https://www.romancedailynews.com/single-post/a-christmas-reading-list  (Forgot to mention the Festival of Epiphany/Three Kings' Day, too.)  

  Vitality by Crysta Levere  YA contemporary supernatural romance   August 25, 2020   Dangerous secrets churn beneath the veneer of small-town charm in Aberdeen, Massachusetts. Nineteen-year-old Ava has pulled herself up from abandonment and homelessness into being a student at Agatha College. A classified ad leads her to off-campus housing with Dahlila, a local, and friendship with her fellow designated Outcasts. Their small group ventures to an underground social club that pulses with sinister intentions. Soon, Ava's life becomes entangled with mysterious Layton's murky existence and hidden agenda. Their chemistry sizzles. Volatile confrontations, multiple mysteries, a sometimes unreliable narrator in Ava, and sliding timelines combine to make Vitality a whirlwind tale of obsession.   Loaded with young adult angst and declarations of existential philosophy, Ava and Layton's story also includes smooth integration of sexual orientation as a fluid ...

  Aura of Dawn (Zyanya Cycle prequel) by Morgan J. Muir   Teen/YA historical romance   April 2020   Eighteenth-century Maracaibo is a bustling port city in Venezuela, filled with everyday personal dramas and commerce. Wealthy merchants, hard-working laborers, slaves, and sailors along with the indigenous Wayuu people create a rich mix of humanity with its assortment of major conflicts and petty jealousies. Sixteen-year-old Mariah's mother died when she was born, leaving her heartbroken father, merchant Don Bosque to raise her. Naïve, somewhat spoiled Mariah knows almost nothing about her mother because her father refuses to discuss his dead wife. On the day Mariah mourns another emotional loss and feels a subtle calling from the sea, Michael/Miguel, a mysterious sailor, enters her life. Without a surname, and with only vague references to his early life with his father, Miguel’s curious omissions lure Mariah and her three friends closer to him once Don...

May We All (Culhane Family #3) by Gay G. Gunn   Recent 20th-c. historical literary fiction   Different Drummer, 2017   May We All resumes its compelling interpersonal and sociopolitical journeys with the Culhane Family in 1955 in the shadow of the Brown v. Board of Education ruling. Beloved eight-year-old daughter Jaz manages to infiltrate a fascinating all-male bastion when her father, Coach Hep Culhane, takes her to watch football practice with her older brother TC. Jaz is curious about unfamiliar people and places. Limitations imposed upon her explorations prod her to move beyond them to discover what's on the other side. Curiosity and a willingness to step forward into the unknown are signature personality traits that assert themselves throughout her life and the entire narrative for each featured character. Jaz's point of view yield's to her sister Mel's, then her aunt's and so forth, per character, providing radial perspectives shaped according to age...

[Photo credit: courtesy of Alexi Venice 2020]  https://youtu.be/9Flc0VwlPlk (Filed under the “Champagne Problems” category)   Panel Prep Checklist  Four talented panelists and one moderator in agreement on a date and time to record “More Than Tragic: Happy Endings, Adventure and Fantasy for All” chat?  Check.  #TWWBF2020 logo backdrop hanging on the moderator's wall?  Check.  Strong WiFi signal, functioning 100% charged tablet, and legible discussion notes?  Check—at least until an hour before start time, when the moderator's home Internet connection suddenly disappeared. Totally gone; wouldn't reboot. (Some people's nightmares are about falling. Mine are about dropped tech connectivity.)  Options?  Cry. Curse. (Are you kidding me with this right now, Divine Cosmic Forces of the Universe?!) Run to a nearby generous neighbor's house. Which friendly neighbor? The ones with the pack of adorable spoiled rotten yappy fur babies or the on...

  The loss of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is devastating. All the heartfelt tributes are well-deserved, and have turned my thoughts toward consideration of the early years of her legal career at the ACLU and the Women's Rights Project. Without RBG and WRP then, would we now have women in combat in the U.S. military? The Lilly Ledbetter Law? Marriage equality? Federal mandates for equitable insurance coverage? And many more legal protections against sexism and other forms of discrimination?   The #TWWBF2020 More Than Tragic: Happy Endings, Adventure, and Fantasy for All panelists and authors of the following titles, and I, along with millions (billions?) more people have benefitted from Justice Ginsburg's life and work for human rights. Her existence improved the world and will continue to do so, which is a significant part of her substantial legacy.    Standby Counsel (Monica Spade #2) by Alexi Venice   Contemporary legal thriller ro...

  (My personal video highlights some benefits of reading anthologies, and falls under the category of "Do as the guidelines say, not as I have done." 😊)  https://youtu.be/nEbmFqxAZKc PARTICIPATE IN OUR “READING & WRITING OUTSIDE OF YOUR EXPERIENCE” ON SOCIAL MEDIA  HOW IT WORKS   Read a book that is by somebody outside of your own experience. White readers, please use the below for guidance as to the criteria.    #OwnVoices is a term coined by the writer Corinne Duyvis, and refers to an author from a marginalized or under-represented group writing about their own experiences/from their own perspective, rather than someone from an outside perspective writing as a character from an underrepresented group.   (Source - https://seattle.bibliocommons.com/list/share/628692720/1259856807)   https://diversebooks.org/about-wndb/    Or that could be tagged with #100blackgirlbooks by  https://grassrootscommunityfoundation.or...