Friday Favorites - 8/7/26

HOLLIE:

FURIOUS (4 episodes now streaming on Hulu)

Heather and I are obsessed with Furious on Hulu, and the one negative is that there are only four episodes currently streaming.

Created by Liz Meriweather of New Girl fame, she showed her darker edges with The Dropout and Dying for Sex. But her new show, Furious really pushes the envelope and we are hooked. In fact, Heather and I haven’t been this annoyed about a weekly rollout since the first season of The Pitt.

Furious follows cop-turned-FBI agent Alice Black as she hunts a calculating female serial killer named Catherine. As their paths toward justice and vengeance intertwine, the two women grow strangely similar, and the line between right and wrong blurs.

I have a love/hate relationship with Liz Meriweather. I love her because her shows are so good, and I hate her because well... I want a career like hers. But seriously, she could have stayed in half-hour comedy, but she chose to push herself to do something different (and also surrounded herself with a room of talented writers), and I respect that.

Emmy Rossum has always been great, but as Alice, she’s leveled up. At first, I was put off by her character. When she’s at work, she’s buttoned up with no makeup and very unflattering clothes. But as Alice’s character is revealed, slowly over four episodes, those choices make perfect sense.

Rossum has incredible depth in the show. I love how in scenes with her ex-husband, played by Scoot McNairy, an NYPD officer, she tells different stories about herself to the witnesses and victims, so they’ll relate to her, and you’re never sure if it’s the truth or a lie. He isn’t either. McNairy is so engaging, I miss him whenever he’s not on screen. Alice’s backstory is intense, but when she’s with McNairy, their dynamic creates a lightness that’s darkly comedic and very fun to watch.

The serial killer, Catherine, played by Irish actor Lola Petticrew, is fantastic too. Initially, I worried this was a Killing Eve retread, but after the first episode, I was totally on board with Catherine. She scares me, but I’m also weirdly rooting for her.

Alice’s ex, played by Jake Lacy, (great in All Her Fault) manages to be handsome, charming, and punchable all at once. His role as Alice’s violent ex and now someone she’s being forced to work with creates some of the best tension on the show.

It’s hard to say there’s a standout in the cast, considering how stacked it is, but if I had to pick I’d say it’s Quincy Tyler Bernstine. She manages to steal every scene she’s in. She’s not an actor I was familiar with. Her work has mostly consisted of theater and a recurring role in the Starz Power series. In Furious, she gets to put her talents to the test, managing to make a put-upon and jaded FBI detective character feel fresh. There’s an especially powerful moment in Episode 4 that is definitely Emmy-worthy.

This show is interesting in our post-Epstein era as we reckon with powerful men and accountability or lack thereof. This show, in the wrong hands, could have felt tone deaf or even out of touch, but instead, it’s an example of powerful women fighting back.

Sadly, after 4 episodes, I have to wait a week (damn you, Hulu), so I can’t tell you whether the series sticks the landing, but I’ll definitely be watching and you should too.

THE INEVITABLE UNDOING OF ZAHARA DOUGLAS-by Leslye Penelope

One of the perks of being a published author and having some success is that you get asked to read books before they come out and provide a blurb.

Last fall, when my former editor, Alyea Canada at Orbit, asked if I’d blurb a book coming out in August 2026, I said, of course, especially once I found out it was about twins.

Here’s the synopsis from the Hachette website.

In April 1995, Zahara watched her twin sister, Annica, get hustled into a stranger’s car and disappear—only to return to a world where no one has heard of Annica. Not her mother. Not the police. No one.

Four years later, as the world braces for the looming Y2K crisis, Zahara finds evidence proving her sister was real and hires a private investigator to dig into her family’s shadowed past. When the investigation leads to two charismatic men who once served with her father in Vietnam, Zahara realizes she and her sister may be pawns in a dangerous power struggle with unthinkable consequences.

To find Annica, Zahara must face the truth about her family, her memories, and the power lurking within her. But the sisters’ reunion comes at a price—one that could bring about the end of the world.

In typical Hollie-ADHD fashion, I waited until a week before my blurb was due before starting this book, and I know people say this a lot, but I REALLY could not put it down. I read at least two hundred pages in one sitting and finished the rest the next night. I was definitely sleep deprived when I had to wake up early for my mom duties, but it was worth it.

