A Potpourri of Opinions

Vincent's Women Donna Russo Pub. Date: March 26, 2024 by Next Chapter Genre: Historical Fiction Rating: 5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Summary: Donna Russo's 'Vincent's Women' is the untold story of Vincent's loves, how they shaped his life, his art, and his death. It writes against the ‘myths,’ exploring the possibility that none of them are true. It is the only novel to bring into question his sexuality, how he lost his ear, who he lost it for, and how he might have died, all through the eyes of a woman. We learn of Her; we learn all of it through Her. The story is guided by Johanna van Gogh Bonger, Vincent's sister-in-law, as she decides to reveal the truth about Vincent to her son. We are then taken on a journey through Vincent's life, each section bringing a pivotal moment of Vincent's life alive while showing us the part she played in bringing it about. Between each woman, our guide, Johanna, gives us the transitional periods, right up to his death, which is now in q...

Stolen Lives Joyce Yarrow Pub date: March 15, 2024 by All Bilingual Press Genre: Historical Fiction/Fantasy Rating: 4 👢👢👢👢  Summary: Alienor, a tenacious journalist with a rare psychic gift, delves into a forgotten chapter of history: the mysterious shipment of gold to the Soviet Union during the Spanish Civil War and the perilous journey of children torn from their homeland. As Alienor unravels a tapestry woven with secrets, betrayal, and the unyielding quest for justice, her investigation draws her into a vortex of danger. Her unique ability to "visit" the minds of her female ancestors provides not only insight but also the unbreakable will of women who fought against the tides of their times. This connection across generations fortifies her as she faces political adversaries and nefarious forces lurking in the shadows. "Stolen Lives" intertwines the gritty determination of a young woman challenging the legacy of historical injustices with a suspense-filled na...

  The Phoenix Crown Kate Quinn and Janie Chang Pub. date: Feb. 13, 2024 by William Morrow Paperbacks Historical Fiction 4 👢👢👢👢 Summary: From bestselling authors Janie Chang and Kate Quinn, a thrilling and unforgettable narrative about the intertwined lives of two wronged women, spanning from the chaos of the San Francisco earthquake to the glittering palaces of Versailles. San Francisco, 1906. In a city bustling with newly minted millionaires and scheming upstarts, two very different women hope to change their fortunes: Gemma, a golden-haired, silver-voiced soprano whose career desperately needs rekindling, and Suling, a petite and resolute Chinatown embroideress who is determined to escape an arranged marriage. Their paths cross when they are drawn into the orbit of Henry Thornton, a charming railroad magnate whose extraordinary collection of Chinese antiques includes the fabled Phoenix Crown, a legendary relic of Beijing’s fallen Summer Palace. His patronage offers Gemma and ...

  Queens of London Heather Webb Pub date: Feb. 6, 2024 Genre: Historical Fiction Rating: 4 👢👢👢👢 Summary: Maybe women can have it all, as long as they're willing to steal it. 1925. London. When Alice Diamond, AKA "Diamond Annie," is elected the Queen of the Forty Elephants, she's determined to take the all-girl gang to new heights. She's ambitious, tough as nails, and a brilliant mastermind, with a plan to create a dynasty the likes of which no one has ever seen. Alice demands absolute loyalty from her "family"—it's how she's always kept the cops in line. Too bad she's now the target for one of Britain's first female policewomen. Officer Lilian Wyles isn't merely one of the first female detectives at Scotland Yard, she's one of the best detectives on the force. Even so, she'll have to win a big score to prove herself, to break free from the "women's work" she's been assigned. When she hears about the large...

    Lily Barlow:  The Mystery of Jane Dough by - Carla Vergot 5 Stars 👢👢👢👢👢 Genre: romcomstery 🠈 Original Publication date: 2018 by Lifestyle Entrepreneurs  Press  Republication date: Nov. 7 2023 by Morgan James Publishing 🠞 Summary: Lily Barlow, a quirky college student obsessed with the fictional bounty hunter Stephanie Plum, is called home from the University of Virginia to get the family bakery running after her dad's heart attack. Stuck in a sinkhole of self-pity, she finds her sleepy hometown...well...can a town actually be in a coma? No worries. All she needs to do is hire a bakery manager, and she's not even moving back in with her family for that part. Instead, she rents an efficiency garage from Miss Delphine Walker, an old woman who Lily begins to believe may have killed someone at some point in time. Meanwhile, Lily's overactive imagination takes a swan dive when she discovers an online clearinghouse for victims the cops can't identify. C...

