Thursday Thirteen 450: Recently Acquired — Print Edition

A couple weeks ago, I posted a list of thirteen ebooks recently acquired. This week I thought I'd post a list for the "traditionalists" — a list of some of the actual printed books I've recently picked up from the local used book store or the library's monthly used book sale. These were all in good to like-new condition. So far, I have only read one of these. Click on any link for more information about any title.


01. The Circle by Dave Eggers (Fiction; Book to Movie)

02. Spouse on Haunted Hill by EJ Copperman (Cozy Mystery)

03. Better Off Thread by Amanda Lee (Cozy Mystery)

04. Dressed to Kilt by Hannah Reed (Cozy Mystery)

05. To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway (Classic)

06. Stupid Cupid by Rhonda Stapleton (Young Adult)

07. In the Unlikely Event by Judy Blume (Women’s Fiction)

08. Table for Five by Susan Wiggs (Romance/Women’s Fiction)

09. Everything is Illuminated by Foer (Lit Fiction)

10. Invisible Man by Ellison (Classic)

11. The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George (Lit fiction)

12. Hidden Figures by (Nonfiction; Basis of the recent movie)

13. Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler (Classic Mystery)



LINKING TO: Thursday Thirteen

Teaser Tuesday 164: The Elegance of the Hedgehog

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current book or recent read.
* Share a few "teaser" sentences from somewhere in the book.
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away. You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title and author so that other participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!


I have just started The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery for a GoodReads group read. I have seen this one mentioned a few times on Teaser Tuesday, and have wanted to read it for a while now. It seems almost as though I was fated to read this, as it was not only nominated but chosen as a group read (not by me!) soon after I found it at the library's monthly used book sale. I think this one is going to take me at least a week to read, though.

Apparently, now and again adults take the time to sit down and contemplate what a disaster their life is. They complain without understanding and, like flies constantly banging against the same old windowpane, they buzz around, suffer, waste away, get depressed then wonder how they got caught up in this spiral that is taking them where they don’t want to go. The most intelligent among them turn their malaise into a religion: oh, the despicable vacuousness of bourgeois existence!

(Chapter two)

ABOUT THE BOOK:

We are in the center of Paris, in an elegant apartment building inhabited by bourgeois families. Renée, the concierge, is witness to the lavish but vacuous lives of her numerous employers. Outwardly she conforms to every stereotype of the concierge: fat, cantankerous, addicted to television. Yet, unbeknownst to her employers, Renée is a cultured autodidact who adores art, philosophy, music, and Japanese culture. With humor and intelligence she scrutinizes the lives of the building's tenants, who for their part are barely aware of her existence.

Then there's Paloma, a twelve-year-old genius. She is the daughter of a tedious parliamentarian, a talented and startlingly lucid child who has decided to end her life on the sixteenth of June, her thirteenth birthday. Until then she will continue behaving as everyone expects her to behave: a mediocre pre-teen high on adolescent subculture, a good but not an outstanding student, an obedient if obstinate daughter.

Paloma and Renée hide both their true talents and their finest qualities from a world they suspect cannot or will not appreciate them. They discover their kindred souls when a wealthy Japanese man named Ozu arrives in the building. Only he is able to gain Paloma's trust and to see through Renée's timeworn disguise to the secret that haunts her. This is a moving, funny, triumphant novel that exalts the quiet victories of the inconspicuous among us.

Teaser Tuesday 131: The Descendants

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current book or recent read.
* Share a few “teaser” sentences from somewhere in the book.
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away. You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title and author so that other participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!

I am just starting The Descendants by Kaui Hart Hemmings for a GoodReads group read. The book is the basis for the recent movie starring George Clooney, which I have not yet seen. Here's a bit of a teaser from the first page:

Joanie has been in a coma for twenty-three days, and in the next few days I’ll have to make some decisions based on our doctor’s final verdict. Actually, I’ll just have to find out what the doctor has to say about Joanie’s condition. I don’t have any decisions to make, since Joanie has a living will. She, as always, makes her own decisions.

