This month I am not sticking to any particular theme. I am in the mood to add a variety of stories to my never ending wish-list. The question is, will I ever get to my list? I think so. Matter of fact I have read a few already this year. Not bad but I need to read more. As they say, there is never enough time in the day. There is night time of course but one must get some sleep every once in a while. I hope you enjoy checking out this list and I hope some will be of interest to you. Enjoy!
The Whole Art of Detection
Lost Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes
by Lyndsay Faye
Expected Publish Date: March 7, 2017
Internationally bestselling author Lyndsay Faye was introduced to the Sherlock Holmes mysteries when she was ten years old and her dad suggested she read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s short story “The Adventure of the Speckled Band.” She immediately became enamored with tales of Holmes and his esteemed biographer Dr. John Watson, and later, began spinning these quintessential characters into her own works of fiction—from her acclaimed debut novel, Dust and Shadow, which pitted the famous detective against Jack the Ripper, to a series of short stories for the Strand Magazine, whose predecessor published the very first Sherlock Holmes short story in 1891.
Faye’s best Holmes tales, including two new works, are brought together in The Whole Art of Detection, a stunning collection that spans Holmes’s career, from self-taught young upstart to publicly lauded detective, both before and after his faked death over a Swiss waterfall in 1894. In “The Lowther Park Mystery,” the unsociable Holmes is forced to attend a garden party at the request of his politician brother and improvises a bit of theater to foil a conspiracy against the government. “The Adventure of the Thames Tunnel” brings Holmes’s attention to the baffling murder of a jewel thief in the middle of an underground railway passage. With Holmes and Watson encountering all manner of ungrateful relatives, phony psychologists, wronged wives, plaid-garbed villains, and even a peculiar species of deadly red leech, The Whole Art of Detection is a must-read for Sherlockians and any fan of historical crime fiction with a modern sensibility.
Stolen Beauty
A Novel
by Laurie Lico Albanese
Expected Publish Date: Feb 7, 2017
From the dawn of the twentieth century to the devastation of World War II, this exhilarating novel of love, war, art, and family gives voice to two extraordinary women and brings to life the true story behind the creation and near destruction of Gustav Klimt’s most remarkable paintings.
In the dazzling glitter of 1903 Vienna, Adele Bloch-Bauer—young, beautiful, brilliant, and Jewish—meets painter Gustav Klimt. Wealthy in everything but freedom, Adele embraces Klimt’s renegade genius as the two awaken to the erotic possibilities on the canvas and beyond. Though they enjoy a life where sex and art are just beginning to break through the façade of conventional society, the city is also exhibiting a disturbing increase in anti-Semitism, as political hatred foments in the shadows of Adele’s coffee house afternoons and cultural salons.
Nearly forty years later, Adele’s niece Maria Altmann is a newlywed when the Nazis invade Austria—and overnight, her beloved Vienna becomes a war zone. When her husband is arrested and her family is forced out of their home, Maria must summon the courage and resilience that is her aunt’s legacy if she is to survive and keep her family—and their history—alive.
Will Maria and her family escape the grip of Nazis’ grip? And what will become of the paintings that her aunt nearly sacrificed everything for?
Impeccably researched and a “must-read for fans of Kristin Hannah’s The Nightingale and Paula McLain’s Circling the Sun” (Christina Baker Kline, #1New York Times bestselling author), Stolen Beauty intertwines the tales of two remarkable women across more than a hundred years. It juxtaposes passion and discovery against hatred and despair, and shines a light on our ability to love, to destroy, and above all, to endure.
The Orphan’s Tale
by Pam Jenoff
Expected Publish Date: Feb 21, 2017
The Nightingale meets Water for Elephants in this powerful novel of friendship and sacrifice, set in a traveling circus during World War II, by international bestselling author Pam Jenoff.
Seventeen-year-old Noa has been cast out in disgrace after becoming pregnant by a Nazi soldier during the occupation of her native Holland. Heartbroken over the loss of the baby she was forced to give up for adoption, she lives above a small German rail station, which she cleans in order to earn her keep.
