Welcome to the Quarantine Edition of Butterfly Books, plus reviews of Wrong Side of the Paw by Laurie Cass and Bridge of Scarlet Leaves by Kristina McMorris

Welcome to the Quarantine/Coronavirus Edition of Butterfly Books! Today we're focusing on how the stay at home rule (now through the end of next month) and the social distancing rules are affecting bookstores/book retailers all over the US and the World. I will try to slip in a couple of book reviews at the end, but to be honest, I've been having a hard time concentrating on reading with the threat of death by respiratory virus hanging over my head everyday.

Online ordering and deliver to your doorstep has become the norm for everything from books to food to toilet paper. Yet I feel terrible for the folks who are putting themselves and their families health at risk by going out each day and delivering whatever people order to their door. 

Quotation of the Day

'I'm Afraid of Falling in Love with Delivering Books'

"Stanley the mailman, the best mailman that ever was, kept leaving us plastic corrugated USPS tubs. They seemed to multiply at night. We'd been shipping a lot more books--even before we knew what was coming--so Stanley picking up packages became a daily thing. He'd bring two empty tubs and swap them out for the two tubs full of books. But the in-store stack of empty tubs kept growing.... Last week, Chris finally asked Stanley to take away the extras, leaving only two. Why the heck would we ever need six USPS tubs anyway?

"The first day we offered free delivery in Lawrence, last Saturday, I hopped in my little red hatchback and delivered three packages. The next day, maybe six. By Tuesday it was 15 books and they were sliding across my trunk. We shouldn't have given away the tubs. Wednesday we asked Stanley for more. That day, two of us delivered 50 books. Thursday it was 75 books and three delivery routes....

"The main interactions I have with customers these days involve me standing beside my still-running car in the driveway as the customer waves from their porch. Sometimes they yell 'thank you!' and I yell 'thank YOU!'...

"We reinvented this business in a matter of a weekend. Our community has unleashed an absolute outbreak of support. The creaky old shop has proven resilient in its first week of reinvention. But these days any Same could be over in hours.... I'm afraid of falling in love with delivering books because I don't know how long it will last."

Danny Caine, owner of the Raven Book Store http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43758601 Lawrence, Kan., in the most recent edition of his "narrative dispatch,"

 Nearly every single convention, conference, sporting event and concert that you can name has been cancelled until the late summer or fall, and that changes daily, as we all watch on TV how the virus has spread and is killing more and more people, and stressing hospitals to the max (they're running out of ventilators and beds and supplies of every kind).

American Library Association Cancels Conference

The 2020 ALA Annual Conference & Exhibition, scheduled for June 25-30 in Chicago, has been canceled. The American Library Association http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43758606's executive board announced the decision yesterday, noting that this will mark the first time in 75 years ALA has not held an annual conference. The last cancellation took place in 1945 as World War II neared its end.

"ALA's priority is the health and safety of the library community, including our members, staff, supporters, vendors and volunteers," said Wanda K. Brown, ALA president. "As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolds, it's become clear that in the face of an unprecedented situation, we need to make tough choices.... I am so sorry that this difficult decision had to be made, but I am certain that it is the right one. One of our greatest strengths is our ability to adapt and reinvent ourselves when needed the most. May these challenging and uncertain times find us working even closer together so that our libraries, our communities, our association and our families will all thrive."

 Thank heaven for online conference calling software like Zoom, and for Skype and YouTube, where many actors/actresses and singers and performers are posting performances and readings to keep everyone from going stir-crazy by being indoors.

Video: Sir Patrick Stewart Reads Shakespeare's Sonnets

To help us, in a small way, sooth our jagged nerves during the global coronavirus tragedy, Sir Patrick Stewart http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43758688 is reading one of Shakespeare's Sonnets each day and posting the video on his Twitter account. I was delighted by the response http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43758689 to yesterday's posting of Shakespeare's Sonnet 116, and it has led me to undertake what follows," he tweeted. "When I was a child in the 1940s, my mother would cut up slices of fruit for me (there wasn't much) and as she put it in front of me she would say, 'An apple a day keeps the doctor away.' How about, 'A sonnet a day keeps the doctor away?' So... here we go: Sonnet 1."

Most bookstores are closed now, but a  lot of them are using new services like Bookshop to post books for sale and then they get a percentage of every sale. Others are using their own websites to sell books. I certainly consider them essential, as a bibliophile of over 50 years.

Bookstores Want to be Essential Infrustructure

More than a dozen independent bookstores throughout Washington State have signed an open letter to Governor Jay Inslee asking that they be included as essential critical infrastructure in the stay-at-home order Inslee issued this week.

"Time is of the essence and we ask this approval be granted immediately," the letter reads. "The past week many of us have closed our doors to the public to eliminate browsing in our bookstores. We've continued fulfilling orders for home delivery, mail, or pick up outside the front door. The communities we serve are hungry and asking for books at this very moment. We must stay open, behind the scenes, for book fulfillment. We are passionate about continuing to do our part in helping during the crisis."

Janis Segress, co-owner and manager of Queen Anne Book Company http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43760222 in Seattle, spear-headed the writing of the letter, and said she also plans to get it to Washington Senators Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray. She added that she and her team are currently processing a "frenzy of orders" to fill before the store closes tonight. From tomorrow on, unless the exemption is made, she and other Washington indies will have to shift to fulfulling web orders through Ingram.

Little Joe’s Books Tells it Like It Is During Pandemic

There is no business as usual anymore. "Every day at this time http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43761980 I get an e-mail from the folks closing up at both businesses," Little Joe's Books http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43761981, Katonah, N.Y., posted on Facebook Wednesday. "I miss this e-mail more than you can imagine as there is often something personal or a little story about the day's events. Today here's my end of day report: A morning customer checked in to ask about our staff and to tell them he's thinking about them. The staff hopes his wife who is pregnant is doing well--but they also hope she knows he takes three sugars in his latte.

"Another customer is on her next to last bag of cinnamon tea and hopes we can help her out soon. Her son urged her to use the word penultimate in the request, so we assume his homeschooling is going just fine. Another customer is nearly out of jellybeans and needs a desperate shipment. We spent the day torn between wanting to fill orders and get goods to our people--and listening to Cuomo's orders to just STAY HOME. And just so it's clear--we love hearing about you missing us and needing your goodies. Because it's sooo normal. And I pass the stories along to the staff every day to keep them cheerful too. Anyway, we hope you are listening too and staying home so we can come back sooner."

I'm thinking about one of my ancestors. He lived in a cave. It was a long time ago, though he had fire by then. One of his morning rituals was to stoke the embers and get a flame going before the family woke up. The fire was probably near the cave's entrance, to let smoke out and keep creatures that weren't part of the family at bay. As my ancestor squatted near the blaze, he would survey the distant terrain--maybe open land, maybe high grass, maybe trees, maybe undergrowth--that might camouflage life-threatening hazards... and food.