FROM THE BACK COVER:

Fortunes have changed for the King family, descendants of Hawaiian royalty and one of the state’s largest landowners. Matthew King’s daughters—Scottie, a feisty ten-year-old, and Alex, a seventeen-year-old recovering drug addict—are out of control, and their charismatic, thrill-seeking mother, Joanie, lies in a coma after a boat-racing accident. She will soon be taken off life support. As Matt gathers his wife’s friends and family to say their final goodbyes, a difficult situation is made worse by the sudden discovery that there’s one person who hasn’t been told: the man with whom Joanie had been having an affair. Forced to examine what they owe not only to the living but to the dead, Matt, Scottie, and Alex take to the road to find Joanie’s lover, on a memorable journey that leads to unforeseen humor, growth, and profound revelations.

Teaser Tuesday 128: Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current book or recent read.
* Share a few “teaser” sentences from somewhere in the book.
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away. You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title and author so that other participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!


I am about 40 pages from the end of this novel, which I can not recommend enough. It is beautifully written and the chapters are short, with some of the most poignant being only two pages. My teasers are from the paperback trade size copy.

"What about their relatives? Someone must have heard, wouldn’t they have called . . ."

"I thought that too at first, but I think a lot of people just don’t want to go back. Sometimes that’s the best thing to do—to live in the present."

(Pg 64)


~*~*~*~*~

Henry looked up and down the empty avenue—no cars or trucks anywhere. No bicycles. No paperboys. No fruit sellers or fish buyers. No flower carts or noodle stands. The streets were vacant, empty—the way he felt inside. There was no one left.

(pg 138)


~*~*~*~*~

"Henry, this isn’t about us. I mean it is, but they don’t define you by the button you wear. They define you by what you do, by what your actions say about you. And coming here, despite your parents, says a lot to them—and me . . . They don’t see you as the enemy. They see you as a person."

(pg 227)

ABOUT THE BOOK:
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

By Jamie Ford

In 1986, Henry Lee joins a crowd outside the Panama Hotel, once the gateway to Seattle's Japantown. It has been boarded up for decades, but now the new owner has discovered the belongings of Japanese families who were sent to internment camps during World War II. As the owner displays and unfurls a Japanese parasol, Henry, a Chinese American, remembers a young Japanese girl from his childhood in the 1940s—Keiko Okabe, with whom he forged a bond of friendship and innocent love that transcended the prejudices of their Old World ancestors.

After Keiko and her family were evacuated to the internment camps, she and Henry could only hope that their promise to each other would be kept. Now, forty years later, Henry explores the hotel's basement for the Okabe family's belongings and for a long-lost object whose value he cannot even begin to measure. His search will take him on a journey to revisit the sacrifices he has made for family, for love, for country.

Teaser Tuesday 103: Wicked

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current book or recent read.
* Share a few “teaser” sentences from somewhere in the book.
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away. You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title and author so that other participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!


I am currently a quarter of the way through Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire. I have not seen the musical, though I would have loved to when it was in town last fall, but am enjoying the book so far. It's actually quite a fast read. Here are a couple of quotes from the book. The first is from about where I am in the book, the second from farther on.

"What the hell are you doing up there?"

So he slipped, of course, because he was startled, and because fate, having been so kind to him as to award him this ecstasy, retributively was going to kill him now. He lost his footing and grabbed for the chimney but missed. Head over thighs he rolled out like a child's toy, smashed into the poking branches of the damn pear tree, which probably saved his life, breaking his fall. He landed with a thud on a bed of lettuces, and the wind was knocked out of him, mortifyingly so, through all available orifices.

"Oh, brilliant," said the voice. "The trees are dropping their fruits early this year."
(pg 96)


~*~*~*~*~


People who claim they're evil are usually no worse than the rest of us. It's people who claim that they're good, or any way better than the rest of us, that you have to be wary of.
(pg 357)

ABOUT THE BOOK:

When Dorothy triumphed over the Wicked Witch of the West in L. Frank Baum's classic tale, we heard only her side of the story. But what about her arch-nemesis, the mysterious witch? Where did she come from? How did she become so wicked? And what is the true nature of evil?

Gregory Maguire creates a fantasy world so rich and vivid that we will never look at Oz the same way again. Wicked is about a land where animals talk and strive to be treated like first-class citizens, Munchkinlanders seek the comfort of middle-class stability and the Tin Man becomes a victim of domestic violence. And then there is the little green-skinned girl named Elphaba, who will grow up to be the infamous Wicked Witch of the West, a smart, prickly and misunderstood creature who challenges all our preconceived notions about the nature of good and evil.

