Historical Fiction
Lauren Belfer: City of Light
Blurb: “The year is 1901. Buffalo, New York, is poised for glory. With its booming industry and newly electrified streets, Buffalo is a model for the century just beginning. Louisa Barrett has made this dazzling city her home. Headmistress of Buffalo’s most prestigious school, Louisa is at ease in a world of men, protected by […]
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Priscilla Royal: Sorrow Without End
Blurb: As the autumn storms of 1271 ravage the East Anglian coast, Crowner Ralf finds the corpse of a brutally murdered soldier in the woods near Tyndal Priory. The dagger in the man’s chest is engraved with a strange cursive design, and the body is wrapped in a crusader’s cloak. Was this the act of […]
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Susanna Gregory: A Bone of Contention
Matthew Bartholomew mystery #3, and by this time it’s fair to say that Gregory had found her groove. The plot still comes across as mighty complex, but it’s more tightly-constructed than in the first two books — also, I’ve learned (at last) not to get too caught up in individual incidents but, for all their […]
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Q1 / 2022 Reading Recap
Well, as it turned out 2022 began as 2021 had ended — all work and no play, albeit with the addition of a hospital detour to boot. (Nothing serious, just way more painful and, all told, protracted, than it had any right to be.) So I’m back to posting one summary post for the first […]
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Virginia Woolf: Orlando
As I said elsewhere, given the fact that Virginia Woolf was a 2021 (M)DWS author in residence, too, as part of my exploration of the life and work of Vita Sackville-West’s life and work I decided to circle back to Woolf; or rather, to the link between the two writers, which far exceeds their almost […]
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Abir Mukherjee: A Rising Man
Blurb: Captain Sam Wyndham, former Scotland Yard detective, is a new arrival to Calcutta. Desperately seeking a fresh start after his experiences during the Great War, Wyndham has been recruited to head up a new post in the police force. But with barely a moment to acclimatise to his new life or to deal with […]
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Neil Richards, Matthew Costello: Mydworth Mysteries 1-3: A Short in the Dark / A Little Night Murder / London Calling!
Blurb: This compilation contains episodes 1-3: A Shot in the Dark Sussex, England, 1929. Mydworth is a sleepy English market town just 50 miles from London. But things are about to liven up there considerably, when young Sir Harry Mortimer returns home from his government posting in Cairo, with his unconventional American wife — Kat […]
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Lindsey Davis: The Silver Pigs
Blurb: One fine day, A.D. 70, Sosia Camillina quite literally runs into Marcus Didius Falco on the steps of the Forum. It seems Sosia is on the run from a couple of street toughs, and after a quick and dirty rescue, P.I. Falco wants to know why. Falco finds out that Sosia, the niece of […]
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Michael Jecks: The Butcher of St. Peter’s
Blurb: Exeter, 1323. A strange man is entering people’s houses at night, causing panic amongst householders. Although many had thought him harmless, now he seems to have committed murder. A man lies dead in his own home, slaughtered merely for trying to protect his children, and the folk of Exeter want this menace caught and […]
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Amanda Quick: The Girl Who Knew too Much
Blurb: Amanda Quick (Jayne Ann Krentz) transports listeners to 1930s California, where glamour and seduction spawn a multitude of sins. At the exclusive Burning Cove Hotel on the coast of California, rookie reporter Irene Glasson finds herself staring down at a beautiful actress at the bottom of a pool. The dead woman had a red-hot […]
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Candace Robb: The Lady Chapel
Blurb: High summer, 1365-and York is glorious with pageantry for the Feast of Corpus Christi. But wool merchant Will Crounce, who acts in “The Last Judgement,” meets his maker all too soon, his throat slit in the shadow of the great cathedral. When Crounce’s severed hand is found in fellow-merchant Gilbert Ridley’s tavern lodging, the […]
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Priscilla Royal: Tyrant of the Mind
Blurb: In the winter of 1271, death stalks the corridors of Wynethorpe Castle on the Welsh border. When the Grim Reaper touches the beloved grandson of the castle lord, Baron Adam sends for his daughter, Prioress Eleanor of Tyndal, and her subinfirmarian, Sister Anne, to save the child with their prayers and healing talents. Escorting […]
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Jason Goodwin: The Janissary Tree
Festive Tasks Master Update Post HERE Festive Tasks, Door 18 — Spiritual Practice or Religious Observance: Read a book with a split timeline — one that takes place in the present and one that takes place in the past — or a book where people from different ends of the spiritual spectrum (believers / nonbelievers, […]
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Karen Baugh Menuhin: Murder at Melrose Court
Festive Tasks Master Update Post HERE Door 12 — Northern Hemisphere: Read something with snow or ice on the cover or read a ghost story. I read the second book of this series, The Black Cat Murders, as my (you guessed it) “Black Cat” square book for this year’s Halloween Bingo, and while there […]
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Beryl Bainbridge: According to Queeney
Festive Tasks Master Update Post HERE Festive Tasks, Door 7 — Gift Giving & Wrapping: Read a book with a cover that would make beautiful wrapping paper; or read a book that you would have enjoyed giving or receiving as a gift: This is less a fictional biography than a portrait of manners and […]
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Festive Tasks: Door 12, Task 2 – Snow Covers
Festive Tasks Master Update Post HERE Task 2: Make us a collage or display of your favorite snowy book covers. Prepare to be snowed in …
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Martin Edwards: Gallows Court
Festive Tasks Master Update Post HERE Festive Tasks, Door 9 – Cycles: Read a book that has something lucky on the cover or in the title; or that has a cover that is more than 50% red, yellow and or green, which are considered lucky colors in China. Gallows Court was a book I’d been […]
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June 2021 and Mid-Year Reading Recap
Sigh. Well, I think posting a monthly (and even half-year) reading recap a full three weeks into the next month has to be some sort of record, even for me, but here we are. And I admit that at this point I’d even been contemplating holding off another week so as to combine this with […]
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Gary Corby: The Ionia Sanction
The Ionia Sanction is the second book in Gary Corby’s mystery series set in the Athenian Republic of Pericles and the great philosophers, and I picked it as an introduction to the “actual” book I’d been planning to include in my Summer Games reading project — the series’s third book, which is set during the […]
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Mystery Writers of America Presents: Odd Partners
A few years ago, I read a Mystery Writers of America short story compilation named Face Off, which featured short stories where two different authors’ series detectives / protagonists teamed up to solve a given crime, with each of the authors writing part of the respective story. I thought that was an interesting (and surprisingly […]
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