The Kindness of Strangers by Emma Garman

This historical novel, set in 1952, begins dramatically with a dead or nearly dead body. Honor Wilson, a seemingly respectable widow, inherited a large Victorian house in London after her much-older husband died but little in the way of other assets. She takes in lodgers: George (Georgina), ostensibly studying art but actually posing in the nude as an artist’s model, a shady occupation for Lord Mountford-Owen’s daughter; Robbie, estranged from his wife, living in Honor’s attic; teenage Mina, trying to better herself through elocution and deportment lessons while she works in a Cinema; and Saul, a Holocaust survivor from Romania, who lost his wife and daughter.

Everyone is helping to dig a hole in the garden to bury the most recent addition to the household, Jimmy Sullivan. The question is how did he get there, who killed him, and why?

May 2026 Reading

Two books stood out for me in May: Lady Tremaine, a retelling of Cinderella, which read more like historical fiction than fantasy (probably why I liked it so much); and In Farleigh Field, set in the British countryside during WWII, which featured a heroine working at Bletchley Park (how sad I was born too late to fulfill my codebreaking dream; never mind the fact that I do not possess the right skills).

A Murder in Marylebone by Emily Sullivan #20BOS26-4

Alas, A Murder in Marylebone barely mentions Marylebone and is too obviously written by an American, although it began promisingly. Minerva Harper, a widow with two children, has returned to London after some 15 years in Greece. Her husband, Oliver, was a diplomat but left the British Embassy and retired with his family to Corfu. Minnie remained there after his death, against the wishes of her family, and recently undertook some typing for a mystery writer, Stephen Dorian. 

Grimbold's Other World by Nicholas Stuart Gray #20BOS26-3

The villagers do not know what to make of Muffler, a foundling named after the white scarf he was wrapped in when discovered in a hen’s nest. Brought up by a childless couple, Simon and Meg, he is a goatherd (but not a lonely one), talking to his herd, composing rhymes and telling stories.

The Locker Room Is Not for Sale by Brian White

It takes a lot of confidence in these days of NIL and the NCAA transfer portal to write a book called The Locker Room Is Not for Sale – given many of us are very skeptical indeed of such a claim. However, this book is different: for the past 40 years, Brian White, a former Harvard quarterback I first met when he was in high school, has been coaching at the Division 1 college level at Fordham, Notre Dame, UNLV, Wisconsin (where he coached 1999 Heisman Trophy winner, Ron Dayne), Syracuse, Washington, Florida, Boston College, Colorado State, and is now at Bowling Green (Bowling Green was one of the initial college teams I saw when they played at BU in my first-ever hockey game).

The Clairvoyant Countess by Dorothy Gilman #20BOS26-2

Moira Redmond recently wrote about fortune tellers in her Clothes in Books blog, and that got me thinking about a two-book series by Dorothy Gilman that begins with The Clairvoyant Countess. I couldn’t remember if I had read it so I requested it from the library and included it in my 20 Books of Summer.

Six Degrees of Separation - from The Post-Office Girl to Happy Landings

 It’s time for #6degrees, inspired by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. We all start at the same place as other readers, add six books, and see where it ends up.  June’s starting point is The Post-Office Girl by Stefan Zweig (1982).  It’s about a lowly postal worker and Ursula LeGuin described it as “a dark fairytale of Austria in 1926.”

A Place Beyond Courage by Elizabeth Chadwick #20BOS26-1

Elizabeth Chadwick is an author I have enjoyed in the past but somehow I had not read any of her books since moving back to Boston, so she seemed a good candidate for the 20 Days of Summer. I gather her books about William Marshal are her most acclaimed so I meant to start with one of them but when I checked, it turned out that A Place Beyond Courage is a prequel about William’s father, so needed to come first. John FitzGilbert is a charismatic leader, the marshal to Henry I (1068 – 1135), and just 25 when the story begins.