The First Ladies by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray

 

Publisher: Berkley

On Sale Date: June 27th 2023

Pages: 389

I reviewed a digital review copy from the publisher

The First Ladies by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray is an historical fiction novel about the extraordinary friendship between first lady Eleanor Roosevelth and Civil Rights Activist Mary McLeod Bethune and about the important service of both women.

Eleanor was fascinated by the hard and important work of Mary, who was an educated and started schools in the time of horrible racial segregation. She did not stop when white supremist threaten her and want her to stop her work. She was not afraid to speak up and never gave up. SHe becomes close friends with Eleanor. When Franklin Delano Roosevelt becomes president, the two women start working more closely together, and Eleanor start her own agenda seperate from her husband, who had a secret love affair, and they live more seperate lives from then on. Eleanor becomes a strong and opiniated first lady who fights for civil and women's rights particularly. Together with Mary, they battle segregation, the lynching of black Americans and Mary becomes an advisor for president Roosevelt.

The First Ladies is a beatiful novel about two important historical women. Ofcourse I heard about Eleanor Roosevelt, but never about Mary Bethune before. This is a book about a specific time in American history, that even now is actual sadly. Both Eleanor and Mary where of great service of the United States and they broke barriers and opened doors that where closed before. The book may not have a very exciting plot or many twists and turns, this book must have it from it is important historical main characters and to learn about it as a reader, altough it was fiction based on true people and events.

I absolutely enjoyed this book and recommend reading it!

Voices From The Kitchen Personal Narratives from New York's Immigrant Restaurant Workers, edited by Marc Meyer

 

Publisher: Beacon Press

Expected On Sale Date: November 18 2025

Pages: 240

I reviewed a digital review copy from the publisher

Voices From The Kitchen is a moving book with personal stories from several immigrant workers in New York City's restaurants.

The people who tell their story in this book come from everywhere, but mostly from Central and South America; Mexico, Honduras, Venezuela, Bangladesh and the Dominican Republic to name a few. They all tell their own personal story that starts back in their homeland, and how they came to the USA and how they started working in the restaurants. Some started at the bottom of the ladder bussing tables or working at the dishwasher, and many of the narrators later owned their own restaurant or became a chef. Some worked 2 jobs  and more than 40 hours per week to provide for their families. 

This is a book that is more actual than ever, New York City's restaurant simply can't function without the hard work and dedication of immigrant workers. The stories in this book makes that you get deep respect for their work, which is nothing more than the American Dream. I truly enjoyed this gem of a book!

It's Different This Time by Joss Richard

 

Publisher: Dell, Penguin Random House

On Sale Date: September 30 2025

Pages: 432

I reviewed a digital review copy from the publisher

June Wood is an LA based actress who just had the notice from her agent Theo that the hit TV show she stars in has been cancelled. At the same time, she gets a message from a legal sollicitor to call her back about the apartment she lived in at 74 Perry Street in NYC, before she moved to Los Angeles. When she meets with the solicitor, it seems like the owner and landlord of the brownstone at 74 Perry Street has passed away, and has left the brownstone to the two people who lived there the last, which is June and Adam Harper. Adam Harper who she shared the house with and who was her last lover, but which she has not seen for years. And now because of a legal loophole, she has to live together with Adam in the brownstone for a month, and if they can, it is theirs. Years ago, June and Adam didn't go their their seperate ways at good terms. There is still a lot of unsolved pain between them. How are they going to be able to live together for a month? While in New York, June tries to get her acting career back on track, which succeeds with her dream role of Eponine in Les Miserables on Broadway, while figuring out where she and Adam stands, are they now strangers for each other, or has their previous relationship a second chance now they share the same roof again?

It's Different This Time is a fast paced novel set in a beautiful New York City brownstone. I found both the storyline and the main and side characters very entertaining. If you love movies like You've Got Mail this is a book that you will certainly like. The characters of June and Adam where fun and also realistic. Their storyline switch between the past and present in the chapters. I also loved that June was an actress and that there where a lot of  realistic references to Broadway musicals, and that June eventually got the role of Eponine in Les Miserables, and in the past also played Mimi in Rent. The relationship between June and Adam that ended when they both left the brownstone years ago gets a second startover when they move in again and that was very cute. Overall, I enjoyed reading this fun novel!

Book spotlight; The Gods of New York by Jonathan Mahler

 

The Gods of New York by Jonathan Mahler is a book that is an essential read for everyone who loves New York City. The book is set mostly in the 1980s, a turbulent time in New York history.

New York City entered 1986 as a city reborn, with record profits on Wall Street sending waves of money splashing across Manhattan and bringing a once-bankrupt, reeling city back to life.

