Hello! Sorry, it’s been a while. I have been busy and tired and my attention span is pretty frayed. But I’m doing some pretty cool things!

First, I went to Málaga earlier this month on the Sobremesa retreat, where I spent my time baking buns and making pasta, feeling the sun on my skin and nursing a lot of tinto de verano and vermut. (Plus I bought the cutest gilda-shaped earrings and just want to wear them all the time.) I highly recommend everything about this - making eating delicious food, hanging out with other foodies, and of course, being in Spain!

I’ve also been training three days a week for my first Queerstrong competition, which is very fun but very tiring. I’ve never done strongman-style lifting before, and I’m literally learning how to shift huge rocks. No wonder I’m faceplanting into bed on gym days.

Most recently, I have struggling desperately to stay cool in the most recent London heatwave. 35C/95 F in May! MAY! Out-freaking-rageous! This city really wasn’t designed for temperatures above 27C/80F, and the place genuinely wilts.

Last but not least, here’s one of my neighbor’s roses, for your daily dose of beauty:

A little housekeeping:

I’m going to be taking the summer off from regular newsletter writing so that I can focus my fidgety, capricious brain on Book 3, starting with 1000 Words of Summer. I may pop up here and there if the mood takes me, but otherwise you can expect regular correspondence from me again in September.

My Grade A books for the last month:

The Rooster House by Victoria Belim (US / UK) - rich and compelling Ukrainian family memoir, for anyone who loves learning history from individual stories and having their heart broken.

Almost Life by Kiran Millwood Hargrave (US / UK) - for anyone who wants a decades-long queer love story that’s really about loving the idea of someone and who you are when you’re with them (and who also dreams about moving to Paris).

Big Nobody by Alex Kadis (US / UK) - for anyone who enjoys a great second-generation immigrant coming-of-age novel that’s funny and emotional and has all the trappings of the 1970s in their grubby, chintzy glory.

Pot Shot by Laura Piper Lee (US / UK) - stoner comedy meets opposites attract second chance romance, for those who like to laugh as they swoon and love a hero who begins the story as a highly-strung killjoy, until he realizes that there are more «cough» enjoyable ways to direct his «ahem» passion.

Artists, Siblings, Visionaries by Judith Mackrell (US / UK) - dual biography of Gwen and Augustus John, for those who love incredibly juicy historical gossip, learning the joys and costs of creative practice, and who have complicated relationships with both the concept of family and their actual relatives.

Kiss Me Like You Mean It by Laura Wood (pre-order for August! US / UK) - the funniest and spiciest small town romance since Welcome to Temptation, with an accidental marriage of convenience thrown in to make things extra interesting. For anyone who wants/needs delicious escapist comfort!

My summer drinks wishlist:

-Homemade horchata (This recipe from Georgia Freedman looks really good!)

-Tinto de verano (Garnacha mixed with Fever Tree fizzy lemonade)

-Middle Eastern style lemonade, slushy and green with tons of mint

-Lambrusco (with a cheeseburger, of course)

-Trying more amaros, ideally in spritz form (Yes, I am an insufferable hipster. But there are just so many!)

-Last but absolutely not least, piña coladas!

And I’m listening to…Rhiannon Giddens.

Specifically, I went to this concert at the Wigmore Hall last night and she and the other musicians were incandescent - folk and blues and jazz and trad and early music all blending together into a gorgeous sweep of sound. My favorites were “Tomorrow Is My Turn” and “Build A House” - so ferocious and so vulnerable. “Mouth Music” is incredible, too. If she’s coming to your city soon, be first in line for tickets!

-I watched Arsenal Women win twice, once in a nail-biter in the Champions League semis against OL Lyonnes, once in an absolute demolition (7-0!) of Leicester City. Becoming a season ticket holder was definitely one of the best things I did last summer - I love the ritual of walking to the Emirates with the other fans, the intensity of the cheering and the singing, and seeing amazing women perform incredible athletic feats. Getting to drink cider in the stands isn’t too bad, either…

-I discovered London’s newest romance bookstore, Main Character Books, in Spitalfields! It’s a sizable place with comfortable chairs and snacks, definitely somewhere that encourages you to linger. (Related - you should be able to find signed copies of The Slowest Burn there before too long.)

-I cooked this onglet, the best value-for-money steak dinner for two. I cooked the meat for ninety seconds a side in a cast iron pan, then served them with oven fries, roasted asparagus, and mayo laced with tarragon mustard and garlic.

-All of these bluebells! T and I made a special trip to Perivale Wood in deepest, darkest West London to see them in peak bloom. There were literally millions of them! The oak trees were leafing out too, a shade of lime green that I want to bottle for when it’s relentlessly gray and dark in January.

Recently I read and loved…

Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke (US / UK)

Yes, I know, everyone and their mother is reading this. They’re reading it because it is JUICY AS.

Natalie Heller Mills is the most thoroughly, deliciously unlikeable main character, an immensely smug tradwife influencer who firmly believes that she’s created her dream life (living on a beautiful farm in Idaho with a handsome cowboy husband and five children) just from her sheer willpower and persistence. But where’s the line between willpower and manipulation, between persistence and delusion? The point gets driven home when Natalie wakes up one morning to find she’s traveled back in time to the nineteenth century frontier, all of the luxuries and freedoms she’s taken for granted gone. I bought this in hardback and tore through it in a day, and I regret nothing.

Young Queens by Leah Redmond Chang (US / UK)

I know my bedtime reading is top-notch when it becomes my during-the-day reading too, and this group biography of three related sixteenth century queens (Catherine de’ Medici, Elisabeth de Valois, and Mary, Queen of Scots) was excellent. Chang writes about the intricacies of European royal politics with a light touch, and does an excellent job of capturing the push and pull between the role of women at the time and the role of monarchs. (This also made me realize how Britain-centric my knowledge of this time period is - before I read Chang’s book, I could tell you a lot about the Tudors and Stuarts, not nearly as much about the French Wars of Religion and Phillip II’s mad son.)

Lillian Boxfish Takes A Walk by Kathleen Rooney (US / UK)

Have you just finished The Correspondent and feel bereft of a smart, opinionated, prickly heroine of a certain age? Would you also like to go to New York on vacation, immerse yourself in its sights and sounds and stories, but the current airfares make you shudder? Here is the book for you! I loved walking around Manhattan with Lillian Boxfish and was a little sad when I turned the last page.

On another note, this was a great example of buying a book and laying it down like fine wine; I felt the urge to take it down from the living room shelves the other day, only to discover a bookmark from Daunt Books Summertown, which I visited over two years ago. You never know when the right day for a book will be when you buy it, you just have to think it’ll happen someday!

And I drank…a Lillet Spritz.

Longtime readers will know that Lillet Blanc with ice and a slice is my spring-is-here-hell-yeah drink, and this week London has been very generous with sunshine and blue skies. It’s also the week that marks four years since T and I moved back to London (another hell yeah), so we enjoyed a round of Lillet Spritzes (3:2:1 Prosecco, Lillet, soda) with a cheeky long lunch at Rochelle Canteen. I’m trying to come up with an eloquent description of the taste, but fundamentally: a Lillet Spritz is grown up, fancier-tasting lemonade. And on a sunny day eating great food with friends in a lush garden, that’s all you really need.

-The sun’s out! The lilacs are blooming! Our wisteria’s in full-on hysteria! It’s SPRING, yippee! (The Pollening is stronger than ever this year, too, but that’s why God invented fexofenadine.)

-I got a sports massage for the first time because my quad muscles are hella strong, but they are also the tightest thing to ever tighten in the history of tightness. Getting them kneaded into submission was the best thing I have done for my physical health in years.

- Related to the above: at the gym I squatted weight with significantly less discomfort in my knees for the first time in a long time, a real win. Turns out the quad muscles and knee ligaments/tendons are connected, whodathunkit.

-And my local bakery made danishes with strawberry and rhubarb, a superb fruit combination that is common in the US but nearly impossible to find in the UK for no good reason that I can work out. (Mark your calendars, team: June 9 is National Strawberry Rhubarb Pie Day.)

Recently I read and loved…

Children of Radium by Joe Dunthorne (US / UK)

As a granddaughter of a refugee I’m more than a little familiar with the stories of escape from Nazi Germany - but this one was different, in a really interesting way. Dunthorne’s chemist great-grandfather Siegfried fled to Turkey from Germany with his family in 1935…but he’d been working for a German company developing chemical weapons, and continued to work with that company after he’d left. Yes, you read that correctly. This twist in the usual story sent Dunthorne down a family history rabbit hole, trying to understand just how complicit Siegfried had been, and what compromises he’d had to make. This book is particularly good at exploring the silences and misdirections that come with family stories being passed down generation after generation, and at making space for ambiguity that most refugee stories don’t.