A Deadly Thaw
by Sarah Ward
Expected Publish Date: Sep 27, 2016
Lena Grey is found guilty of murdering her husband, who was found smothered in their bed. She offers no defense, and serves fourteen long years in prison. But within months of her release nearly two decades later, his body is found in a disused morgue, recently killed. Who was the man she killed before, and why did she lie about his identity?
Detective Inspector Francis Sadler and his Derbyshire team try to discover how such a well-orchestrated deception could have occurred. DC Connie Childs is convinced that something greater than marital strife caused the murders, but before Lena can be questioned further, she vanishes. Back in Lena’s childhood home, her sister Kat, a therapist, is shocked by her sister’s duplicity. When she begins to receive mysterious packages from a young man claiming to know her sister’s location, Kat is drawn into her own investigation of her family’s well-hidden secrets. As her inquiries begin to collide with the murder investigation, a link to the sisters’ teenage lives emerges, and the line between victim and perpetrator becomes blurred in this tightly-plotted, compelling novel perfect for fans of Deborah Crombie and Sharon Bolton.
The Trial of Marie Montrecourt
by Kay Patrick
Expected Publish Date: May 28, 2016
1899 and Marie Montrecourt arrives in Harrogate from France, an eighteen-year-old, penniless orphan, facing an uncertain future and knowing little of her past. Meanwhile in London, Evelyn Harringdon is dealing with the death of his father, one of the most influential men in Parliament and a hero of the first Boer War.
It would seem that these two events have little in common but they are linked by a scandal, one that is deeply buried in the past.
As Marie struggles to find a place for herself in her new life she is drawn into the fight for women’s rights, while Evelyn discovers that political corruption threatens to ruin his family’s good name. It is his obsession with discovering the truth that brings him into contact with Marie – a meeting that will prove dangerous for them both. They are prisoners of the past, and Evelyn’s attempt at atonement sets Marie on a path which will lead her into making a terrible choice. It’s one which will transform her from an innocent young woman into the central player in a notorious murder trial…
Here are some of the wishlists from a few of my friends this month:
Colleen @ A Literary Vacation
Heather @ The Maiden’s Court
Magdalena @ A Bookaholic Swede
Holly @ 2 Kids and Tired
Erin @ Flashlight Commentary
As we all know Mondays can be pretty manic but nonetheless I was looking forward to it. Why? Because I want to share all my bookish happening for last week and over the weekend! What can be more exciting for a book blogger? Well, besides reading books and discovering new books to read. Every single day!
Heather’s interview with award winning author Janie Dempsey Watts at Maiden’s Court, here. 
Holly’s All I Want for Christmas…Review at 2 Kids and Tired Books, here. 
With her extended maternity leave at its end, Melanie Trenholm is less than thrilled to leave her new husband and beautiful twins to return to work, especially when she’s awoken by a phone call with no voice on the other end—and the uneasy feeling that the ghostly apparitions that have stayed silent for more than a year are about to invade her life once more. 
Juliet’s Answer by Glenn Dixon
Death at St. Vedast by Mary Lawrence
The Magdalen Girls by V.S. Alexander
Kindle Edition, 372 pages
Nineteen-year-old Gwendolyn Hooper is newly married to a rich and charming widower, eager to join him on his tea plantation, determined to be the perfect wife and mother. But life in Ceylon is not what Gwen expected. The plantation workers are resentful, the neighbours treacherous. And there are clues to the past – a dusty trunk of dresses, an overgrown gravestone in the grounds – that her husband refuses to discuss. Just as Gwen finds her feet, disaster strikes. She faces a terrible choice, hiding the truth from almost everyone, but a secret this big can’t stay buried forever . . .
When Gemma discovers a pair of ancient duelling pistols encrusted with rubies in the basement of the local museum, she is immediately intrigued…
Layered Pages 