The Pōhaku – Jasmin ‘Iolani Hakes

“Death has been chasing this story for generations, trying to kill it.”

The Pōhaku by Jasmin ‘Iolani Hakes (HarperCollins 2026) has all the elements of the type of story I love: family saga, a storytelling tradition, and a bit of magic realism. Add the fact it is about the Hawaiian people and boasts a stunning cover, and I cannot fathom how it didn’t end up on my radar when it was released earlier this year.  But as fate would have it, I went to Fable Books and Café last weekend, and there she was. The woman who rang me up skimmed the flap.  “Ohhh, it sounds like Moana for adults!” She wasn’t wrong, but there is no Disney ending here.

The novel is framed by a grandmother frantically telling her granddaughter the story of the women in their family and the pōhaku, the magical stone their family had been tasked with protecting and the stories the stone carried.  The granddaughter is on life support following a near drowning, and a hurricane is fast approaching. Time is running out.

The story starts in 1740 with the Earl of Sandwich and his mission to find the Lost Tribes of Israel, thought to be somewhere in Oceania. Bu this is not the story of conquerors; this is the story of women and their connection to the land via the magical stone that was lost somewhere in California in the 1800s. It is both the history of a people and the history of a family.

There is so much to appreciate and enjoy with this novel; however, it did fall short for me. IMHO, I needed more. More flesh to the bones, more heart to the stories. It is so short but covers so much ground, and I was unable to fully connect to our cast of strong, powerful, resilient Hawaiian women.

I liked the framework of the grandmother telling her granddaughter the story, but the storytelling voice wasn’t consistent – it either needed to be all or nothing. Additionally, the ending is not satisfying, but I think it served the story’s purpose well.

In short, there are some things that didn’t work for me in this novel because I wanted more.  But that’s the point. History has eroded the stories passed down from generation to generation, and only bits and pieces have survived. 

But we still need those stories.

Read this book.

NAMES HAVE BEEN CHANGED – Yu-Mei Balasingamchow

Love a true crime podcast / tiktok live cross over? You’ll enjoy Yu-Mei Balasingamchow’s Names Have Been Changed (Tiny Reparations Books 2026). The novel is set at the tail end of the Covid and told over the course of a little over a month as a “confessional podcast.” As indicated by the title, names have indeed been changed as our narrator has been on the run for years.

She tells her “listeners” to call her Ophir, and the podcast opens with her explaining how she became a money mule by trusting her best friend. She manages to escape as the authorities crack down, and she’s been on the run for years. But serving as the mule and stealing 60k isn’t her only crime, and this isn’t a redemption or request for forgiveness.

It’s a well done debut, and I really enjoyed Ophir’s voice.  I’m not the biggest fan of unreliable narrators, but I really enjoyed how this operates via the confessional podcast.  It’s a really good choice for a quick, thrilling summer read.

WHISTLER – Ann Patchett

“Your mother and I both have a small shard of glass in our hearts where the other is concerned: her disappointment, my shame, her regret and my regret.”

“Because in the book, I don’t die. In the book, we’re sitting on this bench, talking about a book about the two of us, and then the story stops with us waiting for Jonathan and your mother to come back.”

Somehow, Whistler ( Harper 2026) is my first Ann Patchett. I’m not sure why I’ve avoided her, particularly Tom Lake, but I did.  So, my first Patchett is likely going to be in my top five reads of the year. It doesn’t change my Booker predictions (despite two Booker shortlisted books and one Booker winner being mentioned in the novel), but this was a heart hug of a beautiful novel.

Daphne Fuller and her husband (mostly her husband) notice an elderly man following them while they are at the Met. When the man is questioned by her husband, he is revealed to be Eddie Triplett, the man who was married to her mother for less than two years when Daphne was nine. Daphne had loved him, and she had always blamed herself for him leaving. At the age of 53, she reconnects with him and they explore what happened so many years ago, revisiting the past and the stories that held them afloat – including that of a horse named Whistler.

It’s a tender story told in a familiar way that thumps with heart and the distant sound of hooves. 

Read this book.

SHOULD THE WATERS TAKE US – Stephanie Soileau

I love a family saga, and when the publisher sent me Stephanie Soileau’s Should the Waters Take Us (Doubleday 2026 – thanks for the copy! I wish I’d gotten this out sooner – the book was released 7/14/2026!), I was thrilled. Family saga spanning centuries and set primarily in the Louisiana bayou? Yes, please.

Let’s first talk about this cover. Could it be anymore perfect?  The colors, the brushstrokes, the image, the font.  It’s simply gorgeous.

Now let’s get to the meat.  This book covers a lot of ground but continuously brings you back to the present day where a woman has a died, there’s an oil spill, a family has fractured, and a hurricane is coming.   The fluidity and continuity of the time jumps works extremely well as the story of the Acadians and their resilience in the fight for land and survival takes us over four hundred years. While I appreciated seeing the past, it was the present story that held my attention – particularly that of Boy, his daughter, and the Nigerian parish priest.

