Fortune and Glory - Tantalizing Twenty-Seven

 In Janet Evanovich's latest, Fortune and Glory - Tantalizing Twenty-Seven (#972), Bond Apprehension Agent Stephanie Plum is at a crossroads; she and her grandmother hold the keys to a mysterious stash held by the remaining members of the Lazy-Boys.  Her grandmother was married to Jimmy for only about twenty minutes, but he left her everything in his will, and she's determined to find that treasure.  That puts a large target on Grandma Mazur's back, and by default, Stephanie's as well.  Her Indy instincts kick in for the treasure hunting, but Stephanie's no longer sure she wants to spend the rest of her life this way, bringing in one unsavory fugitive after another.  Besides, she's currently split up with on-again, off-again cop boyfriend Joe Morelli.  Is Ranger the way to go, or is he not willing to commit?

Stephanie wrestles with all these dilemmas while being shot at, torched, and covered with goop.  Not only are the surviving members of the Lazy-Boys after the treasure, but they're eliminating any potential rivals.  And who is the glamorous woman who also seems to be everywhere Stephanie goes, including Joe Morelli's house?

More great characters introduced in Fortune and Glory, including a new member of Stephanie's posse.  And as usual, Stephanie manages to go through Ranger's cars as though they're chewing gum.  Janet Evanovich will be bringing the mysterious Gabriela back in her next book, so of course there's more fun to look forward to. 

The Lost Diary of Venice

 I hate it when the illustrator obviously hasn't bothered to do even a decent skim of the text he/she is supposed to be creating a cover for.  Such is the case with Margaux DeRoux's debut novel The Lost Diary of Venice (#971).  I expected to find a romance with the plot switching between a modern day book conservator/restorer working on a late sixteenth century work of a Venetian artist and that artist's romance hidden in the palimpsest he created.  Instead, the romance in both centuries were blighted, the coincidences a little too much to swallow and the violent history, though accurate, was of an unexpectedly graphic nature.  If you're in search of happy endings, you won't find them in this book.  The old saw is true: you really can't judge a book by its cover.

On the other hand, the treatise translated in fiction actually does exist, although the artist was from Milan, not Venice. The battle of Lepanto, considering its impact on the history of Western Europe rarely seems to figure in fictional accounts, so it's interesting that the author decides to use the tensions arising from the threats to Christian Europe, and especially to Venice, the powerful maritime power, for her story - class, wealth, religion, ambition, power and beauty all play a role here.  So does magic to some extent, which to me, at least, seemed somewhat out of place here.

I did read it through to the end, but would I read another of DeRoux's books?  I'm thinking my shelves would have to be pretty empty before I spent more time on her work.

The Kitchen Front

 Jennifer Ryan seems to have found her fiction niche with wartime Britain.  Her third book, The Kitchen Front (#970), is centered around a BBC-sponsored cooking contest.  Open only to professional cooks, the winner's reward will be to add a much-needed feminine voice to the radio program The Kitchen Front.  The Ministry of Food has done its best to provide nutritional tips and tricks for the strict food rationing system, but they know they could attract a wider audience by adding a knowledgeable woman presenter.

Ambrose Hart, the program's current solo presenter, has a home in Fenley Village, outside London.  To make the contest easy on himself, he decides to keep the competition local, and divide it into three sections spread across three months: Starters, Main Course and Dessert.  Points will be awarded for each course, with the winner accumulating the most points overall.  Frankly, he's not expecting much...

Enter Audrey, the widow with three boys and a pie-baking business; Lady Gwendoline, the lady of the local manor, and Ministry of Food demonstrator; Zelda the cordon bleu chef relegated to a local factory's canteen; and finally Mrs. Quince and Nell.  Mrs. Quince has a formidable reputation throughout southern England as one of the best manor house cooks in the country.  Nell as her protégé has been taking over the burden of cooking as Mrs. Quince ages.  Now the stage is set for some cut-throat competition as each of the women struggles to produce a delicious entry with the scarce materials available on hand, keeping in mind what the average housewife might be able to duplicate with ingredients rationed or home-grown.  The rivalry between the women is personal, but the stakes can be life-changing.  Their stories interweave during the three months of the contest and the reader is drawn into their lives, personal tragedies and triumphs.

Jennifer Ryan can certainly tell a mesmerizing tale, as I found in her two earlier books: The Chilbury Ladies' Choir and The Spies of Shilling Lane.  (See my posts of 12/27/2017 & 7/15/2019.).  She's delved deep into the Ministry of Food's archives to present the difficulties the average British family faced in maintaining a nutritious and healthy diet.  She's even included some of the Ministry's recipes the contestants prepare during the course of the book.  I've read them over, but quite honestly, I'd probably starve before I could bring myself to prepare most of them!  A wonderful and satisfying read.

The Russian Cage

 I am really enjoying Charlaine Harris' magical Western series, the Gunnie Rose books.  The Russian Cage (#969) is the third installment and picks up shortly after the previous books. (See my posts of 9/30/2019 & 2/27/20.)  Lizbeth Rose is a professional gun-for-hire living in the Texoma territory of what used to be the United States.  She has her own small house not far from her mother and stepfather, but there's a hole in her chest where her heart used to be after Prince Eli took it and her half sister Felicia to safety in the Holy Russian Empire on the West Coast.  Lizbeth isn't happy, but she knows Eli did what he had to do.  That she can live with.

