What to Read in September

I considered a back-to-school theme for September’s what to read theme, but that stopped appealing when I thought how much no one wants to be handed more work to do at the beginning of the school year. Maybe I’ll do that next year. Instead, I’m going with a writing theme. Why? Because I am already…

Book Review: Happy Place

I’m going to have to agree with some other readers that Happy Place is not my happy place when it comes to Emily Henry or my vacation reads. But I did enjoy reading it. I still laughed and sighed and felt the sizzle of a romance; this book just had some more issues for me…

Book Review: Normal People

I had so many conflicted feelings when I finished this book. Then I watched the limited streaming series and had more conflicted feelings, but not the same feelings, exactly. And then the New York Times published their best books of the twenty-first century and then the people’s choice, and there was Normal People again, not…

Book Review: Nettle & Bone

After seeing T. Kingfisher conduct author interviews at my local bookstore, I walked away with the opinion that I would get along with her and also walked away with a copy of her most famous book, Nettle & Bone. A few weeks later I read the book while out of town and was hooked from…

Book Review: Universal Love

I enjoyed reading Universal Love by Alexander Weinstein. I would recommend it. (I did already, to my husband.) There are some things to mention, like how I know the author. There are other things, like how my husband has become a huge fan. (He doesn’t know the author.) If there is any part of you…

Writer in the Wild: Spring NCWN Conference

Way back in the spring, I went to a writing conference and didn’t tell. I wrote some notes for you, typed them up, and then got too busy with reviews and other things to share what it was like. North Carolina has a good writing network. I mean, there might be better, but there is…

The Artist Recommends: What to Read in July

Well, well, well… I have been out of town. On and off for a few weeks. So I missed my post for what to read in July, skipped right over the Fourth of July altogether. But I am still going to give it to you and maybe you can use it next year. Actually, I…

Best Books Lists: Independence Day

I consider the Fourth of July as a second-tier holiday, as far as the depth and breadth of the festivities go for me. For the past few years I have been in Syracuse, NY with my husband’s sisters and parents and their families, donning starred and striped socks and painting the bursted-bomb air with sparklers,…

ARC Review: The States

I think The States by Norah Woodsey is a good idea: a very light sci-fi approach to Jane Austen’s Persuasion featuring lucid dreaming, Ireland, and a filthy rich Manhattan family. Great. (I mean, I could do without the New York City or rich people bits, but for this they work as the Elliots.) The plot…

Book Review: Empty Theatre

At the start of Empty Theatre by Jac Jemc, you are given the fuzzy demise of two royal cousins in the very late 1800s. Then you quickly pull way back and, over several chapters, both the main characters are born and placed in their shared world of wealth, power, rules, restrictions, expectations, intermarriage, prestige, excess,…

Book Review: Trust

Trust by Hernan Diaz took home the Pulitzer Prize, landing it on my TBR. And with all the mystery behind its structure? It’s a “literary puzzle?” Cool. But it was the subject matter that killed it for me: Wallstreet and finance in New York City in the 1920s-1940s or something. But also the characters and…

Book Review: Mary Jane

I can’t help but wonder if what I didn’t enjoy in Jessica Anya Blau’s Mary Jane was just me being defensive. I mean, my book club mostly found it readable, believable, and open and fair to both families presented in it. Meanwhile, I came ready to say that it was yes, readable, but not believable…

Writer in the Wild: Fantasy Author Event

I mean, it’s not exactly New York City, but I do find that authors (and other events and shows) often come though the Triangle (Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill). This month, a group of fantasy writers on a whirlwind tour together blew through and held an event at Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh. I have become a Quail…

Book Review: Small Great Things

Thank goodness I have finally returned to reading decent books. That’s not great books. But it’s an improvement over bad books. Which means, yes, I thought that Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult was a decent book. Not a great book. And thankfully not a bad book. It’s definitely a book club kind of book,…

Book Review: The Paragon Hotel

I really hate doing this, but it’s so bad. Mine is not a universal opinion, not even universal in my book club (though it is also not unique). But while I was interested in what was happening and kept turning the pages, the writing style was just way too much. And the plot was all…

Book Review: A Good Man Is Hard to Find

A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor is bleak and difficult stuff. I was just drooling over it for its clarity, cleanness, style, innovation and trend-setting… but was dying inside due to its content. Satirical down to the word, nothing and no one in the world of the South in the early…