Svetlana's Reads and Views

  Name of Book: Imperial Passions: The Porta Aurea Author: Eileen Stephenson ISBN: 9780999690703 Publisher: Self published Part of a Series: Prequel to Imperial Passions: The Great Palace Type of book: Byzantium, 1039-1050s, daily life, growing up, control, manipulation, Empress Zoe and Empress Theodora, the Great Schism, rule, monarchy, debts, finances, family, friendships, closeness  Year it was published: 2018 Summary: At the center of Byzantine society, fifteen-year old orphaned Anna Dalassena lives with her grandparents among the most powerful men and women in Constantinople. But the cutthroat politics of the Great Palace sends the family into exile in a distant corner of the empire. Her bleak situation finally turns promising after meeting a handsome young soldier, John Comnenus, and his brother Isaac, before they are finally permitted to return home. The vicious power struggles, uprisings, and betrayals at the highest levels of the empire push Anna and John unwilli...

  Name of Book: The Ballerinas Author: Rachel Kapelke-Dale ISBN/asin: B08R2M1JFY Publisher: St. Martin's Press Type of book: ballet, psychology, 1990s-2019, abortion, no consent, friendship, growing up, broken dreams, Russia, France, choreography, life, choices, cancer, infertility, unwanted pregnancy, relationships,  Year it was published: 2021 Summary: Dare Me meets Black Swan and Luckiest Girl Alive in a captivating, voice-driven debut novel about a trio of ballerinas who meet as students at the Paris Opera Ballet School. Fourteen years ago, Delphine abandoned her prestigious soloist spot at the Paris Opera Ballet for a new life in St. Petersburg––taking with her a secret that could upend the lives of her best friends, fellow dancers Lindsay and Margaux. Now 36 years old, Delphine has returned to her former home and to the legendary Palais Garnier Opera House, to choreograph the ballet that will kickstart the next phase of her career––and, she hopes, finally make thing...

Title of the book: Don't know much about history; everything you need to know about American History but never learned Author: Kenneth C Davis Publisher: Harper Perennial  Publishing Date: 2004 ISBN:  9780060083823 Summary: Who really discovered America? What was "the shot heard 'round the world"? Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: Did he or didn't he? From the arrival of Columbus through the bizarre election of 2000 and beyond, Davis carries readers on a rollicking ride through more than 500 years of American history. In this updated edition of the classic anti-textbook, he debunks, recounts, and serves up the real story behind the myths and fallacies of American history. Author Info: (From goodreads) Kenneth C. Davis is the New York Times bestselling author of the Don't Know Much About® series of books and audios for adults and children. The first title in the series, Don't Know Much About® History became a New York Times bestseller in 1991 and remained...

  Title of the book: My Sweet Angel; The True Story of Lacey Spears, the Seemingly Perfect Mother Who Murdered Her Son in Cold Blood Author: John Glatt Publisher: St. Martin's Press Publishing Date: 2016 ISBN: 978-1-250-07113-2 Summary: Lacey Spears made international headlines in January 2015 when she was charged with the “depraved mind” murder of her five-year-old son, Garnett. Prosecutors alleged that the 27-year-old mother had poisoned him with high concentrations of salt through his stomach tube. To the outside world, Spears had seemed like the perfect mother, regularly posting dramatic updates on her son’s harrowing medical problems, but in reality, she was a text book case of Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome. From the time he was an infant, she deliberately made Garnett sick to elicit sympathy from medical professionals, as well as her hundreds of followers on Facebook and other social media. When a Westchester County jury found her guilty of killing Garnett in April 2015, she w...

