Mad Women's Ball by Victoria Mas

 

I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Title: The Mad Women's Ball 
Author: Victoria Mas
Publisher: Overlook
Release Date: 9.7.21


Publisher’s Summary
A literary historical novel detailing the horrors faced by institutionalized women in 19th century Paris—soon to be a major film with Amazon Studios

The Salpetriere Asylum: Paris, 1885. Dr. Charcot holds all of Paris in thrall with his displays of hypnotism on women who have been deemed mad and cast out from society. But the truth is much more complicated—these women are often simply inconvenient, unwanted wives, those who have lost something precious, wayward daughters, or girls born from adulterous relationships. For Parisian society, the highlight of the year is the Lenten ball—the Madwomen’s Ball—when the great and good come to gawk at the patients of the Salpetriere dressed up in their finery for one night only. For the women themselves, it is a rare moment of hope.

Genevieve is a senior nurse. After the childhood death of her sister Blandine, she shunned religion and placed her faith in both the celebrated psychiatrist Dr. Charcot and science. But everything begins to change when she meets Eugenie—the 19-year-old daughter of a bourgeois family that has locked her away in the asylum. Because Eugenie has a secret: she sees spirits. Inspired by the scandalous, banned work that all of Paris is talking about, The Book of Spirits, Eugenie is determined to escape from the asylum—and the bonds of her gender—and seek out those who will believe in her. And for that she will need Genevieve's help . . .

My Review

I have been pondering this review because I wanted to provide more feedback than simply saying this was a letdown. When I first read the summary I assumed this would be a firm five-star read for me, but it is a three, at best. I think the problem here is the length of the story. It would have been more powerful as a short story (on par with Shirley Jackson) or as a bit longer novel. Taking it as it is, I felt like I read an almost complete novel outline, but missed out on the final round of detail additions. The upcoming Amazon movie is likely to be better than the book. 

Seven Year Witch by Angela M. Sanders

 

I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Title: Seven-Year Witch (Witch Way Librarian Mysteries #2)
Author: Angela M. Sanders
Publisher: 8.24.21
Release Date: Kensington 

Publisher’s Summary
Finding your feet in a new job isn't always easy. That goes double for Josie Way, who's settling in as Wilfred, Oregon's, new librarian--and has just discovered she's a witch. But will her fledgling powers be enough to save her from a spell of murder?

While Josie develops her witchcraft with the help of letters left by her grandmother, there are other changes happening in her new hometown. A retreat center is being built at the old mill site, and rumor has it that the location is cursed. That piques Josie's interest almost as much as Sam Wilfred, handsome FBI agent and descendent of the town's founder...

When Sam's soon-to-be ex-wife, Fiona, goes missing at the same time that a bloodied weapon is found, Josie enlists her witchy insight, and her cat familiar, to clear Sam's name. But then the mill project's architect is found dead, and it's clear that someone has been drawing up a vicious plan. Now Josie will have to divine her way out of fatal mischief, before this deadly trouble turns double...

My Review

This year, I have been working my way through Madelyn Alt's "A Bewitching Mystery" series. I love the characters and stories so much but I'm trying to make the series last so it won't be over too quick. Searching for some other cozy mysteries featuring witches, I found Angela Sanders' "Witch Way Librarians Mysteries" series.  I read the first book in the series "Bait and Witch" in May in anticipation of the September release of the second book. I am now firmly invested in the characters and small town happenings of Wilfred, Oregon. The main character lives in an apartment above the library she oversees (hello, my dream) and is just beginning to figure out her powers as witch. One power is bibliomancy--books give her clues to mysteries and she can also match the perfect book to every reader. I feel like I'm pretty good with book recommendations but how cool would it be? 

This is a great cozy series, perfect for autumn or lovers of paranormal/witch mysteries. I'm already anticipating the next in the series and would love a yearly installment of Josie's mystery solving skills. 

American Cake by Anne Byrn

I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Title: American Cake: From Colonial Gingerbread to Classic Layer, the Stories and Recipes Behind More Than 125 of Our Best-Loved Cakes
Author: Anne Byrn
Publisher: Rodale
Release Date: 6.15.21

Publisher’s Summary
Taste your way through America with more than 125 recipes for our favorite historical cakes and frostings.

Cakes in America aren't just about sugar, flour, and frosting. They have a deep, rich history that developed as our country grew. Cakes, more so than other desserts, are synonymous with celebration and coming together for happy times. They're an icon of American culture, reflecting heritage, region, season, occasion, and era. And they always have been, throughout history.

