Review of I Don’t Wish You Well, Jumata Emill

I Don’t Wish You Well

by Jumata Emill
read by André Santana and five more

Listening Library, 2026. 10 hours, 7 minutes.
Review written June 9, 2026, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

I Don’t Wish You Well is a novel about a teen journalist digging into an old murder case for a school project. When I realized that, I almost stopped the audiobook right there, because I’ve seen that basic plot before, and often it has felt like artificial motivation. I’m so glad I kept going. This book has lots of heart and plenty of layers of complexity in both the mystery and the multiple social issues behind the murders. Plus, the protagonist, Pryce Cummings, was a kid I grew to love – and his deeper motivation quickly became clear.

The novel opens as Pryce is on his way home after his Freshman year of college, where he’s a journalism major and has gotten some good articles published. He’s a little sore that he wasn’t chosen as a summer intern in the journalism department, even though that’s unheard of for Freshmen.

But he sees a comment on an article about a five-year-old murder case from his hometown – that maybe Douce, the Black gay teen everyone thought was responsible, didn’t murder the four football players after all. So Pryce pitches to his professor that he’ll investigate the murders while he’s home for the summer and do a podcast in the Fall.

Sure enough, when he interviews the commenter on his way home – he learns that the alleged murderer – who was found dead with a gun in his hand and evidence in his room – actually was hours away on the night of the first murder, but the police would never listen to his testimony.

Pryce has a personal interest in clearing that boy’s name. He is also gay, but not out to his parents. The whole town sees the murders as proof that being gay is depraved and sinful. Maybe if Pryce finds out the truth he can change the narrative.

And so Pryce begins asking questions. And begins finding things out. It turns out that the four football players who were killed had dark secrets in their pasts – and reasons many people may have wanted them dead. But if that happened, why did they kill and frame Douce? And why didn’t the police follow up other leads?

Since this is happening in a novel, we’re not actually surprised when Pryce’s investigation puts him in danger. The original killers wore a Trojan mask (used to celebrate the town’s football team), so it’s unnerving when Pryce starts seeing a shadowy figure wearing a Trojan mask.

Besides that, it’s Pryce’s brother’s senior year coming up – and he’s planning to lead the team to a winning football season. The football fans in town, which is pretty much everyone, aren’t happy about Pryce stirring up old ghosts.

The title? That’s because most people in town don’t actually want to know the truth. So they don’t wish him well in his efforts.

Once again, my summary doesn’t do this book justice. I was a little impatient with the set-up, but the book quickly got rid of all my skepticism. The case was much more than a class project to Pryce and besides the compelling investigation, he uncovered issues about power dynamics in a football town, about racism and sexism and marginalization of gay people. And it’s all woven together in a story about a kid you come to love.

jumataemill.com

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Review of The Woman in Suite 11, by Ruth Ware

The Woman in Suite 11

by Ruth Ware
read by Imogen Church

Simon & Schuster Audio, 2025. 15 hours, 11 minutes.
Review written December 5, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

The Woman in Suite 11 is Ruth Ware’s first sequel, a follow-up to The Woman in Cabin 10, set ten years later. The Woman in Cabin Ten was the first Ruth Ware book I listened to. It was 2018, when I was reading for the Newbery Award, and listening to a Ruth Ware thriller was the perfect way to cleanse my palate, as they’re pretty much the opposite of the children’s books I was reading for the award.

This follow-up was wonderful. I love that life is going well for Lo Blacklock. She’s happily married, living in New York City with her husband and two kids. But because of having kids and the unfortunate timing of the pandemic, her career as a journalist has stalled.

So Lo is surprised when she gets an invitation to the opening of a premier hotel in Geneva, owned by the Leidman group. Her husband urges her to go while he takes care of their two little boys. And Lo can visit her Mum in England on the way back.

But Lo is even more surprised when she sees three people who were on that fateful voyage of the Aurora ten years ago. And then when she gets summoned to owner Marcus Leidman’s room late at night – Suite 11 – she assumes it’s his eccentric way to finally grant her an interview. But the door is opened by the very same woman she saw in Cabin 10.

