January favorites

 Violet Thistlewaite Is Not a Villain Anymore by Emily Krempholtz (Ace, 18 November 2025),

Guy Shadowfade is dead, and after a lifetime as the dark sorcerer’s right-hand, Violet Thistlewaite is determined to start over—not as the fearsome Thornwitch, but as someone kind. Someone better. Someone good.

The quaint town of Dragon’s Rest, Violet decides, will be her second chance—she’ll set down roots, open a flower shop, keep her sentient (mildly homicidal) houseplant in check, and prune dark magic from the twisted boughs of her life.

Violet’s vibrant bouquets and cheerful enchantments soon charm the welcoming townsfolk, though nothing seems to impress the prickly yet dashingly handsome Nathaniel Marsh, an alchemist sharing her greenhouse. With a struggling business and his own second chance seemingly out of reach, Nathaniel has no time for flowers or frippery—and certainly none for the intriguing witch next door.

When a mysterious blight endangers every living plant in Dragon’s Rest, Violet and Nathaniel must work together, through their fears, and pasts to save their community. But with a figure from her previous life knocking at her door and her secrets threatening to uproot everything she’s worked so hard to grow, Violet can’t help but wonder…does a former villain truly deserve a happily-ever-after?

Mrs. Spy by M.J Robotham (Bloomsbury Publishing, 15 July 2025).

Maggie Flynn isn't your typical mum.  

She's a spy, an operative for MI5, stalking London's streets in myriad disguises.

Widowed and balancing her clandestine career with raising a Beatles-mad teenage daughter, Maggie finds comfort and purpose in her profession – providing a connection to her late husband, whose own covert past only surfaced after his death.

But Maggie's world spins out of control when a chance encounter with a mysterious Russian agent triggers a chilling revelation: he knew her husband. And what's worse, the agent suspects someone on home soil betrayed him.

As Maggie searches for answers, she'll question everyone – and everything – she thought she could trust. In the murky and perilous world of espionage, can she outsmart those determined to keep her silenced?

See my review of Mrs. Spy here.

The Reckoning (A Renata Drake Thriller) by Kelli Stanley.

California, Southern Humboldt County, 1985. Renata Drake steps off a Greyhound bus and into small-town Garberville, hoping to disappear. She checks the papers. She’s not headline news. Not yet.

But she’s made a mistake. The FBI have the cannabis-producing “Emerald Triangle” town— and its corrupt residents—in their sights. Even worse, a teenage girl is missing, and when she turns up dead, the third in three years, it’s clear a serial killer is living among them.

Renata knows about murdered girls and the burning desire for justice—and for revenge. Her younger sister Josie is gone, and now, so is the man who killed her. Renata didn’t stay in Washington, D.C. to be arrested for executing a murderer, and she shouldn’t stay here either. But Renata decides to investigate, and what she uncovers will trigger a final reckoning: For herself, for a killer, and for all of Southern Humboldt.

See my review of The Reckoning here.

Cross-posted on my Substack.

Just finished reading...

 The Reckoning by Kelli Stanley (Severn House, 6 January 2026).

I read this book without knowing much about it, except that it takes place in 1985 in Humboldt County, California.  And that was written by Kelli Stanley.

The story is written in the first person (something that Kelli excels at) from Renata's point of view.  Thus, we know how she's feeling about events as they occur, and how they connect to her motivations and her background.  

We learn in the first chapter that the date is September 20, and that Renata Drake is running from something.  We also learn that she took a Greyhound bus from somewhere to Garberville, California simply because she remembered it from a photo she'd seen as a child.

At first, she's just trying to hide, but it's hard. The situation in Humboldt County at the time was akin to Prohibition earlier in the century, (except the substance was cannabis instead of alcohol) so there was a large law enforcement presence.

Yes, this book is fiction, but Garberville and its environs are real. Searching for information and photos of the area, I found that while much has changed in almost 41 years, some places look eerily similar to they way Renata describes them.  