In American Cake, Anne Byrn, creator of the New York Timesbestselling series The Cake Mix Doctor, takes you on a journey through America's past to present with more than 125 authentic recipes for our best-loved and beautiful cakes and frostings. Tracing cakes chronologically from the dark, moist gingerbread of New England to the elegant pound cake, the hardscrabble Appalachian stack cake, war cakes, deep-South caramel, Hawaiian Chantilly, and the modern California cakes of orange and olive oil, Byrn shares recipes, stories, and a behind-the-scenes look into what cakes we were baking back in time. From the well-known Angel Food, Red Velvet, Pineapple Upside-Down, Gooey Butter, and Brownie to the lesser-known Burnt Leather, Wacky Cake, Lazy Daisy, and Cold Oven Pound Cake, this is a cookbook for the cook, the traveler, or anyone who loves a good story. And all recipes have been adapted to the modern kitchen.


My Review
In addition to a great collection of recipes, I really loved the backstories of the recipes and history of cakes. There were a few shockers like Chocolate Sauerkraut Cake (I'm not that adventurous) and interesting tidbits like fudge being cooked by Wellesley College girls in their dorm room over Bunsen burners "on loan" from their chemistry lab, that really made this book fun to sit down and actually read. I've got a family request for strawberry shortcake (which I've never made) so I think I will try that recipe next. I also see a Cardamom Coffee Cake that will probably need to be tested pretty soon, too. 

 

Nadiya Bakes by Nadiya Hussain

 

I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. 

Title: Nadiya Bakes
Author: Nadiya Hussain 
Publisher: Clarkson Potter
Release Date: 7.27.21


Publisher’s Summary
Our beloved Bake-Off winner has created your ultimate baking cookbook to help you conquer cakes, biscuits, traybakes, tarts and pies, showstopping desserts, breads, savoury bakes, and even 'no-bake' bakes - all with her signature mouth-watering twists.

Some of Nadiya's deliciously easy recipes you can achieve at home include:
· Blueberry and Lavender Scone Pizza
· Mango and Coconut Cake
· Sharing Chocolate Fondant
· 'Money Can't Buy You Happiness' Brownies
· Potato Rosti Quiche
· Pepperoni Pull Apart Bread

 . . and much, much more

From classic baking staples to dazzling show-stoppers, you'll discover new favourite recipes for every day and every celebration - it's time to shake up your bakes!

My Review
It's still the temperature of the sun every day here in Georgia but I have already started a bit of fall baking.  I can't help myself. I've made a couple staples (banana nut bread, brownies) and a few new to me recipes (chocolate cream pie, Jell-o pudding pie, and cheddar zucchini bread) but I want to branch out a bit this year to try more non-American fare. Nadiya Hussain's cookbook fits my needs perfectly. The first recipe I tried was Tumeric and Ginger Diamonds and these treats will definitely be making an appearance again soon. They were slightly savory and sweet with a bit of bite--the perfect light dessert or afternoon treat. The layout of the cookbook is simple and clean, with plenty of beautiful photos of the recipes and celebrity chef. The recipes are mostly sweet cakes, cookie, breads, tarts, and puddings but there are a few savory recipes included as well. I'm especially excited to try the baked chile churros, salt-and-pepper baked chicken and fries, and teriyaki chicken noodles. 

As the season six winner of The Great British Baking Show and host of two BBC and Neflix series, Hussain's recipes reflect her British Bangladeshi heritage but she shares in an interview with The Guardian that she often faces criticism around if she is "English enough to be writing these things" and is regularly told there is not a diversity problem in baking/cooking and publishing. She responds that "[b]ecause I’m a daughter of an immigrant, because I am bilingual, because I’m a Muslim, because I’m a brown woman, because I don’t fit into that industry or fit into these worlds, I’m constantly up for scrutiny. I’m constantly up for questioning." As for being told there is no need for a conscious effort to diversify both the celebrity cooking/baking culture and the publishing industry she simply offers her firsthand experience, stating that "[w]hen I see in a meeting that I’m the only person of colour, of faith, of my gender, in that room, there is a problem. There is a problem when I’m filming a show and I’m the only ethnic minority in a group of 30 people. I think highlighting that problem makes people very uncomfortable. We’ve got to get to a point in our industries where we’re not uncomfortable talking about these things. I hope that because I talk about it, it encourages other people to acknowledge that there is a problem.” This cookbook represents so much more than a recipe collection. I am so happy to have a copy for myself and for being given the opportunity to share it and a bit about Nadiya Hussain with my followers. 