And from there? All hell breaks loose. Again there is murder before the book is over. Again there are very powerful people involved. Again there’s a mystery as to how it all went down – and this time Lo is a suspect, and she’s also keeping secrets.

I’ll say no more about the plot, but it keeps you going all the way. I kept checking how much of the audiobook was left to confirm that no, this seeming resolution probably wasn’t actually a resolution. And sure enough, there were new causes for tension all the way to the end.

Do read the The Woman in Cabin 10 first – you’ll enjoy this one all the more. I was so happy for Lo – her husband is awesome (and spoiler alert – he survives the book. It’s so good to see a wonderful supportive husband in a thriller, especially one who survives.), her kids are wonderful, she’s got her mental health under control, including no more drinking problem. When she talked about missing her little boys and had her husband let her listen to them sleeping, my own heart melted.

I have to say that I really do hope for Lo’s sake that she will not feature in any more thrillers. But if she does, I will want to be first in line to read them!

ruthware.com

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Review of Suddenly a Murder, by Lauren Muñoz

Suddenly a Murder

by Lauren Muñoz
read by Diana Bustelo

Listening Library, 2023. 9 hours, 16 minutes.
Review written October 30, 2023, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

Suddenly a Murder is a murder mystery (no surprise there!) set in the stately home of Ashwood Manor on an island, where seven recent high school graduates are spending a week immersed in the 1920s.

We find out right at the beginning that Izzy brought a gold knife to the party and took it into Blaine’s bedroom not long before he was stabbed to death there. We also know she feels guilty. And doesn’t want the detectives to learn about any of those things.

Izzy’s the only one not from a wealthy family. She attended the private school because her mother is a teacher there. Since their Freshman year, she’s been best friends with Cassidy, who took her under her wing with a fierce loyalty. The party is Cassidy’s gift to Izzy, because both of them love the old murder mystery movie that was filmed in Ashwood Manor long ago. Cassidy makes sure that everyone gives up their cellphones and modern clothes, and she’s equipped all their bedrooms with 1920s costumes – as if they’re going back in time to an actual 1920s house party.

But naturally, murder wasn’t part of the plan. It’s Cassidy’s boyfriend who turns up dead. As the evidence comes out (with Izzy listening to police interviews from a hidden passage), we also get flashback chapters and find out that all the friends on the island had some motive or other to kill Blaine. But which one will the detectives decide is guilty?

I was a bit impatient starting out with these spoiled rich kids and their interpersonal drama, I’m afraid. But as the mystery went on, I did get pulled in, wanting to hear the denouement, which did, in fact, surprise me.

I like a nice cozy locked room (or isolated on an island) mystery, and this one’s fun because the suspects are all teens. This is a debut, and I very much hope the author will give us more well-crafted mysteries to enjoy.

laurenmunozbooks.com

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Review of The Swifts: A Dictionary of Scoundrels, by Beth Lincoln, read by Nikki Patel

The Swifts

A Dictionary of Scoundrels

by Beth Lincoln
read by Nikki Patel

Listening Library, 2023. 9 hours, 53 minutes.
Review written October 2, 2023, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

The Swifts is a story about an adventurous family that sets themselves apart from common folk by taking their names from the family dictionary. Shenanigan Swift is a child in this family, and she’s constantly told “You can’t help your name.” People continually expect shenanigans from her, and they are not disappointed.

She and her sisters Phenomenon and Felicity live in the ancestral Swift estate while their parents are off adventuring. But adventures happen at home when Aunt Schadenfreude calls a grand Reunion of Swifts to look for the treasure hidden long ago somewhere on the estate by Vile Swift.

But this time, the Reunion is plagued by murder and attempted murder. Gumshoe Swift is obviously not up to the task of finding the culprit, so Shenanigan and her siblings — along with their nonbinary cousin Earth — take up the task.

The mystery is full of misdirection, sinister clues, and a bit of silliness, along with Shenanigan pondering whether your name is actually your destiny.

I listened to this audiobook mostly while getting way too absorbed in a jigsaw puzzle, and it provides a fun mystery adventure the whole family will enjoy (with the warning that there are some deaths). The author wasn’t going for realism, and ended up with delightfully quirky.

