Book Review: A Thousand Painted Hours, by Barbara O’Neal

3 September 2026 by Melissa

About the book, A Thousand Painted Hours

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Lake Union Publishing
Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 11, 2026
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Print length ‏ : ‎ 543 pages

An epic, emotionally charged novel about love, art, and survival spanning 1900s colonial India to Blitz-era London by the USA Today bestselling author of When We Believed in Mermaids.

In the shadow of the London Blitz, artist Elsie Turner clings fiercely to her canvases, refusing to let war dim the colors that define her. The bombs test her nerve, but the struggle also stirs memories of her golden youth in India and of the long-lost love of her life.

The daughter of a British civil servant in the Himalayan station of Nainital, Elsie crosses cultural divides to forge an unlikely bond with Tanveer Singh, a Sikh prince with hopes, dreams, and far-reaching ideas. What begins as shared sketchbooks and stargazing becomes first love and a secret correspondence. When Elsie’s father is summoned to England, Elsie is severed from the world she knows—and is determined to preserve it through both her art and a connection with Tanveer that endures through the most tumultuous years of their lives.

Across four decades and two continents, Elsie navigates a journey from lush colonial India to war-torn London, amid landscapes of beauty, protest, and peril. As past and present collide, the most impossible choices and sacrifices are yet to be made in the name of love, war, and survival.

Praise for this book:

“From the forested hills of India to the bomb-scarred streets of London to the searing heat of Cairo, A Thousand Painted Hours is a colorful, transportive, and heartrending novel. In a sweeping tale of friendship and love through the ages, O’Neal grabs her readers by the heart and doesn’t let go. Not to be missed!” —Heather Webb, USA Today bestselling author of The Hope Keeper

Buy, read and discuss this book:

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | BookBub | Goodreads

About the author, Barbara O’Neal

Barbara O’Neal is the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Amazon Charts bestselling author of twenty novels of women’s fiction, including the #1 Amazon Charts bestseller When We Believed in Mermaids, as well as The Last Letter of Rachel Ellsworth, Memories of the Lost, This Place of Wonder, and The Starfish Sisters.

Her award-winning books have been published in more than two dozen countries. She lives on the wild Oregon Coast with her husband, a British endurance athlete who vows he’ll never lose his accent.

For more information, visit www.barbaraoneal.com.

Connect with Barbara:

Facebook | Instagram

My thoughts

A Thousand Painted Hours entered my life during a summer when I was already doing a lot of reading about both British colonial India and World War II, so I felt as though the literary gods were smiling upon me.

Then I loved the print version so much that I bought the audiobook simply because I wanted to hear Barbara O’Neal’s language read aloud.

This isn’t a review of the audio edition, but that seems worth mentioning because it says something about the prose itself. O’Neal writes with a richness that never becomes cumbersome. Her descriptions are lush and evocative without slowing the story, and there is a musicality to the language that made me curious about how it would sound rather than simply how it looked on the page. For the record, the narration is spot-on, and the story flows just as beautifully when heard as it does when read.

The print edition, though, is gorgeous.

Different languages weave through the text. Letters pass back and forth, sometimes accompanied by pressed flowers or small pieces of art. These elements aren’t decorative flourishes pasted onto the story; they’re part of the way O’Neal builds intimacy between her characters and gives physical presence to relationships stretched across enormous distances and spans of time.

They also contribute to one of the novel’s greatest strengths: its sense of texture. This is a book that feels tactile. Paper, paint, flowers, landscapes, food, weather, clothing, and color all contribute to the world of the novel without overwhelming it.

At 543 pages, A Thousand Painted Hours is wonderfully meaty—and somehow still not enough.

That is partly because O’Neal handles the pacing of a long, dual-timeline novel remarkably well. The movement between periods creates momentum rather than interrupting it, and the letters provide yet another rhythm within the larger structure. Instead of feeling as though I were being pulled away from one story just as it became interesting, I found that each shift added another layer to what I already knew.

O’Neal is equally good at allowing relationships to develop over time. Connections between characters are not treated as static things established in one scene and carried unchanged through the rest of the book. Affection, resentment, obligation, desire, friendship, and loyalty evolve as the characters themselves do. Four decades is a tremendous amount of emotional territory for a novel to cover, and the relationships feel lived in rather than merely plotted.

There is also considerable care in the novel’s treatment of culture and belonging. O’Neal doesn’t use India simply as an exotic backdrop for a British woman’s story. Questions of colonialism, privilege, cultural identity, and independence are woven through the characters’ lives, while the multilingual elements of the novel allow people to inhabit their own languages rather than having every interaction flattened into English.

Perhaps most impressive is the balance of all these elements. This is historical fiction, romance, family drama, and a novel about art, memory, culture, and identity, but none of those pieces feels as though it has wandered in from a different book.

And despite those 543 pages, I reached the end wishing there were just a few more painted hours left.

