Review: Short story: "Just for the Camera" by Sarah Adams

Just for the Camera by Sarah Adams
Published November 2026 via Amazon Original Stories

Fizzy is not having a good day...but when her friend asks her to step in as last-minute, desperate-times-call-for-desperate-measures on-camera talent, it gets...well, not better, not at first, but at least more interesting.

This is another short story in a collection that is largely about weddings and the holidays. I enjoyed this one for taking a much more sideways run at the theme—there's sort of a wedding theme here, but Adams is pretty sly about it, and it makes the story more fun.

There's a note at the beginning that asks readers to suspend disbelief for the sake of the story, and that feels about right; it's not the most realistic thing to read, but it's light and fun and hits a specific type of wish-fulfillment reading mood. It's a super fast romance (as in, it's not just a short story, but it takes place over a single night), but I like that although there's a bit of insta-love going on, the characters aren't falling over themselves to make commitments when they don't so much know each other's middle names. One of the stories I liked best from this collection.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "Wonderland" by Patricia Knight Meyer

Wonderland by Patricia Knight Meyer
Published November 2026 via Unsolicited Press
★★★★

Learning the truth of my black-market adoption story and writing this book has taught me that two things can be true at once: being relinquished to "a better home" saved me in a certain way, and it wounded me deeply.

My life was no picnic. Had I not been relinquished, it wouldn't have been a picnic either. [...] If you take away anything from what you are about to read, I hope it is an understanding that adoption, while it can be the only viable choice in certain circumstances, is not a promise of a better situation. (loc. 169*)

That Meyer was adopted was never a secret: Even before she understood what adoption meant, her mother would talk about "the woman who had you" and tell Meyer about waiting outside the hospital to collect her. What that adoption actually looked like, though, was a bit more complicated. In 1970, options for a couple struggling with infertility were limited; extracorporeal fertilization was brand-new, and it would be another decade before IVF as we know it now reached the US. There was adoption, of course—but healthy (and White) babies were in high demand, and an interracial couple was low on the list of prospective parents if one was going through official channels. Unofficial channels were another matter...but, as Meyer only understood later, those unofficial channels came at potentially terrible costs, for everyone involved.

Today, it amazes me that they couldn't see how skirting the system would compromise us all. I also didn't understand that it likely contributed to my mother's alcoholism and propelled Daddy's weight gain. I'd only focused on how their poor choices affected me. The fact that no adoption record existed meant no paper trail to follow. No date of birth. No place of birth. No birth parent names. No adoption. No real birth certificate. There was nowhere to begin my search, not even if I wanted to. (loc. 2043)

Meyer has had a long time to understand and come to terms with her story and with her complicated relationship with her families, both her biological family and the one she grew up with. Luckily for the book, she's able to take a nuanced view of it all—naming the ways in which her mother's struggles impacted her, for example, but also recognizing the trauma her own mother faced, and how that might have weighed on her mother. The same is true of her biological mother: What Meyer learned as an adult was at odds with what she was told growing up, and the book explores some of what it means to go into that kind of new relationship with neither person prepared and, well, nobody really on the same page.

Why I like reading books about adoption is kind of a mystery to me (I've known a handful of people who were adopted, but that's the extent of my personal involvement, and I've read enough about it by now that I would have serious reservations if it were a possibility in my own life), but I always appreciate the books that dive into just how complicated it is, with precious few actors who are entirely in the right or in the wrong.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.

Review: Short story: "White Water Wedding" by Elizabeth Stephens

White Water Wedding by Elizabeth Stephens
Published November 2026 via Amazon Original Stories

Emery loves her job as a wedding planner. She doesn't love her current clients, who are big on drama and messes, but that comes with the territory. But there's one of their guests who she could get used to having around...

This is another short story in a collection that is largely about winter and weddings, and White Water Wedding has both...although this is a Pacific Northwest wedding, so what "winter" means is relative. In general I liked the setting and setup, although it did make me very glad that my own wedding was...not a drama-fest...and didn't involve anything like a wedding planner.

The romance is very, very fast: They meet, sparks fly, and within a day or two they're deciding to give a serious relationship a go. As someone who tends to think one should wait a while before commitment in a relationship, I would have preferred that things slow down a bit—perhaps to see them interact during the planning part of things, not just during the wedding weekend when Emery is stressed and has things to do and getting involved with a guest could at the very least lead to bad reviews. Elkin is also pretty pushy, which I know is often a thing in romance novels but isn't really to my taste.

A lot of the drama is brought in by the wedding guests (who are determined to get drunk and party, occasion be damned), but what I really want to know is this: Why would the wedding planner take part in a rafting trip with the bridal party? She's there to make things go smoothly, not to take part in the festivities, and these are not a bride and groom who seem to care about doing nice things for other people.