But it also entered 1986 as a city divided. Nearly one-third of the city’s Black and Hispanic residents were living below the federal poverty line. Thousands of New Yorkers were sleeping in the streets—and in many cases addicted to drugs, dying of AIDS, or suffering from mental illness. The manufacturing jobs that had once sustained a thriving middle class had vanished. Long-simmering racial tensions threatened to boil over.

Over the next four years, a singular confluence of events—involving a cast of outsized, unforgettable characters—would widen those divisions into chasms. Ed Koch.. Al Sharpton. The Central Park Five. Spike Lee. Rudy Giuliani. Howard Beach. Tawana Brawley. The Preppy Murder. Jimmy Breslin. Do the Right Thing, Wall Street, crack, the AIDS epidemic, and, of course, ready to pour gasoline on every fire—the tabloids. In The Gods of New York, Jonathan Mahler tells the story of these convulsive, defining years. 

The Gods of New York is an exuberant, kaleidoscopic, and deeply immersive portrait of a city in transformation, one whose long-held identity was suddenly up for could it be both the great working-class city, lifting up immigrants from around the world and the money-soaked capital of global finance? Could it retain a civic culture—a common idea of what it meant to be a New Yorker—when the rich were building a city of their own and vast swaths of its citizens were losing faith in the very systems intended to protect them? New York City was one thing at the dawn of 1986; it would be something very different as 1989 came to a close. This book is the story of how that happened.

The Gods of New York by Jonathan Mahler came out this August by Penguin Random House and is a book not to miss!

Before Dorothy by Hazel Gaynor

Publisher: Berkley

On Sale Date: June 17, 2025

Pages: 352

I reviewed a digital review copy from the publisher

Before Dorothy by Hazel Gaynor is a novel from Auntie Em's point of view, before Dorothy's whole Wizard of Oz story. 1932; Emily Gale is Dorothy's aunt, the sister of her mother Annie, who recently died in an accident together with her husband John. Emily has traveled from Kansas to Chicago to take Dorothy home with her to her farm home on the prairie of Kansas, where she lives with her husband Henry, as they now have become Dorothy's legal guardians. Back in the past, Emily moved to Kansas with Henry in 1924, when she left Annie in Chicago. They where once closed but the past years they wher not anymore, all because of a secret about Dorothy only they know.

Life on the Kansas prairie started good for Emily and Henry, soon they learn how to maintain the farm and they also get a place in the local community. But droughts and dust storms and tornado's make life difficult on the prairie, especially when they lose their home in a tornado just shortly before Dorothy starts to live with them. Dorothy has also a difficult time adjusting to her new life. She is a child with a vivid imagination and dreams full of fantasy worlds. When a female pilot lands on their land, their life take another turn as this pilot is working with a man who promised to have the magic trick to make the drought on the prairie go away and make it rain again. This man is someone Emily knew in the past, and she knows his secret that is connected to Dorothy, and Emily fears she will lose her forever..

Before Dorothy is an excellent new book by Hazel Gaynor. I have read several previous books by her and everytime they amaze me. Even if you are not very familiar with Dorothy's story in The Wizard of Oz, this book can be read as a standalone novel, there are small references to it though in the book, like the little toy tin man that Emily's father made for her back in Ireland or the silver dancing shoes of Annie that Dorothy inherits. Just as in her previous books, Hazel Gaynor potrays the background of the Kansas prairie so well that you can almost feel it, this was very well done, even as the historical timeframe it was set in that also felt very real, just like the realistic characters. I also loved how the story changes in chapter from 1924 to 1932. Everything in this book was worked out just fantastic and everything felt in the right place in this magnificent story. I truly recommend this new novel by Hazel Gaynor!

The Midnight Hour by Eve Chase

 

Publisher: Ballantine Books

On Sale Date: August 5, 2025

Pages: 320

I reviewed a digital review copy from the publisher

The Midnight Hour by Eve Chase is a story that takes you to London's Notting Hill in 1998 and twenty years later in 2019. In 1998, Maggie is a 17 year old teenager that lives with her eccentric and not very stabile celebrity mother Dee Delancey and her younger brother Kit, who is adopted, in a house in Notting Hill. Everything goes normal, until one day when Dee doesn't return home and Maggie and Kit have no clue where she could be. The next weeks she also doesn't return and has to seem vanished without a trace.Maggie doesn't plan to call the police, afraid they will take Kit away. A friend from the neighborhood named Wolf, a guy who works in his uncle's antique shop keeps a bit of an eye on Maggie and Kit and Maggie and Wolf stay friends, also when Maggie and Kit move to Paris all of a sudden because a man unknown to them starts threatening her and Kit, and claims that he is Kit's father and can take him away any minute. Maggie has to do everything to protect her brother now her mom is missing, even if it means fleeing to Paris to her aunt. Will her mother ever surface again??