Open-hearted and independent, Renata is at the same time vulnerable.  As a librarian, one of the things I liked most about her was her love of books and bookish people. 

Not a traditional thriller, but more of a historical mystery, this is one of those books that I wanted to read as fast as possible to find out what happened, but also slowly to savor the prose.  I think hope I managed both.

The Reckoning is the first 2026 [book] publication that I've read.  Even so, I'm certain that it will be on my "favorites" list at the end of the year.

If you read it and enjoy it, do yourself a favor and read Ms. Stanley's backlist as well.

Kelli and me at Bouchercon 2024

Kelli Stanley is the award-winning author of historical crime fiction, both novels and short stories.  

She also founded the Anthony award-winning non-profit publisher, Nasty Woman Press. Kelli earned a Master's Degree in Classics (and a double BA in Classics and Art History), loves jazz, old movies, battered fedoras, Art Deco and speakeasies. Like Renata, Ms. Stanley is also a fan of books and bookish people.

She credits Raymond Chandler, Ernest Hemingway, Cornell Woolrich, Dashiell Hammett and Thomas Hardy as some of her major influences.

Cross-posted to my Substack.

Bouchercon 2024 - Day 2 - Thursday, August 29

 I know, I know.

I posted on August 30 that I'd continue my Bouchercon recap the next day, and here it is more than a week later.

In my defense, we rose before dawn on August 31 to catch a 6 a.m. flight home.  Which meant that although we arrived home by 9:30, we  spent a good deal of the remainder of the morning catching up on sleep.

And then I woke up the next day coughing and sneezing.  I'm still coughing a bit, but feeling much more energetic.

So... Thursday at Bouchercon, there were few panels that caught my interest, except for the guest of honor interview:  Andrew Child (aka Andrew Grant) interviewed historical author g.o.h. Kelli Stanley.  

The subject matter ranged from Kelli's childhood in Northern California to her interest in history and classics, which eventually led to Kelli writing two  historical fiction series.  

Kelli is also an activist, and created Nasty Woman Press, which in 2020 published the Anthony Award-winning anthology Shattering Glass.

Kelli was  the brains behind the Free Books event scheduled for the next evening, which both Andrew and I were participating in (to be covered in another post).

That interview was really the only event I attended that day.  I did scour the book room, but mostly I hid in the hotel room and tried to get over the jet lag.

More to come...

Kelli's back!

Since Kelli is a crime fiction author, she added her favorite "murder poem".     --MKB

For crime fiction fans, the story of the spurned or unfaithful lover as a plot device is our bread and butter … and one of the best depictions of a royally psychotic murderer I’ve ever read is My Last Duchess by Robert Browning.

FERRARA

That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,

Looking as if she were alive. I call

That piece a wonder, now; Fra Pandolf’s hands

Worked busily a day, and there she stands.

Will’t please you sit and look at her? I said

“Fra Pandolf” by design, for never read

Strangers like you that pictured countenance,

The depth and passion of its earnest glance,

But to myself they turned (since none puts by

The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)

And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,

How such a glance came there; so, not the first

Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, ’twas not

Her husband’s presence only, called that spot

Of joy into the Duchess’ cheek; perhaps

Fra Pandolf chanced to say, “Her mantle laps

Over my lady’s wrist too much,” or “Paint

Must never hope to reproduce the faint

Half-flush that dies along her throat.” Such stuff

Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough

For calling up that spot of joy. She had

A heart—how shall I say?— too soon made glad,

Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er

She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.

Sir, ’twas all one! My favour at her breast,

The dropping of the daylight in the West,

The bough of cherries some officious fool

Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule

She rode with round the terrace—all and each

Would draw from her alike the approving speech,

Or blush, at least. She thanked men—good! but thanked

Somehow—I know not how—as if she ranked

My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name

With anybody’s gift. Who’d stoop to blame

This sort of trifling? Even had you skill

In speech—which I have not—to make your will

Quite clear to such an one, and say, “Just this

Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,

Or there exceed the mark”—and if she let

Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set

Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse—

E’en then would be some stooping; and I choose

Never to stoop. Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt,

Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without

Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;

Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands

As if alive. Will’t please you rise? We’ll meet

The company below, then. I repeat,

The Count your master’s known munificence

Is ample warrant that no just pretense

Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;

Though his fair daughter’s self, as I avowed

At starting, is my object. Nay, we’ll go

Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,

Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,

Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!

