Format: Hardcover

#BookReview Peach Blossom Spring by Melissa Fu @MelissaLFu @littlebrown @HBGCanada #PeachBlossomSpring #MelissaFu #HBGCanada

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#BookReview Peach Blossom Spring by Melissa Fu @MelissaLFu @littlebrown @HBGCanada #PeachBlossomSpring #MelissaFu #HBGCanada Title: Peach Blossom Spring

Author: Melissa Fu

Published by: Little Brown and Company on Mar. 15, 2022

Genres: Historical Fiction

Pages: 400

Format: Hardcover

Source: HBG Canada

Book Rating: 9/10

“Within every misfortune there is a blessing and within every blessing, the seeds of misfortune, and so it goes, until the end of time.”

It is 1938 in China and, as a young wife, Meilin’s future is bright. But with the Japanese army approaching, Meilin and her four year old son, Renshu, are forced to flee their home. Relying on little but their wits and a beautifully illustrated hand scroll, filled with ancient fables that offer solace and wisdom, they must travel through a ravaged country, seeking refuge.

Years later, Renshu has settled in America as Henry Dao. Though his daughter is desperate to understand her heritage, he refuses to talk about his childhood. How can he keep his family safe in this new land when the weight of his history threatens to drag them down? Yet how can Lily learn who she is if she can never know her family’s story?

Spanning continents and generations, Peach Blossom Spring is a bold and moving look at the history of modern China, told through the story of one family. It’s about the power of our past, the hope for a better future, and the haunting question: What would it mean to finally be home?

Review:

Rich, poignant, and affecting!

Peach Blossom Spring is an intimate, absorbing, multi-generational story, spanning eight decades, that takes you into the life of Meilin, a young widow who, after fleeing war and communistic oppression in the Hunan Province of China in 1938, escapes to Taiwan with her four-year-old son where she toils and struggles to make a good life until 1960, when Renshu, now grown, heads to graduate school at Northwestern University in America where he stays, marries, and raises a family as an immigrant who never quite feels at home due to ongoing encounters of political unease, awkwardness, racism, and the enduring effects of his childhood trauma.

The prose is expressive and fluid. The characters are layered, vulnerable, and resourceful. And the plot is a moving tale about life, love, familial relationships, heartbreak, loss, desperation, estrangement, courage, hope, regret, and culture.

Overall, Peach Blossom Spring is a compelling, evocative, immersive tale by Fu that I thoroughly enjoyed and which has just the right amount of intrigue, colourful history, and palpable emotion to be more than pleasing to lovers of the historical fiction genre.

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

           

 

 

Thank you to HBG Canada for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Melissa Fu

Melissa Fu grew up in Northern New Mexico and has lived in Texas, Colorado, New York, Ohio and Washington. She now lives near Cambridge, UK, with her husband and children. With academic backgrounds in physics and English, she has worked in education as a teacher, curriculum developer, and consultant. She was the 2018/19 David TK Wong Fellow at the University of East Anglia. Peach Blossom Spring is her first novel.

Photo courtesy of grandcentralpublishing.com.

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#PromoPost Fencing with the King by Diana Abu-Jaber @dabujaber @angelamelamud @wwnorton #FencingwiththeKing #DianaAbuJaber

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#PromoPost Fencing with the King by Diana Abu-Jaber @dabujaber @angelamelamud @wwnorton #FencingwiththeKing #DianaAbuJaber Title: Fencing with the King

Author: Diana Abu-Jaber

Published by: W. W. Norton & Company on Mar. 15, 2022

Genres: Historical Fiction

Pages: 320

Format: Hardcover

Source: Angela Melamud

A mesmerizing breakthrough novel of family myths and inheritances by the award-winning author of Crescent.

Amani is hooked on a mystery―a poem on airmail paper that slips out of one of her father’s books. It seems to have been written by her grandmother, a refugee who arrived in Jordan during the First World War. Soon the perfect occasion to investigate arises: her Uncle Hafez, an advisor to the King of Jordan, invites her father to celebrate the king’s sixtieth birthday―and to fence with the king, as in their youth. Her father has avoided returning to his homeland for decades, but Amani persuades him to come with her. Uncle Hafez will make their time in Jordan complicated―and dangerous―after Amani discovers a missing relative and is launched into a journey of loss, history, and, eventually, a fight for her own life.

Fencing with the King masterfully draws on King Lear and Arthurian fable to explore the power of inheritance, the trauma of displacement, and whether we can release the past to build a future.

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

            

 

 

Thank you to W. W. Norton & Company & Angela Melamud for providing me with a copy.

 

About Diana Abu-Jaber

Diana Abu-Jaber is the award-winning author of Life Without A Recipe, Origin, Crescent, Arabian Jazz, and The Language of Baklava. Her writing has appeared in Good Housekeeping, Ms., Salon, Vogue, Gourmet, the New York Times, The Nation, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times. She divides her time between Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Portland, Oregon.

Photo by Scott Eason.

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#BookReview On a Night of a Thousand Stars @HBGCanada @GrandCentralPub #OnaNightofaThousandStars #AndreaYaryuraClark #GrandCentralPub #HBGCanada

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#BookReview On a Night of a Thousand Stars @HBGCanada @GrandCentralPub #OnaNightofaThousandStars #AndreaYaryuraClark #GrandCentralPub #HBGCanada Title: On a Night of a Thousand Stars

Author: Andrea Yaryura Clark

Published by: Grand Central Publishing on Mar. 1, 2022

Genres: Historical Fiction

Pages: 352

Format: Hardcover

Source: Grand Central Publishing, HBG Canada

Book Rating: 8/10

In this moving, emotional narrative of love and resilience, a young couple confronts the start of Argentina’s Dirty War in the 1970s, and a daughter searches for truth twenty years later.

New York, 1998. Santiago Larrea, a wealthy Argentine diplomat, is holding court alongside his wife, Lila, and their daughter, Paloma, a college student and budding jewelry designer, at their annual summer polo match and soiree. All seems perfect in the Larreas’ world—until an unexpected party guest from Santiago’s university days shakes his usually unflappable demeanor. The woman’s cryptic comments spark Paloma’s curiosity about her father’s past, of which she knows little.
 
When the family travels to Buenos Aires for Santiago’s UN ambassadorial appointment, Paloma is determined to learn more about his life in the years leading up to the military dictatorship of 1976. With the help of a local university student, Franco Bonetti, an activist member of H.I.J.O.S.—a group whose members are the children of the desaparecidos, or the “disappeared,” men and women who were forcibly disappeared by the state during Argentina’s “Dirty War”—Paloma unleashes a chain of events that not only leads her to question her family and her identity, but also puts her life in danger.

In compelling fashion, On a Night of a Thousand Stars speaks to relationships, morality, and identity during a brutal period in Argentinian history, and the understanding—and redemption—people crave in the face of tragedy.

Review:

Rich, informative, and fascinating!

On a Night of a Thousand Stars is a vivid, moving tale set in Buenos Aires during the mid-1970s, as well as 1998, that takes you into the lives of the Larrea family whose individual actions, decisions, choices, secrets, and sacrifices made in order to survive and keep their loved ones safe from the random disappearances, kidnappings, torture, and murder experienced during Argentina’s political nightmare led by General Jorge Rafael Videla, known as the Dirty War will have lasting effects and irrevocably change their lives forever.

The prose is perceptive and descriptive. The characters are anguished, steadfast, and multilayered. And the plot using a past-present style unfolds effortlessly into a harrowing tale of life, loss, love, family, friendship, injustice, guilt, grief, secrets, self-identity, ancestry, kindness, war, bravery, and survival.

On a Night of a Thousand Stars is a hauntingly tragic, insightful, heart-wrenching debut by Clark that highlights the inconceivable horrors, suffering, and events endured during a heinous time in Argentina’s history and reminds us of humanities incredible ability to still be resilient and compassionate to others even when surrounded by barbaric cruelty.

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

           

 

 

Thank you to HBG Canada & Grand Central Publishing for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Andrea Yaryura Clark

Andrea Yaryura Clark grew up in Argentina amid the political turmoil of the 1970s until her family relocated to North America. After completing her university studies, she returned to Buenos Aires to reconnect with her roots. By the mid-1990s, many sons and daughters of the “Disappeared”—the youngest victims of Argentina’s military dictatorship in the 1970s—were coming of age and grappling with the fates of their families. She interviewed several of these children, and their experiences, not widely known outside Argentina, inspired her debut novel. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, two sons and a spirited terrier.

Photo by David Jacobs.

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#BookReview Miss Dior by Justine Picardie @JPicardie @FaberBooks @PGCBooks #MissDior #JustinePicardie

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#BookReview Miss Dior by Justine Picardie @JPicardie @FaberBooks @PGCBooks #MissDior #JustinePicardie Title: Miss Dior

Author: Justine Picardie

Published by: Faber & Faber on Oct. 18, 2021

Genres: Nonfiction

Pages: 448

Format: Hardcover

Source: Publishers Group Canada

Book Rating: 8/10

Miss Dior is a story of freedom and fascism, beauty, and betrayal, roses and repression, and how the polished surface of fashion conceals hidden depths.

It paints a portrait of the enigmatic woman behind the designer Christian Dior: his beloved younger sister Catherine, who inspired his most famous perfume and shaped his vision of femininity. Justine Picardie”s journey takes her to Occupied Paris, where Christian honed his couture skills while Catherine dedicated herself to the French Resistance, until she was captured by the Gestapo and deported to the German concentration camp of Ravensbrück.

With unparalleled access to the Dior family homes and archives, Picardie”s research into Catherine”s courageous life shines a new light on Christian Dior”s legendary work, and reveals how his enchanting ”New Look” emerged out of the shadows of his sister”s suffering.

Tracing the wartime paths of the Dior siblings leads Picardie deep into other hidden histories, and different forms of resistance and sisterhood. She explores what it means to believe in beauty and hope, despite our knowledge of darkness and despair, and discovers the timeless solace of the natural world in the aftermath of devastation and destruction. The result is an exquisite and unforgettably moving book.

Review:

Captivating, descriptive, and well researched!

Miss Dior is the sincere, informative biography of the remarkable Caroline Dior, the youngest sister of renowned fashion designer Christian Dior who, after falling in love with a married resistance leader in 1941, spent the next three years reporting to British Intelligence on German operations until July 1944 when she was arrested by the Gestapo and sent to Ravensbrück and other satellite concentration camps before returning to Paris, after surviving a death march in April 1945, where for the remainder of her life she rarely spoke of the horrors she had endured but surrounded herself with her brother’s love and the flowers she adored.

The writing is evocative and expressive. The characters are humble, heroic, and unique. And the novel is an engaging look into how two siblings in a time of upheaval and uncertainty, one in the spotlight and the other in the shadows, made a resounding impact on French history and the world of fashion.

Overall, Miss Dior is a candid, intriguing tale by Picardie with an abundance of beautiful photos and illustrations, and even though I would have liked to learn more specifically about the life of the woman who inspired the perfume, I still found it an insightful, fascinating tale of not only second-hand accounts of the times, events, and situations she would have faced, but the ultimate evolution and rise of the House of Dior and the incredible array of infamous people who over the years have been lucky enough to don their couture.

 

This book is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or one of the following links.

                

 

 

Thank you to Publishers Group Canada for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Justine Picardie

Justine Picardie is the author of six books, including her critically acclaimed memoir, If the Spirit Moves You: Life and Love After Death, and the international bestseller, Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life. She is a contributing editor to Harper''s Bazaar, having previously been its editor-in-chief. She was formerly an investigative journalist for the Sunday Times, a columnist for the Telegraph, editor of the Observer Magazine and features director of Vogue.

Photo courtesy of Author's Goodreads Page.

