Happy Friday, all!

I’ve been hopping around from genre to genre this week, starting with old school British chick lit: Trisha Ashley’s Chocolate Wishes, set in the small village of Sticklepond in Lancashire.  Our heroine’s mother abandoned the family for places unknown (possibly Goa), leaving our heroine to raise her brother, Jake, while also running her small chocolate business and acting as secretary for her eccentric part time novelist/ full time warlock grandfather.  But when her ex-boyfriend– a rock star turned vicar– shows up in town, her carefully constructed life is about to be disrupted….

Seriously, how can you top an ex-boyfriend former rock star turned vicar?  It’s like Dibley meets As Time Goes By.  Or something like that.  Either way, it was just what I needed this week.

After that, I zipped back in time and across the world to 1940s California with Charlotte Armstrong’s Something Blue, a classic Gothic with a twist (why, no, the brooding dangerous one actually ISN’T the hero– and the ingenue isn’t the heroine, which is really kind of refreshing).

Right now, I’ve just started reading one of the many ARCs in my ARC pile: The Porcelain Maker, a World War II historical by Sarah Freethy, in which a woman in the present day searches for the truth about her parents’ past, tracing a series of porcelain objects back to the horrors of Dachau in an attempt to find the identity of her father.  Fans of Pam Jenoff and Kristin Hannah should keep an eye out for this one!

What have you been reading this week?

In other news– oh, goodness, there’s so much other news!

— Team W will be in Tucson next weekend!  You can find us at the Tucson Festival of Books on March 4th.  I’ll also be sharing a panel with the lovely Sue Meissner, Kristina McMorris, and Jennifer Coburn on March 5th.  Hope you can join us!

— After that, it’s almost time for the Two Wars and a Wedding Tour!  I’ll be in Connecticut, New York (both NYC and Albany), Georgia, South Carolina, Arizona, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, as well as some virtual events.  You can find the details on my Events page.

Tickets for the ticketed events (the launch event at Pequot Library in Connecticut, the Litchfield Books Luncheon in South Carolina, and the Ocean House event in Rhode Island) have been going fast, so reserve your spot now!