Dec 31 2025
At the end of 2025, I hit pause on my overloaded schedule to try to get to books I’d been greatly anticipating this year that I just didn’t have the time for before this. So yeah, I basically used my industry-wide two-week end of year break to do more work but oh wow, was that …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/12/31/vera-wongs-guide-to-snooping-on-a-dead-man-by-jesse-q-sutanto/
Dec 30 2025
The second book in the Cranberry Creek Word Search mystery series is just as delightful as the first, even if the solution to the mystery itself didn’t make the most sense this time. But let’s be honest, if we’re talking cozy mysteries, a thoroughly logical conclusion is often secondary to cozy vibes, and this story …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/12/30/murder-by-muffin-by-rosie-a-point-charles-timmerman/
Dec 29 2025
As 2025 fades around us, Frumious Consortiumists Doreen, Doug and Emily are thinking about our reading plans for 2026! Whether we make official resolutions or not, we all have some definite goals. Emily: Okay, let’s chat new year! Do you make reading resolutions? Anything you’re planning or particularly looking forward to in 2026? Starting in …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/12/29/reading-resolutions-roundtable-2026-edition/
Dec 28 2025
In the two most recent Singing Hills books — The Brides of High Hill and A Mouthful of Dust — Nghi Vo takes her protagonist, the historian Cleric Chih, to much darker places than in the three previous books of this series that I have read. (Those are, in order, The Empress of Salt and Fortune, When …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/12/28/two-from-the-singing-hills-cycle-by-nghi-vo/
Dec 27 2025
I’m glad someone told me that nothing much happens in Orbital, Samantha Harvey’s novella that won the 2024 Booker Prize. If I had been expecting action — anything from a mechanical crisis as six astronauts in the ISS orbit the earth to an alien encounter – I might have been disappointed. The book relates one …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/12/27/orbital-by-samantha-harvey/
Dec 26 2025
In our last Tantalizing Tales column of 2025, dear reader, let’s look back at some (more) of the books I wish I’d had time to read this year, as well as books publishing soon that sound super exciting! First up is Nat Cassidy’s latest thrilling horror novel, When The Wolf Comes Home. Jess is a …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/12/26/tantalizing-tales-december-2025-part-three/
Dec 25 2025
Luke 2:1-14, Old English: Soþlice on þam dagum wæs geworden gebod fram þam casere Augusto, þæt eall ymbehwyrft wære tomearcod. Þeos tomearcodnes wæs æryst geworden fram þam deman Syrige Cirino. And ealle hig eodon, and syndrige ferdon on hyra ceastre. Ða ferde Iosep fram Galilea of þære ceastre Nazareth on Iudeisce ceastre Dauides, seo is …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/12/25/merry-christmas-5/
Dec 24 2025
Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge’s name was good upon ’Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/12/24/thats-dickens-with-a-c-and-a-k-the-well-known-english-author-5/
Dec 23 2025
Y’all, there’s nothing quite like blearily turning to the last book you plan to review before Christmas and discovering that it might truly be the weirdest thing you’ve read all year. Picture this: it’s one in the morning on Christmas Eve Eve and you’ve made enough of a dent in your emails that you’ll only …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/12/23/candy-corn-christmas-by-jonathan-fenske/
Dec 22 2025
As a winter treat to myself — while I’m supposed to be on break with the rest of my industry, lolol — I decided to finally crack open one of my most anticipated books this year. Ashley Winstead broke my heart in 2023 with Midnight Is The Darkest Hour, so I was ready for This …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/12/22/this-book-will-bury-me-by-ashley-winstead/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
Emily Lauer
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire