The Golden Spoon

 The Golden Spoon was such an entertaining mystery.  Based on the British Baking shows on television this is a baking show with a murder twist.  While reading the book I could definitely hear the words of the announcers and hosts of the actual baking show in my head. 

Though the contestants on this show were a variation on the theme,  they were an entertaining group. The author did a good job of building the background on each character and presenting their connection to baking and their backstory connecting them to the manor house where the baking tent was located.

Not the most incredible prose but the intent was very apparent and the plot was fast moving.  There was a bit of suspense, but I do not think the reader connects enough to any one character to be upset when you find out the murder and the murdered.

With thoughts of the British Baking Show dancing in your head and reading this book, you just want to go into the kitchen and bake!

Everyone in My Family has Killed Someone

Everyone in My Family has Killed Someone is an entertaining novel written by Benjamin Stevenson.

Written from the perspective of Ernst Cunningham, who describes himself as a reliable narrator.  He is writing down the recollection of events that he says happened to his family.  He is both the Sherlock and the Watson for this story.

He and his family are coming together for the first time in three years for a reunion. Ernst introduces us to the members of his family who are gathering a very isolated ski resort, of course during a snowstorm.  Building on the idea that he will give the reader all the facts and backstories about each character, Ernst introduces us to all the family members.  He also tells the reader at the very beginning of the book the page numbers where deaths will happen or be reported.  Then as the plot progresses he refers us back to those page notations as we approach a new death.

New facts about each character are revealed as the story moves through the week the family is gathered together.  Each person in the family is in someway tied to a death.  In a funny, tongue in cheek, retelling of events, Cunningham leads us on a wild goose chase through white snow and on a chair lift, into a frozen pond to uncover the mystery that connects all the deaths and characters who are in the novel.

There are some good twists and turns and even if you think Ernst has been honest and given you all the facts there are still some reveals that lead to the ending.

Intimacies

 Intimacies by Katie Kitamura is a her fourth novel.  Written from the unnamed narrators point of view, this is a short novel that packs a punch.

The protagonist is a young woman who moves for her new job as an interrupter at The Hague.  The description of the job is fascinating in itself.  The entire book is written in the first person from the young woman's perspective of scenes in her life.  Just  as she must remain objective and unemotional when translating for a client in the court, she approaches her life in a similar manner.

We never learn her name, the book is a stream of consciousness with little punctuation, no quotation marks around conversations,  a very little emotion.  Yet as the reader you can feel the tension, the terror and the uncomfortableness of the narrator in  various situations.

Her relationships with friends and her lover are awkward.  Her relationship at work is difficult.  She does not seem to know how to be intimate in contrast to the title of the book.

This book though not well liked by the members of the book group created a terrific conversation and revealed so many themes and connections throughout the novel that in the end ..I would say  it is a great read.

Our American Friend

 Anna Pitoniak writes a quiet thriller here in her third novel, Our American Friend.

It is hard to separate the previous president and his wife from the subjects in this novel, but the author says she just used them as a jumping off point.  It struck her as interesting that Donald Trump was married to a native of Yugoslavia aand her father was a communist, now he was the president of the United States and Melania was the first lady.  

An entertaining plot that brings a young Russian bride into the White House with a overbearing, egotistical president.  He is completely unaware of her background and family.  She, at first, is trying to ignore and distance herself from her family.  Her father was a KGB operative who was killed by the government,  She has a past she is trying to leave behind. 

When Laura Caine, the president's wife haas a story to tell and she picks a newly retired journalist, Sofie Morse to write her biography.  As the two women spend time together recording Laura's life story, there are times of friendship, trust and then ethical questions come up.  As Laura wrestles with questions of ideology and loyalty, Sofie confronts questions of loyalty and ethics and politics. 

The Librarian Spy

 The Librarian Spy  written by Madaline Martin  is another in a long line of historical novels being written about books, libraries and the Holocaust.  Martin also wrote The Last Bookshop in London and The Keeper of Hidden Books both books about the role books and librarians played in World War II.