Isola by Allegra Goodman (US / UK)

A pampered young French noblewoman has to fight to survive when her evil guardian maroons her on an uninhabited island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Yes, this is based on a true story, and it’s a real doozy! Read this book for a terrific, tightly-written portrait, of courage and endurance, and to learn how a naive, cosseted girl comes to reply on herself and not wait for events to overtake her. There are two scenes with angry polar bears that will put your heart in your mouth. (If you read this and love it, I also highly recommend Goodman’s Intuition and The Cookbook Collector.)

Cherry Baby by Rainbow Rowell (US / UK)

I have had a soft spot for Rainbow Rowell’s work since reading both Eleanor & Park and Attachments almost fifteen years ago, and Cherry Baby (along with Slow Dance) shows that her books have risen to a whole new level. The story begins with what you’d think is a fairly straightforward second chance romance, but it unfolds and unfolds into a tender exploration of long-term love and marriage and how we see and judge ourselves and other people. Superb.

Also: as a fat thirty-something woman I felt so seen by this book, to a level that was borderline overwhelming at points. I’m generally body positive now thanks to a) a decade of weightlifting b) sixteen-and-a-half years of a loving relationship and c) my f*cks melting away with age, but sometimes the old vicious inner critic sneaks in, and Rowell captures that critic so well.

I also enjoyed…New York Sketches by E.B. White, Sankofa by Chibundu Onuzo

And I mixed…a Shoulder Season Negroni.

You know the old saying about how when you have a hammer, everything looks like nail? Well, my version this week is…when you have a bottle of passion fruit liqueur, everything looks like a tiki drink.

We had friends over for dinner last night (I made paneer butter masala and T baked these incredible lemon bars) and for their welcome cocktail I wanted something lighter and fairly springlike, but not too effervescent because it’s still not that warm (shakes fist at the “feels like” temperature). My friend adores a negroni, and passion fruit and Campari amplify each other in a really delicious way (see the Dry Daiquiri), so I came up with this new combination:

Ingredients:

30ml Campari

30ml white (not dry!) vermouth (I used Cinzano Bianco)

30ml gin (I used Sipsmith)

10ml passion fruit liqueur (I used Chinola)

Stir all ingredients over ice for 20-25 seconds. Strain into old-fashioned glasses, either over one massive ice cube or a pile of normal cubes. Hold the glass up to the light to admire the bright scarlet color, then sip slow.

I also enjoyed…a Last Spritz.

And I listened to…

I have tickets to hear Lise Davidsen sing Schubert at the Wigmore Hall in June, and I literally dance with anticipation every time I remember. Listen to this to see why - I highly recommend listening to it on headphones sitting outside, letting the spring sunshine warm your face.

I am here about to have a very cultural week. My main reason for crossing the Atlantic is to listen to five hours of Wagnerian opera with the best soprano in the world singing, but I’m also going to two musicals and a play and probably some museums too, because when there’s so many cool things to do, who wants to put their feet up? I’ll be back home in London next week with American candy and a bottle of rye whiskey and probably far too many books. (Kitchen Arts & Letters loves to see me coming.)

On another note, I have housekeeping questions for you all:

1. Would you like to receive a weekly newsletter instead of a semi-weekly one?

2. How attached are you to there being a cocktail recipe in the newsletter every issue?

I ask because despite appearances, I’m not that big of a drinker, so I usually only have good material for the “and I mixed” section every other week. On the other hand, I read so much that I could easily send out weekly book recommendations, plus whatever other tidbits I’ve been enjoying, whether that’s a drink or a song or a recipe or a movie. Could you please let me know what you’d like?

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Recently I read and loved…

A Lady Awakened by Cecilia Grant (US / UK)

This is perhaps a soapier and more angsty historical romance than I would usually go for (upstanding widow asks neighborhood rake to get her pregnant to save her late husband’s estate from ruin), but I absolutely ate this story up like popcorn. I particularly enjoyed Grant’s two MCs, a woman who seems cold and humorless but is actually driven by responsibility and self-sacrifice, and a man who appears to be a complete flibbertigibbet but is actually kind and smart and loyal if someone just gives him a chance. (Does this perhaps sound familiar?) The emotional slow burn is so, so good!

The Artist, AKA The Artist and the Feast by Lucy Steeds (US / UK)

There is something about looking at paintings from the South of France, all their light and color and richness - you know they can’t be from anywhere else. You can feel the dry-warm wind, smell lavender, taste overripe peaches. If you’re looking for a book to evoke the mood of a Cezanne or Van Gogh, definitely pick up this sunshine Gothic feminist fairytale, featuring a beastly artist, his mysterious niece/housekeeper, and the naive English journalist who visits one summer and changes everything. The heroine Ettie is a terrific character, naive yet world-weary, bitter and yet yearning for something more than life as her monstrous uncle’s helpmeet.

Superfan by Jenny Tinghui Zhang (US / UK)

A confession: during my lonely teens I spent a decent amount of time on discussion boards and fanfiction Livejournals, first for the fantasy author Tamora Pierce and then for the band Franz Ferdinand. So I was definitely nodding/squirming in recognition a little bit while reading this book. In its story of a K-Pop singer and the fan who’s utterly entranced by him, Superfan captures the kind of intense love that quickly transforms into parasocial obsession. Zhang also writes beautifully about late teens loneliness and finding something, anything to fill the space inside us when we’re growing up and just trying to figure things out. (It’s also a warning against the seduction of certainty - things definitely get dark…)

I also enjoyed…From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg, Fake Skating by Lynn Painter, In Every Possible Way by Alicia Thompson (pre-order for June!) Spellstruck by Martha Waters (pre-order for September!)

And I mixed…an Extra Tropical Mai Tai.

Sometimes I walk into my local liquor store, fully intending just to buy a jar of cherries (in my mind, running out of maraschino cherries is an emergency on the level of running out of peanut butter). But the packed shelves full of gorgeous labels have a way of totally undermining my intentions, and on my last trip I walked out with the cherries and a bottle of passion fruit liqueur. I searched around looking for recipe possibilities, and decided to go the full tropical - to make a Mai Tai, but to use the passion fruit liqueur instead of orangey triple sec, and pineapple rum instead of plain. Friends, I burst out laughing when I tasted this. It is so over-the-top fruity and is absolutely something you would drink at a swim up bar in a Hawaiian resort, garnished with orchids and pineapple fronds. But frankly, who wants to live in a world where we only drink “serious” drinks? Not me.

To mix:

60ml/2oz pineapple rum (I use Planteray Stiggins’ Fancy)

30ml/1oz lime juice

30ml/1oz passion fruit liqueur (I use Chinola)

15ml/0.5oz orgeat

Ice

Combine everything in a shaker. Shake until the outside metal is frozen, then double strain into a rocks glass packed with ice. Garnish with whichever tropical decorations you can find (pineapple rings, passion fruit pulp, flowers, umbrellas…).

Drink while floating in a swimming pool. (Or dreaming of floating in one.)

So London friends, if you have any books, and particularly COOKBOOKS, that you’ve been procrastinating on taking to the charity shop…message me first!

Recently I read and loved…

Feast On Your Life by (US / UK)

I’m actually in the middle of reading this, but I’m including it in case you are in need of a book that’s deeply reassuring but not escapist. The news of the last few weeks has left me feeling simultaneously overstimulated and powerless, and Adler’s short meditations on the simple pleasures of shapely eggs and springtime asparagus and chicken soup have been good for finding a little bit of equilibrium, particularly before I go to sleep. Right now I find myself rolling this phrase about cooking around my brain like I’d roll a stress ball in my hands:

“I feel free and proven and unbeholden to circumstance, knowing what I like and making it.”

No Matter What by Cara Bastone (US / UK)

My favorite early spring holiday is New Cara Bastone Day! Honestly, for the style alone, MFA’s should teach her books. No Matter What’s writing is so musical, so poignant, and extraordinarily funny when you least expect it. Bastone is wonderful at writing ordinary people who are trying their best, and the long-term couple Roz and Vin in No Matter What are having to try incredibly hard. The book begins a year after a horrible freak accident upended their lives and their marriage, and I was on the edge of my seat, hoping that they would figure out how to repair what had been broken. (Less poignant, but I have to say it: as written by Bastone, Vin is the man for whom the technical term “HUBBA HUBBA” was invented.)

