The Windsor Affair by Melanie Benjamin

The Windsor Affair by Melanie Benjamin

384 pages

Published June 2026 by Random House Publishing Group

My copy courtesy of the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review

Publisher’s Summary: 

Feuding Windsor brothers and their wives—some things, it seems, never change. The Windsor Affair recreates the cataclysmic events that nearly toppled the monarchy and incited the power struggle between Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon and Wallis Simpson. Told from the perspective of both women, the novel propels readers into the fabulous world of the debonair Prince of Wales, café society of the 1930s, and the glittering private lives of the Windsors. The first novel to be dedicated to this infamous rivalry, The Windsor Affair brings us all the gossip and intrigue between the two very different—yet perhaps more similar than they would admit—wives of royals.

As Queen, Elizabeth would become the symbol of British pluck and courage during World War II and remain a British institution the rest of her long life. Wallis would be forever forced to enact the World’s Greatest Love Story even after it sours, as she goes from being admired to vilified and, ultimately, pitied. Against the backdrop of the Abdication Crisis, World War II, coronations, funerals, births, and deaths, these two women maintain a biting, sharp-tongued feud—until age and the long arm of history bring about a kind of understanding. For the last communication between these bitter rivals was a simple, surprising message: “In friendship, Elizabeth.”

My Thoughts: 

This is the eighth book by Benjamin that I’ve read and it gave me everything I’ve come to expect from her. Benjamin's books are always centered around real women who have played a role in history, two topics I love. Frequently they are women whose place in history has been overlooked; sometimes the women are very well known, as in this case. 

Over time, I've read a fair amount about Edward VIII (later known as the Duke of Windsor) and Wallis Simpson and I long ago gave up the idea that theirs was a great love story that stood the test of time. What I didn't know about was the feud between Simpson and Queen Elizabeth. 

Elizabeth was much beloved in England as the Duchess of York, after marrying Albert "Bertie", the Duke of York and second in line to the throne. Her hope was to remain in those roles for the remainder of their lives. It allowed them to spend a lot of time together and with their daughters and allowed Bertie to remain out of the spotlight, where his stammer would be less noticeable. 

The first in line to the throne, Edward, the Duke of Wales was a known womanizer, particularly when it came to married women. Wallis Simpson was American, once divorced, and, at that time, married woman who loved a good party, wore stylish clothing, and had a biting humor who set her sights on Edward. 

In January of 1936, King George V died and Edward became king. The family felt certain that Edward would do the right thing and walk away from Wallis, as it was inconceivable that he could remain king if he married her. Edward insisted that he could, and would, in fact do just that. In the end, he was not, as we know, allowed to marry her as king, abdicating the throne to Bertie. 

And here's what I didn't know about all of that: 

• Stylish Wallis looked down her nose at Elizabeth, who continued to wear clothing designed by the woman who had designed her mother's clothing, and made no secret of it. Elizabeth looked dowdy and was constrained by doing things the right (the royal) way. 
• Elizabeth had once been the apple of the public's eye; but the public, surprisingly, got caught up in the great love story and adored Wallis. 
• Elizabeth was very unhappy with Edward's abdication, putting Bertie, as it did, into a highly stressful and very public role that vastly changed both their private and public lives. 
• Wallis and Elizabeth publicly avoided each other as much as possible and their "feud" was very much public knowledge. 

And here's what I'm not sure if fact or fiction - was Elizabeth instrumental in making sure that Wallis and Edward were not allowed to marry if he remained king? Was she instrumental in making Bertie (King George VI) forbid the royal family from having any contact with Edward and Wallis? In Benjamin's world she did. Given what I know about the amount of research puts into each book, I can't help but think that there's some truth to those things in this book. Regardless, it makes for a wonderful tale of two strong women, neither of whom got what they ended up wanting out of life. 

The Secrets We Kept by Lara Prescott

Read by Carlotta Brentan, Cynthis Farrell, Mozhan Marno, Jonathan Davis, David Pittu, James Fouhey

10 hours, 55 minutes

Published September 2019 by Knopf

Publisher’s Summary: 

At the height of the Cold War, two secretaries are pulled out of the typing pool at the CIA and given the assignment of a lifetime. Their mission: to smuggle Doctor Zhivago out of the USSR, where no one dare publish it, and help Pasternak's magnum opus make its way into print around the world. Glamorous and sophisticated Sally Forrester is a seasoned spy who has honed her gift for deceit all over the world--using her magnetism and charm to pry secrets out of powerful men. Irina is a complete novice, and under Sally's tutelage quickly learns how to blend in, make drops, and invisibly ferry classified documents.

The Secrets We Kept combines a legendary literary love story--the decades-long affair between Pasternak and his mistress and muse, Olga Ivinskaya, who was sent to the Gulag and inspired Zhivago's heroine, Lara--with a narrative about two women empowered to lead lives of extraordinary intrigue and risk. From Pasternak's country estate outside Moscow to the brutalities of the Gulag, from Washington, D.C. to Paris and Milan, The Secrets We Kept captures a watershed moment in the history of literature--told with soaring emotional intensity and captivating historical detail. And at the center of this unforgettable debut is the powerful belief that a piece of art can change the world.

My Thoughts: 

This is one of those books that's been on my TBR for a few years. When I was looking for books for my book club to read in 2026 and saw that this one had been one of Reese Witherspoon's choices, I thought it was finally a good time to read it. 