A good provider, he made daily calculations: the family's survival depended upon how far he was willing to venture out on the open savannah, or into the forest, to hunt and gather. Stay in the cave too long and his family died of hunger. Go too far away from it and he became prey. That he survived long enough to keep threads of my DNA going is a testament to his ability to strike a balance between the two.

With the microscopic predator Covid-19 on a worldwide hunt for us now, we all wake each morning and squat near our own cave entrances, calculating how much we're willing to risk to get through another day safely.

Thank heaven for people coming together to save one of the most iconic bookstores in the US, Powells City of Books in Portland, Oregon. It has been my mecca for years, and I've been going there once a year for decades to trade in books for store credit and leave with bags full of more books. Since the coronavirus shutdown and stay at home rule, that's not possible, but I still have hope that the store will reopen once this is over and I can get back to important things like padding my TBR with fresh books!

Powells is Saved From Closure

Because of a jump in online orders to Powells.com, Powell's Books has called back more than 100 employees. At least 340 staff were let go earlier this month when the store had to close its five locations in and near Portland, Ore. In an open letter http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43789884 on Friday, owner Emily Powell wrote, in part:

"Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts, for your incredible and unwavering support. Your kind words, messages of encouragement, ideas for perseverance, and orders for books have taken our breath away.

"Thanks to your orders on Powells.com, we now have over 100 folks working at Powell's again--all full time with benefits. Most importantly, we're working hard to keep everyone safe and healthy. Doing that work means we have to move a little slower as a company than usual. Please bear with us as we take all the necessary precautions to keep everyone healthy, 1

Powell added that for now, the company is paying only "expenses that keep folks employed, and the lights on, for the time being. We can't do that forever--we love our vendors and business partners, and want to support them as well. Right now, however, our focus is on keeping Powell's moving, keeping our community healthy, taking care of our wonderful customers, and having as many folks working with health insurance as our sales can support.

"We don't know what the future holds--none of us does. We're going to keep the doors to Powells.com open as long as we can, and we will open the doors to all of our stores as soon as it is safe to do so. In the meantime, we are eternally grateful for your support. We love nothing more than connecting readers and writers, and sending books out the door to their new homes. Your orders allow us to keep working and keep our team of incredible booksellers employed."

Wrong Side of the Paw by Laurie Cass is another of the Bookmobile Cat Mysteries that my 82 year old mother is obsessed with and that I enjoy every once in awhile when I need an easy read. This installment in the series had the usual perky/feisty petite librarian who is nosy and annoying (but beloved in her small community of course) and manages to suss out clues and solve the mystery of how one woman's horrible father ended up dead in the bed of her truck. Here's the blurb: As Laurie Cass continues the national bestselling Bookmobile Cat mystery series, librarian Minnie Hamilton is happy to take her bookmobile for a spin with her rescue cat, Eddie—but her tenacious tabby always seems to find trouble...
 
As the bookmobile rolls along the hills of Chilson, Michigan, Minnie and Eddie spread good cheer and good reads. But when her faithful feline finds his way into the middle of a murder, Minnie is there, like any good librarian, to check it out.

Eddie turns a routine bookmobile stop into anything but when he makes a quick escape and hops into a pickup truck…with a dead body in the flatbed. The friendly local lawyer who was driving the pickup falls under suspicion. But Minnie and Eddie think there's more to this case than meets the eye, and the dynamic duo sets out to leave no page unturned.

Cass' prose is breezy and light, and her plots are clear sailing...not too hard to understand but twisty enough so you don't figure out whodunit within the first two chapters. I'd give this 6th book in the series a B, and recommend it to anyone who likes Cass' other mysteries, and those who like spunky librarians and their grumpy cats.

Bridge of Scarlet Leaves by Kristina McMorris is a WWII romantic historical fiction novel set before, during and after the war from the perspective of two families, one Japanese American and one Caucasian American whose children grow up together and eventually develop larger bonds. The Japanese internment camps are outlined in detail here, as are Japanese POW camps and Japanese American soldier units who fought for America during the war and died with honor protecting the country they loved and its people. Here's the blurb: An “impeccably researched and beautifully written” novel about a California marriage threatened by the Japanese internments of WWII (Karen White, New York Times–bestselling author of The Sound of Glass).

Los Angeles, 1941. Violinist Maddie Kern’s life seemed destined to unfold with the predictable elegance of a Bach concerto. Then she fell in love with Lane Moritomo.

Her brother’s best friend, Lane is the handsome, ambitious son of Japanese immigrants. Maddie was prepared for disapproval from their families, but when Pearl Harbor is bombed the day after she and Lane elope, the full force of their decision becomes apparent. In the eyes of a fearful nation, Lane is no longer just an outsider, but an enemy.

Maddie follows when her husband is interned at a war relocation camp, sacrificing her Juilliard ambitions. Behind barbed wire, tension simmers and the line between patriot and traitor blurs. As Maddie strives for the hard-won acceptance of her new family, Lane risks everything to prove his allegiance to America—at tremendous cost—in this “beautiful, timeless love story . . . McMorris’ words reach right off the page and grab at your heart” (Sarah Jio, New York Times–bestselling author of Blackberry Winter).
 Though I agree that this is a poignant story, I felt that it was a bit overwritten, with too much description and flashbacks and renderings of every thought in a character's head. A good editor could have cut out at least 50 pages of padding and the story would not have suffered at all. Still, I enjoyed the main characters, Maddie and Lane, though I didn't like the angry young man TJ, and felt that he was a controlling, violent jerk. I was (SPOILER) very upset when the author chose to have Lane die rescuing the worthless TJ from a POW camp. I would have preferred that Lane come home to his family and be with his wife and daughter and his parents. Still, I realize that in these kinds of books, it lends authenticity for at least one of the soldiers to die, considering how many men didn't come home in 1945. So I'd give this book an A-, and recommend it to anyone who likes WWII stories that are diverse and well written.

I must add a plea from an immuno-compromised person (Me) to everyone reading my blog...PLEASE STAY HOME. Wash your hands, wear a mask if you go outside at all, and stay six feet away from everyone else. Why not sit down and have a nice read or watch Netflix or CBS All Access on your computer?! Take care and stay healthy, my friends!

Powell's Future in Danger, Blue Peter Awards JK Rowling, Amazon Hires More Workers, Quote of the Day, GRRM Blogs About COVID 19 Virus, The Absinthe Earl by Sharon Lynn Fisher, and A Murderous Relation by Deanna Raybourn

The COVID 19 virus continues to sweep through the nation, killing many (including playwright Terrance McNally) and filling hospitals and nursing homes with more patients than they have beds or equipment for. So now it becomes a matter of who you choose to get that respirator or oxygen, the 20-something with a compromised immune system or the 60 year old who has asthma? A vast majority of Doctors are going to choose the younger patient, thereby letting the person who is my age die. So to say that I am terrified of getting the virus is an understatement. The governor of the state of Washington has declared a quarantine emergency and shut down all but "essential" services, such as hospitals and pharmacies and grocery stores. Even then, people have been told to stay indoors except to grocery shop once a week, and while outside they are to stay 6 feet away from all other people and practice good handwashing and cough/sneezing into your elbow (not your hands) techniques. Many restaurants and bookstores are closed, or only selling books and food online for pick up or delivery. My husband continues to go out shopping nearly everyday, though I've asked him not to, and my son goes to work 5 days a week, because his boss refuses to shutter their computer repair business. My son has planned to tell his boss that he's taking the next two weeks off, but I fear that he will catch the virus this week just by being in contact with people through their coming into his workplace. Also, because he's young, I think most people assume that he would survive the virus, when that's not a given at all, and he would bring it home to me, meanwhile, thereby dooming our whole family. Here's what is going on in the book world:

Emily Powell on Closings and Layoffs: 'The Path Ahead Is Dark and Scary'

Earlier this week, Powell's Books closed its five stores in and around Portland, Ore., and laid off at least 340 union employees. Yesterday owner Emily Powell sent this letter to staff.

These are unprecedented and grievous times. Only a few days ago we had reason to hope that we could continue with our meaningful work of bookselling and maintain some small semblance of normalcy. Now we see the path ahead more clearly: it is dark and scary.

I have always described Powell's as resilient: lumbering sometimes, full of quirks and personality, but always resilient. We are having that resilience tested as never before. As you all know, we made the decision, with only a small amount of time to act, to close all of our stores over the weekend. We felt we could not wait a moment longer for the sake of the health of our community. We had hoped to find some way to consider this a short-term closure. Today, only one more day out from that decision, we now understand what we all must face: an extended, difficult period of significant measures to protect public health. We don't expect we will be able to open our doors for at least eight weeks, and very likely longer. When we do open our stores again, we expect the landscape of Oregon, and all of our abilities to spend money on books and gifts, will have changed dramatically. I wish we could have planned more and prepared you more; the situation simply moved too quickly and our responsibility to act quickly to protect public health felt too dire.

When we closed our doors, we also closed off the vast majority of our business without any prospect of it returning soon. As a result, we have been forced to make the unthinkable decision to lay off the vast majority of you in the coming few days. Many people have spoken publicly demanding we pay our employees and extend health insurance for the duration. No one can possibly know how much I wish I could make that happen. We are simply not that kind of business--we run on duct tape and twine on a daily basis, every day trading funds from one pocket to patch the hole in another. We have worked hard over the years to pay the best possible wages, health care and benefits, to make contributions to our community, to support other non-profits. Unfortunately, none of those choices leave extra money on hand when the doors close. And when the doors close, every possible cost must stop as well.

I am doing everything within my power to keep Powell's alive for the next generation of readers and writers, for the next generation of Portland and Oregon. And yet Powell's is also where I grew up and have spent most of my life, and I cannot imagine attempting to move forward without so many of you, colleagues who feel like family. Please know none of our choices were made lightly, and our slow communication has masked our desperate efforts to find a different possible path.

My heart breaks for all of us. Our stores are meant to be full, our city bustling, our minds at ease. And for a time, none of those will be true. I know for many of you, your lives will be forever altered by our decision to close our stores and you will never think of Powell's the same. For all of that and more, I am deeply sorry. I can only hope we might find a way to come back together on the other side of these terrible times.

 This is a nice award for JKR, whose books I've loved, though I am dismayed that she's a trans-exclusionary radical feminist, or TERF, who is prejudiced against trans people.

Awards: Blue Peter Book 20th Anniversary Winner

J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone won the Blue Peter Book Awards 20th Anniversary Prize http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43640660. The British children's TV program asked its audience to vote for their favorite Blue Peter Book Award book from the last two decades, and thousands of viewers voted.

Blue Peter editor Ellen Evans commented: "Through the Blue Peter Book Awards we want to show how reading is fun and enjoyable, can help you feel better, can help you empathize, find out new facts and, through imagination, experience something beyond everyday life! J.K. Rowling and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is truly a wonderful and worthy winner. I loved reading our audience's comments online talking about their favorite books and sharing their love of reading."

 Even buying books online is fraught with peril these days:

Amazon Prioritizing 'High-Demand' Items, Hiring 100,000 Workers

Amazon will prioritize household staples, medical supplies, pet supplies and other high-demand products at its fulfillment centers, resulting in reduced purchase orders and extended delivery windows for low priority items such as books, as outlined on its Seller Central page http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43669070. This will be in effect through at least April 5.

The company added: "For products other than these, we have temporarily disabled shipment creation. We are taking a similar approach with retail vendors."

At the same time, Amazon plans to hire 100,000 additional workers to help keep up with the surge in online orders brought about by the coronavirus pandemic, the AP reported

The new job openings are for a mix of full-time and part-time positions, including everything from delivery drivers to warehouse workers. Amazon also plans to temporarily raise pay for its hourly employees by $2 per hour through the end of April, with hourly workers in the U.K. and parts of Europe set to get similar increases.

The announcement comes after Amazon adjusted its time-off policy for hourly workers last week, allowing them to take as much time off in March as desired, with the caveat that they would be paid only for earned time off. Amazon announced, too, that it would pay hourly workers for up to two weeks if they become ill with the virus or needed to be quarantined.

The surge in online shopping has put significant strain on Amazon's operations, with an Amazon higher-up saying that current demand is "unprecedented" for this time of year.

Reading Out the Window

Patricia Nelson, a sales representative with University Press Sales Associates who is based in Santa Fe, N.Mex., sent the following note to her booksellers Monday under the subject line "Reading out the Window":

As we take in the impossible news of bookstores cancelling their calendars and closing their doors for a prudent interim, I feel the hum of book hives quieting. Extraordinarily dear places. As a sales rep, my GPS is bookstores--I triangulate any travel by proximity to bookstores, those in my circuit and those I know elsewhere. All are virtually present in a memory palace, how they are laid out, an odd corner, an intriguingly curated category, what I found there.

Hardly a week ago, in San Diego, I recognized a book was waiting for me on a lovely table at the Book Catapult http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43669130. Fenton Johnson's At the Center of All Beauty, on "solitude and the creative life." I found Fenton Johnson a while back, intertwined with Thomas Merton and Kentucky. He asks, apropos of the solitaries he studies here, "But does ascetic practice require bricks and mortar?"

Even at the very precipice of this sudden abyss, I did not realize we would face immediate social distancing. At the CALIBA Spring Meeting in San Diego, I enjoyed being with booksellers together, appreciating authors, sharing the struggles and rewards of small business concerns, not recognizing so incipient a threat. Now, finding ourselves at home, separated from our ordinary lives out and about, I am thinking about our reading practice beyond brick and mortar. 

Finding books is a kind of wayfaring. With our experience of favorite book terrains, we comfortably and trustingly can "virtually" visit our bookstores. We can share the enthusiasms of our favorite booksellers, their staff picks and book news, we can imaginatively search their shelves, even write or call for distance bibliotherapy. At home, hunkering down, we more deeply recognize the gift of gathering so generously bestowed. As we recognize the myriad ways bookstores animate our community, and offer the astonishing presence of writers, let us recognize the actual object of these unique encounters.  That we can actually bring home the book, possess the object. I am reading through postponed events calendars which literally picture a season of delights unfolding. As a rep, the reply to "what are you reading now?" is always something out ahead. I'm looking at my notes. Order the book!