I can’t believe I wasn’t familiar with Leslye Penelope’s previous works (and I want to rectify that). She’s an award-winning fantasy writer and her book, Song of Blood and Stone, was voted by Time magazine as one of the best fantasy books of all time. But it’s her upcoming release that I’m currently obsessed with.

While I don’t read a lot of sci-fi, I loved how grounded this story is. It dealt with Y2K and what happened when technology and power go unchecked (pretty timely, all things considered).

I could go on and on about what I loved about the book, but the heart of the story was Zahara’s relationship with her sister, Annica. One minute she’s there, and then she’s gone, and no one believes she exists. It broke my heart when Zahara realizes if she kept insisting she had a twin, she’ll be locked away so instead she has to act as if she’s forgotten her. But she can’t! Zahara’s determination as she gets older to find her sister was so relatable. I, too, would do anything to find Heather.

I was also deeply engrossed in the chapters where were learning about Zahara’s father, who went to Vietnam and the mystical experiences he had that set everything into motion. His storyline was definitely one of my favorites.

I’m not sure if the film and TV rights are available, but if they aren’t, someone should snap them up. It’s an incredible story with franchise potential.

The Inevitable Undoing of Zahara Douglas is out on Tuesday, August 11th. I really hope it finds a wide audience. It’s absolutely worthy of bestseller status.

HEATHER: PRETTY DEAD THINGS

I love it when the universe tells me what book I should read next. A few weeks ago, I wrote about a debut novel I discovered when I was wandering around my local library (when I should have been working).

The book is called Party of Liars, a thriller set in Texas about a Sweet Sixteen party that turns deadly. The mystery kept me guessing, and I loved that it was set in Hill Country (close to Austin, where my dad lived). It’s not a location used in many thrillers, at least the ones I’ve read.

I discovered the author has a new book out called Pretty Dead Things when I was checking out the choices for my Book of the Month club. I’ll admit that when I first saw the selection of books to choose from, I skipped over Pretty Dead Things. The book centers on a beauty pageant in a small town in Texas and being from Texas, I thought, “no thanks, I’m good.” When I realized it was the same writer as Party of Liars, I changed my mind and ordered it right away.

It was a good decision because, much like her debut novel, author Kelsey Cox crafts such compulsive stories with cliffhangers that had me saying just one more chapter until 1 am.

There’s also a surprise I missed when I initially read the synopsis. The story centers on two central mysteries: what happened to Ingrid “Iggy” Whitmore, who disappeared in 2005 before the Lone Star Pageant, and then the present day, when the Lone Star Pageant returns.

Pretty Dead Things features an ensemble, focused on a group of friends that include Ingrid’s identical twin sister Izzy, who is stuck in the past, haunted by her sister’s disappearance, and Izzy and Ingrid’s former classmates, Kennedy Claire, the ruthless pageant mom determined to win at all costs, and her daughter, Sarah Lynn, who is expected to take after her mom and win the pageant.

Lastly, there’s Cat, newly sober and Melanie, the Sheriff’s daughter, who were the teenage outcasts and whose own daughters now join the pageant, setting the stage for so much turmoil.

There are countless twists and turns and secrets that were buried and are now being resurrected as the pageant gets closer and new information comes to light surrounding Iggy’s disappearance.

I have to say I did not see the ending coming. I was probably more surprised by this ending than Party of Liars.

I love how complicated the relationships with all the friends are. It reminds me of how petty teenagers can be and how everything at that time feels so much like life and death, except in this case, it actually is life and death.

I also love how Cox skillfully writes about characters who are struggling with addiction and other mental health issues. She did this equally well in Party of Liars.

One issue I had in the beginning of the book was the lack of emotion I felt from Izzy when talking about her twin sister Iggy. It just felt like something was missing, though the writer ultimately turned it around by the end, and had me bawling.

I won’t spoil it, but it was a perfect dark and twisty ending and avoids getting gruesome or graphic. If you’re looking for a page turning thriller as summer winds down, this one’s for you!

What books are keeping you up late? Have you seen Furious or any other shows you can’t stop bingeing? We’d want to know what you’re loving right now!