As it turns out, next week is going to be busier than I expected so LRG is going to have to take a Thanksgiving break. However, I did want to leave some festive bookish goodies out for all of you to snack on:
First, if you’re in the mood for a good cozy mystery with seasonal flair, Leslie Meier’s Lucy Stone series is a sure bet for savory fun.
Her small town leading lady of the title covers the holiday and special occasion front (Wedding Day Murder and Bake Sale Murder are just two examples)quite well and in the later books, she often adds a sprinkle of social justice issues to boot.
The two titles that are well suited here are Turkey Day Murder and Turkey Trot Murder, the latter involving a 5K race and obnoxious rich people (take that as you will). What I do enjoy about this series is the sitcom vibes of the setting that offsets the murders rather nicely, strange but true! If you’re looking for some light hearted reading in between recipe planning and TV specials, these turkey tales are certainly worth a taste:
If you happen to be more interested in what’s coming up in next year’s book adaptation at the movies, these new teaser trailer for Sunrise on the Reaping has just been released.
This second prequel for The Hunger Games series follows the gruesome Quarter Quell that future mentor to Katniss Everdeen Haymitch Abernathy (Joseph Zara) had to endure. The casting includes such notables as Maya Hawke, Lili Taylor, Ralph Fiennes, Billy Porter and Glenn Close, with a release for November of 2026.
While I didn’t read the first prequel or see that movie(both of which had mixed reviews), the praise for Sunrise on the Reaping has been strongly solid from day one, making me a little intrigued to check this out, plus Glenn Close’s entrance is cinematic diva gold, if you ask me!:
Also, this upcoming January has an adaptation of Emily Henry’s People We Meet on Vacation due to arrive on Netflix with a trailer already out and about.
Emily Bader and Tom Blyth star as Poppy and Alex, who having been taking vacations together as friends for a number of years. After a serious falling out that divided them for two years, Poppy manages to convince Alex to take one last trip together to see if they can make things right.
This is the first of Emily Henry’s rather popular novels to get the major movie treatment so expectations are quite high to say the least.
While I haven’t read this particular book yet, I did read the novel written by Yulin Kuang(How to End a Love Story)who adapted this screenplay and that book was heartbreakingly good which bodes well for this movie indeed:
With that, I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving and look forward to wrapping up the rest of this bizarrely memorable year in December.
Look, I know that it’s hard to relax and just get into the holiday groove these days but we can take a break to recharge and reassess before New Year’s Eve strikes that final chime into a fresh set of twelve months into the unknown.
Yet, we did have a few good things happen along the way and if we give each other the proper emotional support to get us through another round of this, that number of good things might rapidly increase by this time next year. Worth trying for at the very least.
So, do take that well deserved time off and find some fun with a good book, movie or song. Speaking of song, I leave you with this excellent take on a truly trippy classic perfect for a hotel stay on the wild side-enjoy!:
It’s that time of year when book lovers both cheer and lament over the Goodreads Choice Awards, which opened up the voting last week for the long list of categories such as Best Fiction, Best Romance and Best Romantasy(looks like that one here to stay).
The final round of voting, which cuts down the number of contenders, begins on November 25 and the winners to b announced on December 4. While the GR awards are mostly the literary version of the People’s Choice Awards (if you know, you know), they still are useful as a way to go over your current reading for the year.
To that end, I decided to set up a TBR based on the long list of books I need to catch up on by the end of 2025 into the early part of 2026.
Two of these books are Book of the Month club and the other two are Aardvark selections. These are not the only GRCA nominees I have in the unread category but if those others make it to the finals, I might add them in(even one of my Cozy November reads is on the long list!)later. For now, this should be a good starting point:
Aardvark
In the Debut Nivel category, I was thrilled to see Venessa Vida Kelley’s When the Tides Held the Moon and yes, I voted for it right away!
It will be read, I promise. This gorgeously illustrated novel tells the tale of Benny, who used his blacksmith skills in the 1910s to create a unique cage for the sideshow in Luna Park that holds Rio, a merman captured in the East River.
While Benny finds friendship among his new coworkers, his feelings for Rio grow much stronger, leading him to choose between freeing his beloved or becoming another cynical human doing what he can to survive a harsh world.
This book is such a gem to behold in and of itself yet ultimately a book is made to be opened and appreciated for its words as well. Perhaps saving the best for last isn’t such a bad idea after all:
In the Fantasy section, The Devils by Joe Abercrombie was still among the unread on my shelf so I clearly needed to add it here.
I’ve heard nothing but praise about Abercrombie’s offbeat take on the genre and this book certainly sounds like fun. Set in an alternate medieval universe, Brother Diaz is tasked by the female Pope to claim an ancient crown with the help of a motley crew of mystical misfits before her political rivals can get to it first. Adventures, bloody action and a touch of romance follows along the perilous pages.
