The Haunting of Paynes Hollow by Kelley Armstrong

 

The plot:  When her estranged grandfather dies, Sam is surprised to learn that he left her their family's valuable lakefront property in his will. The catch: she has to stay at her family's old summer cottage for one month. The same cottage they were staying at when, as a child, she saw her father burying a dead boy's body. That was the summer that changed everything for Samantha Payne and her family. And the only reason she agrees to go back is because she desperately needs the money from the sale of the land to pay for her mother's dementia care.

But back in Paynes Hollow, the very place that supposedly inspired The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Sam is haunted by her own childhood memories of that long ago summer. Then her aunt goes missing. And Sam starts hearing phantom hoofbeats at night, and she thinks she sees the shadowy shapes of the drowned dead crawling from the lake. Is she losing her mind? Or is something more sinister going on? 

My thoughts:  Atmospheric. Suspenseful. And deliciously eerie. Armstrong has written a very fun supernatural horror story. I loved how she tied in aspects of the headless horseman with legends of the nykur. And I found Sam to be a very sympathetic character. I was rooting for her as she tried to parse the truth from the lies and figure out her own family's dark secrets. And they are dark. This is a fast-paced thriller that does not disappoint.  4.5/5 stars.

Happy Reading!

Haiku reviews...

 

Work in Progress by Kat Mackenzie

Three weeks: England, Wales,

Scotland. Alice, seven old ladies,

and one sexy Scot.

Contemporary romance....369 pages....4/5 stars.

(Travel, banter, humor and sparks. I liked it. Though I thought tour guide, Robbie Brodie, was inexcusably rude to Alice at the beginning, which is why I couldn't give this one 5 stars.)

Give Me A Shot by Gia De Cadenet

Single dad, neurodiverse, 

Mo is fine alone. Until he

meets Jess...who gets him!

Contemporary romance.... 297 pages .... 4.5/5 stars.

(This sweet, swoony, and a little spicy romance deals with loss, grief, and being a Highly Sensitive Person with poignant honesty. I loved Mo and Jess together!)

Hearts in Circulation by Sarah Monzon

Rockslide strands sunny

bookmobile librarian with grumpy

taciturn mechanic.

Contemporary romance .... 279 pages .... 5/5 stars.

(Swoony kisses and sweet romance between Hayley and Levi. Humor and books, too.) 

Happy Reading!

Everything's Coming Up Rosie by Courtney Walsh

 "Well, shoot. This isn't how my life is supposed to go."

The plot: Rosie Waterman has always dreamed of acting, which is why she moved to New York after college. But now, seven years later, the play she's in just closed after only two performances, her roommate is kicking her out for not paying her rent, and her dream feels like a distant memory. To add salt to her wounds, her three best friends from high school seem to have found success and love in their lives, making her feel even worse. She can't tell them the truth:  that she's a failure. So when she's offered a job directing a production of Cinderella at a regional theatre in Wisconsin, she jumps at the chance. It's not until she arrives and a very cute physical therapist named Booker Hayes is showing her around that she realizes the regional theatre is actually a retirement community, and all her actors are senior citizens. What's Rosie to do now? 

Favorite quote:  "Dreams shift and change and grow, and changing along with them isn't failing. Pivoting isn't quitting. Happiness isn't linear, and seeking it isn't selfish."

My thoughts:  This delightful novel is about finding and following your dreams, embracing all the big emotions, finding community, and not being afraid to open up and connect with others. After all, "People, it turns out, really are life's greatest adventure." There's also a lot of humor and heart. Rosie is an engaging character--relatable and funny. And I loved her cute romance with Booker, and her interactions with the Sunset Players. (My only complaint is Walsh's overuse of the word smirk--one of my least favorite words!) Other than that, this book is an entertaining 4-star read. 

Happy Reading!

January's Bookish Art...

 

Henri Matisse -- Woman Reading in Garden, 1902

"Stories take us out of ourselves and deeper into ourselves at the exact same time. They are specific and universal. Big and small. Something and everything."