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#BookReview Diablo Mesa by Preston & Child @GrandCentralPub #DiabloMesa #PrestonChild #NoraKelly #GrandCentralPub

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#BookReview Diablo Mesa by Preston & Child @GrandCentralPub #DiabloMesa #PrestonChild #NoraKelly #GrandCentralPub Title: Diablo Mesa

Series: Nora Kelly #3

Published by: Grand Central Publishing on Feb. 15, 2022

Genres: Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 400

Format: Hardcover

Source: Grand Central Publishing

Book Rating: 8.5/10

#1 New York Times bestselling authors Preston & Child continue with the wildly popular series featuring archaeologist Nora Kelly and FBI Agent Corrie Swanson. 

Lucas Tappan, a wealthy and eccentric billionaire and founder of Icarus Space Systems, approaches the Santa Fe Archaeological Institute with an outlandish proposal—to finance a careful, scientific excavation of the Roswell Incident site, where a UFO is alleged to have crashed in 1947. A skeptical Nora Kelly, to her great annoyance, is tasked with the job. 

Nora’s excavation immediately uncovers two murder victims buried at the site, faces and hands obliterated with acid to erase their identities. Special Agent Corrie Swanson is assigned to the case. As Nora’s excavation proceeds, uncovering things both bizarre and seemingly inexplicable, Corrie’s homicide investigation throws open a Pandora’s box of espionage and violence, uncovering bloody traces of a powerful force that will stop at nothing to protect its secrets—and that threatens to engulf them all in an unimaginable fate.

Review:

Menacing, tortuous, and action-packed!

In this third instalment in the Nora Kelly series, Diablo Mesa, Preston & Child have written an adrenaline-pumping thrill ride that sees archaeologist Nora Kelly and FBI Agent Cora Swanson teaming up once again when after reluctantly being convinced to work for billionaire Lucas Tappan on a new dig at the 1947 crash site of a potentially otherworldly aircraft in the New Mexico desert, Nora uncovers two murdered bodies and something even more surprising that the government has not only been hiding for decades but is still willing to do whatever it takes, even kill, to continue to keep a secret.

The writing is taut and tight. The characters are hesitant, intelligent, and persistent. And the plot is a menacing tale full of twists, turns, violence, deception, corruption, mayhem, danger, deduction, power, manipulation, murder, and a sliver of the supernatural.

Overall, Diablo Mesa is another suspenseful, fast-paced, exciting mystery by Preston & Child that, with its well-drawn characterization, creative storyline, and thrilling conclusion, is sure to be a big hit with longtime fans of this dynamic writing duo.

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

           

 

 

Thank you to Grand Central Publishing for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Preston & Child

Douglas Preston has published thirty-six books of both nonfiction and fiction, of which twenty-nine have been New York Times bestsellers. He is the co-author, with Lincoln Child, of the Pendergast series of thrillers. He writes about archaeology and anthropology for the New Yorker Magazine, and he worked as an editor at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and taught nonfiction writing at Princeton University. He currently serves as President of the Authors Guild, the nation’s oldest and largest association of authors and journalists.

Lincoln Child is the New York Times bestselling author of The Forgotten Room, The Third Gate, Terminal Freeze, Deep Storm, Death Match, and Utopia, as well as coauthor, with Douglas Preston, of numerous New York Times bestsellers, most recently Crimson Shore. He lives with his wife and daughter in Morristown, New Jersey.

Photo courtesy of Authors' Website.

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#BookReview The Midnight Ride by Ben Mezrich @benmezrich @GrandCentralPub @HBGCanada #TheMidnightRide #BenMezrich

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#BookReview The Midnight Ride by Ben Mezrich @benmezrich @GrandCentralPub @HBGCanada #TheMidnightRide #BenMezrich Title: The Midnight Ride

Author: Ben Mezrich

Published by: Grand Central Publishing on Feb. 22, 2022

Genres: Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 304

Format: Hardcover

Source: Grand Central Publishing

Book Rating: 8.5/10

From the celebrated, New York Times bestselling author comes a commercial thriller of an MIT grad student who unwittingly uncovers the hidden connection between the Gardner Museum heist and the most fascinating secret in American history.

