"The Last Bookshop in London" by Madeline Martin

Grace Bennett travels to London with her best friend Viv. The two young women are determined to leave their small town behind and find work in the big city. They already have a place to live – with the best friend of Grace’s deceased mother. And it’s their landlady who helps Grace find a job – with an East End bookseller who doesn’t seem to want the help.  

And Grace knows nothing about books; she’s not even a regular reader. But she does know marketing, and she will soon set about transforming the bookstore, even if it’s not one of the better know bookshops like those on Paternoster Row near St. Paul’s Cathedral.

 

But it’s August 1939. War is declared within less of a month of the women’s arrival. They watch the children transported to safety in the countryside, the sandbags being positioned, the rules and regulations for blackout curtains and lights. At first, little changes; the first nine months are often referred to as the “phony war.” After France surrenders in June of 1940, they all know the Germans will be coming for London and Britain. 

 

Madeline Martin

Grace meets a rather charming customer who suggests she read The Count of Monte Cristo. She puts it off until she hears he’s being assigned for duty. She soon finds that books aren’t just about marketing but also about visiting and becoming part of entirely new worlds. And she can’t wait to share what she knows with the customer, assuming he survives the war. So she finds another way to share what she’s reading – during the great London Blitz.

 

The Last Bookshop in London by Madeline Martin is Grace’s story. Based on what happened in London during the famous Blitz, it’s a story of resilience, bookstores, books, and the courage to keep going on in spite of what look like insurmountable conditions. 

 

Martin has published more than 40 books in the historical novel and historical romance genres. Her series includes Borderland Ladies (six books), Borderland Rebels (five books), Highland Passions (four books), Wedding a Wallflower (several series), Matchmaker of Mayfair (six books), The London School for Ladies (three books), Heart of the Highlands (three books), and The Mercenary Maidens (three books), as well as several standalone works. She lives in Florida with her family.

 

Some Monday Readings

 

“Managerial Bureaucracy’s Threat to Democracy and Humanity” – speech by N.S. Lyons at the Civitas Canada Conference., May 3, 2025.

 

St. Louis Art Museum, Nighttime – photographs by Chris Naffziger at St. Louis Patina.

 

The lost palaces of Henry VIII – Monica Woods at Discover Britain.

 

The decline of the great literary name – Jacob Phillips at The Critic Magazine.

 

How “Puff (The Magic Dragon)” Transformed into a Timeless Treasure – Jason Clark at This Is the Day.

"Brookhaven" is Published!

It’s always a milestone in a life when a new book is published. Brookhaven, a historical novel about the Civil War and what happened after, has made its appearance in the world. 

It’s not a novel about battles and military strategy. Instead, it’s about the people who were involved, some directly and some indirectly (and virtually every American alive at the time was affected). 

 

This is the summary:

 

“In 1915, young reporter Elizabeth Putnam of the New York World is assigned a story on the Gray Wisp. New information has come to light about this Confederate spy in the Civil War, a figure of legend, myth, and wildly competing claims. What no knows is the man’s identity. The reporter follows leads which eventually bring her to the small Mississippi town of Brookhaven. He agrees to tell his story, a tale of North and South, loss in wartime, narrow escapes from death in battles, family survival, the poetry of Longfellow, and love. And Elizabeth soon finds her own story has forever become part of the Gray Wisp’s.”

 

Brookhaven is essentially two stories – that of Sam McClure, who enlisted young and finds himself enrolled as a spy, and that of Elizabeth Putnam, a young reporter trying to make her way and her name in what was a very male world of journalism.

 

The book includes a character list (my wife insisted I include one) and a bibliography (I read more books and did more research than I can remember). 

 

I’ll write more about the inspiration for the book (a movie I saw in 1959 and a family story that turned out to be more legend than fact. For now, it’s feelings of relief, satisfaction, and no-small amount of joy I’m experiencing. And if you want more information, just ask.

 

Brookhaven is available here on Amazon in both print and Kindle versions. 

