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2025 Cover Lovers Reading Challenge (hosted by Yours Truly)
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2025 Literary Escapes Challenge
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2025 POPSUGAR Reading Challenge
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2025 Build Your Library Reading Challenge
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Tuesday, February 18, 2025
Top Ten Tuesday: Ten New-to-Me Authors I'm Hoping to LOVE This Year
9:52 AM
It's been a couple weeks since I've participated in my favorite weekly meme, and I've missed it and all of my TTT friends! It's good to be back.
Although I could probably do a Top 100 post with this week's topic—Top Ten Books I Never Reviewed—I'm going to go back to last week's Love Freebie instead. Since I'm always trying out new-to-me authors, I thought I'd highlight some I'm hoping to LOVE this year.
As always, Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by the lovely Jana over at That Artsy Reader Girl.
Top Ten New-to-Me Authors I Hope to LOVE in 2025
1. Chanel Cleeton—I've been meaning to read Cleeton's Cuba-inspired historical fiction novels for years.
2. Elle Cosimano—I started reading Finlay Donovan Is Killing It very early this morning while waiting for my daughter to arrive home from a weeklong school trip. It's been keeping me royally entertained since the first page. I've got the whole series downloaded on my Kindle—I see some series binge-reading in my near future!
3. Emily Critchley—Both of Critchley's dual-timeline mysteries sound like reads I would enjoy.
4. Veera Hiranandani—Hiranandani's middle-grade novels about kids of Indian descent struggling to find their place in the world sound intriguing to me.
5. Elise Hooper—Hooper's historical novels cover a lot of territory, from Little Women to the 1928 Olympics to Walt Disney's studio in the 1950s. I want to read all of them!
6. Elizabeth Macneal—Macneal's novels are all set in England in the 1800s. They sound unique and compelling.
7. Ginger Reno—Reno writes books based on her Cherokee heritage. She has a couple of picture books coming out soon. Her debut novel, a middle-grade book called Find Her, which is about a missing Indigenous woman and the young daughter who's desperate to find her, is getting lots of positive buzz.
8. Lauren E. Rico—Although her latest novel, a mystery titled After the Ocean, is the one getting all the attention right now, Rico isn't a debut author like I thought. She's written a number of women's fiction and romance books. After the Ocean and Familia are the ones I'm most interested in.
9. Katy Watson—Watson writes "Golden Age crime for modern times," which sounds right up my alley. Her Three Dahlia cozy mystery series features a trio of actresses who work together to catch killers. It sounds really fun.
10. Jane Yang—Yang's debut novel, The Lotus Shoes, came out in January. Set in 1800s China, it tells the story of two very different women who must work together to survive in the wake of a scandal that makes them both outcasts in an unforgiving society.
There you go, ten authors I'm hoping to LOVE this year. Have you read any of them? Which are your favorites? I'd truly love to know. Leave me a comment on this post and I will gladly return the favor on your blog.
Happy TTT!
Saturday, February 15, 2025
Grim Victorian Murder Mystery the Start to a Compelling New Series
10:15 AM
(Image from Barnes & Noble)
When a young, beautiful artistocrat is savagely sacrificed in a cemetery on All Hallow's Eve, it shocks the residents of Victorian London. Who would kill a woman like her? And why was she slain in such a cruel way? Another death, that of a young widower and part-time reporter for The Daily Telegraph, occurs on the same day, but to much less fanfare. Only Gemma Tate, the deceased man's twin sister, is left to mourn her brother Victor. Gemma has no connection to the dead woman until the police give her Victor's notebook, in which the journalist had frantically recorded notes about her odd death. His scribbles make little sense, but Gemma is convinced her brother saw something in the cemetery that night. Something that got him killed.
Sebastian Bell has been a police officer for 15 years. A good one, too, until the murder of his wife and unborn child devastated him completely. Now, he's barely going through the motions, preferring to lose himself in a haze of alcohol and opium than face the emptiness of his life. When Gemma seeks him out, begging him to help her find answers to her brother's death, he sees a chance to redeem himself. Victor's notebook doesn't offer much in the way of clues, but it's the only lead Sebastian's got. Although he doesn't want a sidekick, he can't shake off Gemma, who insists on helping with the investigation.
As Gemma and Sebastian investigate both murders, they find themselves combing London's seedy underbelly as well as its polished drawing rooms for the truth behind the deaths. The closer they get, the more dangerous their pursuit becomes. Can they solve the case? Or will theirs be the next bodies rotting at the city mortuary?
I'm always on the lookout for new historical mystery series to love, so I was excited to give The Highgate Cemetery Murder, the first installment in the Tate and Bell series by Irina Shapiro, a go. Although the book turned out to be more gruesome and disturbing than I expected, I found it compelling. I didn't end up loving it, but I liked it well enough to continue with the series.
