Happy Tuesday! 2026 has already been one long year and we aren’t even half way through January. If you’ve noticed I’ve been quiet here on the blog, it’s because my MIL fell and suffered a subdural hematoma on the 3rd. She is back at her care facility and is receiving excellent care, but I would appreciate any prayers you lift up. She is 97 years old and the toll of the injury has really impacted her. I will probably be in an out of the blogosphere for the foreseeable future.
But today I have a bit of free time and listing my most anticipated books of the first half of 2026. I long to get lost in a good book! What books are you looking forward to?
Happy Tuesday! This week TTT bloggers are posting about Thanksgiving and thankfulness. I have done a lot of these posts through the year and just couldn’t seem to come up with anything fresh. So . . . I am spelling out THANKGIVING with titles from books I am thankful for. The authors created books that made me smile, laugh out loud, and cry. They made me think and examine and ponder. They entertained and educated. So a big thanks to all on my list!
Top Book Titles That Spell Thanksgiving
T — Truth Be Told by Patricia Raybon
H— The Heart of Bennet Hollow by Joanne Bischof DeWitt
A — The All American by Susie Finkbeiner
N — The Nature of Fragile Things by Susan Meissner
K — The Kitchen Front by Jennifer Ryan
S — The Stories We Carry by Robin Pearson
G — Guilty Until Innocent by Robert Whitlow
I — The Indigo Heiress by Laura Frantz
V— The Vanished by Cara Putman
I— Indigo Isle by T. I. Lowe
N — Night Falls on Predicament Avenue by Jaime Jo Wright
Happy Tuesday! This week’s TTT topic is Cozy/Atmospheric reads. When I see those two descriptors I think of very different types of books. Cozy makes me think of small communities, quirky characters, and a feel-good plot, regardless of genre. Atmospheric reads, to me, are ones in which the setting plays a big part of the plot, often setting the stage for spooky goings-on. I am going to focus on cozy books this week, and for next week’s Halloween Freebie, atmospheric novels.
Happy release day to Christy Award-winning author Robin W. Pearson! Her latest book, The Stories We Carry, is now available! If you love thought-provoking books with characters you will fall in love with, then this Southern fiction novel is for you. Find out the details below.
A small-town bookstore owner finds herself at odds with a newcomer bent on disrupting her quiet life in this Southern women’s fiction novel by award-winning author Robin W. Pearson.
Glory Pryor has carved out a life for herself in Gilmore, North Carolina, cultivating a community around her bookstore, By the Book. While her business is a success, she carries the weight of stories of her own she’s never told anyone. She holds out hope that one day her estranged brother will turn up on her doorstep so she can finally learn where he’s been all these years. Glory’s husband Eli thinks she has her arms wrapped too tightly around the could-have-beens, and that it’s time for them to let go of the store as they head into their retirement years. Glory has different opinions on that—she’s not ready to give up the dream she’s built just yet. Then Adelle Simonette shows up with her young son, Bennett, and Glory’s carefully controlled life begins to crumble.
Newly widowed Adelle Simonette is a single mother trying to find her footing and navigate parenting her young son. Lost in her grief, one thing she’s certain of is that she needs to confront Glory Pryor and everybody who knows her because the woman’s been living a lie. Adelle thinks it’s high time Glory made things right. But Adelle’s finding it hard to tell the truth . . . and there will be no going back once she does.
In the wake of deeply personal grief and loss, two women reckon with a lifetime of silence and secrets to find a path forward toward healing, hope, and restoration.
Contemporary women’s fiction for fans of Denise Hunter, Vanessa Miller, Rachel Hauck, and Rhonda McKnight.
A small-town Southern saga that features bookish heroines and themes of family, forgiveness, and reconciliation.
Includes discussion questions for book clubs.
Robin W. Pearson’s writing sprouts from her Southern upbringing, her belief in Jesus Christ, and her love of her husband, seven children, and their dog, Oscar. Her novels are “rooted in the soul of the story” and include her Christy Award–winning debut, A Long Time Comin’, as well as ’Til I Want No More, Walking in Tall Weeds, and her latest, Dysfunction Junction. Robin has corrected grammar up and down the East Coast in her career as an author and editor and in her calling as a homeschooling mama of many. She loves to share about her faith and her family through her fiction; her blog, Mommy Concentrated; and at conferences such as Breathe, Fiction Readers Summit, and Vision Christian Writers; and with her friends and followers. These people and experiences are the source of all the characters living and breathing in the stories waiting to be told about her belief in Jesus Christ and the experiences at her own kitchen sink. Learn more on her website.
