Sex and Vanity

 Just as I expected, Kevin Kwan's latest novel Sex and Vanity (#928) was the perfect escape for a summer that just won't quit.  And just like his Crazy Rich Asians trilogy, it came complete with snarky footnotes.  New this time were the alma mater lists for each character, from pre-school through grad school.  Ouch! in some cases.

Lucie Churchill is at the center of this novel which begins at an over-the-top weeklong wedding on the Isle of Capri.  Her good friend and former baby-sitter Isabel is marrying into Italian nobility.  Since both families are mega-rich, all the stops are pulled out.   With Lucie a tender nineteen, her mother has insisted her older cousin Charlotte accompany Lucie as a chaperone.  When Adonis-like George Zao and his flamboyant (and ultra-rich!) mother Rosemary enter the picture, things get really interesting.  

Fast forward five years, and when Lucie and George next meet at the Hamptons, she's engaged and he's working as an architect in New York City.  Lucie can't put George out of her mind, but what can she do?  Everything she tries just seems to make matters worse...

Oh, the places, the couture, the fabulous food!  That's what makes reading Kwan's books so much fun.  Personally, I thought Lucie was kind of a wimp who in many ways deserved some of the things that happened to her because she couldn't or wouldn't stand up for herself.  George was too perfect to be true, but don't we all want the total package? - the looks, the smarts, the money...

The descriptions of Capri brought me right back there.  I'm sure the descriptions of NYC and Long Island were spot on, too, but I had to laugh when I read that Lucie's super WASPy Churchill grandmother preferred to spend most of her time in her beach front mansion in Hobe Sound, Florida, in preference to her mansion-sized apartment in NYC, the estate in the Hamptons or the house in Paris.  Not that there aren't plenty of super rich and pretentious people living in Hobe Sound (there are!) but with the exception of a few very modest-sized homes on the ocean between the public Hobe Sound beach and the State Park which occupies the rest of Hobe Sound located on the barrier island, there isn't a mansion in sight.  Now, if Mr. Kwan had just stuck his pin in the map south of Hobe Sound Beach in Jupiter Island, that's the place where the ruling society doyennes will blackball the "wrong kind" by gifting a black cashmere sweater to the new neighbor...  Yep, the rich really are different.  Oh, if only we had that kind of money!

In Five Years

 In Five Years (#927), Rebecca Serle's latest novel, did not take me where I thought it would.  Dannie Kohan, an ambitious lawyer, has had an amazing day; she knows she's aced the interview for her dream job with a high-powered firm of corporate attorneys and her boyfriend of two years has just proposed at the Rainbow Room.  Back at their apartment, Dannie falls asleep.  When she wakes, she's in a different apartment with a different man and a different engagement ring on her hand.  As the news plays on the TV, she realizes that it's five years in the future, and it's not how she planned it!

When she reawakens, everything is back to normal.  But what happened?  Was it just a dream?  Ever practical, Dannie tries to put the experience in the back of her mind and carry on with her carefully-crafted life plan.  Until the day she meets the man in her vision four and a half years later...  Nothing can ever really prepare you for the future.

This didn't turn out to be a conventional romance, although that would have been an easy way to go with this story.  Instead, the author chooses to explore the strength of a life-long friendship and the bonds that connect us to a few special people in our lives, if we're lucky enough to have them.  

It's a fast read, but a satisfying one.  Make sure your box of tissues is nearby!

The Disappearing Spoon

 The Disappearing Spoon - and Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements (#926)(What a mouthful of a title!) is another book which has been languishing on my "To Read" List for far too long.  Sam Kean is a science writer who was well reviewed when this book originally appeared.  Since my days in chemistry class are only a distant memory, I have to admit I nearly gave up on this book after struggling through the first couple of chapters,  The author may think he was laying out the concepts of the periodic table in a simple, straightforward manner, but honestly, I had a much easier time digesting the concepts in Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time (See my post of  8/18/2016.).  I expected more of an anecdotal approach to the subject from the title, and in the latter chapters, I found that to be true.  Being a long-time fan of The Big Bang Theory on TV, at least I recognized some of Kean's references to famous scientists and even a few key equations!  (Thank you, Drs. Hoffsteder and Cooper!)

I'm not sorry I read this book, but I really think it's aimed at the science geeks among us, not the average reader.

Dorchester Terrace

 I finally have time to go way back on my list of "Want to Read" books from the library, and Anne Perry's Dorchester Terrace (#925) was the oldest book on the list and an excellent place to start.  It's from her Charlotte and Thomas Pitt mystery series, so I knew I was in for a good read.

