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Tuesday, December 02, 2025
The Bookish Books Reading Challenge: December Book Ideas and Link-Up for Reviews
8:49 PM
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I can't believe this is the last monthly post I'll do for the 2025 Bookish Books Reading Challenge. Crazy! I hope you've had fun with this laidback challenge and will join with me to do it again in 2026. I'll make a sign-up post for that soon.
November was a good month for me and bookish books. I read these four:
Everyone in This Bank is a Thief by Benjamin Stevenson (available March 17, 2026)—This is the fourth book in the highly entertaining Ernest Cunningham mystery series. In this outing, our hero is in a privately-owned bank to beg for a loan for the private detective agency he wants to start. Much to his astonishment, he finds himself in the middle of a robbery with a bank full of thieves. As the tension builds, someone is murdered, and time is running out for all of the hostages. It's up to Ernest to figure out what in the world is going on.
While the novel isn't overtly bookish, Ernest is a lover of classic mysteries as well as an author who writes about the crimes he solves. All the books in this series are clever, funny, and twisty. I love them all!
The Maid's Secret by Nita Prose—In this third volume of Prose's popular mystery series starring Molly the Maid, an Antiques Roadshow-type program is taping an episode at the Regency Grand Hotel. Molly brings some of her Gran's garage sale treasures for evaluation, never expecting that one of them will be almost priceless in value. Before she knows it, the item has been stolen. The event prompts Molly to learn more about her Gran's mysterious past, which reveals new information about both Molly and her beloved grandmother.
This installment is more about Gran than it is about Molly (one of the reasons I didn't like it as much as the previous books). We learn about her from diary entries. Since the diary is a book and both Gran and Molly love to read, I think this one counts as bookish, don't you?
The Forgotten Magic of Zoey Turner by Erin Stewart—This middle-grade novel is about a girl who's grieving the recent loss of her adored father, who knew how to make even the most mundane moments magical. In spite of the crippling anxiety that has kept her mostly at home since his death, she ventures out to an author signing for her very favorite book series. When Zoey receives a special pencil from her favorite writer, she's inspired to write her own stories, which magically start coming to life. With this tool, she can return her life to normal. Or can she?
The Afterlife of Holly Chase by Cynthia Hand—A Christmas Carol is one of my favorite all-time books, so I was excited to read this YA novel that's a spin-off of the classic story. Holly, a deceased teen, is a failed Scrooge who has been assigned to work for Project Scrooge as the Ghost of Christmas Past. She's burned out with the job when a hot new Scrooge candidate perks her interest way up. Before she knows it, she's falling in love with the young man she's supposed to be saving. Not only could she lose her job, but she may also lose the chance to move on in her afterlife. What's a ghost to do?
I wanted this book to be more like the original novel instead of just a teenage love story, so I was a little disappointed by it. It was just an average read for me.
How about you? What bookish books did you read in November?
I've already read one bookish book in December and am reading this middle-grade novel based on Grimm's fairy tales right now:
Grimmworld: The Big Bad Wolf by Michaelbrent Collings—Willow and Jake Grimm, descendants of the famous Grimm brothers, are Grimmwalkers, who are able to walk between the real world and the Grimmworld (where there are no happy endings). On the hunt for their missing father, they will encounter all sorts of fantastical creatures and challenges.
How about you? What bookish books do you plan to read before the end of the year?
If you are participating in the 2025 Bookish Books Reading Challenge, please use the widget below to link-up your December reviews. If you're not signed up for the challenge yet, what are you waiting for? Click here to join the party.
Tuesday, November 25, 2025
I'm Thankful for Top Ten Tuesday (and For You!)
9:43 AM
This week in the U.S., we will be celebrating Thanksgiving. Although the holiday's history is problematic, I still love the fact that we set aside a day to gather with family and friends and express gratitude for our blessings. My life is far from perfect, but I've been given so much that I can't count high enough to name all of my blessings. Please know that you are among them. Thank you for continuing to support my humble little blog. I appreciate every visit, every comment, every suggestion, and every reading rec. You make blogging fun! Whether or not you are celebrating Thanksgiving this week, I encourage you to take a minute to look around you and be grateful for everything you have. I firmly believe that, no matter your circumstances, there is always, always something to be thankful for!
My kind husband is going to brave Costco today to get pies so I don't have to, but I've got a million other things to get done before Turkey Day. There's too much going on in my head for me to be able to think up a good Top Ten Tuesday topic for today's Thanksgiving Freebie, so I'm just going to leave it at this: Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Top Ten Tuesday!
