Top Ten Tuesday: Books on My Spring 2026 To-Read List

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

The first two titles on this list are already available to buy or maybe even borrow from your local library, and I’m sharing the release dates for the rest of them as well.

 

1. How Simi Got Her Groom Back by Sonali Dev

Why I Want to Read It: The reference to the 90’s romance film How Stella Got Her Groove Back was honestly what first caught my attention because I loved that movie, but the blurb sounds really good as well.

 

2. Daughter of Crows by Mark Lawrence

Why I Want to Read It: High fantasy isn’t a genre I’ve read in ages, and it may be time to change that.

 

3. The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett

Release Date: April 7

Why I Want to Read It: Both the 1930s and stories about orphans who probably will never be adopted are of interest to me.

 

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4. Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth

Release Date: April 21

Why I Want to Read It: Mabel sounds like a delightfully exasperating and interesting character. Sometimes I need to read about folks who aren’t all sweetness and light.

 

5. Where the Earth Meets the Sky: A Story of Penguins, People, and Place in Antarctica by Louise K. Blight

Release Date: April 26

Why I Want to Read It: Of course I want to read about penguins. I am lowkey fascinated by them.

 

 

 

6. The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

Release Date: April 29

Why I Want to Read It: Letters aren’t included often enough in modern fiction for my tastes, so I’m hoping this will be a good example of what an epistolary novel can be like in the twenty-first century.

 

7. Enormous Wings by Laurie Frankel

Release Date: May 5

Why I Want to Read It: Like #4, this features a senior citizen protagonist. I think it’s really cool that we’re getting more stories about that age group.

 

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8. John of John by Douglas Stuart

Release Date: May 5

Why I Want to Read It: There’s something so interesting to me about characters who fail at their original goals and must find alternative ways to live a good life.

 

9. Say Nephew: On Boyhood, Unclehood, and Queer Mentorship by Steven Pfau

Release Date: May 26

Why I Want to Read It: This sounds like such an interesting read.

 

10. Spawning Season: An Experiment in Queer Parenthood by Joseph Osmundson

Release Date: May 26

Why I Want to Read It: There is so much I don’t know about this topic, and I’m curious to hear how the discussions between the author and the women who were thinking about using him as a donor turned out.

Movie Review: Irish Wish


Irish Wish
Writers: Kirsten Hansen
Director: Janeen Damian
Starring: Lindsay Lohan, Ed Speleers, Ayesha Curry, and Jane Seymour
Publisher: Netflix
Genre: Romance, Paranormal, Contemporary
Rating: 3 Stars (6 Stars on IMDB)
Reviewed by Astilbe

When the love of Maddie’s life gets engaged to her best friend, she puts her feelings aside to be a bridesmaid at their wedding in Ireland.

A wedding is the perfect place to fall in love.

I loved how charming and whimsical this film was. The paranormal themes were lightly and naturally interwoven into the plot, and I thought the relationships between the characters, especially when it came to Maddie’s interactions with James, the photographer who had been hired for the wedding, were funny and playful. A light touch was exactly what the storyline needed in order to come across as believable, so I was glad that everyone was on the same page there.

The dialogue felt stiff to me at times. It was particularly noticeable in the scenes that were supposed to be representing characters who were falling in love, and I wished that more attention had been paid to the nonverbal messages they sent to each other in those moments. There was so much else going for this film that it could have been much more relatable had the protagonists had a chance to find their groove together. I wish there had been a few more scenes showing how their feelings were evolving to better explore this aspect of the plot.

With that being said, I loved the Irish setting and thought it provided a wonderful backdrop for a tale that needed a little something extra to set the scene. This was such a beautiful part of the world that sometimes I wanted to pause the film just to drink in the famous cliffs Maddie visited, for example, or the quiet country roads where so many amusing things happened to the characters.

Irish Wish was gentle and romantic.

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge for March 18, 2026

Each Wednesday, Long and Short Reviews hosts a weekly “blog hop”. For more details on how to participate, please click here.

Audiobooks I’ve Enjoyed

Top Ten Tuesday: Green Book Covers

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day to everyone who celebrates it!

