What Should I Read Next? – Dec. edition

Ok, so I’m trying something new this month. I actually just spotted this over on Musings of a Bookish Kitty’s site this morning. I’ve seen her do this in the past, but I never took the time to actually follow back to the original owner and figure it all out. Today I decided to do just that. And here I am, ready to participate!

So the basics of this is to post three TBR books along with a poll for you guys to decide for me which book to read next! And then post the review by the end of the month. Easy peasy, right?! I’m looking forward to giving it a shot! I’ve really been feeling a historical fiction lately …. so here’s what I’ve got for you today:

The Empty Glass by J.I. Baker
Published July 19, 2012
336 pages — not going to lie, I’m a Kennedy junkie, and that extends to Ms. Monroe also, so I picked this book up based on that alone. 

In the early-morning hours of August 5, 1962, Los Angeles County deputy coroner Ben Fitzgerald arrives at the home of the world’s most famous movie star, now lying dead in her bedroom. There he discovers The Book of Secrets—Marilyn Monroe’s diary—revealing a doomed love affair with a man she refers to only as “The General.” In the following days, Ben unravels a cover-up that implicates the Kennedys, the Mafia, and the CIA. Soon the sinister and surreal accounts recorded in The Book bleed into Ben’s own life, and he finds himself trapped—like Monroe—in a deepening paranoid conspiracy. A knockout combination of fact and legend, The Empty Glass is a riveting debut thriller.

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The Yard by Alex Grecian (Scotland Yard’s Murder Squad #1)
Published January 1, 2012
422 pages — this was an impulse order off of Paperbackswap earlier this year … but it sounds really intriguing! 

Victorian London is a cesspool of crime, and Scotland Yard has only twelve detectives—known as “The Murder Squad”—to investigate countless murders every month. Created after the Metropolitan Police’s spectacular failure to capture Jack the Ripper, The Murder Squad suffers rampant public contempt. They have failed their citizens. But no one can anticipate the brutal murder of one of their own . . . one of the twelve . . .When Walter Day, the squad’s newest hire, is assigned the case of the murdered detective, he finds a strange ally in the Yard’s first forensic pathologist, Dr. Bernard Kingsley. Together they track the killer, who clearly is not finished with The Murder Squad . . . but why?

Filled with fascinating period detail, and real historical figures, this spectacular debut in a new series showcases the depravity of late Victorian London, the advent of criminology, and introduces a stunning new cast of characters sure to appeal to fans of The Sherlockian and The Alienist.

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Mr. Churchill’s Secretary by Susan Elia MacNeal (Maggie Hope #1)
Published January 1, 2012
358 pages — I am probably the last person on the planet to have read this book …. but it sounds really good!

London, 1940. Winston Churchill has just been sworn in, war rages across the Channel, and the threat of a Blitz looms larger by the day. But none of this deters Maggie Hope. She graduated at the top of her college class and possesses all the skills of the finest minds in British intelligence, but her gender qualifies her only to be the newest typist at No. 10 Downing Street. Her indefatigable spirit and remarkable gifts for codebreaking, though, rival those of even the highest men in government, and Maggie finds that working for the prime minister affords her a level of clearance she could never have imagined—and opportunities she will not let pass. In troubled, deadly times, with air-raid sirens sending multitudes underground, access to the War Rooms also exposes Maggie to the machinations of a menacing faction determined to do whatever it takes to change the course of history.

Ensnared in a web of spies, murder, and intrigue, Maggie must work quickly to balance her duty to King and Country with her chances for survival. And when she unravels a mystery that points toward her own family’s hidden secrets, she’ll discover that her quick wits are all that stand between an assassin’s murderous plan and Churchill himself.

In this daring debut, Susan Elia MacNeal blends meticulous research on the era, psychological insight into Winston Churchill, and the creation of a riveting main character,  Maggie Hope, into a spectacularly crafted novel.

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Can I just say real quick that when I went through and picked these off my shelf, I had no idea they were all published in 2012? Strange coincidence! Anyhow …. here’s the poll: