Wrap-Up of the 2021 New Release Reading Challenge

I signed up to read 30 books for this challenge and I more then met the challenge by reading 55 books.  23 of them were mysteries, 13 were historical fiction, 10 were graphic novels and the rest were about politics, science, and Amish fiction.  28 of the authors were new (to me.) Here is what I read:

Now and Then Stab by Anna Castle

Haunted Hibiscus by Laura Childs

Twisted Tea Christmas by Laura Childs

Deliberate Duplicity by David Rohlfing

The French Paradox by Ellen Crosby

The Wedding by Ruth Heald

The Grand Odalisque by Ruppert and Mullet

Women Discoverers by Marie Monard

One Perfect Grave by Stacy Green

Freiheit by Andrea Grosso Ciponte

The Girl in the Painting by Tea Cooper

The Code Breaker by Walter Isaacson

The Cartiers by Francesca Cartier Brickell

The Murder of Emma Brown by Rod Kackley

The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba by Chanel Cleeton

Portrait of Peril by Laura Joh Rowland

The Moonlight Child by Karen McQuestion

Play Dead by Ted Dekker

The Night Gate by Peter May

The Perfect Daughter by Daniel Palmer

China by Edward Rutherford

The Bombay Prince by Sujata Massey

The Fourth of July by Cami Checkouts

Gone by Sharon Mitchell

Return to the Big Valley by Wanda Brunstetter

The Secret Keeper of Jaipur by Alka Joshi

The Cellist by Daniel Silva

Dominus by Steven Saylor

Factory Summers by Guy DeLisle

Rebecca & Lucie by Pascal Girard

Loch Down Abbey by Beth Cowan Erskine

The Dying Day by Vaseem Khan

Hemlock by Susan Wittig Albert

The Bone Code by Kathy Reichs

An Untidy Death by Simon Brett

Peril by Bob Woodward

The Good Death by S. D. Sykes

The Tenant by Keith Ververka

Berlin and Betrayal by Susan Finley

COVID Chronicles by Ethan Sacks

Home by Julio Anta

The Beginning by Beverly Lewis

A Tapestry of Light by Kimberly Duffy

The French House by Helen Fripp

Menorca Sketchbook by Graham Byfield

The Widow Queen by Elzbieta Cherezinska

Defending Britta Stein by  Ronald Balson

The Rabbi's Wife the Bishop's Wife by David Jacobson

The Waiting by Keum Suk Gentry-Kim

The Flower Boat Girl by Larry Feign

Prayers of the Dead by Priscilla Royal

Master Wycliffe's Summons by Mel Starr

Tunnels by Rutu Modan

The All Nighter by Chip Zdarsky and Jason Loo

A Lancaster Family Christmas by Kate Lloyd

Anticipation by Melodie Winawer

Favorite Book:  China

2nd Favorite Book:  Defending Britta Stein

Least Favorite Book:  The Flower Boat Girl (a vulgar historical fiction novel. Yuck!)

Anticipation

 

I have been looking forward to reading Melodie Winawer's 2nd novel for awhile. Her 2017 The Scribe of Siena was my book of the year in 2017. However, Anticipation was a difficult read. It is not only historical fiction but also romance and supernatural. There are 3 alternating plots going back and forth from 1259 Mystras, 1259 France and July 2015. I found the 2015 plot line to be the most interesting, not a good thing for a historical novel. 

The publisher's summary:

After the death of her beloved husband and becoming a single parent to her nine year old son Alexander, overworked scientist Helen desperately needs an escape.  So when Alexander proposes a trip to Greece - somewhere he's always dreamed of visiting - Helen quickly agrees.  After spending several days exploring the tourist filled streets, they stumble upon the ancient city of Mystras and are instantly drawn to it.  Its only resident is Elias, a mysterious tour guide living on the city's edges...both physically and temporally.  

In 1237, Elias's mother promised his eternal service to the Profitis Ilias in Mystras in exchange for surviving a terrible illness.  But during his 800 years of labor, he's had one common enemy:  the noble Lusignan family.  The Lusignan line is cursed by a deadly disease that worsens with each generation, and a prophecy hints that Elias's blood is their only hope for a cure.  He has managed to survive throughout the centuries, but the line has dwindled down to the last Lusignan and he is desperate to avert his family's destiny.

When Elias runs into Helen, he meets his match for the first time - but he unwittingly puts both her and her young son in danger as a result.  With time running out and an enemy after them, Elias and Helen are forced to choose between the city they love, and each other. 

