currently reading: I didn’t get much reading done last week after all, as we were dealing with more than one mother needing to go to the emergency room. And then we needed time this weekend to just breathe and decompress. But next week is a new week, so let’s do this. There are a lot of good cozies coming out, so let’s talk murder. The new Christie sisters mystery from Ann Claire came out last week, and I’ve been working on it today. These books have such a fantastic setting that it’s hard not to feel at home in these pages. In this one, a cousin has started up a matchmaking business for bookworms, and Meg and Ellie are her guinea pigs. Ellie’s date is a bust, but Meg’s is really successful, and they even set up a date for brunch the next day. But when he doesn’t show up and cousin Lorna decides to find the missing man and tell him off, she finds that someone else has already found him, and thrown him off his back balcony into the snowy canyon below. It’s up to Ellie and her cat Agatha to figure out who the man was and who wanted him dead.

I’m also so, so, so excited to talk about the new Donna Andrews Let It Crow! Let It Crow! Let It Crow! Not only is it another Meg Langslow Christmas mystery, but this one has something that I have asked for specifically: Meg will be competing in a Forged in Fire type competition with her blacksmithing skills. Now, the show she is working with is sketchy, and I don’t think FIF is, but you have to have a good reason for murder, right? A sketchy production company is good for that. I can’t wait to dig deeper into this one!

Also out this week is the next in Jenn McKinlay’s cupcake bakery mystery, which are always fun to read and Sophie Kinsella’s The Burnout, which I have been wanting to read so much!

And another book out this week is The Exchange, the follow-up to John Grisham’s The Firm. I asked for an early copy and was denied, which is fine. But The Firm has a place in my heart and always will. When I was in college getting my English degree, I got the opportunity to spend the summer in New York between my junior and senior years. I spent 7 weeks at NYU’s Summer Publishing Institute, learning both magazine and book publishing from experts who were actually in the business. One afternoon we got to learn from the marketing team who were excited about a new book coming out. They were going all out on the advertising, and they played us an early version of their radio commercial (it was a long time ago) because they thought this book was going to make a huge splash. That book was The Firm, and it was the first time I noted a new book and its release day, buying it as soon as I could and devouring it. All these years later (I’m not counting, so don’t ask), I am surrounded by new releases, reading and reviewing them every week and hoping to add just a little of that excitement I first felt for The Firm in readers who stumble on my blog here or the reviews I post on Goodreads or Amazon. It’s a lovely reminder of why I do this and why I love it. For those who stop by here to read these posts, thank you. Please keep reading! I mean, read books, but if you keep reading the blog also, I’d be grateful.