 

Related:

 

A note from T.S. Poetry Press on the release of Brookhaven (including the author’s note).

 

“Christmas Oranges,” a short story – Cultivating Oaks Press.

 

"Taking Boston" by J. Steven Butler

A horrific car crash leads Pastor Jake Wilson to becoming the guardian to a nine-year-old girl. And it will eventually lead to much more – love and an attempt to disrupt his ministry. 

Wilson is 35, single, and the pastor of a large church in small-town Georgia. When his best friends from college are killed in a car accident, he becomes the guardian for their daughter, Boston. Overnight, he has to begin learning how to be a girl-dad for a child severely traumatized by the accident – she was in the back seat, and she spent hours with her parents’ dead bodies while rescuers reached the car and cut away the mangled frame to reach her.

 

The child’s life is utterly transformed. So is Jake’s. Jessica Maracle, a Sunday School teacher, reaches out to the little girl, sand she is soon reaching Jake’s heart as well. But she has a past, one she can’t seem to break free from, and she’s determined not get Jake involved in her life.

 

J. Steven Butler

It’s not like Jake doesn’t have enough problems. A growing one is the wealthiest member of the church, the man who seems to own a good chunk of the time, is used to getting his way, and decides Jake is standing in the way. Dewey Knapp becomes a bottomless pit of increasingly l=malicious actions directed against his pastor.

 

J. Steven Butler takes these threads and sews them into a compelling story in Taking Boston. It’s an engaging tale, with characters life Jake, Boston, and Jessica drawn true-to-life (even if the awful Dewey Knapp seems almost too villainous). 

 

Butler has previously published four novels in the Sweeper sci fi/fantasy/apocalypse series and is currently writing a sequel to Taking Boston. He lives with his family in Georgia.

 

Some Thursday Readings

 

Whistler in Limehouse & Wapping – Spitalfields Life. 

 

To Read a Poem Quickly & Easily – Zina Gomez-Liss at The Beauty of Things.

 

Fatty Bolger, A Local Hero – Paul Schweigl at Front Porch Republic.

 

“You Are Old, Father William,” poem by Lewis Carroll – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Russian Roulette: The Woman Who Bet on Dostoevsky – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

"The Shell Collector" by Nancy Naigle

This is a story that doesn’t go the way you expect to go.

 

Amanda Whittier’s husband Jack is a Marine who dies in combat. Left with two young children, she’s devastated. Instead of going home to Ohio where her family lives, she moves to Whelk’s Island, off the North Carolina coast. She buys a small home near the beach, and she and the children are enjoying the summer before school starts for all three of them. Amanda will be teaching fourth grade. 

 

They meet Maeve Lindsay, long-time island resident. Widowed and without children, Maeve occupies her time with collecting shells on the beach. Amanda and her children slowly become something like Maeve’s family, and if there is a primary narrative in The Shell Collector by Nancy Naigle, it’s how two women separated by more than 50 years, become close friends and the next-best-thing to family. 

 

A secondary story line concerns Paul Grant, a former Marine who’s taken up residence on the island. He’s opened a dog training / boarding / day care business in a former strip mall, one with a special focus on helping veterans with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. While they don’t run into each other until halfway through the story, Paul and Amanda have a history. He was Jack’s best friend, who promised Amanda he would always watch out for Jack. Amanda blamed Paul for Jack’s death. 

 

Nancy Naigle

The Shell Collector is and isn’t a romance. It is and isn’t a story solely about different generations caring and watching out for each other. It is a story about three people learning to heal, and helping each other do that.

 

Naigle is the author of a considerable number of books in the romance and romantic suspense genres. Several of her books have become made-for-television movies, and she wrote the novelizations for the first three Christmas in Evergreenmovies for the Hallmark Channel. She began writing while working as senior vice president for Bank of America. Now retired from the finance industry, she lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains. 

 

The Shell Collector is a sweet story, one about people working through grief and hurt to learn how they get with their lives.