I did not enjoy this novel. I had high expectations because of Scribe but I couldn't get interested in the story. While it was impeccably researched, there were too many details to keep track of and all of those lengthy Greek names were hard to read. However, there is a ton of Greek history here for the reader who likes this. In at least one of the alternating plots the author wrote in the thoughts of a character who belonged in a secondary plot. I was seriously confused. 

Although Anticipation has received top reviews it just didn't do anything for me. 2 out of 5 stars.

The Rabbi's Wife The Bishop's Wife

The Rabbi's Wife, The Bishop's Wife is about the life of Joana HaLevi. Joana gave up what she treasured the most, her family, in order to maintain her Jewish faith. She lived in the Spanish cities of Barcelona and Burgos during the 14th and 15th centuries. As with most historical fiction novels of late, there is an alternating plot between 1391 and 2020. The publisher's summary:  

Spain, 1391.  Joana, wife of Schlomo HaLevi, the Rabbi of Burgos, mother of five, and daughter of a wealthy and respectable family, is living a comfortable, carefree life.  Until her world is shattered without warning one summer day.  While her husband Shlomo, now Pablo de Santamaria, joins the Catholic church and takes their family with him, Joana struggles with the unrelenting yearning for her children.  Will her soul find relief?  Will her children return to her side?

Jerusalem, 2020.  Ruth is struggling with personal conflicts when the COVID-19 pandemic shakes her world, adding loneliness and isolation to her struggle.  With her new online friend, she embarks on a voyage that will set Joana HaLevi's memory free from oblivion. 

I absolutely loved Joana's story. Ruth's story was rather slow. I don't think the alternating plot worked well. Why not just feature Joana who is the heroine of the novel?  Joana had to deal with the forced conversion of Jews to Christianity.  Her husband, the Chief Rabbi of Burgos, Schlomo Halevi, converted and took custody of all of her children and raised them as Christians. He studied for the priesthood in Rome and eventually became the Archbishop of Burgos. Schlomo's sister Maria also converted and she raised their kids. Joana had to arrange with Maria each week in order to see her children. 

The authors stated that they believed that Schlomo's conversion was real because he was wealthy enough not to need to convert for power and prestige. However, I disagree.  I think he would have lost his standing in the community if he did not convert. While he would have kept his money, he wanted to keep the power he had as the king's tax collector.  Schlomo changed his name to Pablo Santamaria and also changed the names of his children too.  Joana became a strong woman from her adversities. She continued to practice Judaism and also continued to act as a rabbi's wife by taking care of the poor in her community. I cannot imagine myself handling what Joana had to handle. She is certainly a great example of persevering during trials.

The 2020 alternating plot was dull, especially in the beginning of the novel. As this plot advanced the reader gets a dose of genealogy research. However, it just was not executed well. In addition, there were alot of grammatical errors. This does not usually bother me but there were sentences so poorly formed that I was not sure what their meaning was. The novel was translated into English from Hebrew so perhaps there were translation issues. 

If this book was just about Joana I would rate it 5 out of 5 stars.  With the alternating plot problems, I am downgrading the rating to 3 out of 5 stars.

Defending Britta Stein

Defending Britta Stein is a gripping legal thriller that takes place in Chicago during 2018. Britta Stein is a 92-year-old woman who has a tiff with Chicago's beloved 95-year-old tavern owner Ole Hendryks. When it was publicly announced that Ole was going to be inducted into the Hall of Fame of the Danish American Association of Chicago, Britta spray-paints insults in the middle of the night on the exterior of his tavern The Melancholy Dane. Britta exposes Ole as a Nazi collaborator during the Nazi occupation of Denmark with her insults. Attorney Catherine Lockhart is asked by a lawyer friend, Walter Jenkins,  to represent her in a $5,000,000 defamation lawsuit filed by Ole. Ole Hendryks has retained a high priced lawyer named Sterling Sparks from the prestigious Jenkins and Fairchild law firm. Sparks' nickname is Six O'Clock Sparks because he is an aggressive publicity hound. A former law clerk of Walter's, Emma Fisher, is Britta's grand-daughter and she accompanies Britta to her appointments with Catherine as well as does research for Catherine.  

Ole Hendryks has had an old photograph of him and his father posted in his restaurant for fifty years. He claims that in 1943 his family helped hundreds of Jews escape from the gas chambers during WWII. Ole and his father snuck Jewish families out of Denmark in their fishing boat in the middle of the night heading toward Sweden. He has been labeled a hero by his customers as well as the media. However, Britta Stein has alleged that Ole did not rescue any Jews but in fact helped gather Jews for deportation by the Nazis. She also said that the family's name is Hendrickson, not Hendryks. The lawsuit is being heard by a no nonsense judge, Obadiah Wilson, in the Cook County Circuit Court Law Division. With Catherine's husband Liam Taggart investigating Hendryk's background in Denmark the defense of Britta Stein begins.