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë (US / UK)

I picked this up on ’s recommendation, and boy, I really enjoy an old-fashioned nineteenth-century novel, with all its rich description and wild emotion. This novel is powerfully feminist, centering a woman who after making a terrible choice of husband, tries her hardest to maintain her cast-iron integrity and protect her child in the face of society telling her to do the “right” thing and submit to abuse and degradation. If you find that Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights overromanticize bad men too much for your taste, you will enjoy this a lot more.

Bad Bad Girl by Gish Jen (US / UK)

What do you do when you’re trying to make sense of a close but difficult relationship, when you don’t understand why the other person acts the way they do? When they shut down when you try to talk about the past, when they get defensive, when it’s clear they don’t think they did anything wrong, or worse that you’re worth apologizing to? How do you find closure?

Well, if you’re Gish Jen, you write…well, it’s a memoir, kind of. Jen has taken the scraps that she knew about her mother, who was emotionally cold and physically abusive, and added stories from whole cloth to create a larger autofictional tapestry, one that isn’t entirely based on fact but that feels true to the times and places her mother lived in. As Jen follows a fictionalized version of her mom from a pampered life in 1930s Shanghai to hard work and struggle in the US, she creates a picture of a woman deeply aware of her unfulfilled potential, undermined by sexist low expectations and haunted by the family she left behind to suffer under Mao’s dictatorship. Through this exploration, Jen finds a way not to forgive her mother, but to understand her trauma and move on from it.

I also enjoyed…Love Me Stalk Me by Laura Bishop, Dom-Com by Adriana Anders

And I mixed…a Promise Us Paradise.

I love having a friend who supports my hobbies from six thousand miles away! Julie is my fellow lover of books and delicious food and cats (visit her Instagram @bookchew for excellent book recommendations and cat pictures) and for Christmas she very generously sent me a copy of Cocktails Illustrated by America’s Test Kitchen, a bona fide tome full of techniques and tricks for great cocktails. I finally cracked it this week and immediately landed on the recipe for a Promise Us Paradise, a souped up old fashioned. It combines dark rum, Averna, and orgeat, and thought it would be a great way to close out brown drink season.

Good dark rum tastes like you’ve sipped the syrup from a creme caramel, and this drink had that same lovely richness. But it wasn’t sickly - the Averna and the bitters gave lots of woody and spicy notes to balance the sweetness.

(For my Californian friends, I know a deep brown drink in the face of this week’s heatwave seems laughable, but maybe an El Presidente would do the trick? Or if things are really unbearable, you could always make a mojito and dump the ice cubes down your shirt afterwards.)

And I cooked…Unapologetically Aromatic Chicken and Rice.

If you have a subscription, you must cook this recipe. It takes a little bit of forward planning in terms of shopping for spices and marinating chicken overnight, but honestly, it is the best-smelling recipe I have ever made, and it was so rich and flavorsome that T and I were rendered practically speechless.

If you don’t have a Vittles subscription, this recipe from Jerusalem will have similar vibes, with the combination of fragrant spices, tender rice, and SCHMALTZ.

And I listened to…Kathleen Ferrier.

Speaking of knowing what I like, I’ve been putting on songs by the 1940s British contralto Kathleen Ferrier almost every day. (She’s part of Book 3, I just can’t explain how yet.) To me her voice is stunning, but more than that, it sounds…fundamental. Like she sang from the center of the earth, digging into bedrock to express everything she felt: love, pain, grief, faith. She died unfairly young of breast cancer, but I am grateful she lived long enough to create such incredible music. It’s amazing how a recording from 75 years ago can reach out and hold you tight. Just listen to this song by Gustav Mahler and you’ll see what I mean:

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There are *cough* certain times of the month when I get anxious and morose and sleep deprived, a cocktail of bad feelings which makes it really, really hard to write. It also makes me feel absolutely terrible about NOT writing. (Yes, my brain is a bully. Yes, I am in therapy. It’s a process.)

Anyway, one day recently, I’d woken up way over on the wrong side of the bed and lost the whole morning (my precious ice cube) to reading a romance novel and playing the various word games on the New York Times. By lunch I was in a foul mood, annoyed with myself for my lack of moral fiber but unable to find the will to get my butt in my writing chair.

I turned to my husband and said, “Screw it, I’m going to bake a cake.”

Because maybe I’d get it together to write if I actually DID something…and if I didn’t, hey, at least there would be cake.

I opened up a recipe for Yossy Arefi’s morning glory cake and got to it, and something about the act of creating, of grating apples and carrots and chopping pineapple and pecans and whisking batter, kicked my writing brain back into gear. I tapped a few notes to myself, then while the cake baked I wrote 400 words. While it cooled I wrote another 650.

Moral of the story? Sometimes productive procrastination turns into actual productivity.

And If I show up on your doorstep with random cake, you know why.

Recently I read and loved…

Leaving Home: A Memoir In Color by Mark Haddon (US / UK)

This memoir is a real delight: it’s so particular to the author’s experience, but so universal in its portrayal of a strange, smart kid finding their way through the world. Haddon doesn’t shy away from bleakness: he effectively grows up on an emotional tundra with cold, self-obsessed parents, and escapes from his intensely lonely childhood through living inside his own head. He’s also frank about life with severe anxiety and depression, and how his mental illness coexists with his artistic achievements and his deep love for his wife and children. I loved the random drawings and the footnotes, the black comedy and the earnest sadness.

The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow (US / UK)

I have genuinely never read anything like this before and I was almost angry when I turned the last page, it was so good. The Everlasting weaves togeher Arthurian fantasy and post WWI fascist dictatorship, with a cowardly historian and a heroic knight as the main characters…and there are TIME LOOPS, people. It’s a feat of watertight, meticulous plotting which had my jaw slack with astonishment over and over again. Also, Harrow can WRITE, with such a sure grasp of emotional tone, from the witty to the bloody to the deeply romantic. Oh, and it’s HOT. As my husband once said about an ER doctor who could deadlift 700 pounds, because it’s not enough to be at the peak of ONE kind of human endeavor…

Moveable Feasts by Chris Newens (US / UK)

This is not your usual Paris food memoir, with the author in raptures over one perfect little bistro. To get to know Paris, arondissment by arondissment, Newens visits the most unlikely places: a homeless encampment, a sex club, and a protest, among others. His Paris isn’t trapped in aspic, it is diverse and complex and changeable. I particularly loved his description of Rungis, the enormous hypermodern food market in the suburbs that makes everything we know as “Parisian” food possible. I’m off to Paris this weekend and looking forward to seeing this city with fresh eyes thanks to this book.

Ordinary Saints by Niamh Ní Mhaoileoin (US / UK)

In this novel, set in 2018, a queer Irish woman’s life goes into a tailspin when learns that her brother might become a Catholic saint. Yes, you read that correctly. I fell in love with the concept right away (how could I not?) , and the luminous writing and pin-sharp characterization meant that I devoured this in an afternoon and evening. It’s a terrific book about grief, secrets, and what we truly know about what our loved ones would have wanted.

I also enjoyed…Thrown for a Loop by Sarina Bowen, Sleeping with the Frenemy by Natalie Caña, My Family: The Memoir by David Baddiel, The Correspondent by Virginia Evans, How to Lose a Lord in Ten Days by Sophie Irwin, Ellie Hayes and the Himbos by Vanessa King

And I mixed…an apricot-almond sour.

Behold the great fiery ball! I know the equinox isn’t for another few weeks, but it was 17C (63F) and sunny in the city last week and Londoners were packing out the parks and drinking spritzes like there was no tomorrow. It’s hard not to get swept up in the batshit optimism of it all, when the air is so much warmer and softer and the clouds aren’t clamped over our heads like a manhole cover.

I wanted to celebrate with a cocktail, and I initially thought of a mai tai. But while that drink is fresh and fruity, it felt like something to drive away bad weather, rather than welcome in the good. I saw the stone fruit trees around my neighborhood blossoming and found myself wishing for apricots, even knowing that ripe ones are months away. That said, I don’t think apricots raw on their own are all that good - to me they’re at peak deliciousness cooked in a pie or a tart, with maybe a little pistachio or almond frangipane to bring out their perfume. (Travel tip - the finest apricot pie in the world can be found at Duarte’s in Pescadero, California.)