I loved these perfectly imperfect characters, and the way Soileau handles the dialogue, using dialect without translations, was rather masterful. You’re not missing out if you don’t speak French, I promise.

Stephanie Soileau is a bit Pat Conroy meets Flannery O’Connor but all Soileau; her love for the Louisiana coast and its people is on every page.

Read this book.

TREAT THEM AS BUFFALO – Blair Palmer Yoxall

“He’s the heaviest secret I ever carried. I don’t want to carry him no more.”

This is a difficult review, because I was so looking forward to Blair Palmer Yoxall’s debut Treat Them as Buffalo (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill 2026 – fun fact, I interned at Algonquin over 20 years ago. My duties included reading through the slush pile and sending rejections); however, this historical fiction / anti-Western set in 1885 in what is now Saskatchewan and told from the POV of Nikosis “Niko” Eriksen, a 12-year-old Métis boy, just missed the mark for me.

The novel echoes Django Unchained, another revisionist western, byincorporating modern slang (this didn’t work for me at all – I’m not sure if it wasn’t done well enough that it was clearly intentional, or I just didn’t like it) and using hyper-stylized violence to expose the systemic racism faced by the Métis people. That combined with the use of mythology (Odin is our villain) and the importance of our stories all give it this vibe that makes me wonder if it would not be better suited for the screen.

The novel opens with Niko and his cousin, Cousin, pretending to be buffalo hunters. (They’ve never even tasted buffalo meat.) Cousin is kidnapped. Cousin ends up being one of several young boys who have been taken and castrated for a bounty.  (This castration for a bounty seems a fictional component, but forced sterilization of Métis youth was a common practice that went on for decades under provincial eugenics laws and history should never forget.) The police seem questionable in their interest in the kidnappings. (Also questionable but for different reasons is Father Brisson.) Kate McCannon, a woman with a sawn-off shotgun and a reputation, heads up a group made primarily of women and children to recover the boys. The so-called “Pussy Posse” is a branch of a larger vigilante group in Deadwood.

It’s definitely a punch to the face kind of novel.

CHILDREN OF THE WILD – Kevin Powers

Based on the premise and the reviews, I thought I was sure to enjoy Kevin Powers’s Children of the Wild (Harper 2026). Color me wrong. I was so disappointed in this book.  And quite honestly mad at myself for finishing it.  But where did it go wrong? Historical fiction set in 1917, isolated rural valley in VA, a bit of a love triangle between the minister’s daughter, the son of the prominent Young family, and the wild boy found up on the mountain. And WWI.  I should have eaten this one up, but it simply failed to deliver. Based on reviews, this is not a popular opinion – but here we are.

Let’s start with the minister’s daughter, Sam. She’s never fully developed. Her character shimmers and shifts, never fully deciding what it wants to be. This doesn’t seem intentional, and she seems more like a plot device than a formed character. Despite this, she has her own sections.

Then there’s Roy, the heir apparent to the Young family farm. He also shimmers and shifts, his character changing not from the things that happen to him or the situations he finds himself in but when the plot needs him to change to advance itself. He’ll punch someone and then two lines later, they’re best friends. He’ll say hateful things to his father and then be a voice of reason. There’s no growth in his character.

And then Ennis, the more interesting of the three. Ennis had the most potential, but the feral wild child from the mountains whose family was likely killed in a flood and whose name is likely not even Ennis never gets the story he deserves.

There are so many missed opportunities with all three of these “children” as they fight for their country, the valley, and each other.  And there are also so many unnecessary and underdeveloped plot points.  It reads like a skeleton that hasn’t been fully fleshed out and clothed yet.

I was so annoyed.

MARE – Emily Haworth-Booth

“When I began it, I saw that the story didn’t begin with her at all, but further back. I decided to begin it, for now, with the dog.”

“And the dog died, and all my stories with him…”

Emily Haworth-Booth’s Mare (Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2026) is the type of book that will rip the skin of certain readers, each word another tiny cut; I’m still bleeding. It’s not about a horse – it’s about a woman who can’t do the single thing women are supposed to do. And if you’ve struggled with infertility, you’ll likely feel like Haworth-Booth found your deep, secret thoughts and took them horseback riding.

I am childless by circumstance not choice, like our narrator. I had two “not-my-daughters,” like our narrator. (And their abrupt departure from my life still stings, but that’s another story for another time.) And much like our narrator, I’ve put significant maternal energy into animals – often insisting on having more than one dog because I know just how rootless I would become should they be absent from me. And that’s how our novel opens, a childless woman whose dog has just died learning she will never have children. Haworth-Booth’s first novel is a knife –  that carries my reflection and blood along with countless others. Too personal. Too close. Too taboo a topic. Such fantastic writing on the things we don’t talk about. Such a tender and human take.

