boast forces Miryem into a position of meeting the tsar's impossible challenge, she finds that the mysterious This is magical realism, folklore, and historical fiction wrapped up in one very interesting read. 05 The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo The Night Tiger is a wonderful historical fiction mystery and love story I listed this book in the Greedy Reading List Six Historical Fiction Mysteries to Intrigue You. 06 Uprooted

I was taken with the premise of conflicts and mystery in a post-colonial West African city, but I didn't In Tochi Onyebuchi's fantasy mystery, main protagonist Boubacar is a war veteran and a private investigator But when a young woman shows up bleeding at his home, then mysteriously disappears, he is shocked into Harmattan Season  is a dark, broody, mysterious fantasy story that takes place in an unnamed city in As Bouba explores recent mysterious events, he realizes that the upcoming election is corrupt and has

The third in the Cal Hooper series is a slow-burn mystery in which Tana French serves up deep character That brings me to this third and final Cal Hooper mystery, which provides more of all of it: more details The Keeper is an almost 500-page slow burn mystery. After a time the mystery is no longer a mystery; the main unknown is which form the community's renegade But I love a mystery that leans into character development, and The Keeper delivers wonderfully on that

I looove a historical fiction mystery. If you do too, you might want to check out Six Historical Fiction Mysteries to Intrigue You.

A mystery surrounds a deadly moment, and the book ends with a hopeful, imperfect, heartbreaking way forward story of young love blossoming, then shriveling under the first pressures of the outside world; it's a mystery

Historian Beverly Gage chose thirteen pivotal places across our nation to illustrate key points in our history From museums to battlefield reenactments, historic sites to amusement parks, well-known places and under-the-radar spots, Gage inspects each of their places in our nation's complicated history. This is far from a comprehensive history, nor is it intended to be. facts, shape the narrative to be softer, and omit painful historical failures.

It's satisfying to witness the recognition and success within this fictional version of events. The cover and title gave me the initial impression that this was a light fiction book, but the topic

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading a favorite author's most recent historical fiction, The Briar Club by Kate Quinn; I'm listening to my first Zadie Smith novel, the Victorian-England-set historical fiction The Fraud ; and I'm reading Richard Osman's charming mystery The Thursday Murder Club . Quinn's historical fiction offers the stories of multiple women in a females-only Washington, D.C. boardinghouse In her first historical fiction novel, Smith offers a Victorian England tableau featuring a wonderfully

conditional loyalty, and he allows characters to craft chosen relationships into a beloved pod that functions No Man explores the incredible drive and bravery required by Rum's female characters to write a new history What were some of your favorite fiction reads this year? Heartwarming or quirky fiction are the types of books that have really been fitting the bill for me lately If you're looking for more great fiction, you might also want to check out the Greedy Reading List My

In the first book of Blake Crouch's haunting mystery trilogy, secret agent Ethan Burke tries to grasp plans for Wayward Pines--while trying to avoid being killed by murderous small-town vigilantes or by mysterious strange place, by a river, horribly bruised and in pain--with no memory of his own name, his job, or his history reeling--was to locate two missing federal agents who were dispatched a month earlier to investigate a mysterious Theresa's mysterious encounter with an odd man makes it even more clear that time is not passing in a

Solid Mystery and Suspense Reads These six four-star mysteries are all so good and so different--they I'd love to hear about your favorite mystery reads! 01 The Witch Elm by Tana French A Tana French mystery is usually a pretty good bet for me, and I plowed settings are exquisitely wrought, with stark, rugged, lush landscapes serving as the backdrop for a mystery It isn't a police procedural; this is a starkly beautiful book that happens to be a mystery.

I love a frigid setting, and Rene Denfeld's The Child Finder immerses the reader in an icy, wild forest as instinctive, savvy, and haunted private investigator Naomi Cottle seeks the truth about a young girl's disappearance. This book is dark and beautiful, with such expansive descriptions of the mountains, the closed-in forests, and the traps and dangers of the winter and the wild that I could almost feel the cold. The elements that feel potentially familiar or could have felt overused from use in other stories (a tough, closed-off investigator, broken by her past; a strong, kind man’s singular, devoted but unrequited love for her; the general outline of the disturbing situation at the heart of the book’s main case) are cushioned by Denfeld’s skillful setting of the scene and lovely shaping of the story. This was a fast and engrossing read. There's a second book in this Naomi Cottle series, The Butterfly Girl , which I haven't yet read, and Denfeld also wrote The Enchanted , which I found haunting and arresting, as well as Sleeping Giants . I mentioned The Child Finder in the Greedy Reading List Six Chilly Books to Read in the Heat of Summer . More missing-person stories If you like unlikely heroines and missing-person plots, you might also like Before She Disappeared . And check out this link for more Bossy reviews of novels with missing-persons plots.