This story was captivating from the beginning. I couldn't put it down even on the day I needed to shop for my Thanksgiving dinner. While I got to the store in late afternoon, the book was satisfying enough for me to keep thinking about it for the rest of the day. The plot follows the work that Catherine is doing on Britta's case. Most of that work involves interviewing Britta to get her side of the story. Britta insists on taking her time telling her story even though Catherine only has 3 weeks to get ready for trial. The interview takes 100 pages but is very entertaining. Unfortunately, what Britta reveals about life in Denmark under German occupation actually happened. The rest of the story, including the characters, is fiction.  I loved that the 1943 photo of Ole and his father in front of their boat turned out to be proof that he was a Nazi collaborator. Because Catherine cannot prove Britta's allegations, she uses an in court strategy that tricks Ole into telling the truth.  

Awesome read!  5 out of 5 stars.

The All Nighter #1 and #2

The All Nighter is a comic book series by Chip Zdarsky and Jason Loo.  It is the story of four vampires who operate an all night diner. The vampires look like humans but they never age. The third installment of this 5 ebook series will be published next week on November 30, 2021. In February 2022 a print edition of the series will be published that contains numbers 1 through 5 of the series.  It is a fabulous story and the author is talking with Amazon Studios to develop The All Nighter into a movie. Per the Head of Content for Comixology, Chip Mosher, the story is about the importance of found family and the dangers of pretending to be someone other than who you are.

Alex, Joy, Cynthia and Ian have agreed to blend into human society by operating the diner. It is only open from sunset to sunrise. The group is not allowed to go out in public because they do not want humans to know that they exist. Alex, however, is bored flipping burgers and is dying to get outside and be himself.  He dreams of being a superhero. Joy is a woman trapped in a child's body who wants to be seen for what she is. Cynthia is a former high powered business executive who wants the respect that the used to command. Ian is the leader of the group and he just wants a simpler life. Their identity remains secret within the restaurant and all of them try to not give in to their thirst for blood. 

The comic is a fun workplace comedy as well as a superhero epic. Two police officers are regular customers and they offer some smiles with their own comedy act. Alex, who loves superhero movies, decides to go outside during his shift, don a cape and start fighting bad guys. Unfortunately, his trip gets noticed by The Takers, an organization that will kill any vampire who becomes noticed by humans. Ian and Cynthia do their best to hide Alex's activities when they are visited by Frankenstein from The Takes. 

A great read!  5 out of 5 stars.

Prayers of the Dead

Prayers of the Dead is a historical mystery set in England's Tyndal Priory during the 1280s.  The story opens with a murder. Eda, Countess of Ness is found stabbed to death in the chapel by her husband's knife. Of course, he becomes the main suspect. Prioress Eleanor begins to investigate the matter as the crowner is out of town.  Soon thereafter a priest is found murdered in the same chapel. Eda had many enemies because she gossiped with another priest about sins that people in the area committed and they would be outed the next Sunday during the sermon. Eleanor interviews everyone in the priory and tries to find a connection between the two deaths. When Crowner Ralf returns, he insists that the crimes fall under the king's law and that Prioress Eleanor is biased because the Earl of Ness is her cousin.  Eleanor insists that she has jurisdiction over the crime.  She also believes that her cousin will talk more freely to her than to the crowner. After speaking with him, she realizes that he is lying to her. While she has given her word to the Crowner that she would not be blinded by family ties, she thinks that she may have to turn her cousin in.  Prayers of the Dead is the 17th novel in a series that features Prioress Eleanor and Brother Thomas of the Order of Fontevraud.

Tyndal Priory was part of the real Order of Fontevraud.  This particular Order had both men and women and both were ruled by a woman. I was not aware that there were Orders such as this one. The story started out well. The pace was fast and the introduction of the characters was fascinating. They all had interesting foibles and one of the priests was intersex. No one knew this until he ended up dead and an examination of his body showed that he had both female and male genitals. However, the middle of the book was slow.  Nothing much happened other than Eleanor interviewed the other characters. No real information about the crime was revealed here so it was a little boring.  Toward the end, the novel picked up as Eleanor discovers more and more truths about those who lived in the Priory. The ending was a surprise.  

What I found unbelievable is that two of the characters were aware that there were people who were intersex, or hermaphrodite as they were called in those days, and that it was OK for them to marry as long as the spouse knew about the condition. This doesn't sound 13th century to me. The Author's Note at the end of the book gives her views on gender and the belief that there are three genders: male, female and blended. She continues with a diatribe about how society has treated these people and developed rules governing them.  She stated that when she began writing the novel, she wanted to have an intersex character. Four out of the ten page Author's Note is devoted to gender roles. I was turned off by all of this. Reading is an escape for me and I do not like being preached to, especially with historical fiction. 