THE CARD SHARK: Hailey Gordon is looking to make some fast cash to help pay her tuition when she’s caught counting cards at the Encore casino in Boston. She grabs her winnings and makes her escape. With guards closing in, she dives into an unlocked room to hide . . . only to find a dead body.

THE EX-CON: Recently released from prison, Nick Patterson hasn’t felt hope in a long time, but the job he “inherited” in prison promises to change that. He enters hotel room 633 to find that the person he was supposed to meet has been murdered. Next to the corpse stands a terrified young woman—Hailey Gordon.

THE PROFESSOR: American history professor Adrian Jensen learns of the death of his professional nemesis, Charles Walker, the night after he received Walker’s latest research. Skeptical at first, Adrian nearly deletes the file. But when one small, new detail catches his eye, he makes it his mission to uncover what could be one of the biggest secrets of the Revolutionary War.

All three strangers find themselves on the cusp of an incredible discovery—one that someone is willing to kill to keep buried.

Review:

Sinister, tense, and highly entertaining!

The Midnight Ride is a propulsive, ominous tale that takes us on a journey into the lives of three strangers, Hailey Gordon, an MIT grad student with an exceptional mind for numbers and a special talent for counting cards, Nick Patterson, a recently paroled con man with a new job already planned that he’s sure will go off without a hitch, and Adrian Jensen, a Tufts professor of American history who specializes in all things Paul Revere, as their paths accidentally collide in a race to uncover a secret of unimaginable importance that seems to have been hidden since the Revolutionary War.

The writing is brisk and sharp. The characters are intelligent, determined, and impulsive. And the plot is an action-packed thrill ride full of twists, turns, surprises, adventure, manipulation, danger, historical events, code-breaking, violence, and murder.

Overall, The Midnight Ride is an intense, suspenseful, fast-paced read by Mezrich that I thoroughly enjoyed and which reminded me a little of the National Treasure movies that I absolutely adore.

 

This book is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

            

 

 

Thank you to Grand Central Publishing for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Ben Mezrich

Ben Mezrich is the New York Times bestselling author of The Accidental Billionaires (adapted by Aaron Sorkin into the David Fincher film The Social Network) and Bringing Down the House (adapted into the #1 box office hit film 21), as well as many other bestselling books. His books have sold over six million copies worldwide.

Photo courtesy of grandcentralpublishing.com

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#BookReview In the Shadow of the Mountain by Silvia Vasquez-Lavado @silviavasla @HenryHolt #IntheShadowoftheMountain #SilviaVasquezLavado

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#BookReview In the Shadow of the Mountain by Silvia Vasquez-Lavado @silviavasla @HenryHolt #IntheShadowoftheMountain #SilviaVasquezLavado Title: In the Shadow of the Mountain

Author: Silvia Vasquez-Lavado

Published by: Henry Holt and Co. on Feb. 1, 2022

Genres: Nonfiction

Pages: 320

Format: Hardcover

Source: Henry Holt and Co.

Book Rating: 10/10

Endless ice. Thin air. The threat of dropping into nothingness thousands of feet below. This is the climb Silvia Vasquez-Lavado braves in her page-turning, pulse-raising memoir following her journey to Mount Everest.

A Latina hero in the elite macho tech world of Silicon Valley, privately, she was hanging by a thread. Deep in the throes of alcoholism, hiding her sexuality from her family, and repressing the abuse she’d suffered as a child, she started climbing. Something about the brute force required for the ascent― the risk and spirit and sheer size of the mountains and death’s close proximity―woke her up. She then took her biggest pain as a survivor to the biggest mountain: Everest.

“The Mother of the World,” as it’s known in Nepal, allows few to reach her summit, but Silvia didn’t go alone. She gathered a group of young female survivors and led them to base camp alongside her. It was never easy. At times hair-raising, nerve-racking, and always challenging, Silvia remembers the acute anxiety of leading a group of novice climbers to Everest’s base, all the while coping with her own nerves of summiting. But, there were also moments of peace, joy, and healing with the strength of her fellow survivors and community propelling her forward.

