Welcome to the Friday 5ive, a weekly-ish post featuring five things that caught my attention this week. Ive been off for the last few weeks, my family took a trip to Scotland and Ireland, and I will be posting about that separately. (It was an amazing trip!)
1) I visited the new location of Bookstore1 in Sarasota, Florida last week. It's a wonderful bookstore, and the most inpressive part of the store is their Staff Recommends display. It is the largest Staff Recommends display I've ever seen. They have a huge two-sided unit filled with books and as you wander the store, you'll find more recommendations throughout mixed in with their regular displays. They must be a very literate staff! I chatted a bit with Roxanne, and picked up a Staff Recommended novel- Carter Bays' The Mutual Friend. If you ever visit Sarasota, you must stop by.
Have a good, safe, healthy week.
2) Everyone in NYC loves to watch the US Open, and I confess that I have not been bitten by that bug- until this year. Watching Serena Williams win her match against the number two ranked player was thrilling, one of the most exciting sporting events I have ever seen. Now I am pulling for Frances Tiafoe to win on the Men's side, he has an incredible story. 
3) Like everyone else I was saddened to hear of the death of Queen Elizabeth II. She had a remarkable reign spanning 70 years and her devotion to duty and her country will long be remembered. When we were at Edinburgh Castle a few weeks ago, we saw not only the Crown Jewels, but also the Stone of Destiny. The stone will be placed under the throne at Westminster Abbey at King Charles III's coronation as is tradition. And we saw it in person! (But we couldn't take photos.) 
4) We're watching Five Days at Memorial on Apple TV+, based on the book by Sheri Fink. (We both thought the book was so powerful.) The true story takes place in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, when Baptist Memorial Hospital was left to fend for themselves after New Orleans flooded. They lost power, ran out of food and water, and had no plan or way to evacuate their hundreds of patients, staff and community members who sought safety from the hurricane. When the New Orleans Police Department finally shows up after five days, they are there to enforce an evacuation order, and doctors and nurses are forced to leave patients behind who cannot be evacuated. How some of these patients died is the question to be answered. It's riveting television with amazing performances led by Vera Farmiga and Cherry Jones. 
5) I've read alot recently, including some terrific historical novels based on real people and events from two books I loved in 2021. Lauren Willig's Two Wars and a Wedding follows a character from last year's Band of Sisters (one of my favorite books from 2021). Smith College graduate Betsy Hayes studies archeology at the American School in Greece in 1896 and desperately wants to go on a dig, but women are not allowed. When a war breaks out between Greece and Turkey, Betsy ends up as a nurse and proves herself to be an outstanding nurse. Having seen the horrors and dangers of war up close, Betsy travels to Cuba in 1898 to stop her best friend Ava from joining Clara Barton's Red Cross nurses, but ends up again in the throes of war as a nurse. Once again, Lauren Willig's brilliant writing and detailed research into historical events I knew little about had me enthralled. Betsy is an unforgettable character, and watching her grow from a single-minded young student into a strong, brave and caring woman was a wonderful journey . I'll be buying this book when it publishes in March of 2023. 
Susan Elia MacNeal's Maggie Hope WWII mysteries is one of the few series I will always read, and her latest book, Mother Daughter Traitor Spy, is a standalone novel. The last Maggie Hope novel, The Hollywood Spy, had Maggie in WWII Los Angeles, where Maggie tangled with Nazis. Mother Daughter Traitor Spy tells the story of Veronica and her mother Violet during WWII. When Veronica makes a bad personal choice, she loses her job in New York and she and her widowed mother move to Los Angeles. Veronica unintentionally finds herself as secretary for someone who is heavily involved in the Nazi movement in the United States. Meanwhile, Violet's lovely embroidery catches the eye of a Nazi leader's wife, and soon she is designing and sewing clothes for many of the women's friends. Horrified by the things they are hearing, Veronica and her mother go to law enforcement and end up working as spies for the US military. I found myself wanting to know more about this time period in Los Angeles after reading The Hollywood Spy, and was so happy to see that Susan Elia MacNeal was continuing this fascinating story in Mother Daughter Traitor Spy, based on two real women. As I read this terrific story, I could not help but see the connections between what was happening politically in the 1940s and what is happening in our country in the last few years, and that adds to the importance of this book. This one publishes on September 20th, and if you like historical fiction, this is one you must read. 
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