The Lost Passenger by Frances Quinn - featuring a dramatic rescue from the Titanic!

Cinderella meets All-of-a-Kind Family in a new book I really liked and recommend. Elinor Hayward, the lovely and intelligent daughter of a prosperous factory owner, is thrilled when she and her father are invited to a New Year’s Ball in early 1910. Even better, she meets an attractive young man, Frederick Coombes, son of an earl, who is not just friendly but clearly interested in her:

It was stupidly easy to fall in love with Frederick; I got halfway there that very evening. But I’d like to point out, before you decide I must have been soft in the head, that I was nineteen, he was the first man ever to pay attention to me, and he was very, very charming.

The Note by Alafair Burke - when a joke goes deadly wrong

An anticipated reunion in the Hamptons turns deadly after a practical joke in this novel by bestseller Burke. May Hanover, a lawyer living in NYC with her fiancé, has been looking forward to and yet dreading a weekend get-together with her two closest friends from summer camp. They were very close once but she hasn’t spent time with them in person for years. 

The Colony Club by Shelley Noble

It’s 1902 and Florence “Daisy” Harriman, married to a rich banker, could have chosen to live solely as a Gilded Age socialite. However, while she is an accepted member of the New York and Newport ruling class, enjoying her privileges, she is also a social reformer and suffragist, and later a diplomatic envoy. At the time of this book, loosely based on history, she realizes that the ladies of her acquaintance need an elite club in Manhattan, just as their menfolk enjoy spending time at male bastions such as the Union Club or the Princeton Club.* 

The Perfect Lie by Jo Spain

Title: The Perfect Lie
Author: Jo Spain
Publication: Quercus, paperback, 2021
Genre: Suspense
Setting: Long Island, NY and Cambridge, MA

Description: Erin Kennedy left Ireland for New York after her sister was murdered, and obtained a job in publishing which she enjoys. After she meets and marries Danny Ryan, a local policeman, she moves to Long Island, hoping for a happy ever after with him.

China Trade, a mystery by Edgar-winner S.J. Rozan

Title: China Trade
Author: S. J. Rozan
Publication: St. Martin’s, hardcover, 1994
Genre: Mystery
Setting: New York

Description: Asian-American private investigator Lydia Chin knows Chinatown because she lives there. Despite her no-nonsense demeanor, she still lives at home with her mother, respecting tradition.

The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict & Victoria Christopher Murray

Title: The Personal Librarian
Author: Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray
Publication: Berkley, hardcover, 2021
Genre: Historical Fiction
Setting: Early 20th Century NYC and Europe

Description: In this historical novel based on a real person, Belle da Costa Greene, a young librarian at Princeton, is offered a job working for financier J.P. Morgan to curate the collection of the Pierpont Morgan Library.  She knows it is a dream come true, yet it is also a nightmare – because to get and keep the job, Belle must continue the pretense that she is a white woman, to protect not only herself but also her mother and siblings, all “passing” in Manhattan.

Living with a Dead Language by Ann Patty

Title: Living with a Dead Language: My Romance with Latin
Author: Ann Patty
Publication: Viking, hardcover, 2016
Genre: Nonfiction/Memoir
Setting: Upstate New York

Description: When editor Ann Patty retired from Manhattan’s publishing world to her weekend retreat in Rhinebeck, NY, she was unexpectedly bored and afraid her mind would atrophy through lack of intellectual stimulation.

The Matzah Ball by Jean Meltzer

Title: The Matzah Ball
Author: Jean Meltzer
Publication: Mira, hardcover, 2021
Genre: Holiday fiction
Setting: Present-day New York

Description: Rachel Rubenstein-Goldblatt has always been aware that people expect perfection from a prominent rabbi’s daughter but her life fell apart in college when she was diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and she has felt imperfect since.

Never Jam Today by Carole Bolton - Votes for Women!

