Initial Remarks

Going in I didn’t realize this would be YA. I don’t know why I didn’t realize. Lynn Painter books sometimes are. But I didn’t know. Now I know.

I don’t mind a YA here and there. In fact I usually enjoy them. But I’m not especially happy going in if I think it’s not YA and it ends up being YA.

I’m rambling, y’all. This comment means nothing. I’m really fine.

Also Reading

Obscene Gestures for Women by Janet Kauffman.

Janet Kauffman used to be one of my favorite authors. I don’t think she writes much anymore, but I remember finding her short fiction stunning. So I’ve been wanting to read her again lately and couldn’t find her books anywhere (I think I had one around here somewhere but couldn’t find it). Anyway I was in Portland over the summer and my family and I found as disjointed a bookstore as you’ll ever want to see. I don’t remember the name of it but it popped into my mind that if I was going to find Janet Kauffman anywhere it was going to be in a bookstore like this, so I aligned myself with the alphabet and went directly to the three books of hers that they had on the shelf (yes, I had already looked at Powell’s but they had none of them) and snatched them down and purchased them so now I will re-devour them and see how they hold up.

Finished Reading

Trust Fall by Lynn Painter

Book Release Date: September 29, 2026Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young ReadersBegan Reading: November 3, 2026Finished Reading: November 7, 2026

Brief Reaction

A bit on the light side, but that’s fine. I don’t think I was expecting it to be much more. I didn’t necessarily enjoy the “he’s keeping a big secret from her and that will be the thing that separates them in the third act” of it all, but I can also appreciate how comforting this is sometimes. In my estimation Lynn Painter is a solid writer is making some of the most charming romance books in the business, both YA and not YA, and there’s something very comforting to be said about charming romance books.

One Word Review

Charming.

Formats

If you make purchases by following links, I may receive some remuneration from that purchase. You are neither encouraged nor discouraged from doing so.

Hardcover, 416 pages

ISBN-13: 9798347100217
Bookshop: https://bookshop.org/a/546/9798347100217
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GPNMBRHV?tag=terrybain

Audiobook, 11 hours 37 minutes

Narrator(s): Saylor Bell Curda, Aidan Bissett
ISBN-13: 9781668184967
Libro.fm: https://libro.fm/audiobooks/9781668184967-trust-fall

Summary

“Julia is just a small-town girl from Nebraska who loves her peaceful life. But when her elderly next-door neighbor—who just happens to be a secret multi-millionaire—leaves everything to Julia and her family after his passing, Julia is swept away to live in a historic brownstone in New York City and attend an elite private school for the super-rich.It should be a dream come true. Wrong. Julia doesn’t fit in at her new school; worse, she’s failing. Enter Damion, the mysterious and handsome tutor who will get Julia back on track. Except Damion has a secret. He is the great-nephew of the man who left everything to Julia’s family. Damion doesn’t buy for a second that the person who was like a father to him would leave his home to strangers. And he’s determined to prove it.To uncover the truth, Damion schemes to earn Julia’s trust. Not an easy task with Julia unsure about this rich boy with a rebellious personality. But the more time Damion spends with Julia, the more his plan begins to backfire. Because he is falling for the enemy—and the enemy is falling for him.As Damion and Julia figure out where they belong, can they see past their differences and act on their feelings, or will the trust Damion has worked so hard to gain fall apart?”

From Simon & Schuster’s page for the book

Key Details

Characters: Julia Lowell (small-town Nebraska teen whose family inherits a fortune), Damion Rutledge (wealthy Gardenwood student and Julia's math tutor, secretly Remi's great-nephew), Liam Lowell (Julia's twin brother), Remington "Lou"/"Remi" (the late benefactor, present through the quotes that open each chapter) Setting: A small town in Nebraska; Remi's brownstone on Manhattan's Upper West Side; Gardenwood Academy, an elite New York City private school Genres: Young adult, contemporary romance, romantic comedy

Tropes (from reviews): Rags to riches, enemies to lovers, slow burn, fish out of water, tutor and student, hidden agenda/secret identity, opposites attract, alternating points of view, a ball

Content Warnings (reader-reported, from The StoryGraph): Bullying, Grief, Cursing

Reviews

Kirkus Reviews: "While the story follows a predictable path and resolution, the central relationship feels earned and heartfelt. A classic rags-to-riches romantic comedy with irresistible chemistry and heart."