 

"The Irish Cottage" by Juliet Gauvin

Elizabeth Lara has taken an extended leave from work, a San Francisco law office where she’s a high-powered, high-adrenaline, and highly successful attorney specializing in divorce. In her mid-30s, she’s not allowed herself time to grieve the loss of her beloved great-aunt, the woman who raised her. Her life is catching up to her, and she’s run to Ireland, where she’s rented a cottage. Arriving there, she’s greeted by a naked man coming out of the shower. 

The naked man is Connor Bannon, who owns the property and the surrounding estate and didn’t know his real estate agent had rented the cottage. He’s borrowing the shower while the plumbing in his own house is repaired. Connor has about as much emotional baggage as Elizabeth, as he’s still mourning the loss of his mother and all of the circumstances surrounding his father.

 

Elizabeth and Connor discover a mutual attraction, one that grows in intensity over a fairly short period of time. Elizabeth is reading a series of letters her great-aunt left her, and now she’s beginning to take chances she never dreamed of taking.

 

Juliet Gauvin

The Irish Cottage: Finding Elizabeth is the first in the Irish Heart series by Juliet Gauvin. It’s a “finding one’s self / romance” kind of story that gets a bit R-rated and steamy in a few places. Well, perhaps a bit past R-rated.

 

Gauvin has published six books in the Irish Heart series, three in the “original romance trilogy” and three in the “continuing romance” trilogy. All six have the same two main characters, so I suspect it will be a while before Elizabeth and Connor get married. 

 

The Irish Cottage is a well-written, quick-reading romance steeped in the Irish countryside, customs, and traditions. It features mid-30s, two rather strong-willed main characters, who are able to imbibe large amounts of alcohol while they pursue each other.

“When I Come Home Again” by Jennifer Rodewald

The past can come back to surprise you. 

Brenna Blaum works as a speech therapist. She has a nice loft apartment in what had been the old Limestone Hotel in Big Prairie, Nebraska. She has a boyfriend who’s a psychologist and counselor at the high school. This is the town she grew up in, the town where her father was the storied football coach, and the town who’d loved her Down’s Syndrome brother Scottie, who died in a tragic accident with a snowplow.

 

And Big Prairie is now the town to which Craig Erickson, one of the best wide receivers thew town had ever seen, was coming home. He’s been gone for seven years, and he’s only coming back because his mother has cancer and needs help for both herself and the two boys she’s foster parenting. 

 

Brenna and Craig had been a couple. Everyone expected them to eventually marry. So did they. But Craig’s football fame grew in college, it looked like the NFL was calling, and Brenna developed a bad case of jealousy over the girls who threw themselves at Craig and even envy at his success. She was a world-class runner, with hopes for the Olympics. They eventually broke up, and then Scottie’s accident happened. Brenna blamed Craig, because he should have been working out with her brother like he did whenever he was home.

 

Jennifer Rodewald

A lot of anger is simmering right below the surface, and sometimes above the surface. Brenna thinks she’s over the relationship, but even her current boyfriend knows she’s not. And Craig is struggling.

When I Come Home Again by Jennifer Rodewald is the story of Brenna and Craig and the first in the author’s Big Prairie series. Rodewald tells a good story; the novel is well-written and a cut well above most romance novels.

 

Rodewald has written several novels in the Rock Creek Romance series, the Grace Revealed series, and the Big Prairie Romance series, as well as several standalone books. She’s also written several young adult novels in the Uncloaked series. 

 

When I Come Home Again is a story with a wide appeal. It’s a romance, to be sure, but it’s what I’d call a thought-provoking romance. You learn how the past can continue to haunt, about what’s most important in football, about the difficulties for foster parenting for both parents and children, about speech therapy, and about the values that guide life in a small town. It’s a well-done novel.

"Brush Creek Cowboy" by Liz Isaacson

Walker Thompson is the foreman for a ranch in Utah. He lives there with his nine-year-old son Michael. Walker has been a widower for six years, since his beloved wife Libby died from cancer. 