I don’t know if this is the best book to start reading of this author’s but since this does have The Suicide Squad(James Gunn.version) vibes, it sounds like the ideal one to me:
Book of the Month Club
In Historical Fiction, the latest by Fiona Davis, The Stolen Queen, was to be found and I wonder if being chosen by the Calvi Book Club earlier this season didn’t give this one an extra boost of reader attention.
Set in New York of 1978, museum curator Charlotte Cross must enlist the aid of Anne Jenkins when an Egyptian artifact is discovered missing during the iconic Met Gala, which Anne was organizing.
Charlotte is very familiar with the stolen item as she was on the archaeological team that found it in 1936, with dire consequences that came along with it. Having no other choice, the pair must go to Egypt to reclaim what was once owned by a female Pharaoh whose curse may doom them both.
I’ve enjoyed Davis’ work before, with her solid New York centric settings and well crafted characters. This book might benefit from the recent buzz around the Lourve heist but I prefer the focus on untold feminine rulers all the more:
The Horror section was pretty strong this time around and among the ones that I haven’t gotten to yet, The Posession of Alba Diaz by Isabel Canas stood out strongly to me.
With a demonic force taking over, Alba finds that Elias is her strongest ally in fighting off this particular evil and perhaps their true chance at some form of salvation.
Having read Canas before, it’s great to see her get more recognition for her increasingly good and sinister storytelling that ought to make her the next big thing in this field indeed:
Having a reading plan in motion for this time of yearly transition is good, especially since I will need room for the books I’m hoping to get this Christmas! Also, this gives me a nice focus for my page turning future.
While the Goodreads Choice Awards are far from perfect (having one author with multiple books in one category is way too much) and does need to showcase better diversity in books and authors, it can be a boon to highlighting many titles that could benefit from an extra spotlight here.
At the very least, it’s a worthwhile distraction from the real world chaos we’re dealing with right now and that’s not an excuse for the awards being less than fully representative of their entire audience. All I am saying is that for now, this can be both a rallying cry for change and a welcome relief from our collective anxiety. The two goals are not mutually exclusive.
Think of the Goodreads Choice Awards as akin to the Dundies given out on various seasons of The Office; somewhat well meaning yet awkwardly presented and at the best of times, enduringly amusing. Just don’t get too overwrought about it, find that Pam Beasley balance if you can!:
It may be November but those end of the year round-ups are already starting and with book award season in full swing, what better time to share my LRG Best Books List for this rather tumultuous year of 2025?
This is a basic top five(with some honorable mentions coming up) of books that I read to completion this year and throughly enjoyed. My picks are all fiction (didn’t want to get into too much nonfiction as the daily headlines give me enough to deal with) and for the most part, published this year.
There’s a TBR reading challenge that I’ve been doing this year that will get a separate post of top reads later this month( none of those titles are listed here for that reason), Okay, time to present my literary winners in a somewhat chronological order of when I read them:
Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert: This debut novel from Drag Race superstar Bob the Drag Queen gives us a what if scenario; what if legendary figures from the past just suddenly showed up and decided to use modern day means to talk about their experiences with the rest of us?
As the title suggests, our narrator Darnell is recruited by Harriet and a small number of her historical traveling companions to produce their rap album as well as set up their tour. During this process, Darnell not only gets to work on the project of a lifetime, he also comes away with learning a few truths that could help him get over one of the worst moments of his personal and professional life.
The book is a short ride but filled to the brim with history, humor and heart, plus a couple of songs (added to the audio book edition) that make for a meaningful emotional soundtrack indeed:
Storybook Ending: Moira Macdonald’s charming ode to romcoms is set in a bookstore, of course, with an offbeat love triangle to say the least.
For one thing, two women are trying to romance the same man without each other knowing it along the guy in question!
It starts with April, who leaves a note in a book for handsome store clerk Westley, only he doesn’t read it. Instead, the note is found by Laura, who thinks that Westley wrote it for her.
As for Westley, he’s more interested in the big league indie movie being filmed at the store than anything else and the camera really seems to love him as he takes a small part in the production. A charming sort of chaos soon follows.
This is the kind of novel that makes you wish that Nora Ephron was still with us in order to bring this engaging romantic comedy of errors to vivid cinematic life. For a debut novel, Macdonald shows the steady hand of a seasoned pro when it comes to this type of prose:
The Will of the Many: If I had to sum up this epic book in one Hollywood style pitch, I’d have to say “Hunger Games meets I,Claudius”yet it’s much more than that.
