I surprisingly only have one non-fiction recommendation. I can hardly believe it. However, I have two mysteries below and they are very different from one another.
Colton Gentry’s Third Act
For readers who prefer their romantic plots to be fraught with emotions! An aging country music star moves back to his hometown to deal with his grief.
“A story of love, healing, and second chances ” (Emily Henry) following a down on his luck country musician who, in the throes of grief after a shocking loss, moves back home and rekindles a relationship with his high school sweetheart, from award-winning author Jeff Zentner.
Colton Gentry is riding high. His first hit in nearly a decade has caught fire, he’s opening for country megastar Brant Lucas, and he’s married to one of the hottest acts in the country. But he’s hurting. Only a few weeks earlier, his best friend, Duane, was murdered onstage by a mass shooter at a country music festival. One night, with his trauma festering and Jim Beam flowing through his veins, Colton stands before a sold-out arena crowd of country music fans and offers his unfiltered opinion on guns. It goes over poorly.
Immediately, his career and marriage implode. Left with few choices or funds, he retreats to his rural Kentucky hometown. He’s resigned himself to has-been-dom, until a chance encounter at his town’s new farm-to-table restaurant gives him a second shot at a job working in the kitchen with Luann, his first love, who has undergone her own reinvention. Told through perspectives alternating between his senior year of high school, his time coming up with Duane as hungry musicians in Nashville, and the present, COLTON GENTRY’S THIRD ACT is a story of coming home, undoing past heartbreaks, and navigating grief, and is a reminder that there are next acts in life, no matter how unlikely they may seem.
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Glamorous Notions
If you read and enjoyed Who is Maud Dixon by Alexandra Andrews and love an Old Hollywood setting, check this one out.
A costume designer’s past casts a long shadow over her well-constructed lies in this intriguing story about stolen identities, friendship, and betrayal from the author of A Splendid Ruin and A Dangerous Education.
Hollywood, 1955. As head costume designer for Lux Pictures, Lena Taylor hears startling confessions from the biggest movie stars. She knows how to keep their secrets—after all, none of their scandals can match her own.
Lena was once Elsie Gruner, the daughter of an Ohio dressmaker. Her gift for fashion design helped her win a coveted spot at an art academy in Rome. While in Italy, she became enthralled by the charismatic Julia, who drew her into a shadowy world of jazz clubs, code words, and mysterious deliveries. When one of Julia’s intrigues ended in murder, Elsie found herself in the middle of a bewildering sinister international plot. So she ran.
After fleeing to LA, Elsie became Lena—but she’s never stopped looking over her shoulder. Now, as her engagement to a screenwriter throws her into the spotlight, she’s terrified her façade won’t hold up. Will she figure out the truth about her past before everything falls apart?
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Inventing the Renaissance
This was another Kelly Faircloth IG recommendation. If you aren’t following her yet, I highly suggest it.
An irreverent new take on the Renaissance, which reveals it as anything but Europe’s golden age.
From the darkness of a plagued and war-torn Middle Ages, the Renaissance (we’re told) heralds the dawning of a new world—a halcyon age of art, prosperity, and rebirth. Hogwash! or so says award-winning novelist and historian Ada Palmer. In Inventing the Renaissance, Palmer turns her witty and irreverent eye on the fantasies we’ve told ourselves about Europe’s not-so-golden age, myths she sets right with sharp clarity.
Palmer’s Renaissance is altogether desperate. Troubled by centuries of conflict, she argues, Europe looked to a long-lost Roman Empire (even its education practices) to save them from unending war. Later historians met their own political challenges with a similarly nostalgic vision, only now they looked to the Renaissance and told a partial story. To right this wrong, Palmer offers fifteen provocative portraits of Renaissance men and women (some famous, some obscure) whose lives reveal a far more diverse, fragile, and wild Renaissance than its glowing reputation suggests.
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Three Bags Full
We’ve had a string of mysteries with animal POVs lately and this mystery (originally published in German) is getting a fancy new US paperback release. Apparently an adaptation with Hugh Jackman and Emma Thompson is in the works. Will they be voicing the sheep?
This funny, surprising, and internationally bestselling mystery features a new breed of detectives you’ve got to read to baaaaa-lieve.
The deluxe edition paperback will feature bonus content and hits shelves 20 years after its original release.
Something is not right with George the shepherd. His sheep have gathered around him on a hill outside the cozy Irish village of Glennkill to assess the situation. George has cared for the sheep, reading them books every night, and now he lies pinned to the ground with a spade. His flock, far savvier about the workings of the human mind than your average sheep, set out to find George’s killer, led by Miss Maple, the smartest sheep in Glennkill (and possibly the world).
Her team of investigators includes Othello, the “bad-boy” of the group; Mopple the Whale, a merino who eats a lot and remembers everything; and Zora, a thoughtful, if gloomy, ewe—just to name a few. Together, the sheep engage in nightlong discussions about the crime and their speculations vary wildly. Determined to get to the bottom of the mystery, they embark on furtive missions into the village, where they encounter some likely suspects. There’s Ham, the terrifying butcher; Rebecca, the secretive village newcomer; Gabriel, the shady shepherd of a strange flock; and Father Will, a sinister priest.
With wit and heart, this clever international bestseller is a mystery to chew on—and savor.
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