Over the last year, a number of you have asked how to get my Derringer-award winning novella, “Catherine The Great,” and while you can get it in last year’s Holiday Spectacular compilation, that’s only available in ebook. Many of you want paper…and I get it. I do too.

So, we decided to put it into paper. And by the time we got to that project, I had also written three other mystery/crime novellas. One is a thriller (Kizzie) and two are more straightforward mysteries. We put all four in a Kickstarter that launches today.

Here’s the video for the Kickstarter. Over the next week, I’ll also share the book trailers with you for the novellas. However, if you’d like to see them now, head to the Kickstarter. They’re all on it, along with a lot of other goodies.

As you can tell, this is one of my favorite things to write. I hope you end up getting the books.

I am not going to include the articles here, like I usually do. In the spirit of kicking 2024 to the curb, those are going to be sacrificed. So here are the three books that I loved in September…

September 2024

Balogh, Mary, Always Remember, Berkeley, 2024. Mary Balogh writes in series that focus on a particular family. I liked how this series started, and wrote about it in several of the Recommended Reading Lists. This book, about Ben Ellis, who has a charming daughter and is one of the more interesting characters in the series, is a personal favorite. I felt sad when I finished this one. Balogh had been promising this romance throughout the series, and it was satisfying when she finally got to it.

King, Stephen, “Danny Coughlin’s Bad Dream,” You Like It Darker, Scribner, 2024. This isn’t a short story; it’s a novella. King excels at the novella form. I read the entire short novel in one sitting, uncertain where any of it was going. There’s always an edge in King’s fiction, a feeling that one wrong move and the story will collapse. I felt that here, but the story never made the wrong move. It’s powerful and worth the price of the entire collection.

King, Stephen, “On Slide Inn Road,” You Like It Darker, Scribner, 2024. Everyone is fair game in a King story, so I try to avoid some of the ones featuring children. I got sucked into this one right off the bat, though, and read it with one eye closed and my face averted. Memorable, sadly enough.

King, Stephen, “Two Talented Bastids,” You Like It Darker, Scribner, 2024. In the hands of a lesser writer, this story would have been cliche-ridden and hard to read. Here, it’s touching and one of my favorites in the collection. I’m not going to say anything else for fear of spoiling the story for you.

King, Stephen, You Like It Darker, Scribner, 2024. I think I like Stephen King’s short stories the best of all his works, and I’m a fan. I like almost everything he does. (The Dark Tower series doesn’t work for me, and lately he’s ventured into Covid territory, which I’m not ready for, but mostly, I’ll follow him anywhere.) This entire book is wonderful. I’ve highlighted some favorite stories here, but I can recommend the entire volume as well.

Roberts, Nora, Mind Games, St. Martin’s Press, 2024. I’ve been very disappointed with Nora Robert’s standalone titles the past few years, so I bought this one with trepidation. I felt like she hadn’t been challenging herself in some of the previous books or she lost interest in them or something. They just didn’t have her usual vibrancy. This one does. It was a rich book, difficult to put down, even though I had to because of everything else going on. The perfect escape that makes me look forward to her next…just like it should.

I don’t remember much about June, except that I was going balls-to-the-wall to save my business. I was also writing and getting some other things done. Dean was still healing from his fall/surgery, and I had massive dental appointments. So, I guess I remember things in general but not in specific. I have no idea how I managed to read anything, but I did.

As I’m writing these up, I’m discovering some interesting things. Such as Otto Penzler’s Bibliomysteries, an anthology filled with novellas, does not have an ebook edition. The novellas are available separately. I read the hardcover. I managed a couple of novels, but only one was worth recommending. And then there’s the memoir, below, which I just adored.

So…here’s what I loved way back in June (!)

June 2024

Baum, Gary, and Giardina, Carolyn, “Going, Going, Gone,” The Hollywood Reporter, March 14, 2024. I vividly remember when I learned that film canisters stored in Hollywood vaults were actually burning. That the archival copies of classic films were disappearing, gone forever because of bad storage. I was worried, horrified, and appalled.

The same thing is happening with digital files, although they’re not actively burning. Digital films are being stored, badly, and sometimes not even the correct copy is in the archive. Read this article and worry, as I do, about some of your favorites. Let’s hope that this gets solved.

