Books Are My People
out today, paperback releases and more!
I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving holiday and didn’t have to sit in too much traffic!
Once I got home from my road trip to the Bay Area, I spent a glorious 48-hours of the kids’ nine-day Thanksgiving break (remember when we used to only get five days off?) loafing around in pajamas, walking the dogs and reading before heading off to another hockey tournament, this time, in Irvine. The things we do for our kids….
Books Are My People: A Podcast Companion Newsletter
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I'm Jennifer Caloyeras and I love books. And I love sharing books! I even love writing books. And making books! And teaching people how to write books!
There’s a lot happening this week! On Friday, December first, I use the Substack Chat function for the first time to have a casual conversation about the Britney Spears memoir. I don’t know if you can make an end date / time for a chat, but I will leave it open and check with frequently through Sunday evening. Come one, come all. Check in with us whenever works for you. I will send out an email notification when the casual chat begins, around 10 AM PT.
And paying subscribers, we will be voting on Thursday for our inaugural Read With Me book, that we will be reading in February! If you are not a paying subscriber but like the book we select and just want to pop in and read with us during the month of February, you can absolutely do that! (It’s just $8). Did you know that if you refer three friends who subscribe to Books Are My People, you get a month comped with paying subscriber benefits? Refer five people, you get three months comped, so share with some friends and then join in the bookish fun!
It’s that time of year again where we get oodles of end of the year book lists. I’m guilty of it as well as December is the month where I share not only my favorite reads from the past year on my podcast, but each year, I go back in time to my favorite books from a prior year. It’s fun to revisit backlist favorites!
Podcast Schedule for December:
December 4th: Back in Time: My Favorite Reads of 2014
December 18th: Best Reads of 2023
Books Out Today: (I’m doing the best I can here with the few end-of-the-year options! I really am looking forward to this first one, mostly because it makes me uncomfortable even reading the synopsis. The thought of dating your child’s friends…..I’m sure it happens, but…boundaries are everything.)
Alice Sadie Celine by Sarah Blakley-Cartwright
Alice is a stage actor in the Bay Area, her best friend, Sadie, lives in Los Angeles and sends her mother, Celine, a professor of women’s and gender studies at UC Berkeley, up to see Alice’s play. Things become entangled when Celine watches Alice’s performance and begins to see her daughter’s best friend as an object of her affection.
key words: literary fiction, friendship, LGBTQIA
Win Lose Kill Die by Cynthia Murphy
At the historic Morton Academy, a school for high-achievers, everyone wants to be Head Girl and gain all the prestige and success that comes with the title. But when bodies start piling up, the students begin to worry that someone is too determined to take that crown.
key words: dark academic, thriller, suspense, young adult
What Have We Done by Alex Finlay
Twenty five years ago, Jenna, Donnie, and Nico were the best of friends, having forged a bond through the abuse and neglect they endured as residents of Savior House, a group home for parentless teens. When the home was shut down--after the disappearance of several kids--the three were split up.
They haven't seen one another since they were teens but now are reunited for a single haunting reason: someone is trying to kill them. To survive, the group will have to revisit the nightmares of their childhoods and confront their shared past--a past that holds the secret to why someone wants them dead.
key words: thriller, suspense
The Mystery Guest by Nita Prose
Molly Gray is not like anyone else. With her flair for cleaning and proper etiquette, she has risen through the ranks of the glorious five-star Regency Grand Hotel to become the esteemed Head Maid. But her world is turned upside down when J. D. Grimthorpe, the world-renowned mystery author, drops dead--very dead--on the hotel's tearoom floor.
