Volume 2: Colleen Hoover, Alice Feeney, Freida McFadden, Lucy Foley and Mary Kubica
The shelf is growing. And this volume of The Unfiltered Bookshelf gets completely unfiltered about the authors who earned their place on it and the ones who did not make it past the edit.
Volume 1 started with a TBI that took reading from me for two years and Freida McFadden as the author who gave it back. If you have not read that post or listened to that episode yet go find it first because it is the foundation of everything this series is built on.
Volume 2 is where the reading taste gets examined honestly. Where I talk about the author I read completely and outgrew without apologizing for it. Where I introduce the thriller writer who quietly earned more shelf space than anyone else I have read this year. And where two more Freida McFadden books proved that the author from Volume 1 has a range that is wider and more audacious than I initially understood.
Here is everything that made it into Volume 2.
“Your reading taste is allowed to evolve. You are allowed to outgrow authors you once loved without that meaning anything bad about them or about you.”
The Colleen Hoover Conversation
I want to be clear before anything else. What follows is not a pile-on. Colleen Hoover built something that brought millions of people back to reading and I was one of them. I read everything she wrote. I bought the books. I recommended them. And then I did not anymore. That evolution deserves to be talked about honestly.
What CoHo does well is real and worth acknowledging. Short chapters. Fast pacing. Emotional accessibility that does not ask a lot of the reader cognitively. She created a gateway for people who had stopped reading or who had never considered themselves readers and that is a legitimate contribution to the literary world regardless of anything else.
But within her catalog there are two books that operate on a completely different level. And those are the only two books that stayed on my shelf.
Confess by Colleen Hoover: 5 out of 5
The book that made me a Colleen Hoover reader in the first place. Emotionally devastating in the best way. The love story is genuine, the art element is beautifully executed, and the payoff lands in a way that a lot of her other work reaches for but does not always achieve. It still holds up and it earned its permanent place on the shelf.
Verity by Colleen Hoover: 5 out of 5
The most interesting thing about Colleen Hoover’s entire catalog. Verity reads like it was written by a completely different person. It is dark. Genuinely disturbing. Morally ambiguous in a way that most popular fiction is afraid to be. It does not rely on the emotional accessibility formula that drives most of her work and it is better for it.
Verity is the book that makes me believe there is a darker, more complex version of Colleen Hoover as a writer that she very rarely lets out. When she does it produces something extraordinary. The fact that Verity does not align with anything else in her catalog is the most compelling thing about it. Five stars. Both books stay on the shelf. Everything else I have moved on from.
Woman Down by Colleen Hoover: 3 out of 5
Colleen Hoover had been battling cancer and stepping back from publishing. When Woman Down was announced there was genuine goodwill and excitement. I wanted this to be the comeback that reminded me why I had read everything she wrote.
Three out of five. Not a bad book. But not the comeback I was hoping for. The emotional hooks feel familiar in a way that reads more as formula than feeling. The story does not do anything with its momentum that surprised me. And surprise is what I need from a book now in a way that I did not always need before. That three out of five rating told me everything I needed to know about where I am as a reader. And it sent me directly to Alice Feeney.
Introducing Alice Feeney: The Author Who Needs More Attention
Alice Feeney is a British author and former BBC journalist who writes psychological thrillers that operate in a completely different register than most of what is popular on BookTok right now. Beautiful Ugly is getting significant traction in 2026 and it is well deserved. But her entire catalog deserves the attention that one book is currently getting.
What makes Alice Feeney different is the construction. She builds worlds that feel completely real and completely off in equal measure. She has a gift for making you trust a narrator you should not trust and then pulling the rug out in a way that recontextualizes everything you thought you understood about the story you were reading.
She is not a cozy read. She is not fast in the way Freida McFadden is fast. She is a slow burn that commits fully to the build and then delivers twists that do not stop. Plural. A sequence of revelations that keep arriving until the final page. Each one landing harder than the last.
“Alice Feeney is the author I reach for when I want to be genuinely unsettled and then rewarded for tolerating the discomfort of not knowing exactly where I am going.”
For those building a Freida McFadden reading habit and wondering how Alice Feeney compares: Freida pulls you in immediately with shorter chapters and tighter pacing. Her twists are surgical and they arrive at exactly the right moment. Alice takes longer to build but when it pays off it restructures the entire story you thought you were reading. Both belong on your shelf. They serve different reading moods. Freida for when you want to be consumed immediately. Alice for when you want to be genuinely challenged.
His and Hers by Alice Feeney: 4 out of 5
A strong introduction to Alice Feeney. A dual perspective narrative, a crime, two people whose versions of events do not quite align, and a slow accumulation of dread that builds until the structure of the story itself feels unreliable. The first third requires patience but the payoff arrives hard. The final sequence is one of the most satisfying I read in this entire stretch.