Happy Friday! I am reading a wonderful book this week — The Stories We Carry by Robin W. Pearson. The main character owns a charming bookstore — I’m in! She also has lots of secrets and baggage and past wounds that are being slowly revealed. I have already highlighted A LOT of passages. The novel releases in October, so stay tuned for my review.
Here’s the first line:
It was Glory’s childhood friend who introduced her to Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, her all-time favorite book.
A small-town bookstore owner finds herself at odds with a newcomer bent on disrupting her quiet life in this Southern women’s fiction novel by award-winning author Robin W. Pearson.
Glory Pryor has carved out a life for herself in Gilmore, North Carolina, cultivating a community around her bookstore, By the Book. While her business is a success, she carries the weight of stories of her own she’s never told anyone. She holds out hope that one day her estranged brother will turn up on her doorstep so she can finally learn where he’s been all these years. Glory’s husband Eli thinks she has her arms wrapped too tightly around the could-have-beens, and that it’s time for them to let go of the store as they head into their retirement years. Glory has different opinions on that—she’s not ready to give up the dream she’s built just yet. Then Adelle Simonette shows up with her young son, Bennett, and Glory’s carefully controlled life begins to crumble.
Newly widowed Adelle Simonette is a single mother trying to find her footing and navigate parenting her young son. Lost in her grief, one thing she’s certain of is that she needs to confront Glory Pryor and everybody who knows her because the woman’s been living a lie. Adelle thinks it’s high time Glory made things right. But Adelle’s finding it hard to tell the truth . . . and there will be no going back once she does.
In the wake of deeply personal grief and loss, two women reckon with a lifetime of silence and secrets to find a path forward toward healing, hope, and restoration.
Robin W. Pearson’s writing sprouts from her Southern upbringing, her belief in Jesus Christ, and her love of her husband, seven children, and their dog, Oscar. Her novels are “rooted in the soul of the story” and include her Christy Award–winning debut, A Long Time Comin’, as well as ’Til I Want No More, Walking in Tall Weeds, and her latest, Dysfunction Junction. Robin has corrected grammar up and down the East Coast in her career as an author and editor and in her calling as a homeschooling mama of many. She loves to share about her faith and her family through her fiction; her blog, Mommy Concentrated; and at conferences such as Breathe, Fiction Readers Summit, and Vision Christian Writers; and with her friends and followers. These people and experiences are the source of all the characters living and breathing in the stories waiting to be told about her belief in Jesus Christ and the experiences at her own kitchen sink. Learn more on her website.
Valerie Fraser Luesse is a favorite of my book club. Her latest multi-generational women’s fiction, The Light on HornIsland, is so good! We all loved it. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend you do!
Just when her life comes crumbling down, she discovers secrets that could shape her future–and heal her past.
When Edie Gardner’s life in New York falls apart, her grandmother Adele “Punk” Cheramie coaxes her back to tiny Bayou du Chêne, Mississippi. Edie spent many happy summers there, a stone’s throw from untamed Horn Island, where she once found love. Can she now demystify the island’s strange new light?
Punk and her colorful friends introduce Edie to the Trove, a fascinating gallery and antique shop. Like Horn Island’s light, The Trove has appeared out of nowhere. Its proprietor, with a gift for discerning his customers’ needs, gives Edie a Victorian parlor game that asks players a series of personal questions, which is harmless fun at first. But Edie and her grandmother’s circle find that the game has a way of uncovering secrets, including a heartbreak that has haunted one of the women for decades. Banding together, this Southern sisterhood is determined to find answers that will bring healing, hope, and happiness–and maybe explain the transcendent illumination of a wild and windswept barrier island.
Valerie Fraser Luesse is the author of novels set in the South. An award-winning magazine writer, Luesse is perhaps best known for her feature stories and essays in Southern Living, where she wrote major pieces on the Mississippi Delta, Acadian Louisiana, and the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Her editorial section on the recovering Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, photographed by Mark Sandlin, won the 2009 Travel Writer of the Year award from the Southeast Tourism Society. Luesse earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English from Auburn University and Baylor University, respectively. Find her online at valeriefraserluesse.com; facebook.com/valeriefraserluessebooks; bakerpublishinggroup.com; bookbub.com/authors/valerie-fraser-luesse; and goodreads.com.
