Three Books For Your Beach Bag

We’re heading into summer reading season and there are some wonderful books waiting to be added to beach bags.

Amy Poeppel writes delightful novels that make me laugh, filled with characters I wish were my friends. Her latest, Far and Away takes readers to Dallas and Berlin as two families swap homes for a summer. 

Lucy is preparing a big celebration for her son Jack’s high school graduation in Dallas when she receives a call from his principal asking her to come in for a meeting-now.

Jack is accused of doing something ‘sexist’, something that is out of character for her nerdy hardworking son. The whole situation spins out of control and Jack will not be participating in graduation ceremonies, and his college acceptance may be rescinded.

After the family is ostracized and their house egged, Lucy decides to take her children to Europe for the summer to let things die down. She goes online and finds someone in Berlin who is looking for a house Dallas for the summer. Perfect- a house swap solves the problem.

In Berlin, Greta is celebrating a big win- she purchased a Vermeer at auction for a client and everyone is talking about it. When her husband Otto comes home and tells her he took a job in Dallas for the summer, Greta is concerned her career achievement is in jeopardy.

Lucy enjoys showing her kids the Berlin she loved spending time in years ago, and while Greta is having a more difficult adjustment in Dallas her husband Otto is thriving.

Once again, Poeppel creates characters that are so fully developed from Lucy and Greta to Lucy’s neighboring in-laws, Otto, and Greta’s American neighbor who befriends Lucy. You feel like you know them well. 

Any mom of teens will relate to Lucy as she tries to navigate Jack’s predicament in this atmosphere of piling on before getting the whole story. 

And only Amy Poeppel can connect a possible fake Vermeer painting, a missing husband participating in a Mars biosphere experiment (or is he in jail?), and a complicated math formula and make it work so brilliantly. Take a trip to Dallas and Berlin this summer in one funny and sweet story in Far and Away, you’ll love it as much as I did.

Grab your beach towel and sunscreen as author Jane L. Rosen takes readers back to Fire Island in her third novel in the series Songs of Summer.

When record store owner Maggie May leaves her Ohio home in search of her birth mother on Fire Island, she may end up with more than she bargained for. 

She discovers that her birth mother is attending a wedding on Fire Island, but when she finds the woman, her mother is the middle of a very public screaming match with the sister she hasn’t spoken to in years. 

Before Maggie decides whether she wants to be a part of this family, she is befriended by a handsome man which leads her to question her own relationship with her childhood sweetheart.

I loved the first two books in the series, On Fire Island and “Seven Summer Weekends” and was so happy to reunite with many of the characters from these two books, including my favorite Shep, an elderly widower. Nobody writes older gentlemen better than Jane L. Rosen.

You don’t need to have read the first two books to enjoy Songs of Summer, but you will appreciate it more if you have. It's filled with humor and heart and I highly recommend all three.

You may recognize Vicky Nguyen from her work as a correspondent on the Today Show. She tells her story as a Vietnamese immigrant in her fascinating memoir Boat Baby.

Vicky’s parents were fearful for their lives following the end of the war in Vietnam. They escaped on a boat to Malaysia and, after finding an American family willing to sponsor them, they settled in Oregon.

Her parents worked hard to build a good life for their only daughter and Vicky wanted to be a typical American teenager. But she still had to face prejudice from her peers. It's an eye-opening look at the immigrant experience.

Vicky became interested in a career in television journalism in college. She worked long hours and moved from station to station to advance her career. She married her high school sweetheart and they faced challenges as they tried to start a family.

If you liked Connie Chung’s recent memoir Connie,  Boat Baby is a wonderful companion read. I found the parts on the news business most enlightening. 

Far And Away by Amy Poeppel- A

Published by Atria/Emily Bestler Books

Trade paperback, $18.99, 400 pages

Songs of Summer by Jane L. Rosen- A

Published by Berkley

Trade paperback, $19, 336 pages

Boat Baby by Vicky Nguyen- A

Published by Simon & Schuster

Hardcover, $29.99, 320 pages

Beat the heat with two great reads

Reprinted from auburnpub.com:

Summer is in full swing and this month’s Book Report has two books to beat the heat.

We last heard from Jane L. Rosen with her wonderful novel On Fire Island, which made my list of the Most Compelling Books of 2023. In it, we met young widower Ben grieving the tragic loss of his wife. His older neighbor Shep, a widower himself, helps Ben navigate his new life, and Ben in turn takes a teen neighbor under his wing. (She is one of my all-time favorite characters.)

