Clio know.

Play Nice has excellent pacing. A central question of this book is, “is the house actually haunted? Or was Clio’s mom just mentally ill?” Clio’s journey is a slow burn from skepticism to belief. Unexpectedly, what I loved the most about this novel was the character development. Despite Clio being aloof, proud, and self-absorbed, she is very fun to watch. She makes fit-check content at her mother’s funeral. She gets drunk on vodka and trips out alone in the house. Harrison creates the best portrayal of a wholly unlikable influencer as a human being navigating her offline life. Will this book scare you to oblivion? No. But will it suck you in and entertain you? Absolutely. It’s whitty and bizarre and engaging. Enjoy!

Too Old for This by Samantha Downing

Shannon’s rating: Excellent.

An old lady serial killer? Say less. I listened to this on audiobook and it was such a fun time! The voice acting is too perfect. Too Old for This follows retired serial killer Lottie Jones, a grandmother and church-goer, who finds herself unexpectedly thrown back into her life of crime. When Lottie kills one inconvenient journalist, she soon realizes more deaths will be necessary to create the perfect cover-up. This story is fast-paced, smart, funny, and includes the perfect amount of old-lady lore to keep you believing Lottie is real. Cheering on a killer has never been so much fun. I loved listening to this audiobook and recommend it to all my friends! Just trust me, and give it a go.

Thanks for reading!

XO,

Shannon

Shower Beer Baptism

You’ve gotta understand why I obey; why I slip the grease-stained jacket from his shoulders; why I don’t mention the cut on his cheek or that Jamie and Lila are already in bed, where have you been?; why I gave the girls extra screen time before bed; why I tell myself at least he came home this time; why I inhale his scent, smoke and lust and lavender; why I always smell of roses.

You’ve gotta understand why I keep hushed; why I bite my tongue; why I suck away the blood that pools in my mouth in venomous red lagoons; why I never forget who puts bread on the table; why I grab him that cold one; why I just fucking smile, woman!; why I can’t keep the pantry stocked with apples or wild rice or that oatmeal with dinosaurs that hatch from eggs but there will always be beer.

You’ve gotta understand why I pray; why I hold the bottle of fermented hops and thank god for my salvation; why I bless the shower beer; why I praise the bottle that wipes away the sins of the world; why I am at the mercy of the water heater’s thunder; why I don’t care if the girls wake up when he yanks down that ugly-ass shower curtain ‘cause then at least, daddy’s home!

You’ve gotta understand why I serve him; why I deliver that beer as he bathes; why I look into the seaglass eyes that gave me daughters; why I let the weight of the bottle be my deliverance; why I watch as foam bubbles crimson across his broken face; why I practice my screams and my helplessness and my sweetie, daddy slipped.

But you’ve gotta understand why I dream; why I garnish his hand with the bottle instead of his wet, steaming forehead; why I hide behind the walls of my cowardice; why I’ll make him pay next time. Why, probably, I won’t.

With everything happening in the world seemingly all at once, I wanted to use this time to raise awareness for a state that means so much to me. If you’re looking to support impacted communities, the Anchorage Daily News compiled a great list of resources on how to help those affected and displaced by Western Alaska storms.

Alaska is big. It is beautiful and bold and wild and it works its way into your soul and won’t let go. I think of Alaska every day and I know I will for the rest of my life.

Alaska left its mark on me, and a big reason why is that I got married there! My husband and I are big adventurers at heart, and for our wedding, we knew we wanted to recreate the feeling of experiencing somewhere new and majestic together. As we said our vows, we wanted to feel small and inconsequential in comparison to the landscape and larger world around us. So we eloped in Alaska, and it was the best thing we ever could’ve done. We can’t wait to return and explore more parts of this incredible state for years to come.

Alaska is notoriously hard to get to and hard to get around. But lucky for us, Alaska has inspired a lot of people, so there are plenty of books that can bring Alaska to us anytime! Below you’ll find some of my favorites (and one novel on my TBR!). These books cover genres from rom-com to true crime to magical realism. I’m excited to share these with you!

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For my True Crime Obsessed

Pilgrim’s Wilderness: A True Story of Faith and Madness on the Alaska Frontier by Tom Kizzia

If you haven’t heard of Papa Pilgrim and the horrific crimes he inflicted on his family in the 90’s and 00’s, buckle up. This book has a similar tone to the true crime classic In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. Tom Kizzia is a reporter for the Anchorage Daily News who also happens to have a cabin in the remote wilderness of McCarthy, Alaska, making him the neighbor to Papa Pilgrim, his wife, and his fifteen children. Papa Pilgrim presented himself as the pinnacle of the Christian ideal, yet life inside his cabin did not live up to the values of compassion, love, and service he touted. This novel follows the Pilgrim family’s journey to the Alaskan wilderness, their clashes with the national park service, and the children’s escape from Pilgrim’s violent, abusive home. This is a journalistic feat that reads like fiction and speaks to the sins that can hide within a cabin’s walls when evil is at the helm.

