I picked up my pace a bit, though I’m definitely not breaking any records this year. I had several DNF (did not get past the first page or two), which is rare for me. Those shall remain unnamed. Still, here are some of the notable things I read between April and June.
FICTION
Kalpa Imperial, Angelica Gorodischer, Translated by Ursula K. LeGuin. A short book of stories about a fictional (and very odd) empire. I loved the prose style and the sheer fantastical imagination of it all.
The Time of the Ghost, Diana Wynne-Jones. I’ve been listening to the “Eight Days of Diana Wynne-Jones” podcast and this book was mentioned. I figured I’d better read it before I listened to the hosts discuss it. It’s apparently very autobiographical, though that doesn’t prevent there from being ghosts, ancient goddesses, and a good deal of family weirdness. I quite liked it.
Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte. (Audio version, read by Janet McTeer and David Timson). I read this in my late teens and bounced fairly hard off it at the time, so I thought I should give it another chance. As far as I can tell, adolescence is the time to read this book and if you don’t like it then, you won’t like it later. From my ancient vantage point, I just found it incredibly frustrating. I wanted to smack all the characters over the head and say “Snap out of it!” My favorite thing about WUTHERING HEIGHTS is the Kate Bush song.
Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh One of my dear friends looked at me in horror when I admitted that I’d never read this, so I remedied that. And yes, I’m very glad I did and I probably should have done it years ago. Now I just have to watch the BBC version with Jeremy Irons and I’ll be back in the good books again.
Appleseed, Matt Bell I read Bell’s book about writing, REFUSE TO BE DONE, and I found it useful (though I am never, ever, ever finishing a first draft and then writing the next draft from scratch), so I thought I’d try his novel. It’s quite good, though not at all what I was expecting.
NON-FICTION
Self-Portrait, Celia Paul Yet another in the series of books I’ve read about women artists. Paul talks about her relationship with Lucien Freud, but it is by no means the main topic of the book and she is refreshingly clear-eyed and candid about her life and work.
London Falling, Patrick Radden Keefe The latest from the author of EMPIRE OF PAIN, about the evil Sackler family. This focuses on the mysterious death of a young man in London and his parents’ discovery of his life on the fringes of the Russian mob. There are no clear answers but it’s a gripping read.
Iran: A Modern History, Abbas Amanat This should really count as TWO books, because I had to take it out of the library twice to finish it. Appalling editing/proofing aside, it’s an interesting overview of the history of Iran from the 17th century onwards, and provides a good deal of context to what has happened in the last 60 years there.
Uneasy Street, Rachel Sherman Sherman interviewed a number of wealthy families in New York City, with a focus on how they defined themselves in terms of class and financial situation. I found it a fascinating depiction of how, well, uneasy the money and privilege makes many of them, and how often they define themselves as “not like those other rich people who just spend their money on handbags and private jets” – while spending their money on handbags and private jets.
I’m not good at titles. More precisely, I’m not good at finding them quickly and easily. I actually like the titles for all my stories and novels quite a bit, but discovering them was a struggle.
I usually find my titles in songs or poems.
The Night Inside comes from the song “The Only Thing that Shines” by Shriekback
A Terrible Beauty comes from the poem “Easter, 1916” by Y.B. Yeats
Cold Hillside comes from the poem “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” by John Yeats
“Into the Black” comes from the song “Hey, Hey, My, My (Out of the Blue)” by Neil Young
“Discovering Japan” comes from the song of the same name by Graham Parker
“The Party Over There” comes from a song of the same name by … me
“Exodus 22:18” comes from the Bible
I’ve been writing the thing I call “The Witch Novel” since 2015 and last month, I decided to enter it into a contest I have no hope of winning. It seemed like a good way to push me to finalize a few things and one of those things was a title.
So I did what I always do. I brainstormed images relating to the characters and the story, I read poems, I read lyrics. All the titles I came up that seemed to work, regrettably, sounded exactly like those used for romantasies. There’s nothing wrong with romantasy, but the novel is definitely not one, and anyone expecting that would be seriously disappointed.
I wrote six pages of potential titles in my notebooks. I ran them by my husband and various friends. In the end, I didn’t find anything that fit the book the way the earlier titles fit their novels. I defaulted to the least bad, most innocuous of the semi-romantasy titles. Heck, if I win, I’ll get them to help me come up with a new title.