Rosen returns to the same Fire Island community with Seven Summer Weekends. Addison is poised to become the first female head of the art department at a prestigious Manhattan advertising agency when she accidentally sends a message to everyone in a Zoom that ends her career. 

When an aunt that Addison hasn’t seen in years passes away, she leaves Addison her Fire Island home. Addison goes to Fire Island to regroup, and plans to sell the house to tide her over until she can find a new job.

There’s one catch though- the guest house on the property is booked throughout the summer so Addison can’t sell the home until the fall. And the hot neighbor guy tells Addison that her aunt promised him that he could buy the house for a very reasonable price.

It turns out the neighbor is Ben, the young widower from On Fire Island. Ben and Addison have a push-pull relationship- one moment Addison is very attracted to him, the next he does something that makes her rethink her friendship with him.

Addison discovers that each of the weekly guests have a connection to her aunt, and through them she learns more about the aunt she never knew due to a family feud between her parents and her aunt. As the summer goes on, Addison becomes more involved in the Fire Island community and questions her future- should she stay or sell?

I loved Seven Summer Weekends just as much as On Fire Island, and that is a lot. The characters are interesting (Shep makes an appearance!), and Rosen’s writing is filled humor, heart, and even some steamy heat. I'd like to take the ferry to Fire Island and hang out with Addison, Ben, and the gang. I give it my highest recommendation. 

Francis S. Barry decided to buy a Winnebago during the pandemic and take off with his wife Laurel to follow the Lincoln Highway from New York City to San Francisco. He recounts their adventures in Back Roads and Better Angels- A Journey Into The Heart Of American Democracy. 

Barry, a writer for Bloomberg News, previously served in Michael Bloomberg’s administration as chief speechwriter when Bloomberg was mayor of New York City.  Dismayed by the rancor and political division he sees today in this country, he wanted to discover what people really thought about what was happening.

The fact that neither Barry nor his wife had ever driven a Winnebago didn’t damper their enthusiasm, and they had their fair share of mishaps (including a toilet pedal that continuously malfunctioned).

As they travel the country, they camp in KOAs and Walmart parking lots and meet up with people they know and those they don’t know. They stop at historic sites and find more places named Lincoln than you might think could possibly exist.

One learns a great deal about history that you’d never find in history books, particularly with regards to Native American people. Some of it is incredibly disturbing, and made me gasp at the callous inhumanity people inflicted on each other.

Barry ties the Lincoln Highway sites, as well as the state of the country today, to events and words spoken by Abraham Lincoln himself. He clearly studied our 16th President and gives him his due, showing Lincoln as the politician, man, and leader he truly was.

The one question Barry asks each person he meets is “What binds us together as Americans?”. The answers given are often profound, thought-provoking, and shine a light on where we are today as well as where we'd like to be.

Barry meets a politician in Nebraska who explains how the state legislature has the reputation as “one of the most civil and cooperative in the nation” because political parties are less relevant there. People work together in common cause to make government work better for all. Perhaps that is the most important export Nebraska has to share with the rest of the country.

Anyone who likes to read road trip stories and has an interest in history and Abraham Lincoln will get great pleasure and learn much from Back Roads and Better Angels. It is essential reading for all citizens, I give it my highest recommendation.

Seven Summer Weekends by Jane L. Rosen- A+

Published by Berkley

Trade paperback, $19, 302 pages

Back Roads and Better Angels by Francis S. Barry- A+

Published by SteerForth Press

Hardcover, $35, 552 pages

A Shoe Story by Jane L. Rosen & Flying Solo by LInda Holmes

Reprinted from auburnpub.com

July is the time to kick our summer reading into high gear, and this month’s Book Report features two titles that are made for that. A Shoe Story and Flying Solo are two novels that each feature a woman looking at a very different future than she imagined. They are at a crossroads in their lives and with the help of their friends, and the possibility of romance that may or may not include reconnecting with former loves, they forge ahead.

First up is  A Shoe Story by Jane L. Rosen. Esme is excited to be graduating from college and heading off to her new life interning at an art gallery in New York City and living with Liam, her college boyfriend who also has a job in New York. 

When tragedy strikes, Esme returns her upstate New York hometown of Honeoye Falls to care for her father and all her future dreams fade away. She breaks up with Liam, not wanting to hold him back.

