The Reading Radar 5/2/2015 @ReneeRosen1

What's the Reading Radar? It's just a list of books that caught my interest in the last week, why they caught my interest, and HOW. Having been an author myself once upon a time, I was always curious about how to reach readers. I type this up every week to share with readers books they may be interested as well and to let the authors know how they're being "discovered".

If I hadn't seen her twitter banner during a moment of boredom in which once again I was browsing all the people I follow..I would not have known Renee Rosen has a new book releasing this November. I'm excited. It's one of my favorite time periods--the fifties!

On the radar/wishlist: White Collar Girl by Renee Rosen. You may remember her name. What the Lady Wants was reviewed here.

The latest novel from the bestselling author of Dollface and What the Lady Wants takes us deep into the tumultuous world of 1950s Chicago where a female journalist struggles with the heavy price of ambition...

Every second of every day, something is happening. There’s a story out there buried in the muck, and Jordan Walsh, coming from a family of esteemed reporters, wants to be the one to dig it up. But it’s 1955, and the men who dominate the city room of the Chicago Tribune have no interest in making room for a female cub reporter. Instead Jordan is relegated to society news, reporting on Marilyn Monroe sightings at the Pump Room and interviewing secretaries for the White Collar Girl column.

Even with her journalistic legacy and connections to luminaries like Mike Royko, Nelson Algren, and Ernest Hemingway, Jordan struggles to be taken seriously. Of course, that all changes the moment she establishes a secret source inside Mayor Daley’s office and gets her hands on some confidential information. Now careers and lives are hanging on Jordan’s every word. But if she succeeds in landing her stories on the front page, there’s no guarantee she’ll remain above the fold.

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Spotted on Netgalley: The Governor's House by J.H. Fletcher. I love a good double-time zone story and it it had me at "accused pirate".

The story of two remarkable women, united by blood but separated by time – from the author of Dust of the Land

Born in poverty, transported for theft, and in love with a charismatic but dangerous man – for Cat Haggard the Tasmanian Governor’s House is not merely a beautiful building but a symbol of all she hopes to obtain in life. From convict, bushranger and accused pirate, Cat transforms herself into an entrepreneur and pillar of colonial Tasmanian society. But how is she connected to a missing ship? And could she be involved in the disappearance of a priceless treasure that, one hundred and three years after her death, will be claimed not only by a foreign government but by unscrupulous men determined to use it for their own ends?

Joanne, dean of history at the university and Cat’s descendant, is assigned the task of locating the missing artefact. Joanne believes the key may lie in a coded notebook she has inherited along with Cat’s other mysteries. But will she be able to decipher the message and put a century-old secret to rest? And will she survive to join her true love in the Governor’s House – a house that has come to mean as much to her as it did to her long-dead ancestor?