Friday, November 21, 2025
Newest Installment in Charming Maid Mystery Series My Least Favorite of the Bunch
5:54 AM
(Image from Barnes & Noble)
Note: While The Maid's Secret can be read as a standalone, it's more enjoyable if you've already read the previous books in the series. This newest installment contains minor spoilers that may reveal plot surprises from its predecessors. As always, I recommend reading books in a series in order.
The Regency Grand is abuzz with excitement over the taping of an episode of Hidden Treasures, an antiques appraisal tv show hosted by a popular celebrity couple, that is happening in the Grand Tearoom. Even Molly Gray has gotten caught up in the hoopla, bringing for appraisal bits and bobs from the yard sale "gems" Gran picked up over the years. She's shocked when one of them is deemed priceless by the astounded hosts. Selling the item will provide her with a dizzying sum—enough to not just pay for her upcoming wedding, but also to change her life completely. Before the transaction goes through, however, the valuable piece is stolen. Once again, the intrepid maid will use her keen observation skills to help Detective Stark solve a puzzling case.
While all this is happening, Molly discovers another treasure: her Gran's diary. The grandmother who raised her never discussed her mysterious past. Reading Flora Gray's story will give Molly unprecedented insight into her Gran's identity as well as her own.
I've enjoyed all of the books in Nita Prose's delightful Maid series, and this third outing is no exception, even if The Maid's Secret is my least favorite of the installments. This novel is a departure from its predecessors for three reasons: it's not a murder mystery, it's told from two points-of-view, and it uses an alternating timeline structure. The first one is no big deal; in fact, it's an effective way to change things up, keeping the series from getting too formulaic. Telling the tale in two different timelines in both Gran's and Molly's voices, though? Meh. Neither device worked well for me, I'm afraid. As much as I like Flora as a character (at least as a senior citizen—she's rather insufferable as a young woman), there's nothing original about her back story, which makes it fairly dull and predictable. Molly's unique personality and perspective is what gives this series its freshness, and she gets much less page time in The Maid's Secret than she does in the other books. I wanted to spend more time watching her solve the heist than learning about Gran's past. Like I said above, the book is still entertaining; I just didn't love it like I have the other books.
Because I was reading The Maid's Secret for book club (we read the first two books together and all of use enjoyed them), my husband decided to read it as well, even though he hasn't read the first 2 1/2 installments. His verdict? "It was okay, but there's nothing very original about it." A new member of my book club, who hasn't read the rest of the series, DNFd The Maid's Secret because she was bored, not really caring about the characters. Those of us in the book club who had read the previous books agree this newest one is our least favorite of the bunch, but we were still invested in the story because we have learned to love the characters (especially Molly) over the course of the series. Hence my warning at the beginning of this review. Although this book can be read as a standalone, it's much more enjoyable if you've read the previous books and already care about the characters. For me, I just hope Prose goes back to murder and more Molly in the next installment.
(Readalikes: the other books in the series, The Maid; The Mystery Guest; and The Mistletoe Mystery [a holiday novella])
Grade:
If this were a movie, it would be rated:
for brief, mild language (no F-bombs), violence, and mild sexual content
To the FTC, with love: I bought a copy of The Maid's Secret from my local indie, Changing Hands Bookstore, with a portion of the millions I make from my lucrative career as a book blogger. Ha ha.
Tuesday, November 04, 2025
Top Ten Tuesday: Random Picks From My "Owned" Bookshelves
12:00 AM
Today's TTT prompt is a fun and easy one: First Ten Books I Randomly Grabbed From My Shelf (Stand in front of your book collection, close your eyes, point to a title, and write it down. If you have shelves, point to your physical books. If you have a digital library, use a random number generator and write down the title of the book that corresponds with the number you generated. You get bonus points if you tell us whether or not you've read the book, and what you thought of it if you did!) Although I read on my Kindle frequently, I still prefer the experience of reading (and collecting) physical books. Mine are housed on two massive bookshelves. They are divided by review books and owned books, with the former in alphabetical order by author's last name, and the latter by genre. To highlight older/less talked about titles, I decided to do my random picking from my "owned" shelves. Although it was tough to pick blindly since I know my shelves so well, I managed to come up with a fairly eclectic group of books. Oddly enough (or not?), I've only read one of them.
As always, Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by the lovely Jana over at That Artsy Reader Girl.
