There are many things this list isn’t. It’s not a “best of” list. And it’s certainly not comprehensive. It’s an off the top of my head list of some of the books that stuck with me from this past year, many of which were published in other years– in some cases, many years ago– but…

I’ve been immersed in research books this week for the New Revised Stand Alone, so there hasn’t been as much time as I’d like for fiction, but what I did read was a win: Trisha Ashley’s A Winter’s Tale, about a down on her luck single mom who unexpectedly inherits the no longer quite so…

It’s time to get into the holiday spirit, so I started off my post-Thanksgiving reading with Donna Andrews’s The Nightingale Before Christmas, the– oh, goodness, I’ve lost count. Let’s just say the something-teenth Meg Langslow mystery, in which Meg serves as coordinator for a Christmas-themed decorator show house, never knowing that one of the decorators…

I’ve been catching up on some recent releases over here! Among the books I’ve read over the past couple of weeks have been: — Sara Gruen’s At the Water’s Edge, which takes place in the Scottish Highlands during World War II, as three Americans in disgrace take an unlikely trip in search of the Loch…

Sometimes, books pop up just when you’re ready for them: in this case, an ARC of Megan Abbott’s The Fever that I’d forgotten I had and had never quite gotten around to reading. Think The Crucible set in a modern high school, rumors and hysteria and teenagers foaming at the mouth. It’s beautifully done, alternating…

There’s been more Galbraith over here! This week, I read the second Cormoran Strike mystery, The Silkworm, in which the detective sets out to track down a missing author, only to find he’s been murdered in the same manner described in the author’s controversial manuscript. Next up, I’m heading over to Paris in the 1920’s…

After a year of mostly re-reads, I’m making a concerted effort to get back in touch with the wider publishing world. This week? Liane Moriarty’s Big Little Lies, a story about a parent trivia night gone very, very wrong… and everything leading up to the crucial evening. Engaging prose, sympathetic characters, and a complexly constructed…

This week it’s been something old and something new. In the something old category (and I do mean very old): Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence. It’s a bit early for the new stand alone I’m writing, but still useful for background insight into my heroine’s childhood in the 1870s. In the something new category:…

This was a week of very old research books and brand new fiction books for me: that wonderful, decaying, tobacco-y smell from crumbling books on Belle Epoque Paris and the luxurious feel of thick paper and smooth covers on new trade paperbacks. I won’t go into the research side of things, but on the fiction…

I’ll admit it. I’m in a bit of a book slump. I’ve resorted to reading less liked books by favorite authors: Angela Thirkell’s Before Lunch (1930s English village antics) and Elsie Lee’s The Curse of Carranca (1960s romantic suspense). Laura Resnick’s Esther Diamond books and Ben Aaronvitch’s Rivers of London series got me through the…