Goodreads

Release date: January 20, 2026

Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark

Genre: Mystery/Thriller

Synopsis:

Adults can behave badly too…

It’s the mid-1980s in the tiny town of Longview, Texas. Nellie Anderson, the beautiful daughter of the Anderson family dynasty, has burst onto the scene. She always gets what she wants. What she can’t get for herself… well, that’s what her mother is for. Because Charleigh Andersen, blond, beautiful, and ruthlessly cunning, remembers all too well having to claw her way to the top. When she was coming of age on the poor side of East Texas, she was a loser, an outcast, humiliated, and shunned by the in-crowd, whose approval she’d so desperately thirsted for. When a prairie-kissed family moves to town, all trad wife, woodworking dad, wholesome daughter vibes, Charleigh’s entire self-made social empire threatens to crumble. Who will be left standing when the dust settles?

From the author of The Hunting Wives comes a deliciously wicked new thriller about mean girls, mean moms, and the delicious secrets inside all the little houses. 

Review:

All the Little Houses by May Cobb is sinfully fun, wickedly delicious, and completely unhinged in the best way. Set in the sweltering heat of 1980s East Texas, this story drops you into a small town where everyone is watching everyone else—and absolutely no one is behaving well. Told through multiple POVs in short, addictive chapters, the book reads like whispered gossip passed across a backyard fence, except every secret is darker, messier, and more scandalous than the last. It opens with a body floating in the water and keeps you deliciously unsettled by refusing to tell you who’s dead until the very end.

At the center of it all is Charleigh Anderson: beautiful, ruthless, and determined to protect the social empire she clawed her way into. When a seemingly wholesome, prairie kissed family arrives in town—trad wife vibes, woodworking dad, perfect daughter—the carefully curated hierarchy of Longview starts to crack. What follows is a soapy, twisty spiral of jealousy, power plays, sexual tension, and morally gray decisions, where mothers and daughters alike prove that adults can behave very badly. Everyone is messy. Everyone has secrets. And watching it all implode is pure reading pleasure.

This book is juicy, gossipy, and wildly addictive, equal parts scandal and suspense. The 1980s setting adds a sticky, sunburned intensity that amplifies every bad decision, and the pacing never lets up. And that final sentence? Absolute perfection. The kind that makes you stare at the wall afterward and immediately demand more. I would happily read ten sequels about these terrible, fascinating people and their beautifully disastrous lives. 

Overall rating: 5/5

Thanks to the publisher for my review copy.

Goodreads

Release date: January 20, 2026

Publisher: Harper

Genre: Mystery/Thriller

Synopsis:

A propulsive and wickedly entertaining debut thriller for fans of Laura Dave and Ashley Elston that explores the dark underside of the American dream, about a couple whose financial problems are seemingly answered when they begin receiving growing sums of money from an unknown source . . . a windfall that will carry an unthinkable price.

Mack and Hailey Evans have worked hard to achieve their upper-middle-class life: promising careers, two beautiful children, and a brand-new house in the exclusive lakefront village of Bratenahl, Ohio. Not that everything’s perfect—aging parents, problems at work, and even the upkeep on that gorgeous house have been causing these two increasing amounts of worry.

When a small check appears in the mailbox from a mysterious company named Sunshine Enterprises, Mack assumes it’s from his wealthy, estranged father, trying to buy his way back into their lives. Though he’d rather rip it up, Mack deposits the needed funds. To his surprise the checks keep coming—each for a larger amount larger than the last. When Hailey finds out what’s going on, she has her own suspicions about the provenance of the payments. Despite growing uncertainty over the identity of their benefactor Mack and Hailey keep taking the money. After all, there are bills to pay.

It is a choice with dark repercussions, as the couple soon learn the hard way that nothing in life is free. Suddenly, the Evans find themselves in a harrowing arrangement with someone who will stop at nothing to get a return on their investment.

Review:

Very Slowly, All at Once by Lauren Schott is the kind of thriller that settles into your bones rather than relying on shock value. From the first pages, there’s a quiet, unsettling sense of dread that never fully lifts—one that mirrors the slow unraveling of Mack and Hailey Evans’ carefully curated life. Their version of the American dream feels attainable, even enviable at first, which makes its gradual corrosion feel both satirical and disturbingly real. Schott taps into a very modern anxiety: what it costs to maintain the life you worked so hard to build.

The novel unfolds through alternating perspectives from Mack and Hailey, alongside a chilling anonymous point of view that adds momentum and tension. Both protagonists are deeply relatable in their desperation—financial pressure, aging parents, career uncertainty—and that relatability is what makes their choices feel so dangerous. This isn’t a thriller driven by constant twists, but by escalation: each decision builds naturally on the last, tightening the vise until the consequences feel inevitable. The slow burn works beautifully here, allowing the tension to mount in a way that feels earned rather than sensational.

While the ending doesn’t wrap everything up neatly, it feels intentional rather than frustrating. The lack of clean resolution reinforces the book’s central themes about compromise, greed, and the stories we tell ourselves to justify survival. Darkly clever, sharp, and laced with wicked humor, Very Slowly, All at Once is a smart debut that exposes just how thin the line can be between comfort and catastrophe, and how quickly “enough” is never really enough. 

Overall rating: 4/5

Thanks to the publisher for my review copy.