Happy New Year!!

The last couple of weeks have been a (pleasant) blur, so it feels a little strange to write “new year”, but my brand-new day planner assures me that it is, indeed, January 2, 2026. That is both exciting and daunting. It’s daunting because I have only a couple of days left now to switch gears, from relaxed hibernation to full throttle go. It has been soooo nice to take a couple of weeks and just be. Totally unproductive. Resting. Eating comfort food — for the soul, too. Given my recent pace, going zero to 60 in January might be a tad too ambitious. Maybe we can all just agree to take it easy and ease into the new year?

But it is very exciting, and that’s by design. There were a few reasons why I decided to publish A Party to Murder in early January, and this was one of them. Being nerve-wracked and anxious and happy is one way to get over the post-holiday winter doldrums, isn’t it?

I’ve been catching up on my reading and ended the year on a high note with several excellent (and relatively short) books. Here’s a rapid fire round of reviews:

Miss Winter in the Library with a Knife by Martin Edwards – contemporary whodunnit in the classic Golden Era tradition, with a mystery game-within-a mystery story set up. Six strangers are invited to play a mystery murder game in a remote English village at Christmas. Once they arrive (and get snowed in), real murders happen. The book has an interactive element; readers are invited upfront to participate and try to solve both the in-story murder game and the actual murder plot. Super fun!

Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito – American Psycho, except the protagonist/titular character is a young Victorian governess. I’m not even sure how to classify this: gothic suspense, maybe? I’m not sure it has a deeper theme, tbh, but it’s fun in a deranged, nihilistic kind of way. The writing is snappy and engaging, and the story moves pretty fast. I loved it 3/4 of the way through, but the ending felt a bit rushed and anti-climactic compared to what preceded it.

Bad Company: Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream by Megan Greenwell – devastating, eye-opening, and thought-provoking. We all know untrammeled capitalism is bad, but this book brings that message home in a very affecting way. I appreciated how Greenwell framed the book, buttressing the overarching story with individual narratives from people who experienced first-hand the impacts of private equity.

Inverted World by Christopher Priest – I don’t read a ton of hard sci-fi, but I was intrigued when I read the premise of this one and I’m glad I gave it a shot. Again, it’s a short read, but the writing is fantastic, and the story is utterly engrossing. I devoured the book in 2 sittings, but it stayed with me long after the fact.

When I wasn’t reading, I was watching movies and shows with my daughter. It’s become one of my fave rituals, and I’m going to miss our time together when we all go back to regular life. We’re probably going to designate one or two evenings a week as our “movie time”, but it won’t be the same binge-watching schedule we kept up during the holidays, alas. We gobbled up a bunch of older classics (Ten Things I Hate About You, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day) and discovered some new faves, like the Knives Out series. We’re both obsessed. My daughter is a murder mystery girlie, just like me, but tends to prefer contemporary settings. I’m still working on convincing her to give Poirot and Miss Marple a try, but in the meantime, we have Benoit Blanc and debating the order of precedence of our fave stories in the series. [We are agreed on Wake Up Dead Man being #1.]

We also fell in love with The Durrells in Corfu and binge-watched all 4 seasons in about a week. The show was recommended to me last year as something similar to All Creatures Great and Small (one of my fave shows), but it took me a while to get around to it. The procrastination worked out well, though; watching it together for the first time made it infinitely more fun. And now I get to introduce my daughter to ACGaS — full series rewatch, here I come! Just in time for the N. American premiere of season 6, no less. It might not have been an easy sell before, but she’s now a huge fan of the wacky ensemble cast + cozy vibes combo (and one Callum Woodhouse), so I think she will love ACGaS.

I did no Boxing Day shopping this year, and only went thrifting twice over the holidays so far — probably some kind of record for me. To be honest, the only things I’m really interested in buying right now are books and DVDs. Strange to say, but clothes just aren’t super exciting to me at the moment. I love my closet, but I feel no burning desire to add to it, or even think about it. Admittedly, winter in Edmonton isn’t the most exciting time, sartorially speaking, and it’s been so bloody cold lately that I’ve not wanted to leave the house at all. Maybe as we get closer to spring, I’ll start feeling more creatively engaged with my clothes again and start to crave a little experimentation.

Or maybe not. There is a special joy in remixing the clothes I already own and love. It feels more intentional and grounded — a reflection, no doubt, of the current season of my life.

Have a great weekend!