My Impressions:
Valerie Fraser Luesse does it again! Her latest novel, The Light on Horn Island, combines history, mystery, and multi-generational relationships to create a thought-provoking story with characters that will win your heart. Set amidst the backdrop of the Mississippi Gulf Coast, the story centers on Edie Gardner, a young woman who has faced a profound loss that sends her back to the comfort of her grandmother’s house and her beloved Horn Island. Luesse captures the region perfectly with the sights and the flavors described. I am very familiar with the area (my husband is a south Mississippi boy) and I felt I was cruising the highway and visiting all the picturesque towns that make up the region. Mystery abounds, including a very mysterious shop owner, as Edie and the other women navigate loss, regret, guilt, and hope for the future. My husband was a child when Hurricane Camille hit Biloxi, and he has shared memories of the devastation. Luesse does a great job of sharing the personal stories of victims and survivors alike. My favorite part of the novel is the relationships the author creates between the women. Long time friendships are heralded and new paths forward are forged — it’s an homage to women of all generations building each other up and having each other’s backs.
I highly recommend The Light on Horn Island. This book can be savored anywhere and at all times, although it would be perfect read on a porch with an ice cold drink and a view of the water. 😉
Highly Recommended.
Great for Book Clubs.
Audience: Adults.
(I received a complimentary copy from NetGalley. All opinions expressed are mine alone.)
Happy Friday! If you are looking for a beach-y read, look no further than The Light on Horn Island by Valerie Fraser Luesse. Set in the early 2000s on the Mississippi coast, it also highlights devastating Hurricane Camille that hit that state in 1969. It is pure southern and pays homage to all that is great about the Mississippi gulf coast. I loved the multigenerational cast of characters and the magical element that Luesse introduces. Or is it supernatural? You decide!
Here’s the first line:
Good pimento cheese is a reason to live.
Just when her life comes crumbling down, she discovers secrets that could shape her future–and heal her past.
When Edie Gardner’s life in New York falls apart, her grandmother Adele “Punk” Cheramie coaxes her back to tiny Bayou du Chêne, Mississippi. Edie spent many happy summers there, a stone’s throw from untamed Horn Island, where she once found love. Can she now demystify the island’s strange new light?
Punk and her colorful friends introduce Edie to the Trove, a fascinating gallery and antique shop. Like Horn Island’s light, The Trove has appeared out of nowhere. Its proprietor, with a gift for discerning his customers’ needs, gives Edie a Victorian parlor game that asks players a series of personal questions, which is harmless fun at first. But Edie and her grandmother’s circle find that the game has a way of uncovering secrets, including a heartbreak that has haunted one of the women for decades. Banding together, this Southern sisterhood is determined to find answers that will bring healing, hope, and happiness–and maybe explain the transcendent illumination of a wild and windswept barrier island.
Valerie Fraser Luesse is the author of novels set in the South. An award-winning magazine writer, Luesse is perhaps best known for her feature stories and essays in Southern Living, where she wrote major pieces on the Mississippi Delta, Acadian Louisiana, and the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Her editorial section on the recovering Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, photographed by Mark Sandlin, won the 2009 Travel Writer of the Year award from the Southeast Tourism Society. Luesse earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English from Auburn University and Baylor University, respectively. Find her online at valeriefraserluesse.com; facebook.com/valeriefraserluessebooks; bakerpublishinggroup.com; bookbub.com/authors/valerie-fraser-luesse; and goodreads.com.
This month’s book club pick is from one of my group’s favorite authors — The Light on Horn Island by Valerie Fraser Luesse. This one looks like a perfect summer read. Find out all about it below.
Just when her life comes crumbling down, she discovers secrets that could shape her future–and heal her past.
When Edie Gardner’s life in New York falls apart, her grandmother Adele “Punk” Cheramie coaxes her back to tiny Bayou du Chêne, Mississippi. Edie spent many happy summers there, a stone’s throw from untamed Horn Island, where she once found love. Can she now demystify the island’s strange new light?
Punk and her colorful friends introduce Edie to the Trove, a fascinating gallery and antique shop. Like Horn Island’s light, The Trove has appeared out of nowhere. Its proprietor, with a gift for discerning his customers’ needs, gives Edie a Victorian parlor game that asks players a series of personal questions, which is harmless fun at first. But Edie and her grandmother’s circle find that the game has a way of uncovering secrets, including a heartbreak that has haunted one of the women for decades. Banding together, this Southern sisterhood is determined to find answers that will bring healing, hope, and happiness–and maybe explain the transcendent illumination of a wild and windswept barrier island.
