Recommended Reading

Books recommended by Erica Ruth…in no particular order.

I love crime fiction, mystery and romance, so you’ll find a little bit of everything here.

GO TO MY GRAVE

by Catriona McPherson

This was one where I nearly stayed up all night to finish—and I would have if I didn’t have an event the next morning. A group rents a Scottish beachside house and an event that took place decades before slowly unravels them all.

SILENCE FOR THE DEAD

by Simone St. James

This is the second book I’ve read by St. James, and I’ve absolutely loved both (the first being The Broken Girls.) This is set after WWI in a crumbling mental institution on a remote island. A woman running from her past fakes a resume as a nurse and gets a job at the home…only to find that the soldiers are being driven further into madness by the ghostly inhabitants.

THE HATING GAME

by Sally Thorne

This is my favorite contemporary romance. Set in a publishing house, it’s perfect.

BRAZEN AND THE BEAST

by Sarah MacLean

Pre-order this baby! The second in the Bareknuckle Bastards books, this has everything you want in a romance, and a saucy plus-sized heroine, which I loved.

MILWAUKEE NOIR ANTHOLOGY

Edited by Tim Hennessy

Okay, yes, I did take the picture that graces the cover of this stellar anthology about my hometown. But some of these short stories, set in little known neighborhoods of our little big city by the lake, will knock your socks off. We can only hope Hennessy will do a second volume.

THE DUCHESS DEAL

by Tessa Dare

This isn’t a new book, but it’s one of my favorites by Dare. She has a special gift for writing witty dialogue and sparks FLY between the two main characters. Love this one.

AND ONLY TO DECEIVE

by Tasha Alexander

The first in a long-running and delightful series starring Lady Emily. You’ll love her travels and her brilliant mind as she solves murders far and near.

UNDER A DARK SKY

by Lori Rader-Day

Okay yes. I am a character in this book. But beyond my own bias there, this is a wonderfully suspenseful story of a widow at a dark sky park staying with a group of strangers…one of whom is a killer.

MURDER KNOCKS TWICE

by Susanna Calkins

Murder in a 1920’s Chicago speakeasy! You can’t go wrong here. This is the start of a super fun new series with a lovable character—Gina Ricci, the cigarette girl from the South Side of town, and lots of cameos from fun celebrities of the time.

The beekeeper’s apprentice

by Laurie R. King

One of my all-time favorite series, this is a Sherlock Holmes pastiche but told from the perspective of his young, brilliant FEMALE assistant, Mary Russell.

JANE STEELE

by Lyndsay Faye

You can’t go wrong with anything written by Faye, but this is a particular favorite. At once an homage to Jane Eyre and a serial killer novel, feminism has never felt so satisfying.

A study in scarlet women

by Sherry Thomas

Another Sherlock Holmes pastiche (I swear I read more than Holmes, you guys) but this time Holmes is a woman. An absolute delight.