Couch, Aaron, “William Shatner: THR Icon,” The Hollywood Reporter, March 14, 2024. A great interview with William Shatner. He was chosen as a Hollywood Reporter icon. The interview goes into quite a bit of depth about his long career, so I found it fascinating. And then there’s this quote:

I’ve bumbled my way through my life with a growing realization that all the plans you have for your life are dependent on the guy driving a car behind you or in front of you. The accidents that you have no control over, whether they’re physical, like falling down a flight of stairs, or emotional, like the person you love the most doesn’t love you — and everything in between — you have no control over. So you may think you’re like, “I’m going to control. I’m going to choose that motion picture,” or go onstage choosing elements of your career, thinking you’re making a career move. It has nothing to do with reality at all.

Yeah. Ouch. But sooooo true.

George, Elizabeth, “The Mysterious Disappearance of The Reluctant Book Fairy,” Bibliomysteries Volume 2, edited by Otto Penzler, Pegasus Books, 2018. This story is fantasy. Delightful fantasy. And surprising in its own way. I cannot say much more except to add, wow, did I like it.

Lovesey, Peter, “Remaindered,” Bibliomysteries Volume 2, edited by Otto Penzler, Pegasus Books, 2018. Perfect little cozy mystery about cozy mysteries. And collecting. Even the opening two sentences are cozy-perfect. “Agatha Christie did it. The evidence was plain to see but no one did see for more than a day.” Lovely. And a very enjoyable read.

Morrow, Bradford, “The Nature of My Inheritance,” Bibliomysteries Volume 2, edited by Otto Penzler, Pegasus Books, 2018. Fascinating story about a wayward son who inherited over 50 Bibles upon his father’s death. Quirky and heartfelt, it’s one of the most memorable stories in the volume.

Paretsky, Sara, Pay Dirt, William Morrow, 2024. Paretsky wrote a VI Warshawski novel mostly set in Kansas, which is where Paretsky grew up. I missed the Chicago stuff a great deal, but the book is strong without it. And V.I. is marvelous as usual. Worth the read.

Penzler, Otto, editor, Bibliomysteries Volume 2, Pegasus Books, 2018. I loved this volume. I’d read some of the novellas before, when I was ordering ebooks. And “The Little Men,” by Megan Abbott, which I thought I included in a previous Recommended Reading List, but can’t find at the moment.  This volume will keep you entertained for days. It did so with me.

Pompeo, Joe, “Death & The Masque,” Vanity Fair, The Hollywood Issue, 2024. I’m not sure why this piece caught me, but it really did. Maybe because I was on the fringes of punk rock for decades. Maybe because I’ve been in dingy squalid little punk clubs, back when I was too stupid to understand the danger. Maybe because there’s an edginess here that interests me on a deep level. Whatever it is, I found this piece fascinating. I think you might too.

Taupin, Bernie, Scattershot: Life, Music, Elton & Me, Hachette Books, 2023. When I finished Bernie Taupin’s memoir, Scattershot, I immediately did two things. First, I ordered an ebook copy for a friend whom I figured would like it. (She liked parts and loathed parts. I’ll get to that.) Second, I knew I had to recommend it….but…I also realized that if I met Bernie Taupin, I doubted we would get along. There’s a lot in this book that I find—well, let’s just say the man and I don’t seem to agree about a lot of things. One thing we do agree about, though, is art and its importance. He is the lyricist behind some of my all-time favorite songs. He has a perspective that shows up in the book that is both skewed and spot-on.

He clearly wrote this, not some ghostwriter. And someone at Hachette ordered a light (or non-existant) copy edit. (This bothered my friend, a former copy editor. I just decided to go with it.) I was hooked from the author’s note forward. He starts the book this way:

I never intended this to be a conventional autobiography. My brain doesn’t work that way. I have no sense of specific timelines, and recollections and dates are as bad as my sense of direction.

Then he goes on to quote Lou Reed, who said Just because I wrote it doesn’t mean I know what it’s about. Taupin adds, What people want isn’t always what I can provide. Information on lyrical composition isn’t always forthcoming, certainly not when the keys to recall are lost. Who, and why, and what they’re about is ponderable but never definitive.

I underlined much of this book, some of it about art, some of it about business. I also smiled at the connections. His introduction to New York came through a writer for Cashbox named Eric Van Lustbader. Some of you will recognize him as a fiction writer, not a music journalist. They bonded over sf and fantasy, and they loved some of the same authors I loved (many of whom I knew). That was a lovely surprise. There are others throughout, such as the fact that he comes to Las Vegas every year to participate in the PBR, the Professional Bull Riders competition. You see, he has a ranch and horses and…really, just read this. You’ll be happy you did.