1. False Start (False #3) by Meli Raine

 

2. Beginners Welcome: A Moving Middle Grade Novel of Magical Realism and Hope After Loss for Kids (Ages 8-12)
by Cindy Baldwin

 

3. The Maid by Nita Prose

 

4. Harvey by Mary Chase

 

5. Euphorbia by Glyn Soitiño

 

6. Gods of Howl Mountain by Taylor Brown

 

7. The Brilliant Ideas of Lily Green by Lisa Siberry

 

8. Wish by Jake Smith

 

9. Otherwise Known as Possum by Maria D. Laso

 

10. Food Fight by Linda B. Davis

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge for March 11, 2026

Each Wednesday, Long and Short Reviews hosts a weekly “blog hop”. For more details on how to participate, please click here.

Books About My Favorite Topic

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge for March 4, 2026

Each Wednesday, Long and Short Reviews hosts a weekly “blog hop”. For more details on how to participate, please click here.

Fictional Things I’m Glad are NOT Real

Top Ten Tuesday: Mysteries We Have Recently Reviewed

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Here are ten mysteries we’ve recently received at Long and Short Reviews. I enjoy seeing the wide variety of books that are included in this genre.

1. Smoldering Lies by LT Ryan

 

2. The Chilling by Riley James

 

3. The Killing Place by Kate Ellis

 

4. The Murder Book by Mark Billingham

 

5. From The Ashes by Damien Boyd

 

6. Their Little Secret by Mark Billingham

 

7. Ruff Justice by Tara Choate

 

8. Death Rocks by LJ Ross

 

9. Framed for Murder by Marla A. White

 

10. The Shadow Child by A. Williams

 

 

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge for February 25, 2026

Each Wednesday, Long and Short Reviews hosts a weekly “blog hop”. For more details on how to participate, please click here.

Fictional Things I Wish Were Real

Top Ten Tuesday: Writing Quotes

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Here are ten quotes about writing that make me smile.

1. “I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time

2. “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

3. “No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.”
― Robert Frost

4. “Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.”
― Anton Chekhov

5. “Fiction is the truth inside the lie.”
― Stephen King

6. “There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.”
― W. Somerset Maugham

7. “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”
― Pablo Picasso

8. “Writing is a way of talking without being interrupted.”
― Jules Renard

9. “The hard part about writing a novel is finishing it.”
― Ernest Hemingway

10. “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.”
― Toni Morrison

Movie Review: The Electric State


The Electric State
Directed by: Anthony Russo and Joe Russo
Writers: Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely, Simon Stålenhag
Starring: Chris Pratt, Millie Bobby Brown, Woody Harrelson
Distributed by: Netflix
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller, Action/Adventure
Rating: 4 Stars (8 Stars on IMDB)
Reviewed by Dicentra

An orphaned teen hits the road with a mysterious robot to find her long-lost brother, teaming up with a smuggler and his wisecracking sidekick.

I’ve always been a fan of Millie Bobby Brown’s work since she initially rose to fame as Eleven from Stranger Things, so getting to see her in another Netflix production where she teamed up with Chris Pratt and Woody Harrelson (among others) was a no brainer. Based on Simon Stalenag’s The Electric State book, Michelle (Brown) is an orphaned teen who refuses to buy into the mass technology usage that has swept across the world following a war between the robots and the humans. With robots being exiled into an ‘Exclusion Zone’ after losing the war, Michelle’s life is thrown into a chaos after a robot from her brother’s favorite cartoon shows up on her doorstep (claiming to know where her brother is). A cross country trek ensues, where they must fight off those from the mega corporation pursuing them as well as those tasked with the eradication of robots in human territory.

The cast of this movie is certainly stacked. Along with Millie Bobby Brown, Chris Pratt, and Woody Harrelson, there are some other major players like Giancarlo Esposito, Stanley Tucci, Ke Huy Quan and Anthony Mackie. It took me a second to recognize some of them as they are playing robots, and their voices were a little digitized at times but their mannerisms are definitely there (even in a metallic body). Admittedly, there were some moments where Chris Pratt’s character felt less like the rugged smuggler he was supposed to be and more like Starlord from Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy (see the music included in the movie), but that didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the film.

While the plot of the movie isn’t that original (it reads like a much more dystopian version of Ready Player One), the emotion is. Chris Pratt’s comedic timing showed through in the movie, and helped lighten some of the more tense moments. And the way that Michelle and the Cosmo robot were able to connect with very few words was particularly impactful. I started crying during the last scene between Michelle and her brother Christopher (Woody Norman), with Ke Huy Quan’s character PC looking on.

Overall, this was a great movie and I was very entertained. I’m not sure why critics viewed it so negatively. It’s available through Netflix, and I recommend it to sci-fi movie fans who also enjoyed movies like Ready Player One.