The Innocents follows Bridget Walsh's assured debut mystery The Tumbling Girl. Its heroine, Minnie Ward, is now the manager of the music hall in Victorian London that was the setting for the first novel in the series. It's an original setting with engaging characters who are already neck-deep in trouble before any murders occur. Learn more in our review of The Innocents ..read more

The Tumbling Girl is a thoroughly engaging debut mystery novel by Bridget Walsh. Readers who enjoy this mystery will be eager for more. That's a good thing, because this is just the first novel in Walsh's new "Variety Palace Mystery" series. It features a wonderful heroine, a fresh setting, and a brisk story that keeps you guessing. Read more in our review of The Tumbling Girl ..read more

Yours Cheerfully follows author A.J. Pearce's delightful debut novel Dear Mrs. Bird. Heroine Emmy Lake is as amusing and sympathetic a character as ever, and she launches the story into a quick start. If you're looking for something fun and funny to read that doesn't shirk the harder realities of life, this novel should be just the thing. Read more in our review of Yours Cheerfully ..read more

Watching the film A Song of Names makes me want to read the novel it was based on, written by Norman Lebrecht and also titled The Song of Names. It's about a man searching for an old, dear friend--the precociously gifted violinist, a Polish Jew, taken in as a boy by his family in London as the Nazis were closing in on Poland. The film, directed by Francois Girard, is beautifully made, with exceptional acting throughout. The story is gripping, although it never rushes, lingering on some achingly lovely musical passages. It's gripping because one comes to care so much about the characters and th ..read more

Upgrades are being made to the website after a year when I had to devote much time to other activities. The Texas/Southwest section of the Old West page has been cleaned up, with a working link for every book to a site where it can be purchased. The Son by Philipp Meyer is a good read, a literary novel rather than a classic Western, with a cautionary message about the effects from generation to generation of the frontier ethic that placed toughness above every other value ..read more

Elizabeth's Chadwick's series of novels about William Marshal would not be complete without the story of his three-year pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Templar Silks, published in the U.S. this June. Chadwick's forte is historical authenticity, and she portrays Marshal as the pious, infidel-fighting medieval Christian he must have been. This will make him a less sympathetic hero for many readers than the rigorously honorable knight of Chadwick's other William Marshal novels--but is not inconsistent with those portrayals and adds complexity to her portrait of him. Studies have shown that people who r ..read more

Julie Orringer has published three books in 15 years: How to Breathe Underwater, her debut collection of short stories in 2003; her novel The Invisible Bridge in 2010 (see review); and now this year, The Flight Portfolio, another novel. In all three, her graceful, transparent prose transports readers directly into her characters' experiences and emotions. She obviously takes extra time and care researching and writing her books, and the result makes them well worth the wait for readers. Her two novels are set in Europe during World War II. The Invisible Bridge is about a Hungarian Jew studyin ..read more

Guy Gavriel Kay's "fantasy" novels are really historical novels very slightly disguised. That's good news for readers who love historical fiction and aren't crazy about wizardly shapeshifting and magical mists. His latest novel, A Brightness Long Ago, is really set in fifteenth-century Italy, but with place names changed, a few otherworldly touches added, and the feud between the Montefeltro and Malatesta families fictionalized just enough to give the author freedom to tell a breathless page-turner of a story. For more about this novel, see the review of A Brightness Long Ago ..read more

Mary Todd Lincoln was not well liked in her time. Women then were not supposed to have opinions on politics, nor were they supposed to be witty at the expense of men. Louis Bayard's novel Courting Mr. Lincoln gives us a Mary Todd who will please readers today who do like witty, politically opinionated women. Evidently, Abraham Lincoln also did. For more about this delightful novel, see the review of Courting Mr. Lincoln ..read more

Readers hungry for more novels integrating graceful writing, a realistic historical approach, and the mysticism of the ancient world will thoroughly enjoy Linda Proud's Chariot of the Soul. Reminiscent of novels like Rosemary Sutcliff's Sword at Sunset and Mary Stewart's Merlin trilogy (The Crystal Cave, The Hollow Hills and The Last Enchantment, Proud's latest novel is about a British prince educated in Rome who returns to Britain in advance of Emperor Claudius's invasion on a mission to persuade the British kings to accept Roman rule. For more about this fine novel, see the review of Chariot ..read more