My Husband’s Wife by Alice Feeney: 4 out of 5
Alice Feeney doing domestic suspense in a way that makes you deeply uncomfortable about the relationships you take for granted. Two women, one man, a shifting timeline, and a level of psychological manipulation between characters that is genuinely disturbing to watch unfold. Every twist is set up. Every surprise has been hiding in plain sight. The character work is tighter here than His and Hers and it shows.
Rock Paper Scissors by Alice Feeney: 4 out of 5
The Alice Feeney book to start with if you are new to her. A couple with a troubled marriage retreats to a remote Scottish chapel for a weekend that is not what either of them expected. The atmosphere is exceptional. The isolation feels real. And the final act delivers a complete reframe of the entire story that sent me back to reread the opening pages immediately. This is her most accessible work while still being fully representative of what she does better than almost anyone else in this space.
Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney: 5 out of 5
The first five star read from Alice Feeney for me and the book that confirmed she is not just an author I enjoy but one who belongs on the shelf permanently. I am not giving you anything specific about the plot because the less you know going in the more the book does its job.
What I will say is that Beautiful Ugly does something I have not experienced from many thrillers. It makes the reading experience itself feel like part of the disorientation. The pacing is faster than her other work. It is easier to follow without sacrificing any of the complexity. This is Alice Feeney at her most confident and her most merciless. When you are ready for her at her absolute best this is where you go.
The Freida McFadden Additions: The Shelf Gets Deeper
Dear Debbie by Freida McFadden: 4 out of 5
Unhinged. I mean that as the highest possible compliment. This is the beginning of what I now think of as Freida McFadden’s 2026 era of domestic thrillers. The kind that take genre conventions you have come to expect and then do something with them that you did not see coming and cannot quite believe you are reading. The audacity of what she chose to do in this book made me laugh out loud at my own reaction to certain scenes. Essential Freida McFadden.
The Teacher by Freida McFadden: 4.5 out of 5
Gets mixed reviews because of the nature of the content. The subject matter is deliberately provocative and Freida McFadden knows exactly what she is doing with it. What I will say is that this book hit until the absolute final page. The tension builds from the opening and does not release. And that final twist lands with a weight that made me sit with it before I could move on.
When this gets adapted, which I believe it will, it is going to make people deeply uncomfortable in a theater and they are going to leave unable to stop talking about it. That discomfort is the entire point. Four point five out of five.
The Surrogate Mother by Freida McFadden: 4.5 out of 5
Freida operating in fully confident mode. The premise is immediately gripping, the execution is tight, and the reveals arrive at exactly the right moments. If you are building your McFadden shelf this one belongs in it.
The Housemaid’s Secret by Freida McFadden: 3.75 out of 5
The continuation of The Housemaid from Volume 1. Does not reach the heights of the original but adds enough to the world to earn its place. Go in with adjusted expectations and you will find a lot to enjoy.
New Authors Join the Stack
The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley: 4 out of 5
Lucy Foley does atmospheric thriller in a way that is completely her own. The Paris setting is not decorative, it is a character. The mystery builds with patience and the final resolution is genuinely satisfying. I will be reading more from her and she is likely to earn a permanent spot on the shelf.
It’s Not Her by Mary Kubica: 3.5 out of 5
Solid domestic suspense. Well constructed. The twists arrive on schedule. Not breaking new ground in the genre but if you are building a thriller reading habit and want something that delivers reliably this is a good addition to the stack.
Volume 2 at a Glance
Confess by Colleen Hoover: 5 out of 5 — Stays on the shelf permanently
Verity by Colleen Hoover: 5 out of 5 — The most interesting outlier in her catalog
Woman Down by Colleen Hoover: 3 out of 5 — Not the comeback I was hoping for
His and Hers by Alice Feeney: 4 out of 5 — Strong introduction to her work
My Husband’s Wife by Alice Feeney: 4 out of 5 — Tighter character work than His and Hers
Rock Paper Scissors by Alice Feeney: 4 out of 5 — Start here if you are new to her
Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney: 5 out of 5 — Her absolute best
Dear Debbie by Freida McFadden: 4 out of 5 — Completely unhinged in the best way
The Teacher by Freida McFadden: 4.5 out of 5 — Hits until the final page
The Surrogate Mother by Freida McFadden: 4.5 out of 5 — Freida at her most confident
The Housemaid’s Secret by Freida McFadden: 3.75 out of 5 — Solid continuation
The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley: 4 out of 5 — New author to watch
It’s Not Her by Mary Kubica: 3.5 out of 5 — Reliable domestic suspense, hated the social media aspect
Listen to The Unfiltered Bookshelf Vol. 2 on Mindset, Health, Empowerment: The Unfiltered Trainer. New volumes drop monthly. Subscribe so you never miss one. And shop every book mentioned in this post through the links below.
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