The mystery bookends feel largely unimportant to the story, the cast of characters sometimes feels endless overlap, and their challenges intersect when a young boy is taken from the community, culminating in a mysterious The mystery that bookends the story is not essential to the novel. By the time the story ended, I had forgotten about the mystery's brief introduction at the beginning Some of the story felt tedious, as with the ongoing saga of securing a water source and the extensive history

Angie Kim's sophomore novel is a mystery, but Happiness Falls is primarily an exploration of a complicated Kim's missing-person novel is a mystery and is structured around the discovery and exploration of what I was totally hooked on the mystery aspect and the delving into Eugene's potential communication.

community and the emotionally closed-off former FBI agent and current police chief trying to solve the mystery agent, has returned to his hometown in Charon County, Virginia, to serve as the first Black sheriff in history

Harrow, with imperfect characters, a noble, messy quest, layers of history, and a captivating end. She's been cobbling together enough to get by, but when a mysterious draw to the spooky Starling House

The first installment in Faizal's Blood and Tea series offers intriguing secrets, a swirling mystery, terrible betrayal, heartwarming found family, steady action--and vampires. , hidden feelings, and wonderfully complex relationships in this mystery. The cover artwork, palette, and the book's title felt off to me; they seemed to indicate Cozy Mystery

This third book in McManus's young-adult mystery series keeps the surprises coming, ties new twists into I listened to this third installment in Karen McManus's young adult One of Us Is Lying mystery series Over the course of the past two books, the Bayview Four solved mysteries and established their own innocence Knox from book one--along with other old favorites and some fresh faces--in a new set of intertwined, mysterious someone unexpected comes to town, our sleuths realize that not everyone is who they say they are; old mysteries

Six Four-Star (and Up) Bossy Mystery Reads If you want more favorite-mystery lists, check out round 1 Reads I Loved Last Year and Six More Four-Star Mysteries I Loved Last Year. You can click here for other mysteries I've reviewed on Bossy Bookworm. And here's a link to my Greedy Reading Lists featuring mystery titles. What are some of your favorite mystery reads?

in a female-only boarding house in 1950s, McCarthy-era Washington, D.C., bookended by the story of a mysterious In The Briar Club , Kate Quinn turns her considerable talent for bringing history to life by tackling This historical fiction novel from Quinn is a departure from much of my favorite Quinn fiction--brave The Briar Club is bookended by a mysterious murder. You can find more Bossy historical fiction reviews at this link .

#youngadult, #mystery 02 The Last Confession of Autumn Casterly ​ In Meredith Tate's newest book, Ivy Is this kind of a young adult fiction version of the Serial podcast? I'm really hoping so. As Khayyam eagerly discovers more of Leila's mysterious history, she begins to grow and change in this #youngadult, #mystery, #series Any young adult mysteries you've enjoyed lately? Where was this embarrassment of young-adult-mystery riches when I was actually a young adult?

But the year-old mysterious disappearance of Kim Gillespie, a young woman from the area, hooks Falk and Exiles was the right mystery at the right time for me.

and he's got two dead crewmates, a chatty AI robot caregiver, a lot of complicated equipment, and a mysterious fiction mystery--which is based on real-life double agents in the Cambridge Spy Ring--is vividly set In Beatriz Williams's historical fiction, Our Woman in Moscow, it's 1948, and Iris Digby, her American The Rose Code is a wonderfully spun historical fiction story of three very different women who answer fiction storytelling master like Kate Quinn could craft compelling storytelling around the potential

I can't help comparing this lighthearted fiction about the formation of a group of unlikely friends to

Solid Mystery and Suspense Reads These six four-star mysteries are all so good and so different--they I'd love to hear about your favorite mystery reads! 01 The Witch Elm by Tana French A Tana French mystery is usually a pretty good bet for me, and I plowed settings are exquisitely wrought, with stark, rugged, lush landscapes serving as the backdrop for a mystery It isn't a police procedural; this is a starkly beautiful book that happens to be a mystery.

I've got these books going at the moment: recently published fantasy-historical fiction, the second in a mystery series set in Maine, a novel about an unconventional family in late 20th century Manhattan , Victorian-England-set historical fiction, and a nonfiction title about parenting teenagers.

The gothic story King Nyx offers haunting imagery, sinister mysteries, unreliable memories, resurfacing imagery of King Nyx is striking, with (oddly specific and elaborate) automatons, gas masks, looming, mysterious until she realizes that all of the events on the island seem to be the mastermind of an unhinged puppet master Meanwhile mysteries from Anna's experiences in the Fort household seem held together by crucial gaps

Janice Hallett's The Twyford Code explores a mysterious potential connection between a teacher's disappearance But he's got a hunch that the mystery of the code in deceased author Edith Twyford's largely condemned You can find reviews of mysteries I've read and enjoyed here.

fiction set in 1950s California, about female friendship, secrets, and tennis (!) reading in preparation for Harrison's author event this week; and All in Her Hands, richly detailed historical fiction about a female physician and surgeon in 1849 London as she fights for respect and to advance 01 London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family's Search for Truth by Patrick Radden In Audrey Blake's historical fiction title All in Her Hands, it's 1849 in London, and Nora Gibson is

ICYMI: Morton masterfully weaves together timelines, threads of family history, and long-held secrets Nell has left her a book of dark fairy tales by the reclusive Victorian author Eliza Makepeace, who mysteriously Morton is masterful at weaving together several timelines, rich family history, intriguing discoveries , an overarching mystery, and a female protagonist who discovers she's made of stronger stuff than she felt like a Secret Garden (a book I was obsessed with as a child) for grown-ups, with intertwined, mysterious

This is another whodunit winner from Wendy Walker: a character-driven mystery with a neurodivergent main But it becomes clear that Clay was in deep with some seedy characters, and key elements of the mystery wonderful, character-driven suspense that keeps me hooked as she guides the reader through a twisty mystery

melded into another: young friendship, serial killer, outlaw search, small-town intrigue, and longtime mysteries the disparate-seeming story that soon emerges, beginning with the premise of a serial killer whose actions There are deep betrayals, long-term mysteries, and, finally, many revealed truths (some of which you

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm listening to Stephen Graham Jones's historical fiction-horror story, The heavy emotional underpinnings, Say You'll Remember Me ; and I'm reading Olivia Waite's slim science fiction-mystery The Buffalo Hunter Hunter is a horror/historical fiction story with key supernatural elements. mystery, Dorothy wakes up...in a body that's not her own. In this outer-space-set mystery, Dorothy must figure out who's behind the destruction and how to save

In Eason's science fiction mystery, an unlikely pair who get on each other's nerves work together to Eason's science fiction mystery Nightwatch on the Hinterlands, a templar, Iari, and a spy, Gaer, have sure where the other's loyalties begin and end, nor are they intimately acquainted with the other's history Iari and Gaer band together to solve the mystery of a murder committed by a riev, a decommissioned battle-mecha And I was wholly charmed by the rievs (former battle robots) who mysteriously show sentience and surprising

David Joy's mystery, Those We Thought We Knew, set in the North Carolina mountains, explores issues of The evil at the center of the mystery was a surprise because of the varied points of view, so while I bit manipulated, I was also glad to not have been certain of the disturbing truth behind the deadly mystery But the book was driven by plot, multiple mysteries, the North Carolina mountain setting, and the story's You can click here to find fiction and nonfiction books I've read and reviewed that explore issues of

Grey Dog begins as an immersive historical fiction story of a young teacher with a shocking past in But a young, half-feral female student and a shockingly unorthodox widow both seem to hold mysterious This is a feminist historical fiction story in which women--long kept quiet and still, supervised to I loved the setting and detail of the historical fiction story, but I became fully hooked as the tale You might also like my Bossy reviews of other historical fiction books set in the 1900s .

Reva's Ukraine-set darkly comic novel of an unlikely journey; and I'm reading Jo Harkin's Tudor-era historical fiction The Pretender . The first installment in Hafsah Faizal's Blood and Tea series offered intriguing secrets, a swirling mystery Here, Harkin builds a rich historical fiction story of John Collan, a ten-year-old who transforms from For my review of Jo Harkin's speculative fiction Tell Me an Ending , please click this link .

In Taylor Brown's recently published historical fiction novel Wingwalkers, Zeno, a former World War I fiction mystery--based on real-life double agents in the Cambridge Spy Ring--is vividly set in Europe In Beatriz Williams's historical fiction, Our Woman in Moscow, it's 1948, and Iris Digby, her American and he's got two dead crewmates, a chatty AI robot caregiver, a lot of complicated equipment, and a mysterious The Rose Code is a wonderfully spun historical fiction story of three very different women who answer

For me at least, the history and present of tubercuosis reveal the folly an brilliance and cruelty and To me, it was a disease of history--something that killed depressive nineteenth-century poets, not present-tense But as a friend once told me, "Nothing is so privileged as thinking history belongs to the past."

This first book in Sherry Thomas's gender-flipped Sherlock Holmes mystery series offers not only an irresistible makeshift situation in which she is able to solve puzzles, use her quick thinking, ask questions, and solve mysteries Sherry Thomas also writes young adult fantasy books as well as historical romances.

The mystery of why June left a past timeline is intriguing and keeps the story going.

Emma Makepeace returns with new enemies in her sights--but this time she must work undercover on a Russian oligarch's yacht without MI6 contact. She faces unknown dangers and heartbreaking betrayal in this fast-paced novel. Ava Glass's Alias Emma was a fast-paced cat-and-mouse chase across London and through an underground warren of tunnels, all part of an elaborate plan to avoid Russian murderers. It was also a book that hit the spot and suited my mood perfectly when I read it. Emma Makepeace returns in the second book in the series, The Traitor, and when one thing leads to another, Emma finds herself working undercover on a ruthless Russian oligarch's yacht. But Emma is cut off from tracking, useful intel, and protection from MI6. She's got just days to figure out what the dangerous men are up to--and these are men who feel accountable to no one and well above the law. Oh, and someone who's supposed to be on her side may have revealed her true identity to those who want her dead. Glass moves the story along in entertaining fashion. The novel references elements from book one, such as Emma's familial career inspiration, but it isn't necessary to have first read Alias Emma in order to dive into this story. I love a spy book, a book about Russia, and a feisty, strong young female protagonist, and The Traitor offers all three. I wasn't shocked by the story's twist, but Glass didn't make me feel manipulated or red-herring me to death along the way. I received a prepublication edition of this book, published yesterday, courtesy of NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group--Ballantine, Bantam. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? You can check out my review of Alias Emma here. You might also like the books on my Greedy Reading Lists Six Books about Brave Female Spies and Six More Books about Brave Female Spies.

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading Paula McLain's newest historical fiction told in two timelines, 01 Skylark by Paula McLain Paula McLain's Skylark is a historical fiction story set in Paris and told In 1664, Alouette is the daughter of a master dyer at the famous Gobelin Tapestry Works. The tone and the cozy-magical-mystery focus is so far reminding me of A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping And Rocky is facing a mysterious, possibly grave, illness that doctors find difficult to diagnose.

This list is a varied collection: historical fiction, a couple of rom-coms, a nonfiction journey, contemporary fiction, and a fantasy sequel. facts, shape the narrative to be softer, and omit painful historical failures. The relationship is one to root for, and I really liked the minor mystery, supporting characters, and When the World Fell Silent is Donna Jones Alward's debut historical fiction novel.

Book two of Thomas's Lady Sherlock series offers a robust dual mystery, clever female characters, priceless A Study in Scarlet Women was the first book in Sherry Thomas's gender-flipped Sherlock Holmes mystery Lady Ingram is seeking confidential answers to the mystery of the disappearance of someone revealed as A Study in Scarlet Women is the first book in Sherry Thomas's gender-flipped Sherlock Holmes mystery The mysteries in Thomas's Lady Sherlock series seem more robust and complex than those in Raybourn's

reading George Saunders's upcoming novel Vigil , I'm listening to Madeline Martin's Victorian-London-set historical fiction novel The Secret Book Society , and I'm listening to the first in John McMahon's FBI-focused mystery series, Head Cases . I included Lincoln in the Bardo  in the Greedy Reading List Six Fascinating Historical Fiction Stories #1) by John McMahon I'm not sure where I heard about this book, but I believe it was in a roundup of mystery

Alderton's literary fiction rom-com is a funny, poignant, and sometimes frustrating deep dive into the I listened to Good Material as an audiobook. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book?

The tone of this historical fiction novel was at first too earnest for my taste, but ultimately I was More Books to Check Out When the World Fell Silent is Donna Jones Alward's debut historical fiction novel For other Bossy historical fiction favorites, please check out the reviews and Greedy Reading Lists linked

The fourth mystery in Johnson's Truly Devious series delivers more smart, creative sleuthing from Stevie The Box in the Woods is another smart, funny, intriguing young adult mystery from Maureen Johnson. Johnson's Truly Devious series offers dark scenes, wicked mysteries, blossoming attractions, loyal and Stevie is recruited by a young entrepreneur with a passion for true-crime podcasts to revisit a murder mystery

Johnson's young adult series, set in a boarding school in rural Vermont, with compelling past and present mysteries Decades later, mystery aficionado Stevie Bell arrives as a new student at Ellingham Academy, determined But a new mystery emerges--and Truly Devious, who had taken credit for the original crime, seems to be wonderfully wrought rural Vermont setting, copious teen angst, and the long-ago but persistent and compelling mystery You might also like the young adult mysteries One of Us Is Lying, One of Us Is Next, and the stellar