BOOK REVIEW: The Unexpected President: The Life and Times of Chester A. Arthur by Scott S. Greenberger

The Unexpected President: The Life and Times of Chester A. Arthur by Scott S. Greenberger is our history/historical fiction book club’s next pick. Presidential biographies are not really my thing, but I’m glad to have read this one. I knew nothing about Arthur. He’s pretty obscure as presidents go. During the Gilded Age, he was James Garfield’s vice president so he became president when Garfield was assassinated.

This biography points out how Arthur was an important cog in the New York State Republican machine, a close underling of Roscoe Conkling. He was chin-deep in the corruption of the times and became a very wealthy man.

The thesis of this biography is that he turned over a new leaf when he became president, turning his back on his old machine cronies and trying to reform the spoils system. This was partly in response to letters written to him by a woman who was a stranger to him, who urged him to redeem his reputation while there was still time.

It’s an interesting picture of the man and his times, but I’m not sure I buy that his late turnaround redeemed him.

BOOK REVIEW: Sixty Seconds by Steven Mayfield

In Sixty Seconds by Steven Mayfield, it is one minute till midnight, Central European Time, one minute till 6:00 PM EST, on the eve of V-E day. In sixty seconds, the war with Hitler’s Germany will be over. But the quiet anticipatory lull one might expect is not there. Instead, that last minute is jam-packed with activity and danger.

Mayfield follows the stories of nine people who are experiencing that final minute, waiting for what will come next. He creates a gripping atmosphere of anticipation for the reader.

Farley is a war correspondent, a famous broadcaster, who is narrating the celebration about to erupt in Times Square. 

Selma is an elderly, mentally unstable widow, whose home is inundated with too many cats to count. She has enlisted Riley, a young man who flunked out of basic training, to carry out an assassination when the clock strikes 6:00 in New York.

Jenny is a 15-year-old girl with a remarkable voice and equally remarkable presence. She has been chosen to sing the national anthem to be broadcast worldwide as the clock ticks down. As she sings, she has to keep her mind from drifting to concern for her older brother, a gunner in the Air Force, who is still overseas and still in danger until the cease-fire takes effect.

Jimmy is Jenny’s brother. Although warned by his commander not to wander off the air field after dark, Jimmy continues a nightly walk to stretch his legs and clear his head. 

Stangl is a Nazi through and through. The one-time commander of a death camp, he is now imprisoned after capture by the Americans. He knows he is destined for execution. He is being interrogated by his captors, one of whom, the translator, had been a prisoner in the camp and had been forced to watch while Stengl repeatedly, brutally, raped his wife.

Antoni is the translator. Gosia is his wife. Gosia is now in New York, waiting for him to be able to join her. She is pregnant and her difficult  labor has begun.

And, finally, Zimmer is a German soldier, a reluctant Nazi, who hopes to survive long enough for the cease-fire to take hold. He’s counting on surrendering to the Americans to avoid capture by the Russians. But the closer he gets to safety, the less safe he becomes.

This tightly plotted novel follows the characters in ten second intervals, bringing them all closer and closer to the war’s end, revealing the interconnections between them. With sixty seconds still to go, the war isn’t over yet, and no one will be safe until it is. Deeply drawn characters, high-stakes tension, and a unique structure make this is an enjoyable WWII read.

BOOK REVIEW: Remember That Day by Mary Balogh

I received this book for free from Netgalley. That did not influence this review.

I love Mary Balogh’s historical romances. Her newest release, Remember That Day, brings together the Wares and the Westcotts, families whose courtships are featured in the Ravenswood Series and the Westcott Series. I’ve enjoyed both series and was happy to see them all meet. However, this latest novel is not one of my favorites. 

The premise is wonderful. Nicholas Ware, the second son in the Ware family, has been a soldier since he turned 18. Now in his thirties, with the Napoleonic Wars ended, he is in the Horse Guard. Although traumatized in his youth by the discovery of his father’s infidelity, and thus suspicious of love, he is ready to settle down and start a family. He is close with his commander’s daughter, Grace Haviland, and has decided to propose to her. She’s beautiful and essentially perfect, but she doesn’t stir his heart.

Winifred Cunningham is the adopted daughter of Camille Westcott and Joel Cunningham. She is unattractive. She was abandoned as a baby at an orphanage and has no idea who her parents might have been. Although much of her youth was spent insecure and desperate to be loved, she has matured to be a woman comfortable in her own skin, despite her lack of good looks and the fact that everyone who sets eyes upon her must think or comment upon this lack, often more than once. She, too, has given up on love. However, she is good friends with Owen Ware, who has similar ideas about helping troubled youths, and she has begun to hope he might fall in love with her and propose. Owen is Nicholas’ younger brother.

Nicholas and Winifred meet in London. And then they spend time together at a house party of sorts, where the two families come together, as well as the Havilands. It is more or less expected by all attendees that by the end of the visit, Nicholas will be engaged to Grace and Winifred will be engaged to Owen.

The slow-burn love story is sweet and engaging. The characters are all generous, kind, and understanding. The emotion and interiority is all signature Balogh style. However, too much of the novel is taken up with reminding the reader who all the players are. While it is good to have some of the reminders, the detailed pedigrees and backstories slow the pace and intrude too much on the story. They also make some of the dialogues feel unrealistic. Moreover, readers don’t really need to have every character remind us that Winifred is unattractive. Very few pages go by without someone reminding us of that fact. Even when Nicholas asks Winifred’s adoptive father for her hand, the father finds it hard to believe someone as good-looking as Nicholas could have fallen for his ugly daughter, and essentially says that out loud. I appreciate that Winifred has inner beauty and everyone can see it, but I still get the sense that they all think outer beauty is more important. 

Nevertheless, I still admire Mary Balogh’s romances and will certainly read the next.

BOOK REVIEW: The Air Between Us by Deborah Johnson

The first book for the new year is one that has been on my TBR pile for far too long. The author, Deborah Johnson, taught a class I took...back in 2023!...on writing historical fiction. She’s a great teacher, and I’m annoyed with myself for taking so long to read her work which, of course, I loved!

The Air Between Us is set in small-town Mississippi in the 1960s. It begins with a 10-year-old Black child emergently bringing a poor White man to the local hospital, a gut-shot hunter, a heavy drinker, who had fallen on his own gun. The hospital is owned by the town’s wealthy White surgeon., Dr. Connelly. It has a separate entrance and separate rooms for Black patients, who are treated by the town’s Black surgeon, Reese Jackson. This particular patient has supposedly been brought in just on time, and the surgery is supposed to have been a success. But shortly afterward, the man unexpectedly dies. This is the mystery at the book’s core.

But the answer to the mystery unfolds quietly in the midst of everything else going on, which has more import than one man’s strange death. Times are changing. The town has always been strictly segregated, but now Federal anti-segregation forces are at work. Surprisingly, it is Dr. Connelly who is fighting the hardest for the townfolk to accept integration of the schools. It’s even more surprising because his powerful father, a State Senator, is fiercely racist and has a weekly column in the newspaper where he spouts nastiness to keep the White folks riled.

The novel is written with multiple viewpoints, delving into the conflicts, relationships, and secrets of the townspeople. It deals with racial prejudice, but also class and gender politics. Violence simmers beneath the surface, catching the tensions of the period. And the ending surprised me.

If you like historical fiction, Southern fiction, or mysteries, this book is highly recommended!

BOOK REVIEW: Death on the Doorstep by Mary Lancaster

I received this book for free from Netgalley. That did not influence this review.

I read one more book in 2025. Just released, Death on the Doorstep is the next book in Mary Lancaster’s Silver and Grey historical mystery series. I love this series. The books can all be read as standalones, but the development of the various relationships works best in order.