Twenty years later in 2019 now novelist Maggie is back in London from Paris, and apparently her mother has passed away. She gets a call from Wolf that their old house is renovated, and immediately she goes into panic mode; what if the renovators discover the secret that is buried there, she could get in big trouble..

She also meets up again with her aunt Cora, who they escaped to in Paris after things got out of hand back in 1998. Aunt Cora knows more about Kit's history, and during the story, the reader gets to learn all the secrets of Maggie's mother and about Wolf and aunt Cora too, secrets that better stay buried...

The Midnight Hour bt Eve Chase is a book that completely surprised me! I started reading it blankly, not knowing what to expect. I truly like the storyline of it and the characters as well. Everything in this novel was in the right place at the right time. It also had a thrilling mystery aspect to it, and at almost every page there was an unexpected twist and turn that truly kept it very entertaining. As a reader you truly want to know how this story, that truly had some tragic parts, ends.

The characters where portrayed well and are very realistic, they truly can be your neighbors or friends. The shifting in time between 1998 and 2019 was also done very well, it alternates in the chapters, and for this book this works perfectly.

Overall, this is a book I truly like and I found it highly entertaining and a true pageturner! This is a book I highly recommend.

Blog Tour; book spotlight on The Hong Kong Widow by Kristen Loesch

Today I am taking part in the blog tour of The Hong Kong Widow, the new novel by Kristen Loesch that comes out on October 7, with a book spotlight!

Hong Kong, 1953: In a remote mansion, witnesses insist a massacre took place. The police see nothing but pristine rooms and declare it a collective hallucination. Until decades later, when one witness returns…from the Edgar®-nominated author of The Last Russian Doll.

In 1950s Hong Kong, Mei is a young refugee of the Chinese Communist revolution struggling to put her past in Shanghai behind her. When she receives a shocking invitation—to take part in a competition in one of the city’s most notorious haunted houses, pitting six spirit mediums against one another in a series of six séances over six nights, until a single winner emerges—she has every reason to refuse. Except that the hostess, a former Shanghainese silent film star, is none other than the wife of the man who once destroyed Mei’s entire life.It is promised the winner will receive a fortune, but there is only one prize Mei wants: revenge. 

Decades later, the final night of that competition has become an infamous urban legend: The police were called to the scene of a brutal massacre but found no evidence, dismissing it as a collective hallucination. Mei knows what she saw, but now someone else is convinced they know what she did. She must uncover the truth about the last night she ever spent in that house—even if the ghosts of her past are waiting for her there. . . .

When We Meet Again by Caroline Beecham

 

Publisher: Putnam

On Sale Date: July 20, 2021

Pages: 384

I reviewed a digital review copy from the publisher

1943, London: Alice Cotton is a young woman who works as an editor at publishing house Partridge Press She is a beloved editor, who is also highly appreciated by her coworkers, as she has a good eye for books that distract the readers from the harsh war going on. But when Alice get unexpectedly pregnant, her live changes forever. To prevent getting a bad name as an unwed mother, she tells the made up story at her work that she has to take care  of her cousin, who just had baby up in the country. In real life, her mother kicks her out of the house to a small town, to deliver her baby there, and where her mother takes the baby away  without Alice's consent to be given to baby farmers, people who take the baby in and sell them to couples for adoption. Alice is devastated when she finds the crib of the baby empty with a note from her mother that it is ''better this way''.

Meanwhile at Patridge Press, her coworker friends are more and more missing Alice, who seem to have vanished without a trace, while Alice goes on a search to find her stolen daughter.

Theo Bloom works at the American department of Partridge Press as an editor in New York City, where he lives with his fiancee Virginia. He is asked though to go to London to help Partridge Press there, as there are difficulties in the company because of the war. He hears from her coworkers that Alice is missing, but soon Alice returns to the publishing house and meets Theo, and a friendship starts that turns into romance. Alice continues on her search for her daughter Eadie, and steps into the world of the baby farmers, which leads to a tragic find of her daughter in the end of the book.

When We Meet Again is a beatiful and very moving novel, set in London during World War Two. The story of Alice and her stolen daughter was very sad, but still Alice remained a very strong and interesting character that stays interesting till the end of the book, where she has to make truly difficult choices. The story reminded me a bit of the novel Looking For Jane by Heather Marshall, which is a book also about stolen babies that where sold for adoption against the will of their mothers. The friendship and romance between her and Theo was very sweet, and they truly where meant to be together. I found this book just very beautiful, very entertaining with fantastic plot twists, and I truly recommend reading it!