  The Death of Us Lori Rader-Day Publication Date: October 3, 2023 by William Morrow Genre: Mystery Rating: 4 👢👢👢👢 Summary: From the award-winning author of Death at Greenway and The Lucky One comes a chilling suspense novel in which the discovery of a submerged car in a murky pond reveals betrayals and family secrets that will tear a small town apart. One rainy night fifteen years ago, a knock at the door changed Liss Kehoe’s life forever. On that night, Ashley Hay stood on Liss’s front porch and handed over her brand-new baby Callan. She was never seen or heard from again. Since then, Liss has raised Callan as her own, and loves him as fiercely as any mother would. But in the back of her mind, she’s always wondered whether Ashley is still out there somewhere—and feared what might happen if she comes back. When Ashley does reappear, it’s not in the way Liss expected. After all these years, Ashley’s car has been found…in the quarry pond on Kehoe property. But the discovery of t...

  The Royal Windsor Secret Christine Wells Publication date: September 12, 2023 by William Morrow Genre: Historical Fiction  Rating: 4 🍷🍷🍷🍷 Summary: Could she be the secret daughter of the Prince of Wales? In this dazzling novel by the author of Sisters of the Resistance, a young woman seeks to discover the truth about her mysterious past. Perfect for readers of Shana Abe, Bryn Turnbull, and Marie Benedict.  Cleo Davenport has heard the the murmured conversations that end abruptly the second she walks into a room. Told she was an orphan, she knows the rumor—that her father is none other than the Prince of Wales, heir to the British throne. And at her childhood home at Cairo’s Shepheard’s Hotel, where royals, rulers, and the wealthy live, they even called her “The Princess.” But her life is turned upside down when she turns seventeen. Sent to London under the chaperonage of her very proper aunt, she’s told it’s time to learn manners and make her debut. But Cleo’s ...

  The Change Kirsten Miller pub date: May 3, 2023 by William Morrow  genre: Fantasy, Mystery Rating: 5 👢👢👢👢👢  Summary: In the Long Island oceanfront community of Mattauk, three different women discover that midlife changes bring a whole new type of empowerment… After Nessa James’s husband dies and her twin daughters leave for college, she’s left all alone in a trim white house not far from the ocean. In the quiet of her late forties, the former nurse begins to hear voices. It doesn’t take long for Nessa to realize that the voices calling out to her belong to the dead—a gift she’s inherited from her grandmother, which comes with special responsibilities. On the cusp of 50, suave advertising director Harriett Osborne has just witnessed the implosion of her lucrative career and her marriage. She hasn’t left her house in months, and from the outside, it appears as if she and her garden have both gone to seed. But Harriett’s life is far from over—in fact, she’s undergone ...

  The Last Masterpiece Laura Morelli Publication date: August 1, 2023 by William Morrow Genre: Historical Fiction Rating: 4 👢👢👢👢 Summary: In a race across Nazi-occupied Italy, two women—a German photographer and an American stenographer—hunt for priceless masterpieces looted from the Florentine art collections. In the summer of 1943, Eva Brunner is taking photographs of Nazi-looted art hidden in the salt mines of the Austrian hinterland. Across the ocean in Connecticut, Josephine Evans is working as a humble typist at the Yale Art Gallery. When both women are called to Italy to contribute to the war effort, neither imagines she will hold the fate of some of the world’s greatest masterpieces torn from the Uffizi Galleries and other Florentine art collections in her hands. But as Italy turns from ally to enemy and Hitler’s plan to destroy irreplaceable monuments and works of art becomes frighteningly clear, each woman’s race against the clock—and against one another—might demand ...

  The Poetics of Passion A Muses of Scandal Novel Delphine Ross Publication date: July 25, 2023 by Muse Publications LLC Genre: Historical Romance Rating: 4 🍷🍷🍷🍷 Summary: In 1872 London, a scandalous love poetess and a passionate children's book illustrator are set at odds in this sparkling enemies-to-lovers debut historical romance. Musa Bartham has a secret. To support her destitute family after her father’s disappearance, she’s been publishing steamy poetry under the pen name of Felicity Vita. As Felicity Vita, Musa’s scandalous books have won legions of devoted fans—including an anonymous gentleman pen pal whose letters spark unruly desires she would never ever succumb to in her orderly daily life. But when Musa’s cherished younger sister, Angela, is offered sponsorship by their aristocratic great-aunt for an advantageous marriage, Musa realizes her dangerous double life as Felicity must come to an end. Instead, she’ll write books for children. Sebastian Atkinson is a passi...

