As the cold weather hangs around, reading is my go-to activity. Who wants to go outside? Stay inside where it’s cozy and enjoy a new author. These are all new authors for me.

'The Framed Women of Ardemore House'

“The Framed Women of Ardemore House” by Brandy Schillace (2024). Josephine “Jo” Jones has lost her mother, her job and her marriage, which turned out to be a sham (he cheated on her and cheated her out of the proceeds from the publishing house they had run together.) Jo never knew her father — and her mother and the aunt they lived with were reticent about the past. Then she discovers she has inherited a family estate in North Yorkshire, England. Jo can be an editor remotely from anywhere, has nothing to keep her in the U.S., and packs up and heads across the pond. For the 39-year-old who is autistic, it feels “like free fall and freedom all at once.” But, the massive house has been sitting there since her mother inherited it from her brother Aiden Ardemore and is falling apart (with lots of back taxes due, too).

Jo settles at the local inn/pub and meets with the lawyers and Sid Randles, the leering, sneering caretaker who raises her hackles. Jo thinks of him as Reynard, the fox from the French fables. He is taken aback when she claims she will live in the cottage next to the house. Jo is enchanted with the big house (she thinks of it as something out of “Wuthering Heights”), especially the library, and is heartbroken to see how many of the books are past saving. When she finds a hidden painting and then it disappears, she accuses Sid of taking it, which doesn’t go over well.

When Sid turns up dead on the floor of the cottage, Jo will get dragged into a police investigation while trying to sort out the mystery of the painting and her family history. Jo is a likable character you root for. And, it’s fun to watch her come into her own and make friends in her new home. There is a second book, “The Dead Come to Stay,” which is already on my wish list. Schillace’s bio says she is also autistic though has not (to her knowledge) been a suspect in a murder investigation.

'This Is How It Always Is'

“This Is How It Always Is” by Laurie Frankel (2017) is a beautifully written book with heart, humor and pathos. Rosie, a doctor, and Penn, a stay-at-home dad, writer and master storyteller, live in Minnesota and are the parents of five precocious sons (after years of Rosie hoping for a daughter). When the youngest, Claude, says he will grow up to be a girl at age 3 and then begins to prefer dresses, heels and a bikini at age 5, they aren’t very concerned. But, kindergarten begins and suddenly there are lots of questions — from the children, their parents, the teacher and administration.

As Rosie and Penn try to navigate what could be a phase or something more, all they want is for Claude to be happy. But, he obviously isn’t and they must search for what will work for him and them. Claude/Poppy’s journey and Rosie’s attempt to protect her family and Claude’s choices is hard but fulfilling — even if that doesn’t protect them from the ignorance and unthinking cruelty of others. And, one could only hope for parents as invested and loving as Rosie and Penn.

A short essay by Frankel at the end of the book says “It’s true that my child used to be a little boy and is now a little girl,” but that the book is fiction and not her story. But the book was inspired by “the debate about treating trans kids with puberty blockers” and how “loving, open-minded, well-intentioned people could reasonably come down on what seem to be opposing sides of this issue.” I highly recommend you read this one.

'Far and Away'

“Far and Away” by Amy Poeppel (2025) was a recommendation from a book club friend and a new author for me. It’s a tale of a house swap between a family in Dallas, Texas, getting away from a scandal and a couple in Berlin, Germany, seeking a home for the husband’s temporary job. This is not your obvious rom/com exchange where everyone finds love and happiness (although there is some love and happiness), but first there are mistaken assumptions, misunderstandings, hilarious fractured language faux pas and angst. The book is a hoot.

The Holt family live in an ultra modern, voice-activated house in Dallas with two dogs, three cats and a guinea pig. Mason is away “on Mars” (a biosphere in New Mexico that is a NASA simulation of six months on the Red Planet). Lucy is the mother of a teenage boy and twin 8-year-old girls, coping without her husband, when her son Jack is involved in a scandal at school and expelled. She’s also just gotten a go-ahead on designing the interiors of a hotel chain.

Without thinking ahead much, Lucy swaps their home for a flat in Berlin owned by Otto and Greta von Bosse. He’s a doctor who took a job in Dallas without consulting his wife. She creates art collections for private clients and is obsessive over the state of the flat, which has new floors and a lot of breakable valuables. Their daughter Emmi is spending the summer in New York, where Greta had hoped to spend the time before Otto’s focus changed.

As Lucy works remotely from Berlin (without letting her bosses know she’s out of the country) and Jack helps with the twins, she’s getting little sleep and misses Mason terribly, but she can’t contact him (he’s “on Mars”).

Meanwhile, Otto is embracing Texas in every way as Greta deals with a house full of animals, no cleaning service because Otto canceled it, is concerned by the local gossip about Jack, and then becomes entangled in an art mystery. When Emmi comes for a visit, learns about Jack and decides to get involved, the culture clash becomes personal for each family.