A Book A Week

This time of year is busy for most of us. The holidays bring a flurry of decorating, shopping, gatherings, and travel. For me, that usually means I have less time than I’d like to commit to reading, and I find myself craving books that are quicker, easier to finish. I’ve found the perfect series in Greg Kincaid’s holiday novels. A Dog Named Christmas and Noelle both deliver heartwarming holiday cheer—with plenty of adorable puppies thrown in. It’s a combination that’s hard to resist! Thankfully, the series has more entries, so I eagerly picked up A Christmas Home to see what would happen next.

Twenty-four-year-old Todd McCray never thought he would find a place in the world where he truly belonged. His developmental challenges often left him feeling out of step as he grew up. That began to change when he met a Labrador retriever named Christmas, a rescue dog who gave Todd a sense of purpose he never knew he was missing. Now, Todd works at the local animal shelter, the very place where he once fostered Christmas all those years ago. With his gentle nature and intuitive understanding of animals, Todd excels at training the dogs and helping match them with the right families.

While Todd is doing well, the rest of his small town is not. Economic times are tough. Businesses are shuttering, families are moving away in desperate search of opportunity, and tragically, many are leaving their family pets behind. The result is an animal shelter overflowing with dogs in need of homes just as the holidays approach. Worse still, with tax revenue dwindling, the city council has voted to close the shelter at the end of the year. Now, Todd faces an impossible task of finding homes for every animal before Christmas, while also coming to terms with the loss of the one place where he has ever truly felt he belonged.

A Christmas Home expands the world Greg Kincaid introduced in A Dog Named Christmas, making for a perfect holiday read. While Kincaid initially uses the economic downturn of a small town to kick off his story, I was pleased to see it evolve into a tale rooted in hope and optimism. My only real complaint with the first book was the author’s handling of Todd’s disability, and here that issue is thoughtfully corrected. Todd is given real agency as the hero of the story, and even a gentle romance subplot that feels earned rather than patronizing. All told, A Christmas Home is a warm holiday read that reminds us of the importance of hope, community, and making sure everyone has a place they can call home.

For more information, visit the author's website, Amazon, and Goodreads. 

(2025, 99)

Meeting the family is nerve-wracking in any new relationship, but it's downright suffocating for Theodora Scott. And why wouldn’t it be? Her fiancé, Connor Dalton, belongs to the notoriously wealthy and secretive Dalton family. Their whirlwind romance has gone from a chance meeting at one of Theo's art shows to an engagement in just six months, and now she’s traveling to Idlewood, the Daltons’ isolated winter retreat, to meet the family for the first time. Theo knows the stakes are high. She's determined to prove she’s in this for love, not their fortune.

But something isn’t right. Theo has received anonymous text messages for weeks warning her to stay away from Connor. Dismissing them as pranks, she steels herself to make a good impression. Yet the moment she steps into Idlewood, Theo can’t shake the uneasy feeling creeping over her. The family’s frosty reception is bad enough, but then there’s the unsettling familiarity of the place. Strange footprints appear outside her window. A disused cabin on the property hides something impossible: a photo of Theo as a child, taken at Idlewood. Theo barely remembers her earliest years, but the splintered memories that emerge point to secrets someone in the Dalton family is desperate to keep hidden. As Theo inches closer to uncovering the truth, she realizes she’s not just an outsider trying to win their approval—she’s a threat. And the Daltons will do anything to protect their legacy, even if it means silencing her forever.

Kate Alice Marshall has built a reputation for crafting atmospheric thrillers that keep readers on edge, and her latest, A Killing Cold, is no exception. After making her mark in YA fiction, Marshall broke into adult thrillers with the exceptional What Lies in the Woods, a gripping mystery that delved into the perils of memory and generational trauma. I thoroughly enjoyed that novel and was thrilled to receive a copy of this newest standalone from the publisher. From the first chapter, Marshall establishes a sense of creeping unease. Theo, our protagonist, feels like she’s wading into waters far deeper than she’s prepared for, and it quickly becomes apparent that she’s harboring secrets of her own. As her fiancé’s family secrets come to light, the narrative twists into a tangled web of deceit, ensuring no character—and no reader—is left entirely sure of the truth.

I alternated between reading and listening to the audiobook, and Karissa Vacker’s narration was, as always, a highlight. Her voice brought a chilling immediacy to Theo’s mounting paranoia and the story’s steadily escalating tension. Marshall expertly keeps the reader slightly off balance, just enough to ensure that when the big reveals come, they land with maximum impact. The pacing is relentless, ramping up as threats grow more urgent, culminating in a genuinely shocking conclusion. With A Killing Cold, Marshall proves once again that she’s a master of the winter thriller, delivering an irresistible blend of atmosphere, suspense, and twists. She’s quickly becoming one of my must-read authors.

For more information, visit the author's website, Amazon, and Goodreads. 

(2025, 11)

If first impressions truly make or break your opinion, then you may be turned off by Jenny Milchman's debut novel, Cover of Snow. As I began reading, I was attracted to the main premise. The problem, however, lied in the writing itself. It seemed that Milchman felt it necessary to include detailed descriptions, similes and analogies in nearly every sentence. Details can be helpful, but too much of a good thing can be overkill. Add to this the cold, seemingly two-dimensional characters, and you can begin to understand why this novel opened with a bitter taste. To use one of the author's devices, reading the opening of the novel was like fining a bone in the first course of a meal.

Despite this, the premise of the story is very intriguing. Nora Hamilton wakes up to an empty bed and immediately knows that something is wrong. Her husband is a police officer in their small town, and always follows a morning routine. When she doesn't hear the shower running, and notices that she overslept, she is certain something terrible has happened. Her world comes crashing down when she discovers her husband hanging from a light fixture.

With no note left, and no actions that would have indicated her husband's willingness to take his own life, Nora struggles to find answers. As she begins to dig into the last weeks of her husbands life, she soon realizes how little she really knew of the man. Even worse, he seems to have been part of a larger conspiracy that dates back over twenty-five years. Nora soon finds herself in a race to reveal the truth behind her husband's death before those responsible silence her as well.

The opening of this novel just didn't work for me. Writing style aside, I felt zero sympathy for Nora, whose husband had just committed suicide. Instead of being the sensitive widow that I expected from the situation, Nora came off as a callous, unfeeling woman who, despite the efforts of the author to convince me otherwise, was emotionally unaffected by her husbands death. Therefore, when she decided to find reasoning behind the suicide, I didn't really care to know how it occurred.

Fortunately, there is a silver lining of promise to this novel. After the excruciating first third, Milchman begins to take a much more direct approach to her writing, giving this thriller, the pace that it desperately needs. As Nora digs deeper into her husband's death, we are given the suspense, thrills, and intrigue that the excellent premise warrants. The ending, while a bit preposterous, really satisfied, and I was pleased that I continued to read the entire novel. Of course, the latter half of the book still contained a few cringe worthy descriptions, but the action and suspense had picked up to a level that made me disregard the author's shortcomings. While Cover of Snow is no masterpiece, it does provide enough intrigue to serve as an entertaining afternoon read. Author Jenny Milchman still has some growing to do, but I'm interested in seeing what she comes up with next.

For more information, visit the authors website, Amazon, and GoodReads.

(2013: week 3, book 3)