So, if you want to read only romance, because you want to have a bit of joy in your life, pick up Winter Sparkles. If you would want some dark crime stories to reinforce the end-of-the-year darkness, buy Hardboiled Holidays. If you like stories about secrets as much as I do, get a copy of Holiday Secrets.

We’ve revamped the designs. The books are as wonderful as the stories. I think you’ll love them!

Of course, you can get the books as part of this year’s Holiday Spectacular Kickstarter. In addition to the reward featuring the books, you’ll get the annual Calendar of Stories (starting on Thanksgiving and running to New Year’s Day). And, because we’ve hit four stretch goals so far, you’ll also get three more stories of mine, a holiday issue of Pulphouse Magazine, and two (yes, two!) online workshops about copyright, worth $500 each.

Yeah, if I were you, I’d head over to the Kickstarter right now. Because it ends on Thursday at 7 p.m. Pacific Time.

May, 2024

Huston, Caitlin, “Fiction Forward,” The Hollywood Reporter, March 6, 2024. When someone tells you something is not possible or that it won’t sell or that no one is interested, think on this story. I can’t tell you how many people have told me over the years that fiction audio, especially podcasts, doesn’t get an audience. Yet the most-nominated podcast in this year’s Ambies was a fiction piece. If I say more, I’ll rival the word count of the piece I’m sending you to. So go take a look.

Macintyre, Ben, Rogue Heroes, Broadway Books, 2016. After reading The Mosquito Bowl,  which I recommended in February, I found myself scanning my World War II books to find another interesting volume. I ended up reading Rogue Heroes, which was fascinating and cringeworthy at the same time. Macintyre does not flinch at some of the brutal depictions of his protagonists or of the war itself. I found the entire thing fascinating and deeply uncomfortable.

McQuiston, Casey, I Kissed Shara Wheeler, Wednesday Books, 2022. I think I owe an apology to Casey McQuiston for letting this book sit on my shelf for two years. I had an early edition of the book with a cover that screamed romance. I thought I knew what the book would be about, but wowza was I wrong. That’s how I’ve reacted to all of McQuiston’s books. I literally judge them by their covers and find them wanting. Then I read the books and I fall in love.

Shara Wheeler kisses our protagonist Chloe, her rival for valedictorian at Willowgrove Christian Academy, and then disappears. Just walks out of school and goes somewhere else. The mystery of Shara Wheeler’s disappearance, her behavior before she vanishes, and a few other fascinating pieces that I can’t tell you because Spoilers! is what made me read this book in a month in which I had no time.

Get this one. Share it with your friends.

Tringali, Anthony, and Cox, Stephen, “‘Over the Rainbow’ Under Suspicion,” The Hollywood Reporter, March 6, 2024. If there’s anything I’ve learned in my years of studying copyright, it’s that figuring out of music copyright has been stolen isn’t as easy as it looks. But it does look like Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg might have lifted most of the melody for “Over The Rainbow” from a Scandinavian composer named Signe Lunde. Whether or not the lifting was intentional is up for debate. Whether or not it matters depends on how the information is presented. Signe Lunde was a woman who was well known. She also became an active Nazi sympathizer. Those are just some of the fascinating twists in this article. I suggest you read it, and see what you think.

Weprin, Alex, “The AI Perils Buried in the Fine Print*,” The Hollywood Reporter, March 27, 2024. Fascinating analysis of all the conundrums buried in what we’re all calling AI. People are interested in using it, but aren’t sure how or why. Corporations are having similar dilemmas. Really worth the read. It’ll give you something to think about.

You can pick up an ebook copy here or a print copy wherever books are sold.

I’m really excited by this honor for a couple of reasons. The stories are blind-judged, so name value means nothing. Just story quality. That’s point one. Point two is that “Catherine The Great” came from our Holiday Spectacular (and will be reprinted in the big overall volume this summer, so you all can read it). And the third point is that the story was just so much fun to write. I had no idea where I was going when it started, but I’m happy with the way it ended.

If you want to see the entire list of nominees, please click here. Winners will be announced on May 1.