Let us find ways to sing our reading out the window together. All of us, as publishers and book travelers, as booksellers, as readers, can share in the generosity of bookstores as places in mind. May you all stay safe and well.

 Excellent Quote for this time, because books aren't in a hurry, they will always be there no matter what.

Quotation of the Day

"We see print and books as a through line or continuity that people can rely on when things get weird or it feels like the world is ending. Books aren't in a hurry."

--Camden Avery, a manager at the Booksmith http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43670845, San Francisco, Calif., speaking with KQED

Island Books http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43729989, Mercer Island, Wash., shared a photo of its sidewalk chalkboard, featuring the word of the moment http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43729990 (and, it appears, the unforeseeable future): "essential."

Many authors have had to cancel their book tours or even their book debuts. Sounds like the famed  George RR Martin is doing his best to make the sheltering in place order a way to move forward with his latest writing.

GRRM Blogs about COVID Virus

"Strange days are upon us http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43697888.  As ancient as I am, I cannot recall ever having lived through anything like the past few weeks," bestselling author George R.R. Martin wrote on his blog. While he temporarily shuttering several of his enterprises in Santa Fe, N.Mex., Beastly Books http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43697889 will remain open for the time being, though author events have been canceled or postponed. "If it seems best to shut the bookstore too, we will do that."

Martin added: "Truth be told, I am spending more time in Westeros than in the real world, writing every day. Things are pretty grim in the Seven Kingdoms... but maybe not as grim as they may become here.... Let us hope we all come through this safe and sound. Stay well, my friends. Better to be safe than sorry."

The Absinthe Earl by Sharon Lynn Fisher is a paranormal fantasy romance that sounded like it would be a fun and light read, which is something a lot of people are looking for right now, myself included. Unfortunately, it was terribly overwritten, with almost "baroque rococo" style prose that was dense and dull. The plot was slow as molasses in January and the characters stiff and often silly or stupid. Here's the blurb:

Miss Ada Quicksilver, a student of London's Lovelace Academy for Promising Young Women, is spending her holiday in Ireland to pursue her anthropological study of fairies. She visits Dublin's absinthe bars to investigate a supposed association between the bittersweet spirit and fairy sightings.

One night a handsome Irishman approaches her, introducing himself as Edward Donoghue. Edward takes absinthe to relieve his sleepwalking, and she is eager to hear whether he has experience with fairies. Instead, she discovers that he's the earl of Meath, and that he will soon visit a mysterious ruin at Newgrange on the orders of his cousin, the beautiful, half-mad Queen Isolde. On learning about Ada's area of study, he invites her to accompany him.

Ada is torn between a sensible fear of becoming entangled with the clearly troubled gentleman and her compelling desire to ease his suffering. Finally she accepts his invitation, and they arrive in time for the winter solstice. That night, the secret of Edward's affliction is revealed: he is, in fact, a lord in two worlds and can no longer suppress his shadow self.

Little does either of them realize that their blossoming friendship and slowly kindling passion will lead to discoveries that wrench open a door sealed for centuries, throwing them into a war that will change Ireland forever.

Though it is obvious the main characters Ada and Edward will end up together, there's a great deal of hand-wringing that goes on on both sides, with one trying to protect the other or thinking they aren't good enough for one another, for whatever reason. Rinse and repeat. This goes from charming to tedious after the first few chapters, so I could hardly wait for the book to end. SHOW, DON'T TELL, Ms Fisher! At any rate, I'd give this book a C, and only recommend it to those who like overwrought Irish romances.

A Murderous Relation by Deanna Raybourn was the 5th Veronica Speedwell Mystery that I've read and enjoyed, populated by the wonderful Veronica and the dark enigmatic Stoker, who is minor royalty and a major hottie. Here's the blurb: Autumn 1888. Veronica Speedwell and her colleague Stoker are asked by Lady Wellingtonia Beauclerk to stop a potential scandal so explosive it threatens to rock the monarchy. Prince Albert Victor is a regular visitor to the most exclusive private club in London, and the proprietress, Madame Aurore, has received an expensive gift that can be traced back to the prince. Lady Wellie would like Veronica and Stoker to retrieve it from the club before scandal can break.

Worse yet, London is being terrorized by what would become the most notorious and elusive serial killer in history, Jack the Ripper—and Lady Wellie suspects the prince may be responsible.
Veronica and Stoker reluctantly agree to go undercover at Madame Auroreʼs high-class brothel, where a body soon turns up. Secrets are swirling around Veronica and the royal family—and it is up to Veronica and Stoker to find the truth, before it is too late for all of them.

The only thing I didn't like about this zingy mystery, (written in lovely prose that keeps you turning pages unto the wee hours) is that they never hold forth with whom they think actually is Jack the Ripper, or why he stopped killing young impoverished women when he did. I would have liked to have seen the protagonists take a crack at this ancient mystery and come up with a credible suspect. However, despite that small flaw, this is a wonderful and engrossing novel that I'm giving an A, and recommending to anyone who has read the other Veronica Speedwell mysteries. I sincerely hope that Stoker and Veronica end up entwined together both physically and in another mystery soon! I could read this kind of book every day, especially now,to keep my mind off of the grim reality of the coronavirus.

ABA and COVID 19 Virus, Artemis Fowl Movie, LondonBook Fair Canceled, Island Books, She Wolf and Cub by Lilith Saintcrow, The Whispers of War by Julia Kelly, and Maid by Stephanie Land

I've not posted a set of reviews on this blog for quite awhile, and I can only blame it on the whole COVID 19 Coronavirus pandemic that seems to be swelling in numbers of those affected by the hour here in King County, though so far, we've not had anyone in Maple Valley become officially infected, as far as I know right now (the news changes hourly). As someone with pre-existing conditions that compromise my immune system, I am horrified whenever I read about new outbreaks or watch TV and hear the news of more deaths among the elderly, the very young and people like myself, who do not have the ability to fight off a serious respiratory infection like COVID 19. Of course, forcing people to stay indoors, cancelling conventions, parades church services and everything else that could bring people together where they might infect one another has helped slow the infection rate. But the fact that you can have this virus and not show symptoms for two weeks (!), and that it can live for up to three days on surfaces, and knowing how cavalier some people are about good hand washing, I'm still nervous every time my husband or son return home from a shopping trip or work...what if someone sneezed on that apple? I could die from a virus gotten from a library book or a dirty piece of fruit. It's scary, and so many people are staying indoors, many local businesses are actively seeking ways to bring books, food or whatever you want to your doorstep, so they can stay in business during this dark time. With schools cancelled as well, everyone has a reason to pray for a vaccine and/or a miracle this Easter.

 It's important for small, independent businesses to get creative to find ways to stay open during the viral pandemic. Hill has some great ideas here.

ABA and Dealing with the Coronavirus

We wish to offer an official welcome to Allison Hill, who became CEO of the American Booksellers Association on March 1. What a week and a half it's been. In her first general letter to membership, published yesterday in Bookselling This Week, a reference to threats to indies included a new one--"rising costs, an election year, a pandemic, a looming recession, and Amazon.com In a BTW roundup  http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43610341 of how some stores are promoting shopping local during the coronavirus pandemic, Hill said, "As people practice social distancing to protect themselves, their instinct is to shop chain stores for 'one stop shopping' in lieu of their favorite bookstores, hardware stores, or other independent businesses. If your store has an e-commerce site, remind customers that they can shop with you online and that you appreciate their support right now. Partnering with a local delivery service may be another option to help serve customers who don't feel comfortable coming into your store right now.

"I'm always reminded at times like these how important it is that we walk the talk and make sure that we're all supporting other indie businesses. Check in with other indies in your area and see how you can cross-promote each other's businesses, support one another, and work together to raise community awareness about the critical need to support local businesses right now."

In addition, as noted in BTW, the ABA has set up a new page on

BookWeb.org

http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43610342 that details event updates, general information about the outbreak, and resources for

retailers. And on BookWeb's Bookseller-to-Bookseller Forums, there is a new thread for stores to "share best practices during the outbreak, including how to stay healthy, how to handle related personnel issues, how to cut costs if sales are down, how to handle cancelled events, and other topics members want to share."

In related ABA news, because of the coronavirus outbreak, association staff will not attend the remaining 2020 spring forums being held by regional booksellers associations this month and next. The spring forum programs traditionally include a forum or town hall session with senior staff from the ABA. The ABA is working with the regionals to offer a virtual forum or town hall where possible.

I read two of the Artemis Fowl books many years ago, when Nick was still a kid. I enjoyed them, but it appears that they've taken the role of Artemis, who is a genius villain, and turned him into a good guy, for some weird reason. This also happened with the short series I just watched on Amazon Prime called The Rook, based very loosely on the book of the same name by Daniel O'Malley. I was so sad that they took such a wonderful and intricate story and turned it into a sex and violence-laden mystery/action series. 

Movies: Artemis Fowl

A new trailer has been released for Artemis Fowl http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43486718, based on the bestselling books by Eoin Colfer. Entertainment Weekly reported that the film "follows the 12-year-old boy genius, Artemis Fowl (Ferdia Shaw), as he finds himself in a war against a hidden world of fairies while on a search for his missing father."

Directed by Kenneth Branagh, the movie's cast includes Colin Farrell as Artemis Fowl Sr., Judi Dench (Commander Root), Tamara Smart, Josh McGuire, Nikesh Patel, Adrian Scarborough, Nonso Anozie, Lara McDonnell and Josh Gad. Artemis Fowl is scheduled to hit theaters May 29.

This famous book fair is just one of many venues cancelled due to the Coronavirus. Italy has basically closed down the entire country, and I had to attend to my book group via Skype (online video) chat this past Tuesday. No one knows when the bans will be lifted and when the rising path of the virus will finally start to head downhill to fewer cases. 

London Book Fair Canceled

The show will not go on after all. A day after London Book Fair organizers said they were still planning to hold the event next week, Reed Exhibitions announced its cancelation http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43515112 following the escalation of COVID-19 Coronavirus in Europe and the exit of so many publishers, agents and others since last Friday. Just yesterday, most major U.K. publishers said that they weren't attending, which followed cancelations by many from East Asia, Italy, North America and finally many parts of Europe.

At the same time, other book fairs had either canceled this year's edition, such as Livre Paris and the Leipzig Book Fair, or postponed, like the Bologna Book Fair.

In a statement, Reed said: "The effects, actual and projected, of Coronavirus are becoming evident across all aspects of our lives here in the U.K. and across the world, with many of our participants facing travel restrictions. We have been following U.K. government guidelines and working with the rolling advice from the public health authorities and other organizations, and so it is with reluctance that we have taken the decision not to go ahead with this year's event.

"We recognize that business has to continue. With this in mind, we will of course support and collaborate with exhibitors and visitors to keep our world moving during this difficult period. We thank all those from the U.K. and a multitude of other countries who have prepared over the last year to deliver what promised to be a wonderful book fair showcasing, as ever, the exciting best of the global book industry. The London Book Fair will return, better than ever, in 2021."

 YAY for Island Books, which used to be my go-to bookstore back in the late 90s and early aughts. I really miss Roger Page and company.

Bookseller Moment: Island Books

Posted on Facebook yesterday by Island Books http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43516672, Mercer Island, Wash.: "We opened the door to bring the fresh air in http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43516673 and let you know we are here if you need books, a quiet place to sit, a card for a friend or just a place to be around people. P.S. as always, we will deliver anywhere on island if you cannot make it in."

She Wolf and Cub by Lilith Saintcrow is a short science fiction novel based loosely on "Lone Wolf and Cub" a Japanese wire-fu film released in Japan in 1970 and America in 1980. IT's basically the story of an assassin sent to kill a rival, including his family, who then can't bring himself to kill the youngest child. So he sets off with the child, who is skilled in martial arts, somehow, and the two defeat all who are in their path on their way to freedom. Here's the blurb: Ever since they gave her a new cyborg body and a steady stream of murderous work, she’s known the rules. Keep your head down, do your job, don’t get involved.

Then they sent her to assassinate a child.

Instead, she took him out of the City and into the Waste. Of course they’ll be coming for her, and for the strange, quiet, thirsty boy she’s rescued. Because he’s not just a child — he’s a profitable experiment. Bounty hunters. Fellow cyborgs. Cannibals. Monsters. They're all after him. All she has on her side is an almost-invulnerable body, a lifetime’s worth of stubbornness, and the willingness to kill whoever she has to. 

Saintcrow uses minimalist prose and a punchy, swift plot to tell this fascinating tale of a cyborg who learns to love a vampire child as her own.  It's not a fun and breezy read, but it is brilliant and beautiful in a harsh way. I'd give this a B+ and recommend it to fans of fish out of water or misfits banding together tales.

The Whispers of War by Julia Kelly is a historical romantic fiction novel that really surprised me. I was expecting it to be more about the home front during WW2, and as it had strong romantic elements, I also expected there to be lots of breathless sex scenes written with the usual tropes that drive me crazy (ie "heaving bosoms" and "moist caves of need" that are filled by his "thrusting manliness" LOL). Thankfully, there was none of that nonsense, and I instead found a book about three friends who did whatever they had to to survive the War. The plot was compelling and rich and the prose fulsome and beautifully tailored, like a bespoke suit. Here's the blurb: The start of World War II looms over three friends who struggle to remain loyal as one of them is threatened with internment by the British government, from the author of The Light Over London.
In August of 1939, as Britain watches the headlines in fear of another devastating war with Germany, three childhood friends must choose between friendship or country. Erstwhile socialite Nora is determined to find her place in the Home Office’s Air Raid Precautions Department, matchmaker Hazel tries to mask two closely guarded secrets with irrepressible optimism, and German expat Marie worries that she and her family might face imprisonment in an internment camp if war is declared. When Germany invades Poland and tensions on the home front rise, Marie is labeled an enemy alien, and the three friends find themselves fighting together to keep her free at any cost.