  Name of Book: The Master and the Maid  Author: Laura Libricz ISBN: 978-0-9968177-8-3 Publisher: Blue Heron Book Works  Part of a Series: The soldiers return a sequel  Type of book: 1616-1617, Germany, 30 years war, religion, witches, daily life, medieval Germany, countryside, city, secrets, danger, family, feud, Netherlands, romance, friendship  Year it was published: 2016 Summary: She’s lost her work, her home and her freedom. Now, harboring a mysterious newborn, she could lose her life. In 17th Century Germany on the brink of the Thirty Years War, 24-year-old Katarina is traded to the patrician Sebald Tucher by her fiancé Willi Prutt in order to pay his debts. En route to her forced relocation to the Tucher country estate, Katarina is met by a crazed archer, Hans-Wolfgang, carrying a baby under his cloak. He tells her an incredible story of how his beloved was executed by a Jesuit priest for witchcraft right after the birth and makes Katarina—at sword point—...

  Name of Book: The Last Rose of Shanghai  Author: Weina Dai Randel  ISBN: 978-1542032872 Publisher: Lake Union  Type of book: China, Shanghai, jazz, club, 1940-1945, 1980, ww2, Jewish refugees, family, siblings, relationships, mistress, business, club, arranged marriages, drugs, piano, music, secondary Chinese male/American Jewish female relationship, exploration, secrets  Year it was published: 2021 Summary: In Japanese-occupied Shanghai, two people from different cultures are drawn together by fate and the freedom of music... 1940. Aiyi Shao is a young heiress and the owner of a formerly popular and glamorous Shanghai nightclub. Ernest Reismann is a penniless Jewish refugee driven out of Germany, an outsider searching for shelter in a city wary of strangers. He loses nearly all hope until he crosses paths with Aiyi. When she hires Ernest to play piano at her club, her defiance of custom causes a sensation. His instant fame makes Aiyi's club once again the hot...

For better or worse, 2021 is almost over. Yet, 30 days remain until 2022 begins. To say this year was from hell at least socially and emotionally is an understatement. Finding out ugly secrets, that my true love is lost to me in myriad of ways and no matter how much I wish, I can't have a remainder of him within me, it's killing me. Books have sustained me, books have helped me, they whispered stories helping me forget my pains. I want to say I am looking forward to new year, but a big part of me would be lying. I am beginning to feel as if I don't feel into the typical book world anymore. Book world is filled with hardcore progressevists whom I can't relate to or understand or even support. People fly off the handle for most innocuous comments and call each other names instead of engaging in dialogue, or at least respecting each other's opinions and even threaten livelihood if you don't agree them. I can't wait until those progressevists will be in my shoes...

Out front the following sea- Leah Angstman  SR: December 27th 2021 FR:  A BEND IN THE stars- Rachel Barenbaum  SR: December 9th, 2021 FR:  Come as you are- Jennifer Haupt SR: December 6th, 2021  FR: December 27th, 2021 Dust off the bones- Paul Howarth  SR: November 21st 2021 FR: December 1st, 2021  Notes on an execution- Danya Kukafka  SR: December 6th, 2021  FR:  December 9th, 2021  A sword among the ravens- Cynthia Ripley Miller  SR: November 11th, 2021 FR: December 6th, 2021  The last rose of Shanghai- Weina Dai Randel SR: October 23rd, 2021 FR: December 1st, 2021 Nazare- JJ Amaworo Wilson SR: December 17th, 2021  FR:  Nonfiction: A history of the Roman people by Allen M Ward SR: August 1st ,2021 FR: December 22nd, 2021 Treeline by Ben Rawlence  SR: December 6th, 2021  FR:  December 17th 2021 

 Title of the book: Irmas passport: one woman, two world wars, and a legacy of courage   Author: Catherine Ehrlich  Publisher: She Writes Press (SWP) Publishing Date: 2021 ISBN: 978-1-64742-305-6 Summary: Inspired to learn languages by her multi-lingual Austrian grandmother, Irma, the author seeks the wellsprings of Irma’s indomitable spirit. By delving into the late Irma’s extraordinary memoirs, shared in this book, she explores her outspoken grandparents’ influential lives at the crossroads of German and Jewish national movements. Along the way, she uncovers a deep heritage of empowered women. Golden-haired Irma grew up in Imperial Austria believing that wars and prejudice were fading. Her journey from Bohemian country girl to grande dame in New York would traverse a fascinating landscape of renowned people at pivotal moments in history, captured in her memoirs. Irma studied languages as one of the first female university students in Prague while her cousin, F...