Goes well with: Gulab jamun and a steaming cup of cardamom tea.

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Book Review: No More Tomorrows by Olivia Lockhart & Hal Lambert

9 April 2026 by Melissa

About the book, No More Tomorrows

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Independently published
Publication date ‏ : ‎ February 3, 2026
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Print length ‏ : ‎ 410 pages
Scroll down for Giveaway (UK Residents Only)

Two eras. One aching heart.

1917 – At Cambridge University, American scholar Harry Turchin never expects to lose himself to desire. But Annie Mackenzie—soft-spoken, grieving, and luminous—claims his heart from their very first kiss. Their love is swift, fierce, and intoxicating. Married just days before Harry is sent to war, their passion is ripped apart when the trenches claim everything he knows, and Harry is thrown into a future that should not exist.

1967 – The free-spirited sixties are alive with rhythm, rebellion, and possibility. Harry awakens to a world he doesn’t recognise—and to Annalise Taylor, as bold and captivating as the era itself. Brilliant, independent, and achingly alive, she rouses a desire he thought belonged solely to the past.

Caught between the love he was ripped away from and the passion he cannot resist, Harry is torn between two women, two lives, and two versions of forever. Because time will not bend twice … Or will it?

Sweeping from the blood-soaked battlefields of World War One to the fevered nights of the swinging sixties, No More Tomorrows is a sensual time-slip romance about desire, devotion, and the devastating power of love that refuses to be bound by time.

Buy, read, and discuss this book:

Amazon (US) | Amazon (UK) | Goodreads

About the author, Olivia Lockhart

Olivia Lockhart (Livvie to her friends) is an English author who can’t quite decide if she wants to write contemporary romance, historical romance, or paranormal romance. So she writes them all, because it HAS to be romance!

She loves to write about the underdog, the one who got away, the bits of love stories we can all relate to.

When not writing she can be found drinking wine, cuddling with her beloved pooch, or with her head in a book.

Connect with Olivia:

Instagram | X (Twitter)

My Thoughts

I am an easy mark for time travel, fish-out-of-water stories, and novels that play with structure, so No More Tomorrows was already speaking my language. Once it opened with that beautifully presented letter—rendered in a way that makes it feel personal and immediate—I was all in. It sets the tone perfectly for a novel that is as interested in longing and connection as it is in plot.

What makes this story work so well is that it is not simply one romance dropped into an unusual situation. It is a true parallel narrative, and both halves carry equal emotional weight. Harry’s life in 1917, and his connection with Annie, is not a prologue to be brushed aside. It is full, immediate, and deeply felt. At the same time, what unfolds in 1967 with Annalise is vivid, electric, and impossible to dismiss as anything less than real.

Layered over that is the novel’s central question, and it is a powerful one: where does Harry belong? This is not just about choosing between two women. It is about choosing between two lives—between the past that shaped him and the future that is asking him to become someone new. The tension isn’t theoretical, either. The story keeps that question active, pressing gently but persistently: does he stay in the 1960s and build something new, or does he find a way back to 1917, to the life that was taken from him? That uncertainty gives the entire book its forward pull.

Lockhart and Lambert handle that balance with care. Harry feels consistent across both timelines—reserved, marked by war, not always equipped to articulate what he feels, which makes his emotional journey all the more compelling. Annie and Annalise are distinct and fully realized in their own right, which is essential. Annie brings a quiet, aching tenderness to the earlier timeline, while Annalise meets Harry with intelligence, confidence, and a refusal to be anything less than fully present. Neither relationship feels like a placeholder for the other, and that is what makes the stakes land.

The epistolary elements are one of my favorite aspects of the novel. Letters allow us to see what characters are willing to admit when they believe no one is watching—or when they are writing across a distance that may never be crossed. It adds a layer of intimacy that suits a story built on separation, time, and longing, and it ties the two timelines together in a way that feels organic rather than gimmicky.

The settings are equally strong. The wartime sections carry weight and shadow, while the late-sixties academic world feels alive with movement, change, and possibility. Harry’s displacement isn’t just chronological; it’s cultural, emotional, and deeply personal, which makes the 1967 sections particularly engaging.

I should also note that I am still coming to terms with 1967–68 being considered historical fiction, since I was born in 1970, and frankly that feels a little rude. Still. Fine. I accept the paperwork.

If you enjoy romance that asks bigger questions—about time, identity, and what it means to choose a life—this is a satisfying and emotionally layered read that lingers well beyond the final page.

Goes well with: a strong cup of coffee, a stack of old letters tied with ribbon, and a vinyl record playing something a little wistful in the background.

