Happy Friday– and happy almost Halloween!

I’d meant to catch up on my usual pre-Halloween reading this week (Shirley Jackson, E.F. Benson, and Simone St. James, I’m looking at you), but instead I got drawn into the irresistible world of the Thursday Murder Club with book two, The Man Who Died Twice.  I adore these books so much.  They’re basically the love child of Waiting for God (anyone else watch that back in the 90s?) and Midsomer Murders, with a touch of Murder She Wrote.

After that, I was in a serious book grump (don’t you hate when you come to the end of a fictional world you want to keep living in?), so I turned to T. Kingfisher’s Beauty and the Beast retelling, Bryony and Roses, which opened with strong echoes of Robin McKinley’s Beauty but detoured into that distinct twinge of Not Quite Right that’s so very Kingfisher (if you’ve read The Twisted Ones, you’ll know what I mean)– and also makes you stop and think about the menace inherent in the story that’s usually so neatly dusted over with talking feather dusters and solicitous tea pots.

Right now, I’m immersed in the concentrated creepiness of Paraic O’Donnell’s The House on Vesper Sands— but more about that next week.

What have you been reading this week?

Oh, and in other news, the registration link for this month’s Pink Carnation Read Along is finally up!  (The Garden Intrigue.  Tuesday, November 9th, at 8pm ET, with special guest host Lynda Loigman.)  You can register here.  As always, it is free, virtual, and open to anyone anywhere.