Seven years later, Esme has the opportunity to dog sit for a woman in New York City.  While it’s only for a month, Esme looks forward to being able to explore the city she once hoped to call home, and maybe even run into Liam.

Esme meets a handsome bartender who rescues her from a creep, and makes friends with Sy, an elderly man she meets at the dog park. She also discovers that the woman who owns the apartment has an extensive collection of beautiful shoes, and finds a note from the woman telling her to help herself (or so she thinks).

Each clever chapter title is the name of a pair of shoes from the closet, and gives the reader some idea of what it to come. (I’m not a shoe person, but if you are, you will drool over some of these descriptions and titles.)

I loved following Esme’s adventures in New York City, and made a list of all the fun places I want to visit. (Mercer Kitchen will be my first stop.) Rosen drops the reader right into Greenwich Village, with a side trip to the Hamptons. You'll feel like you are there.

A Shoe Story is a perfect summer read, with characters you want to befriend, a fantastic setting, and fancy shoes. What could be better? I highly recommend it.

Linda Holmes’ first novel, Evvie Drake Starts Over was one of my favorite books from summer of 2020, and I was pleased to hear that her second, Flying Solo publishes in June of 2022. 

Wildlife journalist Laurie Sassalyn is about to turn forty, has just broken off her engagement shortly before her wedding, and now returns to her small hometown in Maine to clean out the home of her beloved great-aunt Dot after Dot’s passing. Dot provided refuge to Laurie as a child when living with her four brothers was too noisy and overwhelming for the young girl who liked to read books in silence.

Dot was unmarried and lived a full life, traveling the world, collecting books, too many souvenirs from her travels, and boxes and boxes of Polaroid photos of friends and family. Laurie hires Matt from a service called Save the Best to provide a “bereavement decluttering”, which means he will determine what may be valuable to sell and then get rid of the rest.

Laurie finds a wooden duck decoy hidden underneath blankets in Dot’s cedar chest. She feels strangely attached to the duck, and Matt tells her he will see if could possibly be worth something, though he doubts it.

There is a mystery to be solved when the duck is stolen and Laurie, her best friend June, and former high school boyfriend-now-hot-librarian Nick team up to find out what happened and if the duck could be the product of a famous artist. 

I enjoyed the caper, sort of a grown-up Scooby-Doo mystery. Like A Shoe Story, Flying Solo has characters you want to know, and Laurie’s journey to discover if she wants to live a solo life like Dot is a unique storyline.  I liked the small town setting and getting to know the residents. I smiled at the Evvie Drake shout-out as the setting of both books are the town of Calcasset, Maine. I highly recommend Flying Solo as well. 

A Shoe Story by Jane L. Rosen- A

Published by Berkley 

Trade paperback, $17, 336 pages

Flying Solo by Linda Holmes- A

Published by Ballantine Books

Hardcover, $28, 320 pages

Friday 5ive- June 3, 2022

Welcome to the Friday 5ive, a weekly-ish post featuring five things that caught my attention this week.

Can it be June already????

1) I attended the White Mass to honor healthcare workers at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City this week. Sponsored by ArchCare, Timothy Cardinal Dolan celebrated the mass, and it was a great turnout of healthcare workers. It was an opportunity to thank the healthcare workers who were the true heroes during the pandemic, especially the early days when we really didn't know much about COVID. They went above and beyond to care for those who needed it most. Healthcare workers processed down the aisle with colorful umbrellas and that is always the most popular part of the mass.

2)  We traveled to Columbus, Ohio for our niece's high school graduation. It was a big graduating class, over 450 students. They had such beautiful music played and sung by the seniors, and we had a big family turnout for our niece Eva.

3)  The big family weekend activity (after the graduation of course) was an outing for all of us to a place called The Kitchen. It's a terrific group activity, we divided up and work at various work stations, prepping dinner for all of us to eat. We followed their recipes and chopped salad ingredients, made a dressing, made a chimmichurri sauce for filet mignon, peeled potatoes, cut broccolini, and mixed cupcake batter. The staff assisted with the actual cooking, and then we all sat down to eat. Add in the open bar with a signature cocktail and mocktail, and we all had a great time. 

The cupcake station

The prep tables

4) We're so happy to see the second season of Stanley Tucci's Searching for Italy is back on CNN. We enjoy his travels around the various regions of Italy showing us all the fantastic food we're missing. You know I took notes for our next trip to Italy. (Although the fish in Venice was not exciting to us.)

