To Catch A Thief has to be one of my favorite movies of all times. Every time I watch it I escape into a good plot, good characters and an amazing setting in France. I had never read the novel upon which this popular film is based, so was thrilled when it was available on NetGalley.
I very much enjoyed this version of the story. It is suspenseful and stands the test of time. I highly recommend it. Jewel thieve…beware!
Many thanks to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for this title. All opinions are my own.
They say that you can’t judge a book by its cover but I have to say that, as soon as I saw this one, the visual appeal made me want to read Murder at the Mena House. This is an historical mystery set in Egypt in 1926. The author does a wonderful job with the setting, both in terms of the indolent, luxury hotel and the sites, including the pyramids, museums, camel races and more. There are a variety of colorful characters and some interesting backstory for the majority of them.
I think that this is the author’s first published book. I enjoyed this read although the mystery itself was the least engaging part for me. I will read further adventures of Jane as they are published. She was a good guide to Egypt and those around her.
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this title in exchange for an honest review.
Yet again, I am here to praise this series of wonderful free samples of forthcoming mysteries. This time the books are written by Cathy Pegau; Mariah Fredericks; Hank Phillippi Ryan; Ragnar Jónasson; many of these are authors whose books I have read including last year’s title by Jonasson. I am excited to be coming back for more. I am also intrigued by the thought of reading a novel featuring Zelda Fitzgerald.
For each title, find out what it is about, read a generous sample and learn more about the author including the names of their other books.
Highly recommended to mystery readers!
Many thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press-Minotaur for this title. All opinions are my own.
Do you enjoy mysteries? Short stories? Female detectives? If yes, this book deserves a place on your bookshelf. It is filled with stories from different eras and covers 150 years of writing, beginning with the Victorians. My favorites sections are the Golden Age, Mid Century, the Modern Era and Bad Girls. Many, many of my favorite authors are to be found in this collection. At over 1000 pages, this will be a book to dip in and out of over time. Highly recommended!
I am very excited to be a part of this blog tour. I have enjoyed everything that I have read by this author. Fans of historical fiction will too. This book is definitely worth a look!
Many thanks to everyone at HTP for this opportunity.
About the Book:
A heartwarming story about a mother and daughter in wartime England and the power of books that bring them together, by the bestselling author of The Last Bookshop in London.
In Nottingham, England, widow Emma Taylor finds herself in desperate need of a job. She and her beloved daughter Olivia have always managed just fine on their own, but with the legal restrictions prohibiting widows with children from most employment opportunities, she’s left with only one option: persuading the manageress at Boots’ Booklover’s Library to take a chance on her with a job.
When the threat of war in England becomes a reality, Olivia must be evacuated to the countryside. In the wake of being separated from her daughter, Emma seeks solace in the unlikely friendships she forms with her neighbors and coworkers, and a renewed sense of purpose through the recommendations she provides to the library’s quirky regulars. But the job doesn’t come without its difficulties. Books are mysteriously misshelved and disappearing and the work at the lending library forces her to confront the memories of her late father and the bookstore they once owned together before a terrible accident.
As the Blitz intensifies in Nottingham and Emma fights to reunite with her daughter, she must learn to depend on her community and the power of literature more than ever to find hope in the darkest of times.
Start reading:
PROLOGUE
Nottingham, England April 1931
JUST ONE MORE CHAPTER. Emma lingered in the storage area on the second floor of her father’s bookshop, Tower Bookshop, with Jane Austen’s Emma cradled in her lap. Sadly, not her namesake—her parents had named her Emmaline for an aunt she’d never met, who had died on Emma’s seventh birthday ten years ago.
Still, the book was one of Emma’s favorites.
“Emma.” Papa’s voice rose from somewhere in the bookshop, sharp with irritation.
She frowned. Papa was seldom ever cross with her.
Perhaps the smoke from the man who had come in with his cigar earlier still lingered in the shop.
She settled a scrap of paper into the spine of her book.
“Emmaline!” Something to that second cry snapped her to attention, a raw, frantic pitch.
Papa was never panicked.
She leaped up from the seat with such haste, the book dropped to the ground with a whump.
“I’m in the warehouse,” she called out, racing to the door.
The handle was scalding hot. She yelped and drew back. That’s when she saw the smoke, wisps seeping beneath the door, glowing in the stream of sunlight.
Fire.
She put her skirt over her hand and twisted the knob to open the door. Thick plumes of smoke billowed in, black and choking.
She sucked in a breath of surprise, unintentionally inhaling a lungful of burning air. A cough racked her and she stumbled back, her mind reeling as her feet pulled her from the threat.
But to where? This was the only exit from the storeroom, save the second-floor window.
“Papa,” she shouted, terror creeping into her voice.
All at once, he was there, wrapping a blanket around them, the one she kept in the shop for cold mornings before the furnace managed to heat the old building.
“Stay at my side.” Papa’s voice was gravelly beneath the blanket where he’d covered the lower part of his face. Even as he led her away, a great cough shuddered through his lean frame.
Beyond the wall of smoke was a vision straight out of Milton’s Paradise Lost as fire licked and climbed its way up the towering stacks of books, devouring a lifetime of careful curation. Emma screamed, the sound muted by the blanket.
But Papa’s hand was firm at her back, pressing her forward. “We have to run.” Not slowing, he guided her to the winding metal staircase. She used to love clattering down it as a girl, hearing the metal ringing around her.
“It’s hot,” Papa cautioned. “Don’t touch it.”