Teaser Tuesday 97: Dracula in Love

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current book or recent read.
* Share a few “teaser” sentences from somewhere in the book.
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away. You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title and author so that other participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!


While I did finish Dracula by the weekend as planned, I decided I needed a bit of a break before plunging into Dracula in Love. So, aside from a couple short stories in an anthology, I took the weekend off from reading. Sometimes you just have to do it, ya know? Now, having digested the original, I am ready to immerse myself in Dracula in Love, and I'd say it's off to a great start. Tell me these lines from the beginning don't make you shiver!

In the beginning, there was the voice.

That was how it began on that first evening, with a masculine voice calling out to me in my sleep; a disembodied voice slithering into my dreams, a voice of deep timbre and tones, of sensuous growls, and of low, hollow moans—a voice laden with promise and with love.

(pg 5)

From Good Reads:

In this wonderfully transporting novel, award-winning author Karen Essex turns a timeless classic inside out, spinning a haunting, erotic, and suspenseful story of eternal love and possession.

From the shadowy banks of the river Thames to the wild and windswept Yorkshire coast, Dracula’s eternal muse, Mina Murray, vividly recounts the intimate details of what really transpired between her and the Count—the joys and terrors of a passionate affair that has linked them through the centuries, and her rebellion against her own frightening preternatural powers.

Mina’s version of this gothic vampire tale is a visceral journey into Victorian England’s dimly lit bedrooms, mist-filled cemeteries, and asylum chambers, revealing the dark secrets and mysteries locked within. Time falls away as she is swept into a mythical journey far beyond mortal comprehension, where she must finally make the decision she has been avoiding for almost a millennium.

Bram Stoker’s classic novel offered one side of the story, in which Mina had no past and bore no responsibility for the unfolding events. Now, for the first time, the truth of Mina’s personal voyage, and of vampirism itself, is revealed. What this flesh and blood woman has to say is more sensual, more devious, and more enthralling than the Victorians could have expressed or perhaps even have imagined.

Disclaimer: Copy of book was received from the publisher through a blog giveaway by Jenny Q.

Teaser Tuesday 92: Summer in the South

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current book or recent read.
* Share a few “teaser” sentences from somewhere in the book.
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away. You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title and author so that other participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!


I spent the weekend inside where it was (somewhat) cool and comfortable, with most of my time spent reading this book. I was especially drawn to this book after hearing the author got the idea for it during a visit to a cemetery. I have long loved visiting old cemeteries and often thought them rich in untold stories. This was a fast and engaging book—perfect reading for a heat wave.

It was one way she had found to fill her solitary childhood, but it was more than that; the act of creation gave substance and shape to her life. It made order out of the chaos.
(pg 150)

~*~*~*~

Everyone has a different story, and you have to ask yourself what motivates people to see reality the way they do.
(pg 165)

ABOUT THE BOOK:
Summer in the South
By Cathy Holton

After a personal tragedy, Chicago writer Ava Dabrowski quits her job to spend the summer in Woodburn, Tennessee, at the invitation of her old college friend Will Fraser and his two great-aunts, Josephine and Fanny Woodburn. Her charming hosts offer Ava a chance to relax at their idyllic ancestral estate, Woodburn Hall, while working on her first novel.

But Woodburn is anything but quiet: Ancient feuds lurk just beneath its placid surface, and modern-day rivalries emerge as Ava finds herself caught between the competing attentions of Will and his black-sheep cousin Jake. Fascinated by the family’s impressive history—their imposing house filled with treasures, and their mingling with literary lions Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Faulkner—Ava stumbles onto rumors about the darker side of the Woodburns’ legacy. Putting aside her planned novel, she turns her creative attentions to the eccentric and tragic clan, a family with more skeletons (and ghosts) in their closets than anyone could possibly imagine. As Ava struggles to write the true story of the Woodburns, she finds herself tangled in the tragic history of a mysterious Southern family whose secrets mirror her own.

* Disclainer: A copy of this book was won from the author through a book blog.

Giveaway: Summer in the South

Want to win this book? Kaye is giving away one copy--stop by her blog to enter. You can also read her review of the book here.

Teaser Tuesday 83: The Book Thief

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current book or recent read.
* Share a few “teaser” sentences from somewhere in the book.
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn't give too much away. You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title and author so that other participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!