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Book Review: Under Vixens Mere by Kit Fielding

5 February 2026 by Melissa

About the Book, Under Vixens Mere:

After Harry Jones takes his life in the chilling waters of Vixens Mere, not one body is found by the police rescue team, but two. Tucked away in the English countryside, the run-down marina at Vixens Mere hosts a ragtag community of houseboats whose lives are as tangled as their mooring ropes. Harry Jones’s death dredges up more than grief: a second body in the water, hidden love affairs, and old grudges. As the marina begins to reveal the truths of the past, its dwellers unify against investigators, vindictive exes, and anyone else who tries to break them. The boats of Vixens Mere brim with secrets…. A marriage broken by war, a guilty lover returning, a ramshackle haven for aging hippies, a newcomer chasing a better life, a home haunted by addiction, and a loyal outcast whose devotion turns deadly. Step aboard and lose yourself in the secrets, betrayals, and unbreakable ties of a small community.

Buy, read, and discuss this book:

Purchase Link | Goodreads

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About the Author, Kit Fielding:

Kit Fielding plans and writes his novels in a motorhome at various locations around the country.

The feeling of impermanence is natural to him due to his mother’s traveller roots and a childhood succession of tied-cottages accommodation in different parts of England.

Kit Fielding says that there was always a curiosity about what was waiting, or was lurking, just around the corner. This legacy has stayed with him to the present day and it feeds into his work.

Connect to Inkspot Publishing:

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My Thoughts:

Under Vixen’s Mere is one of those novels that quietly gets under your skin and then refuses to leave.

From the opening pages, the prose immediately stood out to me. It’s spare without ever feeling sparse—clean, confident, and quietly assured. Dialogue and description are held in careful balance, each doing its work without calling attention to itself. Nothing strains for effect, and that sense of restraint builds trust early on, inviting the reader to settle in and follow where the story leads.

I was drawn to this book for deeply personal reasons. I’ve long fantasized about living on a boat, and I happily lose hours watching The Mindful Narrowboat on YouTube (mercifully free of mysterious bodies). What I didn’t expect was how fully this novel would deliver not just a setting, but a lived-in way of life—one that feels authentic rather than romanticized.

This is, in many ways, vicarious travel: across years, across seasons, and into a rare, largely off-grid canal-boat community tucked into the English countryside. The residents of Vixens Mere come and go with the rhythms of the water, maintaining an almost paradoxical balance—deep closeness paired with fierce privacy. Secrets are kept, histories linger, and yet there is mutual sympathy and loyalty that feels earned rather than idealized.

The cast is refreshingly outside the usual literary comfort zone: nightclub bouncers, pig farmers, laborers, drug dealers. These are not middle-class protagonists smoothed for palatability, yet each one climbs off the page with warmth, dignity, and unmistakable humanity. They love, fight, fear, and hope as fiercely as anyone else. I could picture every one of them.

Kit Fielding manages a large ensemble with impressive control, giving each character space to breathe—and yes, killing some of them. Tragedy and darkness are present throughout, threaded carefully among humor and joy. The mere itself—the body of water at the novel’s heart—becomes a quiet gravitational force, anchoring two stable, loving couples while secrets of adoption, unrequited love, affairs, suicide, and manslaughter drift in and out like the boats themselves.

What struck me most was the confidence of the writing. The scene-setting is assured, the revelations slow and satisfying, and the sense of jeopardy in the latter half is handled with admirable restraint. This is a writer who asks for your patience—and repays it fully.

Most of all, this book felt refreshing. Refreshing in its refusal to lean on stereotype. Refreshing in its complex, contradictory characters. Refreshing in a storytelling style that is unusual, engaging, and delivered with raw honesty and flair.

Choosing a favorite among the residents of Vixens Mere is nearly impossible, but if pressed, I’d gladly spend an evening with Big Ed and Millie aboard Crystal Lady—the emotional linchpins of this ragtag family. Their relationship feels utterly authentic, and I’d happily sink a beer (or three) with them in The Shed.

This is one of those rare books I was reluctant to finish—not because the ending faltered, but because I didn’t want to leave these people behind. I know they’ll be living in my head for a long time yet.

Goes well with: a pint in a weathered pub, damp boots by the door, and the quiet creak of ropes against wood as night settles over the water.

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Book Review: Quiet Valor: Everyday Americans by Larry Nouvel

23 January 2026 by Melissa

About the Book: Quiet Valor: Everyday Americans

Genre: Inspirational Nonfiction/ American Social History
Publication Date: November 4, 2025
Pages: 241
Scroll down for Giveaway

Some acts of courage never make the news, but they keep the world turning.

In every community, there are people who keep things moving simply by showing up. Quiet Valor: Everyday Americans opens with this familiar truth and builds a clear, steady narrative around it—highlighting the men and women whose everyday decisions hold families and neighborhoods together when it matters most.

Larry Nouvel brings forward stories that feel close to home: the workers, neighbors, teachers, and caregivers who operate without fanfare but whose actions hold real impact across families, streets, and local systems.

