In December 1926, novelist Agatha Christie and her husband Archie have a vicious argument about his unfaithfulness. On that frigid night, she vanishes. Investigators find her abandoned car on the edge of a deep pond, her fur coat still inside. Her daughter and unfaithful husband have no idea where she is. English officials unleash an unprecedented manhunt to find her and are joined by people all over the country. She reappears eleven days later, claiming amnesia. Marie Benedict wrote the book in a dual narrative: one story line is from Archie’s point-of-view as he contends with the media circus, the other from Agatha’s as she describes their relationship in […]
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The Unlocked Path
The Unlocked Path is a historical novel about a “New Woman” of the early twentieth century: educated, career-minded, independent. In 1897 Philadelphia, after experiencing her aunt’s suicide, Eliza Edwards vows to help and heal. In her social circle, a young woman’s chief goal was to debut in society, but Eliza isn’t interested in such a traditional role. Instead, she enters medical college when only five percent of doctors are female. With the support of a team of women and driven by a determination to conquer curriculum demands, battle sexism, and overcome doubts, Eliza charts her life’s trajectory. Author Janis Robinson Daly was inspired to write her debut novel after conducting […]
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Mercury Pictures Presents Review
This family saga follows Maria Lagana from Mussolini’s Italy to 1940s Los Angeles. As a child in Rome, her father takes her to the cinema instead of church and she develops a lifelong passion for films. When Giuseppe is arrested and imprisoned by for subversive activities against the fascist regime, Maria and her mother Maria immigrate to safety in Los Angeles. Maria rises from the typing pool to associate producer at Mercury Pictures, a creator of B-movies. The studio is always on the verge of bankruptcy and under the thumb of the Production Code for affronting the sensibilities of the movie-going public. “I can’t show a husband and wife faithfully […]
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The Sisters Sweet Book Review
The vaudeville era of US entertainment history took place in the early 1920s and featured a variety of specialty acts: singers, dancers, trained animals, ventriloquists, magicians, clowns, etc. Comic giants Laurel & Hardy were among the biggest names on vaudeville stages, as were renowned celebrities Mickey Rooney, Jack Haley, and the Marx Brothers. The Sisters Sweet by Elizabeth Weiss takes place between 1918 and the early 1930s. It’s about Harriet and Josie, two sisters who perform for eleven years as conjoined twins at the behest of their parents, former stars. When they are exposed as frauds, Josie runs away to Hollywood and her family falls on hard times as the […]
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The Foundling Book Review
“I trust you’re familiar with the type of girl I’m referring to,” she tells the audience. “You’ve seen her slinking in and out of bawdy houses and illegal drinking establishments… she may seem normal enough—in fact, she’s often quite pretty. Until you see her again, a few years later, ruined and destitute, begging for handouts, surrounded by her own diseased and illegitimate children.”—Ann Leary, The Foundling. So says Dr. Agnes Vogel, the administrator of the Nettleton State Village for Feebleminded Women of Childbearing Age. It’s 1927 and eighteen-year-old Mary Engle is hired to work as Dr. Vogel’s secretary at an institution for mentally disabled women. She’s immediately in awe of […]
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The Lincoln Highway Book Review
“… in your time you shall do wrong unto others and others shall do wrong unto you. And these opposing wrongs will become your chains. The wrongs you have done unto others will be bound to you in the form of guilt, and the wrongs that others have done unto you in the form of indignation. The teachings of Jesus Christ Our Savior are there to free you from both. To free you from your guilt through atonement and from your indignation through forgiveness. Only once you have freed yourself from both of these chains may you begin to live your life with love in your heart and serenity in […]
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A Small Hotel – Book Review
It’s the summer of 1941. Europe is at war, but New York’s Thousand Islands are at the height of the tourist season. Kennet Fiskare, son of a hotel proprietor, is having the summer of a lifetime, having fallen deeply in love with a Swedish-Brazilian guest named Astrid Virtanen. But the affair is cut short. The rigors of military life help dull his heartache, but when Kennet’s battalion reaches France, he is thrown into the crucible of frontline combat. As his unit crosses Europe, from the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium to Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria, Kennet falls into a different kind of love: the intense camaraderie between soldiers. […]
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The Last Checkmate – Book Review
“Despite taking place in one of the darkest times and places in our collective history, I want The Last Checkmate to be a story that shows how courage, resilience and love can emerge and triumph over such evil.” ~ Gabriella Saab Maria Florkowska is many things: daughter, sister, avid chess player, and a member of the Polish underground resistance in Nazi-occupied Warsaw, Poland. Captured by the Gestapo, she is imprisoned in Auschwitz, but while her family is sent to their deaths, she is spared because to play chess to entertain the camp deputy and his guards. Befriended by a Catholic priest, Maria attempts to overcome her grief, vows to avenge […]
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West with Giraffes – Book Review
“Few true friends have I known and two were giraffes…” Inspired by true events, this part adventure, part historical saga and part coming-of-age love story follows Woodrow Wilson Nickel as he recalls his journey in 1938 to deliver Southern California’s first giraffes to the San Diego Zoo. Woodrow Wilson Nickel, age 105, feels his life ebbing away. But when he learns giraffes are going extinct, he recalls the unforgettable experience he cannot take to his grave. It’s 1938. The Great Depression lingers. Hitler is threatening Europe, and world-weary Americans long for wonder. They find it in two giraffes who miraculously survive a hurricane while crossing the Atlantic. What follows is […]
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The Women with the Blue Star – Book Review
1942. Sadie Gault is eighteen and living with her parents amid the horrors of the Kraków Ghetto during World War II. When the Nazis liquidate the ghetto, Sadie and her parents seek refuge in the perilous sewers beneath the city. Ella Stepanek is an affluent Polish girl living with her stepmother, who has developed close alliances with the occupying Germans. Longing for her fiancé, who has gone off to war, Ella wanders Kraków restlessly. While on an errand in the market, she glimpses something moving beneath a grate in the street. Upon closer inspection, she realizes it’s a girl. To be a Jew hiding from the Nazis during World War […]
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