The Book Review: You asked, we answered

Plus: The forgotten writers who influenced Jane Austen

View in browser|nytimes.com February 21, 2025 Dear fellow readers, We recently launched this handy resource to help you find your next thriller, which includes lists of great legal thrillers, books about marriages gone wrong, stories set in hard-to-reach locations and more. In addition to recommending a wide range of our favorite thrillers, we also asked what you were looking for, and the responses have been thoughtful, surprising and delightful. Some of the questions were fairly niche. One reader wanted "British thrillers set in remote areas of the U.K." We have a few suggestions: "The Hunting Party," by Lucy Foley After a group of old friends arrive at their holiday destination — an isolated hunting lodge in the Scottish Highlands — they're socked in by a massive blizzard. Then one of them turns up dead. "Written in Bone," by Simon Beckett With an Arctic storm approaching, a forensic anthropologist has been dispatched to Runa, a remote island in the Hebrides, to investigate a mysterious death that looks, at least at first, like spontaneous combustion. "Raven Black," by Ann Cleeves In the bleakness of midwinter, a teenage girl has been murdered on Shetland — an island more than 100 miles off the northern coast of Scotland — setting off paranoia and suspicion in the insular community. There were also some common themes. We heard from many readers who have gulped down everything available by their favorite thriller writer and are hungry for other books with similar vibes. For example, one reader asked: "I've read all of Tana French, and would love more books like these or authors like her. Any recs?" So many readers asked for Frenchesque reads, in fact, that we've added a whole list of suggestions to our thrillers guide. These are a few of our favorites: "Case Histories," by Kate Atkinson When the Edinburgh-based detective Jackson Brodie is called to work a grisly murder, the case draws him into a complex web of events dating back three decades. "Cover Her Face," by P.D. James The Scotland Yard detective chief inspector Adam Dalgliesh is summoned to an Essex manor house to investigate the death of a young maid who seems to have made enemies upstairs, downstairs and everywhere in between. "The Dry," by Jane Harper This swift, dazzling murder mystery is set in a desperately parched town in rural Australia, where nothing is what it seems. We hope you'll continue to share your book quandaries and wish lists with us — whether they're related to thrillers, romance or anything in between! We read every question and will continue to answer them here and on the pages themselves. You can email us at books@nytimes.com. Jennifer Harlan The New York Times Book Review Like this email? Sign-up here or forward it to your friends. Have a suggestion or two on how we can improve it? Let us know at newsletters@nytimes.com. Need help? Review our newsletter help page or contact us for assistance. We hope you've enjoyed this newsletter, which is made possible through subscriber support. Subscribe to The New York Times. THIS WEEK IN THE BOOK REVIEW Isabella Cotier I Would Follow This Poem to Hell and Back Our critic A.O. Scott marvels at the power and paradox of a sonnet by Gwendolyn Brooks. By A.O. Scott The Picture Art Collection/Alamy, Bridgeman Images, Thomas Lawrence nonfiction The Forgotten Writers Who Influenced Jane Austen In "Jane Austen's Bookshelf," a rare-book collector sets out to "investigate" a group of overlooked female writers. By Sadie Stein Nonfiction She Gathered Evidence of War Crimes. Then She Became a Victim of One. The Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina compiled stories of women resisting the Russian invasion. 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