Walker regularly does volunteer work with Tess Wagner, a widow whose husband died in a work accident. She moved to the area with her now seven-year-old son Graham after her husband’s death and her own fight with breast cancer. 

 

Walker and Tess like each other as friends, they enjoy working together as volunteers, and their boys are good friends. Both lost spouses they dearly loved. It would seem almost inevitable that they might develop a relationship, but that hasn’t happened. Until now.

 

Liz Isaacson

Brush Creek Cowboy by Liz Isaacson is the story of Walker and Tess, how they kindle a relationship, how it goes awry, and how it might come back together again. Walker carries a lot of baggage about the death of his first wife, and he is almost single-mindedly focused on raising his son.

 

Isaacson is the author of numerous western romance stories, many set in Utah and published as series. These include the Three Rivers Ranch series, the Horseshoe Home Ranch series, the Grape Seed Falls series, the Brush Creek series, the Steeple Ridge series, and several others. She also publishes the Possession series under the pen name Elana Johnson.

 

Brush Creek Cowboy is novella in length and serves as the introduction to the Brush Creek series. It could easily have been a longer story; events happen very quickly to keep the short form romance moving. And it doesn’t end the way the reader might have expected. It’s a happy ending story, but it gets there only after several unexpected turns. 

"Love on a Limb" by Laurie Lewis

Matt Grayken has wealthy parents and his own highly successful personal travel business. He’s a handsome man, respected by his employees, and loved by his parents. But Matt has a problem; he has leukemia. He had it as a young child and a recurrence some years before as a young adult. And now it’s back. 

What he doesn’t want is his health to be overseen by his parents. He loves them, but they managed his previous recurrence, and it nearly killed him. He needs someone to be in charge, and he develops a plan to marry for health reasons. And the woman he chooses in Mikaela Compton, a nurse specializing in oncology. They haven’t met, but he’s overheard her comforting other patients. And knowing little else about her, Matt has fallen in love with her.

 

He arranges a meeting and explains his plan. Almost like a business contract, the marriage would be geared to managing his health, because Matt doesn’t expect to survive this round of leukemia. Mikaela accepts his offer, not knowing he’s in love with her. Before too much time passes, Mikaela finds herself falling in love with Matt. But there are problems looking – his friends, his parents, and the overall hopelessness of his situation. Matt was adopted from Ireland, and no one’s been able to learn what family he might have come from to arrange a possible bone marrow transplant.

 

Laurie Lewis

Love on a Limb by Laurie Lewis is Matt and Mikaela’s story. The premise may strain credibility at first, but the story delivers. It’s a compelling tale with well-researched medical issues and two main characters who are drawn true-to-life. And, as might be expected from a story involving love and life-threatening illness, it’s a tear-jerker. 

 

Lewis writes historical fiction as L.C. Lewis, romance and women's fiction as Laurie Lewis, and general fiction as Laurie L.C. Lewis. She’s published some 12 novels. Love on a Limb is the first of the Great Expectations Love Stories: The Graykens series: the sequel is Love on the Line.

 

Related:

 

The Dragons of Alsace Farm by Laurie Lewis.

“All That Stands Between Us” by Annette Larsen

There are the Capulets and the Montagues, and there are the Hanes and the Millers.  

The Hanes and the Millers are next-door neighbors. They used to be the best of friends. The fathers were even partners in a business venture, until a disgruntled customer made trouble in an unrelated business to Mr. Miller. A fraud investigation followed, involving the FBI. Because the business venture, the Hanes were investigated as well. Both families ended up losing pretty much everything. And the Hanes blamed the Millers for the financial losses as well as their children’s plans for college and beyond. 

 

They don’t talk. Mrs. Hanes planted a hedge to shield the view from the Millers. They sit on separate sides of church. 

 

Julie Hanes, a senior in college, is home for Thanksgiving. Drew Miller, some four years older, is home for the holiday as well. They meet in a park, neither recognizing the other. Even when they discover they’re on different sides of the feud, circumstances keep throwing them together. And the inevitable happens: A Hanes and a Miller fall in love.