Another mystery for Molly to solve, this is the second in the Molly Gray series.
key words: mystery, suspense
Listen to me recommend the Maid on Episode #67 of Books Are My People
The Fiction Writer by Jillian Cantor
The once-rising literary star Olivia Fitzgerald is down on her luck. When her agent calls her with a high-paying ghostwriting opportunity, Olivia is all too willing to sign the NDA. At first, the write-for-hire job seems too good to be true. All she has to do is interview Henry "Ash" Asherwood, a reclusive mega billionaire, twice named People's Sexiest Man Alive, who wants her help in writing a book that reveals a shocking secret about his late grandmother and Daphne du Maurier. But when Olivia arrives at his Malibu estate, nothing is as it seems. The more Olivia digs into his grandmother's past, the more questions she has--and before she knows it, she's trapped in a gothic mystery of her own.
key words: gothic, thriller, suspense, Rebecca, adaptations
The Last Care Taker by Jessica Strawster
Katie's divorce was, in a word, humiliating. So when her friend Bess offers a fresh start--a resident caretaking job at a nature preserve--Katie accepts. No matter that she's not exactly a "nature person." How hard can it be? But from day one, something feels off. Katie's new farmhouse looks as if the last caretaker barely moved out at all. When a frantic, terrified woman arrives late at night, expecting a safe place to hide, it's clear caretaking involves way more than Katie bargained for.
Suddenly, Katie is no longer sure who she can trust: the brooding groundskeeper, the daily regulars--hikers, dog walkers, bird-watchers, photographers--even Bess. As Katie digs deeper for clues in what the last caretaker left behind, she must discover courage she never knew she had--and decide how much she'll risk to do the right thing.
key words: mystery, thriller, suspense
All The Broken Places by John Boyne
Ninety-one-year-old Gretel Fernsby lives a quiet, comfortable life, despite her deeply disturbing, dark past. She doesn't talk about her escape from Nazi Germany at age twelve. She doesn't talk about the grim postwar years in France with her mother. Most of all, she doesn't talk about her father, who was the commandant of one of the Reich's most notorious extermination camps.
Then, a new family moves into the apartment below her. In spite of herself, Gretel can't help but begin a friendship with the little boy, Henry, though his presence brings back memories she would rather forget.
key words: historical fiction, literary fiction, World War II
paperback releases:
Blaze Me A Sun by Chrisoffer Carlsson
In February 1986, the Halland police receive a call from a man who claims to have attacked his first victim. I'm going to do it again, he says before the line cuts off. By the time police officer Sven Jörgensson reaches the crime scene, the woman is taking her last breath. For Sven, this will prove a decisive moment. On the same night, Sweden plunges into a state of shock after the murder of the prime minister. Could there possibly be a connection?
Decades later, the case unexpectedly resurfaces when a novelist returns home to Halland amid a failed marriage and a sputtering career. The writer befriends the retired police officer, who helps the novelist--our narrator--unspool the many strands of this engrossing tale about a community confronting its shames and legacies.
The Last Love Note by Emma Grey
When an in-flight problem leaves Kate and her boss, Hugh, stranded for a weekend on the east coast of Australia, she finally has a chance, away from her son, to really process her grief from losing her husband and see what's right in front of her. Can she let go of the love of her life and risk her heart a second time? When it becomes clear that Hugh is hiding a secret, Kate turns to the trail of scribbled notes she once used to hold her life together. The first note captured her heart. Will the last note set it free?
*Moonrise Over New Jessup by Jamila Minnicks
It's 1957, and after leaving the only home she has ever known, Alice Young steps off the bus into the all-Black town of New Jessup, Alabama, where residents have largely rejected integration as the means for Black social advancement. Instead, they seek to maintain, and fortify, the community they cherish on their "side of the woods." In this place, Alice falls in love with Raymond Campbell, whose clandestine organizing activities challenge New Jessup's longstanding status quo and could lead to the young couple's expulsion--or worse--from the home they both hold dear. But as Raymond continues to push alternatives for enhancing New Jessup's political power, Alice must find a way to balance her undying support for his underground work with her desire to protect New Jessup from the rising pressure of upheaval from inside, and outside, their side of town.
I can’t remember if I shared this portrait yet or not. It’s from a class with @blueshineart on Instagram. Go check out her page! She’s on Instagram @blueshineart and on Substack at
She has so many classes recorded and generously available! I liked working on the perspective of this gouache piece.This post contains affiliate links to my Bookshop.org shop which not only supports me, but independent bookstores as well. Please consider purchasing books through these links as a way of supporting Books Are My People.