Started reading this one Sunday, as tribute to Holocaust Remembrance week (May 2-8). Am only a quarter of the way through so far, but enjoying it immensely. I've chosen two quotes from this book for the week—I hope you enjoy, and are intrigued enough to pick it up, if you have not read it already.

She was the book Thief without the words.

Trust me, though, the words were on their way, and when they arrived, Liesel would hold them in her hands like the clouds, and would wring them out like the rain.
(pg 80)

~*~*~*~*~

Was he really a coward, as his son had so brutally pointed out? Certainly, in World War I, he considered himself one. He attributed his survival to it. But then, is there cowardice in the acknowledgment of fear? Is there cowardice in being glad that you lived?
(pg 106)

ABOUT THE BOOK:
The Book Thief
By Markus Zusak

It’s just a small story really, about among other things: a girl, some words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist-fighter, and quite a lot of thievery. . . .

Set during World War II in Germany, Markus Zusak’s groundbreaking new novel is the story of Liesel Meminger, a foster girl living outside of Munich. Liesel scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist—books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement before he is marched to Dachau.

This is an unforgettable story about the ability of books to feed the soul.

Teaser Tuesday 82: Water for Elephants

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current book or recent read.
* Share a few “teaser” sentences from somewhere in the book.
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away. You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title and author so that other participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!


Read this over the weekend and absolutely loved it. It's a good, fast read that is hard to put down. I had to force myself to take breaks and give my arm and shoulder a rest, as I am still suffering the pinched nerve, though it's feeling much better. There were times the writing was so vivid you could picture yourself in the situation and feel the anger, horror or despair of the characters, but there were also a few scenes that had me laughing out loud. This is from near the end of the book.

I’m facing a full-fledged stampede. The animal dens are all open, and the center of the menagerie is a blur; staring into it, I see bits of chimp, orangutan, llama, zebra, lion, giraffe, camel, hyena, and horse—in fact, I see dozens of horses, including Marlena’s, and every one of them is mad with terror.
(pg 308)

If you are intrigued or enchanted by the circus of a bygone era, you may be interested in my circus train photos, taken during two of the many years the Great Circus Train passed through Madison en route to Milwaukee. Baraboo's Circus World Museum loaned several of their wagons and other memorabilia for the filming of the recent film adaptation, which stars Reese Witherspoon and Robert Pattinson.

ABOUT THE BOOK:
Water for Elephants
By Sara Gruen

Though he may not speak of them, the memories still dwell inside Jacob Jankowski's ninety-something-year-old mind. Memories of himself as a young man, tossed by fate onto a rickety train that was home to the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. Memories of a world filled with freaks and clowns, with wonder and pain and anger and passion; a world with its own narrow, irrational rules, its own way of life, and its own way of death. The world of the circus: to Jacob it was both salvation and a living hell.

Jacob was there because his luck had run out - orphaned and penniless, he had no direction until he landed on this locomotive 'ship of fools'. It was the early part of the Great Depression, and everyone in this third-rate circus was lucky to have any job at all. Marlena, the star of the equestrian act, was there because she fell in love with the wrong man, a handsome circus boss with a wide mean streak. And Rosie the elephant was there because she was the great gray hope, the new act that was going to be the salvation of the circus; the only problem was, Rosie didn't have an act - in fact, she couldn't even follow instructions. The bond that grew among this unlikely trio was one of love and trust, and ultimately, it was their only hope for survival.

Teaser Tuesday 62: The Christmas Chronicles

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current book or recent read.
* Share a few “teaser” sentences from somewhere in the book.
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away. You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title and author so that other participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!


Back in September, I was honored to receive an ARC of The Christmas Chronicles by Tim Slover. I loved this book! It begs to be read out loud, and I devoured it in one evening. This would be an excellent addition to any family’s holiday celebration.

That’s when I heard the sound. It was rhythmic, silvery: jing, jing, JING! Jing, jing, JING! And it was coming up on me fast over the slope, just as the snow clouds were rolling down from the mountain.
(pg 8 of the ARC)

About the book:

In this new holiday classic, Tim Slover crafts a marvelous, magical novel about how Santa Claus became the man he is today. After reading The Christmas Chronicles, you’ll believe all over again in the magic of the season.

Snow is falling, and the clock ticks toward midnight on Christmas Eve while countless children, too excited to sleep, anticipate the arrival of Santa Claus. But in Tim Slover’s deeply charming and utterly thrilling new novel, that’s the end rather than the beginning of the story. In this richly imagined tale of Santa’s origins, the man in full finally emerges. The Christmas Chronicles is at once an action-packed adventure, an inspiring story of commitment and faith, and a moving love story.

