This review was originally published in and is reposted with permission from Shelf Awareness.
A fallen influencer reluctantly reinvents herself as a cult leader in this surreal, satirical debut.
Sasha Marcus's profile as a skincare and wellness guru was skyrocketing when a confrontation with an online harasser brought it crashing down, getting her fired from her day job and dumped in the process. She seems to be alone in the world until her childhood friend Dyson appears, asking her to join him in his new business venture: a cult to reform problematic men.
From early in the story as she tells it, it's apparent that something major came of their enterprise and that something went wrong. She refers to being asked about Dyson in a way that makes it clear he is no longer available to ask directly. There is a slightly ominous tone along with an absurdist bite; men have been spontaneously coming together in "man hordes" that may perform mundane tasks like washing all the windows at a nursing home or may break into a house and strangle a dog. Dyson describes the cult he names the Atmosphere as a solution for depressed white men who are a danger to themselves, whom he convinces to join with a false promise of job training. But Sasha is less certain about his motives, and about being the lone woman at a camp for desperate men.
Suspenseful and bitingly funny, The Atmospherians by Alex McElroy is a sharp satire of self-help and influencer culture. --Kristen Allen-Vogel, information services librarian at Dayton Metro Library
Discover: A wellness guru joins an old friend to found a cult for men in a darkly witty debut.

This review was first published in and is reposted with permission from Shelf Awareness.
​A gothic tale of a mistreated wife intersects with the story of Jack the Ripper in the gripping debut People of Abandoned Character.
After spending her youth caring for her grandmother and then establishing herself as a nurse in London, Susannah marries a rich, handsome younger surgeon. It's more than the spinster had ever hoped for, but not long after they return from their honeymoon, he begins to become distant. With no support from her husband and with the domineering housekeeper uninterested in letting her take any role in the running of their home, Susannah distracts herself with the newspapers, especially once the first lurid account of a woman murdered in Whitechapel is published. Then she realizes that her husband has been out late or failed to come home every time a new victim was found, sometimes even coming home bloodied. Is her husband the murderer? And is there anyone to whom Susannah can turn with her suspicions?
Whitfield masterfully weaves the story of Jack the Ripper, as it enthralls the citizens of London, with classic gothic suspense elements about a new wife facing more than she expected in a household she cannot quite call her own. Although Rebecca will always come to mind whenever one encounters a secretive husband and a sinister housekeeper, Susannah is a more worldly narrator in spite of floundering in her changed circumstances. She has secrets, and readers will be eager to discover if they will break her or give her the strength to survive. --Kristen Allen-Vogel, information services librarian at Dayton Metro Library
Discover: A woman fears her husband may be Jack the Ripper in this suspenseful gothic debut.