Tuesday Tomorrow
The Flames by Sophie Haydock
Published by: The Overlook Press
Publication Date: March 14th, 2023
Format: Hardcover, 464 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Set in the extravagant, Bohemian art world of early 20th century Vienna, the electrifying untold story of the four women who posed for and inspired the groundbreaking erotic art of controversial painter Egon Schiele.
Amid an opulent society living under the shadow of war are four muses, women whose bodies were shown in intimate detail, depicted by the charming yet controversial artist Egon Schiele. Adele, his passionate and fierce admirer; Gertrude, his sister who survived their blighted childhood but is possessive, single-minded, and jealous; his mistress Vally, a poor young woman from a bad background but with steel at her core; and the two, very different, Harms sisters, Edith and Adele, both of whom vie to become Schiele's wife.
Over the course of little more than a decade, the four women risk everything - their reputations, their most precious relationships, and their sanity and souls - as they try to hold on to the man they adore. As World War I throws their lives off course forever, and the Spanish influenza pandemic ravages Europe, threatening everyone in its path, one question remains: Will any of them emerge unscathed from their relationship with this man? Sophie Haydock’s The Flames reimagines the intertwining lives of these women: four wild, blazing hearts longing to be known. In an elegant Bohemian city like 1900s Vienna, everything seems possible. But just as a flame has the power to mesmerize, it can also destroy."
Oh, the college undergraduate who majored in art and loved her art history classes is loving this!
The Last Russian Doll by Kristen Loesch
Published by: Berkley
Publication Date: March 14th, 2023
Format: Hardcover, 416 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"A haunting, epic novel about betrayal, revenge, and redemption that follows three generations of Russian women, from the 1917 revolution to the last days of the Soviet Union, and the enduring love story at the center.
In a faraway kingdom, in a long-ago land...
...a young girl lived happily in Moscow with her family: a sister, a father, and an eccentric mother who liked to tell fairy tales and collect porcelain dolls.
One summer night, everything changed, and all that remained of that family were the girl and her mother.
Now, a decade later and studying at Oxford University, Rosie has an English name, a loving fiancé, and a promising future, but all she wants is to understand - and bury - the past. After her mother dies, Rosie returns to Russia, armed with little more than her mother's strange folklore - and a single key.
What she uncovers is a devastating family history that spans the 1917 Revolution, the siege of Leningrad, Stalin's purges, and beyond.
At the heart of this saga stands a young noblewoman, Tonya, as pretty as a porcelain doll, whose actions - and love for an idealistic man - will set off a sweeping story that reverberates across the century...."
Oh I love sweeping generational tales and nowhere are they better set than in Russia.
Daughter Dalloway by Emily France
Published by: Blackstone Publishing
Publication Date: March 14th, 2023
Format: Hardcover, 350 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Perfect for fans of Marie Benedict and Renee Rosen, Daughter Dalloway is both an homage to the Virginia Woolf classic and a brilliant spin-off - the empowering, rebellious coming-of-age story of Mrs. Dalloway's only child, Elizabeth.
London, 1952: Forty-six-year-old Elizabeth Dalloway feels she has failed at most everything in life, especially living up to her mother, the elegant Mrs. Dalloway, an ideal socialite and model of perfection until she disappeared in the summer of 1923 - and hasn't been heard from since.
When Elizabeth is handed a medal with a mysterious inscription from her mother to a soldier named Septimus Warren Smith, she's certain it contains a clue from the past. As she sets out, determined to deliver the medal to its rightful owner, Elizabeth begins to piece together memories of that fateful summer.
London, 1923: At seventeen, Elizabeth carouses with the Prince of Wales and sons of American iron barons and decides to join the Bright Young People - a group of bohemians whose antics often land in the tabloids. She is a girl who rebels against the staid social rules of the time, a girl determined to do it all differently than her mother. A girl who doesn't yet feel like a failure.
That summer, Octavia Smith braves the journey from the countryside to London, determined to track down her older brother Septimus who returned from the war but never came home. She falls in with a group of clever city boys who have learned to survive on the streets. When one starts to steal her heart, she must discover whether he is a friend or foe - and whether she can make it in the city on her own.
Elizabeth and Octavia are destined to cross paths, and when they do, the truths they unearth will shatter their understanding of the people they love most."
The hook here is Mrs. Dalloway disappeared!
Published by: W. W. Norton and Company
Publication Date: March 14th, 2023
Format: Hardcover, 256 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Welcome to Sotheran's, one of the oldest bookshops in the world, with its weird and wonderful clientele, suspicious cupboards, unlabeled keys, poisoned books, and some things that aren’t even books, presided over by one deeply eccentric apprentice.
