April 2026 in Books

This was a pretty good reading month. Some really excellent books, although one total dud. Here are the recaps:

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI - David Grann - non-fiction - five stars - This was my Spotify Audiobook for the month. This has been on my TBR for quite a while. It's about the Osage murders in Oklahoma. The Osage were once some of the wealthiest in the nation due to the oil beneath their land, and the fact that those mineral rights could not be sold. Then, the people started dying. The newly established FBI investigated, prosecuted, and convicted a group of individuals who plotted to wipe out the family of Mollie Kyle in order to obtain their lands. The book traces how Mollie's family was targeted as well as the efforts to bring the killers to justice. The book goes beyond those convictions to investigate the fact that these plots were widespread and that many more Osage families had been targeted. There are an abundance of unexplained/unsolved deaths. Great book, and now I'm ready to watch the movie.

Julie Chan is Dead - Liann Zhang - fiction - two stars - This one started off with an interesting premise. Chloe and her twin Julie are separated as children when their parents are killed in a car accident. Julie is adopted by a wealthy couple and Chloe goes to live with an aunt because there is nowhere else to go. Julie's life is charmed and she is now a major influencer, while Chloe works a clerk in a grocery store. When Chloe gets a strange phone call from Julie, she goes to investigate and finds her sister dead. She somewhat accidentally assumes her identity and starts to live a very different life. At this point, the story was interesting, and I was curious to see what would happen, but then the book just went off the rails. And I mean, really off the rails. It just got so wacky, and really was not worth the time.

This Is a Love Story - Jessica Soffer - fiction - three stars - Jane, an artist, is dying, and she and her husband Abe, a writer, spend her last days reminiscing about their lives, much of which revolves around Central Park in NY. This book was frustrating to me. Mostly because I just did not like Jane. While she did deal with post-partum depression, she just seemed so selfish, and a terrible mother. The parent/child relationship just really colored this one for me.

The Secret Lives of Murderers' Wives - Elizabeth Arnott - mystery - five stars - Beverley, Elsie, and Margot are all wives of convicted serial killers. It's unclear how they found one another, but they are now friends and support one another in their post-marital lives. They are also somewhat fixated by serial killers, and how to stop them. When it appears that another serial killer has emerged, they try to solve the case. The storyline is a little far fetched, but there are definitely a few twists that I did not anticipate, and at the end of the day, I really liked the characters. Good, quick read.

This Book Made Me Think of You - Libby Page - fiction - five stars - Books about books hold a soft space in my heart, and this was a good one. It's Tilly's birthday, but she doesn't feel much like celebrating. Her husband Joe died las year, and she's just surviving. Then she receives a phone call from a local bookstore. It turns out that when Joe knew he was not going to beat his illness, he gifted Tilly with a year of books. She is to show up at the store each month, where she receives a book and a note from him. The books help her to grieve and heal, and learn to live again. In addition, she finds a new family in the bookstore, and work on her relationship with her sister as well. A happy read that leaves you smiling.

This Is Where the Serpent Lives - Daniyal Mueenuddin - fiction - three stars - This book was pretty frustrating. It is broken up into four parts where you learn the backstory of characters whose lives intertwine in the final part. I thought the initial parts were pretty good. It starts around 1955 and continues to present day Pakistan. The book focuses on the differences between the very well-to-do in Pakistan and the not to well off. In many ways Pakistan still functions as a feudal society, with wealthy families living almost like British nobility back in the day, having  farm/homestead/palace in the country as well as residences in the city. The book focuses on how that rural society still very much functions as it did decades ago, corruption is rampant, every so often you need to bring in some muscle to enforce the rules, etc. In general, the book kind of seemed pointless to me. It was a lot of pages to learn that life is still the same in Pakistan, you can't escape corruption, and there's little hope to better yourself. Meh.

The Correspondent - Virginia Evans - fiction - five stars - This was such a good book, and a great way to end the month. Sybil Van Antwerp is socially awkward. She much prefers to write letters to people, living through those missive rather than interact with them in person. The book is all letters from to and from Sybil, and through them we learn about her troubled relationships with others, her career as a very successful clerk for a judge, as a somewhat inadequate mother, as a friend/neighbor, and as an avid reader. Evans did an amazing job developing Sybil's character through the letters and you can see how she struggled to break out of the tightly crafted world she created for herself as she started to decline, and embrace real in-person relationships. Such a good read.

My favorite this month was Definitely The Correspondent and the least favorite was ulie Chan is Dead. I do feel like I've been reading a lot of books about old people dying lately. I'm not sure if it's partly because I'm dealing with aging parents, and have been gravitating towards those types of books, but I am feeling like I need to mix things up a bit. Would love to know what you guys have been reading!