I don’t know how or why, but work actually seems to be getting busier as we near the end of the year. How is that even possible, especially this year??
In the vain hope to keep reality at bay, I’m refusing to think about reality. At least until I finish writing this post.
Alright, this first one is not my usual fare, but Olive and Mabel are too cute. Check out their channel — pretty sure you might have seen them go viral at some point over the past year.
Olive, Mable and Me
Olive, Mabel and Me is the new book from broadcaster Andrew Cotter and his now internet famous canine companions, Olive and Mabel.
Olive and Mabel went viral on social media with their sporting contests during the COVID-19 lockdown, with Andrew Cotter’s unique commentary propelling the videos to over 40 million views.
Now Cotter shares stories of his adventures with his loveable (and occasionally exasperating) canine companions in this beautifully written, touching and laugh-out-loud funny new book.
The cuteness! That is all!
Burn You Twice
Fire can destroy the past. It can also uncover secrets in this novel of searing suspense by New York Times bestselling author Mary Burton.
Ten years ago as an undergrad, Joan Mason escaped an arsonist’s fire. Shaken, she fled the small collegiate Montana town, leaving behind friends and not looking back. Now a Philadelphia homicide detective, Joan’s trying to put her traumas to rest. It’s not easy. Elijah Weston, the classmate who torched her house, is out of prison and returning to Missoula. Gut instinct tells Joan he’ll strike again. To stop him, she must return to the past as well. To face not only the man she fears but Detective Gideon Bailey, too. The man she loved and left behind.
When a local woman dies tragically in another fire, it can’t be a coincidence. Can it be Elijah? He has a solid alibi for the night of the blaze. Reunited by the tragedy, Joan and Gideon have their doubts. So does Gideon’s sister, Ann—Joan’s old college roommate.
The investigation draws Joan and Gideon together, but it also sends them down a dangerous path—into a troubling history that Joan, Elijah, and Ann all share. As more lives go up in flames in Missoula, this town’s secrets are just beginning to rise from the ashes.
Interesting — a blurb that begins with casting Joan as an innocent, but by the end and the troubling history, she’s not at all clear cut to me any longer.
The Mystery of Henri Pick
In the small town of Crozon in Brittany, a library houses manuscripts that were rejected for publication: the faded dreams of aspiring writers. Visiting while on holiday, young editor Delphine Despero is thrilled to discover a novel so powerful that she feels compelled to bring it back to Paris to publish it. The book is a sensation, prompting fevered interest in the identity of its author – apparently one Henri Pick, a now-deceased pizza chef from Crozon. Sceptics cry that the whole thing is a hoax: how could this man have written such a masterpiece? An obstinate journalist, Jean-Michel Rouche, heads to Brittany to investigate.
By turns farcical and moving, The Mystery of Henri Pick is a fast-paced comic mystery enriched by a deep love of books – and of the authors who write them.
For the love of books, and a comic mystery? That is an enticing to me, and I need to know what is the mystery of Henri Pick and what did he right?!
Dracula, Motherf*cker
Vienna, 1889: Dracula’s brides nail him to the bottom of his coffin. Los Angeles, 1974: an ageing starlet decides to raise the stakes. Crime scene photographer Quincy Harker is the only man who knows it happened, but will anyone believe him before he gets his own chalk outline? And are Dracula’s three brides there to help him… or use him as bait? A pulpy, pulse-pounding graphic novel of California psych-horror from acclaimed creators ALEX DE CAMPI and ERICA HENDERSON
From the title to the blurb, I want this. WANT. How cool does it sound?!?! (also, anyone else have Samuel L. Jackson in there head saying this title?)
Santa Monica
A debut novel in the vein of Liane Moriarty and Tom Perrotta, about dark secrets brought to life after the mysterious death of a handsome and charismatic trainer to the elite women in Santa Monica.
On the western edge of Los Angeles is the gorgeous beachside city of Santa Monica, where the sun-kissed, wealthy residents seem to inhabit real-life California dreams. When movie-star-handsome heartthrob fitness coach Zack Doheny, is found dead on the floor of his gym, the tragedy shocks the elite community, especially those who’d spent many hours each week exercising with the charismatic trainer.
As the narrative flashes back to the months leading up to Zack’s death, it quickly becomes clear that things in this coastal paradise are not as glittering as they seem. Lettie – Zack’s secret half-sister and an undocumented housekeeper for the toned, entitled women of Santa Monica – holds her brother responsible for a horrific family accident, and desperately needs his money to prevent her deportation. Regina, type-A exercise addict and entrepreneur, will do anything to get out of debt and to claim Zack for herself. And Mel – a New York City transplant who finds herself forty pounds heavier and far more cynical than the lithe women of Santa Monica – discovers an electric attraction to Zack that threatens to disrupt his bond with Regina and upend Mel’s own marriage. As these residents of Santa Monica begin to crack under the stress of their secrets, one question hangs above it all: what really happened to Zack Doheny?
As addictively suspenseful as it is sharply observed, hilarious, and compassionate, Santa Monica is the rare novel that captures readers with propulsive storytelling alongside emotional urgency, irresistible characters, ambitious themes, and a vivid sense of place.
So many possibilities and nothing seems easily clear with this mystery — I like how at odds with each other these women seem, and they’re liked to and by Zac — such delicious possibilities!
That’s it for me! I’m back to ignoring reality.