Valerie Fraser Luesse is the author of novels set in the South. An award-winning magazine writer, Luesse is perhaps best known for her feature stories and essays in Southern Living, where she wrote major pieces on the Mississippi Delta, Acadian Louisiana, and the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Her editorial section on the recovering Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, photographed by Mark Sandlin, won the 2009 Travel Writer of the Year award from the Southeast Tourism Society. Luesse earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English from Auburn University and Baylor University, respectively. Find her online at valeriefraserluesse.com; facebook.com/valeriefraserluessebooks; bakerpublishinggroup.com; bookbub.com/authors/valerie-fraser-luesse; and goodreads.com
I’m wising a very happy release day to Rosey Lee, author of A Gardin Wedding. I first encountered the Gardin family in The Gardins of Edin. I was hooked on this mess of a thoroughly southern family. I can’t wait to see what Martha is up to! If you haven’t read that first book, get it now!A Gardin Wedding builds on the first book — you do not want to miss any of the fun!
One of the Gardin women must navigate a season rich with unexpected challenges in the follow-up to The Gardins of Edin, a heartwarming story about love, forgiveness, new beginnings, and what it takes to get there.
Martha Gardin is a mess, and no one knows this better than the women in her family. Good-hearted but often misguided by distrust and insecurity, Martha is known for stirring up drama. That’s why Ruth, Naomi, and Mary are pleasantly surprised when Martha mellows out after she begins dating one of the most eligible bachelors in town.
Handsome, well-connected Oji Greenwald is everything Martha hoped to find in a man, and it’s only a matter of time before he pops the question. Rarely caught off guard, Martha is accustomed to getting her way. But when it appears she’s finally about to have the life she’s always wanted, a crisis in Oji’s family brings out Martha’s tendency to try to save the day her way, and the divide deepens between her and Oji’s already indifferent mother, Eve.
Confronted with these unforeseen challenges to her plans, Martha finds herself on a journey that forces her to fully acknowledge her previous mistakes and reconcile her past. But will it be enough to deliver her the future—and the love—her heart desires?
Rosey Lee writes hopeful stories about complicated families and complex friendships. As a native of the Westbank of New Orleans, Louisiana who lives in Atlanta, Georgia, Rosey’s writing is inspired by the people, traditions, and food that anchor her to the South. She enjoys cooking, listening to live music, and occasional bursts of fanatical bargain shopping.
Robin Pearson is a delight and her books are wonderful! I had the pleasure of meeting her last November at the Reading Rendezvous in Chicago and again at the 2025 Turning A New Page Book Festival in Perry, Georgia. I snagged a copy of Dysfunction Junction at the festival, but neglected to have her sign it. Just another reason to make sure our paths cross again. 😉
Here’s the first line:
“What time is it?” Annabelles’ voice quavered as she studied the shadows huddling under the sliding board in Lincoln Park.
When three women receive an unexpected phone call that leaves them reeling, they have no other choice but to reckon with a lifetime of memories they’ve long tried to bury. Only in facing the past will they find their path forward.
Frances Mae Livingston’s firm grip of her family’s destructive history makes her hold her husband and four children even closer. But she’s losing bits of herself while proving to everybody and her mama that she’s enough. There’s no way she’ll repeat her mama’s mistakes, even if it kills her.
Annabelle McMillan didn’t have trouble kicking the Eastern North Carolina dust off her feet. The tough part was replanting herself in familiar soil. Now she’s blending her old life with her new husband, stepson, and unborn child. And battling old memories of abandonment and new fears of rejection.
Dr. Charlotte Winters has built a career around helping others sort through their emotional baggage. She’s also spent a lifetime refusing to unpack her own. So what if Charlotte doesn’t recall all that her mama did to her and what her daddy didn’t do for her? Her only mission is to help others help themselves…until the women from her past and the man in her future undo her well-sewn life.
At the junction of healed and hurting, broken and whole, and past and present, three women wrestle with their inability to forgive and forget in this riveting Southern family drama about sisterhood from award-winning author Robin W. Pearson.
Robin W. Pearson’s writing sprouts from her Southern upbringing, her belief in Jesus Christ, and her love of her husband, seven children, and their dog, Oscar. Her novels are “rooted in the soul of the story” and include her Christy Award–winning debut, A Long Time Comin’, as well as ’Til I Want No More, Walking in Tall Weeds, and her latest, Dysfunction Junction. Robin has corrected grammar up and down the East Coast in her career as an author and editor and in her calling as a homeschooling mama of many. She loves to share about her faith and her family through her fiction; her blog, Mommy Concentrated; and at conferences such as Breathe, Fiction Readers Summit, and Vision Christian Writers; and with her friends and followers. These people and experiences are the source of all the characters living and breathing in the stories waiting to be told about her belief in Jesus Christ and the experiences at her own kitchen sink.
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