Happy Friday, all! Apologies for my continued absence here.  Between some family stuff and deadlines, it’s been a challenging couple of months and many balls have been dropped along the way.  I suspect it will be a few more months before we’re back to our regularly scheduled programming over here, but I hope to be…

Happy Friday, all! Can you believe it’s almost June already?  At my back I always hear my deadline rapidly drawing near, but in between panicking about how close my deadline is and how little of my book is written, I did read some excellent books this week. First there was Alex Hay’s The Housekeepers, recommended…

Happy Friday, all! It’s been a relentlessly busy week, on both the personal and professional front, so there’s only one book on my list this week.  Confession: if there were other books I read this week, it’s all been such a blur that I’ve completely forgotten them.  But the one I do remember is Claire…

Happy Friday, all! I was lucky enough to get my hands on two recent mysteries this week, one that’s already out and in ARC form. How to Solve Your Own Murder is an adorably daffy British village mystery with deliberate nods to Midsomer Murders in which the heroine is summoned from London by her reclusive…

Happy Friday, all! I’ve continued my Louise Penny-a-thon with books three to five of the Inspector Gamache series: The Cruelest Month, A Rule Against Murder, and The Brutal Telling. I’m currently on book six, Bury Your Dead, and finding it a fascinating departure from the earlier books in the series. One of the things that’s…

Happy Friday, all! For years, friends have been recommending Louise Penny’s Quebec-set Gamache books to me (some went beyond recommendation and actually mailed them to me).  Because so many discerning readers couldn’t be wrong, a few years ago I picked up the first one, Still Life— and bounced off it.  Two days ago, I picked…

Happy Friday, all! This week, after bouncing off a couple of recent releases that were perfectly fine books, but just not for me, I decided it was time to revisit some old favorites: Elizabeth Peters’s Jacqueline Kirby books. The Seventh Sinner is set among artists and archaeologists in Rome; The Murders of Richard III at…

Happy Friday, all! What with finishing proofs for the Manhattan Well Murder book (now officially titled THE WOMAN IN THE WELL, coming your way January 2025!) and a cover reveal for the latest Team W book (THE AUTHOR’S GUIDE TO MURDER, coming to a bookstore near you November 5, 2024!), it’s been a bit of…

Happy Friday, all! One of the best things historical fiction does is to bring back the stories of people who should be remembered, but aren’t.  This week, I read Allison Pataki’s latest, Finding Margaret Fuller, and marveled at the way this woman– whose story reads like fiction even though it all happened!– has been forgotten.…

Happy Friday, all! I’ve been bouncing all over as a reader recently (including bouncing off some books, but I never include those!).  This week, I’ve gone from 1990’s set ghost story to contemporary small town romance to an old (but new to me) cozy mystery. Of course, I had to read the new Simone St.…