Last January was the first time I wrote about my favorite books of the year, and now I’m doing it again for 2025. I didn’t experience as many reading highlights this year as I did in 2024, but I’ve still had fun thinking back and picking out which novels I could barely wait to getContinue reading “My Favorite Fiction of 2025”
Author Archives: Kim Hays
The Patron Saint of Children
Yesterday, December 6, was the day of Saint Nicholas, the patron saint of children and the fourth-century bishop of Myra, a Byzantine city in what is now Turkey. On this day, many Swiss-German households with young children are visited by “Samichlaus,” as Sankt Nichlaus is pronounced in the Swiss-German dialect. He doesn’t arrive in theContinue reading “The Patron Saint of Children”
BEFORE THE LEAVES FALL
Over two percent of Switzerland’s nine million people belong to EXIT, one of the nine or ten organizations in Switzerland that offer people who don’t want to live anymore a painless way to commit suicide. Since 1942, Swiss law has permitted one person to assist another to commit suicide as long as the motive forContinue reading “BEFORE THE LEAVES FALL”
My Fall Fling
It’s October 29, but the plants in the window boxes hanging from the railings of my balcony are still bravely blooming. As fall has progressed, my twenty-two geraniums have produced steadily fewer purply-pink flowers. Only a scattering of the bright clusters still remains. The blue stalks of sage on either side of the geraniums standContinue reading “My Fall Fling”
Beauty Spots near Bern
I’m sure all of you host visitors now and then, whether they are close friends staying in your homes for a week or acquaintances passing through for a day or two. Have you developed favorite places to take them? We certainly have. The first outing is always a tour of Bern’s Old Town, which inevitablyContinue reading “Beauty Spots near Bern”
An Extraordinary Indian Family
I bought Abraham Verghese’s The Covenant of Water as an audiobook less than three months after it was published in 2023, and for two years, I would look at that title among the list of downloaded books on my cell phone, only to choose something else to listen to. I couldn’t convince myself to startContinue reading “An Extraordinary Indian Family”
Listen to PESTICIDE for $12.99
I just found out that the audiobook of Pesticide, the first Linder and Donatelli mystery—the book in which Renzo and Giuliana fall for each other while solving two murders—is available at half price. Click below if you’d like to listen to the first half hour or buy a copy! https://www.audiobooks.com/promotions/promotedBook/595022/pesticide?refId=209459
A New Swiss Battleground
August 1 is Switzerland’s equivalent of the Fourth of July. Americans commemorate freeing themselves from British rule. The Swiss celebrate Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden, the three original Swiss cantons, fighting off conquest by the Habsburgs. This year, August 1 marked the day Trump informed Switzerland that he would impose a 39% tariff on Swiss exportsContinue reading “A New Swiss Battleground”
On the Road and Back Again
I’ve recently returned from twenty-six days in the US, where I joyfully descended on one friend after another in seven different parts of the country and was welcomed with food, entertainment, and wonderful talk. It was a glorious trip. By far the best part was the concentrated company of each dear friend I saw. OurContinue reading “On the Road and Back Again”
A Discovery Award
Last month, I was blowing my own horn about the May launch of Splintered Justice, and today I’m tooting away again—this time about my third book, A Fondness for Truth, which I submitted last year for a 2025 Indie Reader award. Indie Reader (IR) was founded in 2009 to provide support for self-published, hybrid, andContinue reading “A Discovery Award”
Kim Hays 