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My book club read this refreshing twist on one of my favorite historical fiction book topics, World War

The woman's graceful ability to cope with her past trauma and dark history inspires Greta, who struggles

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading Anatomy: A Love Story, a gothic young adult historical fiction

(which I really enjoyed; the sequel is Steelstriker, which I haven't yet read) and her stand-alone historical

books for my current reading life with a fantasy title, a lighter fiction story, and a young adult historical I feel like mysteries, light fiction, memoirs, and fantasy are working well for me--plus historical fiction

and a web of lies that may get them both killed; and Jennifer McMahon's dive into a family's haunting history But disaster strikes, and Jax finds herself trying to unravel the twisted, complicated history of her family and its land--a history Lexie was researching and had become haunted by.

owner becomes obsessed with the mid-nineteenth-century painting; and 2019 Washington, DC, when two historians But issues of race and their inextricable involvement in our nation's history are really the bedrock

The interconnectedness of the characters and the details of household life and power structures of the time period were wonderful and the standout elements of the book to me. O'Farrell, who has written many books I've loved, here tackles a novel of the plague and a story loosely based on Shakespeare's marriage, family, and work. This was a relatively slow climb toward a societal calamity (in the form of the plague) and personal tragedy (in the form of the family's loss of a child to the plague). I wondered if the timing of this reading experience was going to be enjoyable--reading a book about the plague during a global pandemic might not be ideal. But O'Farrell has crafted a story that is primarily about a family--their hopes, dreams, and the sometimes heartbreaking limitations and sobering realities of each person within it. The interconnectedness between strangers and family members and the world was one of the most interesting aspects for me. The book started off at a measured pace. The details of the time, household life, and gender, vocation, and familial power structures were wonderful and the standout elements of the book to me. O'Farrell imagined Agnes, wife to John (the fictionalized William Shakespeare character) as an independent, witchy, strong, and appealing female character. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? What O'Farrell writes, I generally adore--and her range is incredible. I loved I Am, I Am, I Am, and I really liked The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox, Instructions for a Heatwave, and This Must Be the Place. (The Hand that First Held Mine and After You'd Gone are both on my to-read list.)

recently published mystery set in the forest, One Step Too Far; and I'm reading Donna Everhart's recent historical

matter-of-fact approach to life and her graceful ability to cope with her significant past trauma and dark history

“We are, on this earth, so incredibly small, in the history of time, in the crowd of the world, we are

Young Vivian's carousing in 1940s New York City is entertaining, sexy, and an interesting burst of feminism and freedom in the era. In City of Girls, Gilbert writes about a young woman's coming of age in 1940s New York City and traces the later years of her life as well. Vivian, now an older woman, is writing letters to a younger woman about her own youthful indiscretions and adventures in her aunt Peg's rowdy theatre with its many colorful characters, creative opportunities, and unending potential for mischief. It's not entirely clear why the recipient of the letter would want to hear the full details of Vivian's life, because the majority of the goings-on feel largely beyond the scope of Vivian's reason for writing, but I didn't much care about this potential issue because I loved every bit of Vivian's story. At the very end of the book Vivian writes something wonderfully matter-of-fact to Angela regarding this; words to the effect of, "well, this is more info than what you asked for, but I just wanted to let you know all about me." Hers was a fascinating life, and I adored reading about it. (Actually, I listened to this as an audiobook, and the narrator Blair Brown was fantastic.) Gilbert's old New York detail is wonderful, as is the dressmaking detail--I was captivated by it. (Is this influenced by my teenage love for Pretty In Pink or my youthful Little House on the Prairie adoration? Both?) Young Vivian's carousing is entertaining, sexy, and an interesting burst of feminism and freedom in an era when many believed that a woman's reputation and purity were of utmost importance. Any Bossy thoughts about this book? Gilbert is a lovely writer who authored the very interesting nonfiction book Last American Man and the peaceful, botanical-focused novel The Signature of All Things. She also wrote the somewhat polarizing bestseller Eat, Pray, Love, which I had mixed feelings about, like many other readers. I mentioned this book in the Greedy Reading List Three Books I'm Reading Now, 1/6/21 Edition.

