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Michelle’s Year In Books

Michelle’s 2025 Year in Books

Take a look at Michelle’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.

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Michelle’s Bookshelves

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Michelle Richmond

Goodreads Author

Born

Alabama, The United States

Website

https://www.michellerichmond.com

Genre

Suspense, Thriller, Short Stories

Influences

Grace Paley, Graham Greene, Paul Auster, John Fante, Camilla Lackberg, ...more

Member Since

May 2007

URL

https://www.goodreads.com/michellerichmond

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Thank you for stopping by! To get a behind-the-scenes glimpse of my new novel set in Paris, subscribe to my Substack: michellerichmond.substack.com

The book is inspired by my expat years in Paris.

It is book two in the Lina Connerly series, which began with the Silicon Valley thriller The Wonder Test. Booklist called THE WONDER TEST "a gripping blend of danger and sharp social commentary on high-stakes education, the 1%, and suburban tropes."

My 2017 literary thriller, the Sunday Times bestseller THE MARRIAGE PACT, examines marriage under the extreme pressure of constant monitoring from a powerful organization called The Pact. The Pact promises to help couples have a happy, lasting marriage...but the punishments for breaking the rules are seve Thank you for stopping by! To get a behind-the-scenes glimpse of my new novel set in Paris, subscribe to my Substack: michellerichmond.substack.com

The book is inspired by my expat years in Paris.

It is book two in the Lina Connerly series, which began with the Silicon Valley thriller The Wonder Test. Booklist called THE WONDER TEST "a gripping blend of danger and sharp social commentary on high-stakes education, the 1%, and suburban tropes."

My 2017 literary thriller, the Sunday Times bestseller THE MARRIAGE PACT, examines marriage under the extreme pressure of constant monitoring from a powerful organization called The Pact. The Pact promises to help couples have a happy, lasting marriage...but the punishments for breaking the rules are severe. THE MARRIAGE PACT is available in 31 languages.

To get updates, exclusive previews, and audio stories, visit my newsletter at michellerichmond.substack.com.

My previous books include the New York Times bestseller The Year of Fog, the literary crime novel No One You Know, and the story collection Hum, winner of the Truman Capote Prize.

I like to write about ordinary people in crisis: a kidnapping (The Year of Fog), a hostage situation (Golden State), a decades-old murder that became a true crime sensation (No One You Know).

My novels are often set in San Francisco and the Bay Area, where I've made my home, but my books also take inspiration from many of the places I've lived and traveled.

Back story: I knew I wanted to be a writer for almost as long as I can remember, way back when I was a kid growing up in Alabama. I used to write skits to perform for my parents with my two sisters. After graduating from a huge public school in downtown Mobile, I studied journalism and creative writing at the University of Alabama, then worked in advertising, as well as in restaurants and a tanning salon (!) for a few years before enrolling in an MFA program in creative writing. I bounced around the South for a while and lived in New York City for a couple of years, with a brief work stint in Beijing, before settling in Northern California in 1999. I've been writing here in the fog ever since.

My first book, The Girl in the Fall-Away Dress was a short story collection that I wrote during my years waitressing and doing other odd jobs in Knoxville and Atlanta. My first novel, Dream of the Blue Room, was inspired by my time in Beijing. My second novel, The Year of Fog, gathered many rejections before being acquired by a young editor at Bantam. The Year of Fog was a life-changing book in that in allowed me to connect with readers in ways I'd never quite imagined, and it gave me the freedom to pursue writing full time. Writing is my dream job. It's a job I do alone in a quiet room, but because it allows me to connect with readers, it never feels lonely. ...more

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Combine Editions
Michelle Richmond’s books

Average rating: 3.57 · 58,213 ratings · 8,200 reviews · 33 distinct works • Similar authors

