The Matchmaker by Aisha Saeed – 1/20 Books of Summer

In this contemporary novel that includes elements of suspense, Nura Khan, a third-generation matchmaker who has grown her business to new heights, realizes she can’t guarantee her own perfect match – especially when someone is trying to sabotage everything she has worked for. 

The Trap by Ava Glass: a race against time in Edinburgh

Emma Makepeace works for an espionage organization so secret it has no name but The Agency. There is no mistaking its role, however: to hunt Russian spies. Emma has her own motivation for this work – her father was Russian and was killed before she was born for being an informer.

Alias Emma by Ava Glass: a breakneck chase across London

Title: Alias Emma
Author: Ava Glass
Publication: Bantam Books, hardcover, 2022
Genre: Suspense
Setting: Present-day London

Description: Emma Makepeace (that’s not her real name) is a newly trained spy when she is relieved from tedious undercover work in a tee shirt store and given a major assignment – bringing the doctor son of two important Russian defectors into protective custody.

The Queen of Mean

I see that Leona Helmsley, subject of one of the first Bantam books I ever worked on, The Queen of Mean, who died recently, left $12 million to her dog, but cut out two of her four grandchildren altogether (she says they know why). Maybe I shouldn't have been so hasty persuading my grandmother to adopt Olive the Cat back in May...

Here is poor Leona with her husband Harry in happier days.