I would have rated the novel 3 out of 5 stars but the preaching requires a rating of 2 out of 5.

Tunnels

Rutu Modan is one of my favorite comic writers. Tunnels is her 4th graphic novel to be published. She also teaches at Bezalel Academy of Art & Design in Jerusalem.  In Tunnels we read about a race to find the Ark of the Covenant in underground tunnels on the Palestinian side of Israel. When a big antiquities collector is forced to donate his entire collection to the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Nili Broshi sees her last chance to finish an archeological expedition begun by her father decades earlier. She believes that the dig will locate the Jewish Ark of the Covenant, the most important artifact in the Middle East. Motivated by a desire to reinstate her father's legacy as a great archeologist after a rival accepted the tenure her father earned, Nili gathers a ragtag crew to help her: a religious nationalist, her traitor brother and her childhood Palestinian friend. As Nili's father slips further and further into dementia, warring factions close in on and fight over the Ark. The author believes that the biblical Israel lies in one of the most disputed regions in the world, occupied by Israel and contested by Palestine.  Often in direct competition, Israelis and Palestinians dig alongside one another, hoping to find the sacred artifact which is believed to be a conduit to God.  

Tunnels is a great adventure story.  It delves into the world of Israeli archeology, the rivalry in academia and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  As the author stated in her Afterword, Tunnels is the most complex story she has ever written. The story grabbed me from the beginning. I knew that it was fiction but everything seemed so real. Perhaps this is because the characters have both good and bad attributes, just like the rest of us. There are plenty of twists and turns in the story for mystery readers as well. In addition, there are a few subplots that add to the story.  For instance, Nili believes that a tablet uncovered by an antiquities dealer, who buys from ISIS, will uncover the place where the Ark is located. Someone has to be able to decipher what the tablet says, though. 

The pacing of the comic is perfect. It is a brilliant story with awesome illustrations by the author.  I am so glad that Ishai Mishory translated this book into English so that I could enjoy it.  Tunnels is a fabulous read.  5 out of 5 stars.

Berlin and Betrayal

Berlin and Betrayal is the third book in the Tangled Roots Historical Mystery Series featuring geneologist Lucas Landry. It is both a WWII and pandemic story all rolled in to one. The story has an alternating plot.  It takes place in February 2020 and in 1945 Germany. Lucas Landry's burning desire it to search for German relatives and host a family reunion.  He moves his family from California to Munich. Unfortunately, when the Landry family arrived in Germany the COVID pandemic began and a lockdown thwarted the speed of his research. Lucas has WWII surviving relatives in their 80s and 90s who are vulnerable to catching and dying of COVID. However, Lucas still hopes that being in Germany will help him with his research. He is surprised to find that many Germans want to forget the past as they live under a cloud of guilt over their ancestors' mistakes. 

When I began reading the book it was captivating. I could not put it down. At the halfway point, I just wanted to plot to move faster.  I wondered whether this novel was a cozy mystery or a cozy historical fiction book. This is not a typical historical mystery because there was no murder to be solved. The mystery is the discovery of geneological information that Lucas uncovers. That said, it was an interesting read. I couldn't wait to see how the story ended.  However, when I got to the end there was nothing resolved. Yes, Lucas uncovers his family history from the WWII era but there is not a big denouement. It seemed that there should have been more to the story. With the author having 14 published books under her belt, I expected more. I just didn't get that.

3 out of 5 stars.

Master Wycliffe's Summons

Master Wycliffe's Summons is the 14th book in Mel Starr's series The Chronicles of Hugh de Singleton, Surgeon. I have read most of them and they are fabulous. Starr writes tightly woven medieval mysteries that move fast. The death always occurs early in the story so that the rest of the novel can be about solving the crime.  In this particular installment of the series, a student at Queen's College Oxford, Richard Sabyn, has been found dead in bed. There was a lightening storm the night before and it appears that he may have been struck by the lightening.  However, Oxford Master John Wycliffe does not believe that the evidence shows a lightening strike and wants Singleton to look into the death. Singleton agrees with Wycliffe that it is possible to make it look as though Sabyn died from a lightening strike. 

