The Master Jeweller

Weina Dai Randel published the Empress Wu duology in 2016. It was a smash success. My reviews of The Moon in the Palace and The Empress of Bright Moon were chart topping. Her next book was The Last Rose of Shanghai which was published in 2021. She has written another fantastic story of a young Chinese teenager who is on her own at 16 after her mother’s death.

The publisher's summary:

Harbin, China, 1925. Fifteen-year-old Anyu Zhang discovers a priceless Fabergé egg in the snow and returns it to the owner, Isaac Mandelburg, a fugitive and former master jeweler for Russia’s imperial palace. In gratitude, he leaves her his address in Shanghai and a promise of hospitality, forever altering her fate.

A dazzling world of jewelry shrouded in secrecy and greed awaits, when later Anyu arrives at Mandelburg’s jewelry shop as an orphan. Single-minded and relentless, Anyu will stop at nothing until she masters the craft of jewelry making. But she soon finds herself entangled in the treacherous underbelly of the city, where violent gangsters stalk the streets, vicious rivals seek to exploit her, and obsessive collectors conspire to destroy the people she loves.

From snow-crowned land to diamond-sparkling showrooms to a pristine island on the brink of war, The Master Jeweler chronicles an exciting journey of a bold prodigy artisan―including her losses and triumphs―in a glamorous yet perilous world of treasure.

At first I thought that the story was slow in the beginning. Anyu did not even know that she wanted to be a jeweler until one third of the way into the story. I was expecting a quicker transition for her and thought that her life story would begin when she was making jewelry. To understand Anyu's decision-making, though, the reader needs to know about her childhood.

I loved reading about the different types of techniques utilized in crafting jewelry from drilling, chasing,  filing metal, cuttlefish casting, enameling, and lost-wax casting. Other techniques included metal using roller printing, reticulation, and etching techniques. Some learning about gemstones was also part of her education. I also enjoyed reading about Anyu learning to handle the tools in order to get the results she wanted.

The ugly part of Anyu's life was the discrimination she experienced from the Chinese warlords and the Japanese soldiers. Anyu has what we Americans call "true grit." Nothing stopped her from achieving her goals. Once Anyu became a jeweler she had to deal with gangsters demanding protection money as well as competitors taking advantage of her. 

The Master Jeweler is a masterpiece of writing that historical fiction fans will love.  5 out of 5 stars.

The Story She Left Behind

I chose this novel for the Key Word Reading Challenge. The book was published on March 18, 2025. Inspired by a true literary mystery, its a story of a legendary book, a lost mother, and a daughter’s search for them both.

The publisher's summary:

In 1927, eight-year-old Clara Harrington’s magical childhood shatters when her mother, renowned author, Bronwyn Newcastle Fordham, disappears off the coast of South Carolina. Bronwyn stunned the world with a book written in an invented language that became a national sensation when she was just twelve years old. Her departure leaves behind not only a devoted husband and heartbroken daughter, but also the hope of ever translating the sequel to her landmark work. As the headlines focus on the missing author, Clara yearns for something far deeper and more insatiable: her beautiful mother.

By 1952, Clara is an illustrator raising her own daughter, Wynnie. When a stranger named Charlie Jameson contacts her from London claiming to have discovered a handwritten dictionary of her mother’s lost language. Clara is skeptical. Compelled by the tragedy of her mother’s vanishing, she crosses the Atlantic with Wynnie only to arrive during one of London’s most deadly natural disasters—the Great Smog. With asthmatic Wynnie in peril, they escape the city with Charlie and find refuge in the Jameson’s family retreat nestled in the Lake District. It is there that Clara must find the courage to uncover the truth about her mother and the story she left behind.

This was an intriguing story. The mystery to be solved concerns Clara's mother. Clara knows she is dead but hopes that she isn't. Clara also hopes to find the language that Bronwyn created so that she can translate Bronwyn's sequel. The details are revealed slowly. The author builds up the mystery with plenty of suspense that kept me reading until I finished the book in one sitting.

The setting description of London on the 1950s was awful to imagine. The air was polluted from the use of coal that people couldn't see more than 3 feet in front of them. Londoners always had handkerchiefs to cover their mouths so that they would not choke yo death. For our characters, Wynnie almost died twice. Clara had to give her injections of medicine to keep Wynnie's asthma under control. England's bad air is a historical fact and resulted in the Parliament enacting a clean air act in the late 1950s.

The story had a feel-good ending. I am happy that it ended this way because the author could have chosen a number of different endings that would be plausible. I loved the book and am rating it 5 out of 5 stars.

The Holy Roller

I found this newly published comic while browsing at Barnes and Noble. It has an interesting premise. Pro bowler Levi Coen must quit his job and return to his hometown in order to care for his ailing father. He discovers that the town is now run by neo-nazis. Levi becomes a vigilante hero who smashes people's faces with a bowling ball. He only uses balls from his bowling ball collection to defend himself. Levi then battles to liberate the town and becomes the Holy Roller.  This edition, 978-1-5343-9732-3, collects all nine issues of The Holy Roller. It was published in March 2025.

The story begins with Levi as a child, then as a sailor. We don't see him deciding to be a superhero until a third of the way into the story. Levi's father was a pro bowler too and his father is upset that Levi didn't bowl professionally. Levi is Jewish. The nazi town leaders do not like him so they burned down his father's house, leaving them with no where to live. This is when Levi becomes a superhero. 

The artwork was fantastic! However, some of the pages showed violent scenes as well as the victims with their heads bashed in and bleeding. Young readers may not want to see these images. Also, there is alot of salty language that may be inappropriate for young readers. I love how Levi dispensed justice by slamming people with the bowling ball. It was comical. There was alot of humor written into the story too.

I thoroughly enjoyed this comic and am rating it 5 out of 5 stars.

Kill Your Darlings

I discovered Peter Swanson two years ago and love his heart-pounding thrillers. Kill Your Darlings was just recently published on June 10, 2025 and it's a different kind of mystery. It's a murder mystery in reverse, tracing a marriage back in time to uncover the dark secret the couple shares.

The publisher's summary:

Thom and Wendy Graves have been married for over twenty-five years. They live in a beautiful Victorian on the north shore of Massachusetts. Wendy is a published poet and Thom teaches English literature at a nearby university. Their son, Jason, is all grown up. All is well…except that Wendy wants to murder her husband.

What happens next has everything to do with what happened before. The story of Wendy and Thom’s marriage is told in reverse, moving backward through time to witness key moments from the couple’s lives—their fiftieth birthday party, buying their home, Jason’s birth, the mysterious death of a work colleague—all painting a portrait of a marriage defined by a single terrible act they plotted together many years ago.

Eventually we learn the details of what Thom and Wendy did in their early twenties, a secret that has kept them bound together through the length of their marriage. But its power over them is fraying, and each of them begins to wonder if they would be better off making sure their spouse carries their secrets to the grave.

I expected the book to be about a crime and cover up because of the genre the author writes. However, it's really about the end of Thom and Wendy's marriage. The story opens in the year 2023 and is told in reverse until the year 1982, when Thom and Wendy, who share a birthday, met at the age of fourteen. Toward the end we find out what their secret is. Even though the story unravels slowly, I was engaged until the 70% mark. After that I just wanted to be done with the book. As a character study of a marriage it's brilliantly written. However, this author usually writes psychological thrillers so my expectation was that Kill Your Darlings would follow that format. I am disappointed with the book but realize how well the end of the marriage was revealed. 

3 out of 5 stars.