School Library Journal, starred review (via publisher's page): "Painter's many devoted readers will be eagerly awaiting this newest novel, but it is perfect for any fans of enemies-to-lovers romances."

One Book More: "I went into this book thinking it would be a quick contemporary romance, but it ended up being so much more than that."

Always be reading.

This story was drafted on TK.

Trust Fall by Lynn Painter: Reading Notes was originally published in The Pour Over on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Initial Remarks

I’ve read all the Stevie Bell Mysteries. I get that they likely aren’t designed for me, but I enjoy reading them, and I enjoy Maureen Johnson in almost all she does. So here I am, reading the sixth book in the series that also happens to be a pretty good standalone.

Also Reading

The Summer She Stayed by Laura Lombardi: I’m reading a galley of this and it won’t be published for awhile, so I’m taking it slow. I don’t often take reading a book as slowly as I’ve taken this one, and I’m not sure why I’m even doing it. But there you go. I’m doing it.

Finished Reading

The Velvet Knife by Maureen Johnson
Book 6 in the Truly Devious (Stevie Bell Mysteries) series, a standalone mystery

Book Release Date: September 29, 2026
Publisher: HarperCollins
Began Reading: October 28, 2026
Finished Reading: October 30, 2026
Format Read: Audiobook
Obtained From: Spokane Public Library / Libby

Brief Reaction

I think this might be my favorite of the Stevie Bell Mysteries. Especially the portion of the book that occurs in the past feels significantly more tailored to me as a reader, which I think has a lot to do with it. I sometimes have trouble with a book that flashes back and forth between timelines, but it helps a lot when the past timeline is carrying a good bit of the emotional weight, and that’s what’s happening here.

One Word Review

Hippie

Formats

If you make purchases by following links, I may receive some remuneration from that purchase. You are neither encouraged nor discouraged from doing so.

Hardcover, 400 pages

ISBN-13: 9780063256019
Bookshop: bookshop.org
Amazon: amazon.com

Audiobook, 10 hours 40 minutes

Narrator(s): Emily Ellet
ISBN-13: 9780063256040
Libro: Libro.fm

Summary

“Return to the world of Truly Devious as Stevie Bell and her friends travel to New York to solve a murder in the next standalone mystery from New York Times bestselling author Maureen Johnson.”

“Stevie might be the greatest teenage detective Ellingham Academy and the world has ever seen, but even she can’t figure out what happened with her boyfriend, David. What she needs is a distraction: a good old-fashioned murder. Stevie is much happier dealing with dead people. They’re a lot less confusing—they don’t send cryptic texts and make out with other girls in British pubs.”

“But then Stevie gets exactly what she wanted when a dead body turns up in the middle of a Manhattan apartment complex, and this one is . . . complicated. Caught in a web of messy alive-people feelings, Stevie finds herself questioning all human connection. Is magnetism only manipulation? Can you trust anyone? Does anyone realize that they’re joining a cult—before it’s too late? And are things with David really over?”

From HarperCollins’s description of the book, as published on NetGalley

Key Details

Characters: Stevie Bell (18-year-old Ellingham Academy sleuth with an anxiety disorder), Nate (Stevie's close friend, who brings her to New York), David (Stevie's ex-boyfriend), Blue (young woman drawn into a cult in the 1970s)
Setting: A Manhattan apartment building over winter break, present day; New York City in the 1970s (chapters dated 1976); Ellingham Academy, Vermont
Genres: Young adult mystery, historical fiction
Tropes (from reviews and publisher copy): Dual timeline, teen detective, cold-case-meets-new-murder, closed community of suspects, post-breakup distractionContent Warnings (from reviews and publisher copy): Murder, child sexual abuse, grooming, dismemberment, mass killing, drugging, coercive control, cults, forced nudity, blackmail, panic attacks, underage drinking (per Bookishelf’s review); romantic breakup and infidelity (publisher copy)

Reviews

Kirkus Reviews: “Entertaining, heartfelt, and suspenseful: a superb addition to a beloved series.”