I enjoyed the story but it was not as exciting as some of Starr's earlier books in the series. The pace was slow and the howdunnit didn't grab my attention. While the howdunnit was interesting I don't think the writing was well executed. Singleton spent alot of time trying to figure out how someone could collect enough urine, dove droppings and a small amount of charcoal to create the substance that killed Sabyn. I was eating dinner while I read the book and that urine section didn't set well with my tummy. I did find it interesting that the deceased was copying a gospel into English while John Wycliffe, who translated the Bible into English between 1382 and 1395, denied any knowledge of it. Our protagonist did not perform any surgeries but did gather herbs for several people to help ease the pain of the plague. 

3 out of 5 stars.

The Flower Boat Girl

The Flower Boat Girl is the story of Shek Yang who rises from being sold into the sex trade as a young girl to becoming the most powerful female pirate known to sail the South China Sea. In 1801, Yang has finally bought her freedom but is soon kidnapped by a brutal pirate gang and forced to marry their leader.  She needs to be scrappy to survive her circumstances and she carves out a role against the resistance of powerful pirate leaders, including her husband's male concubine.  Eventually, Yang has to choose between power over the pirates and love.  The novel is based on a true story.

I rarely review a book that I did not finish but this one requires comment.  The author uses crude and course descriptions of Yang's sex acts with men. You know that a man wrote a book when this type of language is used. Women just don't use certain descriptions. I am surprised that the author chose a woman as his main character because it is hard for men to accurately write about women and vice versa. I made it to page 70. There was no explanation of how Yang got into various situations, just one nasty sex act after another. How is the reader to know what the story is about when you go from one rape to another?  The reader at least needs to know something about the main character other than she is being raped by many men over 70 pages. In those 70 pages she was still a sex slave, I presume. There is no way to tell from these pages where we are in the plot.

I am surprised that the book has had many good reviews, half of them from women. At a minimum I would call this novel soft core porn.  Skip it.  0 out of 5 stars.

The Waiting

The Waiting is a fictional account of the life of the author's mother. The story is set in Korea before, during and after the Korean War in both North and South Korea. When Gwija was 17 her family rushed to marry her off because they had heard that the Japanese occupiers were seizing unmarried girls. However, Japan soon fell and Korea gained its independence. Gwija began having children and while she was on the run out of North Korea she became separated from her husband and young son. While she searched for them for days, Gwija soon realized that if she didn't leave them behind that she would be stuck in the North. Seventy years later, daughter Jina decides to help her mother locate her lost son as well as a lost sister. She is hopeful that a program that unites families from both countries for a day will select Gwija into the program. Most of the narrative of this graphic novel focuses on Gwija's march south. American jets overhead shot at the refugees, increasing the desperation of the migrants. 

The author's first graphic novel, Grass, dealt with the women who were taken by the Japanese soldiers during WWII. The history of Korea continues with The Waiting. Both stories are heartbreaking. Here we read about the pain people felt over the separation of their country and, fortunately, before this older generation passes into history. Most Koreans are much younger and do not understand what it feels like to be separated from your family. The story is quite sad but is informative for those of us lucky to not have experienced what the author calls the "wounds of war."  

5 out of 5 stars.

Menorca Sketchbook

The Menorca Sketchbook is Graham Byfield's newest watercolor travelogue by Talisman Publishing. He is an English watercolor artist who summers in Menorca where he owns his own gallery. As with all the watercolor travelogues published by Talisman, the paper that the book is printed on is actual watercolor paper. This enhances the appearance of the drawings, making them look like original drawings. The publisher also uses a font that looks like handwriting for the descriptions of the drawings, which gives their books an arty feel. In addition, the travelogue shows Menorca by neighborhood, with some written material about it. Here, we have drawings of architecture and parks in Mahon, Cindadela, various villages, the countryside and the coast.

This sketchbook is different from Byfield's earlier sketchbooks in that there are only four full page drawings. Usually these types of books predominantly contain full page or double page drawings. I was disappointed that most of them have three to four drawings per page. For me, it is harder to see the detail in a small drawing. Byfield's style is somewhat loose, compared to other watercolor travelogue artists. However, with the written material on each neighborhood it is easy to figure out where everything is located on the island.  

While Menorca has been on my bucket list for years, this travelogue is not inspiring me to push it up my list.  It does not look as inviting as other places that Byfield has drawn, such as Cambridge. The Cambridge Sketchbook is my favorite of all of them.  

3 out of 5 stars.

The Tenant

OMG!  I think The Tenant is the best book I have read this year. Advertised as a suspense novel, that is quite an understatement. Suspense exuded not only from every page but from every sentence.  The story begins with landlord Alex Mason painting one of the units in his luxury apartment complex in Philadelphia. He hopes to rent it quickly when he is approached by Stephanie Winters, a woman who works for a U. S. senator.  Alex signs a lease with her without checking her background references or employer. Big mistake. Soon another tenant's cat is found dead and dismembered on their doorstep. Then yet another tenant is murdered in his home.  Alex believes that Stephanie is the culprit in these incidences. Hindered by state laws giving tenants plenty of legal rights, Alex begins to investigate his tenant after she threatens his family. 