I also taught a workshop on science fiction mysteries, and as I often do, I assigned a couple of books for the reading list that I hadn’t read yet. I searched and searched and searched for good sf mystery anthologies. The ones I was familiar with (and/or published in) were out of print and unavailable for my online students. (I could find enough copies for my in-person students.) The anthology I did find (which I hadn’t read), well, it turned out to be a good teaching tool, just not in the way that the editors intended. It looks like they invited a lot of good writers who just weren’t up to the task, and felt the need to use the work anyway. Sigh. Looks like I might have to do an sf/mystery anthology all my own. (If you’re interested in the in-person workshops, click here. The one next January is nearly full.)

January 2024

Chiarella, Tom, “Henry Winkler’s 6 Lessons of Reinvention,” AARP The Magazine, October/November, 2023. Lovely article about the things learned across a career. Henry Winkler and I share a diagnosis of dyslexia. The difference between us is that I was taught to read by my sister, who also had dyslexia. She had figured out a coping mechanism that allowed me to see words as pictures, rather than an accumulation of letters. I was able to read easily (spelling was much, much harder). Henry Winkler could not. Yet he figured out ways of getting by as well, and making a career even though he couldn’t act quickly on some things.

The choices we make and the ways we cope end up moving our lives forward. I’ve rarely seen an article that captures this so well.

Coates, Tyler, “‘Queerness Was Part of His Strategic Gift,” The Hollywood Reporter, November 27, 2023.  A Netflix film, Rustin, last year brought proper attention to Bayard Rustin and his importance to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. I had no idea Rustin had been lost to history. (Not to me) Nor did I know some of the personal things about him, because I use primary materials in my writing when I work on Smokey Dalton. Rustin’s sexuality caused issues that I hadn’t been aware of, but which makes some comments I saw make sense in retrospect. Fascinating article, and no, I haven’t seen the film yet, but I most certainly will, as I ramp up Smokey in the next several months. Until then, watch the film and read this, and learn about an amazing man.

Day, Sarah, and Pratt, Tim, “Overclocked Holmes,” The Reinvented Detective, edited by Cat Rambo & Jennifer Brozek, Caezik, 2023. If you’re read (or watched) too much Sherlock Holmes, then this is the story for you. It’s a riff on artificial intelligence—”a great weird failure of the back half of the twenty-first century”— with so many Holmesian in-jokes that I’m not sure I caught them all. Try this one just for the fun of it.

DeFrank, Sean, “1983: Dawn of the City of Sports,” rjmagazine, Fall 2023. Las Vegas reinvents itself almost daily, so sometimes it feels like we go through almost fifty years worth of change in a decade. CNN is doing a documentary series on the city’s history, and yep, that kinda confirms the feeling. This article from one of the local publications does as well. We are becoming the sports capitol of the country as we add more and more teams. Because Las Vegas is a destination in and of itself, people come here to watch their team play our team. So the professional sports industry went from nearly nothing when we moved here six years ago to this explosion now.

DeFrank’s article looks at the seeds which were planted in 1983 that made this sports boom possible. Fascinating stuff.

Kowal, Mary Robinette, The Spare Man, Tor, 2022. I’m sorry to say that this is the first Mary Robinette Kowal novel I’ve read. I’ve been meaning to read the others, because I love her short fiction, but I never got around to them. So…I assigned this book for the sf mystery class and am I glad I did. This book is marvelous. It’s the Thin Man in space, with beautiful setting, characters that live and breathe, and a truly sf solution to the various crimes. I hope she writes more in this series, because I am soooo there.

Marcus, Gary and Southern, Reid, “Generative AI Has a Visual Plagiarism Problem,” IEEE Spectrum, January 6, 2024. Ironically enough, the bot on my Pocket app sent me to this story, because clearly I read a lot on generative AI. The authors are a scientist & writer, and a film industry visual concept artist.  They use as scientific a method as they could manage to figure out if generative AI had a plagiarism problem and whoa, boy, did they discover that it did. They also got banned repeatedly from Midjourney for their efforts. Lots to digest here. In particular, look at the comparison to Napster. As I’ve been saying for years now, do not use these generative AI programs until the legal side settles out. Read this.

Morehouse, Lyda, “Go Ask A.L.I.C.E.,” The Reinvented Detective, edited by Cat Rambo & Jennifer Brozek, Caezik, 2023. A wonderfully reimagined trope about a group trying to protect a former sex bot. This story is well done with good suspense, great characters, and a well-defined world. (Something most of the stories in this volume lacked.)