-- Katherine Center

The Faculty Lounge by Jennifer Mathieu

How it begins:  "You really had to hand it to Mr. Lehrer. While dying at work is never ideal, he had the decency to do it during his off period. And not only that, but at the start of it, too, giving the clerks in the main office plenty of time to find someone else to cover Ms. De La Rosa's Spanish II classes, even as they scrambled to figure out who should be telephoned when an eighty-two-year-old substitute teacher lies down on a ratty couch in a high school faculty lounge and dies."

So begins the school year for several teachers, old and new, the principal, his vice principal, the janitor, and others at Texas's Baldwin High School. This book explores the lives of these teachers, their frustrations, disappointments, griefs, humorous mishaps...and their love of teaching. It also highlights the current state of public education and the idiocy that often occurs within it. There's a scandal or two, snarky emails, clashes with parents, and even an unexpected romance.

The Faculty Lounge is a novel of friendship and found family. And it's very entertaining. My dad taught junior high school for over 30 years, and I work at an elementary school, so I found this book both funny and realistic. There are moments in it that made me laugh out loud, and other moments that made me want to weep and shake my head in sympathy. I liked all the characters and how Mathieu weaves their individual stories together. Each chapter is told from a different POV, but it comes together so well! For me, this was a 4.5/5 star read. 

Happy Reading!

Top Ten Tuesday...

 

Top Ten Tuesday is a fun weekly meme hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl.

This week's theme:  MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS RELEASING IN THE FIRST HALF OF 2026.

December releases that haven't come to my library yet:

In Your Dreams by Sarah Adams

Chasing Creed by Alex Kava

January releases:

No One Knew by Kendra Elliot

A Box Full of Darkness by Simone St. James

Inside Man by John McMahon

February releases:

Antihero by Gregg Hurwitz

First Sign of Danger by Kelley Armstrong

March releases:

The Dark Time by Nick Petrie

The Night We Met by Abby Jimenez

April releases:

The Book Witch by Meg Shaffer

The Antiquarian's Object of Desire by India Holton

The Name Game by Beth O'Leary

May releases:

A Parade of Horribles by Matt Dinniman

The Shippers by Katherine Center

I know there are probably a lot of other books coming out in the next 5-6 months that I've missed that I'll want to read, so I look forward to checking out everyone else's lists this week...and adding to my own. 😉

Happy Reading!

The Car Share by Zoe Brisby

 A ninety-year-old woman with Alzheimer's and a depressed young man end up sharing a car ride from France to Brussels that changes both their lives forever.

The plot:  Alex and Max (short for Maxine) could not be more different. Alex is an introvert, quiet, and lacking in self-confidence. Max is loud, stubbornly determined, impulsive and a bit wacky. When she first meets Alex, she thinks he must be a drug addict because he's so thin and pale. But he's just depressed. And floundering. And Max decides to 'save' him and get him to have fun and love life again before she goes to Brussels to die. And when Alex learns of Max's plan to be euthanized before her Alzheimer's gets worse, he decides to do everything he can to convince her to change her mind and keep living. Together, this mismatched pair forms an unexpected bond of love and friendship. 

My thoughts:   I was looking for a light-hearted, quirky kind of book when I stumbled upon this one at my library. And it's so humorous and fun! Talk about bookish serendipity. I love how Max draws Alex out of his shell and helps him deal with his depression and his panic attacks. Their arguments and their banter made me smile. And I loved all the crazy mishaps they get into on their road trip to Brussels. And Alex's concern for Max is very touching. Best of all, it has a happy ending. Which is exactly what I needed.  

My rating:  ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Happy Reading!

The Snow Lies Deep by Paula Munier

 

I have a few favorite series that I religiously keep up with--reading the latest book as soon as it comes out--and Paula Munier's Mercy Carr series is one of them. I love Mercy and her Belgian Malinois, Elvis, and her husband, Vermont Game Warden Troy Warner and his Newfoundland, Suzie Bear. In this one, their daughter, Felicity, is nine months old and about to celebrate her very first Christmas. Too bad Mercy's "Uncle" Lazlo just got murdered. 

