I’ve rotated our cold-weather clothes with our warm-weather clothes so many years, I could do it in my sleep. From the looks of some of our clothes, I may have been doing it in my sleep.

Neither the husband nor I are clothes horses. We’re more like clothes turtles.

I could use some new pants, but I’m waiting until the styles change. The ...Read more

Someone has staged them with nails, blood and a cold sense of purpose. The police see a grotesque crime scene. A defense attorney sees a case that will swallow his career. A social worker sees a summons that feels older than the city itself.

Daniel Grace’s debut novel, "In the Wake of Golgotha," starts with that shock and then keeps its foot ...Read more

In his book "Hard Feelings: Finding the Wisdom in Our Darkest Emotions," Daniel Smith’s contemplative reflection is both rewarding and cathartic, as he explores the emotions he has contended with over his lifetime and the scholarly research that has examined similar feelings. Each chapter is full of rewarding insight into feelings such as ...Read more

My desk drawer is a mess. It’s always a mess. Even after I tidy it up, it reverts to a mess as soon as I close the drawer.

I think it’s because I do things quickly. I move fast and mess things up fast. But even if I slowed down, it would still be a mess, just a mess on slow bake.

My desk is considered communal property in that it sits in ...Read more

Some romances race toward the first kiss. "Only the Small Bones" by C.P. Harris takes the longer road — the one lined with rules that exist for a reason. Do not touch. Do not push. Do not demand words that will not come. Harris opens her tale with urgency, then settles into something more intimate: the hours after crisis, the strange quiet ...Read more

There is a particular silence that follows a fertility appointment. It sits in the car between two people who don’t know what to say. It hums in the background of baby showers and holiday dinners. It lingers in the two-week wait, in the clinic portal notification, in the careful recalculating of hope.

"When Waiting Becomes Life: Encouraging ...Read more

I love a clean car — no trash on the floor, no empty plastic water bottles rolling around, no fossilized fries smashed into floor mats. A clean car makes me happy.

Sometimes, if the car is clean on the inside and the outside, I’m so happy I throw it in park at red lights and car dance like crazy.

Not really. But I’m car dancing on the ...Read more

In his newest novel, Grant Ginder gives the perfect read for 20-somethings, 30-somethings and beyond, and proves to us that friendships may come and go, but the memories never will.

"So Old, So Young" follows a group of six friends over 20 years, as the real world intervenes, adulthood beckons and they struggle to maintain their relationships ...Read more

"Look Twice: Your Guide to Staying Safe in an Unsafe World, Volume I" lands in a steady, practical place. Tim Beard writes like someone who has spent years thinking about risk and then came home to translate that mindset for ordinary life. The result feels less like a lecture and more like a field manual you can carry into Monday morning.

This ...Read more

A document detailing our health care expenditures just arrived in the mail.

“Shocking,” I said.

“You mean the cost of health care?” the husband asked.

“No — documentation that we are officially fixer-uppers.”

There it was, right before our eyes. Three months of physical therapy for a back injury from crawling into the far back ...Read more

""Pinky Swear" is another well-crafted story that will have readers on edge as we follow a mother desperately seeking her missing friend and her unborn child."

A baby’s on the way, but the mother goes missing…

Have you ever broken a promise? How about a pinky swear? Alexandra “Lexie” McNeil can’t have children of her own, to the ...Read more

Life is full of choices. A simple twist of fate can send someone towards a winning lottery ticket or into a life filled with fear, confusion and sadness. Life choices can also be a breeding ground for resilience and determination. In the new novel, "Adrift" by author Will Dean, Peggy Jenkins and her son Samson, struggle to make good life choices...Read more

We have a long-standing affection for courtroom dramas. “Perry Mason” set the standard years ago. He’s still questioning witnesses, introducing dramatic pieces of evidence, and consulting with Paul Drake and Della Street in black and white, albeit in the wee hours of the morning on local channels.

When Andy and Barney finished corralling ...Read more

When RJ Burnette returns to Gizzard’s Holler, he tells himself he is coming home to regroup. New York City is behind him — the finance career, the ambition, the version of success that looked good on paper but felt increasingly hollow. With his dog Winston beside him, RJ drives back to the Tennessee mountains believing he can reset his life....Read more

"Fireflies in Winter" is a vividly realistic historical fiction by the author of "River Sing Me Home," Eleanor Shearer. Set in 1796, the story revolves around a young Jamaican woman named Cora, who is forced to leave her hometown of Trelawny Town because of war and seek refuge in Nova Scotia, Canada.

Cora and her loved ones have recently ...Read more

Grandma is close at heart. Literally. And permanently.

A picture was in this morning’s paper of a young man proudly showing a tattoo of his beloved late grandma on his chest, along with a quote from her.

Sweet. Very, very sweet.

Naturally, with 11 grands, I ask myself, “What are the chances?”

At this stage of the game, the best I could...Read more

Money buys silence. Status buys patience … And reputation? Well, that buys second chances.

The following novels understand this all too well, and dismantle the privileged systems without mercy. Set among rehab centers built to protect the famous, towns that quietly adjusted to old crimes and communities governed by image and inheritance, ...Read more

In this Age of Review and Return, almost 93% of all shoppers read reviews before making a purchase. Even though we review before we buy, we often return the purchase after it arrives.

There was a time when returns were a rarity. Oh, there were exceptions, but you had to face a stern clerk, who often consulted a stern manager. Now, you just ...Read more

That uniquely magical moment when a novel knocks you flat and makes you ask, “Did that really just happen?” The joy of reading a passage multiple times to revisit the delightful insanity that liberates the reader from their reality.

In "Cruelty Free," author Caroline Glenn delivers a number of these moments in a playfully sinister new ...Read more

Nikesha Elise Williams starts the prologue of "The Seven Daughters of Dupree" with a sentence so horrible readers will hope it’s a metaphor for something less unthinkable. And then, as though taking the hand of a reluctant child, Williams pulls her readers into the first chapter – and into a hair salon where we meet the first of seven women ...Read more