Redgate, Riley, Noteworthy, Amulet, 2017. I loved this book. I binged it. It’s the story of Jordan Sun, a scholarship student at an elite performing arts school. She can never get cast in one of the musicals because her voice is too deep and there aren’t a lot of parts for Alto 2. So…she auditions for a boys’ acapella group instead…as a boy. And gets in, causing her to go to class as a girl and rehearsal as a boy. It sounds like a typical Shakespearean boy/girl swap, but it’s much more than that. The book is actually a great reflection on modern gender norms and on being accepted. It’s quite (ahem) noteworthy. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)

Robbins, Dean, “A Media-History Miracle,” On Wisconsin, Fall, 2023. This is almost a public service announcement for those of you who like media history. The University of Wisconsin has an online archive of film and broadcasting publications. It’s got cool stuff. Take a look at this article, and then head to the online site.

Smith, Gene, American Gothic: The Story of America’s Legendary Theatrical Family—Junius, Edwin, and John Wilkes Booth, Touchstone, 1992. I read a yellowed paperback edition of this book, but there is an ebook version. I’m not really sure you’d want to read it. My muse has been directing me to various non-fiction reading projects and this is one of them. I’m not even sure where I got the book. I’m not sure how I will use this in my writing either, only that I will at some point.

I have never read a book about the acting family. I did know that Edwin continued acting and had become the biggest actor in America after his brother’s hideous assassination of Abraham Lincoln. I had no idea how Edwin managed to go on, but it sounds like he had already divorced himself from John and tried to give up acting for a while. He didn’t manage it.

I think the thing I found most fascinating about the book, though, is that this was one crazy family. All of them. That something went seriously awry was not a surprise. What went awry was.

Again, I’m not sure any of you would want to read this, but it’s interesting. And beautifully written…

Turtledove, Harry, “In The Shadow of The Great Days,” The Reinvented Detective, edited by Cat Rambo & Jennifer Brozek, Caezik, 2023. I’d say this is the best story in the book (and that is absolutely the truth), but that’s damning with faint praise. The story is amazing. In about 5,000 words, Harry creates a future that’s believable and tactile, so rich that I knew it from the first paragraph. This is how to write a science fiction detective story. It’s a master class.

My reading behavior is finally returning to normal. I have a complaint or two about something I read. I see that as healthy.

At the beginning of the month, I started a book, brand new, from a writer I enjoy a great deal. This book is set during Covid, and I thought, well, the mystery will hold me. But nope. I had to quit 38 pages in. I looked at the middle of the book, saw that characters were dealing with the death of a parent alone, in a hospital, from Covid, and others were having Covid-related issues…and I just couldn’t. I had the same issue with a different favorite writer in October. I can read short stories and essays about Covid—and you’ll see that I recommended some here—but I can’t immerse myself for too long in that world again. Did it once. Don’t ever want to do it again. Sigh.

I found some good holiday books, but finished one three days before Christmas. I grabbed another Christmas nonfiction book (I keep a number on my TBR pile), but wowza was it dull. It was an award-winning examination of the history of Christmas in America. I thought it would be interesting, but noooo. It is on my history shelf, though, just in case I need the research.

And then, as I was cleaning up the living room to prep for the holiday, I found a book I was halfway through. I had forgotten I was reading it. I remembered buying it, starting it, and getting a little ways into it, but I apparently forgot it. I didn’t greet it with joy, but confusion, so I set it aside as well. That rarely happens to me, but when it does, it means I truly did not care about what I was reading.

As I was writing this, and making sure I caught every story I wanted to recommend, I found an anthology that I had set aside to recommend something from it. I eventually found why I set it aside, but wowza, did I have a strange few minutes. I didn’t remember any of the stories, even though I’d read them. Oddly, and somewhat angrily, I remembered the stories I didn’t finish, one by one of my favorite writers who murdered a baby at the outset. Ew. Not something I want to read at all. Blech.

Anyway, for all of my complaining, here’s the stuff I do want to recommend.

December, 2023

Cafferata, Patricia D., editor, Christmas in Nevada, University of Nevada Press, 2014. I liked this little book. It examines the history of the holiday throughout Nevada’s history, using primary sources. Primary sources means that there are a few breathtakingly racist pieces in here, mostly from the white point of view, mostly of the good-intentioned kind (let us help these poor unfortunates). Just be forewarned as you read that some of the pieces are definitely of their time.