So it’s back to the drawing board. Maybe I should run a poll….
I felt like I started the year rather more slowly than I usually do on the reading front. Not sure why – it certainly wasn’t that I was spending the time writing. I had more DNF so far in 2026 than I do over the course of most years. Anyway, here’s the usual quick wrap-up.
FICTION
The Raven Scholar, Antonia Hodgson. This boots along at a good clip, has just the right amount of world-building, and goes unexpected places. I quite liked it.
The Auctioneer, Joan Samson. This classic has been on my ‘to read’ list for ages, but it finally showed up at the library. It didn’t disappoint. Economical, chilling, and a bit too relevant to today. A mysterious man arrives in a depressed rural town and the next thing you know, you’re giving up everything you own…
You Dreamed Of Empires, Alvaro Enrigue. A ‘not strictly realistic’ version of the meeting between Cortes and Montezuma. Weird, vivid, gory, and trippy.
Everything Will Swallow You and Villager, Tom Cox. I admit it, I read these because Tom Cox does great threads on Bluesky featuring farm animals and the best alt-text ever. I thoroughly enjoyed both Everything, a novel about a used record dealer, his unusual companion, and their friends, and Villager, a collection of linked stories centering on a rural village. I suspect they both reward rereading, so will have to break down and get my own copies. And seriously, follow him on Bluesky.
NON-FICTION
Paper Girl, Beth Macy, Part memoir, part sociological study, this is another excellent book by the author Dopesick. She goes home to the small town of her childhood and complicated family and discovers what’s changed, and what hasn’t.
The Tigress of Forli, Elizabeth Lev. Sex, power, riches, battles, politics, the church – all the good stuff from Renaissance Italy appears in this book about the life of Catarina Sforza, who held her own with the Medicis and the Borgias.
The Creative Habit, Twyla Tharp. One of my favourite ways to avoid writing is to read books about creativity. I particularly enjoyed this bit of advice: “If you’re at a dead end, take a deep breath, stamp your foot, and shout “Begin!”. Probably works better in a dance studio, but it’s worth trying.
I made another thing. It look a long time, but I finished my first pseudo-kawandi piece created around a fish kite image from a piece of Japanese fabric. Other elements include: old table runners, several dresses, obi fabric from Japan, and an old decorative pillow case.
I’ve now started on the second one, featuring a red fish, and it’s going just as slowly. I’ve discovered a monthly drop-in art circle for seniors (what a terrifying word, but accurate) at a local community centre, so there’s a least one day a month where I don’t have any excuse not to do a bit of stitching.
Two weeks ago, my flamenco teacher, Elena Mamais (known as Elena La Comadre) died. Last week, her family, friends, and students buried her. I think she would have appreciated the aesthetic of the scene: the white snow coating the trees at Mount Pleasant Cemetery, the black coats of the mourners, the red flowers we threw into her grave.
She was an artist, a dancer, a choreographer, a director, and a teacher. She inspired her students to embrace the beauty of Spanish flamenco and to find within its rich history a passion that was personal to them. She had the ability to see what lay gift lay within each of us (in my case, very well hidden under age and no sense of timing). She insisted, in ways we couldn’t quite defy, that we use that gift in our annual shows. It didn’t matter if you just danced in one piece; if you were part of the company, she would find the thing that suited you best.
She could be tough, especially on her senior dancers. “When we start rehearsals, I’m not your teacher anymore,” she’d tell us. “I’m your director.” There were definitely times I was glad I’ve remained among the ranks of the juniors!
Her own preferred dance style was lyrical, expressive, and almost contemporary. The pieces she created for herself usually had to do with grief, loss, and exile. Because she deemed that I was “somewhat dramatic”, I had the good fortune to ‘act’ in several of her vignettes. I played the Nurse in her interpretation of Medea (twice) and one of her aunts, packing a suitcase for her younger sister (Elena, playing her mother) to leave Greece and make the long overseas voyage to Canada.
Her heritage was deeply important to her. She was a devout parishioner of the Greek Orthodox Church and a lover of Greek myth and music.
Her last performance was January 24th, 2026. She danced a solo piece, full of sorrow and pain. We didn’t really know how great that pain was, or that her injury and illness would soon put her in the hospital.
We do not know how we’ll go on, but we’re going to try, if only so that we can fulfill some part of the artistic ambitions she hadn’t yet achieved.