Emma hugged against his side as they squeezed down the narrow steps that barely fit the two of them together. It swayed beneath their weight, no longer sturdy as it had once been. The blazing heat felt as though it was blistering Emma’s skin. Too hot. Too close. Too much.
And they were plunging deeper into the fiery depths.
The soles of Emma’s shoes stuck to the last two steps as rubber melted against metal.
What had once been rows of bookshelves was now a maze of flames. Even Papa hesitated before the seemingly impassable blaze.
But there was nowhere else to go.
The fire was alive. Cracking and popping and hissing and roaring, roaring, roaring so loud, it seemed like an actual beast.
“Go,” he shouted, and his grip tightened around her, pulling her forward.
Together they ran, between columns of fire that had once been shelves of books. An ear-shattering crack came from above, spurring them to the front as fire and sparks poured down behind them.
Emma ran faster than she ever had before, faster than she knew herself capable. Papa’s arm at her side yanked her this way or that, navigating through the fiery chaos. Until there was nowhere to go.
Papa roared louder than the fire beast and released her, running toward the blazing door. It flew open at the impact, revealing clean sunny daylight outside. He turned toward her even as she rushed after him and grabbed her around the shoulders, hauling her into the street.
Emma gulped in the clean air, reveling in the cool dampness washing into her tortured lungs. A crowd had gathered, staring up at the Tower Bookshop. Some came to Emma and Papa, asking in a frenzy of voices if they were hurt.
In the distance came the scream of emergency sirens. Sirens Emma had heard her entire life, but had never once needed herself.
There was need now. She held on to Papa’s hand and looked behind her at the building that had been in her family for two generations and was meant to become hers someday. Her gaze skimmed over the bookshop to the top two floors where their home had once been.
The fire beast gave a great heaving howl and the top floor crumpled.
Someone grabbed her from behind, dragging her back as the rest of the structure came down, ripping her hand from her father’s. She didn’t reach for him again, unable to move, unable to think, her eyes fixed on the building as it crashed in on itself in a fiery heap. Their livelihood. Their home.
All the pictures of her mother who had died after Emma was born, all the books she and her father had lovingly selected from bookshops around England on the trips they’d taken together, everything they’d ever owned.
Gone.
Emma choked on a sob at the realization.
Everything was gone.
“We need a doctor.” A man’s voice broke through her horror, pulling her attention to her father.
He lay on the ground, motionless. Soot streaked his handsome slender face, and his thick gray hair that had once been the same shade of chestnut as hers was now singed in blackened tufts.
“Papa?” She sagged to the ground beside him.
His eyes lifted to her, watery blue and filled with a love that made her heart swell. The breath wheezed from his chest like a kettle’s cry. “You’re safe.”
Once the words left his mouth, his body relaxed, going slack.
“Papa?” Emma cried.
This time his eyes did not meet hers. They looked through her. Sightless and empty.
She shuddered at how unnatural he appeared. Like her father, and yet not like her father.
“Papa?”
The wailing sirens were still too far-off.
“I’m a doctor.” A man knelt on the other side of her father. His fingers went to Papa’s blackened neck and the man’s sad brown eyes turned up to her.
“I’m sorry, love. He’s gone.”
Emma stared at the man, refusing to believe her ears even as she saw the truth.
It had always just been Emma and her father, the two of them against the world, as Papa used to say. They read the same books to discuss together, they worked every day at the bookshop together, friends and colleagues as much as they were father and daughter. Once Emma had completed her schooling, she’d even traveled with him, curating books like the first editions they were still waiting on to arrive from Newcastle.
Now that beautiful light that shone in his eyes had dulled. Lifeless.
Madeline Martin is a New York Times, USA Today, and internationally bestselling author of historical fiction and historical romance with books that have been translated into over twenty-five different languages.
I very much enjoyed Freya Sampson’s Nosy Neighbors. Anyone who liked that one will want to read this author’s new release. For those who have not read books by Sampson, here is a lovely place to start.
Sampson writes stories that feature quirky individuals who find themselves in interesting situations. The novels are about connections between people, and the plots that surround them. That is certainly the case here.
Nova has moved to a small Cornish village with her partner. They are living with his family which is not easy. Pamela, a bossy future in law, is over organizing Nova’s life. Will Craig and Nova survive as a couple?
At the same time, Nova’s work life is equally challenging. To mention just a few of the obstacles, there is a book club member who may be a thief, Nova’s employer is attacked, and dealing with the idiosyncratic people who come to the center. These include a woman with a smelly dog who sees herself as Miss Marple, an elderly man whose blind wife loves romances in fiction, and a young boy with a crush, among others.
Readers will enjoy finding out how the many people and plots are resolved in a perfect escapist read. Give it a try!
Many thanks to NetGalley and Berkley for this title. All opinions are my own.
They say that you can’t judge a book by its cover but I have to say that, as soon as I saw this one, the visual appeal made me want to read Murder at the Mena House. This is an historical mystery set in Egypt in 1926. The author does a wonderful job with the setting, both in terms of the indolent, luxury hotel and the sites, including the pyramids, museums, camel races and more. There are a variety of colorful characters and some interesting backstory for the majority of them.
Do you enjoy mysteries? Short stories? Female detectives? If yes, this book deserves a place on your bookshelf. It is filled with stories from different eras and covers 150 years of writing, beginning with the Victorians. My favorites sections are the Golden Age, Mid Century, the Modern Era and Bad Girls. Many, many of my favorite authors are to be found in this collection. At over 1000 pages, this will be a book to dip in and out of over time. Highly recommended!
Joyce's mystery and fiction book reviews with some non-fiction too! 