Murder Takes a Vacation by Laura Lippman

June 13, 2025

According to Laura Lippman, Mrs. Muriel Blossom first appeared in the novel Another Thing to Fall in 2008. Lippman admits readers occasionally called her out for being ageist and anti-fat when it came to Mrs. Blossom, who did surveillance for PI Tess Monaghan at one...

The Library of Lost Dollhouses by Elise Hooper

April 04, 2025

How could I go wrong with a novel about dollhouses, miniatures, and a librarian? Elise Hooper’s The Library of Lost Dollhouses has all those elements, along with an artist to root for. Readers who don’t care for alternating timelines will not be happy with...

Kate & Frida by Kim Fay

March 11, 2025

Kim Fay’s novel, Love & Saffron, was published in 2022, one of my favorite novels that year. It was subtitled “A Novel of Friendship, Food, and Love”. I picked it up at the time because it was an epistolary novel, told in letters, and I’ll...

An Art Lover’s Guide to Paris and Murder by Dianne Freeman

June 25, 2024

Dianne Freeman takes her sleuthing couple, Frances Wynn, once the Countess of Harleigh, and now Mrs. George Hazelton, and her husband, George, to Paris in this atmospheric mystery set in 1900 during Paris’ World Exposition. An Art Lover’s Guide to Paris...

The Paris Novel by Ruth Reichl

May 27, 2024

Ruth Reichl takes readers along on her journey to Paris in 1983. Food, fashion, and art are so essential to this book that it’s a treat for the senses as a reluctant visitor to the city discovers it. When Stella’s mother died, she was surprised to receive...