Ever Wanted to Smell Like Your Favorite Bookstore? Now You Can!

It's no secret that I love all things bookish, so it should come as no big surprise that I've created a signature scent that smells like the distinct fragrance of old paperbacks and leather-bound volumes of tales of lovelorn ladies, mystery, and the macabre.

Yep, this is just part of what's been brewing behind the scenes while I've been on my social media hiatus. (Believe me when I tell you that it's the best thing I've done in years.)

I'll be sure to fill you in on the rest with a post packed with all the crazy details when I finish up my seventy days. In the meantime, please check out the perfume and share the link with your book-loving friends!

What I Read in 2015: The Complete List

 Well, I didn't quite make my goal of 100 books this year, but I still feel like I read some pretty fantastic selections. (Favorites include links below.)

Here's the list:

1. "Raven Boys" by Maggie Stiefvater
2. "Brain Camp" by Susan Kim & Laurence Klavan
3. "How to Grow Up" by Michelle Tea
4. "Mosquitoland" by David Arnold
5. "I Think I Am In Friend-Love With You" by Yumi Sakugawa
6. "F**k It Is the Answer" by John C. Parkin & Gaia Pollini
7. "Members Only: Secret Societies, Sects, and Cults" by Julie Tibbott
8. "Get a Literary Agent" by Chuck Sambuchino
9. "Blogging for Writers" by Robin Houghton
10. "Olympians: Ares - Bringer of War" by George O'Connor
11. "Pip Bartlett's Guide to Magical Creatures" by Jackson Pearce and Maggie Stiefvater
12. "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles/Ghostbusters- Vol. 1" by Jim Zub
13. "Midnight in the Garden Good and Evil" by John Berendt
14. "The Art of Procrastination" by John Perry
15. "The Fade Out: Vol. 1" by Ed Brubaker
16. "Oink: Heaven's Butcher" by John Mueller
17. "The Transformation of Bartholomew Fortuno" by Ellen Bryson
18. "Roadmap" by Roadtrip Nation
19. "Odd and the Frost Giants" by Neil Gaiman
20. "Bullet Gal, Volume 1" by Andrew Bergen
21. "Get in Trouble" by Kelly Link
22. "Bad Kid" by David Crabb
23. "The Fangirl's Guide to the Galaxy" by Sam Maggs
24. "The Crossroads of Should and Must" by Elle Luna
25. "Exquisite Corpse" by Pénélope Bagieu
26. "Trigger Warning" by Neil Gaiman
27. "Don't Stay Up Late" by R.L. Stine
28. "Read Bottom Up" by Neel Shah and Skye Chatham
29. "Wild Heat" by Lucy Monroe
30. "Motorcycles I've Loved: A Memoir" by Lily Brooks-Dalton
31. "What Waits in the Woods" by Kieran Scott
32. "Burning Down George Orwell's House" by Andrew Ervin
33. "Maritime Richmond" by Dale Totty
34. "Shadowshaper" by Daniel Jose Older
35. "The Dream Thieves" by Maggie Stiefvater
36. "How to Study" by Arthur W. Kornhauser
37. "Blue Lily, Lily Blue" by Maggie Stiefvater
38. "Suicide Squad Vol. 1: Pure Insanity" by Sean Ryan
39. "A Writer's Guide to Persistence" by Jordan Rosenfeld
40. "The Intuitive Gardener" by Marilyn Raff
41. "The Fall of Princes" by Robert Goolrick
42. "Strengths Finder 2.0" by Tom Rath
43. "Polish Your Poise" by Jennifer L. Scott
44. "The Curse of Crow Hollow" by Billy Coffey
45. "Sinclair Justice" by Colleen Shannon
46. "Bound to the Bachelor" by Kate Hardy
47. "Black Cat Bone: The Life of Blues Legend Robert Johnson" by J. Patrick Lewis
48. "10 Rules of Writing" by Elmore Leonard
49. "Here We Are Now: The Lasting Impact of Kurt Cobain" by Charles R. Cross
50. "172 Hours on the Moon" by Johan Harstad
51. "The New and Improved Romie Futch" by Julia Elliott
52. "Sherlock Holmes and the Necronomicon" by Sylvain Cordurie
53. "How To Write More Words More Easily" by Terrance Field
54. "Clutter Antidote" by Caitlin Kauer
55. "Writers Write" by William Meikle
56. "The Joy of Less" by Cary Richards
57. "Reader Magnets" by Nick Stephenson
58. "Unclutter Your Life In One Week" by Erin Rooney Doland
59. "Living With Less" by Francine Jay
60. "Night Film" by Marisha Pessl
61. "It's All Too Much" by Peter Walsh
62. "Shift Your Habit" by Elizabeth Rogers
63. "How to be Alive" by Colin Beavan
64. "Big Magic" by Elizabeth Gilbert
65. "The Witches of Benevento: Mischief Season" by John Bemelmans Marciano and Sophie Blackall
66. "Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger

My absolute favorite from 2015 would have to be Night Film by Marisha Pessl. It worked itself so completely into my subconscious that I would wake up in the middle of the night with flashes of characters and theories about the plot swimming through my mind. I don't think I've ever encountered a book so worthy of the label "engrossing" before this one.

A favorite that comes in a close second to Night Film is something completely different: Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. Hands-down the best book on overcoming hesitations, hang-ups, and blocks in creativity that's been published since Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird.

How did you do with your reading goals in 2015? What were your favorite books of the year and what made them stand out above the rest?

I'll be pushing for 100 again next year! Join me!

Book Review: The Curse of Crow Hollow by Billy Coffey

With his relaxed and colloquial narrative voice, author Billy Coffey won me over with the very first page of his latest release The Curse of Crow Hollow. This story set in small-town Virginia paints a very dark picture of what can happen when pride, fear, and superstition intersect.

When a group of otherwise well-behaved teens secretly throws a private party and camps overnight at the abandoned mines outside of Crow Hollow--in a forbidden territory believed to be favored by the witch of Campbell Mountain--they trigger a series of events that ripple through every family in their town. A single run-in with the witch leaves one of the teens mute, another jerking and ticking, yet another with half of her face slack and lifeless, and the last with immeasurable invisible torment.Though the town doctor believes all of their ailments are psychosomatic, it doesn't take long before other teens in Crow Hollow are struck with the same afflictions as those who experienced that fateful morning at the mines first-hand.

The town's faith is tested because of the witch's curse on its youth, and its levels of fear and insecurity are pushed to the brink. Eventually, events take a turn from bad to worse and long-buried secrets emerge that shake the very foundation of Crow Hollow.

This is the first I've read from Billy Coffey, but it will certainly not be my last. The authenticity of his dialog, his vivid and believable characters, and the vignette of a tiny Virginia mountain town that he paints with such eloquence lend the reader the feeling of a road trip that's taken a wrong turn. Having visited a few places very much like Crow Hollow (and certain that I'll visit a few more in the future) ensures that the Southern Gothic flavor of this novel and its hint of the surreal will stick with me for a long time.

* * *

Readers in the Richmond, Virginia, area may be interested to know that Billy Coffey will be discussing The Curse of Crow Hollow at Fountain Bookstore (1312 E. Cary Street in Shockoe Slip) just in time for Halloween. Stop in, chat with the author, and pick up an autographed copy of the book for yourself and a friend!

What I'm Reading This Week (June 8 - June 14)

It's the last week of school here, and that means my kids are going bonkers and my schedule is filled to overflowing with awards ceremonies and other activities. Reading has already become my go-to escape from this chaos, and rightly so! Sanity is important and I'd like to keep what little I still have.

I've been breezing through more books on writing in the past few days, most of them devoured so quickly that I've not even had time to consider them for the week's reading list. It's been one of those phases where I'm drawn to a book, pick it up, and read it cover-to-cover in one sitting. Many of these are re-reads, so I haven't counted them towards my 100 Books Read in 2015 tally. (Should re-reads count?)

Because the brain food of non-fiction is addictive, I've paired a couple of wildly different non-fiction titles together for the next few days.

Here's what I'm reading this week:

• Book in a Month: The Fool-Proof System for Writing a Novel in 30 Days by Victoria Lynn Schmidt
• A Writer's Guide to Persistence by Jordan Rosenfeld 
•  DIY, Dammit!: A Practical Guide to Curse-Free Crafting by Joselyn Hughes 
• How We'll Live on Mars by Stephen L. Petranek
• George by Alex Gino

What are you currently reading? Have you recently read something that you'd recommend I check out? Something out there that you'd like me to read and review? (Books on writing especially!)

What I'm Reading This Week (June 1 - June 7)

Another busy week, another handful of books carried over on my list. My kids are wrapping up the school year, so my days and evenings have been crammed with extra activities that take away from my usual reading time. I'm not sweating it, though--I know that if I keep plugging along with these concurrent reads that I'll have a nice stack of finished books very soon.

Here's what I'm reading this week:

• The Sasquatch Hunter's Almanac by Sharma Shields 
• Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater
• How to Write a Movie in 21 Days by Viki King
• Book in a Month: The Fool-Proof System for Writing a Novel in 30 Days by Victoria Lynn Schmidt

I'm hoping to polish off more books on writing in the next week or two as a refresher to the craft, and suggestions are welcome. I intend to push my productivity higher and turn out more short stories over the summer before I dive headfirst into textbooks myself.

Yep, new studies. More details about that are coming soon!

What are you currently reading? Have you recently read something that you'd recommend I check out? Please tell me about it in the comments! 

What I'm Reading This Week (May 25 - May 31)

As expected, it's been another slow reading week, but never fear! I've been perusing the page as often as I can and have been enjoying every bit of it.

I'm hoping for a rainy day this week so I'll be able to settle in for a longer duration and maybe polish off a book in a single sitting. [fingers crossed] In the meantime, I'll continue to read on my lunch breaks, a few spare minutes here and there, and before bed if my eyes stay open long enough.

Here's what I'm reading this week:

• The Sasquatch Hunter's Almanac by Sharma Shields 
• Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater
• How to Write a Movie in 21 Days by Viki King
• The Theory and Practice of Hypnotism by William J. Ousby

What a mix, right? Maybe I'll learn how to write a movie (in less than a month) about a woman who hypnotizes herself and gains the ability to read faster. That might actually be entertaining and educational.

Maybe.

What are you currently reading? Have you recently read something that you'd recommend I check out? Please tell me about it in the comments!

What I'm Reading This Week (May 18 - May 24)

It's been yet another slow reading week, but it's all good because I've been getting other things done that will free up more of my time for books later. I like to think of it as an investment in the future.

First, the weather has been beautiful and I've been using all the time I'd normally be reading to whip the yard and garden back into shape before the oppressive heat and humidity of Virginia's summers arrive and park themselves here for the next four or five months.

Second, my brain has refused to cooperate. Instead of absorbing things, it wants to make things. I'm cool with that.

Here's what I'm reading this week:

• The Sasquatch Hunter's Almanac by Sharma Shields
• Leaving Orbit: Notes from the Last Days of American Spaceflight by Margaret Lazarus Dean
• The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater

While it's quite a short list, Leaving Orbit is proving to be a dense and detailed book that will likely take me two to three times as long to finish as a novel of equal length if I read it at a pace that allows me to thoroughly absorb it--which I intend to do.

What are you currently reading? Have you recently read something that you'd recommend I check out? Please tell me about it in the comments!

What I'm Reading This Week (May 11 - May 17)

I can't believe how quickly last week flew by and how little reading time I seemed to have.

My big plans of wrapping up two books on my list fell through when unexpected car trouble popped up and demanded all of my attention (and every single ounce of my downtime) for a day. Catching up became nearly impossible because of longer hours at the day job and volunteering all of my remaining time at the local elementary school.

In short: Life had plans for me that didn't involve reading.