Anyway, here are those wished-for apricots in drink form:

Apricot Tart

1.75oz/52.5ml bourbon

0.75oz/22.5ml apricot brandy

0.75oz/22.5ml lemon juice

0.25oz/7.5ml almond orgeat

0.25oz/7.5ml simple syrup (melt together equal parts water and sugar)

Add all ingredients to a shaker with ice. Shake for 20 seconds, then double strain into rocks glasses packed with ice cubes. If I’d had dried apricots, I’d have garnished with one!

And I’m listening to… “Sinnerman” by Nina Simone

An oldie but very, very goodie, because some half-asleep days we need to bang the table and yell “POWER” over and over again…

I’ve been spending a lot of quality time in this same study over the last few weeks. Book 3 is creeping up on 20,000 chaotic, messy words (recent Google queries: Dame Myra Hess, Native American tribes in LA, real estate in Cheviot Hills, cleft palate scars), and I’m loving spending time with my characters, so things are looking promising. (Please keep your fingers crossed for me that this isn’t just a honeymoon period.)

I also saw Wuthering Heights, about which I have MANY OPINIONS, along with literally everyone else on the internet. I’ll just put my number one take here:

Part of what gives the novel its tension is the unconsummated passion between Cathy and Heathcliff. They pine for each other, they idealize each other to the nth degree, they’d climb inside each other if they could. But when they can’t get what they want, they BURN EVERYTHING DOWN.

Which is to say, the movie’s scenes of Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi shagging picturesquely had all the erotic thrill of the air being let very slowly out of a balloon. It left the rest of the movie limp and your romance novelist correspondent unimpressed. If you want to watch a really good and interesting movie that’s out now, I would recommend The Secret Agent instead.

Recently I read and loved…

The Jackfruit Chronicles by Shahnaz Ahsan (US / UK)

This memoir with recipes is just wonderful! Immigration history is my particular jam so I was already pretty sure I’d enjoy it, but Ahsan’s writing on migration, belonging, and family in her British-Bengali community is evocative and full of feeling. (I highly recommend seeking out her writing in Vittles as well.) I genuinely felt like I was sitting in the kitchen with her and her aunties. Speaking of the kitchen, the recipes made me want to cook them ASAP - keema shepherd’s pie and mango cake are at the top of my list.

Peter the Great: His Life and Work by Robert K. Massie (US / UK)

Oh yeah, I am that nerd who will read a 1000 page biography of a tsar who died three hundred years ago just for fun. But this isn’t just any 1000 page history! Massie was a fluid, expressive writer who made history feel incredibly immediate, and the opening sections about Peter’s childhood read like a missing excerpt from Game of Thrones: warring families, two boy tsars with their older sister and her lover actually in charge, and many, many heads on pikes. Peter himself grew up to be a literally huge character of a man, wielding autocratic power and sheer energy and personal will to Europeanize Russia and make it a player on the world stage, and Massie brings him to life in all his impulsiveness and eccentricity. Highly recommended if you’re looking for nonfiction to get lost in.

The Whalebone Theatre by Joanna Quinn (US / UK)

It has been a long time since I felt so completely embraced by a book, but Whalebone Theatre drew me into a meticulously detailed and emotionally rich world. Quinn captures the depth of love between three very different siblings, all raised practically feral in a country house in Dorset and putting on plays every summer. Every character is complex and sympathetic, even characters that would be pigeonholed as evil in lesser books. She also writes very thoughtfully about the moral gray areas created by war and grief, the nature of acting roles and performance, and the gap between who you are versus who people perceive you to be, or think you should be. (If you love family stories set during World War II, this book shares a lot of DNA with The Cazalet Chronicles, a series by Elizabeth Jane Howard that I love so much, I namedropped it in Love Walked In.)

I also enjoyed…Three Days in June by Anne Tyler, Unorthodox Love by Heidi Shertok

And I mixed…a rhubarb and blood orange sour.

The pink and orange of forced rhubarb and citrus don’t completely compensate for London’s monochrome winter, but my goodness, they do help! So what better thing to do than to combine these two vibrant, tart things into a cocktail? I had my amazing pink-red rhubarb jam, and beautiful blood oranges, and I thought the best way to combine them would be a classic sour. The result. thanks to the egg white, isn’t a fluorescent color, more of a 1960s pale salmon pink, but the taste is neon-bright and juicy and super fresh. To explain the slightly odd measurement - I originally made a 4:2:1 sour with just the blood orange juice. But orange on its own doesn’t have enough acid to stand up to the vodka, and the mix had a distinct taste of nail polish remover. I added extra blood orange juice (I had another half orange spare) and some lemon to really lift things.

The SAD No More Sour

Serves 2

4oz/120ml vodka (I used Royal Mash)

3oz/90ml blood orange juice (I squeezed my own, but Tropicana will do the job too)

1oz/30ml lemon juice

1oz/30ml/2 tablespoons rhubarb jam (I think you could use another red fruit jam here, like a low sugar raspberry, redcurrant, or lingonberry, as long as it’s runny and not too sweet.)

1 medium (US large) egg white

Add all ingredients to an empty shaker and dry shake for 15-20 seconds. Then fill the shaker with ice and shake again for 15-20 seconds. Double strain into ice-packed rocks glasses.

And I watched…Sunset Boulevard.

This is getting its own section because if you haven’t seen Sunset Boulevard, you need to go watch it IMMEDIATELY. I loaded it up one Sunday evening because I thought it would be relevant to Book 3, and honestly, it’s the most fun I’ve had doing research ever. The film nails the strangeness of both LA as a city and Hollywood as an industry, their thirst for youth and novelty and their blithe callousness towards anything old and passé. It’s wonderfully Gothic and creepy and fascinating, a grotesque love letter. Gloria Swanson in particular is impossible to look away from.

And I listened to… “French Navy” by Camera Obscura

Because sometimes, when you’re just so sick and tired of winter in all its flatness, what you need is an insanely catchy 1960s girl group tribute with a Glasgow accent. I love the low, smoky way Tracyanne Campbell sings, “You came my way / said I want you to stay.” And the big Wall of Sound drums and OTT melodramatic strings! This goes with “Age of Consent” by New Order on my playlist of sunny songs from rainy places.

1. The weather in Spain (lovely)

2. My calendar, to see if I can clear a few days ASAP (nope)

3. My SAD lamp, willing it to make me feel just a little less flat (jury’s out)

There are of course some really nice compensations for this time of year. There definitely won’t be blood oranges or forced rhubarb in June, or the urge to roast a chicken or simmer a stew over a long Sunday afternoon, or the coziness of curling up on the sofa under blankets with my cat and a good book.

But good grief, it feels like if I don’t get some sun soon, I might actually cry. And when the mean reds get too strong, the only thing for them is a random dance party:

Recently I read and loved…

Season by George Harrison (US / UK)

This novel is perfect for anyone who’s both a literary fiction person and a huge sports fan, particularly if you’ve ever loved a team in its underdog era. Season reminds me a lot of Brian by Jeremy Cooper, in that this is a story where not a lot happens plotwise, but everything is simmering under the surface. Following two football supporters, the Old Man and the Young Man, through the ups and downs of one year of cheering on their team, Harrison writes beautifully about male loneliness, the desire to belong tangled up with the need to hide vulnerability. These two men are both caretakers, but push away any attempt to care for them. If you’re looking for a poignant read, this is it.

Bookish by Lucy Mangan (US / UK)

Yes, this bookworm loves reading books written by other bookworms about how much they love to read books and lurk in bookstores and curate their own libraries, color us all surprised. Frankly, they should just hand Bookish out at every bookstore - I guarantee you will finish it and have a scribbled-down list of five other books you want to read immediately. If you see me in the next few weeks with my nose in a copy of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall or Forever Amber, Lucy Mangan’s responsible.

A Woman Is No Man by Etaf Rum (US / UK)

This deeply sad novel was interesting to read side by side with Memphis by Tara Stringfellow - both are stories of three generations of women raising their families while haunted by the ghosts of systemic and domestic violence. But Memphis’ mothers and daughters have a clear sense of their own agency, while the Palestinian-American characters of A Woman Is No Man live in a restrictive, patriarchal culture where women’s only value is in keeping house and bearing sons. It was painful to read how women can abuse each other generation after generation in the name of protecting family reputations and snatching crumbs of power, but I also loved how Deya, Isra, and Sarah, the young women, found some kind of escape through reading.

I also enjoyed…Madrid: A New Biography by Luke Stegemann, The Queer Principles of Kit Webb by Cat Sebastian, Am I Having Fun Now? by Suzi Ruffell, The Truth About Cads and Dogs by Elisa Braden, World Cup Fever by Simon Kuper

And I made…rhubarb jam.

