Sarah Stewart Taylor

Sarah Stewart Taylor: Agony Hill

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Series debut

Sarah Stewart Taylor starts a new series with Agony Hill, following Detective Franklin Warren as he tries to start his life over again. Set in the tiny Vermont town of Bethany in the 1960s, the novel immediately plunges the reader into small town, rustic life, and realities of the struggling farmers there. The characters are rich, and each of the three point of view characters especially get filled out into living, breathing people.

When Warren arrives in town, he gets little time to settle in, or even unpack. Immediately, there is a barn fire up on Agony Hill. At first, it seems like a clear-cut suicide. The victim, Hugh Weber, was always one for making statements, and he was deeply against the highway set to go through town. The barn was latched from the inside, too. With no alternate exits, it seems clear that Weber got drunk and took his ideals a little too far. read more

Best of 2023

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I was unable to limit my list to ten and present twelve titles this year, and the “also notables” at the end are excellent too.  My criteria is always a book that stayed with me and moved me throughout the year.  When I cast my mind back to reading these books the feeling of being captured by prose returns to my mind.  It’s such a magical experience – I think one hoped for by every reader – and sharing the books that provide that kind of reading experience is a real joy.  As will be obvious I have a real love for traditional detective work (Crombie, Cleeves, Griffiths, Stewart Taylor).  I also love the odd and memorable (Cotterill, Bennett) and I have a fondness for kick ass women (Allen, Lillie, Khan). I love a good gothic mystery (Goodman) and there are a couple of outstanding debuts: Danielle Arceneaux’s Glory Be and Michael Bennett’s Better the Blood.  Mysteries are finding a glorious diversity lately as illustrated here, with Muslim, Cherokee,  African American and Maori sleuths finding a voice. Full reviews can be found by searching the site, though with a few exceptions they are only to be found at Deadly Pleasures. read more

Sarah Stewart Taylor: A Stolen Child

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Maggie D’Arcy #4

This is one of the strongest entries to date in Sarah Stewart Taylor’s Maggie D’Arcy series.  The first novel, The Mountains Wild, follows the grown Maggie, a detective on Long Island, as she goes back to Ireland to try and discover what happened to her cousin, who went missing years before.  She also reconnects with an old flame, and the next two books follow Maggie as she returns to Ireland on a case and tries to figure out what’s next in her life.  What’s next turns out to be Maggie giving up her job on Long Island, moving in with Conor, her old flame, and taking the class to restart her career as an Irish Guard. read more

Honorable Mention 2022

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With over 500,000 books published each year (not all are mysteries, obviously), there’s no way I can even read a solid sample of what’s out there.  I do gravitate toward historicals, cozies and traditional detective fiction, and out of the 80 plus books I read this past year (all but two were mysteries) these are the (additional) ones I found remarkable and worthy of a look.  Happy reading!

The Rising Tide, Ann Cleeves (Vera Stanhope #10 ). Cleeves always provides a spectacularly thoughtful read, and this one is no different.  Set on “Holy Island”, an island cut off by the tides every night, a group of high school friends have been meeting up for 50 years.  When one of them commits suicide, Vera is sure it’s murder, and of course she’s right.  As expected from Cleeves, there are complex characterizations and a spectacular setting that assumes its own part in the story. read more

Reviewers and Readers faves 2022

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When we had an open store, I often got recommendations from customers or even authors that guided my reading – Libby Hellman, for example, recommended Elly Griffiths to me very early on.  I spent my first winter catching up on Elizabeth George, thanks to a good tip from a reader. Now that I have three wonderful reviewers writing for the website and a book club full of intelligent and discerning readers, I can still, happily, pick up some recommendations.  This is a varied list, but there are a few commonalities – Elly Griffiths, Louise Penny, S.A. Cosby, Naomi Hirahara, and Mia P. Manasala.  Some are on my own lists – Tasha Alexander, SJ Bennett, Harini Negendra, Elly Griffiths, Mia P. Manasala, Gigi Pandian, Sarah Stewart Taylor and Louise Penny.  Vicki’s, Margaret’s and Carla’s reviews of many of these titles can be found on the website. read more

Sarah Stewart Taylor: The Drowning Sea

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The third novel in Sarah Stewart Taylor’s Maggie D’Arcy series finds Maggie at a crossroads.  Formerly a Long Island cop, she’s now unemployed, and in Ireland with her daughter, on holiday with her boyfriend, Connor and his son. The first novel was Maggie’s journey backwards: she looked for the killer of her cousin, who had disappeared in Ireland twenty years before.  The second novel finds her investigating a crime that begins on a Long Island beach but has roots in Ireland.  This third novel finds her firmly in Ireland, planning to move there, and deciding what she should do as far as a new career.  As the book makes obvious, she very much misses police work and hates being on the outside looking in (this is a clue to her eventual decision, but it’s hardly a spoiler). read more

Reviewers & Book Club Faves

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Our two regular reviewers, Cathy Akers-Jordan and Vicki Kondelik, have shared their top 10 lists with us, and the book club chimes in on their favorite reads of the year as well.  Lots of good reading here!

Cathy:

Daughter of the Morning Star, Craig Johnson.  The new Longmire book is always the highlight of my mystery-reading year. The rez isn’t part of Walt Longmire’s jurisdiction, but when Tribal Police Chief Lolo Long recruits Walt and Henry to protect her niece, we learn the shocking statistics on the abuse and murder of Indian Women. Walt deals with a teenage basketball star while trying his best to keep her alive. read more

Best of 2021

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There are two authors whose work is so consistently excellent I don’t add them to my best of lists anymore, but I can tell you that William Kent Krueger’s prequel to his Cork O’Connor series, Lightning Strike, is beautifully written, felt and told; and Louise Penny’s The Madness of Crowds, a sly look at devotees of a flawed charismatic leader, is a beautiful read.  Both writers have a quality of heart and spirit that give their books an extra something, and their main characters, Cork O’Connor and Armand Gamache, are beloved by readers. Soon to join these two are Elly Griffiths and Ann Cleeves, both of whom turned in stellar reads this year (see below).  I invite readers to cast their reading nets a bit wider and consider some of these other fine titles.  These are all books that stayed with me and left me thinking after I finished them. read more

July & August Book Clubs

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July Book Club will meet in person on Sunday, July 18, 2pm at my home.  We’ll also be meeting via zoom on Wednesday, July 21, at 7pm.  Please message me if you’d like to attend either iteration and you don’t have the relevant details or zoom link.  We’ll be discussing Sarah Stewart Taylor’s wonderful novel, The Mountains Wild.

August book club will meet in person on Sunday, August 22 at 2p.m and via zoom on Wednesday, August 25 at 7pm.  We’ll be reading Caroline B. Cooney’s Edgar nominee, Before She Was Helen. read more

Sarah Stewart Taylor: A Distant Grave

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The second in Stewart Taylor’s Maggie D’Arcy series follows her elegiac first outing, The Mountains Wild, my favorite read of 2020.  Maggie is a Long Island homicide cop, but as the first novel explored, she has deep roots in Ireland.  In the first novel she searches for her long lost cousin’s killer; in the second novel, the crime occurs up the street from her home, but the roots of the story again take her back to Ireland.

She’s left behind a new-old flame in Ireland and has been planning a long vacation there with her daughter to visit him, but she catches a homicide case two days before they plan to leave.  When it turns out the victim was Irish, she figures she can combine business and pleasure, and her boss gives her leave to take off. read more