  Name of Book: Jane Austen and Shelley in the Garden Author: Janet Todd ISBN: 978-1909572270 Publisher: Fentum  Type of book: Aging, contemporary times, history, Jane Austen, England, Wales, Italy, Venice, travel, friendship, ideals, Percy Bysse Shelley, desires, meditations, life, death, living, teaching, poetry, breaking, liberalism, conservatism, engineering  Year it was published: 2021 Summary: Eccentric Fran wants a second chance. Thanks to her intimacy with Jane Austen, and the poet Shelley, she finds one. Jane Austen is such a presence in Fran's life that she seems to share her cottage and garden, becoming an imaginary friend. Fran's conversations with Jane Austen guide and chide her - but Fran is ready for change after years of teaching, reading and gardening. An encounter with a long-standing English friend, and an American writer, leads to new possibilities. Adrift, the three women bond through a love of books and a quest for the idealist poet Shelley at two pi...

  Title of the book: People Love Dead Jews; Reports From A Haunted Present Author: Dara Horn Publisher: Norton Publishing Date: 2021 ISBN: 978-0-393-53156-5 Summary: Renowned and beloved as a prizewinning novelist, Dara Horn has also been publishing penetrating essays since she was a teenager. Often asked by major publications to write on subjects related to Jewish culture—and increasingly in response to a recent wave of deadly antisemitic attacks—Horn was troubled to realize what all of these assignments had in common: she was being asked to write about dead Jews, never about living ones. In these essays, Horn reflects on subjects as far-flung as the international veneration of Anne Frank, the mythology that Jewish family names were changed at Ellis Island, the blockbuster traveling exhibition Auschwitz, the marketing of the Jewish history of Harbin, China, and the little-known life of the "righteous Gentile" Varian Fry. Throughout, she challenges us to confront the reasons ...

  Name of Book: The Measure of Time Author: Gianrico Carofiglio, Howard Curtis  ISBN: 978-1-913394-48-6 Publisher: Bitter Lemon Press  Part of a Series: Guido Guerrero Series  Type of book: Italy, mystery, crime, contemporary times, former lover, lawyer, time, translation, possibly mafia, danger Year it was published: 2021 (2019) Summary: The latest in the Guido Guerrieri series. The setting is Bari in Southern Italy. Against his own instincts, defence attorney Guerrieri takes on an appeal against what looks like an unassailable murder conviction. The alleged perpetrator is the son of a former lover. A taught legal thriller and a meditation about the ravages of time. Characters: Main character is Guido Guerrieri, a sixty plus lawyer who had a lucrative career. He is best described as cultured, even tempered, loves to work out and has very good friends and inspires loyalty in others. There are other characters such as such as his associates and close friends, but they...

  Name of Book: Love and Other Consolation Prizes  Author: Jamie Ford  ISBN: 978-0-8041-7675-0 Publisher: Ballantine Books Type of book: 1902, 1909- 1911, 1962, world fair, friendship, prostitution, secrets, love, America, Washington Seattle, China, family, daughter's, marriage, relationship, exclusion, prejudice, Asian racism, life  Year it was published: 2017 Summary: A powerful novel about an orphan boy who is raffled off at Seattle’s 1909 World Fair, and the friends who teach him what it really means to have a family, from the author of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet. Inspired by a true story, this is the unforgettable story of a young boy named Ernest, set during the 1909 Seattle world’s fair called the Alaska Yukon Pacific Expo. It is a time when the magical wonders of technology on display at the expo future seems limitless. But for Ernest, a half-Chinese orphan who found his way to America through a last desperate act of his beloved mother, every doo...

