There are plenty of twists and turns here as the main character, Theodosia Benton, very suddenly finds herself in a tangled murder investigation. Online conspiracy theories, the stuff of our everyday headlines these days, play an interesting role in the mystery as well as an insider's look into the publishing world itself. I found the latter especially intriguing and will be researching and reading more about this topic. This is my first Gentill offering; I will be exploring more.

Reading this book is like taking a step back in time to Jane Austen's England. As her beloved sister, Cassandra, now an elderly spinster, tries to retrieve old letters to protect Jane's legacy, we follow her into a world with all of the personalities, romantic intrigue, near tragic events, and brilliant caricature that fans of Austen novels enjoy. I would highly recommend this book for all who have experienced that world and all who have not yet met Miss Austen--Cassandra or Jane.

I thoroughly enjoyed traveling with Mary Norris through her experience of all things Greek, both ancient and modern. I truly learned something new on every page, and her vibrant voice and comprehensive scholarship brought each detail to life. Although I do not expect to visit in person, I loved vicariously being there through Mary's enthusiastic retelling.

My strongest takeaway from this novel is the abyss that exists for a writer between his/her creative life and his/her everyday life. I had never considered the tremendous tension which must pull any artist back and forth, mentally and physically, between these two seemingly irreconcilable worlds. Joan Ashby Manning must "die" and be "resurrected " in order to find a place for herself which allows freedom and integrity. But the cost is great.

Meeting Leo Brice, new-fledged lawyer and broken-hearted lover, was an experience. He gained my sympathy for his all out devastation when soulmate Fiona betrays him to pursue an advance to her acting career in the arms of a shallow fellow actor. But he gained my respect in his futile attempt to save the self-taught religious guru Michael Tiegs. His journey to discover meaning in life and death is handled tenderly and philosophically by author Dan Cluchey. I was caught up time and again in Cluchey's mastery of language, and I was moved to see Leo stumble through his evolution with humor and sincerity and humanity.

This is an intriguing time passage back to Dickensian England. Characters are fully developed, and the reader finds himself/herself walking the streets of London looking right and left for the cut-purse light-footed criminal as well as quick stepping out of the way of the sparking wheels of a royal coach. Tension exists from the opening scenes as our hero, Thomas Hawkins, is being transported to the gallows. The reader needs to read the unfolding of the story to determine if Hawkins is really a murderer or a hero. Engaging and developed with twists and turns, the story draws the reader into a mystery which requires the reader to make judgments between good and evil, saints and sinners.

I was halfway through Nayomi Munaweera's What Lies Between Us before I realized that I did not know the first person narrator's name. While this is unusual story development, what I find even more intriguing is that it didn't matter since I was already so invested in her story. The young girl from Sri Lanka tells her compelling story with such strong narrative voice that I only knew that I wanted to know how the tangled web of her life would evolve from the opening paragraphs.

Munaweera's prose is flowing and lyrical, punctuated with images and emotional depth which would make it a good choice for book club discussion. Serious Issues of immigration, sexual abuse, interracial marriage, post-partem depression are intertwined with grace by a young woman whose past both defines and forecasts her future.

Miss Constance Kopp is no shrinking violet. In an era (1914) when women were supposed to be docile, domestic, and dependent on men, Ms. Kopp stands out literally and figuratively as anything but. Not only does she stand a head taller than most of the male characters in Amy Stewart's book, she also weathers a difficult, atypical lifestyle: an out-of-wedlock pregnancy, a sometimes violent vendetta with a local "Black Hand" gang led by her nemesis, Henry Kaufman, and a collaboration with Sheriff Heath to help put the gang's leaders behind bars. When in the epilogue I learned that the story was based on real people and situations, Constance became even more of a stand-out feminine icon of her time.

Stewart uses several primary sources to validate the original story but deftly adds her own touches to create living, breathing characters. For example, Constance's sister Norma is also strong-willed and capable; she handles a pistol as well as experimenting with her flock of carrier pigeons. Fleurette, the youngest, is creative and artistic hoping to find her way somehow to the stage; we learn as the story unfolds that she really is Constance's daughter, a secret known only to the family and never revealed to Fleurette. The moral stance of the time forces Constance to assume this difficult dual role, and the reader sees her struggling at times to keep her emotions under control when Fleurette is in danger.

