Good morning, everyone.

Our book review this week featured Emily Hall returning to write about The Great Grown-Up Game of Make-Believe by Lauren D. Woods, published by Autumn House Press.

And our Wednesday story, continuing the October spooky series, was "He Within" by Ankit Jamwal, a new contributor we're honored to feature.

Then in research notes, Lindsay Merbaum wrote about Vampires At Sea from Creature Publishing. She previously shared some research notes about an earlier book, The Gold Persimmon, and we're glad to have her back in our pages.

Guest editor DeMisty D. Bellinger will be reading submissions for a few more days, until November 3, so send those stories in if you plan to do so.

Finally, one of my favorite displays of voice in prose comes not from fiction but from a cookbook, Edouard de Pomianes's French Cooking in Ten Minutes: Adapting to the Rhythm of Modern Life, translated by Mary Hyman and Philip Hyman (there's a lovely discussion early in this old episode of Backlisted). It's full of recipes, yes, but it's also full of a way to live and to enjoy living even in the short, private moments a person of modest means might squeeze out of their day for themself.

So I was excited to learn of Michele Roberts' riff on de Pomiane, French Cooking For One, and am pleased to report that it, too, is a delight. And to see that it will very soon be followed by French Cooking For Two, this time a riff on "the 1929 classic La bonne cuisine by Madame Saint-Ange," which I look forward to finding as well. Sometimes I try the recipes when reading these kinds of books and often I don't (more often wish that I could), but just sitting down with them is uplifting in its own way.

Thanks for reading,

Steve Himmer