currently reading: I’m finally into Sophie Kinsella’s The Burnout, and it’s outstanding! I am loving this story of a woman doing the job of 3 people at the startup where she works, until her coworker quits and she’s asked to take over yet another person’s work. She runs out of the office, and I mean literally runs out of the office, to try to find sanctuary. Instead, she finds a brick wall and accidentally runs full throttle into it. The doctor told her she needed three weeks of rest, and now she’s visiting the beach town where she vacationed with her family as a kid. Only it’s February and the ritzy hotel her mother booked her into is falling apart, and she’s still not sure how to get over her burnout. This book is amazing, and I should hurry up and finish this roundup so I can get back to reading it.

I’m also reading Kate Carlisle’s latest Twelve Books of Christmas. Brooklyn and her husband Derek are invited to Loch Ness, Scotland, for a friend’s wedding. But while they are there, twelve valuable books go missing from the library. Knowing book restorer Brooklyn, they’ll be able to solve that mystery. So that leave the big question we are all wanting to know the answer to: will they see Nessie?

And I’m listening to When in Rome, about burned-out country singer Amelia Rose who decides to take a drive and ends up with car trouble in Rome. But not that Rome. The one in Kentucky. In the front yard of a pie maker named Noah Walker. It’s going to take several days for the local auto shop to get the parts to fix her car, and she doesn’t want to call her manager to send someone to pick her up. So she stays for her personal Roman Holiday. This one is sweet and smart and I’m enjoying the narration.

Also out this week is the new Mountain Lodge mystery, Snow Place for Murder; the new Cambridge Bookshop mystery, The Fatal Folio; a Christmas mystery set in the world of Janice Hallet’s The Appeal (The Christmas Appeal); and a new cookbook from Nik Sharma (Veg-Table), whose The Flavor Equation I loved.

up next: Snacks! From Yossy Arefi, who brought us Snacking Cakes, comes this November 7 release, Snacking Bakes. I can’t wait!