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Review of The Inheritance Games, by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

The Inheritance Games

by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
read by Christie Moreau

Hachette Audio, 2020. 10 hours, 45 minutes.
Review written March 24, 2023, from a library eaudiobook

Thanks to my friend Lisa for recommending this series to me. I’d seen the hype about the fourth book coming out this summer.

The Inheritance Games begins a series about a billionaire who died and who left puzzles for his family after him.

The biggest puzzle of all is why he left his entire multi-billion dollar estate to Avery Grahams, a teen who’d been living in her car before she got the news, in order to avoid her sister’s abusive boyfriend.

But Avery gets called to the reading of the will of Tobias Hawthorne, along with the whole family. She’s never met any of these people before. So she’s as shocked as anyone when she learns he’s left the bulk of his estate to her, passing over his grandsons, the four Hawthorne brothers.

There is a condition: She has to live in Hawthorne house for one year. It’s an enormous place, so it shouldn’t be difficult. But then someone apparently tries to kill her. And there’s the question of how she feels about the Hawthorne brothers. And she’s warned about the last girl at her new private school who lived at Hawthorne house and turned up dead.

Along with all that, the Hawthorne brothers tell her that their grandfather was always setting puzzles for them, and the letters left to them are obviously another puzzle. Avery thinks the solution to the puzzles may explain why he picked her to inherit.

But the question is: Is Avery’s existence at Hawthorne House just a part of the puzzle, or is this amazing inheritance due to something special about her?

This puzzle novel is fun, though I was a little disappointed that the clues weren’t such that the reader could really play along. Fun to watch them get solved, though. And I’m proud to say that I saw a twist at the end coming long before it happened.

And although they did solve a major puzzle in this book, the ending hints that there are more puzzles to come. The series was originally advertised as a trilogy, but book four is coming out this summer. I think I have been enticed into reading more books. And who doesn’t like a Cinderella story where a worthy but poor heroine comes into great wealth?

jenniferlynnbarnes.com

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Review of Kill Joy, by Holly Jackson

Kill Joy

by Holly Jackson
read by Bailey Carr, Raymond J. Lee, and Bruce Mann

Listening Library, 2023. 2 hours, 37 minutes.
Review written March 12, 2023, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

Kill Joy is a prequel novella to A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder. It is just plain fun. I was relieved about that, having recently finished Holly Jackson’s utterly terrifying Five Survive. This one is actually not scary.

What we’ve got is the story of how Pip chose her senior capstone project that led to her investigating the murder of Andie Bell, which started the events in the A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder trilogy.

It all begins with a murder mystery party.

The party happens toward the end of Pip’s junior year. Her friends are there — friends whose names I recognize from the series. It happens at Connor Reynolds’ house, and his big brother Jamie runs the mystery and plays the part of a Scotland Yard detective.

I was waiting for the mystery party to turn sinister, and, well, I won’t tell you about that. But let’s just say that unlike any other Holly Jackson book I’ve read, this one was more fun than scary.

So that’s why I think this is a good book to read after you’ve read the whole trilogy. It’s fun to get more insight into the characters and have some fun with them and understand how it all began. If you start with the prequel, you’re going to be very misled about the level of tension in the later books. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

Oh, and the audio version has the same excellent production as the trilogy, with multiple voice actors and the same theme music at the beginning and end. A great listening experience!

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Review of Pride and Premeditation, by Tirzah Price, read by Morag Sims

Pride and Premeditation

by Tirzah Price
read by Morag Sims

HarperAudio, 2021. 8 hours, 30 minutes.
Review written October 2, 2022, from a library eaudiobook

I always enjoy Jane Austen spin-offs. This book takes all the characters from my favorite Jane Austen book, Pride and Prejudice, and places them in a murder mystery.

They’re in a different social setting than before. Lizzie’s father Mr. Bennet is a barrister, owning the firm Longbourn and Sons, where Lizzie helps out and wants an official position. Instead she must endure it when Mr. Collins, a distant relative who will inherit the firm, takes credit for her work. Her father challenges her to solve a case using logic to prove herself.

