I’ve had a week of book discontent. It’s been one of these weeks where I’ll start a book and toss it aside after a few chapters. I can’t blame it on the books. Some have been tried and true old favorites like Barbara Michaels’s The Crying Child (a Gothic ghost story), Melissa Nathan’s The Nanny…

With my hometown slammed by a Hurricane Sandy, this was not the most calming of weeks. Out came the comfort reads: — Barbara Michaels, Ammie, Come Home. An excellent, classic ghost story, set in an old house in Georgetown. — Helena Dela, The Count. I’ve always been sad that I’ve never been able to find…

With less than a week until Halloween, my reading has been skewing heavily towards ghost stories… with one surprise discovery. Here’s what I’ve been reading: — Julie Kagawa, The Iron King. How did I not discover this book before? It’s the amalgamation of all the folk-lore based fantasy novels I read in my youth, featuring…

This week, I treated myself to a bunch of books I’ve been wanting for a while: — Pamela Morsi, The Lovesick Cure. A sweet, heartwarming romance set in the Ozarks. It reminded me of both Kristan Higgins’s and Susan Elizabeth Phillips’s books, with as much focus on the supporting characters as on the central couple.…

This week, most of my discretionary reading time has been swallowed up by contest entries for a contest I probably shouldn’t name in a category that must also remain nameless. Which means that I can’t list any of it, because it would all be a dead give-away. Here’s what I can tell you I’ve been…

Don’t you love it when you rediscover something you’ve forgotten about and find that it’s even better than you remember? That happened to me this week with Rosemary Clement-Moore’s Maggie Quinn series. I like to describe them to people as supernatural YA Vicky Bliss. The heroine’s tart tone reminds me a great deal of vintage…

Happy Friday! Here’s what I’ve been reading this week: — Isabelle Holland, The Marchington Inheritance. Remember that care package my roommate sent me over the summer? I’ve been eking it out, book by book. This one felt bizarrely topical, since it was set in New York and involved a UN meeting. — John Harwood, The…

Happy Friday, all! Here’s what I’ve been reading this week. — Harriet Evans, Happily Ever After. I’ve been reading Harriet Evans’s books since a friend gave me A Hopeless Romantic as a gift years ago. I think of her books as the next stage after chick lit: that frank, open tone, the addressing of day…

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…