Books and Looks, June 2025 Pt. II

On the surprisingly moving murder mystery blurbed by The Bee Sting's author, translucent trenches, and more

This is a paid edition of Literally Obsessed. If you’re new here, don’t worry. I usually only post twice a week, just temporarily overwhelming your inbox as I catch up from vacation.

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The format of books and looks is typically pretty cut-and-dry, but when I started chaotically writing June’s edition, four days late, mind you, I had a feeling I’d leave some things out. And that I did! In fact, the recap was completely lacking in any love for two books I read and loved last month, and, while I gave a lot of due to my Copenhagen looks, I didn’t touch on what I was wearing during the 23 days of the month I was not on a European vacation. Whoops! Shall we?

THE BOOKS

On sisterhood and belonging…

Years ago, I remember listening to an episode of the Saturn Returns podcast that featured a poet and author named

Yrsa Daley-Ward

. I loved her vibe, and, when I saw she was on Substack a few years later, I followed her here, too. Then, earlier in June, I got a Belletrist (love them) email in my inbox: BRIEFING: YRSA DALEY-WARD. I’d had no idea she’d written a novel. The moment I saw the synopsis, I jumped right on it.

In The Catch, a mother has abandoned her twin daughters and disappeared. After moving through the foster care system, they’re adopted separately into vastly different circumstances: Clara grows up with the authoritative, wealthy Claudette and her gentle but helpless husband; Dempsey grows up under humbler circumstances, raised by a single father named Kendrick who works in local politics.

Years later, the girls are grown. Dempsey works a rote data entry job and struggles to socialize. Clara has become a literary world darling with a penchant for wine — and, one day, she spots someone she swears is their mother Serene, frozen at the age she abandoned them, in the audience at one of her readings.