01 Out Front the Following Sea by Leah Angstman In Out Front the Following Sea, upcoming historical fiction

In the story of tragic Carlota, each turn of events was more ill-fated and darker than the next, all barreling toward ruin and destruction. It's 1863, and Princess Charlotte, called Empress Carlota by the people, is behind the scenes in Mexico running things for Napoleon III alongside her philandering, frivolous husband Maximilian von Habsburg of Austria. Carlota and Maximilian are meant to squash Juarez's Mexican regime on Napoleon's behalf and establish a stronghold of European rule. Carlota is smart, savvy, hardworking, and she loves her adopted country of Mexico--the landscape, the language, the foods, the people, and the rhythm of life there. But men are maddeningly following their own whims and wielding the power here as they are everywhere in the world at this time, and Carlota keeps getting her legs swept out from beneath her by the foolish, proud, greedy males in charge. The rulers and their doomed colonialism aren't welcome, and Carlota trusts those she shouldn't. Her brother in Belgium, her husband, her trusted ladies of the court--all are betraying her in one way or another, and one unmitigated disaster after another is beginning to snowball toward a horrific end to the Europeans' Mexican experiment. Carlota and Maximilian each begin ill-advised, passionate affairs outside of their loveless marriage--thereby opening themselves up to enormous vulnerabilities, intertwining their own tenuous fates with the shaky future of the kingdom, and potentially laying the groundwork for the destruction of their many ambitious plans. I think the shifting back and forth in time could have felt jumpy, but it worked well for the story's pacing. I didn't feel emotionally tied to the players, and each turn of events was more ill-fated and darker than the next, all barreling toward ruin and destruction. The story of tragic Carlota was interesting but tough to read because of the increasingly cataclysmal goings-on. Any Bossy thoughts on this book? Martinez-Belli is a bestselling author in Mexico; this is her English-language debut. I received a prepublication copy of this book through Amazon Crossing and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I mentioned this book (along with The Fighting Bunch and The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue) in the Greedy Reading List Three Books I'm Reading Now, 12/2/20 Edition.

supporting characters--as well as a romantic story that tackled weighty issues (my favorite kind), and a historical

Kalb shares rip-roaring tales of family history; Bobby's distinct pride in generations of the family

#historicalfiction, #politicssocialjustice, #fourstarbookreview

country--and her journalistic discoveries threaten to unearth the painful secrets of Smita's own family history

complicate Jill and Kit's finances, but threaten Kit's identity and shake the family's sense of personal history

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading A Rip Through Time, the first in Kelley Armstrong's time-travel historical

But disaster strikes, and Jax finds herself trying to unravel the twisted, complicated history of her family and its land--a history Lexie had been researching and had become obsessed by.