Blog Tour Post; The Lost Story of Eva Fuentes by Chanel Cleeton

 

Publisher: Berkley

On Sale Date: September 30, 2025

Pages: 352

I reviewed a digital review copy from the publisher

2024; Margo Reynolds is an American woman who lives and works in London. She is hired to source a historic book that was written hundred and twenty years ago by and authior named Eva Fuentes. When she goes on a search for it for her client, with the help of a friend who is local bookseller specialised in antique books, she finds out soon enough she is not the only one on the hunt for the book. A man seems to shadow her wherever she goes, and not much later, the booktore of her friend is rampaged and the bookseller found dead in the store by her, and also her own office gets destroyed. And soon Margo not only is in search of the book, but also who is behind all these incidents..

1900; Eva Fuentes is a teacher from Havana, Cuba. She is working on a novel, when she takes part in a cultural exchange program between Cuba and the USA, and she gets the chance to study at Harvard University during her time in Boston. She also meets a man there, and a secret love starts, but when she figures out the man's real intentions, her heart is shattered, and this changes her life, and the course of her novel forever.

In Havana in 1966, Pilar Castillo works as a librarian during the harsh regime of Fidel Castro. Her husband Enrique is imprisoned because his resistance against the regime. Pilar misses him terribly, and in her own way, she tries to resist the regime, but it gets more dangerous for her as she comes in the posession of the book by Eva Fuentes, and she must fight to protect her library and herself.

This is a beautiful and gripping story about three women  over different decades, who don't know each other, but whose lives  connect because of Eva's mysterious book. I found the story of Margo the most thrilling, as there was truly a sleuthing and mystery part that kept you wanting to know who was behind all the incidents while she was searching for the book of Eva Fuentes for her client. The stories of Pilar and Eva where very moving, and gave a good historical insight in the times the two women where living in. As a reader I kept wondering what it was that was in Eva's novel that was so daunting that people wanted to have it so bad and that could cause so many trouble. I found the style it was written in truly beautiful and breathtaking, and I absolutely loved the whole storyline and the three main characters. This new novel by Chanel Cleeton is truly a book that I recommend reading!

Upcoming blog tour posts on my blog this month..

On september 30 and October 7 I am taking part in two blog tours of books of PenguinRandom House; 

The Lost Story of Eva Fuentes by Chanel Cleeton and The Hong Kong Widow by Kristen Loesch, two very good new titles!

London, 2024: American expat Margo Reynolds is renowned for her talent at sourcing rare antiques for her clients, but she’s never had a request quite like this one. She’s been hired to find a mysterious book published over a century ago. With a single copy left in existence, it has a storied past shrouded in secrecy—and her client isn’t the only person determined to procure it at any cost.

Havana, 1966: Librarian Pilar Castillo has devoted her life to books, and in the chaotic days following her husband’s unjust imprisonment by Fidel Castro, reading is her only source of solace. So when a neighbor fleeing Cuba asks her to return a valuable book to its rightful owner, Pilar will risk everything to protect the literary work entrusted to her care. It’s a dangerous mission that reveals to her the power of one book to change a life.

Boston, 1900: For Cuban school teacher and aspiring author Eva Fuentes, traveling from Havana to Harvard to study for the summer is the opportunity of a lifetime. It’s a whirlwind adventure that leaves her little time to write, but a moonlit encounter with an enigmatic stranger changes everything. The story that pours out of her is one of forbidden love, secrets, and lies… and though Eva cannot yet see it, the book will be a danger and salvation for the lives it touches.

In 1950s Hong Kong, Mei is a young refugee of the Chinese Communist revolution struggling to put her past in Shanghai behind her. When she receives a shocking invitation—to take part in a competition in one of the city’s most notorious haunted houses, pitting six spirit mediums against one another in a series of six séances over six nights, until a single winner emerges—she has every reason to refuse.

Except that the hostess, a former Shanghainese silent film star, is none other than the wife of the man who once destroyed Mei’s entire life.

It is promised the winner will receive a fortune, but there is only one prize Mei wants: revenge. 

Decades later, the final night of that competition has become an infamous urban legend: The police were called to the scene of a brutal massacre but found no evidence, dismissing it as a collective hallucination. Mei knows what she saw, but now someone else is convinced they know what she did. She must uncover the truth about the last night she ever spent in that house—even if the ghosts of her past are waiting for her there. . . .