First: the audiobook is definitely the way to go with this one. I really enjoyed having all of the different readers. 

Second: this is a good choice for a book club selection. There is so much to discuss - the history (both the history of Doctor Zhivago and the history of the U.S.'s choice to use it as propaganda, the way women were treated during that time, the multiple romantic stories some of which were scandalous at the time). 

I thought there were too many things going on in the book, another member felt like this could have been two separate books, others thought all of the different things worked well together. The very first thing someone said at our meeting when I said "let's talk about the book" was "and how bad the women had it then!" 

Third: I wish that the women had been the main focus of the book and that Prescott had found another way to get readers the background of Doctor Zhivago, without creating Olga's written history of her relationship with Boris and the book. 

In the end, I liked a lot about this book; I just wish it had been structured differently so that it didn't bounce so much between two story lines. 

The Bookbinder's Secret by A.D. Bell

The Bookbinder's Secret by A.D. Bell

400 pages

Published January 2026 by St. Martin's Press

My copy courtesy of the publisher, through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review

Publisher's Summary: 

Lilian ("Lily") Delaney, apprentice to a master bookbinder in Oxford in 1901, chafes at the confines of her life. She is trapped between the oppressiveness of her father’s failing bookshop and still being an apprentice in a man’s profession. But when she’s given a burned book during a visit to a collector, she finds, hidden beneath the binding, a fifty-year-old letter speaking of love, fortune, and murder.

Lily is pulled into the mystery of the young lovers, a story of forbidden love, and discovers there are more books and more hidden pages telling their story. Lilian becomes obsessed with the story but she is not the only one looking for the remaining books and what began as a diverting intrigue quickly becomes a very dangerous pursuit.

Lily's search leads her from the eccentric booksellers of London to the private libraries of unscrupulous collectors and the dusty archives of society papers, deep into the heart of the mystery. But with sinister forces closing in, willing to do anything for the books, Lilian’s world begins to fall apart and she must decide if uncovering the truth is worth the risk to her own life.

My Thoughts: 

As you know, I often don't read the summary of books (although I must have at some point in order for me to choose this book for review); in this case, it meant it took me a while to figure out what time period in which the book was set. I kept thinking it was a century earlier, which made the fact that Lily was a bookbinder in training even more astounding. 

Even so, a woman in a trade in the first part of the 20th century was remarkable and I enjoyed learning about bookbinding through her. I think we can all recognize the difference between a well bound book and a cheaply bound one but knowing what steps make the difference was intriguing. In Lily's case, the books being individually bound meant that the bookbinder chose the design of the cover so it's conceivable that no two copies of any book remaining from that time period would have the same cover. 

The initial mystery of the first book Lily got pulled me into the story, but I will admit that I was a little confused about how Lily became so obsessed with that first book that she was willing to risk her life and her safety because of it. Because someone else wants that book and wants her to find the remaining five books related to it...in fact, they demand that she find them or they will come after her father, who is already fragile. Here's the next point I struggled with - why would the person who wanted the books assume that Lily would be better able to find them than that person would? Overlooking those points, this story takes readers along on Lily's race to find all six of the books while she also races to find out the reason they are so important and what because of the young lovers whose story is told in those hidden pages. Along the way, we learn that Lily is not the good girl so many heroines of books set in this time period are and it makes her a much more interesting person for it. We're also introduced to a cast of interesting characters, some not so savory, most with secrets of their own. 

I haven't been reading as much historical fiction lately as I used to and this one made me wonder why. I'm always fascinated to go back in time so that we can see how far we've come. Thanks to St. Martin's Press for giving me this history lesson. 

Where The Girls Were by Kate Schatz

Where The Girls Were by Kate Schatz

368 pages

Published March 2026 by The Dial Press

My copy courtesy of the publisher, through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review

Publisher's Summary: 

It’s 1968, and the future is bright for seventeen-year-old Elizabeth “Baker” Phillips: She’s the valedictorian of her high school, with a place at Stanford in the fall and big dreams of becoming a journalist. But the seductive free-spirited San Francisco atmosphere seeps into her carefully planned, strait-laced life in the form of a hippie named Wiley. At first, letting loose and letting herself fall in love for the first time feels incredible. But then, everything changes.

Pregnancy hits Baker with the force of whiplash—in the blink of an eye, she goes from good girl to fallen woman, from her family’s shining star to their embarrassing secret. Without any other options, Baker is sent to a home for unwed mothers, and finds herself trapped in an old Victorian house packed with pregnant girls who share her shame and fear. As she grapples with her changing body, lack of choice, and uncertain future, Baker finds unexpected community and empowerment among the “girls who went away.”

Where the Girls Were is a timely unearthing of a little-known moment in American history, when the sexual revolution and feminist movement collided with the limits of reproductive rights—and society's expectations of women. As Baker finds her strength and her voice, she shows us how to step into your power, even when the world is determined to keep you silent.

My Thoughts: 

This one is timely, as more and more we appear headed back to the time where choice was taken away from women and women and girls were forced to have babies. We've all heard the stories about women and girls who died from botched abortions performed by unqualified people in unsanitary conditions. But what of the girls who chose, or were forced, to carry their babies to term? What were the places like where these girls disappeared to for months? 

