Reading Reality, LLC

12/13/2025

Stacking the Shelves (683)

I had a grand ambition to fit everything I picked up this year into this year's remaining Stacking the Shelves posts. It's not going to happen. I cap these things at 20-ish just to keep the download with all the covers from being overwhelming. So I've already picked up stuff that's going to be a [.....

12/13/2025

A Christmas Journey by Anne Perry

I found myself looking for another holiday mystery after yesterday, and went searching for a classic - or at least a classic mystery author to fit that particular desire. Then I remembered the late 's series, and that I hadn't read them, so here we are.

Most of the stories in this series feature secondary characters from the author's and series, so I expected to like this since I enjoyed both of those so much.

Which I did, this one in particular as it features Lady Vespasia from the series in her younger years, making is a kind of "portrait of the grande-dame as a young belle". This is the story of the making of the formidable woman we came to know and love, and it's lovely for that.

I'll confess that the story isn't all that Christmas-y, although it takes place over the season. It's also not really a 'whodunnit' as there's no murder. This story combines a long and surprisingly harrowing journey of atonement with a 'whydunnit' AND Vespasia's thoughts and feelings about her privileged life, what she owes to her friends and her world because of that privilege, as well as the hypocrisy of a society where the only option for women of her class is to marry and marry well and yet that same society despises them for pursuing that option.

That a lot of Vespasia's motivation for undertaking a journey across the highlands of Scotland in the literal dead of winter in the days before trains connected Edinburgh to Glasgow involves poking a nasty, scandalmongering gossip in the eye with the gossip's very own sharp stick just made all the characters that much more human in spite of their distance in time, place and circumstance.

Readers who have fond memories of the series, as I do, will love this peek into the making of Lady Vespasia. It may not work as well for those looking for an actual story instead of a visit with old friends, but I had a lovely time!

12/12/2025

: A Christmas Journey by Anne Perry

My Review: After yesterday’s book, I realized that what I wanted to round out this week of holiday reads wasn’t a romantic book filled with the holiday spirit, it was a murder mystery to see if getting killed at the holidays would turn the victim INTO a holiday spirit. The haunting kind, that is...

12/12/2025

Crescent City Christmas Chaos by Ellen Byron

This was just the right book at the right time and I fell right into it and didn't want to come out. The 'A' plot, the murder of a bigoted blackmailer, did all the right things. No one is going miss this old (word that rhymes with witch although she's that, too) but her death presents a real problem for the understaffed and overworked NOPD who already have a high profile case to solve. That Ricki James' parents fit perfectly into the murder frame puts Ricki and her gang of amateur investigators on the case even though the 'B' plot puts the younger members of Ricki's crew in the midst of their parents Krewe court machinations as Mardi Gras preparations have swept them all into crazytown even though Mardi Gras is months away.

The past messes everyone up, as both the shadows of Hurricane Katrina AND the messy and questionably legal shenanigans that surround Ricki's adoption by Josepha James hang over this story of love and family and death and remembrance. Of course all's well that ends well, but this is definitely a mystery where getting there is ALL the fun.

I've got a couple of books in the middle to catch up to things in the , but I'm already looking forward to my next trip by to New Orleans to see what kind of trouble Ricki and her friends at the Bon Vee Culinary Museum get themselves into next!

12/11/2025

Grade A : Crescent City Christmas Chaos by Ellen Byron .bsky.social

My Review: Ricki James' - more formally Miracle James-Diaz' - life has certainly gotten a bit more complicated (and interesting) in the intervening books in this Vintage Cookbook Mystery series that occurred between Ricki's first adventure in Bayou Book Thief and this delightfully twisted Christmas....

12/11/2025

Christmas at the Shelter Inn by RaeAnne Thayne

The second book in the series, , was my first post in last year's readathon, so this first book had to be in this, my second year's, readathon just to keep things even.

What I love most about this series is the town of Shelter Springs - I'd be happy to read about them ANY time of the year. If I could find a town like this IRL, but with less snow, I'd be a very happy camper.

Because just as the entire community gets together to make the holiday market such a success, it's the support of the community that gives the whole place its sparkle and shine and merry and bright.

The heart of this first entry in the series is a charming mix of second chances at romance AND family. Natalie Shepherd comes home to help her VERY pregnant sister with her two rambunctious little girls while Kenna is on bedrest, even though home is the last place she wants to be. She certainly doesn't want to stay.