Some years ago, Oliver Darkshire stepped into the hushed interior of Henry Sotheran Ltd (est. 1761) to apply for a job. Allured by the smell of old books and the temptation of a management-approved afternoon nap, Darkshire was soon unteetering stacks of first editions and placating the store’s resident ghost (the late Mr. Sotheran, hit by a tram).
A novice in this ancient, potentially haunted establishment, Darkshire describes Sotheran's brushes with history (Dickens, the Titanic), its joyous disorganization, and the unspoken rules of its gleefully old-fashioned staff, whose mere glance may cause the computer to burst into flames. As Darkshire gains confidence and experience, he shares trivia about ancient editions and explores the strange space that books occupy in our lives - where old books often have strong sentimental value, but rarely a commercial one.
By turns unhinged and earnest, Once Upon a Tome is the colorful story of life in one of the world's oldest bookshops and a love letter to the benign, unruly world of antiquarian bookselling, where to be uncommon or strange is the best possible compliment."
Hard to believe it isn't fiction.
All the Queen's Spies by Oliver Clements
Published by: Atria/Leopoldo and Co
Publication Date: March 14th, 2023
Format: Hardcover, 400 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"The "lively" (The New York Times) Agents of the Crown series continues with this thriller about Queen Elizabeth I's advisor John Dee in a race to save the Empire with the help of a mysterious manuscript that offers global power.
With rumors of the end times swirling, philosopher and astronomer John Dee travels to Prague in an effort to prevent one of Catherine de Medici's seductive ladies-in-waiting from luring the Holy Roman Emperor into a crusade against England.
To convince the famously occult-loving Emperor to join his side, Dee entices him with the esoteric Book of Secrets, a volume that, if decoded, could provide the chance to control the levers of heaven and earth. But Dee faces enemies at every turn, including a female codebreaker who could be the undoing of Dee and the British Empire."
Did someone say John Dee!?!
Death on Deck by Verity Bright
Published by: Bookouture
Publication Date: March 14th, 2023
Format: Kindle, 332 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"When Lady Swift embarks upon her first luxury cruise she imagines a gilded ballroom, afternoons on deck taking tea and all the delectable food she can eat. But she can't seem to escape from murder...
Lady Eleanor Swift is all set to spend her birthday with her beau, dashing Detective Hugh Seldon, until he calls to cancel on her again at the last minute. What's a girl to do? Pack up her staff and her faithful old bulldog, Gladstone, and head off on a cruise to New York, that's what!
On the stunningly opulent ocean liner Celestiana, Eleanor tries to forget her worries and make the most of her trip. That is, until she sees a man being shot and falling overboard. On closer inspection of the scene, Eleanor literally stumbles over the likely murder weapon. And the nick in the barrel is unmistakeable: this gun belongs to Detective Seldon...
With some discreet digging, Clifford discovers Detective Seldon is aboard the ship on an undercover mission. Eleanor doesn't want to make waves but she's sure that something fishy is going on and he's being framed. To get Seldon off the hook, Eleanor casts her net wide and searches for the real murderer among a sea of suspects including European nobility, Italian opera stars and American nouveau riche. But does the victim's expensive gold ring point to a lavish lifestyle or is it a red herring?
When another passenger is found dead in his first-class cabin, a poisoned whisky glass clutched in his hand, Eleanor realises they are really in hot water. Will the killer be Eleanor's catch of the day, or will she spend her birthday at the bottom of the sea?
A totally charming, unputdownable Golden Age mystery with characters readers will adore. Perfect for fans of Agatha Christie, T.E. Kinsey and Lee Strauss."
I adore the locked-room trope of sea voyages!
Death and Croissants by Ian Moore
Published by: Poisoned Pen Press
Publication Date: March 14th, 2023
Format: Paperback, 256 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Richard is a middle-aged Englishman who runs a B and B in the fictional Val de Follet in the Loire Valley. Nothing ever happens to Richard, and really that's the way he likes it.
One day, however, one of his older guests disappears, leaving behind a bloody handprint on the wallpaper. Another guest, the exotic Valérie, persuades a reluctant Richard to join her in investigating the disappearance.
Richard remains a dazed passenger in the case until things become really serious and someone murders Ava Gardner, one of his beloved hens... and you don't mess with a fellow's hens!
Death and Croissants is an unputdownable, hilarious mystery perfect for fans of Richard Osman's The Thursday Murder Club."
Anyone who names a chicken Ava Gardner is someone I need to know more about.
Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto
Published by: Berkley
Publication Date: March 14th, 2023
Format: Hardcover, 352 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"A lonely shopkeeper takes it upon herself to solve a murder in the most peculiar way in this captivating mystery by Jesse Q. Sutanto, bestselling author of Dial A for Aunties.
