Meg's Picks: February 2019, part 1

Fiction is full of history and high-rises next month. Here are a few of my picks!

The Age of Light, by Whitney Scharer. Part love story, part coming of age tale, Scharer's debut it set across the backdrop of glamorous 1930's Paris and later, the devastation of World War II. Vogue model turned photographer Lee Miller moves to Paris to reinvent herself. There she meets surrealist artist and photographer Man Ray, where she becomes his student, his lover and his muse. Even as they mingle through the opium dens and smoky bars that cater to the day's art-world elite, Miller slowly begins to pull away, making a name for herself, much to her lover's jealous rage. Historical fiction fans are already beginning to line up for this, myself among them.

More Than Words, by Jill Santopolo. Santopolo's bestselling 2017 novel, The Light We Lost, has been a reader favorite, and is in development for film. So it's only natural that her newest novel is generating buzz already. Heiress Nina Gregory grieves for the perfect and successful father she idolized, but in the aftermath of his death, Nina begins to uncover the disastrous secrets he had been keeping from her. Knowing that she was meant to carry on the family business running luxury hotels, she finds herself torn between duty and desire, expectations and aspirations. How can she trust anything or anyone when the man she trusted most has let her down so completely? I'm recommending this to readers who like romance and drama with some substance.

The Huntress, by Kate Quinn. Recommended for readers of The Tattooist of Auschwitz and Quinn's previous book, The Alice Network. In post-war Europe, Nazi hunters and a former Russian bomber pilot search for Nazi war criminal Lorelei Vogt,aka The Huntress, who committed unspeakable atrocities during the last days of World War II before vanishing. The trail leads from Poland to the United States, where in Boston a young woman welcomes her widowed father's new bride, an Austrian refugee named Annelise, with more than a little suspicion. How long will it take to track down the Huntress? And what will happen when they do? Also available in Large Print.