Title: Never Jam Today
Author: Carole Bolton
Publication: Atheneum, hardcover, 1971
Genre: YA Historical Fiction
Setting: 1917 New York and Washington, DC

Description: At 17, Maddy Franklin has had a privileged upbringing in New York City, with a lawyer father and a mother who never questions the man of the house. But as the country prepares for war, Maddie reads in the newspaper that suffragists are picketing the White House for the right to vote.

Fer-de-Lance by Rex Stout - the launch of Nero Wolfe's adventures

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Title: Fer-de-Lance
Author: Rex Stout
Publication: Bantam paperback, 1992 (originally published in 1934)
Genre: Mystery series
Setting: Mid-20th century New York

Description: This is the first book in the Nero Wolfe series, about an omniscient and somewhat reclusive detective who operates from a brownstone on West 35th Street in New York.

Drums Along the Mohawk by Walter D. Edmonds - for the 1936 Club

Title: Drums Along the Mohawk
Author: Walter D. Edmonds (1903-1998)
Publication: Little, Brown & Co., hardcover, 1936
Genre: Historical Fiction
Setting: Upstate New York, 1976-84

The 1936 Club is hosted by Simon from Stuck in a Book and Karen from Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings.

Description: When pioneering farmer Gilbert Martin sweeps 18-year-old Lana Borst off her feet and away from her family to help him settle his new farm in the Mohawk Valley, she anticipates a life of hard work and challenges but does not expect Indian warfare, violence, starvation, or Gil’s disappearance for endless periods of time when her husband is conscripted to the Revolutionary forces. She complains much less than I would! 

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

Title: The Goldfinch
Author: Donna Tartt
Publication: Little, Brown & Co., hardcover, 2013
Genre: Fiction
Setting: New York, Las Vegas, Amsterdam

Description: On their way to what will be an unpleasant school meeting about Theo’s bad attitude, he and his mother stop at the Met to visit a Dutch Masters exhibit.

Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson - first in a trilogy set in Revolutionary-era New York

Title: Chains: Seeds of America #1
Author: Laurie Halse Anderson
Publication: Simon & Schuster, hardcover, 2008
Genre: Juvenile Historical Fiction
Setting: 18th-century New York

Description: Isabel (13) and her younger sister Ruth are slaves and orphans, having lost their mother a year earlier and their father, sold away from his family when Ruth was just a baby. 

White River Burning by John Verdon, ripped from today's headlines

Title: White River Burning, John Gurney #6
Author: John Verdon
Publication: Counterpoint, hardcover, 2018
Genre: Suspense

Setting: New York State

Description: Dave Gurney, a retired NYC detective, and his wife Madeleine moved to upstate New York to lead a simpler, safer life in a comfortable farmhouse.  Madeleine loves walks in the country, volunteering at a women’s center, and having an entire room for her crafts.  Dave, however, is at loose ends without a complex case and has previously been drawn into local investigations that have become very dangerous, causing conflict in their marriage.

Tweet Cute by Emma Lord, a YA rom-com

Title: Tweet Cute
Author:  Emma Lord
Publication: Wednesday Books, Hardcover, 2020
Genre: YA

Bookshelf Traveling - May 16, 2020

Time for another round of Bookshelf Traveling in Insane Times which is being hosted by Judith at Reader in the Wilderness.  It's an opportunity to look at your bookshelves and rediscover titles you read or plan to read. This shelf in my guest room caught my eye as I was, of course, looking for something completely different last night - a book about a WWII evacuee, in fact, as one does from time to time.  

Looking at this shelf brings back my childhood and my favorite library, where I found most of Madye (pronounced MAY-dee) Lee Chastain’s books.  Chastain (1908-1989) was a children’s author and illustrator,  and I am a huge fan of the 12 middle-grade novels she wrote.  Seven are historicals and five have contemporary settings.   My favorite is Emmy Keeps a Promise, the second book in a trilogy, and apparently the only one of her books Harcourt published in hardcover and paperback.  It is a warm and affectionate story of sisters Arabel and Emmy Thatcher trying to make their fortunes in 1850s New York.

