I’ve been wallowing in 1970s gothics all this week. My college roommate, the best of all possible roommates in the best of all possible worlds, sent me one of her wonderful book care packages of findings gleaned from used bookstores. When I came across a pile of crackling paperbacks, all by someone named Isabelle Holland,…

One of the perks of conferences is the goody bag of books (and the long plane rides on which to read said books). I use these as opportunities for discovering authors I might not otherwise have tried. Here’s this week’s haul: — Liza Palmer, More Like Her. Sarah MacLean told me I had to read…

Hello from the Romance Writers of America convention in California! It was so great to see some of you at the signings on Wednesday and Thursday. It’s been a Susan Elizabeth Phillips week for me: her latest, Great Escape, followed by a re-read of Natural Born Charmer. I also have a lovely pile of books…

This week’s reading list is a fairly straightforward one for me. I retrieved a bunch of my old Joan Wolf novels from my little sister, and I’ve been reading through them, one after another. They’re all Regency-set, all told in the first person, all feature some sort of underlying mystery sub-plot, and the heroine is…

This has been a very Regency inflected reading week for me. Here’s what I’ve been reading: — Joan Wolf, The Arrangement. Very few people can write Regencies in the first person and get away with it– and Joan Wolf does it so very well. The Arrangement, in which an independent single mother finds herself entangled,…

Apologies for the long weekly reading round-up hiatus! I was off in Scotland with limited internet access– and weekly reading round-up is particularly resistant to pre-programming since I never do know what I’m going to read until I read it. This week, I’ve been reading through all my old Angela Thirkell novels. For those who…

I’ve been continuing the old favorites kick this week, rediscovering more books on the back of the shelves: — Barbara Michaels, Shattered Silk. Okay, I’ll admit it. At one point, this was one of my less-favored Barbara Michaels novels. I adored the previous book in the trilogy, Ammie, Come Home, which has an excellent ghost…

I’ve still been reading my way through the rediscovered books tossed up by the move, among them: — Alexandra Raife, Belonging. The old family homestead in the Highlans has been turned into a hotel and it’s up to Rebecca to rescue it when her feckless cousin Tony leaves wife and hotel in the lurch to…

The wonderful thing about unpacking books, aside from the benefit to the muscles of the upper arm, is rediscovering whole treasure troves of books you’ve forgotten. I’ve been grazing among the forgotten books of the back shelves this past week, including: — Bill Bryson, I’m a Stranger Here Myself. My friend Jenny gave this to…

Apologies! I’m in the midst of moving, buried beneath boxes, so this isn’t going to be much of a round up this week (unless you count all the books I’ve rounded up into boxes?). I’ll post some pictures of the boxes and boxes later, once the Internet is up and running. What have you been…