Friday Reads 12.8.23
Happy Friday, friends, and Happy Hannukah. Let’s talk about what we’re reading!
First a quick PSA: the ebook of IT’S ONE OF US is on a Bookbub special this week!
We had an amazing Tuesday that started with Ariel getting the Good Morning America Bookclub pick and ended with her event at Parnassus, where the literary who’s who of Nashville showed to mix and mingle. A great time was had by all. I hope you’ve all gotten your copies of THE FROZEN RIVER!
It was a good reading week, which is always nice. I finished up my buddy’s horror novel, then switched over to a highly anticipated novella from one of my favorites, Lisa Unger. CHRISTMAS PRESENTS is nuanced and complex and reads more like a full-length novel. I’m always in awe of Lisa’s finely drawn characters, and Maddie, Badger, Evan, and Harley are no exception. Great stuff.
Last night, we watched A HAUNTING IN VENICE, and though it’s supposed to be a cozy, I found it undeniably creepy. Much more suited to Halloween. In case of nightmares, I started Rebecca Yarros’s IN THE LIKELY EVENT, which I’d been saving for a moment when I wasn’t about to get on a plane. (I’m weird about plane books. Why invite the possibility of that kind of tragedy into my life?)
I’ll admit, I’m entranced with Yarros right now, both her writing and her personal journey, which is hitting closer to home than you can possibly imagine. I’ll talk more about that in another post, but suffice it to say she has changed the course of my life.
I have a few more in the queue for the next week:
A new Allison Brennan, YOU’LL NEVER FIND ME, the first in her new PI series;
Cara Hunter’s MURDER IN THE FAMILY, which looked clever and excellent;
A long overdue look at Merlin Sheldrake’s ENTANGLED LIFE, which was recommended to me by my pal Jayne Ann Krentz and I’ve been saving. And in that vein, another one I’ve been waiting to read, Peter Wohlleben’s THE HIDDEN LIFE OF TREES. My new book, HLN, takes place in a small isolated town, surrounded by woods, and I figure both of these books are perfect to help bring that setting to life.
That’s it from me this week. How about you? What’s on your reading plate this weekend?
PS: I was feeling the narrative non-fiction vibe this week. Here’s a new essay for all subscribers questioning the value of comparison and genres, and a new craft post on how I organize my files will go out to paid subscribers on Sunday….