A Fall of Marigolds by Susan Meissner

Title: A Fall of Marigolds
Author: Susan Meissner
Publication: Penguin, trade paper, 2014
Genre: Fiction/Historical Fiction
TBR Challenge: This is the third book I have read from the 2019 Challenge, created by Roof Beam Reader.

Plot: In this novel, Meissner weaves together two tragedies, nearly 100 years apart yet connected by an unusual scarf of marigold-patterned Indian fabric. Taryn Michaels is a textile expert who lost her husband on 9/11 just as she was about to meet him at Windows on the World to tell him she was pregnant, while Clara Wood is a nurse who, back in 1911, witnessed the horror of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire.

The Travelers by Chris Pavone

Title: The Travelers
Author: Chris Pavone
Publication: Broadway Books, trade paperback, 2017 (2016).
Genre: Suspense
TBR Challenge: This is the second book I have read from my 2019 TBR Pile Challenge, sponsored by Roof Beam Reader. I need to accelerate or I won’t make my goal!

Plot: Will Rhodes is a travel writer for The Travelers, a magazine that sends him all over the world for stories about ex-patriates living in exotic locations. However, like most people in publishing, he and his wife, Chloe, are underpaid and trying to get by. They live in Brooklyn, where they have been trying to fix up a brownstone. After Will is tempted into a one night stand with a beautiful stranger, everything starts to go wrong for him. His secrets come between him and his wife, and between him and his boss. Suddenly, the exotic locations he used to enjoy turn into dangerous places where he doesn’t know if he is the hunter or the hunted. Can Will extract himself from what seems to be an international conspiracy before it destroys him?

Brooklyn brownstones

My Impressions: This is the third book I have read by Chris Pavone, and falls between the other two in appeal. The Accident, which I read in 2014, was about a mysterious manuscript that could provide fame and fortune – or possibly death – to those seeking to publish it, but I found the characters so unlikeable it was the publishing background that primarily motivated me to finish. The Expats is about Kate Moore, living in Luxembourg as an expat wife who is hiding a secret about her past. She also appears briefly in The Accident. I found her a convincing and entertaining character. Here, the pace is slow and it took me a long time to care much about Will Rhodes, who seemed to me to have asked for all the trouble that comes his way. Fortunately, the book accelerates once Will starts being chased around the world and the second half of the book takes place at quite impressive speed. It wound up being suspenseful and a good summer read.

Off the Blog: I baked delicious banana cake for my mother's birthday!  I wish you could come share the leftovers.

Source: Personal copy

Dragonwyck by Anya Seton (Book Review) #1944Club

The 1944 Club is a theme in which two prolific bloggers, Simon from Stuck in a Book and Karen from Kaggsy's Bookish Ramblings, promote a specific year of published books. Anyone can join in by reading and reviewing a book published in 1944 and adding a link to that book's review in the comments on Simon's blog. 1968, 1951 and 1977 have also been promoted.

Title: Dragonwyck
Author: Anya Seton, author of Katherine and My Theodosia
Publication: Houghton Mifflin, 1944
Genre: Historical Fiction
Setting: 19th century Connecticut and New York

Plot: Miranda Wells is the delicately lovely daughter of a no-nonsense Connecticut farmer, more likely to be caught reading a book than doing her chores, when her mother receives a letter from a rich cousin. Nicholas Van Ryn, master of a breathtaking estate in the Hudson Valley, Dragonwyck, invites Mrs. Wells to send a daughter to be his daughter’s governess. Abigail Wells has a hard life and wants better for her daughter, so she and Miranda use all their ingenuity to persuade dour Ephraim to let his daughter go (and he nearly changes his mind when they reach New York City and he sees what he considers the useless excess of their hotel, Astor House; he rightly thinks an extravagant lifestyle will go to Miranda’s head).