Baker was a "good" girl. She knew what she wanted for her future. She knew what her parents expected of her; and, even though she didn't plan exactly the future they wanted, she knew she would make good. But even good girls want to have fun sometimes and even good girls make mistakes. Because she'd always been so focused on her education and reaching her goals, Baker doesn't have the kinds of friends most high school aged girls do. So when the worst happens, she's left without any support. Even her cousin, May, who introduced her to Wiley, can't help. 

When her mother finds out, she takes charge and Baker finds herself in a home for unwed mothers. Even there the girls are made to feel "less than," the leadership more concerned about making the home look good than in helping the girls. At first Baker is utterly detached from the baby growing inside of her, calling it "The Bun." She has is woefully naive about pregnancy and childbirth. But the home leads Baker to the kinds of friends she's never had and a determination to do help them in some way. 

While the book can be a little overly dramatic, and there's a storyline about a former resident that I felt was unnecessary, I enjoyed reading about how Baker navigated her reality and the stories of the other girls in the home. I appreciated what Schatz left out of the book, as much as I did what she included. And I really liked the way the book ended; we don't get all of the answers, but those answers aren't really important to the book. 

The Instrumentalist by Harriet Constable

The Instrumentalist by Harriet Constable

Read by Emilia Clarke

10 hours, 55 minutes

Published August 2024 by Simon and Schuster

Publisher's Summary: 

Anna Maria della Pietà was destined to drown in one of Venice's canals. Instead, she became the greatest violinist of the 18th century.

Anna Maria has only known life inside the Pietà, an orphanage for children born of prostitutes. But the girls of the Pietà are lucky in a sense: most babies born of their station were drowned in the city's canals. And despite the strict rules, the girls are given singing and music lessons from an early age. The most promising musicians have the chance to escape the fate of the rest: forced marriage to anyone who will have them.

Anna Maria is determined to be the best violinist there is-and whatever Anna Maria sets out to do, she achieves. After all, the stakes for Anna could not be higher. But it is 1704 and she is a girl. The pursuit of her ambition will test everything she holds dear, especially when it becomes clear that her instructor, Antonio Vivaldi, will teach Anna everything he knows-but not without taking something in return.

From the opulent palaces of Venice to its mud-licked canals, The Instrumentalist is a “searing portrait of ambition and betrayal” (Elizabeth MacNeal, author of The Doll Factory). It is the story of one woman's irrepressible ambition and rise to the top. It is also the story of the orphans of Venice who overcame destitution and abuse to make music, and whose contributions to some of the most important works of classical music, including “The Four Seasons,” have been overlooked for too long.

My Thoughts: 

I first heard about this book last month when some friends and I attended the Omaha Public Library's annual Book Bash. Historical fiction that focuses on classical music, particularly Vivaldi? Count me in! I requested the audiobook while I was still at the event. 

Let's get the one thing that kept me from liking this book as much as I wanted to out of the way. It was, as is so often the case, a matter of editing. I felt like there was quite a bit of repetition in the book and some things that could easily have been left out with no loss to the story. Oh, and one other thing: since this was an audiobook, I really wish there would have been more actual music involved. 

And now the good. It's not surprising to so often pick up books that teach us about something in history we know nothing about; even the most well educated historians don't know everything. But I'm always excited to read a book showcasing women making the most of their power, even in times and places where they had so little of it. 

Anna Maria della Pietà was a real person, who actually did grow up in the Pieta, study under Vivaldi and have some of his compositions written especially for her, and become a maestra. The Pieta was a real place where orphans were taken in and raised to be useful to society. The girls with musical talent were encouraged and the best of them placed in the figlie di coro. The figlie was widely admired and the members received extravagant gifts as well as brining in funds for the orphanage. 

 Constable takes that history and gives Anna Maria a beginning and a full life, filled with friends, sadness, betrayal, immense talent and even greater ambition. My beloved Vivaldi doesn't come off looking too good, but I was ok with that, given that it meant that Anna Maria could rise up and bring along with other girls with her. As in real life, Anna Maria first shows her talent at the age of eight, so what we see is a young girl desperate to use that talent to make something of herself while being too young to see how she is hurting herself (and others) even as she ascends in the figlie. The ending worked perfectly for me, with happiness for Anna Maria while still recognizing the limitations on her life and the other women. 

Carnegie's Maid by Marie Benedict

Carnegie's Maid by Marie Benedict

Read by Alana Kerr Collins

9 hours, 1 minute

Published October 2018 by Source Landmark

Publisher's Summary: 

From the author of The Other Einstein, the mesmerizing tale of what kind of woman could have inspired an American dynasty.

Clara Kelley is not who they think she is. She's not the experienced Irish maid who was hired to work in one of Pittsburgh's grandest households. She's a poor farmer's daughter with nowhere to go and nothing in her pockets. But the other woman with the same name has vanished, and pretending to be her just might get Clara some money to send back home.

If she can keep up the ruse, that is. Serving as a lady's maid in the household of Andrew Carnegie requires skills he doesn't have, answering to an icy mistress who rules her sons and her domain with an iron fist. What Clara does have is a resolve as strong as the steel Pittsburgh is becoming famous for, coupled with an uncanny understanding of business, and Andrew begins to rely on her. But Clara can't let her guard down, not even when Andrew becomes something more than an employer. Revealing her past might ruin her future -- and her family's.

With captivating insight and heart, Carnegie's Maid tells the story of one brilliant woman who may have spurred Andrew Carnegie's transformation from ruthless industrialist into the world's first true philanthropist.