First Ten Books I Randomly Grabbed From My Shelf
- in the order that I picked them -
1. Middle of the Night by Riley Sager—I've read all of Sager's thrillers except Final Girls and this 2024 novel is my favorite. Although it's just as atmospheric and engrossing as his others, Middle of the Night has a sweet poignancy to it that sets it apart from its predecessors. The story is about Ethan Marsh, a man who is still traumatized by the disappearance of his best friend thirty years ago while the 10-year-olds were having a sleepover in Ethan's backyard. When he returns to his childhood home, he begins to experience strange things happening in the night, things that point to Billy's vanishing. Is someone playing a cruel prank on Ethan? Has Billy, believed to have died three decades ago, coming back to haunt him? What really happened to Ethan's best friend on that fateful night? Ethan is determined to find out, once and for all.
2. Daughter of Moloka'i by Alan Brennert—I loved Moloka'i, a historical novel about the titular island's role as a leper colony. By the time this sequel came out, I had forgotten who was who in the story, so I put off reading it until I could reread Moloka'i, which I still haven't done.
Daughter of Moloka'i tells the story of the child whom Rachel Kalama (the protagonist in Moloka'i), who was quarantined for most of her life because of leprosy, was forced to give up. Ruth is taken to an orphanage in Honolulu, from whence she is adopted by a Japanese couple. Brought up in California, Ruth is unfairly interred at Manzanar Relocation Camp during World War II. Her life is upended again when she receives a letter from Rachel, her birth mother, and learns more about her own story.
3. Lovely War by Julie Berry—It's tough to describe this uniquely-told YA novel about love and war. Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, narrates the story as she tells Hephaestus and Ares about two human couples whose relationships are irrevocably changed by what they experience during World War I.
4. The Pioneers by David McCullough—I own a few of McCullough's books because I love learning about history, but I've never actually read any of them. The author is extremely knowledgeable, but his writing is a bit...dry. My husband got bored quickly with The Pioneers and ended up setting it aside. I'm afraid I might have the same problem, but I still want to give it a try. As indicated by the title, the book discusses the settling of the United States' Northwest Territory by intrepid pioneers who overcame incredible obstacles in pursuit of the American Dream.
5. The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins—I don't read a lot of self-help books, but this one has gotten so much buzz that I decided to see what it's all about (although I haven't yet). Apparently, it teaches how to free yourself from the constant anxiety of trying to control other people by letting go and focusing on the only person you can change: yourself.
6. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid—I've never read anything by Reid, but this novel sounds intriguing to me. It concerns a Hollywood actress who lived a long and scandalous life before becoming a recluse. When she finally decides to spill all her secrets, she shocks everyone by choosing an obscure, struggling journalist to write her biography. The chosen writer is dumbfounded by this turn of events and is even more astounded by what the Hollywood icon tells her.
7. A Soft Place to Land by Susan Rebecca White—When their parents die in a plane crash, sisters Ruthie and Julia are shocked and grief-stricken. They're even more so when they learn that their parents' will stipulates that the two be raised separately. The novel tells the stories of both women as they grow apart from each other, then come back together again.
8. The Way We Fall by Megan Crewe—This YA novel is the first in a dystopian series about a small island community whose population is depleted by a deadly virus. With the island under quarantine, the survivors fight over dwindling supplies while trying to figure out how to save themselves and those they love in the midst of the resulting violence and chaos.
9. The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris—As indicated by its title, this historical novel is a fictionalized version of the story of Lale Sokolov, a Slovakian Jew who was imprisoned at Auschwitz-Birkenau during World War II. Because he could speak several languages, he was assigned to tattoo numbers on the arms of new arrivals at the concentration camp. He secretly used his privileged position to procure food to help other prisoners survive. When Lale met a young woman named Gita, he vowed to marry her after the war was over—and did.
10. The Book Woman's Daughter by Kim Michele Richardson—I've enjoyed The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek twice now, but I've yet to read this sequel for some reason. The novel features Honey Mary Angeline Lovett, who takes on her mother's packhorse librarian route after both of her parents are imprisoned. As she brings literature and hope to the people in the hollers of Appalachia, she finds independence, freedom, and purpose for herself.
I just clicked over to Richardson's website and saw that a new novel starring Cussy Lovett is coming in April 2026. Looks like I'll be reading The Book Woman's Daughter next year, followed by The Mountains We Call Home. Woo hoo!
There you have it, ten random books I picked from my bookshelves. Have you read any of them? What did you think? Which random titles did you choose from your shelves today? I'd truly love to know. Leave me a comment on this post and I will gladly return the favor on your blog.
Happy TTT!
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