Rees does an excellent job of taking us through Edith's amateur spy struggle and provides fascinating details of life in Germany at the end of World War II. It's 1945, and Edith Graham is a small-town British schoolteacher who is thrilled to sign on with the British Control Commission to help get schools back up and running for the children in war-torn Germany. Edith has a degree in German (and, more importantly and unbeknownst to her, an old connection to a hunted war criminal), and she's recruited by the Office of Strategic Services. She'll keep her cover by assisting with schools while actually trying to help locate Nazis. Smart but inexperienced Edith quickly finds that she must negotiate the various British intelligence groups purportedly working together--some of whom are unofficial--who have vastly different goals. One faction wants to use the horrifying knowledge of Nazi doctors who enacted abuse and torture upon Jews during the war; others want due process for these criminals; still others want to assassinate the monsters without delay. Edith must constantly determine who to trust as she seeks the truth and tries to ensure that justice is served. Miss Graham's Cold War Cookbook alludes to the way Edith includes coded intelligence within her letters' recipes and chatty notes. Although I wasn't completely clear on how the clever messaging worked at a level of detail that would have been useful, it was easy to suspend my disbelief because I loved it so much. But even more interesting to me were the detailed snapshots Rees offers into the foods of the place and time--for struggling regular Germans as compared to the privileged, occupying British and Americans. The scarcity of supplies and necessary improvisations, as well as black-market riches, together served as a vivid backdrop for the story. The details Rees provides of this confused time in the world are wonderful: the complicated workings of different groups' postwar efforts; the bombed--or jarringly lush and untouched--settings; the creative, sometimes alarming dietary options; and the clothes and fashion. It's clear that she thoroughly researched all of these aspects. There are some implausibly long, expository soliloquys that explain the machinations of the Nazis or offer background on the politics of the American and British postwar factions. Toward the end of the book, I stumbled at some awkward scene transitions, and there is a late, abrupt point of view shift. I sometimes confused the various British men attempting to serve as puppet masters, but I raced to the conclusion of the increasingly interconnected, complex story lines because I couldn't wait to find out what happened to the key players. Rees does an excellent job of taking us through Edith's amateur spy struggle to determine what information to entrust to whom, how to extract the details she needs from unsuspecting sources, and how to stay alive once she's embroiled in a situation that turns out to be far more dangerous than she could have imagined. What did you think? I found the author's note about her inspiration for the book's hook and story line really interesting. Rees has written other books that look fantastic: Pirates! (obviously yes to this one), Witch Child (again, yes), and its sequel, Sorceress (yes). I first mentioned this book in the Greedy Reading List Three Books I'm Reading Now, 9/22/20 Edition.

This is a spooky, atmospheric, gothic Victorian ghost story perfect for the season. Elsie thought she had married out of her hardworking life and into a life of wealth and leisure. But when her kind husband passes away suddenly just after the wedding, pregnant Elsie and her tedious cousin-in-law Sarah must head from London to the family's neglected country estate, The Bridge, to bury him and set the house to rights. Behind a door without a key--a door that is sometimes locked and other times mysteriously not--a "silent companion" (a realistic, freestanding painted wooden figure) sits eerily, as though waiting. Impossibly, the centuries-old figure bears a shocking resemblance to Elsie. Mysterious noises, inexplicable goings-on, the appearance of additional silent companions, haunting stories of the past, and the superstitious hatred of the village folk for the family make Elsie begin to believe something is not right at The Bridge--and that maybe her husband's death wasn't natural at all. In the mid-1600s, the family living in The Bridge is readying for a royal visit, but there seems to be something dark at work--and immense power that's spiraling out of the control of those who first wielded it. In the book's 1865 timeline, our main protagonist has recently been placed in a mental institution, trying to piece together what is real and what is imagined--with the help of a modern-thinking young doctor who's determined to help her. Horrors from her childhood are alluded to and contribute to her fear, her reluctance to trust, and her doubts about what is fact and what is fiction. Then everything in this good old Victorian ghost story kicks up ten notches to become even more spooky. Purcell takes us through the disturbing events surrounding one family living two hundred years apart in the same house, making you wonder how reliable any of our main protagonists are. (And there's a twist and a double twist I loved.) What did you think? Purcell has also written other gothic novels I'd like to read: The Poison Thread, Bone China, and her newest, The Shape of Darkness. I first mentioned this book in the Greedy Reading List Three Books I'm Reading Now, 9/22/20 Edition.

I'm doing a lot of things for the first time in human history out here and there's a lot of stuff that

McLain's When the Stars Go Dark, about a missing persons detective coping with her own tragedy; the historical

Through mining past research and history for wisdom as well as interviewing highly successful individuals

