Fave Reads | Book Chatter

Mad Mabel
By Sally Hepworth
St. Martin’s Press, April 2026, 352pp.

The Short of It:

Witty and sharp.

The Rest of It:

“Meet Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick: eighty-one years old, gloriously grumpy, fiercely independent, and never without a hot cup of tea—or a cutting remark. She minds her own business in her quiet Melbourne suburb, until a neighbor turns up dead and the whispers start flying.” ~from the publisher

There’s so much more going on here. For one, Elsie is also known as Mad Mabel. She was institutionalized for one murder at fifteen and accused of another, and her quiet suburban neighborhood hasn’t forgotten it. Every so often, it comes back to the surface, especially when a neighbor turns up dead. Fingers start pointing again and honestly, can you blame them? They know what they know. Elsie, for her part, is kind of over it.

Enter Persephone. Seven years old and far wiser than she should be, she ignores the whispers and shows up at Elsie’s door like it’s the most natural thing in the world. She lives next door with her mom, Roxanne, and even though Elsie is not looking for friends, especially not a child who lets herself in unannounced and immediately wants to play games, she can’t help but soften once she realizes Roxanne is dealing with her own darkness.

This book hits a really satisfying balance between humor and mystery. You keep wondering what actually happened all those years ago, and how anyone moves forward from something like that without carrying resentment or doubt.

Friends? Who needs them? Apparently Elsie does. Even when her interactions with the neighbors start with irritation, she finds herself enjoying conversation again, lingering over tea, even getting pulled into Persephone’s games.

I’m always drawn to stories that put older and younger characters together like this. There’s something about the blunt honesty of kids that gets under your skin. Persephone leaves a mark, whether Elsie wants her to or not. Watching Elsie try to process that is half the fun. She’s adorably flustered most of the time, but still sharp and fierce when it counts, especially when the people she’s come to care about are at risk.

Highly recommend.

Source: Review Copy provided by the publisher.
Disclosure: This post contains Bookshop.org affiliate links.

Big Swiss
By Jen Beagin
Scribner, August 2023, 352 pp.

The Short of It:

What a fun, darkly humorous book.

The Rest of It:

Greta lives with her friend Sabine in an ancient Dutch farmhouse in Hudson, New York. The house is unrenovated, uninsulated, and full of bees. Greta spends her days transcribing therapy sessions for a sex coach who calls himself Om. She becomes infatuated with his newest client, a repressed married woman she affectionately refers to as Big Swiss.

Transcribing sex therapy sessions is already unusual work, but everything shifts the moment Greta recognizes a familiar voice in the park. Standing right in front of her is the woman she has only known through transcripts, the one she has privately dubbed Big Swiss. Seeing her in real life is startling. She is tall, poised, and quietly commanding. Greta realizes she knows intimate details about this woman’s life, yet the urge to know more only deepens.

What begins as curiosity turns into something far more consuming. Greta’s fascination with Big Swiss, whose real name is Flavia, grows intense and increasingly risky. Flavia is married, and Greta is painfully aware of that marriage through the therapy sessions she transcribes. Still, there is an undeniable pull between them. That tension is heightened by the shadow hanging over Flavia’s life, as she is being stalked by the person who once nearly killed her.

As their connection develops into something complicated and unconventional, Greta is forced to confront her own past. She carries deep guilt over her mother’s death, a burden she cannot seem to shake. Meanwhile, life in a small town offers little room for secrets. Everyone is entangled in everyone else’s business, especially when a sex therapist sits at the center, quietly collecting stories and asking probing questions that linger long after the sessions end.

Greta’s job pays the bills, but it also puts her in a morally precarious position. When the boundaries of confidentiality begin to blur, she faces a choice that could unravel everything. Even her eccentric, free-spirited roommate struggles to understand what is at stake.

This novel blends dark humor with an exploration of unconventional relationships. It moves through friendship, obsession, desire, and fear while asking difficult questions. What does it mean to give yourself fully to another person? Is it a loss of self, or a way of becoming whole?

Highly recommended.

Source: Borrowed
Disclosure: This post contains Bookshop.org affiliate links.

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