wow, last week was an awful, stressful week! I couldn’t get much read, and the little I was able to read, I struggled to write about. But this week should be better. So I am hoping to get more reading done this week, because there are so many good books to read.

currently reading: The Mystery Guest, the follow-up to last year’s runaway The Maid. In this one, maid Molly Gray is back, and there’s been another murder in the hotel. This time, it was a prestigious author who had set up an event at the hotel despite being notoriously reclusive. But just as he’s about to make his big announcement, he falls over dead. And while Molly is not being accused this time, she was in charge of getting the room set up for the event, and her maid-in-training is the one who prepped the tea tray that he had gotten his last drink from. Molly takes it upon herself to try to find out what happened and again save the hotel’s reputation.

I’m also reading Housebroke, a new rom com about two people sharing one house with a lot of foster dogs. Hazel got swindled by her ex-boyfriend and needed a place to stay. Fortunately, her friend had a house she was trying to sell, and she let Hazel stay there in the meantime. But then she does sell it, and Linc is surprised when he moves in to find Hazel living there with all those dogs. But they come up with a compromise—Hazel can keep living there, as Linc’s cook, while he flips the house. But he has a secret, one that will make life more difficult when they fall in love. This one is a lot of fun, out Tuesday!

up next: Dutton was kind enough to send me an early copy of The Night of the Storm. It’s a locked-room mystery about a family trapped inside with a killer during a hurricane. It’s out in mid-January, so when it’s too cold to go outside next month, you can grab this book and a big mug of hot chocolate and snuggle into a fantastic new mystery.