Featuring Julia Kelly’s signature “intricate, tender, and convincing” (Publishers Weekly) prose, The Whispers of War is a moving and unforgettable tale of the power of friendship and womanhood in the midst of conflict.

I was not aware that Germans, or people of German heritage, were put in internment camps in America during both WW1 and WW2, so the fact that my grandparents on both sides were able to remain on their farms working took on a new cast of good luck for me. My parents were also fortunate that they never had to face the horror of a camp, as both were children during the war. As is usual while reading books that go from modern day (usually with a thinly characterized female protagonist) to women of past generations, I find myself being irritated at how shallow modern day women seem in contrast. That said, I didn't like the fact that Marie was such a wimpy person, crying and fearful and always being treated so horribly by her evil Nazi cousin. The other characters seemed to have more grit and backbone. But the HEA was sublime, and I read through this book in a day, because it was so engrossing. I'd give it an A, and recommend it to anyone who is curious about what America did to those with German heritage during the first part of WW2.

Maid (subtitle: Hard work, low pay and a mother's will to survive) by Stephanie Land is a memoir about a young woman who goes from an abusive relationship and homelessness while caring for her child on welfare, to graduating from a University in Montana and becoming a freelance writer and successful author.  Though I realize we're supposed to sympathize with Land, she spends a majority of the book whining, crying, having breakdowns, wanting her mommy (no, I am not kidding) and complaining about everything that befalls her and her daughter. Realistically, I think Land should have either had an abortion or given her child up for adoption, because she had no real skills in either parenting or in working at jobs that would make her enough money to live on without having to rely on her scumbag ex boyfriend, who was constantly trying to poison their daughter (one he didn't want, BTW) against her. It's also never clear why Land didn't use effective birth control. It's not expensive, and Land isn't so stupid that she doesn't know of places to get birth control for free, like Planned Parenthood. It makes no sense to me to have a child when you are incapable of supporting him or her, and when you know that the person who helped make the child is also an ineffective parent. Forcing a child to grow up in abject poverty is cruel and stupid, especially when Land has no support system, with impoverished and selfish parents and no real friends to help her in times of need, like after a car accident, when Land suffers from a kind of PTSD.  Here's the blurb: 

Evicted meets Nickel and Dimed in Stephanie Land's memoir about working as a maid, a beautiful and gritty exploration of poverty in America. Includes a foreword by Barbara Ehrenreich.

At 28, Stephanie Land's plans of breaking free from the roots of her hometown in the Pacific Northwest to chase her dreams of attending a university and becoming a writer, were cut short when a summer fling turned into an unexpected pregnancy. She turned to housekeeping to make ends meet, and with a tenacious grip on her dream to provide her daughter the very best life possible, Stephanie worked days and took classes online to earn a college degree, and began to write relentlessly.

She wrote the true stories that weren't being told: the stories of overworked and underpaid Americans. Of living on food stamps and WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) coupons to eat. Of the government programs that provided her housing, but that doubled as halfway houses. The aloof government employees who called her lucky for receiving assistance while she didn't feel lucky at all. She wrote to remember the fight, to eventually cut through the deep-rooted stigmas of the working poor.

Maid explores the underbelly of upper-middle class America and the reality of what it's like to be in service to them. "I'd become a nameless ghost," Stephanie writes about her relationship with her clients, many of whom do not know her from any other cleaner, but who she learns plenty about. As she begins to discover more about her clients' lives-their sadness and love, too-she begins to find hope in her own path.

Her compassionate, unflinching writing as a journalist gives voice to the "servant" worker, and those pursuing the American Dream from below the poverty line. Maid is Stephanie's story, but it's not her alone. It is an inspiring testament to the strength, determination, and ultimate triumph of the human spirit.

Lands prose is vanilla and plain, but it gets the job done. Though I understand how hard it is to be poor and young in this country, while living off of student loans and low paying work (I worked for $5 an hour as a Certified Nursing Assistant in grad school when living, or trying to, in the Cambridge/Watertown area of Massachusetts. Rents were ridiculous, and I had to barter home health care with an elderly woman who eventually became senile and threw me out. I rented a room for awhile in an apartment with a couple who also tossed me out when the guy decided he wanted my room for his "study," and then I rented another room in an apartment with three other people, until it became obvious that wasn't going to work, because a student loan fell through, I was homeless in Sommerville for a week, and I had to sleep on the street. A kind elderly couple took me in and helped me get to my mother's house in Florida, where I wasn't welcome, but I eventually got a job in my field of expertise) I also know that welfare is denied to people (myself included) all the time...so there are worse scenarios than Lands. 

I also felt that Land, who didn't want to be judged by her socioeconomic status, harshly judged most of the people she cleaned house for, and even would try on the clothing of one woman, every time she was there to clean. If I am paying someone to clean, I am not paying them to snoop into my private papers, mail, clothing or cupboards. That Land felt not an ounce of remorse for doing this kind of thing over and over made me physically ill. It's a violation of another person's privacy, and you are essentially stealing from them by being paid for cleaning time when you are not cleaning, but are instead looking around and judging and snooping into their private lives. SHAME ON YOU, Stephanie Land. Though I think it's important that people read this book to be aware of what it is like to be poor and female and invisible in society, I heartily hope that people don't see us all as the grasping, whining, wimpy and creepy person that Land becomes. I worked for 10 years as a CNA, and I had to clean up much worse things than dirty toilets, so I know of what I speak. Now that I am a retired journalist, with print journalism all but defunct, I can also look back on my struggles and be proud to have survived them. But I believe that I did so with much less whinging and cringing. So I'd give this book a B, and recommend it to anyone with a trust fund who doesn't understand what a struggle it is for women and single mothers to survive in America.

 

Movies The Lost Daughter and David Copperfield, The Flight Attendant on TV, RAILS Hilarious Promo video, Italian Book Fair Postponed Due to Coronavirus, The Words I Never Wrote by Jane Thynne, Cartier's Hope by MJ Rose, In the Bleak Midwinter by Julia Spencer-Fleming

I'm excited that so many movies and TV shows are coming out that are inspired by great books. These look fascinating, with the exception of the adaptation of the Elena Ferrante novel into a film with no Italians in the lead roles (the book is about Italians in the 50s and 60s). Also, a former Doctor from Doctor Who, Peter Capaldi, will be in David Copperfield.

Movies: The Lost Daughter, The Personal History of David Copperfield

(Note: Though this is a book about Italians, there are no Italian actors in the film at all, which is a shame and an embarrassment).

