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Argylle and the modern marketing menace
So, I succumbed to the hype. It feels like I’ve been hearing about the mystery of Elly Conway for months. The massive bidding war for the book – and then the distribution rights to the film. The mysterious Insta account. The Swift rumors. Underlying it all, a thrilling spy novel that could be the start…
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2023: A year of reading, writing, and growth
…and that’s it, I suppose, for 2023! It’s the last day of the year and, looking back, I can’t help but be amazed at how far I’ve come. This time last year, I was very much just starting out. I was rushing to write blog posts, find challenges to give myself some structure, and figure…
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From mystery to epistolary: my best reads in 2023
As we enter the final days of 2023, it’s time to recount my favorite books (and reviews) of the year. I’ve found that (in large part due to my challenges) my reading has been split into 3 major categories: little-old-lady cozies, adventurous epistolaries, and modern updates to traditional mysteries. The following list are my personal…
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One Year of The Cozy Owlet! Some lessons learned…
It is absolutely bonkers to me that today marks the one-year anniversary of The Cozy Owlet. If you had asked me about the outcome of this experiment one year ago, I would have given myself 50/50 odds of continuing to now. My other hobbies come and go in fits and starts – I’ll go through…
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Marion Lane and the Character of a Conclusion
It’s probably a good sign when you start out with the audiobook version and get so impatient that you switch to the written word. It’s a rare occurrence for me, because I usually listen to nonfiction that can function as extended podcast. Or, if I’m listening to fiction, it’s of the cozy variety that does…
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The caricature and the compass: different lenses into crime
I recently came across two explorations of the crime genre that happened to intersect at an interesting time. The first: Kate Jackson (of crossexaminingcrime.com)’s wonderfully funny new release How to Survive a Classic Crime Novel. (Thanks to In Search of the Classic Mystery Novel for this find!) And second, an episode of Revisionist History by…
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Mixing Murder and Mythology in Threads that Bind
I’ve loved mythology stories since elementary school, and 2023 has been an unexpectedly fun year for them. From VenCo to Thief Liar Lady to The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi, this year has served up a number of remixes on tales from the past. The best of these stories, in my opinion, do more than simply…
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The Housekeepers: Exploring the systems that keep rich people misbehaving
We’ll keep the Summer of Scandal going by breaking down the systems that enable Rich People to act up. There are certain levels of excess that can only happen when people are paid to make them so. When these systems work smoothly, they’re almost invisible – it can just seem like the wealthy have charmed…
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What Money Can Buy: Bad Summer People
I’m back! Sorry for the long hiatus – I was in the midst of training and all of my fiction reading turned into case materials. But after a month of deep-diving into business problems, we are BACK with room to think more deeply about literary ones. And first on the list is Bad Summer People…
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Amina al-Sirafi: an adventurous portrait of motherhood
I’ve been reading a lot of mystery lately, so I was very excited to pick up a copy of The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi and really lose myself in fantasy for a while. Going into the book, I expected a story different from others I’m used to reading (I don’t read a lot of pirate…