Her entry begins:
I read a lot for nonfiction to research for my own novels, but as I was putting together this list of “other books,” I realized I’m the reader equivalent of a lemming, easily led! These are some of my favorites over the past few months.About An Artful Dodge, from the publisher:
Elena Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend (trans. from the Italian)
My friend Filiz recommended this book so highly that I bought it. For a year I took it down off my shelf, read the first twenty or thirty pages, and put it back, several times. I just couldn’t get into it—and then recently, I pulled it down to give it one more try and read it in two days. Some books are like that. This novel, the first of four in the Neopolitan Novels, begins with Elena receiving a phone call that sets her to committing to paper all her memories of her childhood friend Lila, beginning with their childhoods in rough-and-tumble 1950s Naples, Italy. In her own mind, Elena is the more “ordinary” of the two, studious and rather plain; her friend Lila is beautiful, fierce, and fearless. By the end, it becomes clear that Lila views Elena differently. The narrative style is unusual—although purportedly written by an adult recalling her childhood, much of it reads almost like a teenage girl’s journal, almost as if she has slipped back into her teenage self, complete with changeful emotions, dramatic utterances, actions driven by whim, and shifting allegiances. But once I let myself sink in, I was absorbed in the world, with the feeling of shifting ground under my feet and violence always...[read on]
Victorian London comes to vivid life in this riveting heist novel about an all-female thieving gang and one young woman’s heroic plan to escape a life of crime, from the USA Today bestselling author of Down a Dark River.Visit Karen Odden's website.
She’s stolen gems, purses, and hearts—but can she steal her life back from the ring of thieves that’s claimed it?
London, 1879: Twenty-year-old Kit Jimeson has fingers so nimble she can nick a necklace off a lady in a crowded theater without raising alarm.Kit and her dodge partner, Mary, are the highest earners in the notorious all-women thieving ring in South London’s Elephant and Castle district.
Kit, whose mother had been a thief before her, dreams of a different life, one where she’s not constantly on the lookout for constables and plainclothes detectives, and where a mistake or pure bad luck won’t land her in the hangman’s noose. She has been saving her earnings so her younger sister, a maid for a wealthy Mayfair family, might have a shot at respectability.
Kit is very close to leaving the life entirely when the legendary former thief Maggie O’Connell brings her plans to a halt. Beautiful, charismatic Maggie has returned to reclaim leadership of the ring after twenty years in a brutal Australian penal colony. But Maggie desires more than mere wealth or power: She longs for revenge against those who sent her away. Kit, with her quick mind and dangerously clever hands, is Maggie’s best weapon. If Kit wants to walk away with her life, she must carry out a heist that will demand every skill she possesses.
Coffee with a Canine: Karen Odden and Rosy.
The Page 69 Test: A Lady in the Smoke.
My Book, The Movie: A Lady in the Smoke.
My Book, The Movie: A Dangerous Duet.
The Page 69 Test: A Dangerous Duet.
Writers Read: Karen Odden (January 2020).
Q&A with Karen Odden.
My Book, The Movie: Down a Dark River.
The Page 69 Test: Down a Dark River.
My Book, The Movie: Under a Veiled Moon.
The Page 69 Test: Under a Veiled Moon.
Writers Read: Karen Odden (October 2022).
Writers Read: Karen Odden.
--Marshal Zeringue
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