In the Shadow of the Mountain is a remarkable story of heroism, one which awakens in all of us a lust for adventure, an appetite for risk, and faith in our own resilience.

Review:

Honest, affecting, and incredibly inspiring!

In the Shadow of the Mountain is a candid, memorable memoir that takes you into the life of Silvia Vasquez-Lavado, from her childhood in Peru where she was sexually abused by a family friend, her post-secondary education as an immigrant and lesbian in the green hills of Pennsylvania, an incredibly successful career in silicon valley, to her love of climbing that not only gave her an extreme physical challenge but an outlet to emotionally heal herself and touch the lives of other exploited souls.

The prose is heartfelt and genuine. And the novel is a forthright, sincere tale of one woman’s personal experience with abuse, loss, love, support, friendship, family, addiction, heartbreak, shame, determination, and ultimately the grit and strength needed to scale the Seven Summits of the world.

Overall, In the Shadow of the Mountain is a moving, impactful, lovely tale by Vasquez-Lavado that delves into all the physical, psychological, and emotional effects of being a victim, survivor, addict, lover, extreme adventurer, and mentor. It is truly a beautiful tale that, at its core, is empowering and an important reminder that we have within us all the power to conquer anything.

 

This book is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

               

 

 

 

Thank you to Henry Holt and Company for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Silvia Vasquez-Lavado

Silvia Vasquez-Lavado is a humanitarian, mountaineer, explorer, social entrepreneur, and technologist living in San Francisco. In 2014, she launched Courageous Girls, a nonprofit that helps survivors of sexual abuse and trafficking with opportunities to find inner strength and cultivate their voices by demonstrating their physical strength. Courageous Girls has had projects in Nepal, India, the United States, and Peru. Vasquez-Lavado was recognized by Fortune magazine as one of the Corporate Heroes of 2015. CNET named her one of the 20 Most Influential Latinos in Silicon Valley. She has also been recognized by the Peruvian government as one of the “Marca Peru” ambassadors (country brand ambassadors). She is a member of the Explorers Club and one of the few women in the world to complete the Seven Summits.

Photo by Emily Assiran.

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#BookReview Annie Stanley, All At Sea by Sue Teddern @PGCBooks @MantleBooks #AnnieStanleyAllAtSea #SueTeddern

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#BookReview Annie Stanley, All At Sea by Sue Teddern @PGCBooks @MantleBooks #AnnieStanleyAllAtSea #SueTeddern Title: Annie Stanley, All At Sea

Author: Sue Teddern

Published by: Mantle Books on Feb. 1, 2022

Genres: Women's Fiction

Pages: 368

Format: Hardcover

Source: Publishers Group Canada

Book Rating: 8.5/10

Will losing her dad be the thing that finally prompts Annie Stanley to find herself?

Only she could decide to say goodbye by stealing her father’s ashes and taking him on one last adventure . . .

Annie Stanley is single, unemployed and just a bit stuck when her beloved father dies unexpectedly. Furious at her stepmother’s plans to scatter his ashes somewhere of no emotional significance, Annie seizes the urn and, on a whim, decides to take it on a tour of the thirty-one sea areas that make up the shipping forecast, which her father used to love, despite spending his life in landlocked St Albans.

Travelling around the coastline of Britain searching for the perfect place to say goodbye, Annie meets a unique cast of characters and reconnects with various figures from her past. As she works through her grief and tries to fix her combative relationship with both her stepmother and her sister, she starts to wonder if it might be time to re-think some of the other decisions in her life – including breaking up with her ex . . . but is it too late for a second chance?

A novel about love, loss and the importance of living life to the full, Annie Stanley, All at Sea by Sue Teddern is proof that it’s often the most difficult moments in life that show us what really matters.

Review:

Charming, witty, and uplifting!

Annie Stanley, All At Sea is a sweet, hopeful, delightfully moving tale that takes you into the life of the lonely, grief-stricken Annie Stanley as she unexpectedly embarks on a journey with her father’s ashes to the coastal towns featured in the shipping forecast her father loved and where along the way she’ll end up confronting the past, facing some tough truths, finding peace and contentment, and ultimately discovering her true self.

