Bookreporter.com Bets On: THE STOLEN QUEEN by Fiona Davis
I have been a passionate reader of Fiona Davis’ novels --- all eight of them. So when I tell you that I think THE STOLEN QUEEN is her best one, it’s really high praise.
As long-time readers know, Fiona sets her books in iconic New York City buildings. This time it’s the Metropolitan Museum of Art. As always, there are two time frames. This one takes place in 1936 and 1978.
In Egypt, the setting for the earlier chapters, Charlotte Cross is on a dig with a number of other archaeologists. Along the way, she finds a tomb that has not been completely researched. It belongs to Hathorkare, a female pharaoh who has not been given her due in history. Charlotte finds a broad collar in gold, which hints that this woman had been regal. Fiona has us entrenched in the ruins with the team, and we feel like we are dusting off the treasures found there.
» Click here to read more of Carol's Bets On commentary.
» Click here to read our review.
» Click here to read an excerpt.
» Click here to watch our "Bookreporter Talks To" interview with Fiona Davis.
» Click here to listen to a podcast of the interview.
Bookreporter.com Bets On: THE NOTE by Alafair Burke
In THE NOTE by Alafair Burke, three friends have decamped to a stunning place in the Hamptons for a reunion visit. It all sounds idyllic, but this is a thriller, so don’t settle back in your chair and relax.
Lauren, Kelsey and May have not seen each other in a while. But it quickly becomes clear that had they not attended the same camp in the past, they probably would not be in each other’s lives. They were close at one time, but we don’t know exactly why they’re spending time together now. Is it to share memories, or something else? Each has a history that is carefully parsed to readers, as something scandalous or embarrassing has happened to them. They know some of each other’s secrets, but not all of them. Alafair does a great job of drawing us deeper and deeper into their lives.
» Click here to read more of Carol's Bets On commentary.
» Click here to read our review.
Bookreporter.com's Word of Mouth Contest: Tell Us What You've Read --- and You Can Win Two Books!
Let us know by Friday, January 31st at noon ET what books you’ve read, and you’ll have a chance to win GOOD DIRT by Charmaine Wilkerson and MORE OR LESS MADDY by Lisa Genova in our Word of Mouth contest.
In GOOD DIRT, the daughter of an affluent Black family pieces together the connection between a childhood tragedy and a beloved heirloom. MORE OR LESS MADDY is about a young woman diagnosed with bipolar disorder who rejects the stability and approval found in a traditionally “normal” life for a career in stand-up comedy. Both books are Bookreporter.com Bets On picks.
» Click here to enter the contest.
Bookreporter.com's 10th Annual Winter Reading Contests and Feature
At Bookreporter.com, we are kicking off 2025 with our 10th annual Winter Reading Contests and Feature! On select days in January and February, we are hosting a series of 24-hour contests spotlighting a book releasing this winter and giving five lucky readers the chance to win it. We also are sending a special newsletter to announce the day's title, which you can sign up for here.
Our next contest will be up on Tuesday, January 28th at noon ET. The prize book will be PRESUMED GUILTY by Scott Turow, in which retired judge Rusty Sabich returns to the courtroom to defend his girlfriend's son against first-degree murder charges.
» Click here to read all the contest details and learn more about our featured titles.
As part of our mission to expand The Book Report Network, we have been shooting video interviews with authors and posting them on our YouTube channel. We also have been making them available as podcasts. Carol loves interviewing authors, so this feels like a natural.
MORE OR LESS MADDY, which will be a Bets On selection, is Lisa Genova's new novel. Lisa shares what drew her to write about a young woman with bipolar disorder and her research on the subject, which included conversations with people who have been diagnosed with it. She talks about how both the diagnosis and the treatment of bipolar disorder can be challenging; there is no one way to treat it, and treatment takes time. Maddy longs to be a stand-up comedian, and Lisa explains how she learned more about that topic, including her own set on stage to give it a try. As always, Lisa speaks about wanting to have readers leave her books with empathy and understanding. Watch the video or listen to the podcast.
Carol had the pleasure of talking to Fiona Davis about her latest novel, THE STOLEN QUEEN, which is set in Egypt in 1936 and New York City in 1978. The iconic New York building that is featured in this book, which is a Bets On title, is the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Fiona and Carol talk about the museum's King Tut exhibit, as well as the Met Gala and how it has changed through the years. And yes, they share an admiration for fashion columnist and editor Diana Vreeland. Fiona also reveals many details about her research, and she notes a book for further reading. Watch the video or listen to the podcast.
Sharon Virts' new historical mystery, THE GRAYS OF TRUTH, was inspired by true events involving one of Baltimore’s most powerful families and is a Bets On pick. Sharon discusses why the Reconstruction era is such a poignant time in American history. She also explains the challenges of creating Jane, her protagonist, and the Edgar Allan Poe quotes that lead off sections of the book. In addition to giving us hints about what is next for her, Sharon talks about the work of the Virts Miller Foundation, as well as the large online book club that she hosts. Watch the video or listen to the podcast.
» Click here for a complete list of our "Bookreporter Talks To" videos and podcasts, along with upcoming interviews.
