Pomegranate Soup - Marsha Mehran
                        Debut

#2019AtoZChallenge - P
#MonthlyMotifChallenge - Diversity

I enjoyed this one and the Middle Eastern dishes that were talked about made me very hungry,  especially for baklava!!!!

Anyway, 3 sister escape Iran at the time of the revolution and take with them a terrible secret.  They end up in a small village in Ireland where they open a wonderful Iranian cafe.  At first, everyone is very suspicious and wary of them but the smells and tastes of their food work magic on the myriad of villagers .  Like Thomas, the local bar owner and town bully,  Danny, the shy grocer who believes in fairies, the Donnelly twins who always causes mischief,  Dervala, the housebound gossip,  just to name a few.

But is their past going to catch up with them?   And what will they do if it does?
.

Underground River - Martha Conway
      New Author

#2019AtoZChallenge - "U"

I enjoyed this historical fiction about a young girl, May, who is blackmailed into helping runaways get across the Ohio River.  May works as a seamstress aboard a theater boat and is in the perfect situation to help the young women who want their babies get to the free state of Ohio.  But can May do this???  She is a young naive woman who is very prone to telling the truth.  Now she has a very BIG secret to keep from her fellow actors aboard the theater barge.

I was very nervous a couple of times for May as she is attempting to help the runaways.  Her life is in danger for doing so.     I gave it 4 stars.

Here is a portion of the review on GoodReads::

As May’s secrets become more tangled and harder to keep, the Floating Theatre readies for its biggest performance yet. May’s predicament could mean doom for all her friends on board, including her beloved Hugo, unless she can figure out a way to trap those who know her best.

The Map of Salt and Stars by Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar

Historical Fiction
2019 A to Z Challenge - "M"
2019 June Motif - Diversify Your Reading
Color Coded Challenge - Blue

Such a captivating and timely book about Syrian refugees.  I say timely, yet the Syrian Civil War has been waging for 8 years now.  As modern-day Americans I don't think we truly appreciate the safety of not having had a war waged in our country, on our home soil.  And as such we've never experienced the fear and heartbreak of being a refugee.  There is an incredible misunderstanding of these people (refugees), whom love their countries, their traditions, their comforts of home but are forced to flee; a choice between life and death.

This book has been compared to the Kite Runner and I agree - yet this being a female version. The descriptions of the Middle East in both the present day (2011) and the 12th C are beautiful and daunting.  I enjoyed both stories (the struggles of the refugee family and the mythical journey of the mapmaker's apprentice) equally and how they crossed paths along the map.

Summary from Goodreads:  The story of two girls living eight hundred years apart—a modern-day Syrian refugee seeking safety and a medieval adventurer apprenticed to a legendary mapmaker.

When a shell destroys Nour’s house and almost takes her life, she and her family are forced to choose: stay and risk more violence or flee as refugees across seven countries of the Middle East and North Africa in search of safety.  More than eight hundred years earlier, Rawiya, sixteen disguises herself as a boy named Rami, she becomes an apprentice to al-Idrisi, who has been commissioned to create a map of the world.  Rawiya embarks on an epic journey across the Middle East and the north of Africa where she encounters ferocious mythical beasts, epic battles, and real historical figures.

The Poe Shadow by Matthew Pearl

"P" Author
2019 A to Z Challenge - "P"

I read The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl long enough ago that I don't recall anything more than I did like it, but felt it was a bit more literary and challenging than what I currently read.  The Poe Shadow felt the same way.  Though I had a hard time staying connected to it (and reading some reviews, I'm not the only one).  The premise is enticing: the real life mystery of Poe's death (which was as odd as his life and his stories) being fictionally solved.  Yet, the story dragged and the end of the story - Colombo/Sherlock style of dodging all the red herrings to get to the summarizing of all the evidence was mind-numbing.

I'm not giving up on Pearl as I have The Last Dickens on my shelf.

Summary from Goodreads:  Baltimore, 1849. The body of Edgar Allan Poe has been buried in an unmarked grave. The public, the press, and even Poe’s own family and friends accept the conclusion that Poe was a second-rate writer who met a disgraceful end as a drunkard. Everyone, in fact, seems to believe this except a young Baltimore lawyer named Quentin Clark, an ardent admirer who puts his own career and reputation at risk in a passionate crusade to salvage Poe’s.

As Quentin explores the puzzling circumstances of Poe’s demise, he discovers that the writer’s last days are riddled with unanswered questions the police are possibly willfully ignoring. Just when Poe’s death seems destined to remain a mystery, and forever sealing his ignominy, inspiration strikes Quentin–in the form of Poe’s own stories. The young attorney realizes that he must find the one person who can solve the strange case of Poe’s death: the real-life model for Poe’s brilliant fictional detective character, C. Auguste Dupin, the hero of ingenious tales of crime and detection.

In short order, Quentin finds himself enmeshed in sinister machinations involving political agents, a female assassin, the corrupt Baltimore slave trade, and the lost secrets of Poe’s final hours. With his own future hanging in the balance, Quentin Clark must turn master investigator himself to unchain his now imperiled fate from that of Poe’s.
Quotes:  "'Our practice is awfully interesting at times....A lawyer in ancient Rome...swore never to defend a cause unless he thought it was just.  We take case if their pay is just'"

"'Monsieur, the French girl possesses no freedom.  In America a girl is free and honored for her independence until she is married.  In France, the tables are turned. She is only free once she marries - and then with a freedom never to be imagined....'"

     The Redeemer - Jo Nesbo
             Series

I actually enjoyed this Harry Hole book!  Either I am finally getting used to Mr. Nesbo's writing style or the notes I took at the beginning help me not get so lost.

In "The Redeemer" a hit man kills the wrong man.  Uh, oh!!!   That is never good!!!!   So we need to help Harry find this hit man, find out who hired him, why they hired him and who is the real target .  All the time, hoping Harry will stay sober,  yes folks,  Harry is sober.  But will he fall off the wagon??   Always a worry when dealing with Harry!! 

Part of the review from GoodReads::
Christmas shoppers stop to hear a Salvation Army concert on a crowded Oslo street. A gunshot cuts through the music and the bitter cold: one of the singers falls dead, shot in the head at point-blank range. Harry Hole—the Oslo Police Department’s best investigator and worst civil servant—has little to work with: no suspect, no weapon, and no motive. But Harry’s troubles will multiply. As the search closes in, the killer becomes increasingly desperate, and Harry’s chase takes him to the most forbidden corners of the former Yugoslavia