5) I read a fantastic novel, A Shoe Story by Jane L. Rosen. I'm not a 'shoe person', yet I really liked this one. After a tragedy send young Esme from a coveted post-college job opportunity at an art gallery in NYC back to her small hometown in Honeoye Falls, near Rochester, NY, the life she thought she would have disappears. Years later, she has an opportunity to dog sit for a woman in NYC, and she wonders if she can get the life  she dreamed of back. The characters are wonderful, particularly Sol, the elderly gentleman Esme befriends in the park. As someone who grew up near Rochester, I understood her upstate references, and now that I live in NYC, I jotted down all the places that Esme visited that I have yet to see. I also liked that each chapter was headed by a different show that Esme wore in that chapter-  it was so clever! A Shoe Story is a lovely story in a great setting. 

HAve a good week, stay safe and healthy.

Friday 5ive- April 29, 2022

The Friday 5ive is back after a long hiatus. I've been away on Fridays for awhile so I have a lot to cover.

1)  I had a big birthday earlier this month, and the celebrations went on for a long time and all were lovely. My kids came over for dinner, and my husband ordered a fabulous chocolate peanut butter cake from 

We Take the Cake, bakery in Miami. He said he knew I secretly loved chocolate and peanut butter, but that is not a well-kept secret- everyone who knows me is aware of that. We all loved the cake, it tasted just like a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. The next night we went to dinner at Ocean's Prime and I ordered the Deviled Eggs with Caviar on top. They were delicious, and I graciously shared them with my sons and husband. 

2)  Monday night I was awakened at 3am by loud explosions. It sounded like fireworks right outside my window, and when I opened the window blinds, that is exactly what I saw. It only lasted a few minutes, and the fireworks didn't travel very high, not even above the high rise across the street. There was a lot of chatter on the Nextdoor Neighbors website, with people not believing it was fireworks, but I saw it with my own eyes, and the next day my friend sent me a photo from the street that confirmed it. So there.

3) I am so glad that in-person book events are back! On  Monday night, Adriana Trigiani was in conversation with the charming Willie Geist talking about her fabulous new novel, The Good Left Undone, at the gorgeous Rizzoli Bookstore. (My rave review of the book is here.) Willie Geist started off by saying that interviewing Adriana is like lighting the fuse on a firework- just light it and she's off. (I wonder if Willie has an alibi for later that night....) The standing room-only crowd enjoyed hearing about the wedding that Adriana crashed in Scotland that led her to write the fictional story of the Cabrelli family in Tuscany. The Cabrellis have been gem cutters and designers for generations, and Trigiani told of taking a gemology class at Christie's auction house in New York that helped with her research. 

Adriana covered a lot of ground in this freewheeling discussion and we learned so many fun facts, such as 

1) Adriana had a mad crush on Orson Wells

2) St. Bernard of Clairvaux was not a handsome man

3) Adriana didn't know you could buy Sweet & Low in a store. Her grandmother would take the packets from the restaurant tables and put them in her purse. Her grandmother passed away in 1987 and they still have Sweet & Low packets from her stash.

4) Elizabeth Taylor had size 11 shoes. You never saw her feet in any of her movies.

Yes, the evening was filled with laughs, fascinating information about the creation of The Good Left Undone, and it was so great to see so many people I haven't seen in a long time. It was like the good old days. I even got to meet author Jane L. Rosen, whose terrific novel Eliza Starts A Rumor I sent as Christmas gifts two years ago. I'm looking forward to reading her upcoming novel, A Shoe Story, publishing in June. I can't wait to go to more in-person book events in the future. 

4)  I binge-watched season two of Bridgerton on Netflix, and I have to agree with my friends- season two was better than season one! Season one was all about the sexy with the Duke and Daphne, and season two was about the slow burn romance between Anthony Bridgerton and Kate Sharma. We watched with bated breath as Anthony and Kate fought their mutual attraction as Anthony was to marry Kate's younger sister. Once again we had gorgeous costumes and jewelry (those tiaras!), beautiful scenery, and Queen Charlotte. I love how they deepened the family relationships, we really got to know the Bridgerton family and their friends and frienemies. I can't wait for season three. 

5)  I've read some terrific books. The first one is a true crime book, which is not a genre I normally read. Kathryn Miles' Trailed, about her investigation into the murders of two young women in Shenandoah National Park in 1996 had me riveted. Miles takes us through the missteps into the investigation, the arrest of a suspect whom she doesn't believe is guilty, and the lives of the two young women cut short by a brutal act. My full review is here. 

