NB: We have a guest squee or rather an author squee for Fred Vargas’ mystery novels. It’s made a couple of us at SBTB HQ add the books to our TBR piles. This squee comes from Lara. Here is Lara’s bio: “A burlesque-dancing feminist with a deep yearning for solitude and a library of my own. I also teach English to high school students and knit when the stress levels rise.” … Heartbreak requires a … Continue reading Guest Squee: The Works of Fred Vargas →
Welcome back to Whatcha Reading! Here’s how we’re kicking off October: Claudia: I’m reading A Nobleman’s Guide to Seducing a Scoundrel by KJ Charles, after weeks of waiting for my library copy to drop. It’s book 2 of her new series and I’m glad to be back to the marsh (posh side) now. Lara: I’m trying to get myself back on track with my reading challenge after a major diversion into Alice Coldbreath territory. So … Continue reading Whatcha Reading? October 2023, Part One →
February has arrived and we have books to discuss! Here’s what we’re currently reading: Carrie: Mazes of Power, by my friend Juliette Wade! It’s labelled as “sociological science fiction.” The focus is less on tech and more on social and political intrigue. Very good so far. Shana: I’m digging into The Spies of Shilling Lane by Jennifer Ryan. It’s a British cozy mystery set in WWII about an opinionated middle-aged woman searching for her missing … Continue reading Whatcha Reading? February 2020 Edition, Part One →
A # 1 French and Italian bestseller from the three-time winner of the CWA’s International Dagger Award. More than ten million copies of Fred Vargas’s Commissaire Adamsberg mysteries have been sold worldwide. Now, American readers are getting hooked on the internationally bestselling author’s unsettling blend of crime and the supernatural. As the chief of police in Paris’s seventh arrondissement, Commissaire Adamsberg has no jurisdiction in Ordebec. Yet, he cannot ignore a widow’s plea. Her daughter … Continue reading The Ghost Riders of Ordebec →
August is nearly over! Let’s talk books! Catherine: I’ve just finished reading This is How You Lose the Time War by Max Gladstone and Amal El-Mohtar , which I loved to bits – I adored the relationship between the two protagonists, and the way the time travel plot was so perfectly structured that you could almost here the click as it came together at the end. I had to read it twice. And now I’m … Continue reading Whatcha Reading? August 2019 Edition, Part Two →
The debut mystery in the internationally bestselling Commissaire Adamsberg series-now available for the first time in the United States Fred Vargas ‘s Commissaire Adamsberg mysteries are a sensation in France, consistently praised for their intelligence, wit, and macabre imagination. This first novel in the series introduces the unorthodox detective Commissaire Adamsberg-one of the most engaging characters in contemporary crime fiction. When blue chalk circles begin to appear on the pavement in neighborhoods around Paris, Adamsberg … Continue reading The Chalk Circle Man →
A chilling new mystery from France’s #1 bestselling writer Twice awarded the International Dagger by the Crime Writers’ Association, Fred Vargas has earned a reputation in Europe as a mystery author of the first order. In This Night’s Foul Work, the intuitive Commissaire Adamsberg teams up with Dr. Ariane, a pathologist with whom he crossed paths twenty years ago, to unravel a beguiling mystery that begins with the discovery of two bodies in Paris’s Porte de … Continue reading This Night’s Foul Work →
It is Howdy! Welcome to our “About Us” page, where we can wank on without limit as to who we are, and why we’re here. If you came to this page looking for how to contact us, there is a whole other area for that. Follow the pretty red hyperlinks. ❤ SB-TB Books ❤ Meet the Bitches ❤ Contact Us ❤ Once Upon a Smart & Sassy Time… Smart Bitches Trashy Books began in 2005 … Continue reading About the Smart Bitches →
Time again for hand selling online, when book mastermind Billie Bloebaum from Powells books (conveniently located in the Portland airport!) matches enquiring minds with required reading. Deborah writes: I adored Bewitching by Jill Barnett. I’ve read the rest of her books, some I liked, some I didn’t, but I was looking for another author or book that has the same good sense of humor and adventure. Billie says, “Barnett hasn’t had anything new since 2007 … Continue reading The Bookmatcher with Billie Bloebaum →