The prose is smooth and light. The characters are quirky, endearing, and genuine. And the plot is a touching, adventurous tale about life, loss, family, friendship, independence, heartbreak, grief, self-discovery, and love.

Overall, Annie Stanley, All At Sea is one of those books that snuck up and caught me by surprise and was much better than I ever expected. It’s a lovely, emotive, absorbing read by Teddern that reminds us to always live life to the fullest and never be afraid to try something new.

 

This book is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

            

 

 

Thank you to PGC Books for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Sue Teddern

Sue Teddern has been a window dresser, a secretary, a feature writer and a university lecturer. She has over twenty years' scriptwriting experience from episodes of Birds of a Feather for TV and Cooking in a Bedsitter for radio. Annie Stanley, All At Sea is her first novel. She is married and lives in Hove.

Photo courtesy of panmacmillan.com

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#BookReview Her Hidden Genius by Marie Benedict @Sourcebooks @sbkslandmark #HerHiddenGenius #MarieBenedict #bookmarkedbylandmark

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#BookReview Her Hidden Genius by Marie Benedict @Sourcebooks @sbkslandmark #HerHiddenGenius #MarieBenedict #bookmarkedbylandmark Title: Her Hidden Genius

Author: Marie Benedict

Published by: Sourcebooks Landmark on Jan. 25, 2022

Genres: Historical Fiction

Pages: 304

Format: Hardcover

Source: Sourcebooks Landmark

Book Rating: 8.5/10

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Mystery of Mrs. Christie and The Only Woman in the Room.

Rosalind Franklin has always been an outsider―brilliant, but different. Whether working at the laboratory she adored in Paris or toiling at a university in London, she feels closest to the science, those unchanging laws of physics and chemistry that guide her experiments. When she is assigned to work on DNA, she believes she can unearth its secrets.

Rosalind knows if she just takes one more X-ray picture―one more after thousands―she can unlock the building blocks of life. Never again will she have to listen to her colleagues complain about her, especially Maurice Wilkins who’d rather conspire about genetics with James Watson and Francis Crick than work alongside her.

Then it finally happens―the double helix structure of DNA reveals itself to her with perfect clarity. But what unfolds next, Rosalind could have never predicted.

Review:

Captivating, insightful, and absorbing!

Her Hidden Genius is an informative, heart-tugging tale set in Paris and England between 1947 and 1958 that takes you into the life of Rosalind Franklin, a young woman from an influential Jewish family whose intellect and love of science drove her to forgo an easier socialite lifestyle to wade into a male-dominated, mostly exclusionary field where she used her exceptional knowledge and unparalleled work ethic in X-ray crystallography to identify the base, double-helix structure of DNA before it, ultimately, led to her premature death at the tender age of 37. 

The prose is rich and smooth. The characters are intelligent, dedicated, and lonely. And the plot is a somewhat poignant tale of one woman’s personal and workplace relationships, struggles, disappointments, accomplishments, challenges, and achievements.

I have to admit, shockingly as a science major, that I knew very little about Rosalind Franklin when I started Her Hidden Genius, but Benedict did such a lovely job of blending historical facts with compelling fiction that I was left fascinated, impressed, and highly entertained, and more than a little intrigued to learn more about this strong-minded, extraordinary woman who has for far too long been overlooked or not credited for the remarkable impact she had on the twentieth-century advancements in science we all continue to reap the benefits of today.

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

            

 

 

Thank you to Sourcebooks Landmark for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Marie Benedict

Marie Benedict is a lawyer with more than ten years' experience as a litigator at two of the country's premier law firms and Fortune 500 companies. She is a magna cum laude graduate of Boston College with a focus on history and a cum laude graduate of the Boston University School of Law. She is the author of New York Times bestseller The Only Woman in the Room, Carnegie's Maid, The Other Einstein, and Lady Clementine. She lives in Pittsburgh with her family.

