The Literate Kitty

  in particular, that two people could communicate simple thoughts to each other via their minds. We spent hours swapping roles of sender and receiver, trying to transmit images we’d drawn on a set of cards telepathically to each other.  Our success rates skewed higher than the average, so of course we were positive we had The Gift. Did we  really  possess any sixth sense abilities... or were our positives mere chance?  [We’ll never know; our “tests” were completely unscientific.] Yet scientific studies have long been conducted, with compellingly positive results. Some were discussed publicly while they were going on, but probably at least as many studies were kept top-secret by researchers and governments... and remained so for  decades , until the truth about what actually transpired became too heinous to stay buried forever. Sarah Pekkanen’s latest thriller,  The Women in White , is the terrifying tale of what one such hush-hush research project mig...

A whirlwind courtship—followed by a lavish wedding in Beverly Hills, with a handsome, successful groom and his younger, beautiful blonde bride. It sounds like a fairy tale. But—as with many things that appear picture-perfect on first glance—something much darker lies just beneath the surface of this glamorous marriage... and is about to shatter the beautiful illusion, in Natalie Barelli’s twisted tale of marital bliss,  The Housewife . ____________________________________________________________________ Many women want a fabulous career... followed later by marriage and perhaps a family. Not Jodie. With chef-level culinary skills and housekeeping wizardry, she’s always longed to become a housewife... the mistress of her own carefully-curated home, adored by her doting husband and the envy of their friends. And, following a chance meet-cute with hunky Dr. Roy Davies—a psychologist, best-selling author, and esteemed resident of his tony Beverly Hills neighborhood—it seems she’s set t...

Breakups suck, there’s no way around it. Even if you’re the initiator, relieved to be free of a relationship that’s no longer working, there could also be some regret or bitterness mixed in.  And if you’re on the other end of a breakup—the one being left behind—it’s so much worse. Shock, loss, confusion, depression... you might feel those things, keenly. But what if you learned of a place specializing in helping people get over devastating breakups... and healing broken hearts?  Such a place is the setting for Camilla Sten’s latest thriller,  The Break-Up Retreat .   Dr. Martina Hastings is something of a Renaissance woman. Charismatic psychologist and best-selling author of multiple relationship books, she’s also the founder of an exclusive wellness clinic catering to women stuck in relationship hell. Whether someone has endured an excruciating breakup or is caught in a repetitive cycle of making terrible choices, Dr. Martina claims she can help, via her intimate, o...

That sisterly—or sibling—bond is something I, an only child, will never know.   But wow, have I wondered about it, over the years.   What would it be like, to grow up with other people my own age?   To share secrets and rivalries. To bicker... but probably also (at least sometimes), to have each other’s backs.    But take that a few steps further, and imagine how it would feel to have a sibling—a  twin , no less—of whom you’d never been  aware...  until you’d already lived more than three decades?   And then, after learning that truth... you only reached out—to that previously-unknown person you’d once shared a womb with— after  you’d been accused of murder?   Bestselling thriller author Sarah Pekkanen takes a stab at how such a scenario might play out with her latest,  The Locked Ward .     For some reason, most of us don’t expect the uber-rich to have Big Problems. (As though obscene sums of money should be the...

There’s a plot device sometimes used in mystery novels, known as the “unreliable narrator”... which means what the storyteller says may --or may not —be true.   Usually, this unreliable person is one main character.   But imagine being faced with no fewer than  six  such potentially-unreliable sources?    How would you know who— if anyone —to believe... and who was absolutely  not  to be trusted?   Welcome to author Alex Pavesi’s intricately-twisted tale,  Ink Ribbon Red , where absolutely  everything  anyone says is suspect.     There are a few different ways people approach “milestone” birthdays (the ones ending in zeroes).   Some treat such birthdays like harbingers of apocalyptic proportions, best avoided (or at least, strenuously denied). For others, those “big birthdays” are a great excuse for a massive shindig. And for some, such birthdays are no different than any of the others which have already come and...

Imagine, if you will, a post-pandemic office sitch. Employees given the all-clear, report-back-to-base instructions... meaning, anyone still wishing to be gainfully-employed should showing up at the big office building, posthaste, to do... well, Very Important Things.   Which Dolores de la Cruz—striking, enigmatic, and fearsome—does, in her oh-so-elite, can’t-touch-this way.   And that's all fine... until she happens into the same elevator at work as Jake Ripper... almost ridiculously-handsome, in his winsome, Clark Kent sorta way—and suddenly, both their worlds are turned upside-down (and quite possibly, inside-out).   Because whereas Dolores is the scarily-beautiful (and untouchable, lest we forget), powerful unknown... Jake is the younger, eager-to-please, temp-agency hire—just there for a brief time, filling in for someone-or-other—with no real skin in any particular game.   Except.   Dolores senses in Jake an “otherness”, with his stranger-danger leather gl...

Everyone’s familiar with the saying, “blood is thicker than water”... but is it,   really? Norwegian suspense author Jo Nesbø puts that idea to the test in his latest tale,  Blood Ties  (giving big-time Cain-&-Abel energy).     One thing you can count on, living in a really small town? That  everyone  else knows your business.  Your family. Your history. Everything you ever did. Basically, all the dirt.   If your family’s respected (and respectable), you’ve got a lot to live up to... but your fellow townsfolk probably give you the benefit of the doubt if one of you does something to raise eyebrows.   But if your family’s always been a little bit “off”, well... the town doesn’t cut you as much slack.   Brothers Carl and Roy Opgard grew up in tiny Os, moved away for a spell, then made their ways back... and made good, in middle-age.    Carl manages the town’s biggest draw—the chic Os Spa and Hotel—and has grand plans for...

A popular true-crime podcaster—with secrets of her own—who focuses on unsolved crimes.   A confused, late-20s woman—recovering from a terrible accident, and grieving a pair of losses—whom the podcaster approaches about the latest story she wants to share with her eager subscribers.   An angry father, who doesn’t really understand his daughter—her choices, who she is—but is dead-set against her participation in the podcast, knowing what it will do to their family.   A grandfather—now dead—forced to leave his beloved hometown in Iceland some forty years ago and relocate to far-off California with his young son, following the tragic deaths of his wife and infant daughter.   And the small Icelandic town—Bifröst—where the tragedy still, somehow, feels fresh.    And... where another horrible event may even now be taking place.   The stage is set for Melissa Larsen’s latest mystery/suspense,  The Lost House .     When a little boy found the bod...