The novel has a moody, broody Victorian London setting, an appropriately atmospheric backdrop for this grim story. Although I saw the killer coming right from the start, the plot still had enough twists and turns to keep me reading. Which isn't to say it's original or surprising (it's actually quite generic), just that it's not boring. Even though I suspected the killer from early on, I kept reading to make sure I was right (and I was). Shapiro's prose isn't the most dynamic. It's more tell than show, but it still managed to pull me into the story and keep me immersed.
I quite liked Sebastian and Gemma. They're both intelligent, compassionate, determined people who are loyal and committed to improving society. They have an easy chemistry that develops naturally, never feeling fake or manufactured. I wanted them to succeed in their pursuits and find contentment in spite of their sorrows.
All in all, I enjoyed this novel (although "enjoy" feels like an odd word for this kind of read). I have the second book on hold at my library. Hopefully, I'll get to it sometime soon.
The novel has a moody, broody Victorian London setting, an appropriately atmospheric backdrop for this grim story. Although I saw the killer coming right from the start, the plot still had enough twists and turns to keep me reading. Which isn't to say it's original or surprising (it's actually quite generic), just that it's not boring. Even though I suspected the killer from early on, I kept reading to make sure I was right (and I was). Shapiro's prose isn't the most dynamic. It's more tell than show, but it still managed to pull me into the story and keep me immersed.
I quite liked Sebastian and Gemma. They're both intelligent, compassionate, determined people who are loyal and committed to improving society. They have an easy chemistry that develops naturally, never feeling fake or manufactured. I wanted them to succeed in their pursuits and find contentment in spite of their sorrows.
All in all, I enjoyed this novel (although "enjoy" feels like an odd word for this kind of read). I have the second book on hold at my library. Hopefully, I'll get to it sometime soon.
(Readalikes: Although The Highgate Cemetery Murder is much darker in tone, it reminds me of the Rip in Time series by Kelley Armstrong and the Below Stairs Mysteries series by Jennifer Ashley.)
Grade:
If this were a movie, it would be rated:
for language (a few F-bombs, plus milder invectives), violence, blood/gore, drug/alcohol abuse, and disturbing subject matter
To the FTC, with love: I bought a copy of The Highgate Cemetery Murder with a portion of the millions I make from my lucrative career as a book blogger. Ha ha.
Saturday, February 01, 2025
The Bookish Books Reading Challenge: February Book Ideas and Link-Up for Reviews
10:58 PM
Whew, January was a long year month! With all the chaos going on in the U.S. and the world, I hope you were able to relax with some good reads, some of which were bookish books. I read three in January, all of which were cozy mysteries:
She Doesn't Have a Clue by Jenny Elder Moke—This new release is supposed to be a rom-com/cozy mystery mashup. It's too much of the former (and spicy at hat) and too little of the latter. Even though the premise is fun (a bestselling mystery writer and her irritating editor must play nice long enough to solve a mystery at a destination wedding), I was disappointed in this one and found it to be only an average read for me.
Elementary, She Read by Vicki Delany—This series stars a neurodivergent Englishwoman who moves to Cape Cod to run her uncle's Sherlock Holmes-themed bookshop. Her neurodivergent personality causes her to be overly blunt and unintentionally condescending, but her hyper sharp observation skills make her an excellent amateur sleuth. Unfortunately, I found her totally insufferable. That, and some other issues, will keep me from reading more in this series. Too bad.
How to Book a Murder by Cynthia Kuhn—Despite being far-fetched and silly in places (not out of character for a cozy), I enjoyed this series opener overall. It's about two sisters who are desperate to keep their family's bookstore from going bankrupt. When they launch a side hustle in organizing mystery-themed dinner parties, they find themselves at the center of a murder investigation. I'll be reading on in this series.
So, what bookish books am I eyeing for February? I like the sound of these three:
The Lost Story of Eva Fuentes by Chanel Cleeton—Cleeton's newest doesn't come out until July, but I'm hoping to get an e-ARC from NetGalley. It's a triple-timeline novel centered around three women and a rare book written by a Cuban schoolteacher in 1900.
Crime and Parchment by Daphne Silver—This is the first book in a cozy mystery series featuring Jewish rare books librarian Juniper Blume. When an ancient Celtic manuscipt is found in a Maryland cemetery, world away from where its supposed to be, Juniper is called back to her grandmother's hometown to solve the puzzling mystery—and try to make amends with her estranged family.
The Book Woman's Daughter by Kim Michele Richardson—I loved The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek and I've been meaning to read this sequel ever since it came out.
Which bookish books are you planning to read this month?
If you are participating in the 2025 Bookish Books Reading Challenge, please use the widget below to link-up your February reviews. If you're not signed up for the challenge yet, what are you waiting for? Click here to join the party.
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Reading
Finlay Donovan Is Killing It by Elle Cosimano
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Listening
If Walls Could Talk by Juliet Blackwell
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Followin' with Bloglovin'
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2025 Goodreads Reading Challenge
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2020 - Middle Grade Fiction
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