January's short days and bitter cold made for excellent weather to cozy up with a good book, so I've made the most of it!
Tiny Beautiful Things: advice on love and life from Dear Sugar, by Cheryl Strayed. Recommended by a friend, this collection of essays by Wild author Strayed was a good start to the new year. This "best of" compilation from The Rumpus's Dear Sugar advice column is a heartfelt, gentle and gorgeous read. Strayed pulls no punches as she answers queries about what to do when life is hard, and how sometimes even the good things in life are difficult to trust. I highly recommend it.
Verses for the Dead, by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child. Eighteenth in the duo's long-running and best-selling Special Agent Pendergast series finds Pendergast in his strangest set of circumstances yet: working with an assigned partner, junior agent Coldmoon. Their case takes them to Miami, where a killer is cutting out his victims' hearts and placing them, along with cryptic notes, on gravestones in local cemeteries. To make things stranger still, the gravestones all belong to women who committed suicide. Can this odd new pairing of agents get to the killer before he can strike again? It's a race against the clock, and one of the best in the series to date.
The Last Mrs. Parrish, by Liv Constantine. This was a reread for my January book club meeting. Knowing what was going to happen made it even more entertaining--it's still a gleeful story of greed and revenge. If you haven't read it yet, I'd really recommend it. You can read my original review here.
Dark Sacred Night, by Michael Connelly. The second of Connelly's novels to follow young Hollywood Detective Renee Ballard, this one also includes Harry Bosch, now retired. The two meet when Ballard stumbles over a stranger, Bosch, going through old file cabinets, working a case fifteen years cold that's gotten under his skin. Ballard can't just give this guy access to the station's files but, intrigued, she decides to join him on the hunt. I really enjoyed this pairing more than I thought I would--it made for a fast, compelling read.
Knitting, by Ann Bartlett. I stumbled over this sweet gem of a read while out working in the stacks last month. That's one of my favorite things about this job, the serendipitous book that simply makes its way home with me from time to time, completely unsolicited. Sandra is unmoored after losing her husband to cancer. But the unlikeliest person to help with this would be Martha, an eccentric professional knitter. When the two are brought together by chance, what follows is a strange, symbiotic friendship, each of them turning out to be just what the other needs. These are characters that will stay with me for a very long time.
Eliza's Home, How to Knit a Heart Back Home, Wishes & Stitches, Cora's Heart, Fiona's Flame, all by Rachael Herron. I'd read Herron's memoir, A Life in Stitches, eons ago and I really enjoyed her style. Now I'm completely hooked, reading most of her Cypress Hollow series in just a few weeks. They're lovely, fast reads, funny and heartwarming and wise. I'd recommend her to fans of Robyn Carr. Fair warning, while a few titles are available here at the library or on Overdrive, I did go out and buy copies of these for myself.
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