Photograph courtesy of Author's Goodreads Page.

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#BookReview Antoinette’s Sister by Diana Giovinazzo @DianaGauthor @GrandCentralPub #AntoinettesSister #DianaGiovinazzo #GrandCentralPub

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#BookReview Antoinette’s Sister by Diana Giovinazzo @DianaGauthor @GrandCentralPub #AntoinettesSister #DianaGiovinazzo #GrandCentralPub Title: Antoinette's Sister

Author: Diana Giovinazzo

Published by: Grand Central Publishing on Jan. 11, 2022

Genres: Historical Fiction

Pages: 400

Format: Hardcover

Source: Grand Central Publishing

Book Rating: 9/10

As Marie Antoinette took her last breath as Queen of France in Paris, another formidable monarch—Antoinette’s dearly beloved sister, Charlotte—was hundreds of miles away, in Naples, fighting desperately to secure her release from the revolutionaries who would take her life. Little did Charlotte know, however, that her sister’s execution would change the course of history—and bring about the end of her own empire.
 
“You are the queen. You are the queen that Antoinette wanted to be.”
 
Austria 1767: Maria Carolina Charlotte—tenth daughter and one of sixteen children of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria—knows her position as a Habsburg archduchess will inevitably force her to leave her home, her family, and her cherished sister, Antoinette, whose companionship she values over all else. But not yet. The Habsburg family is celebrating a great triumph: Charlotte’s older sister, Josepha, has been promised to King Ferdinand IV of Naples and will soon take her place as queen. Before she can journey to her new home, however, tragedy strikes. After visiting the family crypt, Josepha contracts smallpox and dies. Shocked, Charlotte is forced to face an unthinkable new reality: she must now marry Ferdinand in her sister’s stead.
 
Bereft and alone, Charlotte finds that her life in Naples is more complicated than she could ever have imagined. Ferdinand is weak and feckless, and a disastrous wedding night plunges her into despair. Her husband’s regent, Tanucci, a controlling and power-hungry man, has pushed the country to the brink of ruin. Overwhelmed, she asks her brother Leopold, now the Holy Roman Emperor, to send help—which he does in the form of John Acton, a handsome military man twenty years Charlotte’s senior who is tasked with overseeing the Navy. Now, Charlotte must gather the strength to do what her mother did before her: take control of a country.
 
In a time of political uprisings and royal executions and with the increasingly desperate crisis her favorite sister, Queen Marie Antoinette, is facing in France, how is a young monarch to keep hold of everything—and everyone—she loves? Find out in this sweeping, luxurious tale of family, court intrigue, and power.

Review:

Rich, fascinating, and informative!

Antoinette’s Sister is an alluring, compelling tale set in Europe during the late 1700s that tells the story of Maria Carolina Charlotte, a young, Habsburg archduchess who not only became the powerful Queen of Naples and Sicily and a loving mother after her reluctant marriage to the immature King Ferdinand IV but also remained a stalwart, unwavering supporter of her closest and dearest sister, Marie Antoinette, Queen of France.

The prose is seamless and vivid. The characters are intelligent, ruthless, and bold. And the plot is an insightful, sweeping tale of the struggles, sacrifices, hopes, fears, entangled relationships, love affairs, schemes, and treachery that surrounded one of the most powerful families of the time.

Antoinette’s Sister is, ultimately, a story about life, loss, politics, power, family, desires, sacrifices, love, and war. It’s an immersive, absorbing, well-written tale by Giovinazzo that does a beautiful job of highlighting her incredible research and considerable knowledge into the life of Maria Carolina of Austria and both her undeniable love for her infamous sister and her long-lasting influence on Naples and European history.

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

           

 

 

Thank you to Grand Central Publishing for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Diana Giovinazzo

Diana Giovinazzo is the co-creator of Wine, Women and Words, a weekly literary podcast featuring interviews with au­thors over a glass of wine. Diana is active within her local literary community as the president of the Los Angeles chapter of the Women’s National Book Association. The Woman in Red is her debut novel.

Photograph courtesy of Author's Website.

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