It's now 1896 and Thomas has been promoted from his work on the London Police Force to Head of Special Branch, replacing Victor Narraway, forced to resign after ruffling the feathers of the Prince of Wales in a previous operation.  Thomas is still new to the job, and uncomfortable still with some of the social obligations which are part of the post.  There is where Charlotte can help ease his way, even though he cannot discuss his work on behalf of the British Government with her.  When his aide Stoker comes to him with rumors of something unusual happening in Dover, he and Thomas follow up and discover that something troubling is, indeed, afoot.  When Thomas brings his concerns to the Foreign Office, Lord Tregarron refuses at first to see him.  But when it seems that a visit to Britain by a minor Austrian Duke will result in an assassination attempt, Pitt is forced to take his own measures to ensure the Duke's safety at all costs.  

In the meantime, Charlotte's aunt, Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould, has visited an old friend and revolutionary, Serafina Montserrat, who is dying.  She tells Lady Vespasia that she knows, and has safeguarded many important political and personal secrets over the years.  She is now afraid that her deepening dementia will cause her to inadvertently reveal secrets which can still cause great harm.  Could it be possible that Serafina's fears are real, and that someone is planning to use those secrets?

An interesting read with a background of late Austro-Hungarian Empire politics and betrayals.

The Grove of the Caesars

 Flavia Albia solves not one, but two mysteries in The Grove of the Caesars (#924), the latest outing of Lindsey Davis's consistently entertaining mystery series set in the Rome of Domitian, not an exactly comfortable period of time for the average Roman.

Although Flavia's husband is away on family business, he has casually warned her not to bother to go out to the Grove of the Caesars, a public park, to supervise his work gang dismantling an old grotto site.  That, of course, guarantees that Flavia will be there as soon as she can manage it.  When she does arrive, the work crew has just unearthed a cache of buried scrolls.  Can they be valuable?  It's certainly worth tracking down...

In the nearby Gardens, a huge birthday party is interrupted when the wife of the birthday boy goes missing, only to turn up raped and murdered in the Grove.  As Flavia investigates the disappearance of two dancing boys, a very recent gift from the Emperor, she begins to suspect that they may have been witnesses to the murder.  And, as it turns out, it's not the first by a long shot.

Flavia Albia carries on the amusing legacy of her adoptive parents, Marco Didius Falco and Helena Justina in this spinoff series.  If you haven't been lucky enough to discover these wonderful series yet for yourself, start with the original Marco Didius Falco series to find out just how Flavia Albia became part of this auctioneer/investigator family.

The Fiddler in the Subway

 The Fiddler in the Subway (#923) isn't usually my cup of tea, as they say, but one of the gentlemen in my library book group suggested this collection of previously-published feature articles from the Washington Post by Gene Weingarten.  The hook that pulled me into reading this collection was the fact that Joshua Bell, whom I've had the pleasure of hearing perform live, was the fiddler playing in the Metro station in Washington, D.C.  What happened in this social experiment set up by the Washington Post is reason enough to read these essays, but there's lots more here worth your time.  Weingarten was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for this piece, as well as another feature article included here.

Gene Weingarten is principally known as a humor writer, although I was not familiar with his work; perhaps many of you may be.  However, many of these features are thought-provoking as well as amusing.  I was very pleased to be able to spend some time thinking about these essays even after I finished the book.  I'm happy to pass along a recommendation to read The Fiddler on the Subway as it came to me by chance.  It's worthwhile reading at its best.

The Kingdom of Copper

 The Kingdom of Copper (#922) is the second volume in S.A. Chakraborty's Daevabad Trilogy.  In picks up the action from The City of Brass five years later, but nothing will make sense unless you've read the first book.

The central characters are the same - Nahri, the last of the Nahids, Prince Alizayd al Qhatani opposed to his father, the king of Daevabad, and Dara, the genie-like enslaved daeva.  Their relationships have shifted and changed as political upheaval grows throughout the kingdom.  Enchantments and fantastical beasts abound as factions struggle for power and unlikely alliances are struck up.  Again, The Kingdom of Copper ends on a cliffhanger.

I really haven't wanted to put down either of these two Arabian Nights type fantasy novels, grounded in the human world of late eighteen century Cairo.  There are a lot of people ahead of me on the list to read the concluding volume of this enthralling series, The Empire of Gold.  I'll try to be patient as I await my turn!  Highly recommended!