My Thoughts: 

A couple of months ago I was texting with a friend I've known and loved since I was 19 years old. She happened to mention that she was reading the last book by Marie Benedict that her local library had available and that she loved Benedict's books. Two things: 1) after more than 40 years of knowing this woman, I had no idea she was a reader (how in the world has that NEVER come up?!); and 2) if she loves this author so much, I need to read something by her, preferably an audiobook since I was just finishing one up. So I grabbed up this one, eager to find out if I would feel the same way about Benedict and to see what the book could teach me about a man whose generosity funded hundreds of libraries across the country. 

As do most historical fictions books I read, this way had me heading to the internet to find out how much truth there was to this story. In point of fact, not much other than the fact that Andrew Carnegie was, himself, an immigrant that came to this country destitute only to become one of the richest men in the world. He was known to be ruthless in business, but more generous in his personal life; still, historians have long wondered what caused him to become such a philanthropist in later life. Benedict has taken her own family's history as immigrants and woven it into Carnegie's life to try to explain that change. It's an interesting idea. 

There's a lot to be said for the socioeconomic portrait Benedict paints of this time in U.S. history and the life of the poor in Pittsburgh at that time, tying in some Irish history as well and I enjoyed those parts of the book. Overall, though, I felt like Benedict was trying to pull too much into her story and things got a little dramatic at times. The fact that our Clara Kelley needed to have her backstory to give us that history that Benedict wanted to give, but would never have been able to work in the capacity in the Carnegie household that she held had she merely applied for the job made for much more drama. Benedict also pulls in a story about the former slave head cook's missing family is another example of pulling in more drama than was necessary to tell the story. But the drama ended as soon as Clara had to leave the Carnegie household and the ending of the book fell flat for me. 

Would it make my top ten list at the end of the year? No. But it was well read and offered enough to be a solid read. It could make a good book club choice, as well. 

Washington Black on Hulu

Based on the book by Eli Edugyan, Washington Black (my review here)has been adapted into a mini-series which began airing on Hulu on July 23rd. I loved this book when I read it six years ago so you can imagine how thrilled I was to find that it was being adapted, especially considering that Edugyan is a co-producer and actor Sterling K. Brown is an executive producer and acts in it. 

Reviews are mixed. Variety says it falls short of the book, but whoever writes for RogerEbert.com was very impressed. I'm only one episode in and I'm enjoying it so far. In this episode, we're introduced to Wash in his life in Nova Scotia, with flashbacks to him as a child living on a plantation in Barbados. I'm not sure the horror of the plantation is as great here as it was in the book; we'll see if that aspect picks up as the show continues. The acting, so far, is good and the costumes and sets are wonderful. 

Since I didn't let the Big Guy in on the first episode, I'm going to have to watch the rest of the series without him or watch the first episode again. I think I prefer the first, giving me the chance just to immerse myself in the story without interruptions. I'll give you an update once I'm finished watching so let you know my final thoughts. In the meantime, if you haven't already read the book, I highly recommend it. 

Isola by Allegra Goodman

Isola by Allegra Goodman 

400 pages

Published February 2025 by Random House Publishing Group

Source: my copy courtesy of the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review

Publisher's Summary: 

Heir to a fortune, Marguerite is destined for a life of prosperity and gentility. Then she is orphaned, and her guardian—an enigmatic and volatile man—spends her inheritance and insists she accompany him on an expedition to New France. That journey takes an unexpected turn when Marguerite, accused of betrayal, is brutally punished and abandoned on a small island.

Once a child of privilege who dressed in gowns and laced pearls in her hair, Marguerite finds herself at the mercy of nature. As the weather turns, blanketing the island in ice, she discovers a faith she’d never before needed.

Inspired by the real life of a sixteenth-century heroine, Isola is the timeless story of a woman fighting for survival.

My Thoughts: 

In 2011 I read Allegra Goodman's The Cookbook Collector and enjoyed it enough that when this book began getting buzz and I recalled Goodman's name, I was eager to read it. Not sure if Reese Witherspoon had read Goodman's work before, but after she read this one, she was eager to put it into other readers hands.

Truthfully, I just saw the author's name and requested this one - without even looking at what it was about.  So I started reading, feeling sorry for this little orphaned little girl who was entirely reliant on a guardian who was never around, who was left in the care of her nurse and the other servants in the castle her parents had left her. I'm thinking that the really terrible thing that's going to happen to Marguerite is that her guardian is going to marry her off to some icky older man when she turns 15 and that's a bad enough fate. But no! Jean-Francois Roberval, her guardian, uses the money that should go toward Marguerite's dowry to recoup losses from his shipping business; then he leases out her home to gain the money he needs to rebuild his fleet. 

Without any money to wed her off, and a deep-seeded need to manipulate and own Marguerite, Roberval insists that she join him on the 8-week journey to New France (Canada) along with a group of pilgrims looking to start a new life. But Roberval is unaware that Marguerite and his secretary have begun to develop a relationship. When he discovers it, just as they begin to spot land, he deserts the two of them and Marguerite's nurse on an island. There is no wood to speak of on the island and not much in the way of wildlife to hunt. The only saving grace is that Roberval has left them with some food, bedding, knives, guns & powder, and some clothing. It's enough to get them started but they won't survive without finding shelter and how to get more food and fresh water. It's grueling work that eventually forces Marguerite to pitch in and leave her sheltered ways behind her. Two years later, she is finally saved. But finding her way home and to safety turns out to be almost as difficult as the past two years have been. 