The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz

 

I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Title: The Plot
Author: Jean Hanff Korelitz 

Publisher: Celadon 
Release Date: 5.11.21


Publisher’s Summary

Jacob Finch Bonner was once a promising young novelist with a respectably published first book. Today, he's teaching in a third-rate MFA program and struggling to maintain what's left of his self-respect; he hasn't written--let alone published--anything decent in years. When Evan Parker, his most arrogant student, announces he doesn't need Jake's help because the plot of his book in progress is a sure thing, Jake is prepared to dismiss the boast as typical amateur narcissism. But then... he hears the plot.

Jake returns to the downward trajectory of his own career and braces himself for the supernova publication of Evan Parker's first novel: but it never comes. When he discovers that his former student has died, presumably without ever completing his book, Jake does what any self-respecting writer would do with a story like that--a story that absolutely needs to be told.

In a few short years, all of Evan Parker's predictions have come true, but Jake is the author enjoying the wave. He is wealthy, famous, praised and read all over the world. But at the height of his glorious new life, an e-mail arrives, the first salvo in a terrifying, anonymous campaign: You are a thief, it says.

As Jake struggles to understand his antagonist and hide the truth from his readers and his publishers, he begins to learn more about his late student, and what he discovers both amazes and terrifies him. Who was Evan Parker, and how did he get the idea for his "sure thing" of a novel? What is the real story behind the plot, and who stole it from whom?




My Review
My fellow reviewers are a bit divided on this one, but I fall firmly in the "loved it" camp. I have been riding the high of Who Is Maud Dixon? for a few months and now The Plot hit that mark again for me. As an extremely perceptive reader I could figure out where the story was leading, but there were enough details held back to make me feel like like I was just on the edge of the epiphany (the literary equivalent of having the answer just on the tip of my tongue.) Even when the dots were fully connected, Korelitz kept delivering dialogue, details, and deeper character analyses that had me alternating between slack-jawed shock and evil laughter. 

✨EXCERPT✨ The Bookseller's Secret by Michelle Gable

The Bookseller's Secret : A Novel of Nancy Mitford and WWII 

Michelle Gable

On Sale Date: August 17, 2021

9781525806469

Trade Paperback

$16.99 USD

400 pages

ABOUT THE BOOK:

From New York Times bestselling author Michelle Gable comes a dual-narrative set at the famed Heywood Hill Bookshop in London about a struggling American writer on the hunt for a rumored lost manuscript written by the iconic Nancy Mitford—bookseller, spy, author, and aristocrat—during World War II.

In 1942, London, Nancy Mitford is worried about more than air raids and German spies. Still recovering from a devastating loss, the once sparkling Bright Young Thing is estranged from her husband, her allowance has been cut, and she’s given up her writing career. On top of this, her five beautiful but infamous sisters continue making headlines with their controversial politics.

Eager for distraction and desperate for income, Nancy jumps at the chance to manage the Heywood Hill bookshop while the owner is away at war. Between the shop’s brisk business and the literary salons she hosts for her eccentric friends, Nancy’s life seems on the upswing. But when a mysterious French officer insists that she has a story to tell, Nancy must decide if picking up the pen again and revealing all is worth the price she might be forced to pay.

Eighty years later, Heywood Hill is abuzz with the hunt for a lost wartime manuscript written by Nancy Mitford. For one woman desperately in need of a change, the search will reveal not only a new side to Nancy, but an even more surprising link between the past and present…

✨FIRST CHAPTER EXCERPT✨

April 1946

Hotel de Bourgogne, Paris VII

There they are, held like flies in the amber of that moment—click goes the camera and on goes life; the minutes, the days, the years, the decades, taking them further and further from that happiness and promise of youth, from the hopes…and from the dreams they dreamed for themselves.

—Nancy Mitford,The Pursuit of Love

“Alors, racontez!” the Colonel said, and spun her beneath his arm.

Nancy had to duck, of course. The man was frightfully short. 

“Racontez! Racontez!”

She laughed, thinking of all the times the Colonel made this demand. Racontez! Tell me!

“Allô—allô,” he’d say across some crackling line. “Were you asleep?”

He might be in Paris, or Algiers, or another place he could not name. Weeks or months would pass and then a phone rang in London and set Nancy Mitford’s world straight again.

“Alors, racontez! Tell me everything!”

And she did.

