I hope everyone had a nice Christmas. Our Christmas was quite different this year as my mom just got out of hospital/rehab after a month dealing with a major surgery. I am her sole caregiver until home health can get started. She has a long road but I am grateful that she has been able to be home. And a friend decorated our tree! I hope all of us dealing with challenges this year have a much better 2026!

I always enjoy the Karen Pirie series and now I‘m all caught up so I have to wait a while to see what happens to her next. As usual, the mystery has a lot of layers and I‘m not fully sure I understand what all was happening. But I mostly read these for Karen and how she navigates her life and her work in cold cases. #BookSpin for December

This was my December #DoubleSpin and it was fun. It took a little too long to get where it was going but I liked the Irish setting and the accidental housemates situation.

I‘m looking forward to this book so I‘m excited that the author is coming to my local indie bookstore! I really liked The House of Eve and this new one sounds great. I bought my ticket immediately!

I forgot to post my #BookSpinBingo card. My mom is dealing with some health issues so that turned my November upside down and for most of the month I was not able to read much at all. But six books is not bad! I enjoyed all of these except 107 Days, because that was hard to relive! But a good reading experience.

I couldn‘t do a full card of holiday books this December but I‘m hoping to fit a few in this month. We will see.

#BookSpinBingo

Now that the Netflix series is out, I‘m listening to this one again. It was one of my favorites when I read it several years ago.

My #BookSpin picks for November. I‘ve had 18 on my TBR for a while after it was recommended on one of the book podcasts I listen to, and I got 1 from the library after hearing the author on The Stacks podcast. It will be one of my #NonfictionNovember reads.

Before I start my November reading, here‘s my #BookSpinBingo for October. I read 10 books and got two bingos. This was a pretty good set of books. I think my favorites were Queer Enlightenments, which was a history book, and I Was Feeling Epic, which was an oral history of The Vampire Diaries! My BookSpin, If it Makes You Happy, was a fun romance but it was too long for me. And of course, Frankenstein was great like every time I read it.

Ian‘s blurb is right, if you loved The Vampire Diaries, you‘ll love this book. Halloween is the perfect night to finish this oral history of the show. It‘s got interviews with most all the cast and crew, which made it a really fun look back. Now to do a binge rewatch

My #BookSpin list for November has some left over spooky season picks and some #NonfictionNovember options. Along with some other random choices. Looking forward to seeing how the numbers line up!

I‘ve seen this book everywhere this season so I had to give it a chance. It‘s cute and the 1997 setting is nostalgic for me. The two MCs have some emotional baggage but I did enjoy their friendship and relationship development. I love the idea of running a B&B so that was fun, and the male MC‘s younger daughter being a fan of Stone Cold Steve Austin was hilarious. The negative is that this is way too long. This was my #BookSpin for October

I‘ve had this on my TBR for a while and finally started. DI Henley reminds me of Jane Casey‘s Maeve Kerrigan. A determined cop with a complicated life. This one was a little long and also creepy. But I liked it and will read the rest of the series.

I really enjoyed this history book that brought to life a lot of people who were unfamiliar to me (especially as an American). I got it because I enjoy the author‘s After Dark history podcast. He‘s an historian and an actor so his narration on the audiobook is top notch. Note: The original title, Queer Georgians, was changed for the US to avoid confusion with the state of Georgia.

This is the third or fourth time I‘ve listened to this version. I love this narration by Dan Stevens. He really conveys the anguish of the creature, who didn‘t ask to be made. In 2025, it is hard not to think of AI and other technology that‘s been created without a lot of thought on whether or not it SHOULD have been created.

Getting our #BookSpin numbers is always exciting! 😊

My reading in September was all over the place, and I had a little trouble staying focused on a book. Still, I finished 9 books, including my #BookSpin. I really liked This Motherless Land and Story of a Murder. Matriarch was good too, having finally come in for me at the library.

My October #BookSpin list. I‘m hoping that next month I will have a little more time for reading.

This was my first book by this author. It‘s the kind of harmless drama that‘s good for summer reading! It‘s set in my home state and the author went to my university so that added to the fun. The resolution of the main plot was a little unbelievable, but sometimes you just have to go with it.