It's a tough read, with things going from bad to worse and worse. I sometimes felt like I couldn't go on; I often wondered how Marguerite did. The human will to survive to always astonishing. 

I'm not always one to read the author's notes at the end of books (and why not since I'm always interested in learning what inspired author's to write their books?), but this time I was glad that I did because I had entirely missed that this novel was inspired by the real life of Marguerite de la Rocque, who was stranded by her guardian on an island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, along with her lover, in 1542. Goodman found a reference to this in a book about explorer Jacques Cartier 22 years ago and thought it would make a great story. Let that be a lesson to aspiring authors - hang on to those book ideas, you never know when you'll finally figure out how to make them work! 

The Age of Desire by Jennie Fields

The Age of Desire by Jennie Fields

Read by Meredith Mitchell

14 hrs, 2 mins.

Published January 2012 by Pamela Dorman Bks

Publisher's Summary:

They say that behind every great man is a woman. Behind Edith Wharton, there was Anna Bahlmann-her governess turned literary secretary, and her mothering, nuturing friend. When at the age of forty-five Edith falls passionately in love with a dashing, younger journalist, Morton Fullerton, and is at last opened to the world of the sensual, it threatens everything certain in her life-but especially her abiding friendship with Anna. As Edith's marriage crumbles, the women must face the fragility at the heart of all friendships. 

The Age of Desire takes us on a vivid journey through Wharton's early Gilded Age world: Paris with its glamorous literary salons and dark secret cafes, the Wharton's elegant house in Lenox, Massachusetts, and Henry James' manse in Rye, England. Edith's real letters and intimate diary entries are woven throughout the book. The Age of Desire brings to life one of literatures most beloved writers, whose own story was as complex and nuanced as that of any of the heroines she created.

My Thoughts: 

This one has been on my TBR list for at least a decade. I'm not sure that I ever got any further than the name Edith Wharton in the publisher's summary before I added this one to the list. As a huge fan of Wharton, I felt certain I'd enjoy anything that taught me more about the woman behind the books I loved, even if it was fiction. 

I feel that listening to this one might have really had a negative impact on my impression of the book. Mitchell does a perfectly acceptable job of reading all of the book except in her voicing of Morton Fullerton; Fullerton was, we learn early on, originally from Boston and Mitchell struggles trying to voice not just a man but a man from Boston. Every time his character "spoke" I was so focused on the reading that it overtook the actually words he was saying. 

But that wasn't my only issue with this book. Was it a book about Wharton's affair with Fullerton and the end of her marriage? Was it a book about the relationship between Wharton and Bahlmann? Of course the answer to both of those is "yes." For me, though, I would have preferred a book that chose one over main story line over the other. In the end, Anna is with Edith from the beginning of the book to the end. So it's their story. But a great deal of the book focuses on the interactions between Wharton and Fullerton, and a fair amount of the time is spent working up to them consummating their relationship and then their various times together. Kirkus Reviews calls those passages "excellent erotic writing." I must admit to having sped up the book to get through those parts of the book; they felt a bit out of place to me. But I imagine that Fields felt like she needed to include them to make readers understand why Wharton was so enthralled by a man who most people warned her away from, a man who frequently ghosted her, a man who was clearly not as attached to Edith as she was to him, a man who obviously scams people. 

One last quibble - in my opinion, the book would have benefited from culling 50 or so pages. Some "scenes" could have been omitted entirely without losing the point of the book. I understand that Fields drew heavily from Wharton's diaries and letters and it may be that she wanted to hew to those documents as she made her way through the story she wanted to tell. Perhaps less of the back and forth between Edith and Morton; perhaps less detail about Teddy's manic or depressive episodes. 

All of that and I still believe that had I read this book in print, I would have enjoyed it more. I certainly learned more about Wharton's character - some that made me feel for her and some things that made me think that she was frequently a person that she might have skewered in one of her books. 

By Any Other Name by Jodi Picoult

By Any Other Name by Jodi Picoult 

544 pages

Published August 2024 by Random House Publishing Group

Source: my copy courtesy of the publisher, through Netgalley

Publisher's Summary:

Young playwright Melina Green has just written a new work inspired by the life of her Elizabethan ancestor Emilia Bassano. But seeing it performed is unlikely, in a theater world where the playing field isn’t level for women. As Melina wonders if she dares risk failure again, her best friend takes the decision out of her hands and submits the play to a festival under a male pseudonym.

In 1581, young Emilia Bassano is a ward of English aristocrats. Her lessons on languages, history, and writing have endowed her with a sharp wit and a gift for storytelling, but like most women of her day, she is allowed no voice of her own. Forced to become a mistress to the Lord Chamberlain, who oversees all theatre productions in England, Emilia sees firsthand how the words of playwrights can move an audience. She begins to form a plan to secretly bring a play of her own to the stage—by paying an actor named William Shakespeare to front her work.

Told in intertwining timelines, By Any Other Name, a sweeping tale of ambition, courage, and desire centers two women who are determined to create something beautiful despite the prejudices they face. Should a writer do whatever it takes to see her story live on . . . no matter the cost? This remarkable novel, rooted in primary historical sources, ensures the name Emilia Bassano will no longer be forgotten.

