Tantalizing Tales — July 2024 — Part Two

Hello, readers! It’s the last Friday of July (howwwwwwww?!) so here’s my roundup of amazing books that just published these last two weeks that I haven’t had the time to read yet but really really want to!

First up, we have a literary mystery debut from a librarian with a PhD in funeral studies. Ruby Todd’s Bright Objects is the tale of Sylvia Knight, a young Australian widow who is losing hope that the person who killed her husband will ever face justice. Since the night of the hit-and-run that claimed his life, her world has been shrouded in hazy darkness—until she meets Theo St. John, the discoverer of a rare comet soon to be visible to the naked eye.

As the comet begins to brighten, Sylvia wonders what the event might signify. She is soon drawn into the orbit of local mystic Joseph Evans, who believes that the comet’s arrival is nothing short of a divine message. Finding herself caught between two conflicting perspectives on this celestial phenomenon, she struggles to define for herself where reality lies. As the comet grows in the sky, her town slowly descends further and further into a fervor over its impending apex, as Sylvia’s quest to uncover her husband’s killer pushes her and those around her to the furthest reaches of their very lives.

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We travel across continents and back in time for our next book, David Lewis’ A Jewel In The Crown. The first in The Secret Churchill Files series is part James Bond and part Maisie Dobbs, as it introduces a gifted young heroine sent on a World War II mission orchestrated by Winston Churchill himself.

Weeks after the 1940 evacuation of Dunkirk, Germany is poised to invade a near-defenseless Britain. To safeguard the Crown Jewels from the Nazis, Prime Minister Churchill devises a daring gamble to have the treasures shipped overseas. The priceless artifacts will be secretly removed from the Tower of London and driven north to Scotland by two operatives posing as a young married couple, to be taken from there to safety in Canada.

Caitrin Colline — a Welsh coalminer’s daughter and an ardent socialist — will play the wife of Lord Marlton, Hector Neville-Percy. A less likely couple is at first difficult to imagine. Yet Caitrin’s bold, streetwise confidence and sharp wits complement Hector’s social ease and connections, essential to the second part of their mission: uncovering Nazi sympathizers within the highest ranks of Britain’s aristocracy.

Battling enemies within and without, Caitrin wonders if anyone in their circle can be trusted — even her own partner. When unexpected events catapult her into a life-or-death chase across the continent, the morale of a nation and the fate of Europe itself hang in the balance.

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Juliet Grames returns with her second novel, The Lost Boy Of Santa Chionia, featuring a young American woman turned amateur detective in a small village in 1960s Southern Italy.

Francesca Loftfield, a starry-eyed twenty-seven-year-old, arrives in the isolated mountain village of Santa Chionia with the aim of opening a nursery school. There is no road, no doctor, no running water or electricity. And, thanks to a recent flood that swept away the post office, there’s no mail either.

Most troubling, though, is the human skeleton that surfaced after the flood waters receded. Whose is it? And why won’t the police come and investigate? When an old woman begs Francesca to help determine if the remains are those of her long-missing son, Francesca begins to ask a lot of inconvenient questions. As an outsider, she might be the only person who can uncover the truth. Or she might be getting in over her head. As she attempts to juggle a nosy landlady, a suspiciously dashing shepherd and a network of local families bound together by a code of silence, Francesca finds herself forced to choose between the charitable mission that brought her to Santa Chionia and her future happiness, between truth and survival.

I really enjoyed Ms Grames’ debut novel, The Seven Or Eight Deaths Of Stella Fortuna, and can’t wait to get a chance to dive into this next Italian-inspired work of hers, too.

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Katie Siegel’s Charlotte Illes Is Not A Teacher is another sophomore effort that I can’t wait to jump into!

Mention “returning to the scene of a crime,” and people don’t usually picture a middle school. But that’s where kid detective Lottie Illes enjoyed some of her greatest successes, solving mysteries and winning acclaim — before the world of adult responsibilities came crashing in.

Twentysomething Charlotte is now back in the classroom, this time as a substitute teacher. As much as she’s tried to escape the shadow of her younger self, however, others haven’t forgotten about Lottie. In fact, a fellow teacher is hoping for help discovering the culprit behind anonymous threats being sent to her and her aunt, who’s running for reelection to the Board of Education.

At first, Charlotte assumes the messages are a harmless prank. But maybe it’s a good thing she left a detective kit hidden in the band room storage closet all those years ago — just in case. Because the threats are escalating, and it’s clear that untangling mysteries isn’t child’s play anymore.

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Michael J Seidlinger’s second novel The Body Harvest draws inspiration from JG Ballard’s Crash, Albert Camus’ The Plague, Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club and Kathe Koja’s The Cipher to introduce readers to the disturbing world of virus chasers.

Will is a fraud. Olivia is a wreck. They meet at a grief share group and quickly bond over their brokenness and their peculiar hobby. Will and Olivia seek out sickness, engaging in reckless behaviors – from licking subway poles to accessing used medical equipment – to catch the thrill of illness and subsequent recovery.

They soon discover an online community of chasers called The Source and realize that their hobby isn’t all that odd when seen from the right distance. And then the mysterious Zaff walks into their lives, claiming that he has the goods, knows where the latest outbreak will drop. Intrigued, Will and Olivia decide to take their hobby to the point of obsession, believing that if they can conquer the newest strain, nobody can hurt them.

Divided into three acts, The Body Harvest is a compelling exploration of disconnectedness in a world dominated by viral social media trends.

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Finally, we have Seraphim, the latest book from former New Orleans public defender Joshua Perry. This legal drama is a gritty interrogation of crime, violence and the limits of justice in Louisiana during the chaotic times after Hurricane Katrina.

Two young lawyers, Ben Alder and Boris Pasternak, arrive in the New Orleans public defender’s office determined to represent those most in peril: kids who are to be prosecuted as adults. When 16-year-old Robert Johnson confesses to the murder of a local hero of the post-storm recovery, the two set about constructing his defense, with Ben taking the lead.

But years of heavy cases have sparked a burning recklessness in Ben. He does what he believes — what he knows — must be done. And in his fervor to absolve Robert, Ben will stop at nothing to bend the narrative in his favor, one in which everyone is expendable — even those his young client loves most.

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Let me know if you’re able to get to any of these books before I do, dear readers! I’d love to hear your opinions, and see if that will help spur me to push any of them higher up the mountain range that is my To Be Read pile!

And, as always, you can check out the list of my favorite books this year so far in my Bookshop storefront linked below!