Griffin Hurt is in over his head. Between his role as Peter Proton on the hit TV show “The Nuclear Family” and the pressure of high school at New York's elite Boyd Prep --- along with the increasingly compromising demands of his wrestling coach --- he's teetering on the edge of collapse. Then comes Naomi Shah, 22 years Griffin’s senior. Unwilling to lay his burdens on his shrink --- whom he shares with his father, mother and younger brother, Oren --- Griffin soon finds himself in the back of Naomi’s Mercedes sedan, again and again, confessing all to the one person who might do him the most harm.
A year after she was dumped in her wedding dress, Rosie Lachlan is working at her parents’ bridal salon. After receiving a life-saving heart transplant, Rosie knows her health is precious and precarious. She suspects that her heart donor is Daphne Thorne, the wife of local celebrity author Morgan Thorne, who she begins messaging via an anonymous service called DonorConnect. But Rosie has a secret: Now that she has his wife’s heart, she’s convinced that she and Morgan are meant to be together. As she and Morgan correspond, the pretense of avoiding personal details soon disappears, even if Rosie is keeping some cards close to her chest. But as she digs deeper into Morgan’s previous marriage, she discovers disturbing rumors about the man she’s falling for. Could Morgan have had something to do with his late wife’s death?
Los Angeles attorney Charles Warren has dedicated his career to aiding people in financial straits. He is particularly skilled at the art of recovering assets that have been embezzled or hidden. In his newest case, helping a beautiful young widow find the money missing from her late husband’s investment accounts, Charlie recognizes a familiar scheme --- one that echoes the con job that targeted his own widowed mother many years before and led him, as a teenager, to commit a crime of retribution that still weighs on his conscience. He can’t get the present case out of his mind, but within hours of starting his investigation, he is followed, shot at and has his briefcase stolen. As Charlie continues to pursue answers, he quickly becomes too entangled in the web of fraud, betrayal and career criminals surrounding the theft to escape its deadly snare.
Texas Ranger Rory Yates protects his home state wearing a five-pointed silver badge and carrying a Sig Sauer. When a native woman disappears on the summer solstice, clues point to a cold case. Yates, a quick-draw champion, partners with expert archer Ava Cruz of the Tigua Tribal police. The investigation leads to the edges of Texas’s most unforgiving landscape, where the officers take dead aim with every shot in their arsenals.
Eddie Winston is 90 years old. He has lived and he has loved, but he has never been kissed. A true gentleman and an incurable romantic, Eddie spends his days volunteering at a charity shop, where he sorts through the donations of the living and the dead, preserving letters and tokens of love along the way. And it is here that he meets Bella, a troubled young woman who, at 24 years old, has just lost the love of her life. When Bella learns that Eddie is yet to have his first kiss, she resolves to help him finally find love. This sparks an adventure that will take them to unexpected places and, they hope, bring Eddie to the moment he has waited for all his life.
ALL THE WATER IN THE WORLD is told in the voice of a girl gifted with a deep feeling for water. In the years after the glaciers melt, Nonie, her older sister and her parents, and their researcher friends have stayed behind in an almost deserted New York City, creating a settlement on the roof of the American Museum of Natural History. The rule: Take from the exhibits only in dire need. They hunt and grow their food in Central Park as they work to save the collections of human history and science. When a superstorm breaches the city’s flood walls, Nonie and her family must escape north on the Hudson. They carry with them a book that holds their records of the lost collections. Racing on the swollen river towards what may be safety, they encounter communities that have adapted in very different and sometimes frightening ways to the new reality.
A pregnant woman's sketches on a seemingly innocuous blog conceal a chilling warning. A child's picture of his home contains a dark secret message. A sketch made by a murder victim in his final moments leads an amateur sleuth down a rabbit hole that will reveal a horrifying reality. Structured around these nine childlike drawings, each holding a disturbing clue, mystery horror YouTube sensation Uketsu invites readers to piece together the mystery behind each and the over-arching backstory that connects them all.
Assaulted and presumed dead by his longtime nemesis, Will, literary forger Henry Slader awakens in a shallow grave. He exhumes himself and sets out to exact revenge on his rival, orchestrate Will’s downfall, and make a fortune along the way --- armed with a devastating secret about Will’s past. Slader quickly draws in Will’s daughter, Nicole, wielding his threats against her father to blackmail her into forging inscriptions by such authors as Poe, Hemingway, James Joyce and Gertrude Stein. As Nicole’s skill grows, so does her devotion to --- and doubts about --- her father’s integrity, until she commits the ultimate betrayal for the sake of his freedom. She forges a suite of brilliantly convincing and surpassingly valuable letters by FRANKENSTEIN author Mary Shelley --- planting within them the seeds of Slader’s doom.
A walled city built to protect and preserve the people who managed to survive a series of great cataclysms, Bulwark was founded on a system where sacrifice is rewarded by the AI that runs the city. Over generations, an elite class has evolved from the descendants of those who gave up the most to found mankind’s last stronghold, called the Sainted. Saint Enita Malovis feels the end of her life and decades of work as a bio-prosthetist approaching. She is determined to preserve her legacy and decides to create a physical being, called Nix, filled with her knowledge and experience. In the midst of her project, a fellow Sainted is brutally murdered and the city AI inexplicably erases the event from its data. Soon, Enita and Nix are drawn into the growing war that could change everything between Bulwark’s hidden underclass and the programs that impose and maintain order.