How much does this house like rhubarb? This house likes it so much that early in our relationship, T and I went on a hot dirty weekend to…Wakefield! You laugh, but a) it’s at the heart of the Yorkshire Rhubarb Triangle and there’s a whole festival dedicated to the good stuff there every February and b) we’re still together 15 years after that weekend, so we must have been doing something right…

But anyway, yes, rhubarb, particularly the forced stuff that appears in stores in January and February, is one of my favorite dessert ingredients. The lipstick-bright color, the tartness, the berry-like notes that sugar brings out…so, so good. Crumble, snacking cake, trifle; I love it all.

But I decided that in 2026, I didn’t just want to have one or two rhubarb crumbles and then be done. I wanted to have rhubarb on tap! In a fit of greed, I ordered four whole kilos (almost nine pounds, American friends) of forced rhubarb from E Oldroyd & Sons. Half of it became a big pan of crumble that we ate for dessert (and breakfast, cough), and half of it we turned into seven 454g jars of jam. Our favorite recipe is from the River Cottage Preserves handbook, and is just chopped rhubarb, enough jam sugar to send an army into diabetic shock, and a big squeeze of orange juice, all soaked together overnight in a big pan, then boiled on the stove until it reaches 105C/220F. It makes a slightly runny, not-too-sweet jam the color of rubies, and is equally great spread on toast or spooned on top of Greek yogurt. I’m also considering using it in some thumbprint cookies, or maybe with these delicious-looking lemon-vanilla possets.

Oh, and I am also definitely mixing it into a cocktail, which I am still testing. Recipe to come next issue!

If you’re looking for something to mix this week, I stirred up some Marmalade Hanky Pankies for a friend the other night and they went down an absolute treat. I can also highly recommend visiting your local cocktail bar, as T and I did this past Friday. Hospitality has been suffering some real slings and arrows lately, and we’ve all got to use our favorite places if we don’t want to lose them. (Londoners, Equal Parts on Hackney Road is terrific. Order the Thistle & Thorn if you go soon.)

I have cooked some delicious things, if you’re looking to mix it up a little in the kitchen this week. I really liked this Julia Turshen pasta bake which I hadn’t made for a few years, and these rosemary potatoes were amazing for an impromptu steak night with onglet (aka hanger steak) from HG Walter.

By the way: if you’re beating yourself up for not being crazy productive right now (trust me, I have been there), look up Katherine May’s meditation Wintering. It’s a good reminder that we are all just more sophisticated animals, and there are times in life where resting and recovering is not just nice, but necessary. Especially when it’s cold and dark!

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Recently I read and loved…

Come As You Are/Lips Like Sugar by Jess K Hardy (US / UK)

Romances that feature main characters over 35? What a concept! I loved these two Gen X romances (the youngest MC is 48, the oldest is 53) set on a ski resort in Montana both for the quality of the storytelling (funny, sexy, AND emotional) and for their honesty. Hardy doesn’t hide the reality of living in an older body (hot flashes! stretch marks! aching joints!) or the mental real estate taken up by caring for elderly parents on the one hand and young adult children on the other. If you are looking for a genuinely mature romance in multiple senses, this is for you.

Gold Coast Dilemma by Nana Malone (US / UK)

Take Crazy Rich Asians, but make it Ghanaian and very, very sexy! Gold Coast Dilemma was so much fun - I’d give it bonus points for a driven, uncompromising heroine, a swoony hero who’s determined to do the work, an over-the-top meddling mother, and a lot of insight into a culture I hadn’t known much about before, given with a light touch. I need to find a good Ghanaian restaurant somewhere soon…

Kingmaker by Sonia Purnell (US / UK)

I have an idea for an opera! A young aristocratic girl named Pamela, too clever for her stolid family and desperate to escape the boredom of the countryside, catches the eye of a young prince who, when they marry, turns out to be utterly selfish and abusive. But the kingdom has just gone to war, and with the encouragement of her father in-law, Pamela becomes the mistress of multiple powerful men to collect intelligence and persuade them to save her country from destruction.

Of course, if this were an opera, she’d die picturesquely of tuberculosis when the war was over. But Pamela Harriman really existed: her father-in-law was Winston Churchill, she seduced any American who was anyone in World War II London to solidify the Special Relationship. After the war she moved to the US, became a dominant fundraiser for the Democratic Party, and eventually was Bill Clinton’s Ambassador to France. Her biography is a genuinely incredible story, told with equal parts gossipy relish and scholarly thoroughness by Purnell.

Memphis by Tara M. Stringfellow (US / UK)

This novel had some of the most beautiful prose I’ve read in a long time and will almost certainly be one of my books of 2026. Memphis is the engrossing story of three generations of Black women living in the same hand-built house in North Memphis over five decades, supporting each other as best they can and nurturing their gifts in the face of racism and men’s systemic and domestic violence. This book certainly has its bleak moments, but overall it’s a story of seeking joy and fulfillment and holding on to it with both hands when you find it.

I also enjoyed…For Such a Time as This by Shani Akilah, Island Calling by Francesca Segal, Blood Over Bright Haven by M.L. Wang, Everything Now: Lessons from the City-State of Los Angeles by Rosecrans Baldwin

And I mixed…a Pitlochry Highball.

So it turns out that if you spend a few years writing a newsletter about cocktails, you develop something of a reputation! A good friend of ours was celebrating her 40th birthday by booking out a whole hostel in the Scottish Highlands and inviting a few dozen people to come celebrate, and she and her husband messaged for my advice on setting up a cocktail bar for the first night. When we arrived this past Friday in very cold, very damp Pitlochry, there were negronis and boulevardiers and sbagliatos galore along with other drinks, and a very, very good time was had by all. (Karaoke may have happened. Your correspondent may have sung “Rehab.” I confess nothing.)

On the second night, when the Campari and sweet vermouth and gin (note to self: two bottles of gin next time) were all gone, I improvised this highball for myself…and then ended up mixing a few more when people saw me with the glass! This is light, gently spiced, and a little sweet - a good winter drink for when you’re looking for something to get your evening started without knocking you on your behind.

Ingredients:

30ml/1oz bourbon (I used Buffalo Trace)

15ml/ 0.5oz clementine and ginger syrup (American friends, this spiced sugar syrup will have a similar vibe and is wonderful in coffee, too.)

Soda water/club soda

1 orange

To mix:

In a rocks (old-fashioned) glass packed with ice cubes, stir together the bourbon and the syrup, then add soda to the top. Garnish with an orange slice.

I also enjoyed…a Black Manhattan.

And I’m listening to…my winter evening playlist.

This is all my favorite jazz pieces in one place. If you’re a jazz lover, you’ll find lots of tracks you know! If you’re a newbie/jazz skeptic, think of this as great background music for a cold and rainy evening, where you’re simmering something tasty on the stove and nursing your cocktail of choice.

(Speaking of movies, one thing I can highly, highly recommend is going to watch one of your favorite movies on a really big screen. Tom and I went to go see When Harry Met Sally on New Year’s Eve, and I’d never realized how much that movie is all about their tiny gestures and facial expressions. The screenplay is of course a magnificent feat of romantic banter…but it’s Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan’s acting that really sells it.)

But now it’s the last day of Christmas. There’s a powdered sugar dusting of snow in the garden outside my study window, I have my favorite Will McPhail cartoon hanging over my desk, and my notebook and my big pile of Post-Its beside me, and I am excited to have a very cozy and creative January. (Oh, I have a SAD lamp as well. That really helps.)

Recently I read and loved…

Brian by Jeremy Cooper (US / UK)

If you’ve been reading this newsletter, you’ll know that this book isn’t really my usual fare. Brian is a character study of a very awkward man living a very quiet life, so there’s not much in the way of action or plot. But I found myself totally gripped anyway, wanting to understand him and cheering on the crumbs of happiness he manages to grab through his nightly visits to watch movies at the British Film Institute. It practically vibrates with anxiety and loneliness, but it also captures the bliss of both getting lost and discovering the world anew through movies.

On Chapel Sands: My Mother and Other Missing Persons by Laura Cumming (US / UK)

A three-year-old girl is kidnapped from the beach in a small village in Lincolnshire in 1929. She’s found in a house nearby, unharmed, five days later. No one speaks of the kidnapping ever again.

True crime? Not quite. There is a mystery at the core of the book, but On Chapel Sands is also a beautiful meditation on identity, family, the stories images tell, and the secrets small towns keep, out of guilt or shame or grief. It’s also a loving tribute to the author’s mother, to her capacity for kindness and tenderness and to her resilience.

