Books to watch for in 2019

The main reason I love writing about books is that I get a sneak preview of what’s coming. Remember when you were a kid and you got the giant catalog from JC Penney or Montgomery Ward and you would go through it and dream about your Christmas presents? Getting a publisher catalog and sifting through titles is a lot like that. And the fall / winter release season is always the biggest time of the year in book publishing. This week’s Top Ten Tuesday is a preview of some of the books I can’t wait to read, coming out in the second half of 2019.

Top Ten Tuesday: Fall 2018 Reading List

It’s still 90 degrees here, with no end in sight, so it’s a bit hard to imagine days of sweaters and firesides are in the near future. There’s no way I could share my entire TBR list for fall, but one has to start somewhere…

REVIEW: QUEEN OF THE NIGHT by Alexander Chee

I thoroughly enjoy a novel that wanders a bit, particularly historical adventures like The Count of Monte Cristo or The Three Musketeers. I am also a sucker for stories of intrigue told from the secret garden at a masked ball or a hidden rooftop in Paris. It’s fantastical but delightful. The Queen of Night has all the…

Crimes Dark & English

  This is a brilliant behind-the-curtain novel. It pulls together known facts in such a way as to make it nearly believable. Here, the famous writer Thomas De Quincey (who wrote The Confessions of an English Opium-Eater) comes to life, along with his daughter in a dastardly mystery. When a series of murders starts to terrorize…