I’ve given myself a bit of a break from Bronte and Gaskell this week, and bounced around between time periods and genres a bit. Here’s what I’ve been reading: — Dodie Smith, The Town in Bloom I’ve been hoarding this ever since I found it in Hatchards (yes, that Hatchards) in June. It’s by the…

I’ve been going full steam ahead on research for the next stand alone novel, so all of my leisure reading has been focused around the late 1840s. Luckily for me, it was a particularly fertile literary period. — Anne Bronte, Agnes Grey. You know my thing for governess books, right? I’ve heard Agnes Grey referred…

I was just asked which Victoria Holt to read as an introduction to the Holt oeuvre. And since I know there are many Holt fans out there– with many strong opinions– I thought I’d fling it open to all of you…. My gateway Holt was Curse of the Kings: Victorian Egyptologists, ancient curses, all that…

Now that Pink X, The Passion of the Purple Plumeria, is off in the hands of my editor, I finally have a chance to catch up on some leisure reading. This week’s haul included: — Caroline Llewellyn, The Masks of Rome. I’d found this book in the library back in Middle School and have been…

This has been a week of old books with crackly paper covers for me: specifically, my ancient, much read copy of Dorothy Sayers’s Busman’s Honeymoon and one of the remaining roommate care package gothics, Isabelle Holland’s Grenelle. What have you been reading?

In between wrangling Miss Gwen, I’m still reading through that care package my wonderful college roommate sent me. I’ve been taking a break between 70’s gothics to read the first few of Laurie King’s contemporary mystery series, featuring detective Kate Martinelli of San Francisco. So far, my favorite is the first one, A Grave Talent,…

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…