Reviews + Articles
What Are You Reading?
First, how are you all, especially those of you on the east coast? I hope Tropical Storm Elsa isn't treating you too badly. I spent eighteen years living on Florida's Gulf Coast, so I know what it's like to deal with tropical storms and hurricane warnings. I still...
Little Black Book by Kate Carlisle
Before discussing Kate Carlisle's fifteenth Bibliophile mystery, Little Black Book, I wanted to praise the cover artist. Because I read a .PDF, I have no idea who Berkley picked for the artist, but this cover is just stunning, and details are so accurate, from the cat...
Razorblade Tears by S.A. Cosby
S.A. Cosby's 2020 release Blacktop Wasteland was nominated for all kinds of awards. If Razorblade Tears, this year's standalone, isn't nominated, something is wrong with the system. It's one of the best books I've read this year. On the surface, the only thing Ike...
The Lost Girls by Jessica Chiarella
Jessica Chiarella's The Lost Girls is a novel outside my comfort zone, but one I enjoyed much more than I expected. I'm not a fan of unreliable narrators. What's more unreliable than a woman still stuck emotionally at the age of eight, who destroys her marriage by...
Favorites of 2021 – Jan-June
For me, the best way to celebrate Independence Day is to celebrate the freedom to read, and the wonderful books I've read during the first half of 2021. Happy Independence Day! I don't know how many years it has been since Jen Forbus first asked me to share my...
The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict & Victoria Christopher Murray
Of course I was interested in reading about J.P. Morgan's personal librarian, the woman who later became the first director of the Morgan Library. Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray stuck close to facts in their historical novel, The Personal Librarian....