 

Annette Larsen

With a nod to William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet, author Annette Larsen has penned All That Stands Between Us, a contemporary version of the story that leaves out the deaths and suicides and provides an often-comic tale. It’s a story of how friends can nurse grudges, and how grudges can carry over to and afflict the next generation. 

Larsen is the author of nine romance novels. A native of Utah, she has also lived in Arizona, Virginia, and Missouri before settling in Idaho with her family. She also blogs about romance and fiction at her blog.

 

Just when you think the story has gone too far with the grudge business, you stop and think about how families can often behave. And you realize All That Stands Between Us is entirely plausible and a surprisingly fun read.

"The Royal's Best Friend" by Brenna Jacobs

Peyton Shellhouse has just secured her family’s island home in Magnolia Bay, South Carolina, in advance of a hurricane, when the bridges are closed. She stays with the property, but she loses all communication with the outside world. Her best friend, Will Maxwell, lives and works in London, and is so desperate to make sure she’s safe that he flies to the States. 

Will is the younger son of an earl, which means no inheritance and no title, except “gentleman.” His two best friends from Cambridge University are younger sons of titled aristocrats as well. They call themselves the gents, and they’re going about trying to figure out how to make living like everyone else. 

 

Peyton and Will may be best friends, but they both harbor strong feelings for each other. And perhaps something stronger than “strong feelings.” As Will stays to help cleanup from the storm damage, he convinces his two friends to come over and help as well. And then Will’s old girlfriend Bianca arrives. They’ve broken up numerous times, always because of something outrageous Bianca has done. She may be beautiful, but she’d give Cruella De Vil a run for the money.

 

Brenna Jacobs

Will suggests, and Peyton reluctantly agrees, a sham dating relationship to make Bianca go away. What Will doesn’t expect is that Peyton, with steel magnolia charm, will not only run rings around Bianca but Will as well.

 

The Royal’s Best Friend by Brenna Jacobs is the first in the Gentlemen of Magnolia Bay series by Brenna Jacobs. It’s a fund, light read, telling a good story about two people have to learn how much they not only care for each other but actually love each other profoundly.

 

Jacobs has published numerous romances in three series – the Sweet Romantic Series, the ABC’s of Love series, and the Gents of Magnolia Bay series, which includes The Royals’ Enemy and The Royal’s Fake Bride. 

 

With The Royal’s Best Friend, if you like southern charm, an island romance, with a dash of British aristocracy, I think you may have found your story. Not to mention a villainess who gets her comeuppance.

“Hannah” by Chris Keniston

Hannah Farraday, of the Texas Hill Country Farradays, has moved to West Texas, home of another branch of the Farraday family. She’s in the process of setting up a horse therapy business, using horses and riding to help people recover from physical and emotional tragedies. She’s taking one of the horses for a ride when a motorcyclist startles the animal and Hannah ends up on the ground. 

Dale Johnson is the motorcyclist, and he comes to Hannah’s aid. Johnson is desperately trying to get to New Mexico using country roads; the man is on the run from some unspoken danger. He is in the area for one reason – to let his former Dallas police partner (and now town sheriff) D.J. Farraday know what’s happening. 

 

Johnson has recently left a hospital, and the last thing he should be doing is sitting for hours on a motorcycle. He develops blood clots, and the West Texas Farradays find themselves with an unexpected guest for a few days while he recovers. Which suits Hannah just fine. Dale needs to leave and knows he’s endangering everyone with his presence, but the clots have to dissipate, and he’s becoming interested in Hannah.

 

Chris Keniston

Hannah is the eighth book in the Farraday Country series by Chris Keniston. It’s a well-written romance with an intriguing and well-developed premise, but I have two relatively small complaints. If mild profanity doesn’t fit or seems awkward to the reader, it may be that it was force-fitted on to dialogue. If it adds nothing to the story or the characters, don’t use it. Second, the resolution of the mystery at the heart of the story is a bit too convenient; some indications could have been added or alluded to earlier on.

