It was another month of good reads! I read so much over the last month that I came to a place where I had nothing to read. I flew through my TBR pile and then it was like, oh crap…I’m without a book! In my world that’s kind of a tragedy. I quickly placed an order for some new books but had to wait on delivery, so I dug deep into my shelves for something I hadn’t read yet. That was a challenge! But what I surfaced with was an old Agatha Christie I’d completely forgotten about, and it ended up being one of the most enjoyable stories from the month.
What are you reading?
September 2021 Reading List
Florence Adler Swims Forever by Rachel Beanland
It’s the summer of 1934 and Atlantic City is hot. Every summer, Esther and Joseph Adler rent out their home to vacationers and take up the apartment above their family bakery. Their daughters, Fannie and Florence, have grown up frolicking on the beach to escape the heat and tourists but this summer Fannie is on bedrest after recently losing a baby and Florence is home from college to practice swimming the English channel. Fannie’s husband is rarely around and Florence is too busy training to notice that the heir of an Atlantic City hotel fortune is falling in love with her. Only Esther seems to be concerned with the fact that the hotel is notoriously anti-Semitic and what kind of problems this will create for her daughter. When an awful tragedy strikes the idyllic shores, the Adler family goes into turmoil. Esther decides to hide the truth from Fannie until her baby is born, while Joseph has just taken in a young woman he helped escape from Nazi Germany. This story is based on a true story of the author’s family and it has so many emotions. I loved it from start to finish. It’s so beautifully written and the characters are so real that you feel the loss right alongside the family. Definitely add this one to your tbr pile!
The Tuesday Club Murders (Also called Thirteen Problems) by Agatha Christie
A group of friends gather at Miss Marple’s house for a dinner party and the conversation turns to unsolved mysteries. Each guest has a tale to tell involving some kind of crime and everyone must try to solve it. There’s a tale of invisible bloodstains, a disappearing will, a spiritualist who warns of impending death, and more. Everyone has a theory and it’s a competition over who has the best skills of deduction. Naturally, nothing gets past Miss Marple. I have been an Agatha Christie fan for some time and this is one of her most fun reads. I like that it’s basically a series of short stories told within a larger story. Fans of her Miss Marple series will enjoy the witty banter between her and her guests. It’s a quick read, perfect for the end of summer.
The Good Liar by Nicholas Searle
Roy is a conman. He’s lied his way through his entire life and now that he’s well into his senior citizen status, he’s going to commit his final heist. Through clever internet sleuthing, he meets and woos an attractive woman named Betty. She is close to his age and finds Roy rather dashing. But who is Roy, really? He rarely answers Betty’s questions about his life. He seems to have no family, no history, or rather a history he would rather forget, he says. Unfortunately for Betty, Roy’s intentions are to eventually cash out her entire life savings and walk away a richer man. But for Roy, a life spent lying has a price and it’s time to pay the piper. While Roy continues to seemingly pull the wool over Betty’s eyes, the reader is taken on a journey back in time. Decade by decade we see what Roy has done over the years to become the kind of person he is. And the revelation of who Roy REALLY is is shocking. I loved this book! It was definitely a favorite from the month. It’s one of those stories that’s a bit like the movie The Usual Suspects. Once you see it, you can’t go back and see it again the same way.
The Lost Painting: The Quest for a Caravaggio Masterpiece by Jonathan Harr
Caravaggio was an Italian Baroque master. He was a genius and yet beset by personal demons. He loved to drink, get drunk, and get into fights. He was passionate, as artists tend to be, and while moving in and out of boarding houses and jails, he managed to paint some of the best examples of Italian Baroque masterpieces. Four hundred years ago he painted The Taking of Christ, and it hasn’t been seen since. Could it be simply hanging above an unknowing person’s fireplace? Or perhaps it’s sitting under layers of dust in an Italian basement or in a small country chapel, hiding in plain sight? The mysterious fate of The Taking of Christ takes the reader on an exciting journey that I felt was equal parts Dan Brown and Indiana Jones. I loved how the author tells of its loss and discovery. If you like a little history with your mystery, this one’s for you!
Vanished Smile: The Mysterious Theft of Mona Lisa by R.A. Scotti
In 1911, Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa disappeared from the walls of the Louvre. No one even noticed she was gone for a solid 24 hours. Once it was realized that she was missing, the museum, Paris, and the entire world went on high alert and the suspect list was as shocking as the crime itself. Pablo Picasso and Guillaume Apollinaire were living in Paris at the time and both quite fond of collecting art and rare artifacts. Mona Lisa remained missing for two years and yet to this day there are questions surrounding how it could have happened. How does someone walk into a museum like the Louvre and simply walk out with a large heavy painting without anyone noticing? Was it an inside job? This book reopens the case and I could not put it down. Partly inspired by our recent trip to Paris, this book was so much fun and completely eye opening.
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