It happens to everyone. We have days where you practically fall into bed at night without the tiny bit of energy left to open a book. As frustrating as it is, all we can do is get back up and read when we can. That's what I'm hoping to do with the next few days.

Nearly play-for-play the same as the last list, here's what I'm reading this week:

• The Sasquatch Hunter's Almanac by Sharma Shields
• Maritime Richmond by Dale Totty
• Leaving Orbit: Notes from the Last Days of American Spaceflight by Margaret Lazarus Dean
• Shadowshaper by Daniel José Older
• The Big Bad Book of Bill Murray: A Critical Appreciation of the World's Finest Actor by Robert Schnakenberg

What are you currently reading? Have you recently read something that you'd recommend I check out? Please tell me about it in the comments! 

What I'm Reading This Week (May 4 - May 10)

Despite working a lot of hours at the day job over the weekend, I still managed to finish a few books last week. This comes as a great relief after plugging along and reading several at the same time for what feels like forever!

I expect to finish the first two on this week's list either today or tomorrow to add to the pile of completions, and I'm pretty excited about that, too.

My "to be read" stack is growing to dangerous and wobbly heights, so I'm eager to take it down to a safer level by knocking out a few more books over the next couple of days.

Here's what I'm reading this week:

• The Sasquatch Hunter's Almanac by Sharma Shields
• Maritime Richmond by Dale Totty
• Leaving Orbit: Notes from the Last Days of American Spaceflight by Margaret Lazarus Dean
• Shadowshaper by Daniel José Older

It's quite the mix--quirky adult fiction, two different styles of historic nonfiction, and a young adult fantasy--but that's a sure way for me to prevent boredom and burnout.

What are you currently reading? Have you recently read something that you'd recommend I check out? Please tell me about it in the comments! 

What I'm Reading This Week (April 27 - May 3)

Another week of multi-title simultaneous reading! Yep, that means another week of few completions, but lots of pages read nonetheless. I expect that I'll wrap up most of these in the next few days and I hope to take another huge bite out of my to-be-read shelf.

So far I'm finding The Horror of It All: One Moviegoer’s Love Affair with Masked Maniacs, Frightened Virgins, and the Living Dead... by Adam Rockoff surprisingly funny. Really, it's laugh-out-loud stuff. If you're a fan of horror movies, especially the stuff from the early days of video rental, then you should definitely pick up this book when it's released on May 19, 2015.

The title that's turned out to be much more than expected is What Waits in the Woods by Kieran Scott. I thought this was going to be another R.L. Stine kind of thing for young teens, but it's actually a suspense-riddled horror story that reads like a summer camp slasher film. You can probably imagine how well this reads alongside Rockoff's Horror of It All.

Here's what I'm reading this week:

• The Horror of It All: One Moviegoer’s Love Affair with Masked Maniacs, Frightened Virgins, and the Living Dead... by Adam Rockoff 
• What Waits in the Woods by Kieran Scott 
• Burning Down George Orwell's House by Andrew Ervin
• The Sasquatch Hunter's Almanac by Sharma Shields
• Maritime Richmond by Dale Totty

If you've wondered why this list is showing up earlier in the week, I'm shuffling the schedule here to move these "What I'm Reading" posts to Mondays. It seems like a logical change to me, so let me know how you like it.

What are you currently reading? Have you recently read something that you'd recommend I check out? Please tell me about it in the comments!

What I'm Reading This Week (April 20 - April 26)

With Spring finally here, I've been really enjoying taking my break for lunch outdoors with a book. Soaking up the heat from the sun like a lizard while the breeze rustles the trees and the birds sing can make just about any reading experience better.

Despite all of this newly dedicated reading time, I've been slow to actually finish books this week because (as usual) I'm reading several simultaneously. There are four titles I'm currently juggling, and which one I pick up is dictated purely by what I'm in the mood for at that moment. It's a bit of a grab bag of genres, but it's just the kind of variety that works for me this time of year.