This book reminded me of Apartment 6 which I read last year.  It was written in Hitchcock style. The tension began with the first chapter and continued through to an unexpected ending. I loved it. Stephanie's past history explained her behavior but it was just as interesting as what she was doing in the plot. She would make an awesome character for a crime series. Alex was timid for a landlord. I have never had one myself that did not care if a tenant broke the rules. To be more believable, Alex should have been a screaming bastard. However, he needed to be unsuspecting for this spectacular plot to work.

10 out of 5 stars!

The French House

This historical fiction novel had me spellbound from the first page. The story is about Nicole Ponsardin who marries into the Clicquot family and becomes the Widow Clicquot of France's champagne fame. The champagne is actually called Veuve Clicquot. Veuve means widow. It is the best in the world and the only kind I buy. It was exciting to find out after I began the book that it was about her.  

The publisher's summary:

"Reims, France, 1805.  Looking back at the crumbling house hidden away in the vineyards, the sound of her daughter's laughter carrying on the breeze, Nicole plucks a perfect red grape and is reminded her life will never be the same. With her husband gone, her troubles are hers alone.

For grieving Nicole Clicquot, saving the vineyards her husband left behind is her one chance to keep a roof over her head and provide a future for her little girl.  She ignores the gossips who insist the fields are no place for a women: but one day, buying fresh croissants at the boulangerie, Nicole is shocked to hear a rumor about her husband.  They say he died with a terrible secret.  One that brings disgrace on Nicole and turns the whole town against her.

Heartbroken, her reputation in tatters, and full of questions no one can answer, Nicole turns to her husband's oldest friend, traveling merchant Louis.  His warm smile and kind advice seem to melt her troubles away.  And as they taste her first golden wine of the season and look out over the endless rolling hills, Nicole starts to believe that she can turn her fortunes around, and be welcomed back into the local community. 

But when Louis avoids her after a long trip abroad, Nicole sees he has secrets of his own...and just as she doubts if he's on her side, she realizes how her feelings for him had grown.  Desperately torn between her head and her heart, Nicole works day and night on a plan for her future: but to save her home and her little daughter from ruin, she must risk everything."

 

I had heard several years ago the Madame Clicquot had an incredible life story.  I did not know why but it prompted me to buy Tilar Mazzeo's The Widow Clicquot, a non-fiction account of her life.  While I haven't yet read it, I now cannot wait to start it.

If you love drinking champagne you are going to love this book. Just reading about the growing of the grapes is enticing. Nicole is an unusual heroine for her time. She pursued owning and operating her "home business" during an era when women did not work. She learned to be just as ruthless as the men in her pursuit of the perfect wine and also in sales. Nicole was a big risk taker, necessary to be successful in any business in any era. Always the subject of nasty gossip, Nicole just ignored it and never let it get her down. Her eyes were always on the prize: her vineyards. An entrepreneur needs to have these traits in order to succeed. 

I was surprised that Paris was viewed by most of the characters as a dirty city filled with nasty people while Reims was viewed as paradise on earth. The scenes that occur in Paris portray its extreme wealth but with that nasty sewer smell too. The fact that most of the characters were farmers explains their preferred city. They could smell the dirt in which their grapes were growing. I guess after a few years harvesting grapes you get accustomed to the "fragrance de terroir." 

While the setting was prominent, this is really a book about growing a business. All of the hurdles that Nicole found herself dealing with had to do with the ups and downs of entrepreneurship. It is much more than a historical biography. 5 out of 5 stars.

Twisted Tea Christmas

The Twisted Tea Christmas is the 23rd installment of the Indigo Teashop Mystery series by Laura Childs.  While I have heavily criticized her writing in the past 5 years, this novel puts her back on track. It is fantastic. I always love it when the murder occurs quickly so that the rest of the book can be about the solving of the murder.  Here, we have a murder on the 5th page and is is not resolved until the second to last page.  The publisher's summary is below:

Tea maven Theodosia Browning and her tea sommelier, Drayton Connelley, are catering a Victorian Christmas party at a swanky mansion in downtown Charleston for Drucilla Hayward, one of the wealthiest women in town. As the champagne flows and the tea steeps, Drucilla is so pleased with the success of her soiree that she reveals her secret plan to Theodosia.  The grande dame has brought the cream of Charleston society together to reveal that she is planning to give her wealth away to various charitable organizations. However, before she can make the announcement, Theodosia finds her crumpled unconscious in the hallway. It looks like the excitement has gotten to the elderly women, but it may have been helped along by the syringe in her neck.  