My Thoughts: 

Until a little over six years ago I had never read one of Picoult's books. I have now read five of them. My previous reluctant had mostly to do with my reluctance to read books that dealt with the latest "hot" topic. And while the main theme of this book, feminism, is certainly a hot topic, it is also a theme that resonates through the centuries which is the very reason this book is written in dual timelines. 

I have a tough time with dual time lines. I understand why authors utilize a modern timeline to help readers see the importance of stories set in the past. In this case, Picoult uses the story set in the present to introduce ideas to the reader that there's another person who plays into the idea that William Shakespeare was not the author of the works attributed to him. In fact, at least one of the true authors of the works may well have been a woman. Emilia Bassano was a real person who lived in the time of Shakespeare. The fact of the matter is that Bassano had skills and life experiences that Shakespeare did not, skills and life experiences that would have allowed her to write about the Danish court or life in Italy. 

Inevitably for me, one story nearly always outshines the other. Generally that's the story set in the past and this book was no exception, as difficult as it was to read. While this is a work of fiction, Picoult has crafted it around the known details of Bassano's life and the realities of women of the time. Picoult's vision of Bassano's life is a tough read. She is sold into becoming a courtesan at age 13. When she becomes pregnant, she is sold to a man who will horribly abuse her for decades and drink away everything they have, she will never be able to be with the man she truly loves, and her writing will only find an audience through a man who underpays her for her work. 

I felt like both story lines could have been pared down considerably.  Melina's story got pulled in too many directions - a love story, a storyline involving her father, a misunderstanding that puts her into an impossible (but also unbelievable) situation, and a detour where Melina is the bad guy in a diversity battle.  Emilia's story sometimes felt a little repetitive and that Picoult had too many terrible things happen to her. 

But Emilia's story is well worth the read as is Melina's fight to bring Emilia's story to life. I highly recommend reading the Author's Notes and the References to Shakespeare at the back of the book, which I found terrifically interesting and gave me a greater appreciation for the ways that Picoult had managed to work into the story the works attributed to Shakespeare. 

The Antidote by Karen Russell

The Antidote by Karen Russell

432 pages

Published March 2025 by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Source: my copy courtesy of the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review

Publisher's Summary: 

The Antidote opens on Black Sunday, as a historic dust storm ravages the fictional town of Uz, Nebraska. But Uz is already collapsing—not just under the weight of the Great Depression and the dust bowl drought but beneath its own violent histories. The Antidote follows a "Prairie Witch,” whose body serves as a bank vault for peoples’ memories and secrets; a Polish wheat farmer who learns how quickly a hoarded blessing can become a curse; his orphan niece, a basketball star and witch’s apprentice in furious flight from her grief; a voluble scarecrow; and a New Deal photographer whose time-traveling camera threatens to reveal both the town’s secrets and its fate.

Russell's novel is above all a reckoning with a nation’s forgetting—enacting the settler amnesia and willful omissions passed down from generation to generation, and unearthing not only horrors but shimmering possibilities. The Antidote echoes with urgent warnings for our own climate emergency, challenging readers with a vision of what might have been—and what still could be.

My Thoughts: 

The Antidote was a great book to finish off 2024. It defies classification: it is both historical fiction and fantasy. It is political commentary, sweeping saga, intimate personal stories. It is devastating and hopeful, tense but not without humor. It's set in one of the most notable times of this country's history but addresses concerns that span the centuries. And it's set in a fictional small town in Nebraska, but it's packed with real places, the real history of the state, and real photographs taken by those sent to record that time.

"Black Sunday began as a gash in the western sky, growing wider and wider and spilling down dirt instead of blood. Sometimes I imagine the glee of those journalists in the New York City papers - typing up the story of our worst day in their fancy language. Adjusting the margins and pushing our tragedy into a skinny column, just like old Marvin at the funeral home shoving a tall corpse into a tight suit."

"Imagine every ghost rising up to hurl their cemetery earth at the living. That was the sound we heard last Sunday afternoon. At 3:00 p.m the sun was murdered in cold blood, in full view of every woman and child. The sun sank into black cloud. Buried alive, at a shocking altitude, but the duster to end all dusters."

We get the story primarily from The Prairie Witch, Asphodel Oletsky, Harp Oletsky, and Cleo Allfrey whose names will change as chapter headings as the books progresses. But we also get chapters from the points of view of a cat and a scarecrow, chapters that are The Antidote's history, and one of Harp's "deposits." In less skilled hands, all of this shifting could be confusing; but Russell skillfully blends all of these points of view at the same time she is moving the story forward while giving us the backstory of the land and the people. The characters are fully realized, their travails their own but their concerns and hopes universal. While the full story is slow to develop, it's never drags and it's well worth the time spent when everything comes to a conclusion with a second cataclysmic (and real) event. 

"The Republican River became a four-mile-wide whitewater monster, thrashing its long tail from eastern Colorado to Oxford, Nebraska. Twenty-four inches of rain fell in twenty-four house! Bridges split and splintered apart. Hundreds of miles of road got washed out. The river poured forward with enough force to carry cars and rooftops. Walls floated away. Friends became cadavers in outfits we recognized, floating beside tractors and drowned cattle. Bodies were seen riding on the crest through the middle of towns, their shy faces staring underwater even as we screamed their names."

At a time when I was really struggling to focus on any book, this one grabbed me and kept me reading. The concepts, the history, the characters, the writing, the pacing, the creativity all worked to make this book that will stay with me a long time. As much as it is set in the past, it is filled with lessons to be learned, not the least of which are to see how history is repeating itself and how human nature remains unchanged. Russell leaves us with hope - we see that there is an opportunity to learn from the past and to change our future. If only we will listen. 