School Library Journal: “Told with chapters switching between both the past and present, the cultlike mystery of the past dovetails nicely with the present.”

The Nerd Daily: “As usual, Johnson has created a true puzzle-box of a book that rewards attention to detail and has such powerful parallels with real-life historical cases and the state of our current world.”

Always be reading.

The Velvet Knife by Maureen Johnson: Reading Notes was originally published in The Pour Over on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Apparently NaNoWriMo died in March of 2025. Where the hell have I been?I guess I never really got along with the idea, but it seemed like a lot of people found it useful, so I'm kind of bummed that it's gone. Does anybody set out to write 50,000 words in November regardless?

(Turns out there’s a NaNo 2.0: https://nano2.org/.)

NaNoWriMo Long Dead was originally published in e-phemera on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

About Terry Bain

Terry Bain is a writer, book designer, and artist who lives in Spokane, Washington. He’s best known as the author of You Are a Dog: Life Through the Eyes of Man’s Best Friend (Harmony Books, 2004) and its feline follow-up, We Are the Cat: Life Through the Eyes of the Royal Feline (Harmony Books, 2006). His own short version: teacher, artist, quinquagenarian. Or, on a different day: husband, father, sock wearer.

Writing

Bain won an O. Henry Award in 1994 for his short story “Games,” published in The Gettysburg Review, and was named a Book Magazine Newcomer in 2003. You Are a Dog became a bestseller by doing something simple and strange: telling a dog’s life in the second person, so the reader is the one barking at the vacuum. We Are the Cat turned the same eye on the household cat, the telephone, the closet door, and the litter box.

He also co-wrote Botherations and Observations, a biography of George W. Bagby II, with Bagby himself. Alongside the books, he writes fiction, essays, and a steady stream of short pieces on Medium, where he has published more than 700 stories, including recent work in the publications e-phemera and Post Street.

He counts Raymond Carver, Douglas Adams, and his paternal grandfather among his influences.

Published Short Stories

Read Online

• “Rose”, Catapult, September 2015
• “Juliet’s Answer”, CutBank 45, Winter 1995
• “The Milk Really Is from Petaluma”, Exquisite Corpse, Issue 5
• “Blue Eyes”, Pindeldyboz

In Print

• “Games,” The Gettysburg Review, Summer 1993 (reprinted in Prize Stories 1994: The O. Henry Awards)
• “Pediatrics,” The Gettysburg Review, Autumn 2000
• “Don’t Move Me,” The Gettysburg Review, Spring 2001
• “This Is What You Owe Me,” The Gettysburg Review, Spring 2003
• “Still Life With Dog,” The Gettysburg Review, Autumn 2003
• “We Wait and Watch the Windows,” Clackamas Literary Review, Fall/Winter 2003

His fiction has also appeared in Nimrod, The Quarterly, Northwest Boulevard, RealPoetik, Book Magazine, and Readerville Journal.

Editing and Book Design

From 2000 to 2002, Bain was co-editor-in-chief of Zoetrope: All-Story Extra, the online arm of Francis Ford Coppola’s fiction magazine. Since 1994 he has designed, typeset, and coordinated the production of books for publishers including University of California Press, Miramax Books, Kent State University Press, M. Evans, St. James Press, Skinner House Books, and Four Walls Eight Windows.

Teaching and Art

Bain has taught writing at Spokane Community College and works as a paraeducator. He’s also a digital artist, with a long-running interest in typography, generative art, artificial intelligence, and the nature of work.

Background

Bain was born in Puyallup, Washington, and earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science, with a minor in English writing, from the University of Puget Sound, where he edited a section of the student newspaper and the literary magazine. He lives in Spokane with his family and, as has long been the case, a rotating cast of dogs and cats.

Find Terry Online

• Website: terrybain.com
• Medium: @terrybain
• Goodreads: Terry Bain
• LinkedIn: terrybain
• Penguin Random House: author page

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