I requested the ARC of Grim Tidings by B. K. Borison because I read Good Spirits last holiday time and really enjoyed it (for what it is, which is tropey contemporary romance). I’ve been waiting all year for #2 of the Ghosted series (episodic), and was disappointed just a little right off the bat because…
I read In the Woods by Tana French last year, my only other experience with French. Apparently, I have not yet reviewed it. (I have a couple dozen books on my backlist from 2025.) I read mysteries and crime thrillers largely because I’m forced to or they overlap with another genre, so I was happy…
Perhaps it’s a waste of your time, but I want to first say that I don’t enjoy giving negative book reviews (not that this review is ALL negative). I would love it if all reading experiences were four-plus stars and I could just rave about everything I read (especially ARCs). However, I am honest to…
My takeaway of Gwen & Art Are Not in Love by Lex Croucher: I started out a little annoyed because it wasn’t quite what I expected or wanted, writing-caliber and Arthurian-wise. Then I took a deep breath and told myself to read the book on its own terms, which sometimes works. For this one, it…
A Tender Age by Chang-rae Lee is best read with a buddy. Not like while you’re reading it, but it’s the kind of book you want to discuss after (and while) you read. I guess that makes it a good book club read. But since it’s being published today, it might be awhile before it…
I normally do a separate book review for the books we read in the bookshop’s club (since I will be leading discussion and it helps me think through my impressions and opinions of a book), but I didn’t get around to this one—There Are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak—in March. (I have already…
I might have had three different sources for The Romance Revival ARC (which is atypical), which means that possibly the publisher is really pushing this one out there. But I had already heard good things about it from some of the podcasts and blogs I listen to/read that tend to read well ahead of publication,…
April was not a great reading month for me. I guess we can understand why it’s taken me so long to review this gaggle of titles. Dear Mothman by Robin Gow was on my radar before it showed up as a YA-for-Adults book club read. (For the record, it’s more Middle Grades.) This is partly…
***Early copy as a bookseller*** I’ll probably do a longer review later, but this drops in the UK today and Americans have only a week to wait! So, I’ll give my two cents now. I’m a middle-aged lady who reads many, many things including YA and graphic novels and I was swept up into this…
There is a part of me that was fighting liking Claire Keegan’s So Late in the Day. I already had a beef with her because her books are all hardcover, thin, and overpriced, making them all but inaccessible to many people. Perhaps this is more a beef with her publisher. But then the issues deepened…
I was looking forward to reading The God of the Woods by Liz Moore because everyone kept reading it and then telling me how great it was. I am not a huge crime-thriller reader, but I am going to rank this one up there with some of the crime-thriller greats that also have a distinct…
My main beef with Orbital by Samantha Harvey? It’s not a novel. And I don’t mean it’s a novella, either, though it’s definitely short enough to be that. No, it is a book of vignettes, so maybe a book of connected short stories? Not really even that. Also, it’s something akin to creative nonfiction—the characters…
When I received my requested ARC for Land by Maggie O’Farrell, I knew I had arrived in the big leagues of ARC-ing. (That doesn’t mean I always get what I ask for, but still.) And I was thrilled. I have now read three O’Farrell books and have two more on my shelf. I imagine I…
I started dabbling with reading in the romance genre maybe half a dozen years ago. Mostly, I tolerated adequate writing so that I could have an easy, breezy book that was fun and low commitment. I enjoyed many that I read. But then I came across India Holton last year. Now, I’m not going to…
I fully expected to like Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout. I expected it to be an easy read. It would have been an easy read, except I was pretty bored (so it was difficult to want to pick it back up). I liked (and more-so respected) Olive Kitteridge back in the day. And then…
I was in a mood. I’ve read a lot of “serious” literature this year and had been on a literary fiction streak. Which is fine. It’s great! I love literary fiction. But I just wanted to read something that I could fly through and would take me no time at all—right in the middle of…
First things first, I guess; the title and the promise of The Drowned Woods (by Emily Lloyd-Jones) doesn’t work. There are no drowning woods. There is a city that goes underwater, mostly off-screen. Once you get past that (which I invite you to do right now), it’s smoother sailing. Blurb: Mer plans to live the…
Yes, I know it’s now March 1. Hush. I had been looking forward to Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino, another one of those lauded, literary sci-fi reads like The Ministry of Time (which it turned out I didn’t love). Where did I land on this one? I don’t know. I feel torn. I liked it. It…
Senlin Ascends (The Books of Babel #1) by Josiah Bancroft might have been the first book I was excited about in 2025, like as I was reading it. I just somehow didn’t expect it. I suppose the cover doesn’t give much (including the mood) away. I don’t hate the cover, but the overall impression is…
Not to be confused with Night Watch (Discworld #29) by Terry Pratchett. Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips won the Pulitzer Prize in 2024, which was how it caught my attention as a giant doorstop of a hardcover book. Then it caught my attention again when it went to paperback, because what the heck?—it was…
the starving artist 