When I first met Santa Barbara transplant Susan Orlean of The New York Times bestselling The Library Book, she had two friendly dogs in tow and was clearly “animalish.” It is no surprise her new book On Animals is a series of essays about our connection (and sometimes disconnect) with animals. With her wry wit […]
Nadia Denham runs a curio shop in a “rundown Santa Barbara mall.” Mickie Lambert works for a company that creates “digital scrapbooks” for those wishing to preserve their precious trinkets. When Nadia dies, Mickie sets out to fulfill her last wish to curate twelve mementos that cause a dormant serial killer to surface. Mickie receives […]
Beach reading is heating up as we move into August. Where the Truth Lies by Anna Bailey is a shatteringly emotional story with soaring prose; a page-turning thriller. Set in a remote small town in Colorado, Emma’s 17-year-old friend Abigail disappears, stirring up a town filled with decades-long secrets, fanatics, and racists. Emma forms a […]
You do not have to be a ballerina, or a dance mom, as I am — quick shout out to Gustafson Studios for managing an end of year, in-person ballet show — to enjoy Georgina Pazcoguin’s memoir Swan Dive: The making of a Rogue Ballerina. Pazcoguin’s rise from ABT Summer Intensive student to NYCB’s first […]
It is time to start our beach reading, even with June gloom hovering. Finding Tessa by Jaime Lynn Hendricks is a thriller with an unforeseen twist that will keep you turning pages. Tessa and Jace are in love. When Tessa goes missing, evidence against Jace mounts: blood, a gun, and an affair with a co-worker. […]
Deep in the sewers of Kraków dwell humans, hiding, starving, barely surviving. NY Times bestselling author Pam Jenoff (The Lost Girls of Paris) has finished another taut historical fiction. Imagine living in darkness and filth for over a year? That is the premise – based on true events – of The Woman with the Blue […]
It is every parent’s nightmare. Their child goes missing. It is 1993 and young girls are disappearing in Northern California. The New York Times bestselling author Paula McLain (The Paris Wife) makes an abrupt departure from her popular historical novels to delve into the world of suspense and crime mystery in When the Stars Go […]
“The four winds have blown us here, people from all across the country, to the very end of this great land.” For those of us who live in Montecito we are all too familiar with the land we love. Though lush and verdant, it has on occasion betrayed us with drought, fires, and mudslides. Still, […]