The Colonel found Nancy’s stories comical, outrageous, unlike anything he’d ever known, his delight beginning first and foremost with the six Mitford girls, and their secret society. Nancy also had a brother, but he hardly counted at all.

“C’est pas vrai!” the Colonel would cry, with each new tale. “That cannot be true!”

“It all happened,” Nancy told him. “Every word. What do you expect with a Nazi, a Communist, and several Fascists, in one family tree?”

“C’est incroyable!”

But the Hon Society was the past, and this gilded Parisian hotel room was now, likewise Nancy’s beloved Colonel, presently reaching into the bucket of champagne. How had she gotten to this place? It was the impossible dream.

“Promise we can stay here forever,” Nancy said.

“Here or somewhere like it,” he answered with a grin.

Nancy’s heart bounced. Heavens, he was ever-so-ugly with his pock-marked face and receding hairline, the precise opposite of her strapping husband, a man so wholesome he might’ve leapt from the pages of a seedsman catalogue. But Nancy loved her Colonel with every part of herself, in particular the female, which represented another chief difference between the two men.

“You know, my friends are desperate to take a French lover,” Nancy said, and she tossed her gloves onto the bed. “All thanks to a fictional character from a book. Everyone is positively in love with Fabrice!”

“Bien sûr, as in real life,” the Colonel said as he popped the cork.

The champagne bubbled up the bottle’s neck, and dribbled onto his stubby hands.

“You’re such a wolf!” Nancy said. She heaved open the shutters and scanned the square below. “At last! A hotel with a view.”

Their room overlooked Le Palais Bourbon, home to l’Assemblée nationale, the two-hundred-year seat of the French government, minus the interlude during which it was occupied by the Luftwaffe. Mere months ago German propaganda hung from the building: DEUTSCHLAND SIEGT AN ALLEN FRONTEN. Germany is victorious on all fronts. But the banners were gone now, and France had been freed. Nancy was in Paris, just as she’d planned.

“This is heaven!” Nancy said. She peered over her shoulder and coquettishly kicked up a heel. “A luncheon party tomorrow? What do you think?”

“Okay, chéri, quoi que tu en dises,” the Colonel said, as she sauntered toward him.

“Whatever I want?” Nancy said. “I’ve been dying to hear those words! What about snails, chicken, and port salut? No more eating from tins for you. On that note, darling, you mustn’t worry about your job prospects. I know you’ll miss governing France but, goodness, we’ll have so much more free time!”

Nancy was proud of the work the Colonel had done as General de Gaulle’s chef du cabinet, but his resignation made life far more convenient. No longer would she have to wait around, or brook his maddeningly specific requests. I’ve got a heavy political day LET ME SEE—can you come at 2 minutes to 6?

“It’s really one of the best things that could’ve happened to us,” Nancy said. “Oh, darling, life will be pure bliss!” 

Nancy leaned forward and planted a kiss on the Colonel’s nose.

“On trinque?” he said, and lifted a glass.

Nancy raised hers to meet it.

“Santé!” he cheered.

Nancy rolled her eyes. “The French are so dull with their toasts. Who cares about my health? It’s wretched, most of the time. Cheers to novels, I’d say! Cheers to readers the world over!”

“À la femme auteur, Nancy Mitford!” The Colonel clinked her glass. “Vive la littérature!”

Excerpted from The Bookseller’s Secret by Michelle Gable, Copyright © 2021 by Michelle Gable Bilski. Published by Graydon House Books.

BUY LINKS:

Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/books/the-bookseller-s-secret-a-novel-of-nancy-mitford-and-wwii-9781525811555/9781525811555 

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-booksellers-secret-michelle-gable/1138272507 

Google Books: https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Bookseller_s_Secret.html?id=eyX3DwAAQBAJ

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Booksellers-Secret-Novel-Nancy-Mitford/dp/1525806467

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/the-bookseller-s-secret-1

Apple Books: https://books.apple.com/us/book/the-booksellers-secret/id1527558782

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

MICHELLE GABLE is the New York Times bestselling author of A Paris Apartment, I'll See You in Paris, The Book of Summer, and The Summer I Met Jack. She attended The College of William & Mary, where she majored in accounting, and spent twenty years working in finance before becoming a full-time writer. She grew up in San Diego and lives in Cardiff-by-the-Sea, California, with her husband and two daughters. Find her at michellegable.com or on Instagram, Twitter, or Pinterest, @MGableWriter.

SOCIAL LINKS:

Author website: https://michellegable.com/ 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MGableWriter 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mgablewriter/