This was my #BookSpin for September

I don‘t always enjoy reading “smart” literary fiction but I did enjoy this after listening to a discussion of it on Sarah‘s Bookshelves. It was a spoiler discussion but that doesn‘t really matter in a book like this. The experience is more about the writing and what the author is trying to do with it. I might read it again before it‘s due back to the library.

One thing Carley Fortune books do is make you want a summer at a lake. This is a sequel to her first book and I think I liked it better, mostly bc the characters are adults throughout. Charlie and Alice are good characters and it was nice to check in with Percy & Sam.

I‘m trying to finish all my “summer” books before fall really arrives.

I like Hallie Rubenhold‘s take on true crime. She de-centers the criminal man and puts the focus on the women involved. In this case, it‘s the victim, the accomplice, and the women friends who made sure the case was investigated.
I wasn‘t as familiar with this case as her previous book, The Five, which is about the victims of Jack the Ripper but it was still an interesting read. The audiobook is read by Juliet Stevenson and she does a great job.

My Barack Obama inspired book stack. My library holds came in all at once of course (the top two plus two others that weren‘t on President Obama‘s list.

My #BookSpin and #DoubleSpin for September!

In August, I finished 12 books and got two bingos. I finished my #BookSpin and #doubleSpin picks also. My favorites were Zeal, The Other Side of Now, and A Lesson in Malice. Our #ChrisitiesCapers book,The Big Four, was a big disappointment, but otherwise it was a good reading month!

I love a sliding doors/path not taken story and this one was great. A famous actress wakes up in an a Irish village experiencing a life she might have had. The audiobook is read by the author (who has a theatre background) and she did great. It was fun and also sweet and poignant. I will definitely read what she writes next.

This thriller was a wild ride but it wasn‘t my favorite Eddie Flynn (which I‘ve been reading out of order). I just did not like being in the mind of the serial killer, or the fact that he was basically superhuman. But Eddie is always fun. He‘s so smart and his con man skills always come in handy.

It‘s still summer where I live until the end of September so I mixed in some final summer reads for this #BookSpinBingo list.

The tagged book and the S.A. Cosby book are the only two that were already on my TBR from President Obama‘s list. I always love getting his book picks!

This is the start of a new series by the author of the Ruth Galloway mysteries, which were my favorite, so I had to give this a chance. This one is a little out there bc it features time travel. It took a bit for me to get into the story but I ended up really liking it. There was some nervous tension in the story in a few ways and it kept me guessing.

This is the UK cover, which is much prettier than the US one I had. #DoubleSpin for August

I‘m reading along with #ChristiesCapers and this is our book for August and my #BookSpin for the month. If not for those two things, I don‘t think I‘d finish this. Maybe it‘s bc it came right after Roger Ackroyd but this was not fun. It was repetitive and often over the top. I just thought it would never end. Good thing Agatha Christie had quite a few more books to make up for this one!

I enjoy this series, which reminds me of cozy mysteries because it features a lawyer who keeps solving murder cases, but it‘s more gritty than a cozy. The MC is pretty prickly but I find her compelling. I have read all three of this series in one summer. I hope there will be more of them.

This book is beautiful, sad, upsetting, and uplifting. I know I‘ll be thinking about these characters for a long time. The book covers generations, starting in 1865, and these characters go through every trauma that‘s possible but I still loved it. I like how the author connected all of the threads.

Author events keep my TBR stack out of control! I really enjoyed tonight‘s event at Quail Ridge Books for Regina Black‘s new book. I had to leave with both her novels. August Black sounds so good and The Art of Scandal has been on my radar for a while.

This was a good mystery set at a college with some kind of weird tradition that both the MC and her daughter get involved in. I was a little confused by the end but after listening to that part twice I got it. I heard Megan Miranda talk briefly about this during her book tour for last year‘s book. It was inspired by some of the college tours she went on with her kid. Beyond the mystery, she captured that time in a parent‘s life well. Spoiler ⬇️

July was a pretty good reading month. I was unusually busy at work for part of it, so my reading slowed down. I finished 11 books (one isn‘t on the card) and got one bingo. I was glad to be able to mix in three nonfiction books along with my lighter summer fiction. Ready for August!