This volume reads like a portfolio of lived experiences, each one capturing a moment when an ordinary individual stepped forward because responsibility called for it. A teacher sprinting through a storm to guide anxious children. A bus driver managing an evacuation with near-perfect timing. A construction worker shielding a stranger on the subway tracks. A deputy diving into deep water to bring a lost child back to safety. An airman refusing to stop until every family in a flooded town was accounted for. These moments underscore a timeless point: communities endure because everyday people choose to act.

Nouvel’s style is measured and respectful, reflecting long-standing values, commitment, steadiness, and the quiet work ethic that has always shaped American life. Each vignette is lean, focused, and designed to show how character carries real operational weight. These aren’t headline-chasing stories; they are reminders of the reliable hands that keep families supported and neighborhoods functioning.

Following Quiet Valor: Unsung Architects of the American Promise and Quiet Valor: Children Who Cared, Endured, and Inspired, this third volume turns the lens toward the adults who sustain communities one steady act at a time.

Quiet Valor: Everyday Americans is a meaningful resource for readers who value tradition, continuity, and the steady presence of people who do the work because the work matters. It reminds us that valor is often quiet—and greatness is measured by the willingness to keep showing up.

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About the Author: Larry Nouvel

Larry Nouvel is the author of Quiet Valor: Unsung Architects of the American Promise, Quiet Valor: Children Who Cared, Endured, and Inspired, and Quiet Valor: Everyday Americans— three books that celebrate individuals whose quiet actions shaped lives, communities, and sometimes nations.

An inventor and entrepreneur, Larry has developed and registered more than 100 health-related products worldwide and holds over a dozen patents. As founder of LNouvel Inc., he has spent decades quietly advancing innovations in pet, livestock, and household care. His latest venture, UnRuffled Pets, launched in 2024 with calming products for cats and dogs, and is now sold across the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Brazil.

Larry’s writing reflects his belief that quiet dedication—whether through caregiving, invention, or daily kindness—can drive lasting change. His stories highlight people who didn’t seek attention but made a difference all the same.

Connect with Larry:

Website | Facebook | LinkedIn

My Thoughts

Going into Quiet Valor: Everyday Americans, I’ll admit I was a bit trepidatious. I hadn’t read the first two books in the series, and I wondered whether this would veer into a politically conservative, rah-rah celebration of “American values.” I was relieved to discover that the author’s note—clearly stating that this book is not political—was absolutely sincere.

What this book actually offers is something rarer and, frankly, more needed: a balm for weary souls who are looking anywhere for hope and positivity in an increasingly bleak world.

This is not a book about capital-H heroes. Instead, it centers on people who engage in small acts of service, kindness, and yes, heroism—not for recognition or glory, but because it was the right thing to do in the moment. These are stories of people showing up when it would have been easier not to.

I was only two stories in when I found myself getting teary. This book is moving. It’s honest. It’s simple and direct in the best possible way. There’s no manipulation here, no overwriting, no manufactured sentiment.

One of the most striking aspects of Quiet Valor is its credibility. In an age when even stories of kindness are often generated by AI and amplified through social media without verification, this book has receipts. Every story is sourced. These moments are real, documented, and grounded in lived experience.

From home health aides who showed up during COVID, to nurses, to subway riders protecting one another in moments of danger, the book quietly but firmly reinforces something many of us want to believe but sometimes struggle to hold onto: that people, at their core, are capable of goodness.

Reading this, I kept thinking of Anne Frank’s words about still believing in the goodness of people. Quiet Valor: Everyday Americans doesn’t shout that belief. It simply proves it, one steady story at a time.

Goes well with: a mug of coffee and a chocolate chip cookie your neighbor baked—still warm, offered without ceremony, and meant to be shared.

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Review: No Oil Painting by Genevieve Marenghi

10 December 2025 by Melissa

No Oil Painting

About the book, No Oil Painting

A respectable septuagenarian steals a valuable painting and later tries to return it, with a little help from her friends.

Bored National Trust volunteer, Maureen, steals an obscure still life as a giant up-yours to all those who’ve discounted her. The novice fine art thief is rumbled by some fellow room guides, but snitches get stitches, camaraderie wins out and instead of grassing her up, they decide to help.

Often written off as an insipid old fart, Maureen has a darker side, challenging ingrained ideas of how senior citizens should behave. Her new set of friends make her feel alive again. No longer quite so invisible, can this unlikely pensioner gang return the now infamous painting without being caught by the Feds?

I wrote this after hearing a radio interview in which an art detective revealed how a stolen Titian was dumped at a bus stop outside Richmond station. In a red, white and blue plastic bag! I just couldn’t shake such a compelling image. I volunteered at Ham House for many years, and my passion for this Jacobean gem, together with the volunteers’ indomitable spirit, gave birth to my unlikely anti-hero.

With over five million members, the National Trust is a huge British institution. Yet, next to nothing has been written about it in terms of contemporary fiction. Until now.

While No Oil Painting explores themes of insignificance and loneliness in older age, particularly for women, it is mainly intended to entertain and offer a small haven in dark, uncertain times.