As mentioned, our narrator has just learned she can’t have children; her body has launched her into early menopause. Her dog has died. She revisits a childhood passion and enters into a horse “share” at a barn not far from her. The childhood passion quickly becomes an adult obsession – not with horses, but with that horse. An author of children’s books, she’s found she’s lost the words and the only purpose and meaning she has found is tied to this horse that belongs to someone else.  Meanwhile, her mom keeps forwarding her monthly blog entries from a woman writing about how freeing being childless is.  Fake it until you make it, right?

I don’t see both this and Our Numbered Bones on the longlist, but I could see one or the other. They are very similar in concept, quite different in delivery.  But both have excellent delivery that leaves a mark.

POOL HOUSE – Mary H.K. Choi

I’ve never read Mary H.K. Choi before, but it would seem her YA novels are well-loved. Pool House (Flatiron 2026) is her debut adult novel. It’s an extremely well-written novel, with a bit of a bite to the dialogue and characters that drew me in even though the plot isn’t one that would typically hold my attention. 

The novel alternates POV from 20-year-Stevie, her mother, Moon, and Adam. Moon is an out of work actress and she is struggling to afford the mortgage on their extravagant house. Her and Stevie have been using the home for short term rentals and sleeping in the pool house. Stevie has long-lived in the pull of her mother’s orbit, and she cannot shake it. When Mac, her mother’s on-again off-again situationship and sitcom husband, the only man who played any sort of paternal role in Stevie’s life, dies, Stevie and her mother are thrown together in their grief and confusion. Moon calls her sitcom son, Adam, who rushes to her side – he too longs for her orbit and pull – and Stevie’s jealousy rears its head. The three create an interesting triangle of conflicting and varied relationships; I didn’t like any of them all that much, but it was indeed a train wreck that I couldn’t look away from.

Choi’s writing is what makes this novel the success it is.

LAND – Maggie O’Farrell

“And when we die, we surrender our bodies to the earth and we become earth. It is the end of one story but the beginning of another.”

“So now she waits. She finds herself to be the woman in all stories, in all ballads and myths, waiting for her man to return – from battle, from sea, from mountain and, in her case, from forest.”

Maggie O’Farrell’s Land (Knopf 2026) is absolutely beautiful. Kissed with a bit of magic and folklore, the novel opens in 1865, with Liam, a ten-year-old boy, and his father, Tomas, working for the great Ordnance Survey project to map Ireland. Tomas is dedicated and focused, his maps will show the impact the Great Hunger had on the land. But something happens when they encounter a previously unmapped copse with a wellspring, and neither of them or the rest of their family will ever be the same.

A brief section of the novel goes back in time and provides the history of the copse and a foundation for the lore surrounding it. Brith’s father has gone missing. She finds his ring in a stream. A fish demands it back. She refuses. Brith’s subsequent tragedy brought me to tears. This is not the first novel I’ve read this Booker season with an ancient woman found preserved in the bog, but it is the first with an Irish Wolfhound. The connection with the dog, from Brith’s father to Brith, to Liam’s sisters with Bran, was one of my favorite ties to the land.

I mentioned while reading that Land reminded me of everything I loved about Maggie Shipstead’s Great Circle, which was my favorite of its Booker cycle, and I stand by that. Land starts and ends with a man of few words, but the stories the land tells are spread throughout.  I loved it, and I did add it to my Booker predictions. I didn’t want to remove any of the previous picks, but I did include it because this is a beautiful novel.

Read this book.

THE THINGS WE NEVER SAY – Elizabeth Strout

“A page had been turned. It was that quiet and that simple, but Artie – having almost died – no longer wanted to.”

Elizabeth Strout is a talented writer, I’d just previously decided I don’t really like her leading characters. To be fair, I’ve only read Oh William! and I said the following regarding it: The novel is well-written, and Lucy is wonderfully developed and complex as a character, I just didn’t like her. Imagine getting seated next to an older woman, one who is slightly drunk and sad, on a long flight. It’s fun for a bit, but by the time you land you just want to give her your therapist’s number.  I’m pretty sure Strout recognized there may be a low threshold for tolerating Lucy – the novel is only 237 pages.

The Things we Never Say (Random House 2026) is getting a lot of buzz, and while I enjoyed Artie significantly more than Lucy, I was grateful the novel barely reached 200 pages. This novel is sad.  I mean profoundly sad. Not sad in that attention-grabbing way, but a slow growing, deep-seated sadness that cloaks you by the last page. And it’s sad because you’ll like Artie.  (And you’ll hate his wife.)

It’s hard to get away from politics and Covid in American fiction these days, and this novel is no exception. While a significant part of the sadness comes from political turmoil, this isn’t a political novel – it’s a life novel. And that life is sad because of, and this isn’t a spoiler, the things [they] never say.

Strout’s writing is phenomenal, and her sheer talent is why I gave the book 4 stars.  It wasn’t the plot or the characters, but how much emotion she rendered in well-developed characters a very short book.  This is the case of an excellent novel by a fantastic author that falls short only because of the reader.

*It’s a bit cheeky, but I like that one of Strout’s prior novels shows up in her new novel.