just finished: Recipe for a Charmed Life. A women dreams of running her own kitchen in Paris, but when she loses her sense of taste, she has to come up with a way to get it back or she’ll never cook in fine dining again. A surprise email from her estranged mother, inviting her to San Juan Island off Washington State is a way for her to get away from the stresses of Paris and maybe find her spark again. It’s a lovely story about finding your way when you’re lost, and I thought it was amazing to read. I also finished my yearly reread of Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason. And I have good news! I figured out that I have Mad About the Boy on audio, so if I am needing more Bridget early this year, I am ready.

currently reading: I’ve just started Everyone Who Can Forgive Me Is Dead, and it is fascinating. The ten year anniversary of the Scarlet Christmas is coming up, and survivor Charlie Colbert is nervous. It has taken years and so much therapy for her to build a life that feels secure. She’s an editor at a top magazine, about to be engaged to her boyfriend, and she has friends and a good therapist. But the sister of one of the victims, now a news reporter, is wanting to create a documentary about the tragic crime that changed everything for them all those years ago, and Charlie is afraid she’s not strong enough to deal with all the drama. Or maybe she’s just afraid her secrets will come out . . .

I’m also reading The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels. It’s the newest from Janice Hallett, whose The Appeal was a book I absolutely loved. In this one, a true crime writer is writing a book about a cult that committed group suicide years ago, when four of the planets had all aligned at once. The only survivors were the leader, who is now in prison, and a young couple whose infant child had been slated to be sacrificed. That baby is about to turn 18 years old, so the publisher is wanting a new book that gets to the bottom of what actually happened, so the writer is tasked with interviewing everyone who had a hand in the case, and more importantly, finding that baby. Like Hallett’s earlier novels, it’s epistolary, told in emails and interview transcripts, texts and phone calls. There is clearly a secret buried in all these, and I can’t wait to find out what it is. This book has sucked me in, and I wish I could stop everything and focus on reading it! It’s so good!