Vera Wong is a lonely little old lady - ah, lady of a certain age - who lives above her forgotten tea shop in the middle of San Francisco's Chinatown. Despite living alone, Vera is not needy, oh no. She likes nothing more than sipping on a good cup of Wulong and doing some healthy detective work on the Internet about what her Gen-Z son is up to.
Then one morning, Vera trudges downstairs to find a curious thing - a dead man in the middle of her tea shop. In his outstretched hand, a flash drive. Vera doesn't know what comes over her, but after calling the cops like any good citizen would, she sort of...swipes the flash drive from the body and tucks it safely into the pocket of her apron. Why? Because Vera is sure she would do a better job than the police possibly could, because nobody sniffs out a wrongdoing quite like a suspicious Chinese mother with time on her hands. Vera knows the killer will be back for the flash drive; all she has to do is watch the increasing number of customers at her shop and figure out which one among them is the killer.
What Vera does not expect is to form friendships with her customers and start to care for each and every one of them. As a protective mother hen, will she end up having to give one of her newfound chicks to the police?"
Because sometimes you need a lighthearted mystery that takes place in San Francisco and you've read The Spellman Files a million times already.
So Shall You Reap by Donna Leon
Published by: Atlantic Monthly Press
Publication Date: March 14th, 2023
Format: Hardcover, 320 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"In the thirty-second installment of Donna Leon's bestselling series, a connection to Guido Brunetti's own youthful past helps solve a mysterious murder. On a cold November evening, Guido Brunetti and Paola are up late when a call from his colleague Ispettore Vianello arrives, alerting the Commissario that a hand has been seen in one of Venice's canals. The body is soon found, and Brunetti is assigned to investigate the murder of an undocumented Sri Lankan immigrant. Because no official record of the man's presence in Venice exists, Brunetti is forced to use the city's far richer sources of information: gossip and the memories of people who knew the victim.
Curiously, he had been living in a small house on the grounds of a palazzo owned by a university professor, in which Brunetti discovers books revealing the victim's interest in Buddhism, the revolutionary Tamil Tigers, and the last crop of Italian political terrorists, active in the 1980s.
As the investigation expands, Brunetti, Vianello, Commissario Griffoni, and Signora Elettra each assemble pieces of a puzzle - random information about real estate and land use, books, university friendships - that appear to have little in common, until Brunetti stumbles over something that transports him back to his own student days, causing him to reflect on lost ideals and the errors of youth, on Italian politics and history, and on the accidents that sometimes lead to revelation."
Because my mom loved this series...
The Lonesome Hunters by Tyler Crook
Published by: Dark Horse Books
Publication Date: March 14th, 2023
Format: Paperback, 120 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"From Russ Manning award-winning and Eisner-nominated Harrow County co-creator Tyler Crook comes this supernatural fantasy about loss, power, and destiny.
An old and out-of-practice monster hunter in hiding crosses paths with a young girl that forces him to confront these chaotic creatures. As the beasts invade their tenement they set off on a supernatural road trip to stop these ancient evils in a story that explores the ways that youth informs adulthood and how early traumas can haunt us of in old age.
Collects The Lonesome Hunters #1–#4."
Tyler Crook is a genius.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Tarot Deck and Guidebook by Gilly and Karl James Mountford
Published by: Insight Editions
Publication Date: March 14th, 2023
Format: Cards, 76 Pages
To Buy
The official patter:
"Follow the wisdom of Buffy, Willow, Xander, Spike, and others with this beautifully illustrated tarot deck inspired by the beloved series Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
In every generation, there is a chosen one - explore your destiny like Buffy the Vampire Slayer with this magical and bold take on the traditional 78-card tarot deck. This set features the heroes you love, casting Buffy, Willow, Angel, Spike, Xander, Giles, and more in gorgeous original illustrations based on classic tarot iconography. Featuring both major and minor arcana, the set also includes a helpful guidebook explaining each card's meaning and simple instructions for easy readings. Packaged in a sturdy, decorative gift box, this alluring tarot deck is the perfect gift for the Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan or tarot enthusiast.
ORIGINAL ART: Each of the 78 cards in this deck and the booklet features never-before-seen original Buffy the Vampire Slayer-themed art.
GUIDEBOOK INCLUDED: This unique deck includes a guidebook to help tarot practitioners of all skill levels do fun and informed readings.
BEAUTIFUL GIFT: The tarot deck and guidebook are packaged in a deluxe gift box perfect for gift-giving.
OFFICIAL LICENSED BUFFY DECK: This is the only official licensed Buffy the Vampire Slayer deck and guide.
25TH ANNIVERSARY: This deck is the perfect way to celebrate 25 years of Buffy the Vampire Slayer."
As Deanna Raybourn recently asked, "Can one have too many tarot decks?" The answer is no when there's a Buffy one coming out!
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