Donoghue immersed me so fully in this world that everything else fell away for me. Set in Ireland in 1918, The Pull of the Stars follows a nurse, Julia; a doctor, Kathleen; and a young volunteer, Bridie, over the course of three tumultuous days as the fiery, complex, capable women work desperately to help the patients at their understaffed hospital who are about to give birth while suffering from the devastating new influenza. The country is reeling at the end of World War I. Permanent holes have been created in families, and the loss of men has left medical and other support systems overloaded. Our heroines are sometimes trapped by the chauvinistic framework they're working within, and we see them try to create their own solutions to crises, follow tradition or improve upon it, and fly under the radar to instinctively and knowledgeably help their patients rather than rely on, for example, young, untested, book-smart male doctors. And then there's the no-nonsense, scandalous Sinn Fein activist and doctor Kathleen Lynn, who bursts onto the scene to Handle It left and right. She is unusual in that she trusts and delegates power to her nurses, who have long been hamstrung by rules and limitations (so that in many cases all they may offer a birthing or dying woman is diluted whiskey as they wait for the few doctors to come by the ward). Donoghue weaves a good amount of fact into this story. She offers sometimes horrifying particulars of early twentieth century medical care and exquisitely detailed glimpses into daily life and the workings of society at the time. And Doctor Kathleen Lynn was a real, formidable figure. I wasn't sure how wise it was to read about a pandemic during a pandemic. Donoghue doesn't pull any punches with the sometimes horrific details of the flu's devastation (or the varied life-threatening dangers of childbirth). There's a constant push and pull of life and death--a microcosm of what is occurring on the battlefields and in the world. Yet for the book's characters, the life-and-death wartime and influenza crises bring laser focus to the most essential everyday matters: living life as truthfully and joyfully as possible, fighting against unjust systems, and offering grace to others. The author allows her practical characters to imagine glorious possibilities beyond the scope of what is known to them, and this added immense heart to the story. Donoghue immersed me so fully in the moment-by-moment health and emotional crises; the women's determined, sometimes desperately creative attempts to preserve lives; and the occasional triumphs that the rest of the world fell away for me as I was reading. I couldn't wait to get back to this book when I was away from it. What did you think? I was engrossed. The author of the disturbing, fascinating book Room knows how to craft a story of survival and of finding hope in the most dire situations. I recently mentioned this book in the Greedy Reading List Three Books I'm Reading Now, 9/16/20 Edition.

The characters frequently intersperse political, historical, feminist, cultural, and other context throughout

In Rachel Hawkins's new mystery The Wife Upstairs, each of the main players and their histories aren't But each of these characters turned out to be hiding elements of their histories that put into context

McDaniel's Appalachian-set novel Betty with my book club, Xiran Jay Zhao's young adult blend of Chinese history

essential to the productive understanding of the past and current racial situation, including a basic history reading this or other books on race and anti-racism that you recommend for a better understanding of history

This book traces the history of the Tearling as a kingdom crushed by famine, feudalism, corruption, greed Elyssa recalls that the history shared by her tutor Lady Glynn was made up of: "...tales of good, but

this book (along with the epic science fiction/fantasy To Sleep in a Sea of Stars and a young adult historical

author of The Dry (Aaron Falk #1) and The Lost Man, which I mentioned in my Greedy Reading List The Six

nine TV seasons aired in the United States--including the story of how it was almost canceled after six

villages of her home country--and threatens to unearth the secrets of Smita's own family and their history

also wrote the fantastic Spinning Silver and Uprooted, both of which appear on the Greedy Reading List Six

the cons aims to right some wrongs in two of the characters' shared (but mysterious and complicated) history

Female characters--as well as their female friends and relatives who appear in retold stories and histories and bravery required by Rum's female characters--but also many other real-life women--to write a new history

Schwab's stories take place within her detailed fantasy world (with some historical fiction elements

That was suuuuch a different book (dark historical fiction set in 1933 New Guinea), but as in Writers

last week) courtesy of NetGalley and Random House. 03 Legend (Legend #1) by Marie Lu In an alternate history

They return to Beirut, each broken in a way, each searching for home, fulfillment, history, peace, or

I mentioned Boy Swallows Universe (along with A Burning and The Office of Historical Corrections) in

I was hoping for answers, but Vance focuses on pointing out the layered, complicated cultural and historical

the stories across time, he also set up rich glimpses into characters' lives at different points in history

Grande digs into her family's complicated history of trauma, disappointment, struggle, and, for some

held secrets of the Crossing that prevented younger generations from learning helpful lessons from history

the desire to remove the pressure on people of color to be walking Google sources for experience and history

Towles crafts a solid historical fiction adventure for his young-men protagonists, balancing weighty