Until the day she gets a letter from Felicia, telling her in code that Eli is in prison, and begging her to come to his aid.  Without hesitation, Lizbeth sets out for San Diego where she meets up with some familiar and powerful grigoris from their previous adventures in Mexico, most of whom are not the least bit pleased to see her, either.  Even worse, Lizbeth must face up to meeting the rest of Eli's family and convincing them she's trying to help Eli.  She needs to find out why he was arrested, and spring him from jail.  That will take some canny political maneuvering in a language she doesn't understand, while in an imperial court plots against Tsar Alexi abound which are tied to Eli's fate.  If only she could carry her guns in the Holy Russian Empire!

It's an exciting tale with plenty of action and quick thinking, great characters, some unexpected encounters and a satisfying ending.  I can't wait until the next book in this series comes out!  

Cary Grant: A Brilliant Disguise

 I have looked forward to reading Scott Eyman's  biography of Cary Grant ever since I heard it was coming out.  Like most women in America who are fans of "old" movies and TCM, Cary Grant has always been a favorite of mine.  Cary Grant: A Brilliant Disguise (#968) weighing in at almost five hundred pages, is never dull, even though it may change your perception of this brilliant actor's personal life.

It seems Archie Leach of the old British Music Hall circuits could never quite reconcile himself with the matinee idol he became on screen, and spent his life playing Cary Grant on and off screen, never believing until the end of his long career that he had actually become the suave, debonair man he projected.  Anecdotes from friends and fellow actors as well as Grant's own words and actions illustrate how his insecurities played out.  He's not the man I thought he was, but then neither was he!

The one thing that's missing from this intriguing biography is a list of Cary Grant's films, which I would have loved to have seen all in one place.  Eyman does reference the fact that Grant thought he made 
around "sixty-five" films, but in actuality, he made seventy-three.  I would like to start checking off that list!

The Little Shop of Found Things

 The Little Shop of Found Things (#967) launches Paula Brackston's latest series with time travel, magic and romance.  Xanthe Westlake and her mother are starting a new life for themselves in the ancient English market town of Marlborough during a bitterly contested divorce.  Starting an antiques store in this quaint touristy town seems the perfect location, but the store they've bought sight unseen already has a resident; a ghost.  A sale at a local estate to acquire stock for their new venture kicks off a chain of events when the Westlakes find an antique silver chatelaine.  Xanthe can hear it "singing" to her, and it's not a happy song.

Coupled with the discovery of an overgrown prison built into the garden wall of their new home, Xanthe is catapulted back into the past and the reign of King James I.  The malevolent ghost has threatened to harm Flora Westlake if Xanthe does not rescue her daughter from her fate in the past.  But will she be able to right an old wrong and save her mother?  She must rely on others to help her, including Samuel Appleby, an architect working at the estate where she and her mother found the chatelaine, the key to the mystery.

As improbable as it was, and despite my dislike for Dr. Marten boots, I did find this book entertaining enough.  The antique store, christened "The Little Shop of Found Things" is the perfect vehicle for launching future entries in this series of time travel books.  The publisher has included a teaser of a chapter for the next installment: Secrets of the Chocolate House.  I'll be looking forward to a cozy read with it.

A Burning

 I don't think I've ever read a book quite like Megha Majumdar's A Burning (#966).  The truth is that I would probably never have picked it up if one of my book club friends hadn't told us that it was a powerful book.

Set in an unnamed big city in India, the basic plotline is about a terrorist attack on a train stopped at a station in an Indian slum.  More than a hundred people are burned to death in the gruesome incident.  It's the way Ms. Majumdar interweaves the stories of a twenty-something store clerk, a phys ed teacher, a lawyer and a transgender aspiring actress together in totally unexpected connections which makes this story so electrifying.

An innocent Facebook post can be traced by the police to create a suspect for the train attack to parade before the media.  An ambitious politician sees the perfect way to boost support for her party and herself.  Dangled career opportunities tempt otherwise staunch allies.  It's the perfect storm of corruption, scapegoating, nationalism, bigotry and hatred with a young woman at its center.  It's compelling reading, and, most frighteningly, easy to imagine something similar happening here.  

It's hard to believe that this is Ms. Majumdar's first novel, it's so compact and powerfully readable.  I will eagerly await her future works.  Look A Burning up for yourself!

The Switch

 Beth O'Leary's novel The Switch (#965) is entertaining chick lit with a twist; we have two heroines to root for, and they are at opposite ends of the spectrum.  Leena is an up-and-coming star in her London Consultancy Firm except for one major problem - she had a full-blown panic attack in the middle of an important presentation resulting in a mandatory leave for her.  Eileen, on the other hand, is at seventy-nine just getting used to being the abandoned wife and the center of gossip in her small Yorkshire village.  She also happens to be Leena's grandmother.  When Leena proposes that the two swap their lives for two months - Eileen looking for romance in the big city where the pickings are bound to be better, and Leena taking over her grandmother's volunteer duties in Hamleigh-in-Harksdale, what could possibly go wrong, or be more stressful than their current situations?

Well, as it turns out, plenty!  The narration switches back and forth between Eileen and Leena as each see's the other's life with new eyes and understanding.  There are adventures, romance, mistakes and plenty of fence-mending as each woman picks her way carefully through the unknown minefields in both London and Hamleigh while trying to come to grips with a major loss in their lives.

It's wonderfully told, and Ms. O'Leary manages to make both her main characters creditable.  How she knows so much about the senior mindset is a mystery to me, but she makes it work.  Now I can't wait to go back and read her first novel, The Flatshare!