Reading Reality, LLC

12/20/2025

Stacking the Shelves (684)

There are some terribly different definitions of "pretty" in this stack, aren't there? The Architect of New York is real-world pretty, A Curse of Beasts and Magic and A Long and Speaking Silence are both fantasy pretty, and Every Day I Read is somewhere in the middle between the two. Very much OTOH,...

12/20/2025

Edge by Tracy Clark

I love this series SO DAMN MUCH that I just know I SQUEE too much in the review. Because I want to explain ALL THE THINGS so that you'll love it as much as I do and pick up the whole thing. Detective Harriet Foster is awesome. Not just that she's badass - although she certainly is when she needs to be - but she also feels real and human and competent and righteous - just not all at the same time just like the rest of us.

These series are also fantastic Chicago stories, possibly especially because the weather is just as real (and just as awful) as Chicago gets in its worst seasons, which is so far when they've been set.

The murder case is both incredibly - and credibly - twisted, the threads don't even look like they'll tie together until they painstakingly do, the story pokes under the rug of the dirtier parts of Chicago in a way that reaches from the city's dark and storied past to today.

But always, the mysteries in this series are about the people. About 'Harri' putting one foot in front of the other and doing the job in spite of all her griefs, her colleagues trying to pretend they not involved in the case even when they are, a family that is unravelling and a family that already unraveled a long time ago - and questions about why the bobblehead in their Lieutenant's office seems to be even more authoritative (and frightening) than the LT is.

So this, and the whole series, is a Chicago story. And a fascinating . And especially a people story. The whole series is absolutely worth a reading binge this holiday season. That it includes an extended cameo from the MC of the author's series is tempting this reader to dip into those for my own holiday binge read!

12/19/2025

A+ : Edge by Tracy Clark .bsky.social

My Review: "They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago Way!" While the quote is from the 1987 movie, The Untouchables, based on a 1957 book of the same title ABOUT the FBI’s pursuit of the [...]

12/19/2025

The Eight Heartbreaks of Hanukkah by Jean Meltzer

The title is kind of a hint - in multiple directions - some more obvious than others. The Eight Heartbreaks of Hanukkah is a fascinating and fantastic take on a classic Xmas story. One of THE classic stories, Charles Dickens' . It's an idea that's so genius that if it's been done before I want to read them all.

The spirits have eight nights to work with - but they have a LOT to work ON when it comes to Evelyn Schwartz. She's been burying her feelings in work for decades, because feeling one's feelings causes fights and then people leave and she's not going through that again. But she does anyone because she can't let anyone in. But at least it's a quieter grief - except it shouldn't be.

Which all comes to a head on this Hanukkah, as Evelyn is producing a live broadcast of A Christmas Carol ON Xmas Eve, her ex-husband is back in town, her migraines are in full force, her show's star is high maintenance, and she's hallucinating visitations to the worst moments of her life every single night.

This isn't exactly romcom material. But it IS a heartbreaking AND heartwarming story about a woman who finally figures out that it isn't all about her and that she can have something close to it all if she can manage to let anyone in to share it with. Like the man she still loves who has stood by her through every heartbreak - even the ones that she gave him.

In the end, a marvelous take on a holiday classic, filled with surprising and beautiful twists and turns, and the perfect holiday romance for anyone who believes that HEA need to be earned really, really hard.

12/18/2025

: The Eight Heartbreaks of Hanukkah by Jean Meltzer

My Review: Everyone knows the story of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol - if not from the book itself then from one - or more likely more - of the many, many TV and movie adaptations. My two favorites are still Mr. Magoo’s cartoon from the 1960s and the Muppets’ version from the 1990s. The [...

12/18/2025

The Mysterious Death of Junetta Plum by Valerie Wilson Wesley

I loved this book SO MUCH! The combination of the story with the narrator's voice just grabbed me up from the opening paragraph and didn't let go until the end. This was one of those stories where I loved the narration but didn't want to put the story down so I did a bit of both, always hearing 's voice.

I'm still not quite sure whether this was a in the traditional sense, but I honestly didn't care. What I loved was the slice of Harriet Stone's new start in New York City in the midst of the Harlem Renaissance as she tries to find her place and a place for her little sister while living in the house she inherited from a cousin she never knew. Secrets that might have gotten the woman killed and might reach for Harriet and Lovey, too.