As we are approaching the end of the year, I have been thinking a lot about my intentions for the one to come. Not resolutions; never resolutions. There is something deeply unsatisfactory to me about the concept of a resolution. It denotes finality – a made-up, closed mind – and that is not the energy I want to bring forward with me. An intention leaves room for the world to surprise me and to teach me, and for me to surprise myself and to grow. It’s a direction – and, make no mistake, a very clear and definite direction – but it’s not a destination.

For a few years now (since reading Rick Rubin’s The Creative Life) my motto has been “living in discovery”. This, in turn, breaks down to two guiding principles: curiosity and humility. To these, last year I added a couple of other mantras to use as my life compass.

The small joys of everyday moments, and

Beauty in overlooked places

I wrote these things down in my journal, because there is something very satisfying about physically writing out the words. [I’ve heard there may even be some science behind this, but who knows how much you can trust the internet about stuff like that.] Then I added three more items, under the heading of ‘goals’ which, in retrospect, was a misnomer but let’s go with it. Here’s what they were:

1. Figure out my writing conundrum
2. Create memories with my family
3. Walk 14,000 steps a day

Care to guess which one of these three goals didn’t come to fruition? Yes, that’s right: the one that most reads like a typical ‘resolution’. But I’ll come back to that in a moment.

To be perfectly honest, I don’t even remember now what, precisely, I had in mind when I wrote ‘writing conundrum’. I think it had to do with feeling creatively stuck after deciding, earlier in 2024, to permanently shelve the memoir I’d written. I know that, for a time, that decision felt like I was surrendering my passion and my purpose; it left me quite bereft, especially as I struggled for months to figure out how to move on … and what to move on to. Yeah, I guess you’d call that a conundrum. But instead of trying to come up with a solution on the spot – to satisfy the arbitrariness of January 1 as a deadline – I just wrote down my intention. The time hadn’t yet come for the answer to reveal itself to me, and I’m glad I didn’t try to rush it. An un-timely answer is often a wrong answer …

Well, we all know what happened next. Randomly, in the middle of January, I felt this overwhelming urge to start writing – and I knew exactly what I wanted to write. Fiction. Mystery + romance, inspired by Agatha Christie and Georgette Heyer. And the words just flowed and flowed. It felt like kismet.

What came after that didn’t feel nearly as smooth, lol! As the year progressed, I made a bunch of new writing goals for myself … and un-made them … and re-made them … and, well, you get the picture. My writing journey this year has been the definition of living in discovery. And if curiosity and humility were not my twin pillars, I would have crashed and burned SO MANY times. No, let me rephrase that: I would have crashed and burned and never got up, dusted myself off, and kept going. I am ending the year in a place that doesn’t quite look like any of the versions/destinations I dreamt up along the way, but which makes me feel content with my progress. I’ve written five (whole!) books that I love – and learned a tremendous amount in the process – and am getting ready to publish one of them. As a bonus, I feel reconnected to my writing across all platforms, and with my audience too. If that’s not figuring out my writing conundrum, I don’t know what it.

So, for 2026, my intention is simply this: to grow as a writer and find new and exciting horizons.

My second 2025 intention is fairly self-explanatory, I think, and it worked well for me as a reminder to find and savour the small joys. For my family, creating memories is not about big events or milestone celebrations, but about laughing together and enjoying each other’s company every day. I am loving this stage of my kids’ adolescence – they are truly so much fun to get to know as people. Together, and with my husband, we are creating small, everyday rituals of companionship and connection. Things like, Saturday lunch at our fave restaurant; watching 20-year old sitcoms together; summer day trips out of town; weekend library dates; etc. etc. I’ve learned that it’s these small moments that my kids often come back to, years later, talking about them as fond memories. They are the glue that hold us together as a family – seemingly insignificant but foundational.

More of this for 2026 too: create small rituals and memories with my family every day.

As I have been reflecting recently on my experience of purpose this year, I realized that, in addition to writing, there is something else that also feels very meaningful and purpose-filled to me. Mentorship. I value personal growth and it’s something I want everyone to experience. Fostering connection and making space for others to pursue personal growth is deeply satisfying. For now, I am still sitting with the question of ‘how can I put this purpose into practice?’ There are many possibilities – consider, for example, how “personal coaching” has become a cottage industry – and I feel that most of them are probably not aligned with my purpose. So careful, considered reflection is required. No rushing.

For 2026, my intention is: look for opportunities to foster curiosity, connection, and growth.

Right now, I have no idea what this means or how it might pan out … and that’s really, really exciting!