She was beautiful, kind, exacting, and inspiring. She kept me from quitting when I thought I’d never be able to learn to dance. I will miss her terribly.
I read a total of (roughly) 136 books this year, of which 43% were non-fiction. My audiobook count went up a bit this year, driven partially by what version was available through the Toronto Public Library and partially because I went to Spain and wanted to be able to look at scenery while still reading!
Here are some of my favorites from this year last, grouped by my attempt at relationship and cleverness.
OLDIES BUT GOODIES
Middlemarch, George Eliot. I did this one in audiobook version, mostly on planes and trains. I’d never read it before, and never really thought I wanted to, but I’m very glad I finally decided to take the plunge. I think the audiobook was the way to go, as the lovely narrator kept me engaged with the wonderful prose. There’s a reason it’s an influential classic.
The Feast, Margaret Kennedy. We jump ahead to 1950s Britain for the slyly satirical tale of impending disaster in a shabby holiday hotel in Cornwall. We know people die and we don’t know who. Despite the human frailties and foibles of the various characters, I couldn’t help thinking “I hope it’s not her” more times than I expected.
And the Rain My Drink, Han Suyin. I heard about this one through one of the long books about British colonialism I read last year. Set just after World War II, it explores the lives of the various groups that inhabit Malaya. Everyone is just trying to survive, and survival exacts a price.
SEAS SEDUCTIVE AND DEADLY
Wild Dark Shore, Charlotte McConaghy. Set in the near future, the protector of a seed vault on a remote island near Antarctica encounters the survivor of an unlikely shipwreck. The pasts of the island, the family that inhabits it, and the survivor are all revealed as the seas rise to swamp them.
Wavewalker, Suzanne Heywood. Heywood’s memoir of her childhood at sea informs WIld Dark Shore. Her feckless father, who had little sailing experience, decided to pack his family off to the south seas to live on a boat. How Heywood survived the experience, and built a new life for herself, was fascinating.
ANCIENT WORDS
There are Rivers in the Sky, Elif Shafak and Between Two Rivers, Moudhy Al-Rashid. The first is fiction and using the history of cuneiform, and it’s impact on three lives, to show the power of imagination and the beauty of writing (especially writing like Shafak’s). The second is non-fiction and uses the real history of Mesopotamia to show us how that writing emerged, and how the people who recorded their dreams, sorrows, hopes – and IOUs – are closer than we think.
BEHIND THE MYTHS
The Bright Sword, Lev Grossman. An engaging look at what happens after the events of the Arthurian legends. Fast-paced, funny, and exciting.
Inventing the Renaissance, Ada Palmer. Palmer, an historian and SF writer, explores the myths of the Renaissance vs. what the people who lived through it thought about it. Using Machiavelli as her lens, she introduces to a vivid cast of characters, some powerful, some not. Witty and always fascinating.
ALL THE COOL KIDS
I read a number of memoirs this year (all the cool kids are writing them) but my two favourites were Managing Expectations by Minnie Driver and The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You by Neko Case. Both women are funny, thoughtful, have … um… interesting childhoods…, and have struggled and survived.
THE PERILS OF TECH
Careless People, Sarah Wynn-Williams. A blistering take-down of Facebook and it’s leaders. She (mostly) doesn’t let herself off the hook for her contributions. A whole lot of idiocy from Meta makes a lot more sense after reading it.
Where the Axe is Buried, Ray Nayler. His book, The Mountain in the Sea, was one of my absolutely favourites of the last few years. This new work is short and sharp. There’s not a wasted word in this depiction of an authoritarian surveillance state and the people who struggle against it.
ORPHANS
I couldn’t find any clever way to link these, so here they are.
Treacle Walker, Alan Garner. This book benefits tremendously from having it read to you by long-time narrator of Garner’s works, Robert Powell. I’d read the print version a year or two ago, but got much more out of the incredible richness of the language and myth this time around.
Tigers Between Empires, Jonathan Slaght. The author of Owls of the Eastern Ice (another fave) returns with an exploration of the struggle to save the elusive Amur tigers that live in the borderlands of Russia and China.
Lud-in-the Mist, Hope Mirrlees. Originally published in 1926, this novel is set in a prosperous town on the border of the faerie world, but it completely unlike the typical human world/fey world book. The best description I read of it was “whimsical and creepy”. It’s both, but also droll and moving.