This first entry in James Islington’s
fantasy series introduces us to Vis, once a prince but now alone and orphaned by the empire known as The Hierarchy, which gains its powers by draining people of their actual will power.
Living a rough and tumble existence, Vis is recruited by Ulciscor Telimus, a high ranking official, to infiltrate Catenan Academy, a training ground for young future leaders, to discover the truth behind the mysterious death of Ulciscor’s brother . Having a hidden agenda of his own, Vis takes the offer yet finds that there’s much more that he bargained for here.
I won’t say more than that but I can say that now I understand the immense praise this story has been getting from readers and critics alike.
Granted, I had a rushed reading time with it(had to return it to the library sooner than I expected) but this intense blend of political drama, fantasy and coming of age saga was quite the page turning intoxicating bookish delight that I haven’t had the pleasure of in such a long time.
The second book, The Strength of the Few, was released earlier this month and I don’t know when it will be in my hands but I do know for a certainty that it will be worth the wait and then some:
Love is a War Song: On that same library trip that brought me to Will of the Many, I considered myself blessed by the bookish gods upon finding Danica Nava’s second novel on the shelves as well.
Our leading lady is Avery Fox, a rising pop star whose career has taken a major stumble due to a controversial magazine cover.
To ride out the backlash in private, Avery’s mom/manager sends to Oklahoma to stay at the horse ranch of her grandmother Lottie, whom she’s never met due to unresolved emotional issues. While there, Avery begins to learn more about her heritage and family history as well as clash with Lucas , Lottie’s right hand man who finds her shallow upon first sight.
Having read Nava’s first novel, The Truth According to Ember, not long before taking up this book, it was a treat to see the quick leaps and bounds in storytelling skills that the author has made so far. No doubt about it, Nava is on her way to being a literary chart topper with this riveting romcom that shows love is a battlefield yet worth winning nonetheless:
Lucky Day:
This wild new ride by Chuck Tingle has a number of interesting themes in it, such as the depths of corruption, recovery from trauma and bi erasure, yet the overwhelming universal theme that I found within these pages is facing the utter chaos of life itself.
The novel follows Vera, who lost her mother during a bizarrely tragic occurrence called the Low Probability Event, in which the most unlikely events happened all at once. This LPE lead to massive deaths and emotional aftershocks that even four years later, Vera hasn’t been able to start to recover from.
Having been a devoted statistician, Vera’s faith in stability has been shattered severely but when a government agent asks her to join in an investigation on a suspiciously lucky casino that may hold the answers to what happened that terrible day, she takes him up on that offer and her true journey begins.
To say that the story that unfolds here is unimaginable is an understatement and a compliment all at once. Tingle has an amazing talent in mixing horror, humor and finely tuned emotional depth that is breathtaking to behold. It’s a strong cup of tea to be sure yet worth taking a taste of true literary magic worthy of being seriously savored:
Lucky Day, as it happens, is a nominee in the Horror category of the Goodreads Choice Awards, which started their opening voting rounds today, Yes, I voted for Lucky Day and a few others ( which I plan to post about soon) and hopefully, it will make the finals. Keeping my fingers crossed for sure on that one!
In the meanwhile, here are my honorable mentions, books that are great reads that I highly recommend:
The Build-a-Boyfriend Project by Mason Deaver
Play Nice by Rachel Harrison
Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor
Hemlock & Silver by T. Kingfisher
A couple of those book are also Goodreads nominees but regardless of that , they are definitely awesome books on their own merits. I just didn’t want to overwhelm my post with such massive praise for them!
Here’s to looking forward to more wonderful books in our collective future, despite how fraught our timeline looks at the moment. Yes, it’s hard to deal with these times that we’re going through yet it does help to take a break for simple moments of joy.
This morning, I saw the first snow of the season( snow flurries but still..) and while running my usual errands, discovered to my delight that it was cold enough for my breath to fog up. It happened briefly but that once was plenty enough for a small surprise of fun.
Not much of a thrill, I know, but being able to do that was always a mini magical bit that I have been charmed by since childhood and it’s nice to get that little jolt of bliss from such a mundane thing after all these years.
It may not be much but those tiny things that give you a sense of pure happiness are treasures worth protecting. Whether it’s the weather, a favorite cookie or a good book, those are gifts that no one can take away, no matter how much they try. Happy reading, folks , this and every year to come:
Happy post-Halloween, folks and I hope your seasonal reading was a real treat as was mine for the FrightFall readathon hosted by Michelle Miller over at Seasons of Reading!
Before we begin here, yes, I swapped out a book from my already established TBR for this event(my mood had changed as I shall explain) and yes, the final book was finished on All Saints Day but it was completed before the end of the weekend, which sort of counts, I hope?