Here‘s my #BookSpin list for August! Some holdovers from July mixed in with some new picks. I have mixed feelings about August — my summer work schedule ends, but it‘s also the month of my birthday! July has been miserably hot here so I hope August will be unseasonably cool.

Excited to read these new nonfiction books. The Feather Detective is about an alumna of Meredith College (where I work) and her pioneering work as a forensic expert on feathers. The other is narrative nonfiction that was featured this week on The Stacks podcast and it sounded right up my alley.

Catherine Ryan Howard is one of my favorite crime novelists. This one is about a woman hired to ghost write for a famous athlete whose wife dies in questionable circumstances. It‘s inspired by OJ Simpson‘s “(If) I Did It.” It was a little twisty and definitely creepy. I liked her last book The Trap more, but this one was still a good read. This is my #BookSpin for July

Whether you enjoy this book or not might come down to whether you can stand to read about a problematic MC. Florence is a total mess and she definitely makes some bad decisions, but she attempts to solve the case when her son‘s classmate disappears during a field trip. I thought it was a fun read. I would have liked a little more of the ‘what now‘ at the end.

Last night I finished the 2025 PS (formerly PopSugar) Reading Challenge! Both the regular and advanced, so 50 prompts. This is the earliest I‘ve ever finished the challenge in all the years I‘ve done it. Thanks to @OriginalCyn620 for doing the challenge along with me.

There were definitely a few books I read just to fill prompts that I ended up really enjoying. That‘s why I like to do this challenge each year.

For some reason I wasn‘t interested in this when everyone else read it years ago but when I found out it was set in Canada that was enough for me to give it a shot. I ended up really enjoying it, even though the big secret was somewhat less than I expected. It wasn‘t a good decision but not worth 12 years of estrangement. Percy needed a get-a-grip friend. I‘m definitely up for the sequel!

Joanne Paul is a very engaging writer. I enjoyed this look at the Tudor period through the perspective of the Dudley family, who I (as an American) mostly knew because of Robert Dudley and his relationship to Queen Elizabeth I. It was interesting to see what life was like when your fortune and your very life depended on whether you found favor with the king or queen.

The Quiet Librarian is not what she seems. This book tells a dual timeline story of a woman who survived war in Bosnia but her new life in the U.S. is disrupted when her friend is killed. This would make a good movie or TV series. I‘d never read this author before but he did a good job with both parts of the story.

This is my center square for the July #BookSpinBingo card

I have been trying to get to both of these books for months! Glad to have the push to start them. #BookSpinBingo

This was the last book I finished in June. It‘s a memoir by a comedian/Daily Show host who was previously a lower level pro tennis player. I really enjoyed the parts of it about his pro days, which were nothing like what the top tennis stars experience. Wimbledon week was a great time to read it. This book was recommended by Sarah from Sarah‘s Bookshelves.

June was a great reading month for me, thanks to a reduced summer schedule and the fact that it‘s been too hot here to do much other than read! I finished 16 books and got 4 bingos. I think that‘s the best I‘ve done other than the one time I finished my card. Several of these were really great. I think my favorites were The Correspondent and The Force of Such Beauty. #BookSpinBingo

I really liked this book! It shows the dark side of the fairy tale we imagine for modern princesses. It took me longer than it should have to realize this was based on Princess Charlene of Monaco, who was rumored to have tried to run away before her wedding, with some Princess Diana mixed in. It dragged a bit at the beginning but later I was really into seeing where the story was going.

My July #BookSpin list! I have a couple of nonfiction picks but mostly books that I‘m hoping will be fun summer reads. It is 100+ degrees here where I live for the fifth or sixth consecutive day so I have to lean on the fun part of summer — books!

Jane Casey, author of my favorite Maeve Kerrigan crime series, recommended Catherine Kirwan so I had to give her a try. I enjoyed her debut, Darkest Truth, but I loved this. The MC works for a law firm but mostly works as an amateur investigator. She reminds me of Maeve without a badge, so that is fun. This one had a lot of story threads and they all came together in a surprising way. I plan on reading the next in the series right away.