catherine walsh – ricardo reading

Hello. This was December. In sharp contrast to Halloween, when I was still very much in the bowels of what I tend to call The Gloom, I was starting to feel a lot more like myself as the Christmas season approached. Which meant I was able to get more into the spirit of things. Which meant, of course, a lot of themed reading.

Holiday Romance by Catherine Walsh. This had a great premise, but I feel it wasn’t used as effectively as it could have been. Some chapters that felt like they should have a bit of breathing room are rushed through, whereas other, somewhat more trivial scenes tended to drag on and on. The characters are charming as anything, though, and I liked it enough to pick up the sort-of sequel announced at the end of this book. Sometimes you just want to read hokey stuff for the holidays, what can I tell you.

“A Mistletoe Kiss” by Catherine Walsh. A short epilogue to Holiday Romance. I liked it more than the actual book. It was cute as hell, what can I tell you.

“The Stranger Things They Carried” by Casey McConahay. This was written for McSweeney’s, so it’s definitely meant to be satirical and irreverent, but it’s also genuinely good. Despite some of my criticisms and misgivings (I found the final season mostly bland do not @ me), I’m entirely too fond of this show and its characters.

Snowed In by Catherine Walsh. And I liked this one a hell of a lot better than its predecessor. The characters were much more to my liking, and their chemistry felt much more believable. I’ve thought I’d find the fake-dating trope unappealing and tedious, but I guess that, like every other trope in existence, it entirely depends on how it’s executed, and I thought it was done exceptionally well here. I certainly bought into it. It does feel a tad overlong, though, something that it shares with Holiday Romance, but I enjoy spending time with the fictional Fitzpatrick family, what can I tell you.

Merrily Ever After by Catherine Walsh. …So much so that I immediately bought the short story collection after finishing Snowed In. So, fine, I suppose I’m a Catherine Walsh fan now. Again, I just really like the Fitzpatricks and their friends, and this was a delightful, appropriately cheerful, and charming collection of stories. Zoe’s was my favorite, naturally, because Zoe’s great. Oliver’s was my second favorite, which caught me by surprise, because I found him to be a somewhat forgettable character in Holiday Romance. Sean’s was entirely too sweet for me not to fall for it. Hannah’s story was the weakest, I found, but still a lot of fun. Walsh’s dialogue is warm and witty, and I enjoy reading about warm and witty characters who handle everything like adults, even amidst all the Christmas shenanigans. I liked this collection a lot, what can I tell you.

“The Kill Clause” by Lisa Unger. Not an original premise by any means (it felt like an episode of Mr. & Mrs. Smith), but competently written and told. I wish this were a bit more Christmassy, though. I didn’t really feel the holiday vibes. Undoubtedly entertaining, though.

“The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle” by Arthur Conan Doyle. For the life of me I can’t recall if I had ever read this before. It feels like I have, but if I did, I had forgotten all of the particulars. I didn’t even remember what a carbuncle was. Anyway. A short but super fun Holmes affair with a great wintry atmosphere (there’s little I love more than reading about coats and scarves and gaslight). Bit of a nothing ending, though.

A Merry Little Lie by Sarah Morgan. This turned out to be something of a lackluster read, unfortunately. A shame, since stories of Christmas chaos tend to be among my favorite things to read during the holiday season. In many ways, it reminded me of One Big Happy Family, another seasonal novel full of familial chaos, with the inexplicable tendency for nearly every character to talk and act like a therapist—often letting the steam out of what might otherwise have been a pressure-cooker plot. At least that story had something of an edge and a semblance of stakes. Merry Little Lie, in contrast, had little going for it. Everyone in this novel had secrets, to be sure, but even before they are revealed, the other characters have not only mostly figured them out, but also completely understood where they are coming from. This kind of empathetic behavior is commendable and, indeed, ideal in real life, but it is deathly dull in the realm of fiction, again serving only to eliminate what little tension your plot might have had. Alas. Still, it wasn’t without its charm, so I didn’t loathe my experience with it. I simply expected more.

“Understanding the Science” by Camille Bordas. Like most short stories with a literary fiction bent, I had no idea what to think about this one, other than I enjoyed its melancholy, reflective vibe.

Told After Supper: Ghostly Tales for Christmas Eve by Jerome K. Jerome. A sort of send-up of the storied tradition of telling ghost tales at Christmastime by the famed humorist. It’s charmingly and cleverly written, but I wish I had enjoyed this parody as much as I enjoy the tradition it so affectionately spoofed. This little volume is filled with marvelously macabre illustrations by the magnificently named late-Victorian illustrator K.M. Skeaping, which do as much as the text in creating atmosphere. Delightful work.

And that was December. And that was 2025. It was mostly a lovely holiday season, for a change. As for the year… well, it can just go straight to hell.

The blog will be looking a bit different in 2026, as I’ll be stepping away from monthly wrap-ups and focusing mainly on my Booklist reviews. I love doing these summaries, but I often found myself speeding through books just for the sake of having more to write about, or picking up volumes I didn’t much want to read at the time, simply because I figured they would make for a nice feature. And that’s just a poor way to go about reading. I want to return to how I read before the dominance of blogs and social media: intrepidly and intentionally, caring for little else than fully and wholly enjoying the stories before me, rather than appeasing an algorithm or an imagined, exacting audience. I don’t know. We shall see.

Until next time.

