Book Reviews

4.9

J. Kenji López-Alt's The Food Lab is a James Beard Award-winning cookbook and New York Times bestseller that applies the scientific method to nearly 300 savory American recipes, explaining the underlying chemistry and physics of cooking so that home cooks understand not just what to do, but why it works. This review assesses the book's content, organisation, and published critical reception — not a kitchen test.

Dark Psychology Unlocked: How to Identify a Manipulator, Overcome Mind Games, by Shaler Red

4.7

Dark Psychology Unlocked by Shaler Red is a self-help guide published independently in February 2025, designed to help readers identify manipulative tactics, understand the psychological mechanisms behind mind games, and develop strategies to protect their own mindset. It is available in paperback and as an audiobook narrated by Mike Peterson. This review is based on published descriptions and reader commentary from audible.com; LuvemBooks has not applied the material firsthand.

GAME OF THRONES_20TH ANNIVE_HB by George R.R. Martin

4.7

George R.R. Martin's A Game of Thrones — the first volume of the A Song of Ice and Fire series — returns in this 2016 HarperCollins hardcover celebrating twenty years of one of high fantasy's most culturally transformative novels, now featuring full-page illustrations by John Picacio in every chapter.

The Complete Pet Bird Owner's Handbook by Gary A. Gallerstein

4.7

Gary A. Gallerstein, D.V.M., draws on his experience as a practicing veterinarian and owner of Acacia Animal Hospital in Escondido, California, to deliver a wide-ranging reference that spans bird selection, nutrition, behavior, emergency medical care, and preventative medicine. This review is based on published sources and the book's documented contents — not hands-on use.

Workbook: The Mountain Is You: Transforming Self Sabotage into by Thought Catalog

4.5

Published by Thought Catalog Books in November 2022, this 176-page paperback is the official and authorized companion workbook to Brianna Wiest's widely read self-help book, The Mountain Is You: Transforming Self-Sabotage Into Self-Mastery. Designed to help readers move from passive reading to active self-reflection, it translates Wiest's framework on self-sabotage — rooted in internalized trauma and conflicting psychological needs — into structured exercises. It is a functional self-improvement workbook, not a standalone memoir or narrative text, and its value is best assessed through use rather than reading alone.

M.B.A. : Discover the truth about leadership by D.M. Christensen

4.5

D.M. Christensen's M.B.A.: Discover the Truth About Leadership is a satirical business book that trains its dry humor and analytical clarity on the credential economy, leadership mythology, and the corporate habit of rewarding appearance over competence — a pointed read for professionals frustrated by the gap between how workplaces are supposed to operate and how they actually do.

The 7 She Saw (Blake Wilder FBI Mystery Thriller Book 1) by Elle Gray

4.4

The 7 She Saw launches Elle Gray's Blake Wilder FBI Mystery Thriller series with a protagonist haunted by personal tragedy, an investigation into three murders in a deceptively idyllic Washington coastal town, and a serial format that has since grown to over thirty installments — making this 2020 debut a foundation worth understanding on its own terms.

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondō

4.4

Marie Kondō's The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, published by Ten Speed Press in its first North American edition in 2014 and translated from Japanese by Cathy Hirano, is a self-help guide built around the KonMari Method — a systematic, philosophy-driven approach to decluttering that promises a permanent, rather than cyclical, transformation of the home. A #1 New York Times bestseller that CNN named one of the most influential books of the decade, it has sparked a genuine cultural movement, inspiring a hit Netflix series and reshaping how millions of people think about the objects they own.

Last Seen Alone by Laura Griffin

4.4

Last Seen Alone pairs attorney Leigh Larson and Austin homicide detective Brandon Reynolds in a race to find a missing woman whose only traceable connection is a business card left at a blood-soaked crime scene — a setup that drives both a propulsive mystery and a slow-burn romance. Published by Berkley in September 2021, the novel comes from a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author with more than thirty books to her name, and it earns the praise of peers who cite Griffin's sharp dialogue, tight plotting, and well-researched construction as hallmarks of the genre.

After Intelligence: The Hidden Sequence by Nicole Marie

4.3

After Intelligence: The Hidden Sequence launches Nicole Marie's YA science fiction trilogy with a whodunit set inside Cognation Academy, where 15-year-old Charlotte Blythe and her friends must navigate android ethics, institutional deception, and a student-attack mystery — a high-energy debut that earned a positive notice from Publishers Weekly for its credibly constructed tech-school world, even as it leans on familiar genre tropes.

Apr 24, 2026

The Night of the Crash: A gripping thriller with an ending that will by Jessica Irena Smith

4.2

Jessica Irena Smith's debut thriller, published by Headline in October 2024, centres on Steppy Corner — host of the hit true crime podcast All the Dark Corners — who wakes in a Colorado hospital with no memory of why she was racing up a mountainside toward the estranged family she left behind in Heartsick. The novel has drawn enthusiastic reader responses for its tightly plotted structure, emotionally weighted family secrets, and a climactic twist that has repeatedly caught readers off-guard.

Murky Overhead - Historical Fiction Book to Bring A Lifetime of Experiences, Stories, & Lessons Learned on Both Sides of the Atlantic - The Story of An Irish Immigrant Family By Mike Connolly by Michael C. Connolly

Michael C. Connolly's debut novel, Murky Overhead, follows the Folan family — Irish immigrants scratching out a living on Portland, Maine's Munjoy Hill — across a single day, drawing on the author's decades of academic research and personal heritage to illuminate the broader immigrant experience on both sides of the Atlantic.