2 days Ago
There are so many books to read on the porch in this glorious weather. This week, a thoughtful memoir, a fascinating historical novel with lots of myth and magical realism and a tense, locked room thriller. For all this year’s picks, stop by your local library or Main Street Reads, your local bookstore.
To see all the review picks, visit the special page we’ve built just for you at https://bookshop.org/lists/summerville-reads-2025-top-book-reviews-by-summerville-journal-scene . Shari Stauch Memoir That Sparks Conversation “Twenty Pieces” by Lisa Weldon (ISBN 9781955791106, from Braughler Books, $19.
99 paperback, 266 pgs.) Wow! This is a memoir stitched together with grit, grace, and the raw fabric of reinvention. Weldon takes us by the hand and leads us through the maze of New York City’s neighborhoods and her own personal upheaval.
It’s honest, yet never self-indulgent, and it will spark meaningful conversation. At 58, with her marriage unraveled, a home lost and children flown, she chooses curiosity over collapse. What begins as a plan to update her digital marketing skills quickly becomes something far less tidy and far more essential.
Each mile walked through the boroughs becomes a meditation and a bit of a reckoning, too. This isn’t just a travelogue of a woman chasing her second act — it’s a survival story wrapped in subway maps and city noise, where her journey unfolds in the pages of a private diary. Like a late conversation over wine with an old friend, her storytelling pulses with vulnerability and hope.
She doesn't offer platitudes or easy answers, but rather the kind of truth that’s earned when we stop to face our own hopes, dreams and truths. This memoir is for anyone who has ever lost their place and dares to carve out a new one. It’s real-life second-chance stuff we love.
The author will be in residence at the South Porch Artists Residency beginning this week. We’ve lined her up for a signing and open discussion at Main Street Reads on Sunday, April 13. Myth Meets Magical Realism “The Sirens” by Emilia Hart (ISBN 9781250280824, from St.
Martin's Press, $29 hardcover, 352 pgs.) Following the success of Weyward, author Emilia Hart dives even deeper into the mysticism of womanhood, weaving together three timelines across centuries in a haunting tale of sisterhood and secrets. The Sirens is brand new, on the street (and in your favorite bookstore) this week.
The novel opens in 2019 with Lucy, a woman haunted by a violent dream that leaves her ex-lover nearly dead and her psyche unraveling. Fleeing to her sister Jess’s remote coastal town, she finds Jess missing and the townspeople steeped in unsettling rumors of vanished men, whispered songs from the waves, and a baby found in a seaside cave. As Lucy searches for answers, she uncovers Jess’s old diary, unlocking a portal into the past.
In 1999, we meet Jess as a vulnerable, water-sensitive teenager whose talent for drawing and growing isolation set her on a dangerous path with a too-attentive teacher. And further back, in 1800, twin sisters Mary and Eliza are exiled from Ireland on a convict ship. For their entire lives, they’ve feared the ocean, as their mother tragically drowned when they were just girls.
But now the sea, once a place of trauma, begins to awaken something ancient within them. Hart's writing offers us characters who are fiercely flawed yet completely compelling. The novel’s strength lies in its seamless movement across timelines and its subtle but powerful magic realism.
“The Sirens” is a fascinating mystery. But perhaps even more interesting is the exploration of the mysterious forces that bind women together across generations. It takes a deep look at women who’ve been told to stay small — and what happens when they don’t.
Ultimately, this is about the power in listening: to each other, to our natural world and to the voices we were taught to ignore. And in that, it sings. A Locked Room Thriller “The Last Session” by Julia Bartz (ISBN 9781982199494.
from Atria Books. $27.99 hardcover.
368 pgs.) Julia Bartz, author of the instant New York Times bestseller “The Writing Retreat,” is back with another pulse-pounding thriller in “The Last Session” — a locked-room mystery that blends psychological suspense with a sharp exploration of trauma, memory and the seductive promises of self-help culture. The novel centers on Thea, a psychiatric social worker whose routine is upended when a catatonic woman is admitted to her unit.
Thea feels an unsettling sense of recognition — and soon confirms the patient is tied to a haunting event from her own past. But just as Thea begins to unravel the mystery, the woman disappears, snatched away without explanation. What follows is a dangerous descent into the New Mexico desert, where Thea infiltrates a wellness retreat run by a couple who claim to help people confront their deepest fears and desires.
The setting is both serene and sinister, and Bartz paints the isolation of the desert with the same tension as the retreat's invasive “therapies.” As Thea moves through exercises designed to strip away psychological defenses, she finds herself drawing closer to the truth — not just about her missing patient, but about herself. Bartz is at her best when examining the dark side of self-reinvention and the blurry line between healing and manipulation.
“The Last Session” keeps readers guessing until the final pages, with plenty of clever twists. It’s a thriller that lingers. For fans of taut suspense and psychological depth, “The Last Session delivers.
” HINT: This will be a July book club pick at Main Street Reads, which means copies there are offered at 10% off. Shari Stauch loves all things Summerville and is a fierce champion of literacy in the Lowcountry. She is the owner of Main Street Reads (115 S.
Main St., www.mainstreetreads.
com ) and producer of the Summerville Book Festival. An avid reader, author and publisher, she serves on the boards of the Timrod Library and Summerville DREAM, and the literacy committee of Summerville Rotary. Reach her at mainstreetreads@gmail.
com ..