Christmas abounds in this book from yule log traditions to a ceremonial Winter Solstice bonfire (complete with Druids), a town sing-along, Christmas Eve dinner, and "more is more" decorations. The author even works in that Russian fairy tale, The Snow Maiden. There are a lot of characters to juggle, too, with Mercy's extended family and all her friends, which Munier handles well. But I felt like the mystery itself got a bit overshadowed by it all. And their murder investigation didn't feel as tautly plotted or as compelling as in her earlier novels. That's not to say I didn't enjoy this one, because I did. Mercy and Troy and their dogs are engaging characters and I like the quirks and charms of their small Vermont community. I just didn't love the mystery as much as I usually do. (Though I'd still give it 4 stars.) And if you want that Christmas-in-Vermont setting, this is the book! 

Happy Reading!

  

Other Munier books I've reviewed:

A Borrowing of Bones (#1) 

Blind Search (#2) 

The Hiding Place (#3) 

The Wedding Plot (#4) 

Home At Night (#5) 

The Night Woods (#6) 

A bookish goal...

Over Christmas break I was contemplating what, if any, bookish goals I might want to set or reading challenges I might want to do in 2026. I've seen some bookish bingos that look like fun. And Deb@Readerbuzz has come up with her own Back to the Classics Challenge for 2026 with 12 great categories; I'm still considering that one. And since I have a list of at least 10 historical fiction books I'm hoping to read this year, Marg@The Intrepid Reader's Historical Fiction Reading Challenge is also a possibility. 

But in the end, I decided what I really want to do this year is honor/celebrate America's 250th by reading at least 10 books about the Founding Fathers, the Revolutionary War, and the courageous men and women who helped build this country. It's an idea I got from my sister and is my own personal reading challenge for 2026. And I already have a great list of books I'm excited to read:

➧Those Turbulent Sons of Freedom by Christopher Wren

➧John Hancock: Merchant King and American Patriot by Harlow Unger

➧Bunker Hill by Nathan Philbrick

➧American Rebels by Nina Sankovitch

➧American Spring: Lexington, Concord, and the Road to Revolution by Walter R. Borneman

➧Revolutionary Summer: The Birth of American Independence by Jospeh J. Ellis

➧Henry Knox's Noble Train by William Elliott Hazelgrove

➧Rebels at Sea: Privateering in the American Revolution by Eric Jay Dolin

➧Band of Giants: The Amateur Soldiers Who Won America's Independence by Jack Kelly

➧God Save Benedict Arnold: The True Story of America's Most Hated Man by Jack Kelly

I also own a bunch of Little Maid books that my parents purchased from various used library sales when I was growing up that I'd like to reread. Alice Turner Curtis does an excellent job of capturing colonial life and portraying small but important moments in the Revolutionary War in her classic series of historical fiction books for children. Plus, they're fun reads. I've already reread Little Maid at Valley Forge and am looking forward to reading the rest this year. 

What are some of your bookish goals and reading challenges for 2026? 

Whatever they may be....

Happy Reading!

Welcome to 2026!

 

For the past couple of years, instead of making resolutions, I've been coming up with a word...kind of a theme for myself to focus on for the upcoming year. I always write down several words and then choose the one that 'speaks' the most to me. 

This year I considered Mindful and Intentional, because those are two words I have already been focusing on in my life. I also want to continue to put Gladness and Gratitude in my everydays. I even thought about going with a fun word like Sparkle or Whimsy. But in the end, the word that resonated most was

LEAP!

I tend to overanalyze decisions, hesitate, and put things off; and I end up feeling frozen, and stuck. And I don't want to do that any more. I don't want to procrastinate life or get paralyzed by 'what ifs'. And I don't want to regret not doing the things I really want to do. So this year, I'm going to take that leap, embrace the adventure, risk failing, try new things, and not be afraid to live out loud. Even in very small ways. 

What are you hoping for in 2026? 

My wish is that it's a good year for all of us!

 

Happy New Year!