 

Keniston is the author of numerous romance novels and stories. She has nine books in the Hart Land series; eleven in the Farraday Country series; nine in the Aloha Closed Door Series; six in the Surf’s Up series (episodes); nine in the original Aloha Series; six in the Family Secrets series; two in the Honeymoon Series; and one in the Main Street Romance Flirts Series. She and her family live in suburban Dallas.

"Meet Me Under the Mistletoe" by JoAnn Durgin

Starlight is a small town in Iowa, with a strong sense of community and small-town values. Firefighter Jake Marston is perfectly content to live in the house he grew up in, do the work he does to protect the community, help whenever he can, and actively volunteer his time. He had a girlfriend, but the big city lights of Des Moines beckoned, and she let him know she had left – by email. He has a secret, a vow he made to God. He will not kiss a woman until he knows she is the one he’ll marry. 

Julia is the sister of Jake’s best friend and firefighting colleague Dylan. She’s visiting from Cedar Rapids, where she works as a hospital nurse. Jake finds himself enormously attracted to her. But there’s a problem: Julia is engaged, Dylan says, even if she isn’t wearing an engagement ring. And, his friend says, she’s really touchy about the subject, so it’s best to avoid it.

 

JoAnn Durgin

Jake agrees, but that doesn’t stop the attraction. He goes out of his to avoid her, but events seem to conspire to throw them together. But Julia has a secret of her own, and if she tells Jake what it is, she might risk any kind of relationship with this guy she finds herself falling in love with.

 

Meet Me Under the Mistletoe by JoAnn Durgin is the story of Jake and Julia. It’s a fun, sweet story about small towns, friendship, romance, and faith, with a hometown hero who'd like nothing better than to settle down, find love, and raise a family.

 

Durgin is the author of numerous romance novels, published under 10 series. Meet Me Under the Mistletoe is the first of four novels in the Starlight Christmas series. She and her pastor husband have lived all over the United States, and currently live in Kentucky. She’s been writing and publishing since 2010.

Christmas Romance Novellas (Part 1)

The novella is a popular form for romances of all types. It introduces readers to a writer; it’s less expensive (and a less expensive risk) if you’ve never encountered the writer before. It can serve as a promotion for a series or a standalone novel.  

And the novella form seems to proliferate in the Christmas season. Its popularity at this time of the year is likely due to several factors, including the romance we often associate with Christmas, a shorter from is easier to digest during the busy season, and a short-form work of fiction offers a nice escape from gift buying, decorating, food preparation, and all of the other “events” of the Christmas season. And if it’s a novella and a romance, it has to have a happy ending – and this year, of all years, it’s nice to escape to something (or anything) with a happy ending. 

 

If the past few weeks, I’ve binged on Christmas novellas. Part of the reason was a few happened to come my way almost by accident, a few showed up as promotions, and more than a few showed up from a publisher’s promotion. Today and tomorrow this week, and for two days next week, I’ll be doing short reviews of only a few examples of what’s available. Here are five.

 

In Mary’s Christmas Surprise by Carol James, Mary Sherman returns unexpectedly to her parents’ home after her fiancé has broken their engagement. What was expected to have been a celebratory Christmas in Colorado has become something more like ashes on the hearth. Her parents are traveling, and she expects to be alone with the family dog. Except for Jake Wolesky, a carpenter who is renting a room from the Shermans until he finds a place to live. 

 

Mary hears someone moving around the house in the middle of the night and calls the police. It turns out the police know Jake very well – the officers work in his carpentry shop and share a Bible study with him.  The story has a cute premise and is an entertaining read.