BOOKS BOUGHT—AND ANYWAY IT’S CHRISTMAS:

Snowed In by Catherine Walsh
A Christmas Menagerie by Keith Simpkins
The Friday Afternoon Club by Griffin Dunne
Castle Skull by John Dickson Carr
The Corpse in the Waxwork by John Dickson Carr
Mystery in White by J. Jefferson Farjeon

(This is the last we’ll be seeing of this segment, too—I believe I’ve held myself accountable enough.)

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, 2025 was, for the most part, a dark and dismal time. I realize I’ve said essentially the same thing for the last handful of years, but it’s starting to feel as if life is going, “Oh, I’m sorry—you thought that was bad? Hang on a second,” before proceeding to pile it on. It’s exhausting, frankly. I am exhausted.

But that’s so often the nature of life, isn’t it? A series of painful trials that we must endure in order to reach those agonizingly brief moments of respite and grace that remind us it’s all worth weathering in the end.

It was a dark year. I suppose my reading reflected a lot of that, intentionally or not. There is a lot of darkness in these pages—but, crucially, there is a hell of a lot of light, too.

These were the brief moments of respite and grace that made up my year:

LOVE AND LET DIE: JAMES BOND, THE BEATLES, AND THE BRITISH PSYCHE by John Higgs

There’s little I love more than unconventional nonfiction books that take vastly different subjects and manage to find the myriad of ways in which they not only connect, but are, actually, pretty much inextricable from one another. This book is the perfect exemplification of that conceit, and I enjoyed every page of it.

The central thesis of this volume (Bond = Death, Beatles = Love) is absolutely delicious, which is why I all but devoured it in just a couple of days. A perfect piece of pop punditry.

WITH A MIND TO KILL by Anthony Horowitz

Speaking of Bond, James Bond.

All due respect to Ian Fleming, but Anthony Horowitz may just be my favorite Bond writer. The man just exudes thrillers. Each of his 007 novels is better than the last, and it’s only appropriate that this, his last bow, turned out to be the most mature and layered of the lot. A magnificent end to a magnificent trilogy, and a fitting tribute to one of the most iconic characters in all of fiction.

THE HUMAN BULLET by Benjamin Percy

Benjamin Percy writes pitch-perfect pulp prose in the same vein as Ian Fleming and Richard Stark and his writing is among my favorite discoveries of the year.

HEAT 2 by Michael Mann, Meg Gardiner

The best movie I read all year. And I mean that in the most positive way possible. This was more cinematic and more thrilling than any film I managed to see this year. The raddest of stuff.

Y2K: HOW THE 2000S BECAME EVERYTHING by Colette Shade

All our shared millennial anger and resentment distilled into a short, eminently readable volume. I initially went into this for the vibes and nostalgia, but came out appreciative of its surprisingly nuanced takes on the politics of the era that, for better or worse, influenced, well, everything.

The new millennium vibes are still very much present, though. Recommend reading this while Moby’s “Porcelain” plays on a loop in the background.

SONGS FOR GHOSTS by Clara Kumagai

This was just straight-up gorgeous and I sobbed through pretty much the last hundred pages of it. One of my first starred reviews for Booklist.

THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY by Patricia Highsmith

Tom Ripley is a fascinating, anxious little weirdo and I absolutely loved reading about him. Honestly surprised it took me so long to finally pick this up because it was so up my alley. Highsmith’s writing is flawless and impeccable, and I can’t wait to read more of her work. Heat 2 may be the most fun thing I read all year, but this was the best.

BENT HEAVENS by Daniel Kraus

A brutal, horrifying, genuinely unsettling story about the terrible lengths people will go to vilify what they don’t understand. This went nowhere I expected, and it is all the better for it. The best thing I picked up this Halloween season.

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN by Cormac McCarthy

This is, of course, a famously bleak-as-hell narrative—though not without its charm. I actually found it quite funny at times. At others, profound. At others still, deeply disturbing. A very human, very haunting story. It’s haunting this human still. My first McCarthy. Probably not the last.

THE LAST DEVIL TO DIE by Richard Osman

Initially, I found the plot too meandering and all over the place, and it was on track to becoming my least favorite Murder Club mystery. But then we got to the halfway point—the literal heart of the story—and I could not stop bawling for the next handful of chapters, so obviously I ended up loving it.

Again, just some of the most beautiful characters I’ve ever had the pleasure of encountering. What a gift they are. What a gift they’ve been.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

BROKEN DOLLS by Ally Malinenko

Another Booklist highlight. Will always be fond of properly creepy children’s horror, particularly when it refuses to talk down to its young audience. Great stuff.

MYSTERY JAMES DIGS HER OWN GRAVE by Ally Russell

Case in point! My friend Ally remains unstoppable. I am, of course, grossly biased, but genuinely one of my favorite writers.

AMPHIGOREY ALSO by Edward Gorey

Delightful, needless to say. We adore Edward Gorey in this house.

YOU ARE NOW OLD ENOUGH TO HEAR THIS by Aaron Starmer

Yet another Booklist highlight. Weird and wild and wonderfully old-school. I enjoyed this middle grade throwback enormously.

SNOWED IN by Catherine Walsh

I read a handful of Christmassy romance books this holiday season and this one was my favorite. My mother has her hokey Hallmark movies and I have my corny Christmas rom-com books.

Here’s hoping there’s a lot more light in the coming year. I’ll be watching for it.

See you on the other side.

Tag: catherine walsh

DECEMBER 2025

YEAR IN REVIEW ○ 2025