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About the Author, Genevieve Marenghi

With a BA in English and Philosophy, Genevieve worked for eleven years at the Weekend FT, where she helped create and launch How To Spend It magazine.

She volunteered for years as a National Trust guide at Ham House. This became the setting for her debut art heist novel, No Oil Painting, which was listed for the inaugural Women’s Prize Trust and Curtis Brown Discoveries, and was published by Burton Mayers Books on 10th October 2025.

Her writing uses dark humour to probe the difference between our perception of people and their true selves. The gulf between what is said and what is meant. She considers people watching an essential skill for any writer; overheard snippets of conversation or a bonkers exchange at a bus stop are like gold nuggets. She’s been known to follow people to catch the end of a juicy conversation or argument. Women aged over fifty are essentially invisible anyhow and she views this as a kind of superpower.

Unlike her protagonist Maureen, she hasn’t used this to commit art theft. Yet.

Connect with Genevieve

Instagram | Threads

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My Thoughts

There is something irresistibly delicious about a crime novel that hands the spotlight to someone the world tends to overlook. Genevieve Marenghi’s No Oil Painting introduces Maureen, a septuagenarian National Trust volunteer who has spent a lifetime playing by the rules… right up until she decides not to. A cheeky lunch-table game — the sort of hypothetical mischief people joke about but never act on — becomes the spark that sets her audacious adventure in motion. Before long she is scheming, sweating, and slip-sliding her way through an ill-advised art heist that is equal parts chaos and charm.

What makes the novel shine is not the theft itself, although the caper is delightful. It is Maureen’s emotional landscape that lingers. Her great-niece is leaving for New York, her favorite painting is slated for relocation, and the soft, creeping loneliness of late life presses in on her. Rather than succumb, she lunges headfirst into trouble. The heist becomes her rallying cry, a way to shake off invisibility and rediscover purpose. The friends who join her — instead of reporting her — supply the heart of the story, proving that chosen community is sometimes the most life-saving kind.

Maureen is funny without being caricatured, vulnerable without being fragile. Her escapade becomes a gentle reminder that senior citizens contain multitudes, that adventure does not expire, and that sometimes the wildest thing you can do is insist on mattering. I found her journey both hilarious and unexpectedly moving, especially as a reader eyeing that demographic from not-too-far away. The whole book reads quickly, but it leaves a warm afterglow long after the final page.

It helps that Marenghi’s timing feels almost prescient. With its October 2025 publication date aligning with the very real October 2025 Crown Jewels caper at the Louvre, the novel gains an unintended relevancy. Art theft is having a moment, apparently, and Maureen’s pint-sized rebellion slots right into the cultural conversation.

No Oil Painting entertains, uplifts, and subtly encourages the reader to imagine their own cheeky museum caper. Hypothetically, of course. Mostly.

Goes well with: a steaming cup of builder’s tea, a shortbread biscuit, and the quiet thrill of plotting an imaginary art heist with your favorite partner in crime.

Review: Death of a Billionaire, by Tucker May

28 November 2025 by Melissa

About the book, Death of a Billionaire (a murder mystery novel)

Ever dream of killing your boss? Alan Benning knows how you feel.

The problem: his billionaire boss actually winds up murdered. And the whole world thinks he did it.

When globetrotting tech billionaire Barron Fisk is found dead on the floor of his swanky Silicon Valley office, all evidence points to Alan.

Alan must venture into the glitzy, treacherous world of tech billionaires to clear his name by sorting through a long list of suspects with motive aplenty. If he can’t find the real culprit, Alan’s going down. The clock is ticking.

Who killed Barron Fisk? The truth will shock— and change— the entire world.

Fans of Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club series, Carl Hiaasen’s tales of high-stakes hijinx, or Ruth Ware’s page-turning mysteries will love Death of a Billionaire.

Buy, read, and discuss this book:

Amazon (US) | Amazon (UK) | Goodreads

About the author, Tucker May

Tucker May was raised in southern Missouri. He attended Northwestern University where he was trained in acting and playwriting. He now lives in Pasadena, California with his wife Barbara and their cat Principal Spittle. He is an avid reader and longtime fan of the Los Angeles Rams and Geelong Cats. Death of a Billionaire is his debut novel.

Connect with Tucker:

Instagram | BlueSky | Facebook

My Thoughts

Tucker May’s debut leaps off the page with confidence and mischievous energy, landing squarely in that delicious space where near-future satire meets classic mystery. Set against a glitzy, tech-obsessed California that feels both familiar and uncannily heightened, Death of a Billionaire reads like a high-speed road trip with mismatched companions – equal parts detour, discovery, and delightful chaos.

The central narrator is a study in contradictions: bold one moment, rattled the next, and completely endearing throughout. He’s joined by a cast that could only exist in a world where ambition and absurdity routinely collide – a widow who could out-dramatic a telenovela star, a cop whose immaturity is both alarming and hilarious, and a parade of oddballs who keep the plot humming.

