My Reading Radar 1/25/2014

What hit the wishlist this week and why?

Spare Brides by Adele Parks. Spotted on Netgalley and appeals to me because I love that period of history after WWI and before WWII, when the social classes were becoming one and things began to change. And of course, it's about women!

Damaged and beautiful, they were the generation who lost so much and became 'spare brides'. The richly compelling and emotional new novel from Sunday Times bestselling author Adele Parks is the powerful story of four extraordinary women left to pick up the pieces of their lives, in the scarred, glamorous and endlessly fascinating post-First World War era.

New Year's Eve, 1920. The Great War is over and it's a new decade of glamorous promise. But a generation of men and women who survived the extreme trauma and tragedy will never be the same.

With countless men lost, it seems that only wealth and beauty will secure a husband from the few who returned, but lonely Beatrice has neither attribute. Ava has both, although she sees marriage as a restrictive cage after the freedom war allowed. Sarah paid the war's ultimate price: her husband's life. Lydia should be grateful that her own husband's desk job kept him safe, but she sees only his cowardice.

A chance encounter for one of these women with a striking yet haunted officer changes everything. In a world altered beyond recognition, where not all scars are visible, this damaged and beautiful group must grasp any happiness they can find - whatever the cost.

***

This author got my attention on NG too, though only the further below book was posted and I don't believe they are taking U.S. requests. Bummer for me.

Black Roses by Jane Thynne.

Berlin, 1933. Warning bells ring across Europe as Hitler comes to power. Clara Vine, an attractive young Anglo-German actress, arrives in Berlin to find work at the famous Ufa studios. Through a chance meeting, she is unwillingly drawn into a circle of Nazi wives, among them Magda Goebbels, Anneliese von Ribbentrop and Goering's girlfriend Emmy Sonnemann.

As part of his plan to create a new pure German race, Hitler wants to make sweeping changes to the lives of women, starting with the formation of a Reich Fashion Bureau, instructing women on what to wear and how to behave. Clara is invited to model the dowdy, unflattering clothes. Then she meets Leo Quinn who is working for British intelligence and who sees in Clara the perfect recruit to spy on her new elite friends, using her acting skills to win their confidence.

But when Magda Goebbels reveals to Clara a dramatic secret and entrusts her with an extraordinary mission, Clara feels threatened, compromised, desperately caught between her duty towards — and growing affection for — Leo, and the impossibly dangerous task Magda has forced upon her.

***

The Winter Garden by Jane Thynne.

Berlin, 1937. The city radiates glamour and ambition. But danger lurks in every shadow…

Anna Hansen, a bride-to-be, is a pupil at one of Hitler's notorious Nazi Bride Schools, where young women are schooled on the art of being an SS officer's wife. Then, one night, she is brutally murdered and left in the gardens of the school. Her death will be hushed up and her life forgotten.

Clara Vine is an actress at Berlin's famous Ufa studios by day and an undercover British Intelligence agent by night. She knew Anna and is disturbed by news of her death. She cannot understand why someone would want to cover it up, but she soon discovers that Anna's murder is linked to a far more ominous secret.

With the newly abdicated Edward VIII and his wife Wallis set to arrive in Berlin, and the Mitford sisters dazzling on the social scene, Clara must work in the darkness to find the truth and send it back to London. It is a dangerous path she treads, and it will take everything she has to survive…

***

And of course, having loved the first two books in the series, I'm stoked to see this coming out soon: Dead in Boca by Miriam Auerbach.

Boca Raton. South Florida’s wealthy enclave of sand, surf, martinis, and murder . .

From high society “Boca Babe” to Harley-riding private eye, Harriet Horowitz has established her rep as a kick-ass P.I. with an insider’s connection to both the high life and the low life of Florida’s Palm Beach coast.

Like “Junior” Castellano, a big-time land developer who hires Harriet to find the silver-haired gigolo who broke Mama Castellano’s heart, Harriet is practical when it comes to solving problems. Simple enough, until the Boca police find Junior bulldozed at one of his construction sites. Was Junior killed by his mother’s con man? Or by a bitter ex-wife or spurned ex-girlfriend? Maybe by his estranged sons? And what about the bartender at Hog Heaven, who was about to lose her home in a trailer park because of Junior’s latest land development deal?

Harriet will do whatever it takes to protect others. Even if Junior Castellano’s enemy list is longer than the reservations at a Boca cocktail bar, and the scheme he was hatching was big enough to destroy the whole city.

A hurricane is heading toward Boca. It should be named Harriet.