Stewart provides us with an inside view of a turbulent time by giving us strong, well-developed characters based on real-life women making their way in a male-dominated society.

I enjoyed reading this book--seeing how families and food play such a massive part in our culture. I could definitely feel a connection between my family and Pam Anderson's family. We too take time to plan our holidays around about who's bringing what and what was good last time that should be repeated. I have three daughters and a son who want both the traditional and the avant-garde. We love to eat, drink, and celebrate together. I'll be trying the recipes provided and subscribing to ThreeManyCooks for future guidance. My only reserve is the sharing of personal information (difficulties among mother/daughter relationships or marital issues). While these are, I suppose, interesting to some, as a newcomer to this family blog I felt as if I were intruding into privileged places. I loved hearing about food, celebration, and family, but not so much about problems that were more personal.

Stanley Meisler brings to life a period of time between the world wars which was unique in the world of painting: the intriguing work of Jewish artists who left their eastern European homes to settle in Paris's Montparnasse. The amorphous group is called The School of Paris; some of the most important today are Chaim Soutine, Marc Chagall, and Modigliani. Meisler focuses most on Soutine in part because he is a distant relative whose story in some ways mirrors his own family's history of immigration because of religious persecution. But in telling Soutine's story, he opens up a window into the art world with its passionate characters, financial arrangements, and sometimes tortuous, self-destructive life styles. Soutine himself left little of his own personal reflections for biographers except his paintings, and they range from his own interpretations on Rembrandt (his artistic hero) to wild landscapes with heavy, physical strokes of paint to portraits which were intended apparently to capture the personality rather than be flattering and marketable. Meisler also manages to provide the historical and political forces which helped to shape the painters' daily lives particularly the Nazi invasion of France and the Vichy government.

I found Meisler's book to be very readable and personal; his genuine interest in the people he writes about without judgment or arbitrary opinion allow the reader to experience the material individually, without obtrusive, stuffy guidance. The book led me to research the paintings and the places mentioned on my own which only added to the reading. I owe a thank-you to Mr. Meisler for the education.

It is rare to get an inside view of a horrible, violent crime through the eyes of the victims. Colette McBeth provides a visceral account of murder and attempted murder on two women--Melody and Eve; Melody survives in a haunted, paralyzing existence, and Eve who has died contributes a postmortem investigation which eventually leads Melody to the truth about her attacker. McBeth provides enough plot twists to keep the reader in suspense; the narrative provides an empathy for victims of such crimes and the impact they have on daily life.

Combine history lesson, romance, real life intrigue, and witchery and you will have Bitter Greens by Kate Forsyth. Her clever weaving of the biography of Charlotte-Rose de la Force, an acclaimed published 17th century storyteller, with the Rapunzel of the fairytale we all know is a revelation. Charlotte-Rose's retelling is more dark and evil: a young girl sacrificed by her parents to appease a witch who requires the girl's blood to maintain her youth. The sanitized version of the fairy tale with which we have become familiar cannot compare. Forsyth also provides ample detail of court etiquette, dress, and behavior during the reign of King Louis XIV revealing her attention to historical accuracy of this decadent, amoral period. At the same time, an underlying theme of the struggle for religious freedom (Huguenot persecution) reflects her sense of the serious issues of the time. My only reserve is in the explicit love scenes; when reading a work of such imagination, I don't need specific details to paint the scene.

Helen Rapport provides a meticulous, superbly researched view into the daily lives of Nicholas and Alexandra . . . and their five children. The contrast between the turmoil and dangers of the outside world and the insolated bubble which was the Tsar's household is astonishing, but remarkably familiar. The children grow before the reader's eyes; they are active, passionate, mischievous. Their mother and father hover over them, protect them, and provide for them what seems like an impossibly "normal" environment in the midst of all of the intrigue surrounding the throne and the "almost" well-kept secret of Alexey's hemophilia.

The final collision of the two worlds is, of course, a tragic, history-changing moment in world politics. But Rappaport always remembers the real people in each moment of this remarkable biography--she never allows any of the family to become abstract symbols or ephemeral ghosts.