This is going to be another fabulous year of great books coming out, reading and discovering new authors. I recently finished reading, “Every Precious and Fragile Thing” by Barbara Davis and it moved me so much that I’m still thinking about the story and getting teary eyed. My review will be posted closer to the publish date. I’m currently reading a couple others including, “Babylonia” by Costanza Casati and it is fabulous! I’m delighted to have discovered Casati’s work and look forward to seeing what she publishes next. I already have so much to say about the story, the time period and where the story takes place. Also, I should be posting my review of, “Sisters in Science” by Olivia Campbell soon. I’m a bit behind on that one because how important this story is and I want to make sure my review conveys the importance of women’s contribution to Science.
I know I said I was all set for the titles I was going to read and review this year but I can’t turn down invites to Random House and Atria books often. That is my excuse and I’m sticking to it. Ha!
The next Reader’s Log will be about the book I got for Christmas! Can’t wait to share! – Stephanie
Paris Undercover (A Wartime Story of Courage, Friendship, and Betrayal) by Matthew Goodman
Pub Date Feb 04 2025 by Random House Publishing Group
Description
Two women in Nazi-occupied Paris created a daring escape line that rescued dozens of Allied servicemen. With one still in a German prison camp, the other wrote a book about it—a memoir built on fabrications. Now the bestselling author of Eighty Days shares their incredible, never-before-told full story.
Etta Shiber and Kate Bonnefous are the unlikeliest of heroines: two seemingly ordinary women, an American widow and an English divorcée, living quietly together in Paris. Yet during the Nazi occupation, these two friends find themselves unexpectedly plunged into the whirlwind of history. With the help of a French country priest and others, they set out to rescue British and French soldiers trapped behind enemy lines—some of whom they daringly smuggle through Nazi checkpoints hidden inside the trunk of their car.
Ultimately the Gestapo captures them both. After eighteen months in prison, Etta is returned to the United States in a prisoner exchange. Back home, hoping to bring attention to her friend Kitty’s bravery, she publishes a memoir about their work. Paris-Underground becomes a publishing sensation and Etta a celebrity. Meanwhile Kate spends the rest of the war in a Nazi prison, entirely unaware of the book that has been written about her—and the deeds that have been claimed in her name.
In researching this story, Matthew Goodman uncovered military records and personal testimonies that reveal, for the first time, the shocking truth behind Etta’s memoir and the unexpected, far-reaching consequences of its publication. More than just a story of two women’s remarkable courage, Paris Undercover is a vivid, gripping account of deceit, betrayal, and personal redemption.
Letters from the Dead by Isabella Valeri
Pub Date May 27 2025 by Atria Books | Atria/Emily Bestler Books
General Fiction (Adult) | Mystery & Thrillers
Description
This addictive debut novel takes us into an intoxicating world of old money, privilege, and family intrigue as a young heiress must return home from a decade-long exile to face the powerful enemies arrayed against her, including those within her own family.
For the first eleven years of her life, the precocious daughter of a great European family tracing its roots back more than fifteen generations, never set foot on land that her family didn’t own. Cloistered on a sprawling estate in the Alpine foothills, as the youngest sibling of her generation she has little knowledge of the dark forces gathering in the shadows to strike at her family. But, when her insatiable curiosity leads her to uncover a priceless text hidden hundreds of years before, she shines light into corners meant to be left in the dark and threatens to uncover secrets that could trigger an internecine battle for succession.
Then, with no warning or explanation, she is whisked away on a private jet and exiled to an elite but isolated all-girls boarding school in the United States. More than a decade later, now in her twenties, she finds her bank accounts abruptly frozen by her family. She is recalled from her affluent but empty existence abroad. Little does she know that her family has plans for her, including an arranged marriage. Worse, as she draws closer to discovering the horrific act that sent her into exile a decade before, and shadowy enemies close in on her family, she must face her most dangerous and powerful foe: her own father.
Loveday Cardew prefers books to people. If you look closely, you might glimpse the first lines of the novels she loves most tattooed on her skin. But there are things she’ll never show you.
The Sister Queens is the second novel I have read about Marguerite and Eleanor, who both became Queens. The two sisters grew up together at their father’s-Count Raymond of Provence-court. They are separated at an early age to marry, they find their life as they know it completely changed and become two extraordinary women who face many challenges.
Lucy Campion, a ladies’ maid turned printer’s apprentice in 17th-century London, is crossing Holborn Bridge over the vilest portion of the River Fleet one morning when she encounters a distraught young woman, barely able to speak and clad only in a blood-spattered nightdress. The woman has no memory of who she is or what’s happened to her, and the townspeople believe she’s posessed. But Lucy is concerned for the woman’s well-being and takes her to a physician. When, shockingly, the woman is identified as the daughter of a nobleman, Lucy is asked to temporarily give up her bookselling duties to discreetly serve as the woman’s companion while she remains under the physician’s care. As the woman slowly recovers, she begins-with Lucy’s help-to reconstruct the terrible events that led her to Holborn Bridge that morning. But when it becomes clear the woman’s safety might still be at risk, Lucy becomes unwillingly privy to a plot with far-reaching social implications, and she’ll have to decide how far she’s willing to go to protect the young woman in her care.
Layered Pages 