From the moment Miranda lays eyes on her kinsman, Nicholas Van Ryn, she is captivated by his Tall Dark Stranger looks and charismatic demeanor. She is swept away up the Hudson to Dragonwyck, and awestruck when she first beholds it – a gothic and foreboding mansion that hides dark secrets. Nicholas’ wife is an unhappy woman interested only in sweets (not that there’s anything wrong with that, unless you devour the wrong cake), who immediately resents Miranda, and little Katrine is a stolid child, happier in the kitchen than in the classroom. Nicholas is both a kind benefactor, providing Miranda a beautiful new wardrobe, and a capricious host, ignoring the fact that his wife and guests consider her nothing but a servant. Miranda is so bedazzled by her cousin that she makes excuses for his dark moods, the harsh way he treats his tenant farmers, and his impatience with his family. Everything she observes is colored by the deep attraction she feels for Nicholas, but this is a dangerous yearning that could lead to disaster . . .

Audience: Fans of historical fiction, gothic enthusiasts; those interested in the history of New York State. Seton grew up in New York and Connecticut, and loved history. My Theodosia, which I recently reviewed, is about Aaron Burr’s daughter, known now to millions.

Not Mr Darcy

My Impressions: Anya Seton’s Katherine is one of my all-time favorite books, a magical story, widely considered an outstanding example of historical fiction, and I thank Sister Sessions, the shrewd librarian who led me to it in 7th or 8th grade. Surprisingly, I had never read this one, Seton’s second novel, which is very different, although both are about innocent young women, initially out of their depths, who develop into strong, determined women. Miranda is intimidated by the dark halls of Dragonwyck and her awkward situation, disliked by her hostess and completely in the power of her manipulative host, who can move her to euphoria or misery with a few words. From the minute they meet, the reader experiences the same roller coaster sense of imminent doom as the heroine, although she tries to ignore it.

Dragonwyck is a compelling read, although too over the top to be considered a great novel like Katherine. On the other hand, I read until 3 am, unable to predict where Seton was taking her narrative, and finished it as soon as I got home from work the next night. From the obese, sullen wife and the outspoken doctor to the Irish maid who becomes Miranda’s only friend, Seton creates memorable characters, but most of all lurking in the background is the immense and unnerving Dragonwyck, a character itself, designed by its obsessive owner. And I did not mention the plain spoken doctor from Hudson, the closest town to Dragonwyck, whose sturdiness and integrity is a sharp contrast to the dangerous charm of Nicholas Van Ryn.  Even though we know Nicholas is a bad guy and Jeff Turner is good, Nicholas is far more fascinating!  The reader feels his sensuous appeal along with Miranda.

Part of my fascination with this book is that my grandmother grew up near the imaginary Dragonwyck in Newburgh, New York (where one of the Van Rensselaers mentions a soiree) and I was fascinated by the painstaking historic detail. As always, Seton’s research was exhaustive, and her portrayal of 19th century New York, both the social scene in Manhattan and life on a remote, affluent estate in upstate New York, is vivid and convincing (and does not make me crave to be part of The 400 – although I would choose the most excruciating party over the chicken Miranda is expected to kill and pluck in the first chapter). And the depiction of steamboats racing on the Hudson is enough to give a gentle reader nightmares!

Movie: Friends tell me the movie of Dragonwyck, billed to audiences as in the tradition of Rebecca, starring Gene Tierney, Walter Huston, Vincent Price, and Jessica Tandy, is well worth seeing but my old author Leonard Maltin only gives it 2 ½ stars. I must ask movie maven Laura her opinion.   She will doubtless appreciate the pageantry of the production.

Source: Library

Jonica's Island (Book Review)

Title: Jonica’s Island

Author: Gladys Malvern

Illustrator: Corinne Malvern

Publication: Julian Messner, Hardcover, 1945

Genre: Juvenile Historical Fiction

Plot: Back in 1660 when New York was Nieuw Amsterdam, a struggling settlement on the edge of the wilderness, Evanthus and Hielke Van de Voort were raising a family of six boys. When 13 year old Jonica Kleiger’s ne’er do well father is banished from the village for repeated drunkenness, Jonica is threatened with the almshouse.