One final note, if you read this book, make sure you read the Land Lost Acknowledgment and the Author's Note at the end. 

Mini-reviews: Revenge Wears Prada, The Paris Bookseller, A Rosie Life In Italy, and Sorrow and Bliss

Revenge Wears Prada: The Devil Returns by Lauren Weisberger

Read by Megan Hilty

7 hours, 10 minutes

Published June 2013 by Simon and Schuster

Publisher's Summary: 

Almost a decade has passed since Andy Sachs quit the job “a million girls would die for” working for Miranda Priestly at Runway magazine-a dream that turned out to be a nightmare. Andy and Emily, her former nemesis and co-assistant, have since joined forces to start a high end bridal magazine, The Plunge, which has quickly become required reading for the young and stylish. Now they get to call all the shots: Andy writes and travels to her heart's content; Emily plans parties and secures advertising like a seasoned pro. Even better, Andy has met the love of her life. Max Harrison, scion of a storied media family, is confident, successful, and drop-dead gorgeous. Their wedding will be splashed across all the society pages as their friends and family gather to toast the glowing couple. Andy Sachs is on top of the world. But karma's a bitch. The morning of her wedding, Andy can't shake the past. And when she discovers a secret letter with crushing implications, her wedding-day jitters turn to cold dread. Andy realizes that nothing-not her husband, nor her beloved career-is as it seems. She never suspected that her efforts to build a bright new life would lead her back to the darkness she barely escaped ten years ago-and directly into the path of the devil herself.

My Thoughts: 

I love the movie adaptation of The Devil Wears Prada, but I'd forgotten how far from the source material it veered until I read the sequel. Andy may have quit that dream job, but I was pretty disappointed to find that she quit it only to run a bridal magazine. Never trusted Emily or Max and Weisberger gave me exactly what I'd expected. Predictable. I'm a fan of a lot of movies adapted from books like these; but not, it appears, the books themselves. 

The Paris Bookseller by Kerri Maher

Read by Lauryn Allman

10 hours, 37 minutes

Published January 2022 by Penguin Publishing Group

Publisher's Summary: 

When bookish young American Sylvia Beach opens Shakespeare and Company on a quiet street in Paris in 1919, she has no idea that she and her new bookstore will change the course of literature itself.

 
Shakespeare and Company is more than a bookstore and lending library: Many of the prominent writers of the Lost Generation, like Ernest Hemingway, consider it a second home. It's where some of the most important literary friendships of the twentieth century are forged-none more so than the one between Irish writer James Joyce and Sylvia herself. When Joyce's controversial novel Ulysses is banned, Beach takes a massive risk and publishes it under the auspices of Shakespeare and Company.
 
But the success and notoriety of publishing the most infamous and influential book of the century comes with steep costs. The future of her beloved store itself is threatened when Ulysses' success brings other publishers to woo Joyce away. Her most cherished relationships are put to the test as Paris is plunged deeper into the Depression and many expatriate friends return to America. As she faces painful personal and financial crises, Sylvia-a woman who has made it her mission to honor the life-changing impact of books-must decide what Shakespeare and Company truly means to her.

My Thoughts: 

Picked this one up because "Paris" and "Bookseller" intrigued me. Was pretty excited to find that it was about Sylvia Beach, who founded the famous Paris bookstore "Shakespeare and Company." While Beach led an interesting life, surrounded by fascinating people, the book dragged a bit for me, with so much of the focus on Beach's struggle with James Joyce and the publishing rights for Ulysses. Maybe the problem was that I wanted to shake her and make her understand what an a*# Joyce was before he about wiped her out. Part of it was just too much detail to getting that book "right" before it was sent out into the world. 

A Rosie Life In Italy: Move to Italy. Buy a Rundown Villa. What Could Go Wrong? by Rosie Melody

368 pages

Published October 2024 by Sourcebooks

Source: my copy courtesy of the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review

Publisher's Summary: 

When Rosie Meleady's landlady doubles her rent in cold, wet, overpriced Ireland, she packs up her family, her two dogs, and all her possessions into a camper van and sets off across Europe to sunny Italy, where she plans to grow her destination wedding planning business. 

Even though it has been a dream she attempted to follow several times, Rosie and her family soon find out moving abroad to start a new life is not all sunshine and gelato.

Between a hurricane, a global pandemic, and accidentally buying a massive villa—that has definitely seen better days— from eight cousins in the middle of a long-standing family dispute, Rosie pulls back the curtains on the less glamorous side of moving abroad. 

Lighthearted, uplifting, and utterly escapist, A Rosie Life in Italy is HGTV meets Under the Tuscan Sun—a delightful peek under the covers of what it's like to throw caution to the wind, take a risk, and build a life you once only dreamed of having.

My Thoughts: 

This one was a slow start for me (Rosie and her husband bounce around a lot in the beginning and seem particularly inept with their money) and things early on bounced between too much detail and giant jumps in time. But things picked up and I did enjoy this one, especially once I got more attached to the family and once they made the move to Italy. Although it does take all of the book before they actually have bought that rundown villa. This one's a memoir which makes the fact that they are only just getting their business in Italy up and running and have just started buying the villa (what a process!), when Covid hits all the more intense. 