May has an instinctive feel for timing. The humor lands without undercutting the tension, and the twists snap into place just when you’ve settled into certainty. Every revelation feels earned, surprising, and – occasionally – gleefully unhinged. More than once I looked up from the book only to realize I’d sailed well past bedtime.

For a first novel, Death of a Billionaire is remarkably polished, deeply entertaining, and packed with personality. I turned the final page already hoping this is only the beginning of a long writing career for Tucker May.

Goes well with: Loaded nachos, a chilled craft soda, and a bowl of caramel-drizzled popcorn – the ideal snacks for a story that keeps you up way later than you planned.

Visit the Other Great Participants on This Tour

Review: The Traveler’s Atlas of the World

27 October 2025 by Melissa

About the book, The Traveler’s Atlas of the World

Publisher ‏ : ‎ National Geographic
Publication date ‏ : ‎ November 4, 2025
Print length ‏ : ‎ 560 pages

The ultimate traveler’s reference, this gorgeous coffee table book features bucket list–worthy travel recommendations for every country in the world.

Featuring beautiful National Geographic photography and 250 illustrated maps, this big and bold volume offers expert advice for must-see sights and hundreds of must-do experiences.

Pack your bags for the ultimate world odyssey! Curated by the world-savvy travel writers and editors of National Geographic, this breathtaking volume features the ultimate experiences in every country of the world, coupled with iconic photography, more than 50 point-of-interest National Geographic maps, and destination overviews highlighting both tried-and-true sights and lesser-known experiences.
Plus, top 10 lists, highlights of cultural treasures, fascinating histories, and recommended itineraries will inspire you to plan your next adventure.

Spin the globe and find:

The ultimate flavors of India’s spice hub—and the markets where you can taste them all;

Natural beauty worth hiking for, including the Skradinski Buk waterfall in Croatia and El Yunque National Forest in Puerto Rico;

Safaris big (the Great Migration in Tanzania) and small (lions on Calauit Island in the Philippines);

Tasting tours of the world’s best wine regions from South Africa and France to Germany and Napa Valley;

Historical relics, from the Colosseum in Rome to the Maya treasures in Mexico;

And so much more!

Covering all seven continents and every country in the world, The Traveler’s Atlas of the World delivers essential information, fun road trips (Germany’s great castles, a journey down the Nile, a road trip through the United States’ national parks), and infinite inspiration through more than 300 spectacular photographs with signature storytelling and invaluable traveler’s secrets.

Buy, read, and discuss this book:

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

About the author: National Geographic

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC is one of the world’s leading nonfiction publishers, with an extensive list of titles in categories such as history, travel, nature, photography, space, science, health, biography, and memoir. A portion of its proceeds is used to fund exploration, conservation, and education through ongoing contributions to the work of the National Geographic Society.

My Thoughts

There’s something about a map you can touch — the faint texture of the paper beneath your fingertips, the promise folded between borders and coastlines. The Traveler’s Atlas of the World brings back that tactile wonder, reminding us that exploration begins long before we board a plane.

This is no dry reference guide. It’s a visual feast — a blend of art and information that invites you to linger. Each page pairs National Geographic’s signature photography with maps that feel alive: textured, colorful, humming with possibility. It’s a book that begs to be spread open on a table, coffee in hand, a finger tracing routes you might someday take — or simply dream about.

What I love most about this atlas is the sense of old-school adventure it rekindles. In an age where GPS tells us exactly where to turn, The Traveler’s Atlas reminds us why we travel at all: to be surprised, to get a little lost, to imagine the world not as data points but as stories waiting to unfold. The digital map can get you there; this one makes you want to go.

It’s a celebration of curiosity — of countries we know by heart and those we might never reach, but can visit here, one breathtaking image at a time.

Goes well with: a cozy armchair, a steaming mug of chai, and an evening spent planning impossible journeys.

Review: National Geographic The Photographs: Iconic Images from National Geographic

24 October 2025 by Melissa

About the book: National Geographic The Photographs: Iconic Images from National Geographic

Publisher ‏ : ‎ National Geographic
Publication date ‏ : ‎ October 28, 2025
Print length ‏ : ‎ 464 pages

For tastemakers and citizens of the world, this iconic collection features the best of National Geographic’s world-class imagery across more than 250 cutting-edge photographs.

This glorious, large-format photography collection will immerse animal, science, and nature lovers in the unparalleled legacy of National Geographic’s best-in-class imagery. Featuring fan favorites like the Afghan girl and the sunken prow of the Titanic, as well as gems unearthed from the organization’s celebrated archive, THE PHOTOGRAPHS is for anyone passionate about discovering, protecting, and honoring the wonders of the planet.