For my RomCom Lovers

The Moose Springs Trilogy by Sarah Morgenthaler

The Tourist Attraction, Mistletoe and Mr. Right, and Enjoy the View are a lighthearted, cute, and memorable journey to Alaska for the hopeless romantic in each of us.

Okay, these are FUN. Three residents of remote Moose Springs, Alaska, find love in unlikely places: a very anti-tourist Moose Springs local and (you guessed it) a tourist, a big-hearted Moose Springs resident raising his adoptive nephew and a wealthy real estate heiress, and, last but not least, a grumpy mountaineering guide and a failing Hollywood actress. Throughout the trilogy, the struggling town of Moose Springs grapples with the modern dilemma of both resisting its unwanted influx of tourism and accepting its need to rely on this tourism to survive. I should note, if you’re planning your Holiday season reads, Mistletoe and Mr. Right is the Alaskan holiday novel you need— it even includes a Santa moose! Fall in love with this town, these people, and Alaska as you fly through this adorable series.

For my fiction aficionados

The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah

In the 1970’s Alaska was truly a final frontier; it called to those desperate to escape modern American society, and The Great Alone follows the Allbright family as they set out to do just that. Ernt Allbright, father and former prisoner of war, is plagued by PTSD, and his wife, Cora, will do anything for him. Their daughter Leni grows up in the throes of the Alaskan wilderness, living off the land and defending her mother from her father’s abuse. While the untamed Alaskan land brings an abundance of danger, Leni quickly finds life within her father’s cabin to be the biggest threat she’ll face. The Great Alone follows Leni’s life in the wilderness and her lasting romance with a local boy and the state of Alaska itself. It is moving, gut-wrenching, and brimming with the drama of interpersonal relationships. Enjoy this coming-of-age story that will leave you aching for adventure.

For my magical realism dreamers

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey

I have an important goal anytime I travel: to visit a local, independent bookstore, and bring home a book either by a local author or about the place. I picked up The Snow Child at Dreamland Books & Yarn, an adorable bookstore in Seward, Alaska. Eowyn Ivey came recommended to me as an incredible Alaskan novelist, and I knew I couldn’t leave without her debut novel, The Snow Child. And I didn’t! This novel is on my TBR and I can’t wait to read it. It is described as magical realism, following a childless couple living in the Alaskan wilderness in 1920. In their loneliness, the couple creates a snowman, or snow child. But the next morning, their creation is gone, replaced with a blonde young girl. I can’t wait to be in the mood for this atmospheric, descriptive novel!

And this wraps up my Alaska-centric book recommendations! Have you been to Alaska? Any other books that remind you of this incredible place? Let me know!

‘till next time,

xo, shannon

We’re halfway through spooky season! The most wonderful time of the year! The days are getting shorter and (even here in Dallas) we’re finally feeling that chill in the air. We’ve been filling our cups with pumpkin-spiced coffee and stomping on acorns as we walk the neighborhood. We’re reading atmospheric, dark academia and playing jazz in the background while we bake. But with Halloween approaching, it’s time to turn to the very best the season has to offer: horror.

Let me introduce you to some of my tried and true favorites. The I-stayed-up-all-night-spooked, I-can-think-of-nothing-else, my-watch-is-telling-me-my-stress-levels-are-too-high perfect horror novels. Curl up with a blanket, a cup of tea, play thunderstorm sounds on the speakers, and enjoy the beautiful ride that is an excellently executed horror novel. (Don’t forget to look up trigger warnings! This is horror, after all!)

Incidents Around the House by Josh Malerman

Shannon’s Rating: Perfect.

Other Mommy will haunt me for the rest of my life. Narrated from the perspective of an elementary school girl named Bela, this is a novel that kept me on my toes and took my whole brain captive. Young Bela befriends Other Mommy, a demon that first lived only in her closet, but now sits at the edge of her bed. As Other Mommy begins to learn to take advantage of the world outside Bela’s bedroom, her ability to terrify and haunt invades the outside world, too. Yet Bela places trust in the demon that each day asks her, “Can I go inside your heart?” And when Other Mommy doesn’t get the answer she is looking for, her patience flails and her temper becomes insatiable.