 

Redeeming Christmas, also by Carol James, involves romance writer Olivia Slootsky (whose pen name is Olivia St. Madeleine) doing what she does best – watching people to invent stories for them and insert new characters into her books. One she spots buying perfume is Gabe Winter, whom she imagines to be an undercover copy, single dad, and half a dozen other things. Gabe turns out to be her grandmother’s new neighbor, and it’s clear that one thing is going to lead to another. It’s Christmas time, and Olivia’s grandmother is going to make sure Gabe is at their house. A lot. It’s a fun story.

 

Penny’s Yuletide Wish by Sally Britton is a historical romance novella set in a small town in Regency England. Robert Ellsworth and Penelope Clark had been inseparable childhood friends, until Penny’s parents died, and she and her brothers moved away to live with relatives. She and her aunt are visiting, staying with a local family for the Christmas holiday. Robert is an estate manager, feeling the sting of the class structure which places him far down the social ladder.

 

Penny, for her part, believes she offers a poor prospect for marriage, having a relatively small dowry and no real social position. She and Robert gradually discover their mutual attraction through a series of dinners and balls. Britton does a good job of capturing the class consciousness of the period and as well as the historical detail. 

 

Dr. Noah and the Sugar Plum Fairy by Carla Rossi might have a title that raises eyebrows, but it is a funny story; Rossi has a gift for comic dialogue and a ditz of a character in Jane Trumbull. Jane brings an ailing cat to the emergency vet service. Expecting to see her usual veterinarian, she’s surprised to a different vet, young Noah Barron. They strike up a friendship, and Dr. Noah (which is what Jane calls him) learns that Jane by choice takes a back seat to her sister’s ballet dancing. The Local production of The Nutcracker is imminent, and the sister gets the flu. Jane’s ballet opportunity happens simultaneously with a growing romance with Dr. Noah.

 

Time’s Arrow by Clare Revell is a time travel romance. Jonni Peterson is housesitting while friends are on their honeymoon. It’s a big old pile of place, and the friends have hereditary titles. She’s quit her job because of the pressure exerted by her boos to become something more than an employee and a girlfriend. She goes out for a walk one snowy evening and finds herself run over by a horse and carriage.

 

Lord Sebastian Tyler, third Earl of Elton, is being driven home with his sister and mother when the coachman pulls up short. A young woman has been trampled and is lying unconscious on the side of the road. The Tylers take her home, noting how strangely she’s dressed, wearing pants like a man. When Jonni awakens, she learns she’s now living in the year 1841, and a considerable part of the plot centers on the differences between the 19^th and 21^st centuries and how Jonni will get back to her own time. That’s assuming, of course, she decides that what she wants to do. The story is fun romp set in the early Victorian period.

Tomorrow: Christmas, Suspense, and Romance.

Top photograph by Julia Bonilla via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Books I'm Not Recommending for Christmas

Each December, I publish my list of books I’m not recommending for Christmas. I could also call the list “the best books I read this year,” but I try not to press too hard on people as to what my ideas of what they should read. People can usually figure that out for themselves. Perhaps the real point of this is to look back at the year, and review the books that impressed me, challenged me, cheered me, and perhaps even changed me a little. 

Looking at this list, and comparing it to previous lists, I can see that I’m increasingly moving away from what’s popular or celebrated in the culture. You won’t find many bestsellers or national prizewinners here. You also won’t find much that is transiently popular – books that skyrocket to fame because they happened to be available when something notable happened – but soon disappear into the pile you keep in the basement because they’re no longer news.

 

Here it is, the 2020 edition of the books I’m not recommending for Christmas. I haven’t selected any as “No. 1” in their category; instead, I’ve grouped the handful of the best titles in each category in no particular order. Each are linked to my review either here at Faith, Fiction, Friends, at Dancing Priest, or at Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

Literary Criticism and Biography

 

You can find some really fine analyses and biographies of writers and poets. These are some of the best I read this year. I really, really liked Cross of Snow.

 

The Music of Time: Poetry in the Twentieth Century by John Burnside.

 

The Making of Poetry: Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Their Year of Marvels by Adam Nicolson.

 

Cross of Snow: A Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow by Nicholas Basbanes.