Ok, last word on last’s year’s last goal. Here’s what happened: I walked 14,000 a day for about 2 months, after which, my knees suddenly gave out. I had been walking about 10K-11K per day for months before that, so the whole thing took me by surprise. Why would my body react like that? Wasn’t more exercise always better? This is what I learned: setting arbitrary goals simply to beat a record isn’t helpful. I was doing fine walking 10K steps a day, and walking more didn’t improve my physical conditioning in any measurable way – actually, it made it worse. The important thing was the intention to keep my body moving and take care of it as I age. Eating well, getting enough sleep, moving my body, keeping my brain active – these are all important, but they don’t need to be tied to specific quantitative goals. Part of it is listening to my body and adjusting what I do to meet its needs. So, yeah, I didn’t manage to walk 14K steps a day for a year … but I did walk 10K steps, 6 days per week, which turned out to be just fine.

So, for 2026, my intention is: listen to, take care of, and enjoy living in my body.

And I have decided that my theme/guiding principle for 2026 is “accelerating momentum”. It encapsulates the feeling that I’m taking into the new year: I am ready to build on everything that has come before and discover new horizons.

What are your intentions, goals, or resolutions for 2026?

I am officially on vacation! Considering how 2025 behaved itself, its only possible redemption was ending on a chill note. I plan to spend its final two weeks relaxing at home with the fam. Becoming one with my couch. Or my bed. Reading and watching movies. Trying not to obsess over the fact that my book is coming out in three weeks. Trying, in fact, not to think about writing at all. A tall order, that.

I got a bit of a jump start on my holiday watching this week by bingeing through a season of Columbo. It felt like stepping into a literal time machine and whizzing back to my teen years. Made me miss my mom a lot; we used to watch tons of murder mystery shows together when I was growing up. I also watched Wake Up Dead Man, the third installment in the Knives Out franchise. I loved it! It’s the most thematically layered story of the three, exploring the meaning of faith and the various ways religion operates in modern society. I’m not religious, but I appreciated the way Rian Johnson handled these themes, particularly through the characters of Father Jud and Benoit Blanc. Josh O’Connor’s performance as the former was the standout for me – along with Blanc’s fabulously stylish outfits. I will say that it was very confusing to see Andrew Scott in a movie where someone else was playing the Hot Priest 😉

As a Golden Era mystery fan, the Knives Out movies always hit the spot for me. In this one, Johnson gave a bigger nod than usual to the tradition: one of the clues was a list of classic mysteries, including The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and The Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie, which Blanc deduced provided the inspiration for the (very complicated) murder plot. Having read 4 out of the 5 books on the list, I had so much fun trying to figure out the components of the murder plot based on similarities to the books. Especially since Johnson also used the same books to sprinkle red herrings and misdirection into the movie. Anyway, if you haven’t seen it yet, def check out Wake Up Dead Man. I think I’m going to add a Knives Out marathon to my holiday watching list now.

This week, I also read Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro and it destroyed me. Well, OK, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration, but it did make me super emotional by the end. It’s as if Ishiguro took Never Let Me Go (one of my fave books) and mashed it up with Remains of the Day (also brilliant) to write this book. It’s beautiful and poignant and devastating. As someone who has very strong (negative) opinions on AI, I have some mixed feelings about the fact that the book got me choked up over the fate of a robot … but that being said, I think its actual theme is what it means to be human and how we define that as we move into a post-humanist future. This ended up being one of my fave reads of the year.

Last weekend, I ended up going to the mall – something I’d been putting off for a few weeks – and it went about as expected. Which is to say, I hated it. These days, I hate malls at the best of times, and the holiday season is not the best of times. It was incredibly crowded, which was no surprise, but what still surprises me is how tiring it now is for me to spend any amount of time in that kind of environment. I think I was there for less than two hours, and afterwards I felt like I’d gone on a three-day bender. It took me the rest of the day to recover.

Anywhoo. I did some damage at Uniqlo – some of it planned, some not. I’m not here to hype it up (it’s fast fashion, at the end of the day), but I will say that Uniqlo has become my go-to for basic staples that I can’t find at the thrifts. The quality is decent for the price point. This time, I went to pick up those cashmere blend Heattech turtlenecks that I mentioned in a recent post. I got three colours – brown, navy blue, and burgundy – and so far, so good. I really like the material; it’s very soft, lightweight enough to layer but still fairly warm, and has nice stretch. It remains to be seen how they hold up to wear, but I’m cautiously optimistic. I also ended up with an impulse purchase, buying a pair of barrel jeans. It’s the same cut as the navy pants I bought a few months ago, which I’ve been loving. I’m hoping these jeans will prove equally versatile, and give me another denim option besides the Wranglers I’ve been wearing non-stop lately.

Have a great weekend!