62 books like Toes on the Dash

This book had me laughing out loud in the first chapter and several times thereafter. The female lead is a CIA assassin in hiding in Sinful, Louisiana, where she meets two older woman, Gertie and Ida Bell, who the town has dubbed the “Geritol Mafia” and who were in Viet Nam together.

The author creates characters—and relationships between those characters—that stayed in my mind long after reading the book. Again, I eagerly wait for each new release in the series so I can be part of Fortune, Gertie, and Ida Bell’s adventures. 

Not only did I, as the reader, get a great mystery to solve, but the main character is a baker who owns her own shop, The Cookie Jar, so there are a ton of delightful recipes included! I enjoyed the family dynamics in Fluke’s books between Hannah, her two sisters, and her mother.

The romantic dynamic between Hannah and the two love interests was intriguing. It’s also set in Minnesota, where I’m originally from, so I could perfectly picture the setting and feel the cold in winter. 

This book isn’t typically what I read, but I am so glad I did! Rather than a traditional mystery where the threat is typically from a person, the threat here is from nature, secrets, and the perils of being alone in a remote lighthouse for months, especially since the last caretaker disappeared years ago.

It’s a psychological thriller set in Alaska with an independent, oh-so-brave female lead, and I found myself cheering her on as she conquered the dangers and her fears. I truly enjoyed every page of this book.

This mystery had all the elements I enjoy—a strong female lead who becomes the village sheriff, a mix of interesting and well-developed characters, a quaint but unusual village— Whispering Pines—that made me long to be there, a good mystery, and a dog as a sidekick.

It’s a paranormal cozy with lots of “witchy” activity that I typically won’t read, but I loved this one! It captivated me from beginning to end.   

I was introduced to Sue Moorcroft’s writing when she was published by my publisher, Choc Lit (part of Joffe Books Ltd now). She is another beautiful writer, who has the whole storytelling shebang down to a fine art. Her characters are realistic, believable people. Every word is carefully chosen; the plot moves on at a pace. 

I wasn’t sure I’d like or even empathize with Tess or Ratty when I first started reading this. Tess bumps, quite literally, into Ratty, so not the smoothest start. They both have flaws and are definitely not sure about each other. But it wasn’t long before I found it difficult to put down. 

As I began to understand the characters, I found myself willing them to get together and find their Happy Ever After.

This book made me wonder who else I may know who is Trans but passes. Again I was overwhelmed by the hard life and unexpected trauma so many Trans individuals go through. It warmed my heart that Chris was determined to keep his family together and provide for his little sister.

I found the workings of bronco bucking fascinating, and the writing made me feel like I was there experiencing it. I never was a girly girl, but even in my best butch days I don’t think I could pass for a male. Once I began reading this little book I never thought of Chris as anything but a boy.

This book made me want to get more books like it out into the world. Everyone deserves a HEA (happily-ever-after) after all.

Perhaps the most widespread engagement by ordinary citizens in political relations is with the education of their children. School boards are increasingly regarded as a site of passionate political contest over what our children will learn, especially when it comes to learning history and its consequences for their understanding of their community and nation. Challenges of Ordinary Democracy reports on three years in the life of a local school board. The voices of administrators, teachers, parents, and the press are examined when dissent takes center stage in the school board’s deliberations. Given that ordinary citizens will disagree, often vehemently, Tracy asks us to consider the parameters of reasonable hostility and why reasonable hostility is important for the voices of ordinary citizens to matter in deciding issues that affect their lives.  

Kent Haruf wrote Our Souls at Night as he was dying. What happens in it? Not a lot. It’s much easier to write stories in which things blow up, plot devices creak, and an ending ties everything up neatly. This quiet, elegiac novel is not that.

Addie and Louis, elderly neighbors, begin sleeping together because the nights are long and they are lonely. Her young grandson, Jamie, visits. Louis gives him a catcher’s mitt and brings home a shelter dog, Bonnie. Their grown children interfere. Complications ensue. And there are no quotation marks to indicate dialogue.

Yet, here I am telling you to go, now, find this book and read it today? Am I crazy? You decide (after you read the book).

P.S. Skip this film. Jane Fonda’s Stepford Wives’ perfection ruins a movie that needed its female beauty defined by wrinkles and gray hair, and an aging, infirm body.… show more.

This book was a perfect combination of on-the-edge-of-my-seat sexy and tug-at-my-heartstrings romantic.

The author created phenomenal dialogue between Fisher and Reese, so good, in fact, that their flirting was almost as hot as their eventual hookups. I really did adore this story for the plot twists that seemed to come out of nowhere.

Reese’s growth into a confident young woman who stopped thinking about how things were just happening to her and took control to make the things she wanted to happen was remarkable; their second-chance love story with all the sexy feels was exactly the heart-mind turn-on I had hoped it would be.

The best part? The effortless way Fisher and Reese not only fell in love with each other but loved their tribe, too. It made me feel just really good to be a part of this story.  

Babb’s memoir recounts her years as a child of bumbling pioneers on the high plains of Colorado. Her family lived underground in a dugout and eked out existence from the drought-ravaged prairie. The book predates the Dust Bowl, but there are warning signs of what’s to come. Told in a voice of lyric precision with a memorable cast of characters, it’s a compelling story of a singular girlhood that left me marveling at how this family survived.