  Name of Book: Sown in Tears Author: Beverly Magid ISBN: 9781478104575 Publisher: Self published Part of a Series: Where do I go? Is a sequel  Type of book: Russia, 1905 1906, pogrom, survival, lessons, ptsd, revolution, work, Judaism, widowhood, betrayal, murder  Year it was published: 2012 Summary: The novel is set in Russia, 1905. Anti-semitism is virulent and most Jews are confined to live in the Settlement of Pale. After an attack of the village of Koritz, Leah Peretz survives but is left alone to care for her two young children. Her life is complicated by the unexpected attentions of the Russian officer, Captain Vaselik. Can she trust him? Should she allow herself to become involved with the burgeoning underground revolutionalry movement starting up in the country. Leah's journey to self-discovery in a time of chaos and upset is a difficult but rewarding one Characters: Main characters include Leah and Vaselik. Leah is a recent widow who has to care for her two you...

 Name of Book: How to betray your country Author: James Wolff ISBN: 978-1-913394-51-6 Publisher: Bitter Lemon Press Part of a Series: Beside a Syrian Sea prequel Type of book: spying, spies, middle East, operation, Turkey, job, PR, United Kingdom, contemporary times, mystery, thriller, secrets  Year it was published: 2021 Summary: Disgraced British spy August Drummond is on his way to Istanbul when he sees a passenger throw away directions to a cemetery just moments before being arrested. August can’t resist the temptation to go in his place. But when he comes face to face with a terrifying figure from Islamic State, he realizes he’s about to confront the greatest challenge of his career…Things are looking bad for disgraced spy August Drummond. In emotional free fall after the death of his wife, fired for a series of unprecedented security breaches… and now his neighbor on the flight to Istanbul won’t stop talking. The only thing keeping him sane is the hunch that there’s some...

 When it rains it pours, when it doesn't rain, it doesn't pour. Last few weeks I hadn't gotten any books, and I am not sure if and when that will change. So far no new news when it comes to books. I have been working on reviewing, so expect a lot of reviews.  Possible reads:  The conscious parent by Shefaly Tsabary  The lost girls of Paris by Pam Jenoff  Loveyoubye by Rossandra White  Dust off the bones by Paul Howarth  A sword among the ravens by Cynthia Ripley Miller  Come As you are by Jennifer Haupt  Wheel of the fates by J Boyce Gleason The eighth girl by Maxine Mei Fung Chung A thousand steps by T. Jefferson Parker  Honor by Thrity Umrigar  Notes on an execution by Danya Kukafka  Beeline by Ben Rawlence  Vladimir by Julia May Jonas  On a night of a thousand stars by Andrea Yaryura Clark  The Kennedy debutante by Kerri Maher  Shadow child by Rahna  Reiko Rizzuto White fur by Jardine Libaire  L...

 Dust off the bones- Paul Howarth  SR: November 21st 2021 FR The master and the maid - Laura Libricz  SR: October 23rd, 2021  FR: November 21st 2021 The quest for the CROWN of thorns- Cynthia Ripley Miller  SR: October 29th, 2021  FR: November 11th, 2021 A sword among the ravens- Cynthia Ripley Miller  SR: November 11th, 202q FR:  The last rose of Shanghai- Weina Dai Randel SR: October 23rd, 2021 FR:    Nonfiction: A history of the Roman people by Allen M Ward SR: August 1st ,2021 FR:

  Name of Book: Mothers and other strangers Author: Gina Sorell ISBN: 978-1-938849-89-3 Publisher: Prospect Park books Type of book: secrets, relationships, religion, karma, mistakes, lies, mother and daughter, accidents, 1950s, 1987, Canada, USA, South Africa, death, coming of age, failure, eating disorder, rape, love, vanity  Year it was published: 2017 Summary: "My father proposed to my mother at gunpoint when she was nineteen, and knowing that she was already pregnant with a dead man’s child, she accepted." Thus begins this riveting story of a woman's quest to understand her recently deceased mother, a glamorous, cruel narcissist who left her only child, Elsie, an inheritance of debts and mysteries. While coping with threats that she suspects are coming from the cult-like spiritual program her mother belonged to, Elsie works to unravel the message her dying mother left for her, a quest that ultimately takes her to the South African family homestead she never knew exis...

