Yep, I’m late. I was busy last year working on saving the business, so I got behind on things like the Recommended Reading List. I thought of bunching everything into one list, but I didn’t want to, and then I thought of pretending I hadn’t missed, and I didn’t want to do that either. So my only recourse is to give you the materials late. I have the books stacked up all over the condo, so I know what I read when. (Also, they’re in my reading calendar.)
I tossed out a bunch of articles with advice on business that (weirdly) does not apply anymore. The world has changed a lot in the past six months.
This won’t as in-depth as usual. For that, see the two on time lists (October and November). But I did enjoy what was here, despite being crazy busy.
May 2025
Connelly, Michael, Nightshade, Little Brown, 2025. The start of a new series for Connelly, this book still feels like a Connelly book. Set on Catalina Island which is small and limited, the novel focuses on a single detective with a single point of view. But Connelly does go off-island, which I found a bit disappointing. I’d love to see more of a locked-island mystery next time. But I did blow through this one very quickly, considering the book came out at the end of May.
Deaver, Jeffrey, South of Nowhere, Random House, 2025. Fascinating look at the loss of a levee. It takes Coulter Shaw on a different kind of case—equally dangerous as most, of course—and brings in his sister Dorion. I tend to find the Coulter Shaw books a bit hard to believe. The show Tracker, based on the books, has dealt with some of my issues in the second season. But I still enjoy the read. I enjoyed this one.
Mejía, Paula, “Valley Boys,” Billboard, March 8, 2025. Mejía’s long article on Grupo Frontera explores how they became global superstars. It’s not how you would expect. They’ve only been together for three years. They released their work independently, and their hit “Se Va,” (which you have probably heard) hit TikTok’s algorithm. But they figured out how to capitalize on it. They would plan their song releases with the hope (expectation?) that they’d go viral, all the time learning the business. This is how it’s done in 2025 in the arts. Read this.
Score, Lucy, Story of My Life, Bloom 2025. I’m not sure how I missed Lucy Score’s books over the years, but I didn’t discover her work until 2025. I tried bingeing, and not every book of hers works for me. She does what I do; she writes about difficult people falling in love. Unfortunately, some are too difficult for me. But when I love her books, I really love them.
I wasn’t sure I’d like Story of My Life. It’s about a writer, and sometimes that just shows me problems in the author’s works. Not here. This one is about a romance novelist who can’t write after a break-up (something I’ve always wondered about) and impulse buys a house in a small town. (I don’t wonder about that.) We venture into small town romance here, with a healthy dose of sarcasm and a bit of tongue in cheek. It’s a lot of fun. I’m linking to the ebook here, but stupidly, Lucy Score’s ebooks are only available on Amazon. You can get her paper books in a variety of places.