Of all the books that I read this quarter, the two that I want to shout out about from the rooftops are two detective noir crime novels. Easy Rawlins Reluctant Detective in Devil in The Blue Dress In Devil In The Blue Dress, we meet our Black protagonist, Easy Rawlins hanging out in a bar in Los Angeles. Recently unemployed, chucked from the Boeing factory in El Segundo, Rawlins is contemplating his next steps when he…
Top Reads
In celebration of Women’s History Month, I thought of compiling a list of my favorite feminist or female-centric novels. It’s a collection of works that make it to my repeat reading list because they either give voices to forgotten female lives or provide inspiration to my own. The first two books in the series are both feminist takes on famous classical literature — where the author picks up the hood to find stories of the…
It may not be a total exaggeration to claim that the British have cornered the fictional murder mystery market. Some of the most popular British television imports are long running detective series like Midsomer Murders, Father Brown, and countless adaptation of Agatha Christie novels. Even the most popular fictional detectives that live in our modern conscious are British — Holmes, Poirot anyone? What is the obsession of this tiny island nation with crime? And when did it begin Historically,…
Read Matsuo Basho Create your own poetry. On this day of Spring! It’s April 17th, when we celebrate International Haiku Day worldwide because this form of ancient Japanese poetry is that awesome. If you are nerdy about poetry, then I expect your social feeds to be full of haiku memes, forwards, and jokes. On this day, haiku gets a lot of love in the world. So, What’s A Haiku? For those who are not familiar, haiku…
We are three months into 2021 and it’s time to take stock of things in life. COVID-19 is still here, Europe is going back into sporadic lockdowns and we are still asking–WHEN WILL THIS END? But it’s not all gloom and doom. On the personal front, with a new job where I sometimes get paid to write (yay!), a kid back in school and my first shot of COVID vaccine around the corner, I would…
Heyer’s flawed yet deeply engaging regency romances are my personal palette cleanser. They are my go-to novels as I take a break from intense books or when trying to change genres. Language and character development satisfies the literary snob in me, while the plot line is fluffy enough to entertain over-worked, hassled mom who doesn’t have the time for complex storylines. About Frederica Frederica does not differ from her other works – predictable yet fun.…
End of the year is a time for cheer and celebrations; it’s also time to catalog another year of our life. What you achieved (staying alive and not catching COVID), places you travelled to (nowhere, because COVID), things you ate (loads of home-cooked meals, because COVID) and books read (loads, coz what else were you gonna to do because COVID!!) So here are my obligatory ten-books-of-the-year list that literally nobody asked for. It was hard…
The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place series caught my attention by its lovely cover jacket and an intriguing premise — a young governess hired to educate three children who appeared to be raised by wolves. While I rarely wade into children’s books, I have to say this was a joyful discovery. In The Mysterious Howling, the first book in the series, a very young Penelope Lumley of Swanburne Academy finds employment at Ashton Place. She is to…