The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai (US / UK)

I love a big social novel/family saga, and I don’t think I’ve read one as brilliant and epic as this one since Pachinko. It also makes me think a lot about one of my favorite novels, A Suitable Boy. But while these are both sprawling books about India, I think Loneliness is working on a much larger canvas, like it’s a chaotic and fascinating mixed media piece rather than a detailed portrait of a moment in time. This book takes in what it means to be haunted by the past, isolation and belonging, the uses and abuses of storytelling and creativity, the painful contortions and compromises around race and class in India and the US.

I will be thinking about this one for a long time to come.

Selling Hitler: The Story of the Hitler Diaries by Robert Harris (US / UK)

If this were a movie I would have been watching it through my fingers! The story of how in 1983 a small-time forger in Stuttgart and a true believer Nazi-sympathizing journalist convinced the world that they’d found Hitler’s diaries is absolutely wild. Harris captures how the collective delusion brewed out of greed, vanity, paranoia, and morbid fascination with Hitler. It’s a genuinely disturbing story! As I read about seasoned journalists and venerable historians and even titans of industry getting completely conned, It made me rethink that old chestnut about poker: if you’re looking around the table and you don’t see the sucker, then maybe EVERYBODY’s the sucker.

I also enjoyed…The Underdog by Felicity Cloake (out May 2026), Love’s Labour by Stephen Grosz, Work Trip and House Party by Chloe Ford, Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson

And I mixed…a breakfast martini.

What’s your hangover cure? Now, I don’t overindulge all that often, but when I do, my cravings the next morning are very specific. For food, I want something savory and rich and a little bit spiced. Honestly, I think Scottish morning rolls are the best medicine (mine is either haggis or bacon with a fried egg and a potato scone, don’t hold back on the brown sauce). Truly the breakfast sandwiches of the gods!

As for my beverage, I’m not Team Bloody Mary or Team Coke. (A Bloody Mary is just bad gazpacho! I said what I said!) Please just give me coffee and a huge glass of fresh orange juice, the colder and sweeter the better.

This week, I suppose I’ve just combined my illness and my cure into the same drink. If you, like me, are a citrus nut and haven’t made a breakfast martini before, you are in for such a treat. I even made it with Tanqueray Flor de Sevilla/Sevilla Orange gin, because what better way to improve an orangey cocktail than…more orange? (This is very on brand for me: I actually turned orange as a small child thanks to loving carrots and sweet potatoes too much. True story.) Anyway, this is fresh and sprightly and an excellent pick me up on a dreary winter evening. (It also made me think of cooking up my own marmalade.)

I also mixed…an Old Cuban and a House-made Clover Club (though I used Lillet Blanc instead of dry vermouth. I like it sweet, what can I say…)

And I watched… Wild London.

One of things I love the most about London is that you’re never more than a fifteen-minute walk from green space, and from all the wildlife it hosts. David Attenborough’s newest documentary (the man is 99. 99!) is all about unexpected nature in the big city, and it both genuinely delighted me and made me weirdly proud to be a Londoner. I certainly won’t look at the foxes snuffling around our backyard the same way again. (Americans, it’s worth getting a VPN to watch this.)

(Could I resist? No, no, I could not.)

Seriously, I’m fully intending to spend the next few weeks doing a good Hobbit impression and getting really cozy at home. I’m going to cook recipes that bubble away gently in the oven for hours, mix some brown drinks, and enjoy a lot of quality time on the sofa with blankets and a big pile of books and my extremely louche cat. (All cats are by definition louche, we know this, but my cat takes it to a whole other level.)

But before I go into hibernation until 2026, here’s one last bumper issue of Reading at the Bar. I hope you find a delightful treat somewhere in this list of nice things, either for someone you love, or just for yourself, because goodness knows, you deserve it.

My Books of 2025!

Very Swoony Romance

Unromance by Erin Connor

Along Came Amor by Alexis Daria

Left of Forever by Tarah DeWitt

The Trouble with Anna by Rachel Griffiths

Zoe Brennan, First Crush by Laura Piper Lee

You Between the Lines by Katie Naymon

The Best Worst Thing by Lauren Okie

What Happens in Amsterdam by Rachel Lynn Solomon

Where You’re Planted by Melanie Sweeney

And Then There Was the One by Martha Waters

Let’s Make a Scene by Laura Wood

State-of-the-World Fiction

Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico

Evenings and Weekends by Oisín McKenna

Caledonian Road by Andrew O’Hagan

Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte

Immersive Historical Fiction

Small Bomb at Dimperley by Lissa Evans

Trespasses by Louise Kennedy

There Are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak

The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club by Helen Simonson

The Final Revival of Opal & Nev by Dawnie Walton

The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden

Other Clever, Excellent Fiction

The Wedding People by Alison Espach

Biography of X by Catherine Lacey

The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoghue

Mind-Expanding Nonfiction

The Story of a Heart by Rachel Clarke

Daughters of the Bamboo Grove: China’s Stolen Children and a Story of Separated Twins by Barbara Demick

The Scapegoat: The Brilliant Brief Life of the Duke of Buckingham by Lucy Hughes-Hallett

Chuck Amuck: The Life and Times of an Animated Cartoonist by Chuck Jones

Moederland: Nine Daughters of South Africa by Cato Pedder

Story of a Murder: The Wives, The Mistress, and Doctor Crippen by Hallie Rubenhold

All Consuming: Why We Eat the Way We Eat Now by Ruby Tandoh

All That Glitters: A Story of Friendship, Fraud and Fine Art by Orlando Whitfield

The Heart-Shaped Tin: Love, Loss, and Kitchen Objects by Bee Wilson

Bonus: Opinionated Suggestions for Presents When You’re The Schmuck Who Left It Until Christmas Eve, AKA Things People Can Never Have Too Much Of

For writers: A college-lined notebook and a pack of Uni-Ball Rollerball or Pilot V7 pens. A gift certificate for their local indie stationery store (shout-out to Choosing Keeping in London, Paper & Pencil in Chicago, and East Bay Booksellers in Oakland). A gift certificate for their local cafe so they can write there for free, or take an easy break when they’ve spent too much time at home.

For home bartenders: A jar of Luxardo cherries. A bottle of Campari or Aperol or Carpano Antica Formula. A half-bottle of sparkling wine (makes a round of spritzes without waste, the dream). A gift certificate to their local top-notch liquor store (Gerry’s, The Whisky Exchange, or Amathus in London, Cask in the Bay Area).

For weightlifters/gym rats of all persuasions: A new water bottle (because we have all lost water bottles and are grateful for a backup). Stretchy headbands/rubber bands for people with long hair (because we’ve all lost these too). Powdered Gatorade in their favorite flavor, for training on hot days.

For home cooks: Silicone spatulas. Kuhn-Rikon Y-shaped peelers. Diaspora Co spices. Jars of chili crisp, tahini, capers, olives. Bags of bronze die cut pasta (Rummo, De Cecco, Garofalo) in unusual shapes. The fanciest vanilla extract/cocoa powder/honey/maple syrup you can get your hands on. A gift certificate to La Tienda, or Kitchen Arts & Letters, or Sous Chef, or The Ginger Pig.

And this week I mixed…a Rapscallion.

First: what a great name for a drink!

Second: I have a soft spot for Talisker because it’s one of the first whiskies I drank and loved aged nineteen. It tastes like salt water and dried fruit and just the right amount of woodsmoke that comforts you without smothering (compared to Islay whiskies, that, to me, are like licking a well-used charcoal grill). It’s also what T and I drank on our very first date on the Cafe Royal, so it’s a little bit of romantic nostalgia, too. In summary, if you are The Christmas Eve Schmuck and want to give a whisky lover something they’ll kiss you for, Talisker is the one.

Third: I would not serve this cocktail to just anybody. This is a properly grown-up nightcap, one to conclude an evening spent putting the world to rights. It tastes like 70% dark chocolate, raisins and prunes, black licorice from the pastis, and tobacco, but in a good way. It’s a Victorian study of a drink: think dark, heavy wooden furniture and massive leather armchairs by a roaring fire. Honestly, I felt like I should be wearing a velvet smoking jacket while I sipped this.

And I listened to…Christmassy covers.

Let’s play out 2025 with some gorgeous indie covers of Jim Reeves and Joni Mitchell. Happy listening/reading/drinking, and I’ll see you in the New Year.