And then she hears about the case of the murder of Mr. Hurst. His brother-in-law Mr. Bingley is accused of the murder. Lizzie hopes to insert herself into the case, but they have engaged the services of his friend Mr. Darcy, who works for the much larger legal firm, Pemberley.

What follows is a convoluted and melodramatic case. At first, I didn’t much like this version of Elizabeth Bennet. She didn’t seem nearly as clever, and was mostly jumping to conclusions in her attempts to sleuth. (Of course, I expected her to jump to the wrong conclusion about Mr. Wickham.)

The author does admit in a note at the end that a woman could not have done the things Lizzie does in this book. But beyond that, the solution to the case seemed a bit coincidental and convoluted.

But when I stopped worrying about the logic behind things, I had to admit it was a fun ride. And it’s always fun to watch Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy gradually change their opinions of one another, whatever the setting.

tirzahprice.com

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Review of How to Solve Your Own Murder, by Kristen Perrin, read by Alexandra Dowling and Jaye Jacobs

How to Solve Your Own Murder

by Kristen Perrin
read by Alexandra Dowling and Jaye Jacobs

Books on Tape, 2024. 10 hours, 52 minutes.
Review written February 13, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review
2025 Alex Award Winner

The Alex Awards are given every year to ten books published for adults that will be of interest to teens. How to Solve Your Own Murder is an excellent choice.

This is a cozy murder mystery, complete with an English village and manor as the setting. Our main sleuth is 20-something Annie Adams, who recently graduated from college and then lost her job, so she’s moved back into her mother’s house and dreams of writing mystery novels.

But one day a letter arrives from great-aunt Frances’s lawyer asking to meet with Annie because great-aunt Frances (whom Annie has never met) is changing her will. Well, when Annie shows up to the meeting, great-aunt Frances is late, but when they go to the manor to meet her there – they find her dead.

But it turns out that Frances has been expecting to be murdered since she was a teen in 1965 and got a detailed fortune that said she would likely be murdered. The local police were sick and tired of the way she thought every indigestion was poison and every last name a type of bird an omen. She found a way to have her theories taken seriously. Annie and the other possible heir, a man named Saxton, are told that whichever one of them solves Frances’ murder will inherit her entire fortune and become a millionaire. If nobody solves the case within a week, the whole estate will get parceled off and sold to developers.

Now, along with the present-day mystery and the high motivation that comes with it, there’s another mystery revealed in Frances’s old diary. In 1966, one year after getting her fateful fortune, her friend Emily disappeared, with her body never found. Annie has a feeling the two cases are linked. And meanwhile, someone’s leaving threatening notes on her pillow in her room at the manor.

So the book has two threads going, one from the past taken from Frances’s diary, and another from the present, that comes with multimillion-dollar stakes and a dash of danger. Someone killed Frances, so if Annie gets too near the truth, they may come for her, too.

It all adds up to a cozy mystery with a nice puzzle, fun characters, and plenty of suspense. I loved listening to this one.

kristenperrin.com
penguinrandomhouse.com

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Review of One Perfect Couple, by Ruth Ware, read by Imogen Church

One Perfect Couple

by Ruth Ware
read by Imogen Church

Simon & Schuster Audio, 2024. 14 hours, 25 minutes.
Review written January 31, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

Okay! With this book I’ve read all of Ruth Ware’s existing work – and this one felt like something new and had me hanging on every word.

Yes, this one is a thriller like all the others, and it’s going to end with the female main character in great danger. There’s always some question about who she can trust and where the danger lies, though in this case, that came to be obvious before the dangerous confrontation – it was more a question of would she survive the confrontation. (Though I will put it in “Mystery” along with the others.)

The book sets up with Lila, a research virologist, fretting over data that doesn’t give the results she wanted. And then her actor boyfriend Nico gets a big opportunity and wants her to come with him on a new reality TV show called “One Perfect Couple.” Five couples are going to be taken to a tropical island and given tasks to achieve. People will get eliminated after each task, and the producers will be encouraging some remixing of the couples.