 

The Poet and the Fly: Art, Nature, God, Mortality, and Other Elusive Mysteries by Robert Hudson.

 

The Soul is a Stranger in This World: Essays on Poets and Poetry by Micah Mattix.

 

Tolkien’s Lost Chaucer by John Bowers. 

 

Poetry

 

I’ve loved poetry since elementary school, when we were required to memorize and recite poems (usually something like “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere” by Longfellow. I found T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets” in high school. It made such a profound impact that I can even remember the bookshop where I bought it. And then poetry stuck throughout my career as (among other things) a speechwriter. 

 

Saudade: Poems by Nigel Kent.

 

Left Waiting: Poems by River Dixon.

 

HellWard: The English Elegies Vol. 1 by James Sale.

 

The Best Poems of Jane Kenyon, edited by Donald Hall.

 

Federico Garcia Lorca Blues: Poems by Justin Hamm.

 

Things My Mother Left Behind: Poems by Susan Richardson.

 

Railsplitter: Poems by Maurice Manning.

 

Andalusian Hours: Poemsfrom the Porch of Flannery O’Connor by Angela Alaimo O’Donnell.

 

When Your Phone Dies: A Hurricane in My Head by Matt Abbott.

 

Non-fiction and Memoir

 

On the Shoulders of Hobbits: The Road to Virtue with Tolkien and Lewis by Louis Markos.

 

Wilber Wilberforce: A Hero for Humanity by Kevin Belmonte.

 

Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story by Wilfred McClay.

 

Between Two Millstones, Vol. 1 by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

 

Borges and Me by Jay Parini.

 

The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry, edited by Norman Wirzba.

 

What We’re Teaching Our Sons by Owen Booth.

 

Tough Issues, True Hope by Luke Davis.

 

General Fiction

 

I likely read more general fiction than anything else, most likely because I write it. Writing it gives you an appreciation for what fiction writers can do, where they fall short, and where they soar.

 

Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger.

 

The Old American Artist by Felipe Adan Lerma.

 

Stay by Catherine Ryan Hyde.

 

A Man by Keiichiro Hirano.

 

Waiting for Neruda’s Memoirs by Laura Boggess. 

 

Beautiful Sky Beautiful Sky by Stephen Parolini.

 

Mystery

 

I love mysteries; I loved reading them since I was a kid. This year, I read (or reread) all of the Philo Vance mysteries by S.S. Van Dine, which were wildly popular in the 1920s and gradually declined in popularity in the 1930s. The great Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins said Van Dine was the only author he never had to edit (unlike F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and Thomas Wolfe). Rather than list individual titles, I’ve listed authors of whom I’ve several works this year. Everything they write is good. The links will take you to the most recent review which will include a list of all of their works I’ve read and written about.

 

Roy Lewis – The Eric Ward Mysteries.

 

William Brodrick – The Father Anselm Mysteries.

 

Simon Michael – the Charles Holborn Legal Thrillers.

 

Jonathan Dunsky – the Adam Lapid Mysteries.

 

Fire in the Barley by Roger Longrigg.

 

Romance

 

Most romance novels are generally written according to a formula: Woman (or man) returns to hometown and rekindles romance with first love. Here are four that break away from that formula.

 

That Hollister Man by Margaret Desmond.

 

Peace in the Valley by Ruth Logan Herne.

 

His Father’s Son by Autumn Macarthur.

 

Hoping for Hawthorne by Tara Grace Miller.

 

Classics

 

Classic books don’t have to be by big-name authors. What defines a classic is that its influence (and popularity) lasts, or that it broke ground when it was published and still hasn’t been equaled. Here are a few I read this year.

 

The House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

 

Shakespeare of London by Marchette Chute.

 

The Crime Novels of Ruben Fonseca.

 

The Tell-Tale Heart: The Life and Works of Edgar Allen Poe by Julian Symon.

 

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad.

 

Top photo by Jarred Craig via Unsplash. Used with permission.