Sunday Salon: Taipei, Los Angeles, France - Soho Press mysteries

 

Thanks to Soho Press for these galleys and ARCs

The Dead Can't Make a Living by Ed Lin

Genre: mystery and thrillers, April 7, 2026

Setting: Taipei, Taiwan night market

Description

“A unique blend of tension, charm, tragedy, and optimism, with characters you’ll love and a setting so real you’ll think you’ve been there. Highly recommended.”—Lee Child, author of the Jack Reacher series

Ed Lin's big-hearted, eye-opening fifth installment in the fan-favorite Taipei Night Market series

Crown City, a Japantown Mystery, Book 3, Feb 20, 2026

Two Japanese American men hired to investigate an art theft discover something much more sinister in turn-of-the-century California.

Huguette by Cara Black, Dec. 2, 2025; Soho Press

Genre: mystery and thriller, historical fiction

Description

In the lawlessness of post–World War II France, a resilient young woman fights to survive and make a living, no matter the cost—from the New York Times bestselling author of Three Hours in Paris and the Aimée Leduc series

Also reading

The Fortune Flip by Lauren Kung Jessen, March 17, 2026; NetGalley and Forever (Grand Central Publishing)

Genre: romance, women's fiction, multicultural

This charming rom-com from an author whose writing is “deeply romantic, real, funny, and heartfelt” (Christina Lauren) is filled with Chinese traditions, second chances, and a luck-changing love story that will appeal to readers of Helen Hoang, Jasmine Guillory, and Sarah Adams.

What books are on your reading list now? 

Memes:  The Sunday Post, It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Sunday Salon, and Stacking the Shelves 

The History of Slavery in Guadeloupe

 Currently reading 

I’m

Les Assassins de L'Aube by Michel Bussi

Location: Guadeloupe 

Murders today on a Caribbean island which has a horrific history of slavery, due to the fact that Napoleon ruled to continue the practice of slavery in Guadeloupe, a territory of France, even after the official abolition of slavery in the 19th century. 

Someone wants to bring this history to

light by leaving dead bodies on the monuments that 

had been erected to honor the  brutal slave enforcers of that time.

Island police and French police try to solve the murders in this murder mystery thriller.

Island magic and traditions and the setting make this novel more interesting. 

I am reading this in French, though slowly.

What books are on your reading list now? 

Memes:  The Sunday Post, It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Sunday Salon, and Stacking the Shelves 

Before the Coffee Gets Cold Series of Books - Sunday Salon

 

Before the Coffee Gets Cold - Healing fiction books

Post copied from my other book blog Book Dilettante (BookBirdDog)

Before the Coffee Gets Cold is the first of the five books in the series by Toshikazu Kawaguchi. I have listed the books in reverse order. 

Genre: healing fiction

I have Before Your Memory Fades and Before We Forget Kindness, the third and fifth books. I think there is no need to read them in order as the stories are separate, but there are several coffeeshop workers who appear in all the books, so it might be useful to start with the first book, Before the Coffee Gets Cold. 

What is the series about? In each book, people visit a mysterious cafe, hoping to go back or forward in time for a very brief time. They are given a cup of steaming coffee  at a special table, are then transported to the past, and must return to the present time before their coffee gets cold. There are other strict rules for this to work, however.

I have read only a couple books in the series but I have found the themes - life lessons learned by the ones who time travel to meet loved ones. Relationships don't end with death, for example. Indecisiveness is self destructive. Each story gives a different lesson, and some show the dilemmas of having to make certain choices in life. 

Before We Forget Kindness has stories that explore Memories, Family Bonds, and Forgiveness. Before Your Memory Fades explores Grief, Healing, and Second Chances.

This next book is to be published May 2026

Comparable books with stories about people being helped in a magical place are the full moon coffee shop books include The Vanishing Cherry Blossom Bookshop by Takuya Asakura and the Full Moon Coffee Shop two-book series by Mai Mochizuki, which focuses on personal astrology.

 I was entertained by the books I've read so far in both series of books, and also intrigued by thoughtful stories that present life lessons as you read. 

What books are on your reading list now? 

Memes:  The Sunday Post, It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Sunday Salon, and Stacking the Shelves 

On Her Own, a Novel set in Tel Aviv, Israel; and Cherry Blossom Wishes set in Japan

 Book Review

On Her Own by Lihi Lapid; March 19, 2024: HarperVia, NetGalley

Genre: new adult, women's fiction, multicultural

In Tel Aviv, Israel, Nina escapes her abusive, married hoodlum boyfriend Johnny, after witnessing a murder he committed. Scared for her life and beaten up, she hides inside an apartment building, with nowhere to go and too scared to ask her single mom for help.

