Tag archives: Stories Matter
I plan on starting the new year exactly as I ended it: diving into a stack of great books. I ended with 150 books for 2021, reading everything I can to help you readers navigate interesting, entertaining, and diverse books, from memoir to thriller to everything in between. Put Shauna Robinson’s Must Love Books on […]
Truman Capote specialized in characters who weren’t what they seemed to be. Breakfast at Tiffany’s, a happy-go-lucky party girl who struggled with the “mean reds.” In Cold Blood about ruthless killers, who were more pathetic than masterminds. And in his unfinished Answered Prayers, society women, “swans,” as he called them, envied for their wealth, beauty, […]
Nadia Denham runs a curio shop in a “rundown Santa Barbara mall.” Mickie Lambert works for a company that creates “digital scrapbooks” for those wishing to preserve their precious trinkets. When Nadia dies, Mickie sets out to fulfill her last wish to curate twelve mementos that cause a dormant serial killer to surface. Mickie receives […]
Beach reading is heating up as we move into August. Where the Truth Lies by Anna Bailey is a shatteringly emotional story with soaring prose; a page-turning thriller. Set in a remote small town in Colorado, Emma’s 17-year-old friend Abigail disappears, stirring up a town filled with decades-long secrets, fanatics, and racists. Emma forms a […]
You do not have to be a ballerina, or a dance mom, as I am — quick shout out to Gustafson Studios for managing an end of year, in-person ballet show — to enjoy Georgina Pazcoguin’s memoir Swan Dive: The making of a Rogue Ballerina. Pazcoguin’s rise from ABT Summer Intensive student to NYCB’s first […]
It is time to start our beach reading, even with June gloom hovering. Finding Tessa by Jaime Lynn Hendricks is a thriller with an unforeseen twist that will keep you turning pages. Tessa and Jace are in love. When Tessa goes missing, evidence against Jace mounts: blood, a gun, and an affair with a co-worker. […]
Deep in the sewers of Kraków dwell humans, hiding, starving, barely surviving. NY Times bestselling author Pam Jenoff (The Lost Girls of Paris) has finished another taut historical fiction. Imagine living in darkness and filth for over a year? That is the premise – based on true events – of The Woman with the Blue […]
It is every parent’s nightmare. Their child goes missing. It is 1993 and young girls are disappearing in Northern California. The New York Times bestselling author Paula McLain (The Paris Wife) makes an abrupt departure from her popular historical novels to delve into the world of suspense and crime mystery in When the Stars Go […]
“The four winds have blown us here, people from all across the country, to the very end of this great land.” For those of us who live in Montecito we are all too familiar with the land we love. Though lush and verdant, it has on occasion betrayed us with drought, fires, and mudslides. Still, […]
In the Kitchen with Leslie Zemeckis When Leslie Zemeckis saunters into a room, people pay attention. That’s because the Montecito-based actress-baker-author exudes a kind of charm and poise that makes it possible to swan her way through any room – even a kitchen. Her kitchen is her temple, her place for Zen. So is her […]
Last Sunday, community godfather and Christmas Elf Dana Newquist organized the second Montecito-To-Unity toy and fundraising drive and caravan for delivery. A great group met up at the Upper Village in classic cars, ready to donate toys and funds for the second week in a row. Dana asked me to get up on the 1937 […]