I am happy that there were no cheesy statements like "the phone rang ding-a-ling-ring" and that secondary character Delaine Dish's emotions were under control.  The main change that I liked is that the murder did not occur in the same place as it did in the prior 22 books.  It was time for a change and we now have a perfectly plotted and written cozy mystery to enjoy.  There was something else new that tickled my fancy. One evening when Theodosia went to bed with a book, it was a  book written by Susan Wittig Albert!  Albert writes the China Bayles cozy mystery series. I have to wonder if Childs and Albert are friends.

The Charleston setting was a good choice to place the series in.  It has marvelous architecture, fairly nice weather and history galore.  It gives the writer alot to work with when creating atmosphere. The main characters are Theodosia, Drayton and police investigator Burt Tidwell.  These characters have grown over the years but in Twisted Tea Christmas they do not have growth, they just work together to solve the murder. I loved this as I am mainly a whodunnit fan. Author Childs gives us plenty of red herrings, more than we usually have in her books. It made the novel suspenseful.  In fact, I had a hard time figuring out who committed the murder and was surprised at the ending.  

I am proud to give this book a rating of 5 out of 5 stars. Ya'll need to read this one.

The Good Death

The Good Death is the 5th book in S. D. Sykes' Somerhill Manor Mystery series. It began with Plague Land and is set in 14th Century England. The sleuth is Oswald de Lacy, a third son who was originally sent to a monastery as a child. However, he was called home to become lord of the family manor following the death of his father and two older brothers during a plague epidemic. 

In the opening of this installment of the series Lord Oswald de Lacy makes a devastating confession to his dying mother.  He is an eighteen-year-old novice monk at Kintham Abbey and had been sent to collect herbs from the forest. While there, Oswald came across a terrified village girl named Agnes Wheeler. She was terrified of him even though she knew him well and ran headlong into a river saying "stay away from me priest." She drowned. Oswald pulled her broken and bruised body from the water and returned her to the local village. Here he discovers that several other women have disappeared within the past month. A killer is on the loose but because all of the missing women came from impoverished families nobody seemed to care. 

Oswald vows to find this killer himself but as the plague approaches, his tutor, Brother Peter, insists they stay inside the monastery.  Oswald instead seeks out the women of the village for help, particularly the beautiful Maud Woodstock, a woman who provokes strong emotions in him. As he closes in on the killer, Oswald makes a discovery that is so utterly shocking that it threatens to destroy him and his family.

If you haven't read any of the earlier books in the series you may not want to begin with this novel. It has an alternating plot that spans 20 years between 1347 and 1370. New readers may not be able to pick up the action from 1347 without knowing the characters well. It makes sense that with the 5th book in the series this would happen. The reason for the alternating plot concerns Oswald's dying mother in 1370. She is in possession of a letter from him written in 1349 when they were dealing with the Black Death. She needs an explanation from her son about those events so that she can forgive him of any sins he may have committed against her and obtain a good death.

That said, The Good Death is another perfectly plotted and written medieval mystery from Ms. Sykes. While we get a nice resolution of the murder itself, the ending also provides a shocking accusation from Oswald's mother over all the actions he has taken throughout his life. It was unexpected as it didn't relate to the murder mystery. I expect that the next novel in the series will expand upon this. I can't wait!

5 our of 5 stars.

A Tapestry of Light

I have always loved India fiction. A Tapestry of Light is another great addition to this genre.  Most of the books in this genre that I have seen concern the historical periods of the British Raj and Partition.  Some of them are stories about modern women.  It would be nice to read a novel about the mughal period and I wonder whether any writer has written about this time period.

Back to the book. A Tapestry of Light begins in Calcutta in 1866. Ottilie Russell has a British father and an Indian mother and does not belong to either society. She, and others like her, were referred to as Eurasian. After Ottilie's mother Maji dies, she begins to take work embroidering gowns for the elite with beetle wing embroidery in order to support her younger brother Thaddeus and her grandmother Nani. This type of embroidery was passed down to her from generations of Indian women before her.  She was an expert at it and was able to make a living from it. A few months later a stranger named Everett Scott walked into her home to advise the family that Thaddeus had inherited the Baroncy of Sunderland in England.  Scott traveled to India in order to take Thaddeus to England. Ottilie refuses to allow Thaddeus to leave and is aghast that she is learning for the first time about her father's family. Eventually Ottilie agrees to let Thaddeus travel to England but only if she is allowed to go with him. However, life is not easy for any of them in England because Thaddeus appears to be white, Ottilie looks like an Indian.

