{"id":21996,"date":"2026-06-30T16:59:33","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T14:59:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/?p=21996"},"modified":"2026-06-30T16:59:33","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T14:59:33","slug":"the-last-bench-carmel-harrington-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/2026\/06\/30\/the-last-bench-carmel-harrington-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"The Last Bench &#8211; Carmel Harrington (2026)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Vega is a young journalist trying to write an article about the drug situation in her town, but all her leads keep bringing her back to the same person: a drug dealer allegedly involved in the death of a young woman thirty years ago. Unable to find him, she decides to interview the victim\u2019s parents, who have created a blossom maze in her memory. From there, an intriguing story unfolds. This is one of the Quick Reads of 2026, so it is a very short and accessible story. The plot is engaging, and the characters are touching. A nice, easy read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know who said this, and I might be misremembering it, but the sentiment feels fitting. Karma has no menu, but you get served what you deserve.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Vega is a young journalist trying to write an article about the drug situation in her town, but all her leads keep bringing her back to the same person: a drug dealer allegedly involved in the death of a young woman thirty years ago. Unable to find him, she decides to interview the victim\u2019s parents, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21997,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[291],"tags":[124,19,114],"class_list":["post-21996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books-2026","tag-loss","tag-love","tag-secrets"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/chan-apqNuG_mnks-unsplash-scaled.jpg?fit=1707%2C2560&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21996"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21996\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21998,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21996\/revisions\/21998"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}