I got to see him speak at a festival at the beginning of September, and my first thought was that he was so willfully normal and nondescript it was like he was cosplaying a suburban dad. But he turned out to be fascinating - practical and thoughtful and dryly witty. Here’s what really stuck in my head: he talked about how he’d take thousands of pictures every year to end up with eight or nine that he was happy to exhibit. Eight or nine! But when I look at the thousands and thousands of words that I cut from The Slowest Burn or Love Walked In, let alone the first whole novel I wrote and the two I started then abandoned half-written…yeah, there’s a lot of truth in that ratio.

So when I’m inclined to be mean to myself about not writing something instantly brilliant, I make myself remember Martin Parr - it’s important to just keep creating and creating, and eventually out of all the stuff I create, I’ll find what speaks to me.

Housekeeping: I will be back soon with a Best of 2025 list to close out Reading at the Bar for the year, so keep your eyes peeled…

Recently I read and loved…

Babylonia by Costanza Casati

If you are in the mood for a properly operatic, Shakespearean kind of epic, but one that’s not set in Europe, I commend this to you! Babylonia’s setting in the ancient Assyrian Empire almost explodes off the page, rich in jewels and perfumes, but also in cruelty and brutality. The story itself, of the ambitious Semiramis and the two men who love her (and each other) is one of longing and desire: for the dead and gone, for safety and security, for something vaguely resembling peace.

The Christmas Chronicles by Nigel Slater

This is a cheat because I’m reading it day by day, but I didn’t want to tell you about it in January. This advent calendar of a book is packed full with northern European winter dreams, snow and candlelight, the scent of pine trees and gingerbread, the warmth of roasts and stews cooked long and low. I grew up with a California Christmas, where technically it’s winter, and the weather does get cold(er) and dark(er), but Christmas Chronicles captures the holiday as I always wish it could be. (That said: Nigel, you will never, ever convince me that marzipan is food.)

The Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff

When the nights are drawing in so early at this time of year, I love curling up under a quilt and getting lost in a good old-fashioned adventure story, and Eagle of the Ninth was exactly what I wanted. I’ve been aware of this book since I was a kid (it was originally published in 1954), but it always felt very not-for-girls coded, so I assumed it just wasn’t for me. I’m so glad I broke through that programming! This is such an evocative portrait of Britain millennia ago - you can hear the clashes between the Romans and native British tribes, smell the dirt and wine, the horse’s sweat. I also loved the character work, from the quietly determined Marcus Aquila to the cantankerous grandfather who appears briefly but memorably late in the book. Buy two copies - one for you, and one for a precocious middle grade/YA reader in your life so you can read together.

The Final Revival of Opal & Nev by Dawnie Walton

HOLY F***ING S***, THIS BOOK! It takes the usual VH1 Behind the Music format and burns it down. This novel is fiery and ferocious, not afraid to lean into complexity and ambiguity of what it means to be both at the top of your game creatively and Black in America at the same time. It’s wonderfully layered storytelling all the way through. Opal Jewel in particular is an incredible creation:wildly ambitious and uncompromising, brave and reckless, occasionally cruel in the way of all legendary heroes, and at all times driving to be her own woman. Confession: I’d had this on my shelf since it was published in early 2021, and while I am a strong believer in the idea that you should buy books like wine, in that you lay them down until the moment is right, I hope that your moment comes a lot sooner than four years from now!

And I mixed…a Miss Elena, but with brandy.

First: if you’ve been seeking the perfect holiday after-dinner drink, one that evokes orange peel and dried fruit, burnt caramel and spices, with just a little bit of dark chocolate…well, eureka! Honestly, I think this is my favorite drink I’ve mixed this year. It’s rich and warming, sweet but not syrupy. In terms of the recipe: I thought that while vodka is a perfectly fine spirit the other eleven months of the year, this cocktail should be the full Christmas, so I swapped it for an equal amount of Cognac. It made an excellent partner for an after-dinner mince pie from Toklas Bakery, but I bet it would be great with any kind of sweet, spiced treat.

Also, if you’ve always wanted a cocktail that tastes pretty much exactly like a Fig Newton/fig roll…make this immediately.

And I watched…Blue Moon.

I don’t think I’ve ever talked about movies here before because I am much more of an enthusiast than an expert, but I saw this one afternoon recently and had to come yell about it on here. Ethan Hawke deserves all the nominations for this one — his Lorenz Hart is a goddamn delight and an absolute nightmare at the same time. He’s endlessly needy and self-defeating, cynical and sentimental, irrepressibly vivacious and yet always on the outside looking in. He is trying so hard to hide his broken, bleeding heart behind wit and sarcasm and very, very blue jokes, and yet the whole world knows how he really feels because he wrote the ultimate song about loneliness and longing. The rest of the acting is great too (God, I’d watch Andrew Scott read the phone book), the setting is wonderfully sparkling and shabby at the same time, and man, I just want to watch it all over again.

And I’m listening to… “Everyday People” by Sly & the Family Stone

This song begins and ends The Final Revival of Opal & Nev, and it’s both so joyful and so open. Worth a close listen (and then another listen while you dance, because if this doesn’t make you groove along, check your pulse.)

A bit of housekeeping - I’ve been off Instagram for over a week and I’m planning to stay off until February. I’m tending the fragile beginnings of a new Book 3 idea (inspired by the Museum of Jurassic Technology in Culver City, a truly wild place) and, not to be too earnest, but I want to give my imagination the most room to roam. So if you want to talk to me, comment here, or write me emails and texts. I also want to try to do less of the really superficial communication that social media thrives on and be more purposeful about it. So if you’re wondering why I’m suddenly writing long individually addressed emails…

But here’s the silver lining for you all of me being both very sick and more offline - holy underwear, can I read A LOT. It’s been nearly a book a day for the last week, hence the bonanza of recommendations below.

Recently I read and loved…

All of Us Murderers and Slippery Creatures by KJ Charles

Queer historical romance with a deep appreciation for the best of other genres, namely Edwardian horror and the old-fashioned 1920s spy thriller. Clever, witty, sexy, and stay-up-until-2am-reading good.

Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel

Does it really count as a re-read when the first read was over twenty years ago? I was inspired to come back to this novel by seeing the ballet version, which I would highly, highly recommend - it’s the most incandescent piece of art I’d seen a while. But returning to the book was a real pleasure, too. I had forgotten (or not comprehended in the first place, I was fourteen after all) the layers of wit and surrealism and sensuality. It’s truly a book for all your different appetites.

Daddy Issues by Kate Goldbeck

Kate Goldbeck is on the short list of contemporary romance authors who make me want to quit writing after reading their books. She writes messy, complex characters who still feel real, not something to take for granted in a subgenre that relies on human quirks and foibles for tension. (The line between believable and unbelievable character behavior is like a tightrope fifty feet in the air. Keeping your balance is hard enough - being able to do tricks is truly astonishing.) Anti-heroine Sam in particular is an amazing creation. She’s witty cool girl slacker on the surface who’s actually seething with perfectionism, thwarted ambition, and rank insecurity, and the very capable and very self-aware Nick is her perfect challenge and foil. I also loved how thoughtful and multi-dimensional the book is about work, class, and money, not usually one of romance’s strengths.

The Scapegoat: The Brilliant Brief Life of the Duke of Buckingham by Lucy Hughes-Hallett

This is a fantastic biography of a man and his moment in early seventeenth century England. A wonderful combination of a Hamilton-esque story of vast ambition and hubris with fascinating and relevant fragments of political, social, and cultural history. (I am now accidentally on a Stuart kick - I grabbed a copy of Antonia Fraser’s chonky biography of Charles II from the free shelf at my local train station and it’s been fascinating bedtime reading. Ask me anything about the royal prerogative…)

Chuck Amuck: The Life and Times of an Animated Cartoonist by Chuck Jones

Sometimes the perfect book appears on the shelf just when you most need it. The Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck cartoons that Chuck Jones directed (What’s Opera Doc?, Ali Baba Bunny, Rabbit of Seville, The Scarlet Pumpernickel, Rabbit Fire) are fundamental texts for my sense of humor, so finding a used copy of his very funny, thoughtful 1989 memoir in Perpetual Books in Chicago was honestly one of the best things to happen to me in a bookstore for a while. It is full of the dry surreal wit that made me, but it’s also packed with great advice for storytellers of all kinds. Worth having just for the opening chapters alone. (I now have a Post-It over my desk with the immortal line “Johnson was a patsy for grapefruit.” Read this book and you’ll understand why.)