Here's what I'm reading this week:

• The Horror of It All: One Moviegoer’s Love Affair with Masked Maniacs, Frightened Virgins, and the Living Dead... by Adam Rockoff 
• What Waits in the Woods by Kieran Scott 
• Wild Heat by Lucy Monroe
• Burning Down George Orwell's House by Andrew Ervin

What are you currently reading? Have you recently read something that you'd recommend I check out? Please tell me about it in the comments! 

What I'm Reading This Week (April 13 - April 19, 2015)

I didn't manage to fit in as much reading on my camping trip as I'd hoped (somehow I forgot that camping was so much work!) so a few titles have carried over from last week to this week's list.

Since I came home from my trip with a nasty case of bronchitis, I'm trying to see the silver lining by telling myself that sick days mean more reading time. That's totally justifiable, right? Good, because that's what I'm sticking with.

Without any further whining, here's what I'm reading this week:

• Motorcycles I've Loved: A Memoir by Lily Brooks-Dalton 
• The Horror of It All: One Moviegoer’s Love Affair with Masked Maniacs, Frightened Virgins, and the Living Dead... by Adam Rockoff 
• What Waits in the Woods by Kieran Scott
• Ferals by Jacob Grey

What are you currently reading? Have you recently read something that you'd recommend I check out? Please tell me about it in the comments!   

What I'm Reading This Week (April 6 - April 12, 2015)

I've finally wrapped up the epic run of short stories I was reading, so I'm happy to turn my attention back to longer format fiction and memoir.

It's been a rainy week here so far, which has made for some great reading time, and I'm packing for a camping trip that will also hopefully allow for some quiet hours to shorten my to-be-read stack by a few more books.

I'm once again reading more than one title at a time, so several of these have carried over from the previous list.

What I'm reading this week: 

• Motorcycles I've Loved: A Memoir by Lily Brooks-Dalton
• Read Bottom Up by Neel Shah & Skye Chatham
• Don't Stay Up Late by R.L. Stine
• The Horror of It All: One Moviegoer’s Love Affair with Masked Maniacs, Frightened Virgins, and the Living Dead... by Adam Rockoff
• Ferals by Jacob Grey

What are you currently reading? Have you recently read something that you'd recommend I check out? Please tell me about it in the comments!  

What I'm Reading This Week (March 30 - April 5, 2015)

I admit that Spring Fever has me keen on housekeeping and getting the yard and garden cleaned up and ready for the season. It's been tough to stay still to read, but I've managed a few short stories here and there. Because of that, there's some overlap in last week's books and this week's.

Never fear! The next few days will have me making travel preparations and packing for a mini-roadtrip while the kids are enjoying Spring Break. I plan to use the time around those activities to catch up on my current reads and to get a head start on those planned for April.

What I'm reading this week: 

• Motorcycles I've Loved: A Memoir by Lily Brooks-Dalton
• Read Bottom Up by Neel Shah & Skye Chatham
• Don't Stay Up Late by R.L. Stine (Yes, that one!)
• Discount: A Novel by Casey Gray
• Exquisite Corpse by Pénélope Bagieu

What are you currently reading? Have you recently read something that you'd recommend I check out? Please tell me about it in the comments! 

What I'm Reading This Week (March 23 - March 29, 2015)

With so much on my networking calendar this week, I'm worried that I won't make my first milestone of having read 25 books by the end of the first quarter of the calendar year. I have two more to finish by March 31st if I'm going to hit the mark.

If you notice recurring titles again this week, rest assured that I'm still plugging along (like a turtle who needs a nap) but have had a couple of days in which I didn't have time or energy to read even a single page. In true lit-nerd style, I'll likely be reading at the gym and during lunch to catch up.

What I'm reading this week: 

• Trigger Warning: Short Fiction and Disturbances by Neil Gaiman
• Motorcycles I've Loved: A Memoir by Lily Brooks-Dalton
• Read Bottom Up by Neel Shah & Skye Chatham

What are you currently reading? Have you recently read something that you'd recommend I check out? Please tell me about it in the comments! 

What I'm Reading This Week (March 16 - March 22, 2015)

I'm still reveling in short stories and memoir this week, but considering that I have each on my To-Do List of writing projects, I suppose my brain is absorbing all it can as a sort of refresher course in both styles.

A couple of these titles have carried over from last week because they were either started on the weekend and I've still yet to finish them or I just didn't get to them last week like I'd hoped. I'm still a few books behind right now on my goal of one-hundred for the year, but I should hit twenty-five with the completion of these selections by the end of March (AKA: the end of the first quarter.)

What I'm reading this week:

• Bad Kid: A Memoir by David Crabb
• Trigger Warning: Short Fiction and Disturbances by Neil Gaiman
• Motorcycles I've Loved: A Memoir by Lily Brooks-Dalton
• The Fangirl's Guide to the Galaxy: A Handbook for Girl Geeks by Sam Maggs
• The X-Files: Year Zero by Karl Kesel
• Robert Heinlein's Citizen of the Galaxy #1 by Robert Lazaro

What are you currently reading? Have you recently read something that you'd recommend I check out? Please tell me about it in the comments! 

What I'm Reading This Week (March 9 - March 15, 2015)

As usual, I'm reading many things at once, and this week's list is a wild mixed bag of comic books, graphic novels, short stories, and memoir.

What's unusual is that all of these things are making me say, "Holy crap! This is amazing."
Yes indeed--EVERY. SINGLE. ONE.

Anyway, without going on and on for hours about how much I'm loving these books and how unbelievably talented (and quirky, and surprising, and clever, and ...) these authors are, I'll just share with you the list.

What I'm reading this week:

• Get In Trouble by Kelly Link
• Dresden Files: Down Town #1 by Jim Butcher
• Dresden Files: Down Town #2 by Jim Butcher
• Bad Kid: A Memoir by David Crabb
• Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances by Neil Gaiman
• The X-Files: Year Zero by Karl Kesel
• Robert Heinlein's Citizen of the Galaxy #1 by Robert Lazaro

What are you currently reading? Have you recently read something that you'd recommend I check out? Please tell me about it in the comments!

What I'm Reading This Week (March 2 - March 8, 2015)

As usual, I'm reading several books concurrently. I find this is the most satisfying for my easily-bored brain because I can read a chapter or two of one book and then, later in the day, do the same with a different book--much like watching an episode of one TV show in the afternoon and then a different show at night. I also like to balance fiction and non-fiction to keep things fresh so that I don't feel research burn-out from non-fiction as quickly.

What I'm reading this week:

• Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman
• Get in Trouble by Kelly Link
• Bullet Gal, Volume One by Andrez Bergen
• Descender by Jeff Lemire
• Roadmap: The Get-It-Together Guide for Figuring Out What to do With Your Life by Roadtrip Nation

What are you currently reading? Have you recently read something that you'd recommend I check out? Please tell me about it in the comments!

January Reading Wrap-Up

This is the kickoff to a new sereis I think I'm going to call "What I'm Reading Wednesday" in which I post each (you guessed it) Wednesday and we talk about reading instead of writing. Join in the conversation with suggestions for new books, your opinions about the books I've recently read, or questions!

Better late than never, here are the books that I read in January, 2015:

• "Raven Boys" by Maggie Stiefvater
• "Brain Camp" by Susan Kim & Laurence Klavan
• "How to Grow Up" by Michelle Tea
• "Mosquitoland" by David Arnold
• "I Think I Am In Friend-Love With You" by Yumi Sakugawa
• "F**k It Is The Answer" by John C. Parkin & Gaia Pollini
• "Members Only: Secret Societies, Sects, and Cults" by Julie Tibbott
• "Get a Literary Agent" by Chuck Sambuchino
• "Blogging for Writers" by Robin Houghton

I mentioned previously that I've set the goal for myself to read 100 books in 2015, and with these selections putting the first dent into that number, I feel I'm well on my way to achieving it.

What are your reading goals for this year? Are you challenging yourself to read one book in an unfamiliar genre? Perhaps re-reading a classic or trying a new-to-you title for the first time?

Good luck with your goals, and please tell me about them in the comments!