In these pages, you’ll find dazzling images from every corner of the globe, including magnificent wildlife and human achievements in science, technology, exploration, archaeology, and adventure. Step into the lives of acclaimed National Geographic photographers like Brian Skerry, Anand Varma, and Jodi Cobb, and read interviews with legends and rising stars like Rob Clark, David Doubilet, Erika Larsen, Camille Seaman, and many more.

Both vivid and timeless, THE PHOTOGRAPHS is a must-have for anyone who loves photography, nature, and the human story.

Buy, read, and discuss this book:

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About the author

JIMMY CHIN (foreword) is a National Geographic photographer, award-winning film director, renowned mountain climber, and bestselling author. His photography book There and Back became a New York Times bestseller in 2021; his documentary film Free Solo won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Nyad, his first scripted feature, starring Annette Bening and Jodie Foster, was nominated for two Academy awards.

My Thoughts

Before I ever learned to read, I learned to look. My grandfather kept neat stacks of National Geographic magazines in his den — golden spines lined like treasure, each issue a portal. I remember flipping through the glossy pages, the scent of paper and ink as much a part of the experience as the photos themselves. Faces, creatures, storms, and ruins — the world felt vast and intimate all at once.

The Photographs rekindles that same sense of wonder, distilled into one breathtaking collection. Across more than 250 images, National Geographic’s legendary photographers remind us what it means to see — truly see — our planet and ourselves. There’s the iconic Afghan girl, her gaze as piercing now as it was decades ago. The ghostly prow of the Titanic resting on the ocean floor. And there — a line of surfers, tiny yet fearless, framed against an impossible blue wave. That image, especially, feels like a heartbeat: humanity poised at the edge of nature’s vastness, daring and small all at once.

What makes this volume remarkable isn’t just its scope — though it spans continents and decades — but its restraint. Each image stands almost alone: no essays, no captions beyond a name, a place, a year. That sparseness lets the photography breathe, invites silence, reflection. The book itself is beautifully made, large enough to do justice to its subjects, and designed with reverence rather than spectacle.

For anyone who grew up tracing the edges of the world through National Geographic, this collection is both time capsule and testament. For newcomers, it’s a revelation — proof that the human eye, when paired with patience, empathy, and craft, can still surprise us.

The Photographs isn’t merely a coffee-table book. It’s a reminder that beauty has always been both fragile and ferocious — and that our world, still, is worth looking at closely.

Goes well with: a strong cup of Ethiopian coffee, a lazy Sunday morning, and a window that catches the light just right.

Review: Irresistible Calling by Sean Mitchell

29 September 2025 by Melissa

About the book, Irresistible Calling

Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 15, 2025
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Print length ‏ : ‎ 302 pages

Sean Mitchell was teaching English at a private school in Ohio when the New Journalism piqued his interest and lured him toward a profession that was much harder to crack than he imagined. After an editor in Washington, D.C. finally gave him a chance, he found a calling that would require and reveal multiple skills: editing an “underground” newspaper in his hometown of Dallas, writing magazine length stories about long distance truckers and Z.Z. Top, serving as the Dallas Times Herald’s first rock critic and then its theatre critic, winning national recognition for his reviews.

Moving to Los Angeles to cover Hollywood for the strangely singular and doomed Herald Examiner and then the Los Angeles Times, he profiled stars like Clint Eastwood, Ann-Margret and his irascible former St. Mark’s School of Texas soccer teammate Tommy Lee Jones. While examining the nation’s preoccupation with celebrity, he wondered if journalists like him were part of the problem or part of the solution?

Buy, read, and discuss this book:

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

About the author, Sean Mitchell

Sean Mitchell grew up in Dallas, where he was editor of the city’s first alternative weekly, then a reporter and cultural critic for the Dallas Times Herald, before moving to Los Angeles to cover Hollywood for the Herald Examiner and Los Angeles Times. A graduate of St. Mark’s School of Texas and Brown University, he has also worked as an English teacher, videographer, and designer of custom wood fences.

My Thoughts

Some memoirs are pleasant enough to skim with a cup of coffee. This one? I devoured it in a single greedy gulp. Irresistible Calling is witty, engaging, and brimming with the kind of lived-in detail that makes you laugh, tear up, and—without even noticing—learn a lot.

Sean Mitchell may technically be a boomer, but his story is timeless. This GenXer found myself nodding along, hooked from page one. He opens in childhood, when a glossy holiday travel magazine inspired his parents to trade a fading Bethlehem, Pennsylvania steel town for the sun-soaked suburbs of Dallas. The 1950s details are spot-on, yet instantly relatable: family yearning for more, neighbors measuring success in conformity, and kids caught in the in-between.

Mitchell’s own path takes him from a prestigious Dallas boy’s school (where he forged friendships with classmates like Tommy Lee Jones) to college during the heyday of the 1960s, and eventually into journalism. His career arc—covering theater, film, and music in D.C., Dallas, and Los Angeles—offers a front-row seat to cultural history. The Hollywood interviews sparkle, but it’s his long, thorny, and wildly entertaining relationship with Jones that steals the show.