Jessica Anya Blau's novel, Mary Jane, comes out in paperback, and I loved this one. Mary Jane lives a sheltered life with her straightlaced parents in 1970s Baltimore. Mary Jane doesn't have many friends, sings in the church choir, and helps her mother cook dinner in order to learn how to be a good housewife. She gets a summer job babysitting for the precocious child of their neighbors, who are decidedly more progressive in their lifestyle. They wander around the house nearly naked, and don't cook meals for their daughter, subsisting on fast food and cereal. When a rock star and his famous singer/actress wife come to stay to be treated in secret by the father, a psychiatrist, Mary Jane is mesmerized by everything going on this household. Blau absolutely nails what it feels like to be a fourteen year-old girl in this wonderful novel, a perfect summer read. 

Next week, I'll share my visit to Boston. Stay safe and healthy all!

New in Paperback- Two Terrific Books Featuring Fascinating Women

Reprinted from auburnpub.com: 

Many of the main characters in novels tend to be young females (age 30 and under), and since I am a little bit older than that, I enjoy finding novels that feature main characters closer to my age. I like being able to relate to their stage of life. 

This month’s Book Report has two novels who have main characters who have lived a little, have more experiences in their lives to draw upon.

Jane L. Rosen’s novel, Eliza Starts A Rumor is set in a beautiful bucolic town in the Hudson Valley, a bedroom community a few hours from New York City. Eliza is awaiting a visit home from her twins, a son and daughter, who are in their first semester at college.

What her children and husband don’t know is that Eliza is suffering from agoraphobia. The thought of leaving the house to go anywhere, even to the grocery store, sends her into a severe panic. 

This happened once before, when Eliza was in high school. For a number of months she refused to get out of bed, something that puzzled her mother and her best friend Amanda. This time around, she has a relapse after her children’s high school graduation. 

Eliza has run the Hudson Valley Ladies’ Bulletin Board for fifteen years on social media. Mothers use it as a resource to discuss issues, like where are the best story times for children, and laundry tips. 

A new mother’s group has popped up, one where women graphically discuss their sex lives and their husbands’ shortcomings. When Eliza finds out that this group has more followers than her group, she decides to fight fire with fire.

She notices that a man is always stopping by her neighbor’s house during his morning run, and she makes up a story about two people who are having an affair. Her post gets a lot of attention and more followers, but it also causes big problems.

When Olivia, a young mom, reads this, she thinks it is her husband who is having an affair. She meets Allison, a lawyer who is a single mom to her child. Allison starts a friendship with a woman on the social media board who is not what she seems, and she meets a single dad of a tweenage girl, whom she begins to date.

Allison offers to help Olivia find out if it is her husband who is the cheater, and they end up beginning a friendship with Eliza and her childhood friend Amanda, whose Hollywood producer husband is caught up in the #MeToo movement.

The four women join together to help Olivia discover the truth. The story of their unlikely friendship drives this lovely story, and I related to Eliza having to deal with empty nest syndrome with her children away at school. I highly recommend Eliza Starts A Rumor for anyone who enjoys a story about women of every age coming into their own.

Amy Poeppel’s new novel, Musical Chairs also deals with a mom who has adult twins. Bridget is excited to be spending her summer at her rather rundown vacation home in Connecticut with her boyfriend. 

When he breaks up with her in an email after his ex-wife tells him he should, Bridget’s daughter quits her finance job in Hong Kong, and her newly married son shows up without his husband, her summer plans have drastically changed, and her house fills up.

Bridget’s best friend and musical partner Will will be spending the summer as well, as they must rehearse with the new member of their classical musical trio, hoping to revive their career. 

Oh and Bridget’s elderly father Edward, a highly respected composer, has announced that he will be marrying his deceased wife’s friend, which throws everyone into a frenzy.

Musical Chairs is a hilarious, sweet story filled with characters that you will want to hang out with. Reading this delightful novel makes you feel like you are a part of the story, as each of the characters is so interesting, especially Edward’s young assistant Jackie, a young city woman who is perplexed by these rich people. The scene where she gets drunk at Bridget’s house is howlingly funny. I adored everything about this book, and if you are looking for something light, an escape from the reality of our lives today, Musical Chairs is the cure.

