Rage & passion & everything in between

As we navigate winter and shorter days, this collection of novels runs both hot and cold—not only in their settings but for the visceral, psychological, and sexual tensions within. There is a woman on the run from a claustrophobic life; a portrait of lovers against the exhilarating backdrop of real cinematic history; a fragile mother-and-son reunion in Japan during the holiday season; two couples whose lives begin to collapse under the weight of winter weather; and two couples spend one beastly hot evening at a dinner party. There is rage and passion—and almost every manner of emotion.
 
The White Hot by Quiara Alegria Hudes
Hudes is a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, but this is her debut novel. It has been called a Latina Siddhartha. A 26-year-old single mother steps out of her dead-end life in Philadelphia and hops on a bus in search of freedom and self-discovery. She intends to leave her 10-year-old daughter with her mother and grandmother for 10 days, but days turn to years. Told in the form of a letter to her daughter meant to be read at 18 (“with rumbling heart, and saliva pasting tongue to teeth [...] Noelle plunged a finger into the manila corner and ripped open the fabric of her world”), this is a brash, raw, and sizzling hot novel.
 
The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller
Shortlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize, Miller’s fine novel takes place in the English countryside in December 1962. The nasty winter will alter the lives of two married couples: the country doctor and his more privileged wife; and a farmer and his wife, a former dancer. Both women are pregnant. They are all fish out of water in this environment. The writing is precise: “He sometimes thought she was the kind of person who might choose to bring the house down simply to find out what kind of noise it made.” The weather acts as a catalyst, bringing up unpleasant past histories and the cracks in each marriage. A remarkable quiet drama.
 
Palaver by Bryan Washington
Readers of Washington’s previous work will recognize the themes and settings of his latest tender novel. Here the protagonist's mother is Jamaican born, living in Texas, and estranged from her son (an English tutor in Tokyo) for over a dozen years. When she unexpectedly arrives in Japan before Christmas, they bristle yet work to understand each other as the son struggles with his affair with a married man, and the mother (who did not approve of her son’s coming out) meets a potential companion. Washington reveals the pain in attempting to mend these misconnections alongside optimism that the two can, in fact, be reconciled.
 
The Dinner Party by Viola Van de Sandt
Dutch debut author van de Sandt’s novel is only hard to describe because it will spoil the reading. We initially meet Franca at the office of her shrink, who has suggested she write down everything that happened at the titular dinner party—one that involved a knife. Franca had met Andrew, a slightly older well-born Brit, in a Utrecht library where she was immediately smitten. Soon after, she followed him to the U.K. Fluidly moving from past (her previous traumas and the details of the disastrous dinner she is made to prepare for Andrew’s colleagues in his English flat) to the present, you will be continually surprised by the events described by this unreliable narrator. I can’t wait to read more by this author.
 
The Silver Book by Olivia Laing
You don’t have to love Italian movies or true crime to appreciate Laing’s stunning novel inspired by real life events in the Roman Cinecittà film studio of the '70s. It puts you right inside the elaborate production design of films by Fellini (Casanova) and Pasolini (Salò). Those were decadent and politically volatile days. The novel leads up to Pasolini’s tragic, gruesome, possibly politically motivated murder outside Rome in 1975. It features the brilliant costumer Danilo Donati who hires the young British artist Nicholas Wade to be his apprentice in what he calls “our dream factory.” Their relationship, their affection for each other, and the transcendent nature of film is erotically charged.

Wishing you all a bountiful 2026 as we offer the first blog of the new year. Let me know if you read anything exciting over the holidays.
And in the meantime, happy reading!
​Joni