Anyway, the first book that I did finish here was Play Nice by Rachel Harrison. Clio, a snarky social influencer, is the youngest of three sisters whose mother Alex gained dubious fame by claiming the house that she and her daughters moved into was demonically possessed.
Clio barely remembered that bizarre period in their lives so when the news of Alex’s death reached her, she had no major qualms about reclaiming the house for a makeover project she could vlog about. This whole move angers her remaining family yet Clio is determined to do this.
Upon cleaning out the place, she discovers a copy of the book her mom wrote about the haunting, a book that she and her sisters swore to their father that they would never read. Driven by curiosity and some of the strange vibes in the house itself, Clio finds herself in a situation where either she’s reliving Alex’s nightmare or making a new one for herself.
This is my first time reading Harrison and I have to say that I really liked it and want to read more from her. The story is supernaturally based but it’s also a smart and savvy look at dysfunctional family dynamics as well as the deadly allure of attention seeking in both private and public life.
Plus, some engaging moments of humor mixed with the emotional tension all make for a storytelling tune you can hum along with in fearsome harmony:
After that, I dove into Sophie Jordan’s Marked by Moonlight , a reissue of the first book in her Moon Chasers series.
Meek and mild schoolteacher Claire has her life turned upside down after an encounter with a large “dog” marks her for death in more ways than one.
According to the new man in her life, Gideon, Claire was bitten by a werewolf and meant to become one herself by the time of the new moon. The secret lycan hunter society that he belongs to has a set protocol for such cases as hers; instant death before that happens.
However, Gideon finds himself moved to try and save Claire from that fate, a difficult task since she doesn’t believe him at first and then later on. finds some enticing advantages to being a were. Heightened strength, speed and a new found confidence are pretty good benefits yet she doesn’t want to lose her soul in the bargain.
While the focus of the book is on the romance between Claire and Gideon, I was much more intrigued by the werewolf cultural norms that cropped up towards the latter half of the story. While it’s a rather alpha male setup, there is an introduction to a werewolf who refuses to be part of a pack and has sworn off attacking humans during his changing times. A good concept that reminds me of Oz from Buffy the Vampire Slayer(only Oz was way more chill).
No doubt more of that is explored in the other books in this series (plus a couple of characters such as Gideon’s younger sister who wants to a lycan hunter yet is shut out due to being a woman) I might want to check a couple of those entries out as well. For now, this was a fun romp into popcorn page turning moonlit delight:
And finally, I decided to take up T. Kingfisher’s Hemlock & Silver as my last read here. I was still in the mood for supernatural scares and this fairy tale inspired novel has quite a bit of that and then some.
Anja is a poison expert who has been fascinated by the search for an antidote for numerous deadly concoctions almost all her life.
Her talents bring the newly bereaved king to her door, seeking her help in discovering what ails his daughter Snow. Her mother the queen and little sister Rose died under tragic circumstances yet Snow’s wasting away is more than just grief over that loss.
At first, Anja is frustrated at not being able to find not only the possibility of poisoning but any sort of cause for her new patient’s condition. Then one day, the discovery of a strange apple linked to the multitude of mirrors at the remote royal estate that they’re staying at reveals much and yet conceals some terrifying secrets that could doom all involved.
Without getting into more details, this story is a take on the classic Snow White tale yet Kingfisher has an amazing ability to create fresh new fiction from such well known material, embroidering rich character development along side fantastical swatches of creatures both human and otherwise that make up a gorgeous tapestry of fantasy at it’s best.
Yes, there were plenty of scary moments to include this book into this challenge but it’s the heartfelt affection given to these characters that truly is the spine of the story. This reimagining of Snow White and the wicked queen is steady enough to stand on its own and also makes for a welcome addition to that iconic pantheon:
So, this was definitely a good gruesome time and my thanks to Michelle Miller for giving us all the perfect treat basket to put such devious delights in.
In the meanwhile, the holiday season ahead is going to be rough going, given the daily headlines that seem to get worse as we go on. Nonetheless, the best way forward is to help each other out as much as possible and to keep a good thought or two in our hearts.
Hard to do, I know, but finding what comfort you can to revive your spirits is important to your emotional health. For me, one of those things that I take comfort in is a reread of Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, which I plan on doing this month.
While Alcott disliked having this book being her crowning achievement in literature (she would’ve rather preferred one of her gothic novels claiming that honor instead), her use of family lore in bringing the March sisters to vivid life was a special kind of magic that couldn’t be ignored by anyone.
It’s also inspired many a reader to have such a loving family to look to in bad as well as good times and no matter how that family has come together, the love, laughter and support is what makes any version of such a story worth revisiting.
A true classic shows both the best and worst of what we have to offer the world and in the case of Little Women, hopefully our best will be good enough for those readers yet to turn that first page:
