George Cautley, a young gentleman of in­dif­fer­ent background, comes to London in 1770 and attempts to enter society, hoping to make his way as a painter. He becomes obsessed with Lady Beauclair, who sits for her portrait and spins him a tale of a castrato opera singer, who fifty years earlier fled Italy for London.

Lady Beauclair is not what she seems. Indeed, nothing is what it seems in this novel. Everything is a mask. Or a masquerade. Arch whispers. Veiled glances. Layers of face paint hiding blemishes. New portraits daubed on top of old. Deception. Intrigue.

In 1845, Sir John Franklin led an expedition to find the fabled Northwest Passage, connecting the Atlantic to the Pacific via the Canadian Arctic. HMS Erebus and HMS Terror were never heard from again. Later rescuers found some notes in a cairn, indicating that the ships had been trapped for a year and a half in the ice, and the crews had finally abandoned ship, making for the south.

Dan Simmons builds a tale of horror from all the known historical facts: the frigid dangers of …continue.

Days before Christmas 1321, a glovemaker is murdered in the cathedral town of Exeter. Sir Baldwin and his friend, Simon Puttock, are asked to in­ves­ti­gate by the Dean of the Cathedral.

Jecks juggles a complex plot with a large cast of characters, and manages to keep them distinct and in­ter­est­ing, while describing the in­ter­sec­tion of cathedral and town life and Christmas rituals in medieval England.

The first book in a trilogy that tells the fictional history of the Templars.

The Order of the Rebirth in Sion is a secret society whose roots go back to Jerusalem before the time of Christ, whose members are drawn from French noble families. When the Pope starts the First Crusade to seize Jerusalem back from the Muslims, a handful of the Order tag along in the hopes of dis­cov­er­ing their order's secrets in the long-lost Temple of Solomon. Under the guise of warrior-monks protecting …continue.

Francesco di Marco Datini was born in Prato in 1335 and died there without an heir in 1410. Prato is a small town in Tuscany, about 10 miles from Florence. Then, as now, Prato was in Florence's shadow. At the age of fifteen with only a few florins to his name, Francesco ap­pren­ticed himself to a merchant in Avignon, then home of the Papal court. Thirty-three years later, he returned to Prato, a wealthy man.

Throughout his career, he was an inveterate letter writer, spending hours a day writing to …continue.

Lola Somerville, Brooklyn author, recently married to geek-hottie Doug (now there's a de­mo­graph­ic I can relate to), and best friend of hipster Annabel, starts tripping over bodies of chick lit writers. Someone is winnowing the chick lit best­sellers list and Lola feels compelled to find the killer.

This gentle parody is a cross between chick lit and Nancy Drew. Although happily married, Lola is as insecure and neurotic as ever. No longer worried about getting Mr. Perfect, she's more concerned about whether she's ready for a baby and whether her …continue.

Laurie R. King is best known for two series of detective novels. One stars Kate Martinelli, an SFPD inspector living in present-day San Francisco with her lesbian partner, Lee, and their young daughter, Nora. The other is set in the 1920s and is written in the voice of Mary Russell, the young wife of the still-active sex­a­ge­nar­i­an, Sherlock Holmes.

Here, King ties both series together. Martinelli in­ves­ti­gates the murder of Philip Gilbert, the doyen of the local Sher­lock­ians, who recently came across a manuscript that seems to have been …continue.

The Accusers is one of the more recent titles in Lindsey Davis's long-running series about Marcus Didius Falco, an informer (private detective) in ancient Rome. Davis's prose is slyly witty with an occasional leavening of snark.

Falco and Associates look into the death of a senator who committed suicide after being convicted of corruption. Was it really suicide? A com­pli­cat­ed courtroom drama ensues.

On a par with other books in the series. En­ter­tain­ing, amusing, and plenty of plot twists.

After reading Doomsday Book, I decided that I wanted to know more about the Black Death. And I learned a great deal from Ziegler's book.

The Black Death killed one-third of the population of Europe between 1347 and 1350. It was hugely traumatic for the people of the time, with their profound ignorance of medicine and science, and it was widely viewed as a punishment from God.

Ziegler spends the first few chapters showing how the plague affected Italy, France, Germany, and other European nations, but most of the book …continue.

This is the tenth of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin novels, and it provides much of the basis for the film Master and Commander.

During the War of 1812, Captain Jack Aubrey is sent in pursuit of an American frigate, which has sailed around Cape Horn into the Pacific to seize British whalers in the South Seas. Aubrey and his good friend, the surgeon Stephen Maturin, overcome many obstacles during the pursuit: the ship is badly damaged at one point, crew members are murdered, and Aubrey and Maturin …continue.