The Literate Kitty

Anyone who’s ever gone on a trip knows that traveling is HARD.   Whether trying to follow the rules and make it to the airport literally   hours   before your actual flight... worrying about whether or not your toiletries are “small enough” to please the TSA gods... or   knowing   you forgot something vitally essential back at home (be it turning a would-be flammable electrical thingy off, or packing the laptop you’re definitely gonna need)... the whole act of traveling is A LOT.   But one thing most of us rarely factor into that already-bonkers list of variables is... MURDER.   Jessie Garcia’s no-holds-barred debut,  The Business Trip , seems destined to add that concern to your list of OMG-what-ifs, though.     Jasmine is like plenty of women you may have met—or not, depending on how you spend your off-hours. She’s a middle-aged bartender in a low-brow tavern in Madison, Wisconsin. She lives with a boyfriend who... well, leans way more...

When you hear the word “honeymoon”, chances are, you picture a happy couple walking into a posh hotel suite (complete with artfully-folded towel swans surrounded by a heart made of rose petals, laid out on the bed). Holding hands as they stroll along a sandy beach, pausing for long kisses as the sun sets in glorious technicolor behind them. Clinking glasses of bubbly together while lounging in a hot tub, all heart-eyes between them.  [Basically, what every wedding and travel brochure catering to the newly-hitched advertises in beautifully-printed, vivid colors.] So, there’s a honeymoon in Simone St. James’ latest novel, too… but darlin’, this ain’t remotely that kind of honeymoon. In fact, you might say that the after-ceremony vacay in Murder Road would more aptly be called a “ bloodymoon ”…  _______________ It’s 1995, and Eddie and April—the brand-spanking-new Mr. and Mrs. Carter—are cruising along a deserted Michigan road (bizarrely named Atticus Line) late at night, ...

Keep your enemies close, and your friends, well— keep an even closer eye on them...   The damage we do—or at least, that we  can  do—to each other, is horribly immense in its scope and variety.     We’ve become inured to it, frankly, because we see it EVERYWHERE. Trolls going off on some one or some thing , online. Hate speech. Political upheavals.   But we also see it closer to home. Family members, intentionally hurting or neglecting those they should hold precious. Lovers, seemingly forgetting all of the reasons they came together, in the first place.     And close friends, taking perverse delight in using and wounding those whose darkest secrets they carry and were sworn to protect.   Heather Darwent gives us a look at all of these in her compelling psychological suspense debut,  The Things We Do to Our Friends .   Often people choose universities where they’ll feel right at home… either because the school is,  literally ,...

I don’t have kids, but if I did? My biggest worry would probably be how I was gonna put them through college.  Going to university has never been a guarantee in the U.S., but over the last couple of decades, costs have skyrocketed… meaning you either have to be born into money, qualify for a great scholarship, or go into serious debt, to get a degree. So imagine all the things that might happen if a small, private university held a contest each year—one that only a select few students were even invited to compete in—with the grand prize being everything … a full-ride, plu s a year’s employment at a powerful corporation, after graduation. That’s the premise of David Bell’s thriller, The Finalists , one of the most of-the-moment suspense novels I’ve read in a long time. _______________ It’s a typical spring day—hot, sunny, and beautiful—in Eastern Kentucky, when a group of six college students make their way across campus to the prestigious old Victorian heap otherwise known a...

There are certain things an Angeleno just accepts as part of life.  Insane amounts of traffic, clogging freeways and local access roads alike, for two-thirds of every day. Choppers flying overhead fast and low, at all hours.  Perpetual threats of wildfires and earthquakes.  The realization that no matter how much you might want to be one of those people who has “beach days”, the chances of such are slim.  Some new political scandal, somewhere in the county. Rationalizing those late-night In-and-Out burgers by consuming mass quantities of kale and outrageously-priced juices.  Avoiding most of Hollywood like the plague (despite some great theaters and restaurants), due to the overwhelming presence of mentally-unstable transients and gaping tourists (who can never understand why they aren’t running into “stars” at every corner).  And—since the arrival of the coronavirus—a resurgence of the rampant crime (that had actually, finally, been on the downswing). Wh...

If there’s one thing I know a little something about, it’s finding myself.   Or—and this is definitely a more accurate way to put it—“being on an endless journey of continually trying to find myself”. No one goes through life unscathed. There are bumps in the road, myriad traumas (both major and minor), and O h, So. Much. baggage that each of us totes along, wherever we go.  But, how do we attack that journey… that is the question. From flat-out denying there even is any learning to be done [in other words, flying the bird at the idea of any and all navel-gazing], to moderate [and essentially solitary] forms of self-exploration—books, online seminars, etc., to time [and boatloads of $] spent on professional therapists, to [once again, time, and boatloads of $] spent on/in/with in-person retreats, courses, programs [and really, whatever else they elect to brand themselves as]… the options are seemingly endless.  Basically, though, it all boils down to something p...

Imagine your life is just about as hard and bad (and awful and scary) as life can get. You have no home, no belongings. No friends. Nothing. Yet somehow, despite your complete and utter lack of anything , “the system” can’t seem to manage helping you get back on your feet, or to allow you to feel as though you actually belong, to… anything .  But then, on one otherwise ordinary (in other words, basically terrible) day, you find yourself in surroundings such as you’ve never seen, or even dreamt (for to dream, you first have to be able to comprehend)… the literal Lap of Luxury, where no desire—no matter how grandiose—will go unfulfilled (let alone any need , because down this particular rabbit hole, Alice, there is no such concept as “need”).  What would you do… especially if it became possible for you—sans any pesky repercussions—to step into such a fantasy life and live it, for your very own? Eliza Jane Brazier poses that compelling question in her latest thrille...