While I love to read I have realized that if I have a great book absolutely nothing else gets done. Basic lack of discipline on my part, but it is what it is. This list could easily have four times as many books so my solution to my time management problem is limits. I always have a few to take on vacations, but vacation time was minimal this pandemic year and filled with friends, so there was more conversation than reading happening. Which was more than fine by me. And beach time is usually good for knocking off a few. Nope. Lots of beach time, lots of friends, and lots of rum punch. So, once again, more conversation than reading, but it was a fun summer!

I always try to read our book club books, and there were some good and not so good ones this year. I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara is about the Golden State serial killer, so it’s much different from the fiction we normally read. Interestingly written and creepy as hell; if you’re into true crime this is one for you. I was just so sad she didn’t live long enough to see the guy caught and punished.

Another non-fiction book we read was Ruthless River by Holly Fitzgerald. This one was frightening even though I knew as I was reading it they made it through their ordeal on the Madre de Dios River and lived to tell the tale. Ms. Fitzgerald is a local and a friend of a friend, so we got a little back-story at our book club meeting. 

One of my favorite fiction book club picks was The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell by Robert Dugoni, about a boy growing up with ocular albinism, a condition that makes the color of the eyes red. It is truly a wonderful book and if you grew up in the Catholic Church even more so.

Another is Tears of Amber by Sofia Segovia who wrote one of my very favorite books The Murmur of Bees. Tears of Amber is set at the beginning of WWII in what was Prussia, an area whose history I know very little about. It’s a great story if you love history. I Googled a lot.

I also enjoyed Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Read. The interview style was so spot on I was sure this had to have been a real band and somehow I just totally missed them back in the 70’s. Nope, they weren’t real. 

I Thought You Said This Would Work by Ann Gauvin was funny and bittersweet, and a quick read about college roommates having drifted apart and the search for a stolen dog that brings them back together.

While I’m normally a fan of Kristen Hannah’s books I found The Four Winds so heavy it was hard for me to get through. It’s beautifully written but a tough story about the depression in the dust bowl. One book I liked very much, though also with a tough subject was In An Instant by Suzanne Redfearn. A horrible accident in a snowy landscape leaves a young girl dead and she narrates what happens next. Truly a character study.

We’re currently reading I Was Anastasia by Ariel Lawhon. I’m a third of the way through and loving every page. I was always fascinated by the thought that one of the Tsar’s children might have escaped. It’s a great read so far…

Outside of book club I’ve feasted on the newest Louise Penny The Madness of Crowds. Start her books from the beginning of this series. She doesn’t disappoint. Fredrik Backman is another favorite, and Britt-Marie Was Here a sweet read. While in Cabo I reread a couple of Jo Nesbo’s to catch up before his last book The Thirst. Scandinavian detective noir with a very, very troubled main character. Very dark and I love every one of them. Again, start at the beginning of his Harry Hole series. And the latest in the Cormorin Strike series by Robert Galbraith (aka J.K. Rowling) Troubled Blood is another detective noir, this time set in England. It’s a good series, even if Ms. Rowling’s views on transgender people is a bit disturbing. Round up my mysteries with a good Dennis Lehane, Sacred, and it was a good year for detective noir!

A new author I hadn’t read before but liked very much is Barbara O’Neal, and I read The Garden of Happy Endings, and When We Were Mermaids. I expect by her writing that she is well traveled, as her descriptions of place are extraordinarily good and her characters well written. An unexpected jewel of a book was The Blue Hour by Laura Pritchett.

It’s a character driven novel set in the Rocky Mountains; a compelling story with interesting characters. Jennifer Weiner’s Big Summer was a great beach read. I love an author who writes about real people. Not everyone is a size 6 and some of us like to eat.

I was sorry to hear that Dorothea Benton Frank died last year. Her southern-based romance novels were always a delight; I read Queen Bee this year. I read and enjoyed Elin Hidebrand’s novel 28 Summers, which she dedicated to Ms. Frank. And Ann Rice died this past week. I am a fan, and I remember reading The Witching Hour in the 90’s and never wanting it to end. May they rest in peace.

And last but not least my friend Octavia Randolph has been writing her fingers to the bone, having released For Me Fate Wove This, the eighth book in the Saga of Ceridwen, and she is busily working on book nine. Again, start with book one of this impeccably researched historical adventure series. 

There were other books this year, but if they didn’t get a mention they weren’t worth mentioning. I already have a few on the list I’m looking forward to in 2022.

Happy reading into the New Year!

Deborah