Brr. Gives me chills. Speaking of which, there is one poem—I dare not reproduce it—that I’ve always felt both defines insanity and evokes it in the reader. The rhythm, the alliteration, the repetition, the onomatopoeia is, I’m convinced, madness-inducing. If you’re willing to risk it, read (just once) Poe’s The Bells.

Finally, some observations. Unsurprisingly, my preferences for some poets and their work have changed as I’ve grown older. While Fern Hill by Dylan Thomas is an indelibly beautiful indulgence in childhood nostalgia, it now irritates rather than elucidates. Not so Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night,  which, like similar Shakespearean sonnets, remains a stalwart favorite.  Likewise, I enjoyed Spring and Fall (Gerard Manley Hopkins) when I was younger; now I see it as pretty but pompous proselytizing.

In addition to the poetry I’ve mentioned above, one stands out every New Year, composed by my favorite British writer and poet, Thomas Hardy. I’ll leave you with this, which he wrote on the turning of the twentieth century. 

Here’s wishing you all joy in reading—and writing—our oldest form of creative communication!

The Darkling Thrush

I leant upon a coppice gate

When Frost was spectre-grey,

And Winter's dregs made desolate

The weakening eye of day.

The tangled bine-stems scored the sky

Like strings of broken lyres,

And all mankind that haunted nigh

Had sought their household fires.

The land's sharp features seemed to be

The Century's corpse outleant,

His crypt the cloudy canopy,

The wind his death-lament. 

The ancient pulse of germ and birth                                                                                          Was shrunken hard and dry,                                                                                                         And every spirit upon earth                                                                                                     Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among

The bleak twigs overhead

In a full-hearted evensong

Of joy illimited;

An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,

In blast-beruffled plume,

Had chosen thus to fling his soul

Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings

Of such ecstatic sound

Was written on terrestrial things

Afar or nigh around,

That I could think there trembled through

His happy good-night air

Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew 

And I was unaware.

Please welcome guest blogger Kelli Stanley!

Kelli is the Macavity Award-winning creator of the Miranda Corbie series (CITY OF DRAGONS, CITY OF SECRETS, CITY OF GHOSTS, CITY OF SHARKS), literary noir novels set in 1940 San Francisco and featuring "one of crime's most arresting heroines" (Library Journal). She is also a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist.

She holds a Master’s Degree in Classics, a background she put to good use with her creation of “Roman Noir”: her first book, NOX DORMIENDA, won the Bruce Alexander Award for best historical mystery. The City and County of San Francisco awarded her a Certificate of Merit for her contributions to literature.

Kelli’s next novel is THE RECKONING. She founded Nasty Woman Press, a unique genre-based non-profit publisher, on November 9th, 2016.

*******************

When Marlyn asked me to write something about a favorite poem, I was both delighted and overwhelmed by making such a difficult choice!

Poetry has always been a passion of mine. As a teenager who loved alliteration and rhythm and the musicality of words (I partially credit an early exposure to Poe for this), when I rode a bus to my rural school for thirty miles and back again every day, I devoured everything from Blake to Browning to Coleridge to Kipling. I spent a good portion of my younger life and previous academic career both translating and authoring poetry, particularly sonnets, my favorite form.

Since naming a favorite poem is simply impossible, I’ll just mention a few …

Shakespeare’s sonnets—particularly those devoted to the subject of love—are unmatched. Among those I enjoy the most are #116, #130 and #29.