It all starts in 1343, when the child Klaus is orphaned and adopted by a craftsmen’s guild. The boy will grow to become a master woodworker with an infectious laugh and an unparalleled gift for making toys. His talent and generosity uniquely equip him to bestow hundreds of gifts on children at Christmas—and to court the delightful Anna...

Read More



* Disclaimer: A copy of this book was received from the publisher through GoodReads.com

Teaser Tuesday 51: The Pindar Diamond

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current book or recent read.
* Share a few “teaser” sentences from somewhere in the book.
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away. You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title and author so that other participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!

READ: August 2010

When she did not reply he put his hand up as if to draw her shielding palm from her face, but she snatched her arm away and turned her back to him again.

"You were told not to touch anything, remember?" The words came out breathlessly, as if she had been running; as if it were an effort to get them out.

(pg 126; The Pindar Diamond)

Though this book is the sequel to The Aviary Gate, which I have not read, I think it stands well enough on its own. While I would have liked to know more of the backstory, I did not feel I was missing important details overall. It was a good story, and though the pacing was a bit slow during the first half of the book, it did pick up once the three different story threads started to come together. I even had to pause a few times near the end as I was overcome with emotion. Can't help but admire an author who can elicit that sort of response—it's not as easy to write as some might think. I both loved and hated the ending, which I cannot go into without spoiling it for others. Suffice it to say, I am glad there will be another book!


Book Blurb:
In a small town on the Italian coast, a mysterious woman washes ashore. She is crippled, mute, and clutches a bundle to her chest—a baby the townspeople insist is a real-life mermaid. It can only bring bad luck; they pay a troupe of acrobats to carry mother and child away.
(Read More)


* Disclaimer: A copy of this book was won through the GoodReads FirstReads program.

Teaser Tuesday 47: The House on Mango Street

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab a current or recent read.
* Share a few “teaser” sentences from somewhere in the book.
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away. You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title and author so that other participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!


READ: March 2010

People who live on hills sleep so close to the stars they forget those of us who live too much on earth. They don’t look down at all except to be content to live on hills. They have nothing to do with last week’s garbage or fear of rats. Night comes. Nothing wakes them but the wind.
(pg 86)

About the Book:
Acclaimed by critics, beloved by readers of all ages, taught everywhere from grade schools to iniversities across the country, and translated all voer the world, The House on Mango Street is the remarkable story of Esperanza Cordero. Told in a series of vignettes—sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes deeply joyous—it is the story of a young Latina girl growing up in Chicago, inventing for herself who and what she will become.

This was an interesting and thought-provoking read.

Teaser Tuesday 28: The Botticelli Secret

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current read.
* Share a few “teaser” sentences from somewhere in the book.
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away. You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title and author so that other participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!


I was lucky to win an ARC of The Botticelli Secret by Marina Fiorato through the Goodreads first reads program. There were so many great lines in this one, some flowery and some witty, that it was difficult selecting just two. So...I chose short lines from two different scenes. And isn't this a beautiful cover?

(Please note that, as my copy is an ARC, page numbers may differ slightly from the final print version of the book.)

God, he could be boring. It was fortunate that he was so pretty. (pg 80)

A knock woke me and I was up and into his arms, holding tight to his wiry body for a second before he pushed me away in haste, as he had done in Venice. I did not care—I had him back. (pg 401)

About the book:
Genre: Historical Fiction

When we first meet Luciana Vetra, she is a 16-yr-old prostitute in 1482 Florence. Turning tricks and modeling since she was twelve, she is offered the chance to sit for Sandro Botticelli's new work, Primavera—an assignment that suddenly finds her fleeing Florence for her life with novice monk, Brother Guido della Torre. As they try to puzzle out the mystery hidden in Botticelli's painting, their journey takes them through Pisa, Naples, Rome, and many other vaunted cities of the Italian Renaissance. Can they figure out the secret before the assassin on their heels catches up to them?

This is a wonderfully crafted story that transports one to the Middle Ages. The language is alternatingly course and beautiful, as befits the pair of unlikely main characters, and the growing romance is as intriguing as the mystery itself. I had difficulty setting this one down, reading the bulk of it over a weekend.