In this novel we meet two different women who lives were changed by World War II.  Helene who as a young married woman moves with her husband to Lyon, France from Paris.  There she is just a housewife as her husband tries to protect her from the horror of a war unfolding.  When he does not come home one evening from work, after they argued in the morning, Helene does not know what to think.  When she finds out her husband was a leader in the Resistance, she regrets the arguments they had before he left.  Taking on a new persona, Helene becomes Elaine and starts to work for the Resistance.  She is determined to make a difference in the war and help end the atrocities.  

Meanwhile living a different kind of life, Ava Harper leaves her job at the Library of Congress in the Rare Books room to come to Lisbon, Portugal to help the United States uncover what is happening in Europe.  She works reading the local newspapers and sending messages back to the US.  A coded message catches her eye and she gets involved in trying to rescue a young Jewish mother and her child in their effort to escape to America.  Ava also finds herself anxious to help the people who are being persecuted at personal risk to herself.  She must be careful when she finds the man across the hall ahs been taken away by police.  Then she is being followed and she realizes someone has been coming in her apartment looking throuogh her things.  It is a race against time to help Sarah and Noah get on a ship to the US

Based on a composite of real people and real events of World War II, Martin has created characters who are living the lives experiences she imagines were happening in Portugal and France in 1943.  This is a well researched novel that will leave you amazed by the bravery and caring of these characters.

The Matchmaker's Gift

 Today I read a book that felt like it was a cross between a historical novel and a rom-com.  It was a fun entertaining story that kept me entertained until the end.

The Matchmaker's Gift written by Lynda Cohen Loigman definitely fits the criteria for the historical fiction genre, but because you are reading about matchmaking and love it reads like a rom com.

Using the dual timeline approach to writing this novel, Loigman follows Sara Glikman as she comes from Europe to the Lower Eastside of the New York.  Arriving with her family in New York City as a young girl, Sara has already shown her matchmaking abilities on the boat creating a shidduch for her older sister.  As she grows up she finds creative ways to bring together the couples she knows will love each other and stayed married forever.  This causes problems in the neighborhood as it takes away  business from the Shadchanim.  These older men try to stop her but Sara is a strong young woman and stands up  to them.  

In the alternating plot line we meet Sara's granddaughter, Abby, starts reading the journals her grandmother left her.  Abby and her sister grew up with Sara and their mother, Beverly.  They are the product of an ugly divorce and Abby becomes a divorce lawyer to help women going through divorce not have the same experience her mother had.  Growing with her grandmother's stories, she never really paid attention.  Now as she reads through the accounts of the matches, she begins to question whether instead of helping couples end their marriages, she should be helping couples find true love.

The Magnolia Palace

Fiona Davis is one of my favorite authors. She writes historical fiction about the people and buildings of New York at the turn of the century.

The Magnolia Palace is a fascinating novel about one of the fabulous buildings still standing with a historical history in New York City.  This time Davis takes the Frick Mansion and a few actual facts about the building and the Frick family and weaves a beautiful, romantic amazing plot around those facts to flesh out the story.

In the book a young beautiful girl known as Angelica becomes the muse for many artists and sculptors.  Her likeness becomes famous as she posses for different statues that will be displayed all over New York.

When her mother dies and she is accused of a crime she insists she did not commit, she is forced to find a way to avoid jail time.  Running away and ending up on the stairs of the Frick Mansion just as the daughter, Helen is looking for a private secretary seems like the perfect solution.

Angelica is creating a new life for herself as Miss Lilly, the efficient secretary to Helen Frick who is turning her father's incredible art collection into a library of the art and its Provence .

There are so many amazing twists and turns as this plot develops.  The relationship between Helen and her father, mother and brother.  The interplay between Helen and Lillian.  Then Lillian and all the characters who pass through her life.  Failed romance and true love plays heavily in this novel and even just the love between family and employee and boss are complicated relationships.  A very compelling read.