Beyond the Bard, though, the pursuit, enrapture and bitter dissolution of love has long been a theme in poetry (keep in mind that in the classical world, song was poetry and poetry was song), and you won’t find a more brilliant, trenchant and emotional roller coaster of the full experience than in the works of the Roman poet Catullus. Sappho, too, justly earned copious praise through millennia for the unfortunately few fragments of her verse that survived, but Catullus remains my personal favorite.

Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus,
rumoresque senum severiorum
omnes unius aestimemus assis!


soles occidere et redire possunt;
nobis, cum semel occidit brevis lux,
nox est perpetua una dormienda.

da mi basia mille, deinde centum,
dein mille altera, dein secunda centum,
deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum.

dein, cum milia multa fecerimus,
conturbabimus illa, ne sciamus,
aut ne quis malus invidere possit,
cum tantum sciat esse basiorum.

Here’s my translation of the Latin:

Let’s live, my Lesbia, and let’s love—

And not give a damn for the gossip
Of sanctimonious old fools.

Suns may fall—and rise again;
When once the brief light dims for us,
There’s but one long night for sleeping.

Give me a thousand, then a hundred kisses
Then a thousand and a hundred more
Again a hundred, again a thousand.

And after we’ve kissed so many, many kisses,
Let’s mix them all up, so we won’t know the number—
Or so some jealous sort can’t jinx us, trying
To discover just how many kisses there were.

I took the title for Nox Dormienda (A Long Night for Sleeping), my first novel, from this particular poem.

Love and death are forever linked in the human psyche and therefore literature, not only in the work of classical poets like Catullus and Horace, but by stalwarts like metaphysical poet Andrew Marvell (no relation to Captain). “To His Coy Mistress” is a brilliant exhortation to carpe diem akin to the earlier “To the Virgins, To Make Much of Time” by Robert Herrick, but far more subtle in its pitch. Their descendant is “Only the Good Die Young” by Billy Joel …

To be continued tomorrow...

Releasing today: Shattering Glass!

Shattering Glass, edited by Heather Graham.  (Nasty Woman Press, 16 June 2020).

(This review was originally published in Crimespree Magazine.)

After the 2016 US Federal Election, many people were shocked, angry, and disappointed. 

The largest percentage of this group was female.  Women of all ages were furious that a fraudster had been elected by a minority of the country’s population to be its leader.  

Some marched.  

Some ran for office.

One woman, Kelli Stanley, an award-winning mystery author (and someone I’m proud to call my friend), did something about it.  She gathered her like-minded friends and organized a group to which would eventually become Nasty Woman Press.  

Next month, NWP’s first anthology will be published.  Entitled Shattering Glass, it contains essays, interviews, conversations, and short fiction by over 35 well-known writers of both genders.

The theme of Shattering Glass is female empowerment, and the number of different interpretations of this theme are astonishing!  All the submissions have one other thing in common:  they are very powerful. 

Ordinarily, a book of 30-odd very short pieces would take me no more than a day or two to read, but before I even opened my ARC, I decided that I was going read more slowly than usual, and allow myself time to digest, ponder, and hopefully understand the writer’s intent. 

My favorite pieces were the interviews and conversations: Jacqueline Winspear interviewing Anne Lamott, Kelli Stanley interviewing Senator Barbara Boxer, and conversations between Cara Black and Hallie Ephron, Winspear and Rhys Bowen.

All the short stories and essays were riveting, too, but it’s difficult for me to name a favorite.  Some of them are disturbing, RachelHowzell Hall’s Down Girl, a novella in 24 pages, was so powerful that I had to take a 48-hour break to process. 

I was expecting a short story from professor and prolific author Jess Lourey, but her contribution was a very intimate and moving essay about dark times in her life (another piece that took a while to digest.

It’s very difficult to know what else to highlight. The thought-provoking essay by Valerie Plame? The fact that nearly a third of the authors are men? 

Did I mention that all of the pieces are very, very good?

Shattering Glass will be released on June 16, 2020 by Nasty Woman Press, and will be available as an e-book ($9.99), trade paperback ($19.99) and hardcover ($29.99).

All profits from the sales of Shattering Glass will be donated to Planned Parenthood.