Saturday, July 5, 2025

Six Degrees of Separation – from Theory & Practice to The Shell Detectives

It’s time for #6degrees, inspired by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. We all start at the same place as other readers, add six books, and see where it ends up. This month’s starting point is Theory & Practice by Michelle de Kretser (2024).  It won the Stella Prize, which recognizes Australian women's writing but does not get much attention in the US.

Thursday, July 3, 2025

Death at the White Hart by Chris Chibnall

Detective Sergeant Nicola Bridge grew up in Fleetcombe, a small village on the English coast, and has moved back there with her family for a new start. When a man is murdered and left on a road in the middle of the night, tied to a chair with a stag’s antlers affixed to his head, even experienced Nicola is puzzled. 

Tuesday, July 1, 2025

Old Baggage by Lissa Evans – 8/20 Books of Summer

Mattie Simpkin fought valiantly for women’s right to vote as one of Mrs. Pankhurst’s militant supporters: speaking in public, arrested five times, force fed at Holloway Prison, but now, years later, with a small independent income, lives with her devoted friend, Florrie, near Hampstead Heath.

Sunday, June 29, 2025

May 2025 Reading

Three books really stood out this month. I had to go to multiple shops in London to find the new book about Maeve Kerrigan, The Secret Room, but it made my flight home from Amsterdam most enjoyable. I also really liked Know Your Newlywed by Hillary Nussbaum and Heather Taylor, a fake relationship romance, and Lost Lorrenden by Mabel Esther Allan.

Friday, June 27, 2025

Lost Lorrenden by Mabel Esther Allan

Phoebe Lyndhurst has gone to boarding school since she was nine, spending holidays with her grandparents in London, while her parents work in South America. One rainy July, she falls in love with a painting at the National Gallery:
The picture was of an old, grey stone house, with twisted chimneys and mullioned windows. There was a terrace that dropped to a lawn and brilliant flower-beds, and in a corner under a tree a party of ladies was having tea.

Tuesday, June 24, 2025

My Top Ten Most Anticipated Books Releasing in the Second Half of 2025

I am plenty busy with my 20 Books of Summer, my book group, and piles of library books everywhere but that hasn’t stopped me from thinking about the books being published in the second half of 2025 for That Artsy Reader Girl’s weekly Top Ten Tuesday:

Sunday, June 22, 2025

Crooked House by Agatha Christie - 7/20 Books of Summer #ReadChristie2025

In this standalone mystery, which she described as one of her favorites, Christie used a nursery rhyme as inspiration:

There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile,
He found a crooked sixpence against a crooked stile;
He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse,
And they all lived together in a little crooked house.
*

Friday, June 20, 2025

Books 5 and 6 from my 20 Books of Summer

Two books featuring troubled young women from my 20 Books of Summer:

The Fifth of March by Ann Rinaldi (1993)
Rachel Marsh is an indentured servant to John and Abigail Adams, minding their children and becoming involved in the events leading up to and following the Boston Massacre on the Fifth of March in 1770.