A quick read, but out of those in the collection closer to the bottom than to the top in terms of what I'd read again.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "Bedford Street" by Ross Murray

Bedford Street by Ross Murray
Published November 2026 via Fantagraphics
★★★

A street in New Zealand: in each house, a different small drama playing out, with people coming together and (more often) falling apart.

The art is great here, not too complicated but with plenty of detail. These are messy characters, nobody unscathed: Anyone who might be a "good" character almost immediately lets their darker side show, whether they're judging someone else for their circumstances or treating women poorly or shouting at their neighbors.

I love the concept of a set of interconnected stories, but ultimately I wanted a bit more connection between them, and I also found the lack of hope in the stories kind of dispiriting. The book is described as "darkly comic", but it's not a kind of humor that resonates with me, and I struggled to find the hope in it. There are occasional moments—a man determined to take care of his brother; his brother, in turn, recognizing when the tables need turning; a father who at first seems maybe like a bit of a deadbeat ultimately understanding his son better than one might expect. But mostly things tend to go downhill, not to improve, for the characters here, and while I don't mind a bit of grit I think I just struggled with the lack of joy.

But: I do seem to be something of an outlier here, and if you're already familiar with Murray's work I suspect this one won't disappoint. I'd read more, but I'd do so with a bit more mental preparation for how grim things might feel by the end of the book.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: Short story: "The Plus-One Pact" by Lana Ferguson

The Plus-One Pact by Lana Ferguson
Published November 2026 via Amazon Original Stories

It's as classic a setup as it gets: He's been in love with her since they met. She needs a date for her sister's wedding. And there's only one bed...

This is part of a Christmassy short-story collection, with some of the short stories admittedly a bit more Christmassy than others—actually, as much as anything I'd say it's something of a winter wedding collection. But in any case, here, Emma finds herself needing a fake date (the tropes are strong in this one), not least to show her ex she's moved on; what she doesn't realize is that Cole (her best friend and fake date) would prefer that the date be real.

It's cute and fluffy, a bread-and-butter romance if ever there was one. I wasn't wildly in love with either character (Cole's acting skills are abjectly terrible—it's a mystery how he's hidden his crush for so long—and Emma just feels a bit frothier and substanceless than typically keeps my attention), but it didn't matter so much for such a short story. Might have been nice to have Emma a bit more...aware?...earlier on, though, as in Cole's place I'd worry that there was a bit of a zero-to-sixty element about her interest.

If there's a lesson here, in any case: Shoot your shot. Why spend years waiting and wondering?

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "Papa Drew a Thousand Birds" by Maren Amini and Ahmadjan Amini

Papa Drew a Thousand Birds by Maren Amini and Ahmadjan Amini
Translated to English by Marianne Martens
Published November 2026 via Levine Querido
★★★★

What a lovely and complex look at Afghanistan of the past. Papa Drew a Thousand Birds takes us through Ahmadjan Amini's childhood and upbringing in Afghanistan—a very different Afghanistan than the one in the news today. This is an Afghanistan that finds its way onto the hippie trail; one in which dreams of being an artist are, if not encouraged or even really tolerated, not really much more than an oddity that the family is embarrassed by.

Maren Amini, Ahmadjan's daughter and the first author listed here, shows up minimally in the book itself—the story is really about Ahmadjan's life up to a point before Maren is grown up—but the combination of what is in the book and the fact that the two wrote this together speaks volumes, more than an extended plotline could. There's a really wonderful, almost wordless call-back to Ahmadjan's childhood at one point when his own children are small, and it's such a perfect illustration of...where he was and how he understands it now.

The art is quite simple. It has a style that makes me think "European graphic novel", though unfortunately my language for graphic novels is limited and I can't really elaborate on why that's the case. I suppose I'd hoped for a bit more color (that cover!), but it's evocative despite the simplicity. Readers who are familiar with the epic poem "The Conference of the Birds" (I am not) will likely get even more out of this, but it's not necessary to have read the poem first. Would absolutely recommend.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "The Immortal" by Christopher Pike

The Immortal by Christopher Pike
Published 1993
★★★

I got it in my head recently to read a few old Christopher Pike books that I read in childhood. As with many of the books I read as a kid, I really don't know how this one ended up in our house; it isn't and wasn't in my family's usual genres. (Maybe my sister; she definitely went through a Greek mythology stage.)