There is something so disturbing about experiencing the events that take place in Incidents Around the House through a child’s mind. Bela approaches darkness with curiosity and misconstrues danger for love. The adult reader can never feel quite safe in Bela’s narration or decision-making. Bela’s sentences are short and simple, like a second grader’s writing assignment. Yet Malerman writes with a captivating voice that not only terrifies, but provides a commentary on how parents can either shield their children from danger or make them more vulnerable to darkness. This novel is scary, thought-provoking, and fun. Enjoy!

The Shining by Stephen King

Shannon’s Rating: Perfect.

Stephen King surely needs no introduction from me, and The Shining is a masterpiece by the master of horror. The Shining will make your heart race, and not in the ooey-gooey butterflies kind of way. You know the story: the young, troubled Torrance family becomes the caretakers of The Overlook, an isolated mountain hotel. Left alone to keep the furnace running, the family is plagued by demons—those within the house, and those within their own minds. Jack Torrance, the father, grapples with the inner turmoil of addiction. But the youngest Torrance, Danny, begins to see the hotel for what it really is—a living ghost story. This book is haunting. King writes in a way that wraps the reader into the story itself. The cabin fever, the isolation, the confinement creep out of the pages. King taps into the fears we have when we are alone and brings them to life on the page. I had endless goosebumps.

Let me finish by saying, if you’ve watched the cult-classic movie and think you know The Shining, you’re wrong. There’s a reason the film is Stephen King’s least favorite film adaptation. There is so much more depth to be found in the novel. So, if you loved the movie (like I do!) read the book. If you hated the movie, read the book. If you haven’t seen the movie, read the book. Great! Now we’re all reading the book! And you won’t be disappointed one bit.

The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

Shannon’s Rating: Perfect.

I once saw Stephen Graham Jones referred to as the Jordan Peele of literary horror, and in my opinion, that comparison is bang on. If you’re looking for a novel that will entertain and shock you, but also make you think deeply about racism, generational trauma, tradition, and the resilience of family, this is it. In 1869, General Philip Sheridan grossly said, “the only good indian is a dead indian.” And certainly, this novel contains many, many gruesome deaths, each wilder and more gory than the last. The Only Good Indians follows four Indian men haunted by a fatal decision in their youth. Ten years ago, the men embarked on an illegal elk hunt, killing a pregnant elk and her unborn calf. Now, the elk woman is back for revenge, and the men must grapple with the spiritual ramifications of their choices.

SGJ has a supernatural talent for weaving dread, grief, horror, and suspense. This is a complex, harrowing slasher novel driven by sharp societal and cultural commentary, exposing tensions between tradition and time, humans and nature. The Only Good Indians speaks to the indigenous historical and modern experience, including genocide, violence, addiction, and poverty. Yet somehow the ending still sparks hope. SGJ infuses his own life experience and culture as a Blackfeet Indian into this novel in such a poignant way. I recommend you take the time to savor this incredible story.

(I cannot overstate that this novel is extremely graphic. It is a bloodbath. Buckle up!)

Play Nice by Rachel Harrison (2025)

Shannon’s Rating: Superb

I like to describe Play Nice as horror-lite, perfect for your first foray into the genre. The novel follows Clio, a twenty-something New York fashion influencer as she navigates the aftermath of her mother’s death. Oh, and her mother was a witch (sort of?) and left her a haunted house in her will. Against the wishes of her older sisters and father, Clio decides to renovate the house that once drove her mother to madness. Clio was so young when she lived there that her memories of the abuse she endured and of the home itself are foggy. But, the house remembers her. And it lets Clio know.

Play Nice has excellent pacing. A central question of this book is, “is the house actually haunted? Or was Clio’s mom just mentally ill?” Clio’s journey is a slow burn from skepticism to belief. Unexpectedly, what I loved the most about this novel was the character development. Despite Clio being aloof, proud, and self-absorbed, she is very fun to watch. She makes fit-check content at her mother’s funeral. She gets drunk on vodka and trips out alone in the house. Harrison creates the best portrayal of a wholly unlikable influencer as a human being navigating her offline life. Will this book scare you to oblivion? No. But will it suck you in and entertain you? Absolutely. It’s whitty and bizarre and engaging. Enjoy!

The Troop by Nick Cutter (2014)

Shannon’s Rating: Excellent

It’s tradition: every year, a boy scout troop goes into the wilderness on a remote island for a weekend of camping, ghost stories, and team building. But this year, a ravenous evil waits just outside their campsite. It is hungry, and the hunger is contagious. When an emaciated, rabid stranger approaches their camp, the young boys face a danger they could never have imagined. Quickly, the boys are pit against each other in a way reminiscient of The Lord of the Flies. They must struggle for survival, determine who to trust, and try to escape the island unscathed. Now, this is one of those plots where if I tell you any more, I’ll give it all away.