I LOVED this novel! I particularly liked the India setting. It has warm weather, great food and   colorful clothing. I could picture in my mind the saris that Ottilie wore. I am a fan of them. England, however, is cold and grey just like the city I live in so it is not appealing to me. The characters were interesting, even the secondary characters. Ottilie is a great protagonist.  As a half-breed, she has conflicted views about her ancestry but feels more Indian than English.  Her mother taught her to be proud of her Indian ancestry and encouraged the Christian faith to which both of her parents subscribed. Ottilie's mother Maji was a main character early in the novel but after she died, Maji's mother Nani became more prominent. Ottilie remembers the advice she received from both of them as she went through life dealing with her loves, neighbors and business associates.  Everett Scott was an interesting character too. He does not have a pristine ancestry either but he is willing to talk about it honestly. I have never read about a character in his position who didn't try to hide the unsavory bits of their family history. Usually, at least in India fiction, they try to be just like the elites of society, hoping to fit in.

This was the first book written by Kimberly Duffy that I have read.  I am impressed and look forward to reading her earlier novels.  5 out of 5 stars.

The Beginning

It has always amazed me how Beverly Lewis can continue to come up with great stories to tell.  41 adult fiction novels has not slowed down her imagination. The Beginning is another one that is especially poignant. While her readers will expect a romance story that always ends well, the reason for the title has nothing to do with courting and marriage. I won't be a spoiler. You will want to read the book to find out.

The story begins with Susie Mast wondering if she will ever have any boy interested enough in her to want to marry her. She hopes that Obie Yoder has romantic feelings for her but she never expresses her feelings to him.  Suffering from the death of her brother several years earlier, Susie has found that the best way to cope is to keep busy. She is always cleaning, working in her mother's store or selling her family tree embroideries. She rarely relaxes or socializes. Susie's mother, Aquilla, has been in declining health since the death of her husband and son in an auto accident. Her adopted sister, Britta, is a big help to her with chores but has begun to ask alot of questions about her birth parents. Susie knows a little about Britta's past but is afraid to tell her anything about her adoption.  She fears more loss will occur if Britta gets the answers she is seeking.  

The Beginning is one of my favorite books that Lewis has written. The ending gathers and clarifies all the loose ends written in to the story.  While I haven't read all of her books, this type of ending seemed more complex than the ones that I have previously read.  It made the book much more satisfying than the usual girl finally gets the boy.  The wisdom issued from the lips of the elderly women in this Amish district was amazing and the foods the ladies prepared made me hungry.  I ended up ordering in on the day that I read the book.  If there is anything unusual about the story  it was how often they made tea. Someone was making tea on almost every page. The characters must have spent alot of time in the outhouse.

Beverly Lewis is the reason that I read Amish fiction.  She is the gold standard for these types of stories and I highly recommend this novel.  5 out of 5 stars.

Home

I have just read Home #1 through #5 and it is fantastic. It is the story of a mother and son who leave Guatemala on foot and enter the U. S. illegally. Mercedes Gomez and eight year old Juan do not speak English and are surprised to find out the there is a new American president who has closed the border. When they left Guatemala two weeks prior, Obama was still the president. President Trump immediately changed the rules concerning immigration when he took office but Mercedes did not know about the rule changes. Throughout their first 2 weeks in America they were held in "the cage" as it was called. Later Juan was taken away and held with other kids. Shortly thereafter he was bussed to another location. Mercedes did not know where her son was taken and offered to return to Guatemala if she could get Juan back. However, she was told that it was too late. 

While this story was sad, it has its positive moments. Soon after arriving in the US, Juan discovers that he has supernatural powers. While living with an aunt he begins to learn how to control his power. When Juan finds out that his mother will be deported, his powers get out of control again and bring devastation to . . . I'm not going to tell you. If you haven't read this comic series yet, you need to get it ASAP. It is a great story.

Covid Chronicles

Covid Chronicles is an anthology of short comic strips by 65 cartoonists about the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is serious material and sometimes seemed to be too dark for my taste. However, it is important to have this snapshot of life in this pandemic for future generations. We read about working from home frivolity, teaching kids at home, relatives dying, empty grocery shelves and lots of drawings of people dead in their beds. The only other comic anthology that I can remember being similar to Covid Chronicles is A Fire Story edited by Brian Fies. It was also hard to read. A Fire Story was an anthology of comic strips about the Northern California wildfires in 2017. Both books are filled with overwhelming negative emotions that the reader needs to take a breather while reading them.