There are two kinds of people in this world: People who find an 86-year-old newspaper clipping inside a century-old book and think, “Huh, neat.” And people who immediately become emotionally invested in the long-dead stranger who put it there. I am, unfortunately for my available shelf spa

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There are bookstores you visit, and then there are bookstores where you immediately begin reconsidering your entire decorating scheme. 🖤📚 The Midnight Dreary is gloriously dark, wonderfully strange, packed with books and curiosities, and exactly the sort of place where one expects to find an obs

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I was perfectly prepared to behave with dignity about this review. Then, I got to, “This book will go in the pile of ‘favorites,’ rather than just the ‘read’ pile.” And dignity was quietly escorted from the premises. 🖤 Five stars. “Positively amazing.” “Written like the classics.” And a re

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This might be one of my favorite ideas hiding inside a museum. Long before email, instant communication, or anything resembling modern shipping, people in countries around the world were asked to send objects to a museum in Salem. And they did. Just imagine the letters traveling back and f

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I see a Little Free Library. I assess the vibes. I decide which of my fictional women belongs there. It’s a perfectly normal system. This weathered little nautical number called for Verity Easton, as the story begins on a ship – so somewhere out there, a new reader may soon be headed to 1930s Eg

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I’m beginning to suspect my “literary wanderings” are just an elaborate excuse to investigate every charming coffee shop I encounter. ☕️📚 But really, put me somewhere with good coffee, cozy corners, and enough atmosphere to make me wonder which fictional character is about to walk through the do

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Apparently, my ideal outdoor activity is paddling peacefully through nature while reading about a group holiday going catastrophically, m*rderously wrong. 🛶📖😂 Finished The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley somewhere between “oh, this is lovely” and “I trust absolutely no one.” 10/10 reading environ

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Making Howard’s Blend, inspired by E. M. Forster’s Howards End. 📚🥃 The recipe calls for brandy, orgeat, Angostura bitters, and receiving word that your wealthiest relative has finally kicked the bucket. Anyway, if anyone needs me, I’ll be standing by the mailbox looking bereaved and waiting f

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Writing historical m*rder mysteries is mostly elegant prose, careful research, and occasionally asking Google questions that would look absolutely appalling without context. 😈🔎 This week: Cambodian dancers, tarantula babies, 1950s Belgian cigarettes, and tarot cards. Perfectly normal author b

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“Page-turning paranormal mystery with spies!” is already a rather excellent way to begin a review. 😭🖤 But “I felt a fierce connection to Evelina”? That’s the sentence that got me. I spent three years with this woman in my head – following her into wartime Italy, an asylum full of secrets, cod

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There’s something rather dangerous about a single word. One becomes a sentence. A sentence becomes a page. And before long, an idea that didn’t exist yesterday has an entire world built around it. Shelley knew the trouble a spark could cause. ✒️🖤 #PercyByssheShelley #LiteraryHistory

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Apparently, my bookshelves now require moving parts. I filled this one with beautiful classics, old favorites, books I fully intend to read someday, and – because subtlety has never served literature particularly well – a few books with my own name on them. 😂 The fact that the whole thing rot

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The postman has once again enabled my habit of filling the house with women who stumble into m*rders. 📚 Hattie Vavaseur begins in 1920s England with a failing memory, a mysterious mansion, an eccentric psychic medium, and a c*rpse that demands answers. Verity Easton takes us to 1930s Egypt, w

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Emporium 32 feels less like shopping and more like wandering through the possessions of several extremely interesting people who may or may not have disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Naturally, I loved it. 🖤 Every shelf had something peculiar, beautiful, old, or just suspicious enou

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“Condemned innocence.” “A ruthless power of old.” “Transcend mercy and get your hands dirty.” Excuse me while I quietly wonder whether this reader reviewed Verity Easton or actually SUMMONED her. There is something particularly lovely about a reader seeing beneath the m*rders, mysteries, an

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There is something deeply satisfying about finding an old edition that feels like an object as much as a book. ✨📚 Twenty Years After reunites D’Artagnan, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis two decades after The Three Musketeers – older, divided by politics, and apparently still incapable of having a qui

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Cemeteries have never felt sad to me. They feel like libraries with the pages closed – full of stories waiting for someone curious enough to imagine them. It’s impossible for me to walk through one without inventing histories, motives, impossible conversations, and at least one m*rder mystery. O

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A Barnes & Noble invited me to do a signing. Objectively, this is exciting. Subjectively, my brain has responded by opening seventeen imaginary committee meetings, all with conflicting opinions. My books have been on Barnes & Noble shelves since 2021, so you’d think this decision w

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There is something incredibly surreal about reading a review from someone who understood exactly what you were trying to create. They laughed with Hattie, adored Vamelda, rooted for Teddy, solved mysteries alongside Mr. Carrington, and even noticed the little details – from Hattie’s impossible p

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Denver Art Museum

I used to think I loved museums because of the paintings. Now, I think I love them because of the questions they leave behind. Who were they before this moment? What happened after? What conversation took place just outside the frame? Which secrets were carefully painted over? I’ve realize

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Author M. Rebecca Wildsmith