In a post-COVID world, this book undoubtedly hits harder. The contagion manifests not only as disease, but as fear and paranoia. And as a reader, you’ll be paranoid too. I was distraught and terrified of not knowing which characters to trust or who was infected. This book is true body horror, and full body chills. Cutter has a visceral way of writing that describes scenes so vividly, it’s impossible to look away. When this book starts picking up—and it picks up quick—get ready for a terrifying story.

There you have it! I’m always loaning these five novels out to friends, and love hearing them fall in love with books that mean so much to me. What’s on your list?

xo,
Shannon

For the majority of my thirty-one years, I’ve been held captive by the fear of failure, though perhaps not in the typical way. No, I haven’t been afraid of public ridicule or going into debt if a business flops. I’m certainly not afraid of the hard work it takes to achieve a goal (between law school and my addiction to endurance sports, I’ve got enough grit to go around.)

Me? I’m terrified of hearing “no.” I’m terrified of learning that the truest, most important desires of my heart aren’t available to me and that there’s no way for me to reach them. That no amount of commitment or passion could get me there. To hear this would confirm my darkest fear of all: that my dreams can be a reality for someone else—anyone else— but just not for me. My body starts to crumble at the thought.

So instead of leaning into optimism and the possibiliy that something wonderful could be for me, I just did nothing. I didn’t chase the big dreams. Sure, I achieved “dreams” that may feel big to society at large: becoming an attorney, running a marathon, and growing a savings account. And I’m proud of those things. But I didn’t start sharing my writing, like my seven-year-old self imagined I would. I didn’t take steps to move to the UK or to Australia, two places I’ve previously left my heart.

You have to understand that, to me, while emotionally grueling, this strategy felt safer. If I never took a step towards pursuing either of these big dreams, I could preserve the world in my head my where they exist fully and happily. In my daydreams, I could imagine putting pen to paper and I could imagine living in Sydney or London. In my daydreams, the big dreams couldn’t be taken from me. In this bizzare limbo, I could cling to hope. Dreaming small is easier than a broken heart, after all.

I couldn’t tell you the first time I pinned back the desires of my heart in fear of failure and I couldn’t tell you exactly why. Perhaps it’s an intrinsic human desire for stability and for safety. I’ve certainly made choices throughout my life that placed security over fulfillment. It’s important to acknowledge the privilege that exists when a person like myself feels as though their basic needs are met and they can begin to contemplate their dreams as I am doing now. To do so has not always been my experience and I’m grateful to be able to. I’m grateful to decide that for me, right now, the small dreams are not enough. I’m choosing to start putting my words out there. I am choosing to decide I belong.

As an Army brat, I spent the majority of my childhood facing constant reminders that I did, in fact, belong nowhere. Moving around the world every couple of years was disorienting and heartbreaking. No matter how deeply I connected to a place or community, it was inevitably taken away from me. I quickly learned to chameleon myself in each place, and that the easiest way to do so was to be polite and timid and quiet. I found my place uplifting others’ voices and cheering others on. I’ve always been regarded by friends as a great hype woman or wing woman. And while I love these traits about myself and I love nothing more than supporting my people and everything that they do, I recently realized it’s about time I supported myself in my own dreams. I deserve a hype woman, too.

This week I read an article by Anna Seirian that stuck with me. She reiterated that in no time in history have women had the opportunity for freedom of expression that we do today. We have access to platforms like Substack that our grandmothers could never have imagined. No longer do we have to schmooze with all the right people to get into the right rooms to share our opinions, our views, or our dreams. We are at a pivotal time in history for women’s writing. And women’s writing, whatever the words themselves may say, is hope and love and resilience. All of it is worth reading. All of it is worth sharing.

But at no point in recent memory have women also been so close to losing our opportunity to be heard. The world today is not a place that we can take for granted or one in which we can sit in complacency. As someone who works in the civil rights space, I’ve seen firsthand how quickly—and often how quietly—our rights can be eroded. It starts small, and it starts by testing the limits. With freedom of speech so critically under attack these days (just look at how journalists are being treated in the Pentagon’s newsroom, for Goodness’ sake), I know that now is not the time for me to put off my dreams of writing, to say “I could try tomorrow.” It’s an act of bravery and defiance to decide my voice deserves to be heard. As Anna Seirian said, “Following your heart is not a trivial matter! It’s the f*cking warrior’s path of this life.” Well, I’m ready to warrior the fuck up. It’s about time I decided I belong.

I’ve decided to step into my dreams. For the little girl who always had her nose in a book, for the twenty-something who was afraid to take up space, and for my thirty-one-year-old self who knows she’s worthy of more. In defiance of my fears, I’ll be posting my thoughts, my observations, and my (sometimes very) short fiction. Thanks for joining me.

Xo,
Shannon