Lila isn’t thrilled about the whole thing. But Nico is very much hoping it will be his big break as an actor. Their plan is that Lila will get knocked out early, and if Nico’s encouraged to spend time with other women, he assures her it will purely reflect his acting abilities – only for the camera.

But during all this set-up, the book begins each chapter with a radio distress call of someone from the island in the future, not too far ahead. They’re stranded, their water is running out, and people are dead and injured – so we’re fully warned that things are going to go terribly wrong.

And they do go terribly wrong. The island hosts a resort in construction and not yet open to the public. Their first night – after one person is eliminated – an enormous storm takes out power and the desalination plant. The boat where the staff of the show were staying had left to take the eliminated contestant back to the mainland – and it doesn’t return.

The storm kills a couple people, and then the group has to figure out how to survive until a boat comes – but that turns out to be much longer than they hope. So they need to ration food and medicine – and let’s just say there are power struggles and more people start dying.

And my goodness it had me avidly listening! Perhaps it’s not the most pleasant story to spend my time with, but I did like the characters and there were even some interesting insights into toxic relationships. But mostly, it was a thrilling story that got me wondering what I would do in that situation – and tremendously glad I’ll never get in that situation.

[It’s probably just me, but does anyone else wonder why someone on a tropical island wouldn’t try to make their own small desalination scheme by trying to evaporate sea water and catch the condensation? I understand you probably wouldn’t get a lot, but every little bit would help, and it seems easier than scaling coconut trees. Why didn’t they even try? That was my only niggling question – but I also had it when reading a different book about drought in California, so it was a persistent thought.]

ruthware.com

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Review of The Turn of the Key, by Ruth Ware, read by Imogen Church

The Turn of the Key

by Ruth Ware
read by Imogen Church

Review written December 30, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.
Simon & Schuster Audio, 2019. 12 hours, 13 minutes.

The Turn of the Key is Ruth Ware at her most frightening. Never mind what I said in my last review of one of her books – even though this is the fourth one of her books I’ve read in the last half of 2024, I had no idea what was going to happen in this one. Well, except what the person telling the story told us – she was in prison for murder for the death of a child. The book is her writing to a lawyer the other ladies in prison have said is good for no-chance cases.

Before I talk about the book, let me say that this book is extremely well-written and had me on the edge of my seat all the way. The plot wasn’t predictable, and so many small things combined to keep the tension high. So why am I not giving it a star? Well, a child dies. And even watching all the pieces come together to explain mysterious events isn’t enough to make me feel good about the story. I was left with a sinking feeling at the end of the book, so I feel like my review has to include a fair warning. Not only does someone die whom you’ve come to care about, it’s a child.

And the author absolutely tells you that right from the start. So if I wasn’t able to handle that, I probably shouldn’t have read the book. And I did thoroughly enjoy reading the book and couldn’t stop thinking about it – but it didn’t give me the usual happy feeling at the end when a mystery is solved.

Anyway, that said, the story is told by Rowan Caine. She discovered an opportunity to be a nanny for two architects and their four children in a remote part of Scotland. Rowan is up front that she told some lies to get the position, and her reasons are some of the mysteries in the book. But it has an enormous salary, and the family seems nice, and the teenage daughter is off to boarding school when Rowan is first due to arrive.

The initial interview – a day with the family – went great, but when Rowan shows up for duty, she’s told the parents are heading to a conference the very next day. The previous nannies have left because they thought the house was haunted, but Rowan firmly believes that’s a load of bunk. All the same, when she starts hearing pacing in the night above her room – where there shouldn’t even be a room – and when the “smart” house malfunctions in the night, and when the children get her told off after they lead her into the poison garden on the grounds – well, she doesn’t know what’s going on or where to turn. The lady who comes in to clean doesn’t seem to like her, and the handyman/driver is helpful, but she doesn’t want him to think she’s a neurotic female who needs to be rescued.

The situation builds, with one thing after another. Just when Rowan thinks she’s getting a break, something more happens. And it all ends with the death of a child. And when Rowan tried to explain to the police what had been going on, she only makes them more suspicious.

It’s another thriller with expertly done, twisty suspense. Pick it up with a fair warning.

ruthware.com

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