That publication date is for the paperback edition, the edition I got through Netgalley. I wasn't aware of that so was startled, when I looked this one up, to discover that there is entire series to be read now. 

Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Macon 

Read by Emilia Fox

10 hours, 38 minutes

Published February 2021 by HarperCollins

Publisher's Summary: 

Martha Friel just turned forty. Once, she worked at Vogue and planned to write a novel. Now, she creates internet content. She used to live in a pied-à-terre in Paris. Now she lives in a gated community in Oxford, the only person she knows without a PhD, a baby or both, in a house she hates but cannot bear to leave. But she must leave, now that her husband Patrick—the kind who cooks, throws her birthday parties, who loves her and has only ever wanted her to be happy—has just moved out.

Because there’s something wrong with Martha, and has been for a long time. When she was seventeen, a little bomb went off in her brain and she was never the same. But countless doctors, endless therapy, every kind of drug later, she still doesn’t know what’s wrong, why she spends days unable to get out of bed or alienates both strangers and her loved ones with casually cruel remarks. 

And she has nowhere to go except her childhood home: a bohemian (dilapidated) townhouse in a romantic (rundown) part of London—to live with her mother, a minorly important sculptor (and major drinker) and her father, a famous poet (though unpublished) and try to survive without the devoted, potty-mouthed sister who made all the chaos bearable back then, and is now too busy or too fed up to deal with her. 

But maybe, by starting over, Martha will get to write a better ending for herself—and she’ll find out that she’s not quite finished after all.

My Thoughts: 

I seems strange to say that I really liked a book in which mental illness and it's devastating consequences are the focus. But I really did - the book is well written and Emilia Fox does a terrific job. Family relationships and communication are explored in a caring way that shows that we don't always know what's happening in someone else's mind or life. Because we're getting the story from Martha's point of view, we're also getting the story from an unreliable narrator, which makes the entire book quite a ride. 

Mini-reviews: The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club by Helen Simonson and Learned by Heart by Emma Donoghue

The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club by Helen Simonson

Read by Fiona Hardingham

15 hours, 20 minutes

Published May 2024 by Random House Publishing Group

Publisher's Summary: It is the summer of 1919 and Constance Haverhill is without prospects. Now that all the men have returned from the front, she has been asked to give up her cottage and her job at the estate she helped run during the war. While she looks for a position as a bookkeeper or—horror—a governess, she’s sent as a lady’s companion to an old family friend who is convalescing at a seaside hotel. Despite having only weeks to find a permanent home, Constance is swept up in the social whirl of Hazelbourne-on-Sea after she rescues the local baronet’s daughter, Poppy Wirrall, from a social faux pas.

Poppy wears trousers, operates a taxi and delivery service to employ local women, and runs a ladies’ motorcycle club (to which she plans to add flying lessons). She and her friends enthusiastically welcome Constance into their circle. And then there is Harris, Poppy’s recalcitrant but handsome brother—a fighter pilot recently wounded in battle—who warms in Constance’s presence. But things are more complicated than they seem in this sunny pocket of English high society. As the country prepares to celebrate its hard-won peace, Constance and the women of the club are forced to confront the fact that the freedoms they gained during the war are being revoked.

My Thoughts: 

Simonson's Major Pettigrew's Last Stand was one of my favorite books the year I read it. One of the things I liked about that book was the way Simonson dealt with racism and classism in England. She touches on that same topics here and I would very much have liked to see more of that. Instead, Simonson tried to work in a lot of different themes, including, of course, women's rights, domestic abuse, and the effects of war on those involved and those at home. It felt, to me, like a bit too much and sometimes felt like Simonson wasn't sure which theme she really wanted most to emphasize. 

I did like a lot of the characters and the setting; but I'm still not, weeks after finishing the book, sure if I liked the ending. One thing I really didn't like was the reading (sorry, Ms. Hardingham) - some of the female voices really grated on my nerves. It's a nice time capsule of a place in time and would probably give book clubs a lot to talk about. 

Learned By Heart by Emma Donoghue 

Read by Shiromi Arserio

8 hours, 50 minutes

Published August 2023 by Little, Brown and Company

Publisher's Summary: Drawing on years of investigation and Anne Lister’s five-million-word secret journal, Learned by Heart is the long-buried love story of Eliza Raine, an orphan heiress banished from India to England at age six, and Anne Lister, a brilliant, troublesome tomboy, who meet at the Manor School for young ladies in York in 1805 when they are both fourteen.

My Thoughts: 

As with most (if not all?) of Donoghue's books, this one is based on real people. I first became aware of Anne Lister when I watched Gentleman Jack on HBO. Lister was dubbed the "first modern lesbian" and is well known because of the diaries she left behind, which included the story of her relationship with Eliza Raine, a young woman with a British father and Indian mother who was orphaned and sent to an English boarding school, where she met and fell in love with Lister. As tough as it is to be a gay young person in these times, imagine what it was like for young people in the early 1800's. 

The book is made up of third party narratives the girls' school days together and letters from Raine to Lister as an adult. Raine is a patient at an asylum and we slowly realize, as the book goes on, that she is much more disturbed that we at first realize. Much emphasis in placed on the other girls at the school, perhaps to emphasize how quickly Lister was able to ingratiate herself with them, despite being a rebel, and how much Raine's  dark skin kept her separated from the others. The book picked up for me in the end, as Raine's writing became prevalent. Interesting, but not my favorite of Donoghue's works.