Books We Loved, Oct. 25

It seems like school barely started and just rolled in, yet here we are, two weeks from Halloween. Where does the time go? Fortunately, there are always books we loved to recommend—especially now that the days are shortening and the temperatures dropping. So heat that cider, add some cinnamon (or pumpkin spice, if you must), bring out the cookies, and enjoy one of these great reads.

Jeanine Cummins, Speak to Me of Home (Henry Holt, 2025)

Knowing about (and not agreeing with) the backlash Jeanine Cummins received regarding appropriation issues when her previous novel, American Dirt, came out, I feared we might never hear from her again. Not only has she landed firmly on her feet, but she exudes the same measure of writerly confidence in her new book, Speak to Me of Home, that she did in American Dirt. Though they are very different kinds of stories—the former more plot driven and the latter more character driven—they share a focus on immigration, racism and identity, and both are great reads.

Speak to Me of Home describes how Rafaela, a strong-willed woman from an established Puerto Rican family, winds up marrying an Irish American naval officer and moving with him from her beloved island to the American Midwest in the 1970s. Her children, Ruth and Benny, are seven and nine, respectively, when the family makes this transition. But while Ruth is determined to let her native language and island memories go so as to be able to assimilate, Benny clings to his heritage, which makes for ongoing challenges. As for Rafaela, she has virtually nothing in common with her fellow Midwesterners, and being a stay-at-home mom, it doesn’t take long until she is nearly completely isolated.

Ruth grows up and marries an Irish American, too, though he dies while their three children are still young, and they are influenced more by their grandmother, Rafaela, who eventually comes to live in the guest house on the property they inhabit in Palisades, New York. Benny, Ruth’s brother, returns to Puerto Rico the first chance he gets, leaving Daisy, Ruth’s daughter, with many opportunities to visit her uncle and his daughter, who is about her age, on the island. Ruth doesn’t understand the attraction, and when Daisy announces that she has decided to forgo college and move to San Juan, she feels utterly betrayed.

Rafaela, Ruth and Daisy represent three generations of women with various degrees of Puerto Rican blood and different ways of evaluating how they might fit in the world, racially and otherwise. Their backstories—all of which are heartfelt and complicated—unfold not chronologically but poetically, so that each chapter enhances the next, even though it may have jumped from one character to another and occur in a different period of time at that. The book begins with a hurricane in Puerto Rico in 2023, in which Daisy is injured. Ruth, of course, puts her frustrations with her daughter aside so that she can get herself and her mother to Daisy’s bedside as soon as possible. This strategy—with the hurricane beginning the book and its aftermath ending it—allows for all the family secrets, and there are plenty of them, to be exposed in their own good time. Speak to Me of Home is a compelling, thought-provoking read.—JS

C.M. Rawlins, Death in a Classroom (CleanTales Publishing, 2025)

This first installment in a historical cozy mystery series set in 1920s Scotland introduces Maeve Morgan, a former police officer who through a chain of circumstances explained in the novel has inherited the title of Countess of Baritone and Strathfulton and the crumbling but large and beautiful estate that goes with it.

Maeve has barely had a chance to meet her small, elderly staff before she discovers a body in Strathfulton’s one-room schoolhouse. The cause of the schoolteacher’s death—a large knife embedded under his ribs—is clear enough. But who would want to murder Mr. MacGregor?

As usually happens in these novels, the local policeman has no interest in finding out, so Maeve takes time away from learning her responsibilities as the new countess to dust off her skills as a homicide detective. It’s a twisty, interesting problem, but the real draw is Maeve herself. And for once, we can believe that this particular “amateur” does have the skills to solve the crime and keep herself safe while doing so—precisely because she is not an amateur at all.—CPL

Katie Tietjen, Murder in Miniature (Crooked Lane Books, 2025)

When we meet Maple Bishop in the first book in her series, Death in the Details, she is reeling from a series of life-changing circumstances. Rural Vermont in 1946 doesn’t have much use for a childless widow with limited means of support and even less interest in knitting, baking, and chitchat.

Maple ruffles feathers, including those of Ginger Comstock, the leader of local female society in Elderberry, the very small town where Maple moved two years before with her doctor husband, Bill. That’s another strike against her, in fact: Elderberry is the kind of town that accepts newcomers slowly, if ever. It doesn’t help when Maple, who builds dollhouses to fill her empty days and decides to sell them to supplement her income, uncovers a murder. Even the local sheriff barely tolerates what he sees as her interference in an open-and-shut case.

Fast forward a few months, and Maple’s situation has improved—a little. In Murder in Miniature, she’s still something of a social outcast, but her dollhouses have acquired a new purpose and she has a few more friends in town. Even the crotchety sheriff has developed respect for her abilities. So when a cabin fire on the outskirts of town creates an opening for Maple’s particular gift for re-creating a crime scene, he doesn’t hesitate to ask for her help. Neither of them could have predicted that this case will bring them into contact not only with big city criminals but also with a mystery from Maple’s past.

To find out more about this series, check out my interview with the author on New Books in Historical Fiction.—CPL