I did like a lot in here. Most of it is ephemeral in a good way, and brings out the kind of detail that the writer in me loves. For example, people often used tumbleweeds as Christmas trees. I was thinking about that on one of my runs, and then I saw one of my neighbors a few blocks over had strung some lights on a tumbleweed on her porch. I would have just thought that weird before, but I’ll wager it was a family tradition. There’s a lot of fun stuff like that. So if you like holiday history, pick this one up.

Cantrell, Rebecca, “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,” Yultide Thrills: A Christmas Anthology, 2023. I love this story. Rebecca captured the child’s point of view beautifully. This story takes place on two levels: The child’s goals and dreams and desires and what really happened, which we as adults understand. So well done.

Cantrell, Rebecca, Yultide Thrills: A Christmas Anthology, 2023. I started reading this collection during Christmas of 2022, when Rebecca first published it, and finished it this year (2023). I love her voice and the stories here. Some of them are very dark, which doesn’t bother me at all, but might bother some of you. I got the paper edition, and there are some design issues. You  might be better off with the ebook. Also, this is a collection of Rebecca’s work, not an anthology ( a mistake a lot of authors make), so if you expect stories from other writers, you’ll be disappointed. If you just pick it up for Rebecca’s work, though, I can promise that you won’t be disappointed at all. I think it’ll add to your holiday reading for next year.

Coffey, Alex, “The Phillies’ Andrew Bellatti Made A Fatal Mistake As A Teen. A Tale of Remarkable Forgiveness Followed,” The Year’s Best Sports Writing 2023, edited by Richard Deitsch, Triumph, 2023. The title of this piece is true. As an 18-year-old, Andrew Bellatti hit and killed someone while driving. He went to prison. The forgiveness came from the victim’s mother. And…well, read this. It is remarkable.

Cole, Harriette, “Nothing But Class,” AARP The Magazine, August/September 2023. A long interview with Sherry Lee Ralph about perseverance, longevity, and the ability to make the best of any situation, in art, at least. Ralph has had a 40-year long career, but she finally became “hot” in the last few years, thanks to her role in Abbott Elementary. If you’re having doubts about your art, read this one.

Deitsch, Richard, editor, The Year’s Best Sports Writing 2023, Triumph, 2023. This is my favorite anthology series of the year, bar none. I may not read every article (there were some dead horses here and dead kids too), but I read most of them, and of the ones I read, I usually like them. Some I absolutely love. If you want to see the highlights from this year, I’ve pointed them out in this month’s Recommended Reading and in last month’s as well.

Durando, Bennett, “Untold Stories of Harvey Updike’s Last Confessions—And The Plot To Kill Auburn’s Iconic Trees,” The Year’s Best Sports Writing 2023, edited by Richard Deitsch, Triumph, 2023. I don’t live in Alabama, and I didn’t know that the iconic trees at Auburn University were poisoned by a crazed fan of a rival school. That’s the start of the story, though. It gets stranger from there. I found this piece absolutely fascinating.

Hagan, Joe, “The Golden Dream,” Vanity Fair, July/August 2023. Really interesting article about the state that California is in, told through interviews of many different kinds of folk, from money people to politicians to people on the ground. I’m not sure I agree with all of it, but I do know I read it with a lot of attention.

Hill, Bonnie Hearn, “The Happy Birthday Song,” Mystery Writers of America Present: Crime Hits Home, edited by S.J. Rozan, Hanover Square Press, 2022. It’s not often a short story surprises me, but this one did. I saw a lot of the story coming, but not the ending. It’s good and powerful and worth the read.

Hockensmith, Ryan, “The Secret MVP of Sports? The Port-A-Potty,” The Year’s Best Sports Writing 2023, edited by Richard Deitsch, Triumph, 2023. Funny and serious at the same time, this little article on the Port-A-Potty makes it clear how one little invention has made the kind of sports we participate in now possible. The piece follows a man whose job it is to keep a stadium stocked with Port-A-Pottys for a big game. Then there’s the history and, oh, just read this. It’s fun.

James, Eloisa, “A Mistletoe Kiss,” Mistletoe Christmas, Avon, 2021. I bought this anthology when it came out and then kinda forgot about it. I remember picking it up the next year, looking at the god-awful cover and assuming it was indie published and probably had a bad interior design. I didn’t even look to double-check. This year, I did double-check, and realized that nope, this is an Avon book with a bad interior design and a terrible cover. And it was an anthology, not a group novel, which I had also assumed.