I'd forgotten some significant things here, like how present the Greek gods storyline is; Pike made up his own additional mythology for the sake of this story, and it works well. It's been long enough since I read this that I'd forgotten some key details, which is always nice, and honestly? This was fun. I remember Pike's books being treated as sort of...trashy fiction...or very pulpy, anyway, and although it's not that this isn't pulpy, in many ways it could comfortably hold its own against more recent YA. Josie and Helen aren't squeaky-clean, and neither do they particularly want to be; for their trip to Greece they want nudist beaches and R-rated summer flings and just maybe to beat the other in a game of boys.

With all that said: This is absolutely a book written for horny teenaged boys. I suspect this is a theme in Pike's older books; as I write this, I'm reading (rereading) Master of Murder, and, well...we'll come back to that theme. I don't know that I can really recommend this as a first-time read—but it was a nice bit of nostalgia.

Review: "Baby Steps" by Chelsea Frank

Baby Steps by Chelsea Frank
Published August 2026 via Hot Goss
★★★★

Avery is nearing the end of law school, and the future seems bright—except for the matter of her pesky eating disorder. Oh, and also the unplanned pregnancy that she doesn't discover until it's late enough that her options are limited. And thus she finds herself flying across the country for treatment she doesn't want in order to support a pregnancy that she doesn't really know how to process.

The combination of pregnancy and an eating disorder is not entirely new in fiction, but it's unusual—offhand I can only think of one, though I'm sure there are more (honestly, I'm sure I've read more, I just can't think of many at the moment)—and I like different takes.

This is semi-autobiographical (inspired by the author's real-life experiences, says the book), although of course I don't know which parts are more directly from real life and which parts are fully fiction. (Although: I checked out Frank's Instagram while I was confirming that I'd read somewhere that it was semi-autobiographical, and she tells a story about her teenage-years bully showing up to treatment at the same time she was there—and that's something that's not in Baby Steps, and it's kind of fascinating to me because it's the sort of thing that feels too perfect(ly awful) to be reality, and in a novel people might say "this is unrealistic"...and yet.)

At any rate. By and large I found this to be a quick read, with a nice balance of figuring out the eating disorder and figuring out pregnancy. The cast is relatively diverse, and I really appreciated that this didn't devolve into romance—not that romance and eating disorders can't coexist, obviously, but I've read a few too many "my romance helped cure me" books and also a few too many "now that I'm magically cured I'm ready for romance" books. I also like that Avery isn't always all that likeable; she has her moments, but she's also deep into difficult stuff and mostly not that interested in making herself more palatable just to make someone else's life easier.

Other things I wasn't as sure about. There's a friendship late in the book that comes in, burns bright, and falls off the page again, and I wasn't really sure what the point of that section was; I found myself wondering whether that was one of the more autobiographical bits that maybe should have been left in real life. And...there are a couple of plot points that are very standard in eating disorder fiction, and I might have preferred that the book go in a different direction.

3.5 stars (and a cautious rounding-up), then, for a mixed bag but a read that kept me engaged.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "Laboratory" by Emily York

Laboratory by Emily York
Published September 2026 via Bloomsbury Academic
★★★★

Everyone has a mental image of a laboratory—test tubes and beakers, perhaps; lab coats; a microscope or two. But what is a laboratory really, when it's divested from the imagination and brought into real life?

We're back in my favorite nonfiction series, and this time it's all about science. In some ways I think this book is broader than "laboratory", but then, science is a field rather than something tangible. One of York's points, though, is simply about how broad the definition of a laboratory can be, much bigger than something constrained to chemical reactions and safety glasses.

Like many of this series, Laboratory dips a toe into what AI means for the future (and present, for that matter) of the material at hand, but it also touches on topics ranging from building a social sciences lab to historical and not-so-historical instances of staggeringly unethical medical experiments. (File under Things I Would Read a Whole Book About!)

I love the range of these books; some are broad and some are narrow and all of them take me somewhere I didn't expect and teach me something I didn't know. This one is on the broader side of things, but it also pushes the reader to think outside the box a bit.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: Short story: "Just Say I Do" by Catherine Walsh

Just Say I Do by Catherine Walsh
Published November 2026 via Amazon Original Stories

It's the eve before Chloe and Robbie's wedding...and as much as Chloe wants to marry Robbie, she didn't want it this way. She'd pictured something small and intimate, or at least something on the more relaxed side. Instead, thanks to family excitement, she's getting a whole Production.

This is part of a collection of holiday romance short stories, and it is very predictable fluff. That's not a criticism, just a statement of fact—sometimes what you want is predictable fluff, and it's clear from very early on in this story exactly how things will eventually go down. What's interesting to me, actually, is that in some ways this story is the climax from a full romance novel, plucked out and rejiggered to fit the shape of a short story.

No real surprises here, then, but perfect for a quick read on the subway or a day when you just want something light and largely drama-free.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.