The Best Book I Read This Month: The Pearl Thief by Elizabeth Wein

I had a hard time getting back into reading this month, what with all the house sale/moving drama going on at the moment. I usually manage a book a week, roughly, but in the past 5-6 weeks, I’ve read a grand total of 2 books. Thankfully, one of them was a spectacular read: The Pearl Thief by Elizabeth Wein. 

The Pearl Thief is a prequel to Code Name Verity, one of my all-time favorite books. I love and adore Verity, and I was worried Pearl Thief wouldn’t live up to the promise of its sister. Thankfully, it did. I was just as swept away as when I read Verity.

Code Name Verity is the story of two friends, Queenie and Maddie, as their friendship develops and is tested during World War II, when one of them is captured by the Nazis. Each friend narrates half the book, so we get the story from two different perspectives. It's a stunning work, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

The Pearl Thief tells the story of Queenie's life before the war--when she's a teenager in Scotland in the 1930s. She's just as high-spirited, this time teaming up with local Travellers to solve a murder mystery on her grandfather's old estate. (That sounds far more Nancy Drew than it really is.) We even find out how she came to be known as Queenie.

The book combines three of my favorite things: a mystery, Scotland, and Julia Beaufort-Stuart (Queenie). It's a fun read, far more escapist than Code Name Verity, but a worthy companion, nonetheless.

A Wink and a Smile E-book is Available!

Publication day is here! The A Wink and a Smile anthology, which contains one of my short stories, is available in e-book format. (For those of you who, like me, prefer printed books, a paperback version will be available in a few weeks.)

Here's the blurb:

IN THIS READ ON THE Run title, we present eighteen romances. Not love stories, although some of them do include aspects of that. But whereas love stories are often sad, each of the selections in A Wink and a Smile has either a “happily-ever-after” ending, or at least a strong suggestion that this is where the characters are heading.
That doesn’t mean these tales all sound the same; to the contrary, we’ve found quite a diverse collection of romances. Yes, there are some traditional romances, and there’s a healthy handful of budding romances, but you will also find a story set in the future, and a couple of fantasy tales. You will find stories of pastries, and candies, of young lovers and old. You will meet several matchmakers and you’ll see couples reconcile, and there are even a few stories that will make you laugh.
As always, each story in the Read on the Run series of anthologies is short, to suit your busy lifestyle.

Click the button below the cover image to buy your copy!

A Wink and a Smile (Read on the Run) Buy on Amazon

Cover Reveal!

The anthology that will contain my short story "The Wheels on the Bus" doesn't yet have an official publication date, but it must be coming up soon. Smoking Pen Press, the publisher, has shared the cover art:

Ch-ch-changes

I won’t have a “Best Book I Read This Month” for this month. I’ve been too busy to get in much reading, but it was a worthy sacrifice.

FOR SALE: one gently used townhouse 

I’ve been working toward selling my house for the last four or five years. On Friday, it finally went on the market. Townhomes in this area have been selling within 2-3 weeks of listing, so I'm hopeful mine will to. With any luck, I’ll be in my new place—in this same area but one better suited to my work-from-home life—sometime this summer.

And that’s not the only change. This week also brought a new addition: a 7-lb chihuahua named Penny.

I’ve wanted to get a sister for Duncan for a while. It just took a few months to find one he’d tolerate. Penny is 2 years old and originally from Texas. She was transferred to a rescue here in Illinois back in August.

So far, Duncan’s insisted that she keep her distance but there are signs that they will end up becoming friends.

Sign #1: tag-team begging. Penny was here less than hour before I started making dinner. I fed both dogs first and then began preparing my own meal. I was closely supervised the whole time. I suspect I will never cook or eat alone again.

Sign #2: the truce. Even during Penny's home visit, Duncan didn't want her near him. If she jumped up on the chair he was sitting in, he growled at her. If she approached him on the sofa, he growled at her. As long as she wasn't in or near his space, he was fine.

Then I came downstairs after my shower and found them sitting almost-together on the sofa. Duncan still growled at Penny if she tried to peek over the sofa cushion, but he let her curl near him on the pillow. That's pretty good progress for only a couple of hours.

The Best Book I Read This Month: Among the Ruins by Ausma Zehanat Khan

The best book I read this month was the third book in my new favorite mystery series. The series, by Ausma Zehanat Khan, centers on Inspector Esa Khattak of the Toronto police and his junior partner, Rachel Getty. Khattak and Getty make up the Community Policing division, their purpose is to serve as liaisons between the police and Toronto's Muslim community. Khattak, who is Muslim himself, struggles to balance the requirements of his job with his faith. That struggle is part of what makes him such a compelling character.

Each book in the series (so far) has focused on a different aspect of Muslim history or experience. The first book, The Unquiet Dead, builds a mystery around the Bosnia genocide of the 1990s. The second, The Language of Secrets, focuses on the radicalization of Muslims. The third book, Among the Ruins, transplants Khattak to Iran, where he encounters the Green Movement and the nation's oppressive regime as he tries to unravel the truth about the death of an Iranian-Canadian filmmaker.

It's not necessary to read the first two books in order to follow the action of Among the Ruins. The story is self-contained and stands on its own. Most of what the reader needs to know from the previous books, Khan summarizes here. She also shares enough about Iranian history for the reader to understand the socio-political context of the story and historical sites where the action plays out. The mystery, itself, was satisfying, well-plotted with plenty of twists and turns and not quite going where I'd expected it to go.

The Shah Mosque and Naqsh-e Jahan Square in Esfahan, Iran, where Esa Khattak spends most of Among the Ruins. Photo by Murchundra/iStock / Getty Images

Most of Khattak's part of the story takes place in Esfahan (Isfahan), a beautiful city that is home to Naqsh-e Jahan Square and the Shah Mosque. I very much enjoyed getting to "visit" such a historic city, since I'll likely never be able to visit it in real life.

This whole series, in general, has made me realize how prevalent the trope of "Muslim as villain/terrorist" has infiltrated our entertainment. Nearly every TV show I watch--and those I don't--fall prey to this mindset. It's in our political discourse and our news coverage. And it does a huge disservice to the Muslim community. As Khan's series illustrates, the Muslim community, like any other community, has its share of heroes and victims and bystanders and yes, villains, too. And I think we could do with more works of art--books, films, television shows--that depict this reality instead of falling for the easy stereotype.