The novellas in the book are linked to each other by setting and one event. It’s a Christmas revelry, sponsored by a dying duke. Every one of the four authors who have written for this have set their stories at that party. I had high hopes for all of the novellas, but only two are worth recommending.

This one, by Eloisa James, is the best in the book and an absolute delight. Turns out that the duke’s daughter has been the one who has put on this amazing gathering for the past several years, making it the party of the season. There’s a lot of great family interaction here, a wonderful romance at the heart of it, and believable misunderstanding. Really well done.

Macomber, Debbie, Jack Frost, Debbie Macomber Inc., 2023. I find it fascinating that Debbie Macomber, once the queen of romance, self-published a Christmas novella. Once upon a time, her publisher(s) would pair her stories with the stories of other writers so those writers would get sampled by Debbie’s audience and that would boost their sales. Not so much anymore, I guess.

This is a classic Macomber holiday story. A holiday situation, two somewhat prickly characters, and a holiday solution. She is a master at combining holidays and romance. In this one, a woman misjudges her new coworker until they get stuck together one night when the power goes out. The journey to the happily ever after is not predictable, and the novella is fun.

McCarver, Katie Ann, “Financial Literacy Courses at UNLV Aim To Prepare Students For Life,” Las Vegas Weekly, November 2, 2023. I’m actually sharing this article because I know so many of you come from so many different walks of life. I’m hoping that some of you teach high school or college and have enough influence to start classes like this in your community. Take a look and take some inspiration!

Remnick, David, “Remembering Roger Angell, Hall of Famer,” The Year’s Best Sports Writing 2023, edited by Richard Deitsch, Triumph, 2023. Roger Angell was one of my favorite writers ever. He was the son of Katherine White, a major editor at The New Yorker, starting in 1925. (I love all the idiot writers who think that there were no female editors or writers before their generation. God, that irritates me.) His stepfather was E.B. White, and if you don’t recognize that name, you might want to Google him. Still, though, Roger Angell managed to carve his own place in the world as a sports writer and an essayist. I love all of his writing on both of those topics. In the last ten years of his life, he became an essayist about old age. He died at the age of 101, but as Remnick, the current New Yorker editor says, that’s the least of Angell’s accomplishments. Read this tribute, and then if you’ve never read any of Angell’s work, grab some and settle in for some great reading.

Ridley, Erica, “Mischief and Mistletoe,” Mistletoe Christmas, Avon, 2021. The other well done novella in this volume comes from Erica Ridley. The story features a young woman whose mother fears she will never marry, but the woman herself is more interested in her writing than she is in any kind of relationship. In fact, she fears that the relationship might end her writing forever. I haven’t seen this conflict before in a Regency romance, and found it intriguing. This (and the James) are worth the price of the book.

Rosenberg, Michael, “After Surviving a High School Shooting, He Was ‘An Empty Shell. No Emotion.’ Now What?” The Year’s Best Sports Writing 2023, edited by Richard Deitsch, Triumph, 2023. I read a lot of my non-fiction a snippet here and a snippet there. I’ve done that for years. So, this article, which is quite long, took me a while to read. What was weird about it is that I started reading it before the school shooting at UNLV. I wasn’t on campus that day, but that doesn’t mean I avoided the impact. I was acquainted with one of the professors who died. I knew every inch of that campus, so the news reports were eerie. I spent the day texting colleagues and student friends, making sure they hadn’t been on campus. It was awful, and I was not in the midst of it.

This piece is about a kid who actually saw someone die right before his eyes. Who had a near-miss, and ran, and therefore saved his own life, but he is forever changed. The article is good, especially at putting us on scene and making what happened and its aftermath clear. This is an important one. Every American should read it.

Stein, Joel, “School of Hard Laughs,” The Hollywood Reporter, October 25, 2023. Who knew there was something called a comedy fantasy camp. This was the inaugural season, and if you thought print writing was hard, you should try stand-up. Seriously. Try it. Once. That’s writing on the hard edge. Joel Stein attended (I got the sense he wanted to see what it was like and got THR to pay), and had some fascinating observations. I love the phrase “hard laughs.” Read this one.

Stone, Jonathan, “The Relentless Flow of the Amazon,” Mystery Writers of America Present: Crime Hits Home, edited by S.J. Rozan, Hanover Square Press, 2022. Creepy and surprising little story about the Zon…not the river, but the big corporation. And yes, this is set during the pandemic. You’ll see why that’s necessary as you read. Well done.