  Name of Book: All the Winding World Author: Kate Innes ISBN: 978-0-9934837-4-5 Publisher: Mindforest Press Part of a Series: sequel to THE ERRANT HOURS  Type of book: Medieval Ages, 1292, 1294-1295, knights, loyalty, ransom, capture, Edward I, England, France, siege, surrender, finances, strength, journey, daily life, pets, companions, literature  Year it was published: 2018 Summary: England 1294 - The country is under siege, threatened by treachery and invasion. In the contested territory of Aquitaine, the incompetence of the English command has led to the capture and death of many of King Edward’s most trusted knights. Amongst the angry hostages, there is one who will choose to betray his country. Meanwhile in the Welsh Marches, resentment against crippling taxes and conscription boils over into rebellion. Lady Illesa Burnel, determined to protect her family and home, must find an ingenious way to free her imprisoned husband before Fortune’s Wheel tips them all into d...

Name of Book: Not Our Kind Author: Kitty Zeldis ISBN: 978-0-06-284423-1 Publisher: Harper Type of book: New York, 1950s, one year, fashion, religion, Judaism, class hierarchy, anti-Judaism, appearances, teaching, coming of age, Polio  Year it was published: 2018 Summary: With echoes of The Rules of Civility and The Boston Girl, a compelling and thought-provoking novel set in postwar New York City, about two women—one Jewish, one a WASP—and the wholly unexpected consequences of their meeting One rainy morning in June, two years after the end of World War II, a minor traffic accident brings together Eleanor Moskowitz and Patricia Bellamy. Their encounter seems fated: Eleanor, a teacher and recent Vassar graduate, needs a job. Patricia’s difficult thirteen-year-old daughter Margaux, recovering from polio, needs a private tutor. Though she feels out of place in the Bellamys’ rarefied and elegant Park Avenue milieu, Eleanor forms an instant bond with Margaux. Soon the idealistic young w...

Name of Book: An Observant Wife Author: Naomi Ragen ISBN: 978-1-250-26007-9 Publisher: St Martin's Press Part of a Series: Sequel to An Unorthodox Match  Type of book: Contemporary, orthodox Judaism, prayers, repentance, growing up, troubled teens, secrets, married life, love, beshert, life, sacrifices  Year it was published: 2021 Summary: From the joy of their wedding day surrounded by supportive friends and family, Yaakov and Leah are soon plunged into the complex reality of their new lives together as Yaakov leaves his beloved yeshiva to work in the city, and Leah confronts the often agonizing restrictions imposed by religious laws governing even the most intimate moments of their married lives. Adding to their difficulties is the hostility of some in the community who continue to view Leah as a dangerous interloper, questioning her sincerity and adherence to religious laws and spreading outrageous rumors. In the midst of their heartfelt attempts to reach a balance between ...

  Name of Book: A Heart Divided Author: Jin Yong, Gigi Chang, Shelly Bryant  ISBN: 978-1-250-25013-1 Publisher: St Martin's Griffin Part of a Series: Legend of Condor Heroes Type of book: China, politics, 1200s, duty, filial piety, martial arts, Mongols, Genghis Khan, blood, the Greats, fighting, contest, determination Year it was published: 1956 (2021) Summary: A Heart Divided is the next in the high stakes, tension-filled epic Legends of the Condor Heroes series, where kung fu is magic, kingdoms vie for power and the battle to become the ultimate kung fu master unfolds. China: 1200 A.D. In the fourth and final volume of Legends of the Condor Heroes, Guo Jing is at last forced to make a choice between loyalty to the land of his birth and keeping faith with Genghis Khan, who has been like a father to him. When it comes to matters of the heart, trouble waters stir there as well when Guo Jin's love for Lotus Huang is tested when he becomes convinced that her father has murdered ...