shrouded skeleton statue

Daryl M.

Librarian


Posts by Daryl M.

  • Author Kemper Donovan and his two novels, The Busy Body and Loose Lips

    Interview With an Author: Kemper Donovan

    Kemper Donovan is the host of the All About Agatha podcast. A graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Law School, he worked at the literary management company Circle of Confusion for a decade…

  • Author Chris Nichols and his latest book, Bowlarama!: The Architecture of Mid-Century Bowling

    Interview With an Author: Chris Nichols

    Chris Nichols is a longtime preservationist and senior editor at Los Angeles magazine. For many years, he worked with the Los Angeles Conservancy Modern Committee, serving a term as chairman of the…

  • Author Rebecca Serle and her latest novel, Good Dirt

    Interview With an Author: Charmaine Wilkerson

    Charmaine Wilkerson is the New York Times bestselling author of Black Cake, which was named a Read With Jenna Book Club Pick and adapted as a Hulu streaming series by Oprah Winfrey and Kapital…

  • Author Mallory O’Meara and her latest book, Daughter of Daring: The Trick-Riding, Train-Leaping, Road-Racing Life of Helen Gibson, Hollywood’s First Stuntwoman

    Interview With an Author: Mallory O’Meara

    Mallory O’Meara is the bestselling author of The Lady from the Black Lagoon, which won the 2019 SCIBA award for Biography and the 2019 Rondo award for Book of the Year, Girly Drinks, which won a 2022…

  • But Not Too Bold, a novella by Hache Pueyo

    Interview With an Author: Hache Pueyo

    Hache Pueyo is an Argentine-Brazilian writer and translator. She won an Otherwise Fellowship for her work with gender in speculative fiction, and her work has appeared as H. Pueyo in The Magazine of…

  • Author Edward Underhill and his latest book, The In-Between Bookstore

    Interview With an Author: Edward Underhill

    Edward Underhill grew up in the suburbs of Wisconsin, where he could not walk to anything, so he had to make up his own adventures. He studied music in college, spent several years living in very…

  • Author Jess Armstrong and her latest novel, The Secret of the Three Fates

    Interview With an Author: Jess Armstrong

    Jess Armstrong is the USA Today best selling author of the Ruby Vaughn Mysteries. Her debut novel, The Curse of Penryth Hall, won the Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel…

  • Chunck Tingle and his book cover Bury Your Gays

    Interview With an Author: Chuck Tingle

    Chuck Tingle is the USA Today bestselling author of Camp Damascus and Straight. He is a mysterious force of energy behind sunglasses and a pink mask. He is also an anonymous author of romance, horror…

  • Author Delilah S. Dawson and her first novel, The Resurrectionist

    Interview With an Author: A. Rae Dunlap

    A. (Amanda) Rae Dunlap studied film and Victorian literature at Northwestern University and spends her days as a trailer editor at Disney, bringing to life the magic of the world’s most influential…

  • Book covers of favorite books

    My Favorite Books of 2024

    Season’s Readings, everyone! As is generally true, there have been some marvelous books published in 2024, and I’m thrilled to share my favorites with you. I’ve listed these books in alphabetical…


Reviews by Daryl M.

  • Cover image for Another Fine Mess

    Another Fine Mess

    The Evans Funeral Parlor has existed for almost as long as the Southeastern Texas town in which it's located. It is a generational business, overseen and passed down through the Evans women. There's Ducy, the family's current matriarch, who is the daughter of Pie, who mysteriously disappeared eighteen years ago...
  • Cover image for Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil

    Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil

    • By: Schwab, Victoria
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    In 2020, V.E. Schwab introduced readers to Addie LaRue, a young woman who makes a Faustian bargain to avoid an unwanted marriage in early 18th-century France. In The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, Schwab follows Addie through the centuries as Addie, through her own cunning and strength of will, molds...
  • Cover image for Good Dirt

    Good Dirt

    • By: Wilkerson, Charmaine
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    When Ebony "Ebby" Freeman was ten years old, she was the sole witness of a botched home invasion robbery that resulted in the shooting death of her fifteen-year-old brother, Baz, and the destruction of a priceless family heirloom. The fact that Ebby is the daughter of a prominent Black family...
  • Cover image for But Not Too Bold

    But Not Too Bold

    Dália's life changed the morning the maid found the typewritten note that said: "HIRE A NEW KEEPER OF THE KEYS; URGENT; BEFORE DAWN" Everyone in Capricious House knew what the note meant and who had written it. Its author was the Lady of Capricious House, Lady Anatema, a gargantuan spider/human...
  • Cover image for The Murder of Mr. Ma

    The Murder of Mr. Ma

    • By: Nee, John Shen Yen, Rozan, SJ
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    In 1924 London, Lao She, a shy young academic, is summoned to the home of mathematician Bertrand Russell. When he arrives, Russell explains that a friend and colleague, Judge Dee Ren Jie, has been mistakenly arrested with a group of Chinese agitators. Russell is afraid that if Dee’s identity is...
  • Cover image for The Lost Story

    The Lost Story

    • By: Shaffer, Meg
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    Fifteen years ago, Jeremy and Ralph disappeared while on an end of the school year field trip to Red Crow State Forest in West Virginia. One moment, they were there, and then they were gone. The forest was repeatedly searched, but no signs of the boys were ever found. And...
  • Cover image for Arthur and Teddy are Coming Out

    Arthur and Teddy are Coming Out

    Arthur Edwards has lived his entire life in the small town of Northbridge in northern England. He grew up there. And he met and married his wife, Madeleine, in Northbridge. Northbridge is where Madeleine and he raised their two children, Elizabeth and Patrick. As with most small towns, regardless of...
  • Cover image for Star Struck

    Star Struck

    • By: McCown, Marjorie
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    When readers left Joey Jessup at the end of Marjorie McCown’s Final Cut, she had discovered the identity of the murderer who had killed Assistant Director Courtney Lisle on the set of a big-budget superhero movie. She had survived an attempt on her own life when the murderer had set...