	The Marriage Pact 3.59 avg rating — 30,115 ratings — published 2017 — 64 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Year of Fog 3.47 avg rating — 16,812 ratings — published 2006 — 36 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	No One You Know 3.53 avg rating — 4,705 ratings — published 2008 — 24 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Wonder Test 3.91 avg rating — 3,933 ratings — published 2021 — 10 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Golden State 3.57 avg rating — 1,769 ratings — published 2014 — 9 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Dream of the Blue Room 3.21 avg rating — 494 ratings — published 2003 — 12 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Girl in the Fall-Away Dress 3.57 avg rating — 93 ratings — published 2001 — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Day 49: The Missing Final Chapter of The Year of Fog 3.47 avg rating — 53 ratings — published 2010 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Hum: Stories by Michelle Richmond (Goodreads Author), Rikki Ducornet (Foreword) 4.22 avg rating — 32 ratings — published 2010 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Flash in the Attic: 33 Very Short Stories by Michelle Richmond (Goodreads Author), Corey Mesler (Goodreads Author) (Contributor), Clare Needham (Contributor) 4.11 avg rating — 18 ratings — published 2013 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Michelle Richmond…

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Michelle Richmond's Blog

Notes on Memory and San Francisco’s Outer Lands

I WILL RETURN again and again to that moment. I will keep a notebook in which I record the details. There will be poorly done sketches, graphs of time and motion, page after page on which I attempt to recover the past. I will pretend that memory is reliable, that it does not erode as quickly …

Michelle is Currently Reading

Michelle is currently reading

Hotel (Object Lessons)

by Joanna Walsh (Goodreads Author)

bookshelves: currently-reading

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Jan 16, 2023 10:31AM

Michelle is currently reading

Break.up

by Joanna Walsh (Goodreads Author)

bookshelves: currently-reading

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Jan 16, 2023 10:31AM

Michelle is currently reading

Troubling Love

by Elena Ferrante

bookshelves: currently-reading

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Mar 05, 2021 11:13PM

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Michelle’s Recent Updates

Michelle is now friends with finecat
Jan 08, 2026 11:40AM · like
Michelle rated a book it was amazing NOVEL STARTER: 50 Days to Jumpstart Your First Draft (Fiction Attic Press Workbooks for Writers Book 1) by Fiction Attic Press	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Sep 06, 2025 03:48PM · like

More of Michelle's books…

Quotes by Michelle Richmond (?)

“We take pictures because we can't accept that everything passes, we can't accept that the repetition of a moment is an impossibility. We wage a monotonous war against our own impending deaths, against time that turns children into that other, lesser species: adults. We take pictures because we know we will forget. We will forget the week, the day, the hour. We will forget when we were happiest. We take pictures out of pride, a desire to have the best of ourselve preserved. We fear that we will die and others will not know we lived.”
― Michelle Richmond, The Year of Fog

tags: photography-memory-immortality

89 likes

“...You find a way, somehow to get through the most horrible things, things you think would kill you. You find a way and you move through the days, one by one, in shock, in despair, but you move. The days pass, one after the other, and you go along with them - occasionally stunned, and not entirely relieved, to find that you are still alive.”
― Michelle Richmond, The Year of Fog

tags: inspirational

70 likes

“To be a writer you have to write -- and no academic degree is going to do the writing for you. ”
― Michelle Richmond

tags: college, degree, write, writer

59 likes

See all Michelle Richmond's quotes »

Polls

Which genre would you like to read for September? Let us know in this poll! :)

Mystery/Thriller

Something in the Water by Catherine Steadman

Déjà Dead (Temperance Brennan, #1) by Kathy Reichs

Déjà Dead by Kathy Reichs

The Year of Fog by Michelle Richmond

53 votes 34.9%

Romance

It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover

Ghosted by Rosie Walsh

Something About You (FBI/US Attorney, #1) by Julie James

Something About You by Julie James

50 votes 32.9%

Young adult

First Love by James Patterson

Grave Mercy (His Fair Assassin, #1) by Robin LaFevers

Grave Mercy by Robin LaFevers

Punk 57 by Penelope Douglas

49 votes 32.2%

152 total votes

10 comments

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Topics Mentioning This Author

topics	posts	views	last activity
The Next Best Boo...: Jacqueline's Reading List 2009	5	490	May 04, 2009 11:51AM

Michelle’s Quotes

“I never expected to find myself here, on the edge of the continent--childless, possibly jobless, with broken bones and a broken marriage, citizen of a broken country. But here I am, and I must make something of it. That's really the only choice one has: make something of it, or don't.”
― Michelle Richmond, Golden State

tags: california, golden-state, inspirational, marriage, women

2 likes