Eliza Starts A Rumor by Jane L. Rosen- A

Published by Berkley

Trade paperback, $17, 336 pages

Musical Chairs by Amy Poeppel- A+

Published by Atria/Emily Bestler Books

Trade paperback, $17, 416 pages

Friday 5ive- February 26, 2021

Welcome to the Friday 5ive, a weekly blog post featuring five things that caught my attention this week. I can't believe it's the last Friday in February, time is flying by.

1)  After watching the first two episodes of Stanley Tucci -Searching for Italy on CNN, it made us long for our trips to Italy and all the fabulous food we had there. While placing an order from Vincent's Meat Market in the Bronx this week, I saw that they had Guanciale, a cured meat product (like pancetta) made from pork cheek and jowls. As that was a featured ingredient in one of the fantastic looking dishes on this week's episode, I ordered some. Now I just need to find that recipe....

2)  Today is National Take A Walk Day, highlighting the health advantages of walking outside. Al Roker from the Today Show walked from his home near Central Park to the Today Show studio on Fifth Ave. and 49th Street, a pretty decent walk, at least a few miles. I did my walk a few days earlier on Tuesday, walking 6 miles from our apartment on on the Upper East Side to run errands (post office, dry cleaner, drug store, grocery store) to the Barnes & Noble store on Fifth Ave. and 46th Street (very near the Today Show studio) and back home. On Sunday, we had six people from our family on their Peloton bikes doing Jenn Sherman's live 80's ride, which was a lot of fun. Exercise is a good antidote to being cooped up inside all day. The Today Show has a 31-day walking plan that looks great.

3)  This week was filled with online book discussions . The Peloton Moms Book Club hosted a Facebook Live with author Jane L. Rosen, discussing her wonderful novel, Eliza Starts A Rumor, about four women who live in a bucolic Hudson Valley town and form a bond over a rumor gone wild. It's about social media, marriage, friendship, and reaching out to others. I loved the book, my review is here. Thanks to Jennifer for hosting the discussion.

Next up was a large (250+) Zoom gathering with author Sarah MacLean in discussion with Lauren Willig about Lauren's first novel in her Pink Carnation spy series, The Secret History of the Pink Carnation. Published in 2003, the book is set in 1803 as British spies are embedded in Paris to try and foil Napoleon's plans to invade England. I so enjoyed the discussion, and look forward to joining in for the next 11 books in the series. Each month for a year we will read the next book in the series and discuss. You can watch it here. Join in the fun!

The last one was Adriana Trigiani's Facebook Live talk with Matthew McConaughey about his critically acclaimed memoir Greenlights. It was such an entertaining and fascinating discussion! Adriana asked great questions and Matthew was a wonderful guest, regaling us all with stories from his childhood and acting career. I must read this one. 

4) We binge-watched all seven episodes of The Queen's Gambit on Netflix this week. Lots of my friends have recommended it, including my son, and once we started it, we were hooked. It tells the story of Beth Harmon, a young girl orphaned when her mother commits suicide. Beth is sent to live at a girls' school where the school janitor teaches her to play chess and discovers she is a prodigy. Set in the 1950s-1960s, we see how Beth becomes a world-class chess champion, fighting sexism and her own demons. I never thought anyone could make watching chess interesting, but they sure do here. This is must-see TV, and Anya Taylor-Joy is a phenomenal as Beth. She may win a Golden Globe this weekend for her performance. The music is great too.

5) In preparation for the Zoom this week, I read Lauren Willig's The Secret History of the Pink Carnation. What a fun read it was! It's got history, romance (a few steamy sexy scenes), spies, action, strong women, humor and more all rolled up into a rollocking good read. In the present day, graduate student Eloise Kelly sets out to discover who the mysterious Pink Carnation spy was during the time Napoleon was about to invade England. She is led to letters written by a young Amy Balcourt, which make up the bulk of the story. Amy, her cousin Jane, and chaperone the tough and prim Miss Gwen travel to Paris to stay with Amy's brother, and they get caught up in intrigue with the Purple Gentian, a masked man who is a thorn in the side of Napoleon's Chief of Police. If you smugly assume (as I did) that you guessed who the Pink Carnation was (wasn't it obvious?), you will enjoy the denouement of this delightful story. I loved the characters (especially Miss Gwen) and there are so many great scenes here that scream out for a Netflix series. If you liked Bridgerton, The Secret History of the Pink Carnation is your next read.

Stay safe, socially distant, wear a mask, wash your hands, and get the vaccine when it's your turn. Yay for those of you who have already gotten yours!