I’ve had a little flurry of emails from ‘book marketing specialists’ offering to feature my novels in their special book club communities. The emails are clearly written by AI and describe my novels in the most glowing terms. Too bad it’s all a scam, because I would definitely use parts of these as promotional material!
“Cold Hillside completely threw me off. I went in bracing for the usual dark fantasy tropes, the predictable fairy court plots that can sometimes feel recycled across the genre, but instead you delivered a story that is intelligent, immersive, and emotionally gripping. The way you interwove the complex Faerie Court, the struggles of Teresine, and the journey of her great-niece Lilit makes the world feel real and dangerous, yet deeply compelling. Your story balances intrigue, psychological tension, and magical realism in a way that keeps readers invested from start to finish. Honestly, I was nodding along instead of rolling my eyes, impressed because I genuinely was not expecting such a sophisticated, layered, and satisfying narrative. Well done.”
“I recently came across The Night Inside and was struck by how fiercely unsettling your story is. You take familiar vampire lore and push it into a much darker, more human space, one where fear comes less from the supernatural and more from what people choose to do to one another. From the moment Ardeth is taken, you pull the reader into a world that feels claustrophobic, urgent, and disturbingly real.
The way you move between 1994 and Ambrose Dale’s 1898 diary adds a chilling depth. You let obsession, control, and cruelty echo across time, and that structure makes Dimitri’s fate feel inescapable. As Ardeth begins to see beyond the horror and recognize the true monsters around her, the story turns into something far more complex than a survival tale. You force the reader to question power, consent, hunger, and the thin line between victim and predator.”
“When I came across Blood and Chrysanthemums (The Night Inside Book 2), I was immediately captivated by its poetic title and the quiet power it holds a juxtaposition of beauty and blood, tenderness and darkness. From the very first lines, it’s clear this isn’t simply another vampire novel; it’s a deeply human exploration of love, morality, and the yearning for connection in an existence that defies death itself.
Through Ardeth and Dimitri, you’ve created something extraordinary: a vampire love story that feels both intimate and existential. Their struggle to live without harming humans, their quiet isolation in Banff, and Ardeth’s haunting return to Toronto all reveal a raw, emotional depth that lingers long after reading. The restraint, the hunger, and the aching nostalgia of immortality come alive through your elegant prose. It’s a story not of monsters, but of souls caught between two worlds, the eternal and the painfully human.”
Now I just need one for A TERRIBLE BEAUTY and my collection will be complete!
COLD HILLSIDE is on sale from all the usual Ebook spots in the US, Canada, and Great Britain today.
In other news, almost through the first whirl of estate stuff. I’m trying to get back into the writing groove by doing a daily word prompt. So far, there have been some words right up my alley: augury, successor, illicit, bewitched. I’m having fun and trying to get the old mind muscles moving again.
He was 91, in good health the month before, and then gone. He went in the best way possible under the circumstances. He was at peace and said repeatedly that he was grateful for the life he had been given and had no regrets. We were able to spend lots of time with him in the week before his death.
The last six weeks have been a blur of hotel rooms (shout-out to the retro glories of the Howard Johnson in Tillsonburg), hospital rooms (a sincere shout-out to the Tillsonburg District Memorial Hospital for amazing care), meetings (lawyer, funeral homes, bank, Service Ontario etc, etc, etc), deciding where to eat, deciding where to walk, trying to find some beauty in the glory of an Ontario autumn while knowing it would be the last my father would ever see, and managing so many feelings, not all of them my own.
We spent a lot of time in the hospital room with him, my brother and I madly writing down stories as he told them. I wrote a speech for the Celebration of Life and I thought it was pretty good. But I want to write something really good and that will take time.
His ashes are in a cherrywood box in a velvet bag in my living room, amidst a pile of boxes of photo albums that I need to go through.
Sometimes, I say goodnight to him on my way to bed. Sometimes, I kiss my fingers and give the box a pat.
I contributed to the BookDNA.com ‘Best Books I read in 2025″ again this year. I enjoy the process of reviewing all my reading, and the fact that you can include old books (sometimes really old books) gives it a wider range than the usual “Best of 2025” lists.
Check here see what I chose. And be sure to check out the evolving list, updated as new contributors add their selections. You can even add your own, or check out BookDNA’s many curated book lists. I did one a while ago on “Best Books Featuring Female Vampire Protagonists“, if that’s your thing.