  Only the Beautiful  Susan Meissner Publication date: April 18, 2023 by Berkley  Genre: Historical Fiction Rating: 5 🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷 Summary: A heartrending story about a young mother’s fight to keep her daughter, and the winds of fortune that tear them apart by the New York Times bestselling author of The Nature of Fragile Things and The Last Year of the War. California, 1938—When she loses her parents in an accident, sixteen-year-old Rosanne is taken in by the owners of the vineyard where she has lived her whole life as the vinedresser’s daughter. She moves into Celine and Truman Calvert’s spacious house with a secret however—Rosie sees colors when she hears sound. She promised her mother she’d never reveal her little-understood ability to anyone, but the weight of her isolation and grief prove too much for her. Driven by her loneliness she not only breaks the vow to her mother, but in a desperate moment lets down her guard and ends up pregnant. Banished by the Calverts, Ro...

  An American Wife in Paris The Diplomat's Wife #2 Chrystyna Lucyk-Berger Publication date: July 20, 2023 by Bookouture Genre: Historical Fiction Rating: 4 👢👢👢👢 Summary: “If I go back to Paris, it would be my third time there as an undercover agent...” Kitty murmured. “I ask myself, how many chances does one person get?” Paris, 1941 . When Kitty is asked to return to Paris as an undercover agent, she knows the mission is her most dangerous yet. But she has been fighting the Nazis for too long to stop now. And her role within the Resistance has already cost her friends, family and now—almost—her own marriage. Because while she and Edgar are more in love than ever, his role as a Nazi spy means it is safer if they are no longer married. And while signing the divorce papers is a formality that breaks her heart, Kitty knows that she and Edgar will find a way to be together when the war is finally over… More determined than ever to undermine the Nazi regime, Kitty has nothing left to...

  Darling Girl Liz Michalski Publication date: May 3, 2022 by Dutton Genre: Fantasy Rating: 3 👢👢👢 Summary: In this beautiful dive into the world of J. M. Barrie’s classic, one woman must take on the infamous Peter Pan—who is not the innocent adventurer the fairy tales make him out to be—to save her daughter’s life. . . . Life is looking up for Holly Darling, granddaughter of Wendy—yes, that Wendy. That is, until she gets a call that her daughter, Eden, who has been in a coma for nearly a decade, has gone missing from the estate where she’s been long tucked away. And, worst of all, Holly knows who must be Peter Pan, who is not only very real, but very dangerous. Holly is desperate to find Eden and protect her son, Jack, from a terrible web of family secrets before she loses both her children. And yet she has no one to turn to—her mother, Jane, is the only other person in the world who knows that Peter is more than a story, but she refuses to accept that he is not the hero she’s a...

  Fourth Wing The Empyrean #1 Rebecca Yarros Publication date: May 2, 2023 by Entangled Publishing Genre: Fantasy Rating: 5 🐲🐲🐲🐲🐲 Summary: Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders. But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away... because dragons don’t bond to “fragile” humans. They incinerate them. With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter—like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant. She’ll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise. Yet, with every day that passes, the war outs...

  The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise Colleen Oakley Publication date: March 28, 2023 by Berkley Genre: Women's Fiction, Humor Rating: 5 👢👢👢👢👢 Summary: Twenty-one-year-old Tanner Quimby needs a place to live. Preferably one where she can continue sitting around in sweatpants and playing video games nineteen hours a day. Since she has no credit or money to speak of, her options are limited, so when an opportunity to work as a live-in caregiver for an elderly woman falls into her lap, she takes it. One slip on the rug. That’s all it took for Louise Wilt’s daughter to demand that Louise have a full-time nanny living with her. Never mind that she can still walk fine, finish her daily crossword puzzle, and pour the two fingers of vodka she drinks every afternoon. Bottom line -- Louise wants a caretaker even less than Tanner wants to be one. The two start off their living arrangement happily ignoring each other until Tanner starts to notice things—weird things. Like, why does...