I also enjoyed…Heavy Hitter by Katie Cotugno, It’s Different This Time by Joss Richard, Pitcher Perfect by Tessa Bailey, The Heartbreak Hotel by Ellen O’Clover, Back After This by Linda Holmes, Trespasses by Louise Kennedy, Some Kind of Famous by Ava Wilder

And I mixed…a White Russian.

A drink I haven’t had since college, when I would make it with nonfat milk (diet culture has so much to answer for) and a little bit of peppermint schnapps for extra trashy interest. But last night I had a brand new bottle of Midnight Oil decaf coffee liqueur from Climpson & Sons, some spare heavy cream in the fridge, and a craving for a dessert cocktail, so a White Russian was the path of least resistance. I made the classic recipe (2:1:1 vodka-coffee-liqueur-cream), but it turns out Midnight Oil is both exceptionally delicious and less sugary than Kahlua, so I think I will try it with equal parts vodka and coffee liqueur next time.

And I am listening to… “Rein Me In” by Sam Fender with Olivia Dean

Because we all need 5:39 of pure Springsteen-style major key pleasure. Olivia Dean’s voice! That saxophone!

First! I had the pleasure of writing an essay for People magazine about the night in Edinburgh when I met Super Robot Monkey Force Go!, the pub quiz team who became my closest friends during my study abroad year and who laid the foundation for my adult life here. It’s not an overstatement to say that in this moment in September 2007, everything changed for me. I hope you enjoy it, and that what I wrote conveys my amazement and my gratitude that I was in the right place at the right time to take the risk I needed to take.

Second! On Monday November 10 at 6:30pm, I will be in northern New Jersey at the Barnes & Noble in Paramus speaking to Ali Rosen. Ali is very much a woman after my own heart - she also studied in Scotland, she writes both cookbooks and romance novels (her latest, An Unlikely Story, is a wonderful transatlantic love story), and when I met her for the first time, it felt like we had known each other for absolute ages. I can’t wait to talk all things Love Walked In with her.

Recently I read and loved…

A Voyage Around the Queen by Craig Brown

Elizabeth II died just over three years ago, but it feels like some small part of the UK’s collective brain just can’t compute that the national anthem is now “God Save the King” and that Charles’ head is on the stamps. (I’m not exempt from this - I was doing tax stuff recently and thought for a second that I was filling in a form for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, not His). The Queen felt like a practically eternal presence, and Craig Brown cleverly points out that she was one of the very rare people who was massively famous from the day she was born until the day she died 96 years later. If you want an insight into the impact that she had (while not actually doing very much at all), this is a fascinating read. It’s a great book for late night reading, too, with short, sharp chapters. (I’d also highly recommend Brown’s books about Princess Margaret and The Beatles.)

The Viscount Who Vexed Me by Julia London

Because sometimes, when I’m home from a brutal session at the gym, all I want is a few hours submerged in a Victorian historical romance featuring a shy and awkward hero and a clever, driven heroine, separated by a gaping class distinction and terrible, terrible family members! I gobbled this in an evening, and wished for more of Teo and Hattie.

The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak

This is the second incredible book by Shafak I read this year (the other was There Are Rivers in the Sky), and I’m now highly tempted to bury myself in her backlist for the next few months. Her novels aren’t afraid to tackle huge sweeping themes about humans’ relationships with each other and with nature, while also being incredibly emotionally intimate in a way that will have you on the edge of your seat. This novel is about two teenage lovers separated by Cyprus’ violent civil war, and it’s painfully sad at times, dealing with the vicious physical and psychological cost that conflict exacts from every living being. But it’s also full of love and admiration for the human and animal capacity for healing, too.

And I cooked…Melissa Thompson’s curry beef.

Apologies for not writing about a cocktail, but my bar situation is still up in the air for boring logistical reasons. (Does anyone know a magic spell for making builders hurry the hell up?) So instead, as we come into the time of year for getting cozy in the kitchen, I’m sharing with you what is probably my favorite stew recipe of all. When I ate the first bite of this, I genuinely hummed with happiness. Jamaican aromatics are unlike those of any other cuisine - the combination of spring onions, garlic, thyme, allspice, and Scotch bonnet peppers is so incredibly intense and fragrant, I find myself devouring bite after bite looking for more of that flavor hit. Don’t be put off by the long ingredient list - you can easily buy Jamaican curry powder and all-purpose seasoning online, and I’d put on a good podcast or playlist while you do all your prep.

A few notes for you! I halve the recipe (so 1kg/2lb of beef) and it makes generous portions for four people. Melissa calls for beef shin/shank, but this will also work fine with chuck. In the video she cooks the curry on a barbecue, but a fairly low oven will do the job too. I cook the meat in a cast iron casserole at 150C in a fan oven (160C/325F for a conventional oven) for two hours, then add the potatoes and coconut milk and cook it for another 45 minutes to get the potatoes soft. But if you can plan ahead, I highly recommend cooking everything but the potatoes and coconut milk the day before and refrigerating it overnight, then heating it back up and cooking the potatoes for the last forty five minutes. All stews benefit from some aging, but this one mellows out really beautifully. Just remember to take the Scotch bonnet out before you refrigerate, because if you leave it, it will make the stew spicier and spicier as time goes by.

And speaking of cozy, here’s a gorgeous autumnal bit of jazz to set you up for the weekend:

So I haven’t been here. It wasn’t an intentional break, really, more the hollowness of a pebble rattling to the bottom of a dry well every time I opened a blank page. Then feeling unworthy and beating myself up for my lack of productivity like a good little Puritan descendant, because brutal self-criticism is exactly the thing to help myself blitz thousands of words. Yup, yup, yup, absolutely.

So yeah, I’ve been in a not-great place for a while.

But finally, I woke up this very hot and bright morning feeling like there was something I wanted to say, that there are nice things in the world, too. So, in that spirit, here’s some stuff that has been making me happy lately.

Books! Never doubt that I’m still reading, even if I’m not writing reviews. I especially need good stories when life is harder going than usual. Right now I’m immersed in the scuzzy joy of 1990s queer San Francisco with Michelle Tea’s Valencia, and I loved going to space with Taylor Jenkins Reid’s Atmosphere and back in time to postwar Sussex with Helen Simonson’s The Hazelbourne Ladies’ Motorcycle and Flying Club (please don’t be put off by the cutesy title, this is elegantly angry feminist historical fiction that tackles money, class, and xenophobia.) I also really enjoyed These Summer Storms by Sarah MacLean, Along Came Amor by Alexis Daria, The Trouble with Anna by Rachel Griffiths, and Moederland: Nine Daughters of South Africa by Cato Pedder.

Watching sports. Now that we’re staying in a place that has a TV in every room except the bathroom, I’m watching Wimbledon in the afternoons and the Women’s Euros in the evenings. I grew up in a house where the Giants/Warriors/49ers/Sharks (that’s baseball/basketball/American football/hockey for non-Californians) were on our TV almost every day, and I’m enjoying the comfort of half-listening to the soothing babble of sports commentary while watching human beings achieve extraordinary feats of athleticism. Football-watching friends, weren’t the Lionesses MAGNIFICENT last night?

Treating Instagram like admin. Fellow social media denizens know that the user experience of Insta has always been very carrot and stick, moments of joy and hilarity and occasional intellectual stimulation mixed with shouty self-promotion and shoddy ads, the whole thing leaving me feeling like I’ve put my brain in a bowl of warm water. But these days, for me at least, the carrot’s a desiccated shred like you’d find in a shit bag of salad, and the stick is a two-by-four with nails embedded pointy end up. Recently I’ve been logging in for five minutes at the end of the day to check DMs and tags, then deleting the app for the next twenty-four hours. I’m sure the Instagram algorithm will take my carrot shred away entirely for this truly despicable behavior, and I don’t know how long I’ll be able to keep it up (it’s designed to be addictive, after all, and I’ve tried to stay away before multiple times), but for now, I have the fragile resolve of being newly clean(ish).

Whitebox canned cocktails. My beloved home bar is packed away in storage, so my mixing repertoire has shrunk a lot by necessity. These cute little cans are a nice way to add variety without buying more bottles to crowd my tiny kitchen - I am particularly fond of the Pocket Negroni and the Vieux Carre. (The latter is especially cost effective if you don’t have a home bar of your own - buying bottles of rye AND cognac AND Benedictine just for one drink is not cheap.)

This song, a dryly funny and very catchy tune about the much dreaded/desired “U up?” text. Worth translating the lyrics for this one.