Wow, what a good book!  It has a bit of everything,  suspense, mystery, black history, social injustice.  A must read at this time .

A community in Brooklyn is being gentrified but in doing so most of the oldest people living in the community are being forced out. Many are being bought out but some are just disappearing.  Very disturbing and upsetting that the black community is still being treated this way.!!!

 When No One Is Watching by Alyssa Cole

Newest Book on TBR

Wow! What an amazing read! Suspense with a little horror, little romance, historical fiction and modern fiction. A must read for today's times especially if one is seeking to understand systemic racism and see society through a different lens.

Summary from Goodreads: Sydney Green is Brooklyn born and raised, but her beloved neighborhood seems to change every time she blinks. Condos are sprouting like weeds, FOR SALE signs are popping up overnight, and the neighbors she’s known all her life are disappearing. To hold onto her community’s past and present, Sydney channels her frustration into a walking tour and finds an unlikely and unwanted assistant in one of the new arrivals to the block—her neighbor Theo.

But Sydney and Theo’s deep dive into history quickly becomes a dizzying descent into paranoia and fear. Their neighbors may not have moved to the suburbs after all, and the push to revitalize the community may be more deadly than advertised.

 Close Your Eyes by Amanda Eyre Ward

2020 Key Word Challenge - September (Star, Cry, She, Window, Forever, Eye)
"W" Author

There was nothing overly remarkable about this book, it was just a well-crafted mystery. Exactly the kind of read I needed at this time after some heavy reads and living in a world of chaos.

Summary from Goodreads: For most of her life, Lauren has been certain of two things: that her mother is dead, and that her father is a murderer.

...one morning, six-year-old Lauren and eight-year-old Alex awoke after a night spent in their tree house to discover their mother’s body and their beloved father arrested for the murder.

Years later, Lauren is surrounded by uncertainty. Her one constant is Alex, always her protector, still trying to understand the unraveling of his idyllic childhood. But Lauren feels even more alone when Alex reveals that he’s been in contact over the years with their imprisoned father—and that he believes he and his sister have yet to learn the full story of their mother’s death. Then Alex disappears.

 Where the Forest Meets the Stars - Glendy Vanderah                                                       Debut

Lovely playful characters with some light humor mixed in.  Just a nice enjoyable read..  Just what I needed at this time.

Jo and Gabe,  who are struggling with life's experiences and personal secrets' bond over the appearance of a mysterious little girl. Ursa.

Ursa just seems to appear one night at the edge of the forest near the cabin Jo has rented to do her bird research.  Ursa says she is from the stars and will return after she sees 5 miracles.  But who is she really and what secret is she hiding.

 Coriolanus by William Shakespeare

Shakespeare Project 2020

I really enjoyed this one, possibly because of the timelessness of the themes: pride, power, class, war.

Coriolanus is a war hero who rises to political power, but shows great disdain for the people of Rome and once banished he sides with Rome's enemy who has declared war.

The people had every reason to mistrust the body politic (as we still do today):

I.1 First Citizen: "They ne'er cared for us yet....repeal daily any wholesome act established against the rich, and provide more piercing statutes daily to chain up and restrain the poor."

As well as politicians and nobles:

II.3. Brutus: "...He did solicit you in free contempt

When he did need your loves; and do you think

That his contempt shall not be bruising to you

When he hath power to crush?"

An interesting commentary on war:

IV.5 Second Servant: "...This peace is nothing but to rust iron, increase

tailors, and breed ballad-makers."

First Servant: "Let me have war...it exceeds peace as 

far as day does night; it's spritely, waking, audible, and

full of vent. Peace is a very apoplexy, lethargy; mull'd,

deaf, sleepy, insensible; a getter of more bastard children

than war's a destroyer of men."

Second Servant: "...and as war in some sort may be

said to be a ravisher, so it cannot be denied but peace is

a great maker of cuckolds."

First Servant: "Ay, and it makes men hate one another."

Second Servant: "Reason: because they then less need one another."

Coriolanus can only be swayed by his powerful mother, Volumnia:

IV.2  Menenius:"...You'll sup with me?"

Volumnia: "Anger's my meat..."

V.3 Coriolanus: "...it is not little thing to make

Mine eyes to sweat compassion."

And of course, I love a good Shakespeare insult:

I.8 Marcius: "...for I do hate thee

Worse than a promise-breaker."

I.1 Marcius: "What's the matter, you dissentious rogues

That, rubbing the poor itch of your opinion,

Make yourself scabs?"

III.1. Coriolanus: "Hence rotten thing! or I shall shake thy bones

Out of thy garments."

 The September Society - Charles Finch                                                                                           Guilty Pleasure

There was a lot of the history of Oxford ,which for me became rather boring, oh & history of England' Parliament.   We finally stumble across the September Society h is a secret military old-boys club.  

I did not care for this particular story line, maybe because I do not live in London but I still like Charles Lennox, his man Graham and his lady friend, Lady Jane. 

 Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare 

Shakespeare Project 2020

I recall liking Mark Antony a whole lot better in Julius Caesar than I did here. And Cleopatra....man, is she complex! Manipulative, whiny, independent, cunning, cruel. 

I.5 Cleopatra: "My salad days,

When I was green in judgment, cold in blood

To say as I said then."

II.5 Cleopatra: "Thou shalt be whipp'd with wire and stew'd in brine,

Smarting in ling'ring pickle."

As always, some very poignant lines written by the Bard. I think I've heard this in a song??

II.1 Menecrates: "We, ignorant of ourselves,

Beg often our own harms, which the wise pow'rs

Deny us for our good; so find we profit

by losing of our prayers."

And funny, er misogynistic.

IV.2 Enobarbus: "What mean you, sir,

To give them this discomfort? Look, they weep;

And I, an ass, am onion-ey'd. For shame!

Transform us not to women."

And what a tragedy, not only the play itself, but also the true story of Antony and Cleopatra

IV.9 Enobarbus: "O sovereign mistress of true melancholy,

The poisonous damp of night disponge upon me,

That life, a very rebel to my will,

May hang no longer on me. Throw my heart

Against the flint and hardness of my fault,

Which, being dried with grief, will break to powder..."

V.1 Caesar: "The breaking of so great a thing should make

A greater crack. The round world

Should have shook lions into civil streets

And citizens to their dens. The death of Antony

Is not a single doom;...

  

 An Artless Demise by Anna Lee Huber

Series

Back to one of my favorite sleuthing couples, Lady Darby and Sebastian Gage! This one was made even the more intriguing by the actual historical inclusion of the 1831 London Burkers (body snatchers).

Having listened to an interview with Ms. Huber, she puts in great effort to ensure her novels are historically accurate in using language and describing dress and setting for the time period.

This is such a fun series to follow and even this cynic enjoys the romance between Lady Darby and Gage.