In this book, Constance Silver (now Mrs. Grey) and Solomon Grey have just returned from their honeymoon. They are ready to get back to work. Solomon is a wealthy shipping magnate. Constance runs a high-class brothel and charitable training school for women who were on the streets but who want to learn more respectable trades. And together, Constance and Solomon run an investigative agency.

Constance has come to check on her “establishment” and finds that there are two dead bodies on the back steps. One is a well-respected gentleman and the other is a consumptive vagrant. From the way the bodies are posed, it looks as though they might have been killed elsewhere and deposited on her stoop.

How did they die? What is the connection between the two, if anything? Or is this part of a ploy to drive Constance and her business out of the neighborhood?

The mystery unfolds at a quick pace as the couple starts from no motive and no suspects to too many suspects and a variety of potential motives. With their signature style and grace, Constance and Solomon solve another mystery while falling ever more deeply in love.

BOOK REVIEW: Sparrow by James Hynes

Sparrow by James Hynes may not have been the best choice for a Christmas read. It’s an intense work of historical fiction, utterly engrossing and terribly depressing.

The narrator, Jacob, is a very old man writing the story of his young life, when he was known, at least to himself, as Sparrow.

Sparrow is an enslaved boy, young but of indeterminate age, in a coastal Roman-controlled Spanish town. His earliest memory is of being in the kitchen of a brothel, hearing a man murdered just outside the barred door. He grows up in that brothel, first put to work in the kitchen, then running errands into town, then working in the tavern associated with the brothel upstairs, and finally, inevitably, in the brothel. As expected from the setting, the book is highly focused on sex, but it is not at all a “steamy” novel. Rather, the sex is brutal, non-consensual, and transactional. The other workers include the cook, the tavern-keeper/bouncer/pimp, and four female prostitutes called “wolves.”

The gritty day-to-day life of the boy is echoed by that of the other slaves, none of whom are considered people by those who are free. Slaves are objects to be used. There are moments of tenderness among the wolves, but they are fleeting and ultimately hopeless. Still, they demonstrate how unbearable lives can be made just a little bit bearable by love.

The novel is immersive. The harsh, vivid details pull the reader into an ugly but very realistic setting. Highly recommended for readers of literary historical fiction, but steel yourself for ugliness. 

BOOK REVIEW: Death at Villa de Lacey by Aviva Orr

I received this book for free from Netgalley. That did not influence this review.

Death at Villa De Lacey by Aviva Orr is the first book in a new Regency mystery series with a budding romance between the sleuths.

Bridget De Lacey has just lost her father in the worst way possible. He took his own life because of insurmountable gambling debts, including the loss of the house in the Lake District where Bridget lives with her aunt. Now they can do nothing but wait until the home is claimed by the man who beat him at cards.

Nate Squires, younger brother of Edward, the Earl of Westerly, has been living a dissolute life, largely to spite his controlling brother. When he refuses to marry the lady of Edward’s choice, his brother threatens to cut off his allowance and strip him of his London home. The only alternative Edward offers is for Nate to leave London to reside in the Lake District villa that he (Edward) won gambling. Resentfully, Nate goes. It isn’t until he arrives at Villa De Lacey that he learns the house is occupied. He isn’t heartless enough to cast out two grieving women, but what is he to do with them?

Bridget suggests a plan. They should renovate the large home into an upscale inn. (Wordsworth’s travel guide to the Lake District has made it a popular spot for tourists.) She will act as hostess to earn her keep.

Unfortunately, the first guests include a few of Nate’s disreputable friends, a couple of nasty, controlling older women, and the young lady Edward wanted Nate to wed. Another guest is an actress/courtesan who is definitely not the type of upscale patron they want at their inn. When it seems things could not be worse, one of the guests is found dead. Was it an accident? Or murder?

As Bridget and Nate join forces to investigate, danger closes in around them.

This is a fine addition to the Regency Mystery genre with a slowly developing romance. It’s a quick read with likable protagonists and an unexpected villain. A wonderful set-up for the series.