SWEEPING HISTORICAL ROMANCE of an American heiress and an English duke has old-fashioned Whartonesque charm.

JOAN DIDION’S LATEST memoir is a raw and deeply affecting cry of grief at her daughter’s untimely death.

CRANKY COTSWOLDS SLEUTH Agatha Raisin’s 22nd mystery (!) is engrossing, fresh, and deftly plotted. Hurray!

THOUGHTFUL MEMOIR OF HOMELESSNESS is at its best when revisiting the writer’s terrifyingly chaotic childhood.

ANOTHER CHARMING 1930s mystery for “Her Royal Spyness” as she hits the Riviera with Chanel, Wallis Simpson.

AN OVERVIEW OF SCAMS and con games,  complete with case studies, is highly informative if a bit repetitive.

BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN BIO of Pulitzer-winning playwright Wendy Wasserstein is hampered by its subject’s reserve.

AMUSING CHICK-LIT FLUFF about a family whose women are cursed with romantic disaster never quite takes off.

UNFORGETTABLE, VIVID, POETIC tale of a teenage girl’s hardscrabble Mississippi life as Hurricane Katrina hits.

A TOUGH OLD DETECTIVE surrounded by over-the-top theater types and murders in an historic Bath playhouse. Fun!