Oscar-winner Olivia Colman (The Favourite), Jessie Buckley (Chernobyl), Dakota Johnson (Bad Times at the El Royale) and Peter Sarsgaard (Jackie) will star in The Lost Daughter http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43343947, based on the novel by Elena Ferrante, Deadline reported. Maggie Gyllenhaal adapted the book and is making her directorial debut with the project.

"When I finished reading Elena Ferrante's The Lost Daughter, I felt that something secret and true had been said out loud," Gyllenhall observed. "And I was both disturbed and comforted by that. I immediately thought how much more intense the experience would be in a movie theatre, with other people around. And I set to work on this adaptation. I find that the script has attracted other people interested in exploring these secret truths about motherhood, sexuality, femininity, desire. And I'm thrilled to continue my collaboration with such brave and exciting actors and filmmakers."

Searchlight Pictures has released a new trailer for The Personal History of David Copperfield http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43343948, Armando Iannucci's reimagining of the classic novel by Charles Dickens, starring Dev Patel, he reported that in the screenplay he co-wrote with Simon Blackwell, Iannucci "puts a quirky spin on the kind of satire he developed in blistering, politically charged series The Thick of It and Veep, and films such as In the Loop and The Death of Stalin. In Iannucci country, no one is left unscathed and everyone--wokeness and politically correct allegiance be damned--is a potential comic slaughter."

The Personal History of David Copperfield has already garnered "a slew of awards since its world premiere," IndieWire noted, with five British Independent Film Awards, including best supporting actor for Hugh Laurie. The cast also features Darren Boyd, Peter Capaldi, Tilda Swinton and Benedict Wong. The film will be released in the U.S. May 8.

I love Bebe Neuwirth, she's an amazing actress and singer.

TV: The Flight Attendant

Emmy and Tony winner Bebe Neuwirth will have a recurring role opposite Zosia Mamet in HBO Max's thriller drama series The Flight Attendant http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43427344, starring and executive produced by Kaley Cuoco, Deadline reported. The project is based on the novel by Chris Bohjalian. The cast also includes Sonoya Mizuno, Michiel Huisman, Rosie Perez, Colin Woodell, T.R. Knight, Griffin Matthews, Merle Dandridge and Nolan Funk. Susanna Fogel will direct and executive produces the first two episodes. Other exec producers include Greg Berlanti, Cuoco, Sarah Schechter, Steve Yockey, Meredith Lavender and Marcie Ulin.

 This links to a great little video about the importance of Libraries that had me laughing and also appreciating what my library has to offer even more!

RAILS With Actor Nick Offerman

http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43400838 (Parks and Recreation) filmed a  promotional video for the Reaching Across Illinois Library System (RAILS). Appearing as the Wizard of the World Wide Web, he convenes an emergency meeting of the "elders of the Internet."

"Libraries have real people," the wizard explains to his cynical digital crew. "They get to know you and offer reading recommendations more personalized than any algorithm. They can even tell the difference between real and fake news.... Libraries have all the information that anyone could ever need, plus real spaces, fun educational programs, meet-up groups... you can even get a flu shot at the library."

The New York Public Library, which is celebrating its 125th anniversary this year, recently released its "Top 10 Checkouts of All Time http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43400841."

On a more serious note, British library advocate and BBC Two's University Challenge star Bobby Seagull was part of a group that presented a 10-point Manifesto for Libraries http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43400842 at the House of Lords in 2019, pushing the case for long-term funding for libraries. Last week, he wrote in the Big Issue: "Libraries are more than just books http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43400843, they represent what it means to be truly human. They contain the minds of our ancestors as well as the latest thinking of contemporary minds.

We need our libraries, as they are shining beacons of knowledge, sharing and inclusive communities.... The best way to show your support for libraries is to use them."

 This new virus is in the news, as it's expected to spread to up to 50 percent of the population within a year. Even though the mortality rate is somewhat low, even 2 percent of that group means thousands of people will die, especially those, like myself, with immune system deficiencies. Little children and older adults are also at risk.

Bologna Book Fair Postponed Because of Coronavirus

Because of the spread of the coronavirus to Italy, the Bologna Book Fair http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43427294 is being postponed to May 4-7 from March 30-April 2. Organizers said today on the fair website http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43427294: "We hereby inform all Exhibitors and Visitors that due to the COVID-19 Coronavirus emergency Bologna Children's Book Fair has been rescheduled for Monday 4-Thursday 7 May 2020. We will be releasing further organisational details in a few hours."

Italy has reported more than 150 cases http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43427295 of the coronavirus, many of which are in Codogno, about 100 miles from Bologna and 40 miles from Milan, the New York Times said today. The Italian government has instituted a series of town lockdowns, school closings, and event cancellations in the Milan and Venice areas.

The Bookseller noted that the coronavirus has also led to the postponement of the Taipei Book Exhibition, which was to have been held February 4-9 but is now scheduled for May 7-12 http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43427297.

The London Book Fair, which starts in two weeks, is going ahead as planned, and Reed Exhibitions is "monitoring the situation very closely." The Bookseller wrote that U.K. publishers and agents have said that attendees from China, South Korea and Singapore "had pulled out ."

The coronavirus is also directly affecting the U.S. book industry http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43427299, which prints many books, particularly children's books and art and design titles, in China. Although it's difficult to gauge its extent so far, a range of city and workplace closings and transportation shutdowns is having some effect on book printing.

The Words I Never Wrote by Jane Thynne (I wonder if she is related to Bones TV star TJ Thyne?) is a well written historical romance that takes place during WWII. It recounts the tale of two sisters, Irene and Cordelia, on opposite sides of the conflict, and how these two spoiled and beautiful young women become stronger and more mature through the strife they must endure. Here's the blurb: A chance discovery inside a vintage typewriter case reveals the gripping story of two sisters on opposite sides of World War II in this captivating novel for readers of Lilac Girls and The Women in the Castle. New York, present day: On a whim, Juno Lambert buys a 1931 Underwood typewriter that once belonged to celebrated journalist Cordelia Capel. Within its case she discovers an unfinished novel, igniting a transatlantic journey to fill the gaps in the story of Cordelia and her sister and the secret that lies between them.

Europe, 1936: Cordelia’s socialite sister Irene marries a German industrialist who whisks her away to Berlin. Cordelia, feistier and more intellectual than Irene, gets a job at a newspaper in Paris, pursuing the journalism career she cherishes. As politics begin to boil in Europe, the sisters exchange letters and Cordelia discovers that Irene’s husband is a Nazi sympathizer. With increasing desperation, Cordelia writes to her beloved sister, but as life in Nazi Germany darkens, Irene no longer dares admit what her existence is truly like. Knowing that their letters cannot tell the whole story, Cordelia decides to fill in the blanks by sitting down with her Underwood and writing the truth.
When Juno reads the unfinished novel, she resolves to uncover the secret that continued to divide the sisters amid the turmoil of love, espionage, and war. In this vivid portrait of Nazi Berlin, from its high society to its devastating fall, Jane Thynne examines the truths we sometimes dare not tell ourselves. 