So Harriet is learning her way, coming into her own, "trying to make a way in this hard old world", uncertain of who she can or should trust, even as her cousin's death and her own griefs haunt her every step of the way.

The way that this story was a woman's story focusing very specifically on women's problems and women's issues, made it easy for this reader to follow Harriet's in her world in spite of differences in time, place and race. She brought her time, her place, and her situation to life and I loved every minute of the story.

I'm REALLY looking forward to Harriet Stone's future historical mysteries, and in the meantime I this one to anyone who enjoys and/or because this one is a GEM!

12/17/2025

A+ : The Mysterious Death of Junetta Plum by Valerie Wilson Wesley .bsky.social

My Review: It’s the mystery of Junetta Plum’s whole, entire life that confuses, empowers, inspires and enables the life that her cousin Harriet Stone drops into in the opening pages of this book. Not that Harriet doesn’t find herself poking into Junetta’s death - because it is mysterious - b...

12/17/2025

Dashing December Giveaway Hop

When it comes to the holidays, the rest of the year does rather dash right by, doesn't it. There's only a couple of weeks left in 2025 - and then it's on to 2026!

The ends tonight. Hanukkah is on it's third night. Fall officially ends on the shortest day of the year, which is this Sunday. Not that it probably doesn't already feel wintry wherever you are. It certainly does around here!

So, there's this hop, named after one of Santa's reindeer AND the way that time just seems to fly this time of year.

But, before this year completely dashes away, there are plenty of holiday/wintry prizes in store for the lucky winners at all the sites participating in this hop. Including, of course, here at Reading Reality at https://wp.me/p3gHJx-esq

So Happy Holidays and Seasons Greeting and especially Seasons Readings! Stop by for your chance at the giveaway before the ball drops on New Year's!

12/16/2025

Dashing December Giveaway Hop

Welcome to the Dashing December Giveaway Hop, hosted by Mama the Fox and Mom Does Reviews! December is certainly dashing right on through this year, isn't it? Today marks the last and final day of this year's Ho-Ho-Ho Readathon, so participants have just the rest of today - until midnight ET, to see...

12/16/2025

All Wrapped up in You by Rosie Danan

This was the book in the collection that makes the short holiday season long enough for a beautifully earned HEA by putting our couple into close proximity for a year before they manage to meet. It's a third floor Chicago walkup, they live across the tiny hall from each other but never see each other's faces. They do text, multiple times a day, to complain about the neighbors AND to share the care of his neglected spider plant in the hall.

Even when they do meet, they don't. Well, they do, but they don't realize that he's 3A and she's 3B. And that their texts are the bright spots in each other's day.

The way that they turn out to be each other's Christmas miracle was charming and sweet, just a little bit hot and a 'lotta' bit desperate, but after saving each other and still not putting all the pieces together, once they do that HFN is definitely earned - and makes for a delightful holiday that's a perfectly sweet listening treat as well!

12/15/2025

A- : All Wrapped Up in You by Rosie Danan

My Review: The thing about these holiday shorts series(es), both this year’s Home Sweet Holidays and last year’s Under the Mistletoe, is that the stories are supposed to be short in length - and they are - so they often take place over a rather short time period to make things work. But speaking...

12/15/2025

The Sunday Post/Virtual Nightstand for December 14, 2025

This is a week where a whole bunch of things change. Tonight is the first night of Hanukkah. Tomorrow is the last day of the Holly Jolly Giveaway Hop. Tuesday is the last day of the and the first day of the Dashing December Giveaway Hop. This is also marks the last official week of Fall. Winter officially begins on the shortest day of the year, which is next Sunday, December 21, in the Northern hemisphere. It's likely to be at least a bit chilly even here in the ATL, but at least the days start getting longer from there!

Tuna is here to remind everyone that if you haven't already bought and wrapped holiday presents for this year, it's probably time to start. He was certainly all in this week on watching us do the same. In this house it takes two humans to fend off four cats in order to get the presents wrapped, but Tuna was particularly attentive this year, hoping either for a ribbon to chew (NO!) or a spare sheet of wrapping paper to use as a sled across the dining room table. His attempts were not successful, but one can't blame an adorable kitty for trying his adorableness out on his humans!

Here are this week's highlights:
Featured Giveaway: Holly Jolly Giveaway Hop
Book of the Week: Crescent City Christmas Chaos by Ellen Byron
Feature for the Coming Week: Dashing December Giveaway Hop



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