Carol Iaciofano Aucoin
Book Critic
Carol Iaciofano Aucoin has contributed book reviews, op-ed columns and poetry to publications including WBUR, Pangyrus and The Boston Globe, and is a co-author of the personal computer anthology "Digital Deli."
Recently published
'A Good Person' is a murder mystery wrapped in a psychological thriller
Set in Boston, author Kirsten King's riveting debut novel is told entirely from the perspective of a "memorable and memorably unreliable protagonist," reviews critic Carol Iaciofano Aucoin.
George Saunders' 'Vigil' plumbs the meaning of comfort across realms
The novel takes place over the course of the final earthly hours for a former oil company CEO and the spirit who comes to comfort him in his passage from...
Two intriguing novels to add to your winter reading list
Karen Winn's "The Society" goes behind the ornate doors of a fictional secret society in Boston. Jenna Blum's "Murder Your Darlings," also set in Boston, delves into another kind of...
In 'Bad Bad Girl,' Gish Jen reimagines the relationship with her mother
In this genre-bending book, Jen explores her damaging relationship with her mother, how she became a writer, and her mother’s own story. "It is at once a personal history of...
Two new mystery novels to read in October
Olivia Blacke’s "Death at the Door" is a Boston-set cozy mystery featuring a human-ghost duo teaming up to solve a murder. Tom Ryan’s "We Had a Hunch" sees teen detectives...
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Lily King's new novel captures the highs and lows of a college romance
Set in the 1980s and present day, "Heart of the Lover" is told in first person by a woman nicknamed Jordan and her complicated relationship with two college friends, Yash...
Two new novels offer page-turning summer escapes
WBUR book critic Carol Iaciofano Aucoin reviews Sarah MacLean's sophisticated romance "These Summer Storms" and Megan Miranda's intricate psychological thriller "You Belong Here." Both novels feature women who have to...
Gary Shteyngart's new novel offers a dystopian America that feels familiar
Shteyngart’s “Vera, or Faith" is a family drama set in an America on a slow slide toward totalitarianism told through the eyes of an endearing and anxious 10-year-old girl, "written...
Murder mystery 'We Would Never' is a twisty family character study
Based on true events, Tova Mirvis' new novel "might read in parts like a domestic romp wrapped in yellow crime scene tape, but you never forget that an innocent man...
Betty Shamieh's 'Too Soon' intertwines three generations of Palestinian American women
In the playwright's debut novel, a grandmother, daughter and granddaughter's stories are told in rotating, first-person voice, spanning "two continents and more than six decades of cultural and political change,"...