Walter, Jess, editor, The Best American Mystery and Suspense Stories 2022, Mariner, 2022. For some reason, maybe the personal changes/problems of late 2022 into 2023 made me set this volume down without really reading it. But I finished two short story anthologies that I’d been reading during my lunch breaks when I was at UNLV, and so I grabbed this book. I’m glad I did. I devoured it. I didn’t like every story—I never do in this series—and there was just too many dead children stories in the middle (be warned, those of you with tastes like mine), but mostly it’s good and powerful and a reminder of how great crime fiction can be, which is what I need it to be, each and every year. Pick it up and enjoy.

Weiden, David Heska Wanbli, “Turning Heart,” The Best American Mystery and Suspense Stories 2022, edited by Jess Walter, Mariner, 2022. Great writing, great characters, a lot of heart. Every turn in this story surprised and pleased me. I can’t say much more about it without ruining it, though, so I won’t.

Williams-Childs, Brendan, “Lycia,” The Best American Mystery and Suspense Stories 2022, edited by Jess Walter, Mariner, 2022. At first, the formal language of this story put me off because I thought it was written in Serious Writer Voice (as trained by universities). The fact that it first appeared in The Colorado Review reinforced my assumption. But the formal language of this story is essential to the tale it’s telling, which hides as much as it reveals. The emotion is deliberately reserved, as is the story itself, which only adds to its power. Just read it.

Willis, Connie, A Lot Like Christmas, Del Rey, 2017. I had completely missed this book when it first came out. It’s a collection of Connie Willis’s Christmas stories. An expansion, really, of her original collection, Miracle and Other Christmas Stories, which I have. I looked to see if I was doing the recommended reading when that book came out, and realized I hadn’t been. So here’s what I’m going to do: I’m going to recommend this collection, because it’s wonderful and full of stories that I just love, like “Newsletter” and “Epiphany.” But I read those stories so long ago that I can’t really comment on them well. So here’s the thing…any story in this collection that was either in Asimov’s in the last century or in Miracle gets my vote.

I read the ones that were published elsewhere or which had a more recent copyright date when I got my hands on this particular collection. I also read all the essays. I am recommending individual pieces from that particular subset of things. Oh, and I wrote about “All About Emily” in a very early Recommended Reading List from November of 2011. (It also shows up in the annual holiday list every year.)

In other words, you’ll find a few Willis stories singled out in this Recommended Reading list, but don’t view them as the only good ones in this collection. They’re all good. Some are just more to my taste than others.

And one other thing…the recommendations at the back. I don’t agree with a lot of them because apparently my taste and Connie’s diverge on the best holiday fare, but that’s great. It allowed me to rethink some of my likes and dislikes. I suspect they’ll do the same for you.

Willis, Connie, “Just Like The Ones We Used To Know,” A Lot Like Christmas, Del Rey, 2017. Maybe my favorite of all of Connie’s Christmas stories, this story is about a truly unlikely snowfall and the power of wishes. It’s lovely.

Willis, Connie, “Now Showing,” A Lot Like Christmas, Del Rey, 2017. I love this story, although it does feel like it was set 100 years ago instead of ten years ago. That’s how much has changed. It makes me nostalgic for a time when movie theaters were teen hangouts and social media was…different. The story is fun, and worth reading, even though it feels like something much older than it is.

Yu, Ovidia, “Live Pawns,” Mystery Writers of America Present: Crime Hits Home, edited by S.J. Rozan, Hanover Square Press, 2022. I am lousy at chess, but for some reason I love a good chess story. This one had me at the edge of my seat all the way through. Powerful and surprising, just the way I like my short fiction.

Here’s the second post on the Hearts Collide Kickstarter. The first post looked at Volume One, which is full of romantic suspense. (The first post also tells you why I’m doing this.)

This post focuses on the second volume in the Hearts Collide collection. The second volume features what we chose to call “untraditional” romances. That means they don’t follow the Hallmark/Lifetime movie model exactly. There might be a meet-cute. There might be a happily ever after. Those two things might not be in every story. However, at the heart of the stories (see what I did there?), you’ll find a real romance. Lots and lots of love here.

This volume includes stories of mine that those of you who read my Free Fiction Monday stories might be familiar with including one of my favorites, “Without End,” and a science fiction Christmas story, “Loop.” You’ll also find a Kristine Grayson story here as well. So check it all out, along with the Kickstarter. I have a feeling you’ll find something to love. (Okay, did it again…)