Until she finally figures out that she hasn't been leaving her past behind - she's been dragging it around the world with her like unwanted baggage. The only way to deal with her trauma is to stay put and open it - and herself - up to the love she left behind. Even the difficult parts she never, ever wanted to face.

Home is where the heart is, and Natalie Shepherd's heart has always been home in Shelter Springs, with her family, her life-long friends, and the love she has a second chance at holding on to if she can just stick around long enough to let it, and Shelter Springs, catch her heart and keep it.

12/10/2025

: Christmas at the Shelter Inn by RaeAnne Thayne .bsky.social

My Review: Last holiday season, I kicked off my participation in the with The December Market by RaeAnne Thayne. It was my first readathon post EVER, but it was the SECOND book in the Shelter Springs series. So of course the first book in that series, THIS BOOK, had to appear somewher...

12/10/2025

Merry and Bright by Ali Rosen

Merry and Bright definitely lives up to its title, as this Hanukkah and Christmas romance (that's two holidays in one!) manages to be both in all the right places. (Not that there's not a teensy bit of to make the whole story sweeter, but that's absolutely right for this ultimately sweet story.

Two people who love their birth families but find them a bit much - for entirely different but equally real reasons - talk their way through a flight home for the holidays. Feeling the same mixture of joy and dread, Miriam and Cal figure out that they can help each other through the holidays by giving their respective families something ELSE to focus on besides whatever emotional baggage they are each expecting to find waiting on their parents' doorsteps.

He'll spend the eight nights of Hanukkah with her family, and she'll spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with his. After the holidays, they'll go their separate ways, a bit lighter for getting to visit the fam with their very own support person and buffer to make things easier.

They're not supposed to catch feelings. But Hanukkah gives them eight nights to discover that they fit together. And Christmas does an excellent job of sealing a deal they never expected to find. After all, both holidays celebrate miracles - so it's absolutely charming and utterly heartwarming that they both receive the greatest miracle of all.

12/09/2025

A- : Merry and Bright by Ali Rosen

My Review: Merry and Bright was every bit as delightful as last week’s Snow Place Like Home, and not just because of the cute title. I am seeing that one of the treats of this year’s collection is the way that the stories extend the time the featured couple knows each other in order to [...]

12/09/2025

Burn the World Down by Anna Hackett

Georgie Linden was supposed to have had a 'golden life'. That's the dream that has kept the last bits of Nash Oakley's soul together after a career as a sanctioned assassin for black ops US military entities that keep his secrets as long as he keeps theirs - even in retirement.

When Nash's hopes and dreams run straight into Georgie's real-life problems, that golden life is long in Georgie's rearview. She's already come to the dark side in her quest for vengeance against her sister's abuser. She just needs help carrying out that quest - and protection while she sticks her nose in business that Nash hoped she'd never learn existed.

It's too late for that. But it's not too late for them. As long as Nash gets his head out of his own ass to reckon with the woman he has in his arms - and his enemy's sights - and not the innocent he hoped and dreamed she'd become.

Georgie has already come to the Dark Side. All Nash has to do is bring the cookies - and everything else a retired assassin has to offer the woman who is ready to stand at his side.

12/08/2025

: Burn the World Down by Anna Hackett

My Review: From a certain point of view, this is a bit of a forbidden fruit kind of romance. Once upon a time, Georgie was just the little girl who followed her older brother and his best friend around their small town - and Nash was that ‘big brother’s best friend’. She had a crush [...]

12/08/2025

The Sunday Post/Virtual Nightstand for December 7, 2025

Today is the anniversary of the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. A day that FDR proclaimed "will live in infamy". Once I saw the date I couldn't not say something, as it got drummed into my head in school.

Last week's cat pic was just George. Just George's back because that's what he'd prefer. This week we have George trying to hide his handsome face behind Tuna's obviously empty head - and it's kind of working for them both. They ARE adorably handsome together, aren't they?

The is in full swing, so come one, come all to participate in the challenges and giveaways hosted by and all of her merry elves, including ! Come share in the holiday mayhem! And the holiday-themed books. Especially the books!

Here are this week's highlights:
Featured Giveaway: 2025 Ho-Ho-Ho Readathon Holiday Book Bingo Challenge!
Book of the Week: A Christmas Witness by Charles Todd
Audiobook of the Week: A Case of Life and Limb by Sally Smith
Feature for the Coming Week: Crescent City Christmas Chaos by Ellen Byron