  The Bookseller's Daughter Daniela Sacerdoti Publication date: June 27, 2023 by Bookouture Genre: Historical Fiction  Rating: 3 🍷🍷🍷 Summary: ‘As the soldiers arrived on our sandy beaches, a brave young girl hid beautiful leather-bound books. She risked her life to protect the secrets of this island and save the man she loved. I want you to find the books, dear Francesca. Her diary holds the first clue, take it, and uncover her incredible story…’ As golden sunlight shimmers across the crystal-clear water, Francesca arrives on the tranquil Italian island of Santa Caterina in search of precious rare books. She quickly discovers she was invited by the island’s mysterious owner, alongside handsome local book collector Thiago, to unlock a secret spanning generations. Together, they learn the books were hidden during the Second World War by Helèna, the daughter of a bookseller, who sacrificed everything to save the island’s treasures from the Nazis. With only Helèna’s diary to gu...

The Secret Book of Flora Lea Publication date: May 2, 2023 by Atria Books Genre: Historical Fiction Rating: 4 🍷🍷🍷🍷 Summary: When a woman discovers a rare book that has connections to her past, long-held secrets about her missing sister and their childhood spent in the English countryside during World War II are revealed. In the war-torn London of 1939, fourteen-year-old Hazel and five-year-old Flora are evacuated to a rural village to escape the horrors of the Second World War. Living with the kind Bridie Aberdeen and her teenage son, Harry, in a charming stone cottage along the River Thames, Hazel fills their days with walks and games to distract her young sister, including one that she creates for her sister and her sister alone—a fairy tale about a magical land, a secret place they can escape to that is all their own. But the unthinkable happens when young Flora suddenly vanishes while playing near the banks of the river. Shattered, Hazel blames herself for her sister’s disappea...

  The Tiffany Girls Shelley Noble Publication date: May 9, 2023 by William Morrow Genre: Historical Fiction Rating: 4 🍷🍷🍷🍷 Summary: New York Times bestselling author Shelley Noble wows with a gripping historical novel about the real-life “Tiffany Girls,” a fascinating and largely unknown group of women artists behind Tiffany’s most legendary glassworks. It’s 1899, and Manhattan is abuzz. Louis Comfort Tiffany, famous for his stained-glass windows, is planning a unique installation at the Paris World’s Fair, the largest in history. At their fifth-floor studio on Fourth Avenue, the artists of the Women’s Division of the Tiffany Glass Company are already working longer shifts to finish the pieces that Tiffany hopes will prove that he is the world’s finest artist in glass. Known as the “Tiffany Girls,” these women are responsible for much of the design and construction of Tiffany’s extraordinary glassworks, but none receive credit. Emilie Pascal, daughter of an art forger, has been...

  Hammer of Fate The Rune Song #1 G. N. Gudgion Publication date: June 1, 2023 by Second Sky Books Genre: Fantasy Rating: 4 👢👢👢👢 Summary: “No surrender. No retreat.” With twenty enemy swords at their backs and a broken bridge ahead, the last knights of an outlaw order turn to fight. A young woman with forbidden magic joins their final stand. And as blade meets blade, she starts to sing… Adelais was raised in the far north, learning stories of the old gods and the skill of weaving runes into magic. Now, she is locked in a convent far from home, forced to kneel to a foreign god. When inquisitors arrive with plans to torture an innocent man, Adelais cannot stand by. She aids an attack to free the prisoner and joins the raiders as they flee into the night. Her new companions are the last of the Guardians—once a powerful holy order, now ragged fugitives, hunted almost to extinction. The knights carry a secret treasure, precious and powerful enough to shape kingdoms. Their pursuers, ...

Her Lost Words Stephanie Marie Thornton Publication date: March 28, 2023 by Berkley Genre: Historical Fiction Rating: 5 🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷 Summary: From A Vindication of the Rights of Woman to Frankenstein , a tale of two literary legends—a mother and daughter—discovering each other and finding themselves along the way, from USA Today bestselling author Stephanie Marie Thornton. 1792. As a child, Mary Wollstonecraft longed to disappear during her father’s violent rages. Instead, she transforms herself into the radical author of the landmark volume A Vindication of the Rights of Woman , in which she dares to propose that women are equal to men. From conservative England to the blood-drenched streets of revolutionary France, Mary refuses to bow to society’s conventions and instead supports herself with her pen until an illicit love affair challenges her every belief about romance and marriage. When she gives birth to a daughter and is stricken with childbed fever, Mary fears it will be her many ...