This is the story of Nina and her friendship with a lonely old woman, Carmela, who finds Nina cowering on the steps inside  the apartment building and takes her in, effectively giving Nina a secure hiding place from Johnny. Nina and Carmela's relationship grows when Nina realizes that Carmela has creeping dementia and thinks that Nina is her beloved granddaughter from America. Carmela, living alone, desperately needs a caretaker, housekeeper, a cook.

Nina deals subtly with Carmela's longing for her only surviving son, Itamar, who had left Tel Aviv for America with his family six years before and delaying attention to his aged mother who was unwilling to join him in America.

I found it interesting that the novel is also a love story to Israel, intended for those who opt to stay in the country and even for those who leave it for a different, more opulent life in the U.S. or Europe. 

The national and religious celebrations in Israel, which include Passover, Memorial Day and Independence Day, are described very clearly and well integrated into the plot. The novel is well written, informational about Israel, and the family conflicts and resolutions are quite moving.

I like that the novel does not include political situations or controversial politics. 

I read and reviewed this book in 2023, and have just reread it not realizing I had already posted a review on NetGalley. Here it is now on my blog.  

Currently Reading 

Publication: March 24, 2026; Harper 360, NetGalley 

Genre: sci fi, fantasy, adult fiction

I'm reading this fantasy, The Vanishing Cherry Blossom Bookshop, where dreams come true, wishes are fulfilled, dreams and the past is rectified. Thanks to a magical bookshop with a large blooming cherry tree overhanging it, and a young woman who gives out the right books to the right people who need it, and also thanks to a large calico cat that gives hints to visitors with meows and blinks.

Each chapter has different books to recommend and different people with their own unique regrets and wishes to fulfill. The book begins in spring when the cherry blossom tree is in full bloom and continues through all the seasons of the year

I finished the first chapter, in which a young manga artist gets comfort and inspiration from a visit with her dead mother, whose words of advice help her carry on. In the second chapter, a retired railway man battling increased forgetfulness keeps a promise to his wife, who died before he could show her the magnificent cherry blossom trees near an old, now disused railway line. 

The stories are more than just fantasy. They incorporate wise sayings and ways of looking at life, the past, and coping with the present and the future. 

Link to the book https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/237832711-de-cherry-blossom-bookshop

What are you reading, watching, or listening to this week? 

Memes:  The Sunday Post, It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Sunday Salon, and Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday, 

The Final Work of Mario Vargas Llosa: I Give You My Silence

 Reviewed

I Give You My Silence by Mario Vargas Llosa (Feb. 24, 2026 publication). The last work of Nobel Prize winning author, who died in April 2025, after his final novel, I Give You My Silence, was written.

It's a love song and a farewell to Peru, where the author was born; throughout his life, he lived in the capital city of Lima, in London, and in Spain. The novel follows the life of Tono Alpizqueta, a fictional character who is an expert on the Peruvian vals/waltz, a guitar music born in the early 20th Century in the streets of Peru, which became popular among all social classes throughout the country. 

Tono hoped that the music would break the barriers of race and class in Peru and would cause all Peruvians to feel as one. This may not have happened, but it was a lofty and very optimistic, if an unrealistic and perhaps simplistic view held by Tono of the complexities of discrimination and the lasting effects of past Spanish colonialism in that country. 

Tono followed the sad and tragic life of Peru's greatest guitarist, Lalo Molfino, who took his life at a young age.

Vargas Llosa's novel is moving as he pays tribute to the Peruvian waltz and the people of the streets who first created and developed it.  His love of his people and his culture is evident in his final story of the people of Peru.

Thanks to the publisher, FS&G, and NetGalley for an advance reading of this book.  

Currently reading

Hidden in Memories by Viveca Sten, translated from the Swedish; Nov. 18, 2025; Amazon Crossing, NetGalley

The slaying of a hotel developer in the Swedish mountains casts a shadow over a blissful vacation paradise in a chilling novel of suspense by the acclaimed author of Hidden in Shadows. See my goodreads review.

One of my favorite mystery and thriller writers, Viveca Sten has written the third in the Are murder series.

What are you reading, watching, or listening to this week? 

Memes:  The Sunday Post, It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Sunday Salon, and Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday,