Witty, revealing, and a testament to the human impulses every individual shares Deeply personal and written in an inviting conversational tone, this memoir spans time and place. Much of the book’s setting is Claiborne County, a rural area where Tennessee borders Virginia and Kentucky. Storytelling is the memoir’s heart. The initial chapter focuses on author […]
Alice Sees Ghosts by Daisy Rockwell
A multigenerational, multi-continental family saga that beautifully illustrates how home and the heart are one and the same Alice’s grandmother is dying, and Alice cannot speak of it—literally. This is how Alice Sees Ghosts by Daisy Rockwell opens: at an end. Alice has returned to the family home, Lilac Hill, to say goodbye to Nanette, […]
8 Genre-Blending Books Set in Space
In mainstream media, space occupies, well, a lot of space. Sometimes, it’s presented as this expansive, never-ending vacuum that sits outside of familiarity, and that occasionally sends us into existential panic. It can also sometimes feel claustrophobic, especially in the case of many a great space horror, where characters are trapped aboard a spaceship with […]
📚 Thoughtful and at times provocative
September 28, 2026View Online | Join All Access | Listen Hats off to John Green, who set a world record for signing the most tip-in sheets of any author in their lifetime. (These are pages that get inserted into finished copies of books after printing.) The author, currenty promoting his adult debut, Hollywood Ending, has […]
The day before the funeral he is driven to Westminster Abbey for a run-through, carrying two copies of his speech in case he loses one. He is sent up to the pulpit for a voice level. Halfway up the steps he notices figures he had not seen before moving out of the building’s shadows with […]
The Wretched Divine by Adalyn Grace
A princess stands at a state ball with her face arranged into nothing. A man on the far side of the room has just been hurt, badly, and she felt every part of it in her own body, because the two of them are tied together in a way that would end both their lives […]
A woman sits in a recliner that was bright blue in another house in another state. Her daughter has just filled two bin bags in a kitchen nothing has been cooked in for years, and she will not let them leave until she has been through both. She feels every corner. She lifts out an […]
Guess Again by Charlie Donlea
Format: Paperback Buy on Amazon Goodreads Well, I think I was the real winner of our Summer Reading Retreat book exchange game! I ended up with Guess Again during our book exchange at our Summer Reading Retreat, and since Charlie Donlea was a new-to-me author, I really didn’t know what to expect. Now I guess […]
Sunday Sale Digest!
This piece of literary mayhem is exclusive to Smart Bitches After Dark, but fret not. If you’d like to join, we’d love to have you! Have a look at our membership options, and come join the fun! If you want to have a little extra fun, be a little more yourself, and be part of […]
Harbinger by Geneva Lee
A woman kneels in a dead garden on a cliff in winter and puts her bare hands into frozen mud. The vines have had years to dig in and they fight her; the thorns open her palms; the mud goes black under her nails. She has no gloves because she did not look hard for […]