Threaded through the anecdotes is a thoughtful meditation on American life: the promise and collapse of the counterculture, the longing of his parents for “something more,” and his own drive to make a mark in the shifting world of newspapers. I especially loved his mother’s journey toward joy and passion, and felt the weight of his father’s quiet disappointment.

Mitchell writes with humor, candor, and a critic’s eye for the telling detail. The result is more than one man’s life story—it’s a cultural time capsule of America from the 1950s through the 1980s.

Verdict: Highly recommended for fans of memoirs, American cultural history, or simply anyone who appreciates a smart, funny, beautifully written life story.

Goes well with: A bottomless diner mug of coffee and a Sunday paper, spread all over the table.

Review: A Madness Unmade by E.K. Larson-Burnett

3 March 2025 by Melissa

About the Book, A Madness Unmade

Publisher ‏ : ‎ E.K. Larson-Burnett (March 3, 2025)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 334 pages

Laurel Rumbroom is the sole living resident of the Underhallow, where dead moths have been showing up at the gates in neatly wrapped packages.

Since the institution of the Revenant Accords, which prohibits ghosts from freely haunting the country, the Rumbrooms have acted as Guardians to the ghosts seeking refuge at their sanctuary. But when Laurel’s father suddenly passes, leaving her orphaned, the Underhallow falls in danger of losing its sanctions.

Bewildered by the mysterious deliveries of dead moths, starting to question her grip on reality, and gradually realizing the precarious position of her home and the questionable circumstances surrounding her father’s death, Laurel begs the help of the Underhallow ghosts animated by her powers, struggling to come into her own and unmake her madness.

With humor, whimsy, and elements of gothic mystery, A Madness Unmade is the first book in the Victorian-inspired Deathly Inheritance Duology, perfect for fans of Charlie N. Holmberg and S.L. Prater.

Buy, read, and discuss this book:

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

My Thoughts:

The first book in E.K. Larson-Burnett’s Deathly Inheritance duology, A Madness Unmade, is a refreshing take on magic, ghosts, and the world outside our own perceptions where the latter find refuge.

I read the Kindle version of this book, and was thrilled when I encountered illustrations at the chapter breaks, because they were the icing on a beautifully flavored cake. Each layer of this novel was richer and more interesting than the next: first there’s the barefoot heroine Lauren, and her cat Goose. Then there are the house-ghosts – spirits who take care of her daily needs, including her education – Master Godwin take a bow. And there’s also the dead moths that keep appearing at Lauren’s door.

The final layer of this cake is the world-building. When I read about the first moving portrait, I was worried that this series would be a Harry Potter ripoff, especially since the blurbs all refer to that series. I was pleased to find that the Underhallow and its surrounding village are original, and refreshingly so.

If anything, this novel is most like an Edward Gorey drawing come to life. In fact, the images in my head as I read this were eerily similar to the 1980’s animated opening to the PBS Mystery series – except instead of a swooning woman, there’s Madame Rathert trailing seawater.

I’m not sure I’d want to live (or be un-alive) in the world Larson-Burnett has created, but I definitely enjoyed the visit.

Goes well with: hot tea, lemon tarts, and gingerbread.

Aquatopia Amphigory of Lost Creatures: Featherfox and Glasshart

Today’s species both know how to make an impression. The Featherfox does it with a flourish, while the Glasshart simply waits for the sun to go down.

Aquatopia Amphigory of Lost Creatures: Driftneck and Eavenspike

This pair makes the same argument for stubbornness from two opposite directions. One needs no water at all. The other needed almost none to begin with. Judge for yourselves which of them made the wiser bargain.

Aquatopia Amphigory of Lost Creatures: Burrowbrock + Camelocant

TBM-2608.20 – DDOP-02 – Meles obstinatus and Camelus latimeria

Today, let’s talk about the Burrobrock and Camelocant
This pair makes the same argument for stubbornness from two opposite directions. One needs no water at all. The other needed almost none to begin with. Judge for yourselves which of them made the wiser bargain.

TBM-2608.12 – DDOP-01 – Aukiris Frigidorum

Today, let’s talk about the Aukiris — Aukiris frigidorum. Some centuries ago, a colony of auks looked at the sky, looked at the water, and made a decision the rest of us have been quietly admiring ever since. The wings did not disappear. They simply retired from flying and took up a more practical line of work.

TBM-2608.12 – DDOP-00: Calamities and Other Updates

So, MeMe del Mare is taking a well-deserved vacation and doing some field research for the Aquatopia Amphigory of Lost Creatures. In her place, Professor Darya Aban of Atlantis University, curator of the Amphigory, will be stepping in to introduce us to some of the remarkable creatures in the collection. I can’t wait for you to meet her. In about 12-15 hours