Recent content from Maren Longbella

Review: Two possible lovers glide along on songs they love in 'Deep Cuts'
Fiction: Holly Brickley's novel is (maybe) a romance that comes with a soundtrack.

Spellbinding things happen when a stranger enters 'The Garden'
Fiction: Nick Newman's novel alludes to Adam and Eve and "The Secret Garden."
Review: Need a hug? Read the latest from the great Anne Tyler.
Fiction: "Three Days in June" takes place before and after a wedding.

Review: Grady Hendrix gets chills from the plight of a mother-to-be in 'Witchcraft for Wayward Girls'
Fiction: The follow-up to "How to Sell a Haunted House" is another funny/scary combo.
When an elderly busybody/killer meets a young bad seed, 'Havoc' ensues
Fiction: Set in Egypt, Christopher Bollen's novel finds evil meeting its match.

Review: Soap opera-worthy book traces how a century-old feud over birth control affects us to this day
Nonfiction: "The Icon and the Idealist" is a portrait of two activists.

A small rabbit carries the hopes of a grieving family in 'The Burrow'
Fiction: Melanie Cheng's novel nods to Kafka and bunny blockbuster "Watership Down."

What's that thing in the attic? Oh, just an AI robot that will probably take over your life.
FICTION: Contemporary novel "William" takes inspiration from Mary Shelley's classic "Frankenstein."

Horror comes to the suburbs in 'We Came to Welcome You'
FICTION: ... but Vincent Tirado's novel tells more than it shows.

Selling your house? Just hope the would-be buyer in 'The House Hunt' doesn't show up
FICTION: C.M. Ewan's novel capitalizes on the paranoia of having to open our homes to strangers.

There's rom, com and more in Minnesota writer's 'Four Weekends and a Funeral'
LOCAL FICTION: Two people could fall in love while cleaning out a North Shore cabin in Ellie Palmer's novel.

She's not even invited but 'The Wedding People' change her life, just the same
FICTION: Emerging from trauma, a woman finds a stranger's celebration is just the ticket in Alison Espach's novel.

Falling for a murderer? What could go wrong? A St. Paul novelist says plenty in "Love Letters to a Serial Killer"
FICTION: "You have to promise not to kill me," writes Tasha Coryell in debut novel "Love Letters to a Serial Killer."

A bunch of London seniors learn 'How to Age Disgracefully' when they join a rambunctious club
FICTION: Clare Pooley's characters form a group you might wish you could join.

Three men live in, and plunder, the wilderness in novel 'Old King'
FICTION: It returns writer Maxim Loskutoff to his favorite setting, western America.

Trust Stephen King. He knows 'You Like It Darker' and his new book includes a 'Cujo' sequel
FICTION: New collection from the horror master proves he still has it. And by "it," we mean the ability to terrify us.

Endorsed by Stephen King and our reviewer, 'The Return of Ellie Black' is an 'assured' thriller
FICTION: When a missing person returns, that's just the start of the mystery.

Jane Smiley hits again with 'Lucky' but what the what is that ending?
FICTION: The Pulitzer winner's new novel, about a fortunate folk singer, will spur lots of debate.

In this horror novel, an Indigenous writer takes on the legacy of an 'Indian Burial Ground'
FICTION: Nick Medina returns to the tribe he created in "Sisters of the Lost Nation."

Twisted 'The Sleepwalkers' offers a 'White Lotus' honeymoon, complete with drowning
FICTION: Scarlett Thomas' novel turns a Greek paradise into a nightmare.

Review: 'Not the Camilla We Knew,' by Rachael Hanel
NONFICTION: A combination memoir and biography of Camilla Hall, the Minnesota minister's daughter who died in a police shootout.

Review: 'Signal Fires,' by Dani Shapiro
FICTION: A deadly accident, never to be spoken of, underlies this multigenerational story about two East Coast families.

Review: 'The Perfect Golden Circle,' by Benjamin Myers
FICTION: Based on a true story, two men's efforts to fool the public by making crop circles reveals much about art and politics.

Lindsey Vonn's new memoir 'Rise' has lots to say about skiing but nothing on Tiger
Gossip-free, the memoir is at its best discussing how she confronted gender barriers in the sport.

Review: 'The Last Bookseller,' by Gary Goodman
NONFICTION: An adventure of a lifetime in a trade nearly killed by the internet — bookselling.

Review: 'The Almost Legendary Morris Sisters,' by Julie Klam
NONFICTION: A funny, poignant memoir about four feisty, chain-smoking sisters who lived together.

Review: 'Kin,' by Shawna Kay Rodenberg
NONFICTION: A harrowing memoir of life in a religious community near Grand Marais.

Celebrate Elvis Presley's 86th birthday with five movies fit for the King
Elvis Presley would have been 86 Friday, so celebrate with the best of his films.