Thynne's prose is rich and full, and her plot never flags, though there were times when I felt she let her love of description get the better of her for a few pages. Still, the author keeps the tension of secrets and "what happened next" going throughout the book, and while I couldn't really stand Irene's naivete (she really just allowed herself to imagine that there would be no repercussions for all the cruelty, hatred and death heaped on the Jewish people (and others) by the Nazis, and that her creep of a husband and his sucking up to the Nazi elite was politics that she could remain clean of!) and her willingly blind attitude that made her almost too stupid to live, I felt her story came full circle. By the same token, Cordelia was also fairly stupid, and she forgives her sister far too early and easily for her crimes. But at least Cordelia has a career in journalism and raises her sister's child and lives a worthwhile life. I didn't particularly like Juno's modern-day story that was really only a conceit to get to Irene and Cordelia's story a bit at a time. Juno seemed almost more of a ghost than the characters of the past. But it was good to read about how Germany has recovered in the past 70s years. All in all, an engrossing read. I'd give it a B+, and recommend it to anyone who likes historical romance/thrillers with lots of historical detail.

Cartier's Hope by MJ Rose is a literal joy of a historical romance, full of mystery and intrigue and superstition about the legendary Hope diamond. Like all of Rose's novels, it's sumptuous and lush prose keeps the engaging plot moving along at top speed. Here's the blurb: From M.J. Rose, New York Times bestselling author of Tiffany Blues, comes a gorgeously wrought novel of ambition and betrayal set in the Gilded Age.

New York, 1910: A city of extravagant balls in Fifth Avenue mansions and poor immigrants crammed into crumbling Lower East Side tenements. A city where the suffrage movement is growing stronger every day, but most women reporters are still delegated to the fashion and lifestyle pages. But Vera Garland is set on making her mark in a man’s world of serious journalism.
Shortly after the world-famous Hope Diamond is acquired for a record sum, Vera begins investigating rumors about schemes by its new owner, jeweler Pierre Cartier, to manipulate its value. Vera is determined to find the truth behind the notorious diamond and its legendary curses—even better when the expose puts her in the same orbit as a magazine publisher whose blackmailing schemes led to the death of her beloved father.

Appealing to a young Russian jeweler for help, Vera is unprepared when she begins falling in love with him…and even more unprepared when she gets caught up in his deceptions and finds herself at risk of losing all she has worked so hard to achieve.
Set against the backdrop of New York’s glitter and grit, of ruthless men and the atrocities they commit in the pursuit of power, this enthralling historical novel explores our very human needs for love, retribution—and to pursue one’s destiny, regardless of the cost.

I'm very partial to the way Rose describes everything in such a way that you feel like you're there with the characters, experiencing every taste, sight, sound and smell of the era. You can see the glistening jewels and hear the music and dancing, and feel the frustrations of the women journalists trying to catch a break from their sexist bosses. Her story arcs are so engrossing you will start reading in the morning and be surprised when you look up and realize you've read the book through and it's late afternoon/evening already. I also appreciated the view of the haves vs the have nots from this era, and the struggle of women from every class to be taken seriously in their career pursuits. I'd give this enchanting novel an A, and recommend it to anyone who has wondered about the mystery and history of the Hope Diamond.

In the Bleak Midwinter by Julia Spencer-Fleming was a terrible mystery novel, the first in a series about a female Episcopal priest Clare Fergusson and the local Police Chief (COP) Russ Van Alstyne who solve mysteries together as they flirt and drool over one another, (though the sheriff is supposedly happily married). There are not enough words to detail how much I despised this book, but I will try.  In a small East Coast town full of racist, snobbish homophobic hypocrites and wealthy scumbags, the only two people who are supposed to uphold the moral and legal values of the community turn out to be just as fascist as the townspeople! The protestant priest who is really a damsel in distress and has to be rescued from her stupid mistakes multiple times (but the sheriff finds this sexy and endearing, of course, because we all know women are too stupid to dress warmly for winter) and the big thuggish he-man COP Russ,who whines that his wife doesn't understand him (she's too busy getting a home business off the ground making home decor and sewing curtains and becoming too smart and independent to follow old Russ around like a lap dog and do his bidding, as a good wife should) tries to solve the mystery of who killed an unwed teenage mother and her vile sleazebag pedophile father after a baby is left at the door of the priest's church. Here's the blurb:

It's a cold, snowy December in the upstate New York town of Millers Kill, and newly ordained Clare Fergusson is on thin ice as the first female priest of its small Episcopal church. The ancient regime running the parish covertly demands that she prove herself as a leader. However, her blunt manner, honed by years as an army pilot, is meeting with a chilly reception from some members of her congregation and Chief of Police Russ Van Alystyne, in particular, doesn't know what to make of her, or how to address "a lady priest" for that matter.
The last thing she needs is trouble, but that is exactly what she finds. When a newborn baby is abandoned on the church stairs and a young mother is brutally murdered, Clare has to pick her way through the secrets and silence that shadow that town like the ever-present Adirondack mountains. As the days dwindle down and the attraction between the avowed priest and the married police chief grows, Clare will need all her faith, tenacity, and courage to stand fast against a killer's icy heart.

I felt like I was reading a book written for the racist/sexist/homophobic "christian" Republicans of the Trump era here in the US, though I know this book was written 8 years ago, so it's nearly 10 years out of date. Everyone in the book seems to believe that rich white "christian" people are better and morally superior to the poor, even Clare the priest, who you have to believe has read the bible, and must realize that Jesus was not in favor of the rich, but was into the poor and indigent population big time. But Clare sneers at the lower living standards of the poor "trashy" people in town, and judges them just as much as the snobby rich people do. She even spends an inordinate amount of time and energy practically forcing her congregation to circumvent the legal process for adoption by having them mount a phone call and letter writing campaign on behalf of two wealthy, nasty lawyers who are part of her congregation, and who will stop at nothing to get a nice white baby to raise, even going so far as to try and buy one or blackmail someone to get the baby. The male lawyer is despised throughout town for being mean and cruel and abusive when he doesn't get what he wants, and his wife is described as cold and cruel and calculating (of course, she's a career woman so how could she be anything but? Real women are the ones who stay perfectly thin for their husbands, and stay at home and are subservient...pardon me while I vomit and roll my eyes in disgust), so of course these are the perfect duo to adopt a baby! I can't think of any worse parental prospects, and yet even unto the end, Clare fights for them to gain custody of the baby. And when this poor wee mite is thrown off a bridge by his grandfather into well below freezing water, Clare jumps in after him, pulls him out after he's drowned (and has hypothermia...he's only a week or two old!) and gets him breathing quickly and suddenly this most resilient of babies is just fine, though Clare herself needs medical care after being rescued yet again by COP Russ. The prose is cheap, the characters awful, the plot thin and watery. I'd give this book a D for disgusting, and I honestly can't recommend it to anyone because it's just not worth it to fill anyone's head with stereotypes and prejudice and hypocrisy.