Martyr!

Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar is a beautifully told story that encompassed enough to be an epic, but personal enough to be intimate. A masterclass in writing along with a moving story.

Cyrus Shams has always been lost. He’s grown up tangled in the mysteries of his past – an uncle who rode through Iranian battlefields, a haunting work of art by an exiled painter, and his mother, whose plane was shot down over the Persian Gulf when he was just a baby. Now, newly sober and maybe in love, he’s headed for an encounter that will transform everything he thought he knew. Can a final revelation change the truth of Cyrus's life?

Electrifying, funny, and all-consuming, Kaveh Akbar's Martyr! is a masterpiece. Read this book.

Akbar, Kaveh. (2024). Martyr! New York: Random House.

Inside Job (Gabriel Allon #25)

Inside Job by Daniel Silva is the 25th book in the Gabriel Allon series.

Sometimes the only way to recover a stolen masterpiece is to steal it back …

Gabriel Allon has been awarded a commission to restore one of the most important paintings in Venice. But when he discovers the body of a mysterious woman floating in the waters of the Venetian Lagoon, he finds himself in a desperate race to recover a lost masterpiece by Leonardo da Vinci.

The painting, a portrait of a beautiful young girl, has been gathering dust in a storeroom at the Vatican Museums for more than a century, misattributed and hidden beneath a worthless picture by an unknown artist. Because no one knows that the Leonardo is there, no one notices when it disappears one night during a suspicious power outage. No one but the ruthless mobsters and moneymen behind the theft – and the mysterious woman whom Gabriel found in a watery grave in Venice. A woman without a name. A woman without a face.

Silva is a great writer, pulling readers in on the first page and holding them until the last. 

Silva, Daniel. (2025). Inside Job. New York: Harper.

The Original

The Original by Nell Stevens is another brilliant historical novel about art and queerness.

Oxfordshire, 1899. Grace Inderwick grows up on the peripheries of a once-great household, an unwanted guest in her uncle’s home. She has unusual skills and unusual predilections: for painting, though faces elude her; for lurking in the shadows; for other girls.
 
Then a letter arrives, postmarked Saint Helena. After years missing at sea, Grace’s cousin Charles is ready to come home. When Charles returns, unrecognisable and uncanny, a rift emerges between those who claim he is an imposter and Grace’s aunt, who insists he is her son. And Grace, whose intimate knowledge of forgeries is her own closely-guarded secret, must decide who and what to believe in, and what kind of life she wants to live.
 
Deftly-plotted and shimmering with Nell Stevens’s distinctive intelligence, style and wit, The Original is a novel about the value of authenticity in art and in love, and what it means to be a true original.

Stevens is a brilliant writer! Read everything she publishes.

Stevens, Nell. (2025). The Original. New York: W.W. Norton and Co.

The Thirty Names of Night

The Thirty Names of Night by Zeyn Joukhadar is a story set in the Syrian American community in lower Manhattan and Brooklyn. This is a beautifully told story.

Five years after a suspicious fire killed his ornithologist mother, a closeted Syrian American trans boy sheds his birth name and searches for a new one. He has been unable to paint since his mother’s ghost has begun to visit him each evening. As his grandmother’s sole caretaker, he spends his days cooped up in their apartment, avoiding his neighborhood masjid, his estranged sister, and even his best friend (who also happens to be his longtime crush). The only time he feels truly free is when he slips out at night to paint murals on buildings in the once-thriving Manhattan neighborhood known as Little Syria.

One night, he enters the abandoned community house and finds the tattered journal of a Syrian American artist named Laila Z, who dedicated her career to painting the birds of North America. She famously and mysteriously disappeared more than sixty years before, but her journal contains proof that both his mother and Laila Z encountered the same rare bird before their deaths. In fact, Laila Z’s past is intimately tied to his mother’s—and his grandmother’s—in ways he never could have expected. Even more surprising, Laila Z’s story reveals the histories of queer and transgender people within his own community that he never knew. Realizing that he isn’t and has never been alone, he has the courage to officially claim a new name: Nadir, an Arabic name meaning rare.

As unprecedented numbers of birds are mysteriously drawn to the New York City skies, Nadir enlists the help of his family and friends to unravel what happened to Laila Z and the rare bird his mother died trying to save. Following his mother’s ghost, he uncovers the silences kept in the name of survival by his own community, his own family, and within himself, and discovers the family that was there all along. [from Fantastic Fiction]

Joukhadar, Zeyn. (2020). The Thirty Names of Night. New York: Atria Books.

Bunny & Tree

Bunny & Rabbit by Balint Zsako is a stunning wordless picture book. As soon as Bunny and Tree meet they are destined to become family. 

This is gorgeous. Put it at the top of your list for gifts for children, artists or gardeners in your life. 

Amazing!

Zsako, Balint. (2023). Bunny & Rabbit. New York: Enchanted Lion Books.

The Collector (Gabriel Allon #23)

The Collector by Daniel Silva is the 23rd book in the Gabriel Allon series - a Mossad agent who wanted to be a painter. 

Gabriel is now retired and living in Venice with his wife and children. He and Chiara have opened an art restoration company. 

When General Ferrari of the art crime squad show up asking Gabriel to evaluate a painting, Gabriel knows there will be more to it than a simple appraisal. 

What he finds in the home a recently murdered shipping tycoon in Almalfi is a painting that has been missing for decades. A painting stolen from the Isabella Gardener Museum in 1990. 

What follows is classic Allon. Daniel Silva is a master of storytelling, weaving in current events, historical fact and enough suspense to keep you up all night reading. 

Silva, Daniel. (2023). The Collector. New York: Harper. 

Pocketful of Names

Pocketful of Names by Joe Coomer is the story of a tiny island off of Maine, and the family who lives there. 

The Island of Ten Acre No Nine is where great uncle Arno lived and based his lobster fishing. As a teenager Hannah spent her summers helping in the lobster boat for money to help with school during the year. 

While Arno and Hannah do not like many people, they get along well. He teacher her to fish and to live in live in solitude. 

When Hannah is an adult, after Arno dies, the island becomes hers. She plans to use it as a quiet place to work undisturbed. But no long after she moves in, a dog washes up with the tide.

The dog is only the first person who will invade her island - and with each person Hannah will have to adapt to having people to take care of and people who will take care of her.

Coomer has captured the feel of a tiny island in the cold sea. He makes the setting feel both appealing and isolating at the same time. 

Coomer, Joe. (2003). Pocketful of Names. Minneapolis: Graywolf Press.

A Scatter of Light

A Scatter of Light by Malinda Lo is a companion novel to her Last Night at the Telegraph Club - they can be read in either order. 

Aria Tang West is a graduating senior who grew up in Massachusetts. She will be going to MIT in the fall. Her plan is to spend the summer with friends on Martha's Vineyard. Instead, her father sends her to stay with her grandmother in Marin, California. 

Joan West is an artist. Her husband was an astronomer - a path the Aria plans to follow. Her new plan is to study her grandfather's papers while helping her grandmother around the cabin. 

Then she meets Steph who is her grandmother's gardener. Suddenly a who new idea opens up to Aria - the idea that she may be attracted to women, or at least Steph. 

Lo is a masterful storyteller who captures young queer love like few other authors. All of Lo's books are wonderful and should be put on hold at your library today! 

Lo, Malinda. (2022). A Scatter of Light. New York: Dutton Books.

Portrait of an Unknown Woman (Gabriel Allon #22)

Portrait of an Unknown Woman by Daniel Silva is the 22nd book in his Gabriel Allon espionage series.

Gabriel Allon has finally retired from Mossad. His days of traveling the world on secret missions, or even his days of sending others on secret missions, is over. He and Chiara and the twins are moving to Venice where he can concentrate on art.

A few paintings by Old Master have recently been discovered in a private collection - code for likely forged with a small chance of being an authentic lost treasure. 

When an art dealer friend asks for help, Gabriel so be hunting the world's best forger. 

Silva is a great writer and storyteller. Read him!

Silva, Daniel. (2022). Portrait of an Unknown Woman. New York: Harper.

Piranesi

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke is one of my favorite books of the last few years. It is a story that can be read a philosophy, a look at the human condition, or just a beautiful story of the awe people see in the world around them.

The House has hundreds of rooms and vestibules, all filled with statures. All room's statues are different than those of the other rooms. And the House makes up the entirety of the world.

A few rooms have collapse into the sea and become the Drowned Rooms where you can fish, collect seaweed and watch the birds.

Piranesi knows the house. He has explored and mapped his world. He knows the tides that sometimes close off sections. He has made a life with what his world has to offer.

The only other living person in this life, simply called the Other, meets with him twice per week. He is researching a Great and Secret Knowledge. He and Piranesi could not be more different in their approach to life.

This is all I can say without giving too much away. I absolutely love this book. Buy a copy today from your favorite local bookshop. 

Clarke, Susanna. (2020). Piranesi. New York: Bloomsbury.

Tokyo Kill (Jim Brodie #2)

Tokyo Kill by Barry Lancet is the second book in his Jim Brodie mystery series. Brodie owns an antique store in San Fransisco that specializes in Japanese are and furniture, but Brodie also inherited half of his father's PI business based in Tokyo - a job he was groomed for from a young age.

While Brodie is in Japan on an art run, an older man insists on seeing him at Brodie Security. A WWII veteran, the man is convinced someone is targeting the remaining members of his team. During the war they were assigned to Manchuria, China - land conquered by Japan.

At the same time, art that hasn't been seen publicly for decades begins to appear. Paintings by Sengai, one in London and one in Toyko, are starting a buzz in the art world.

After agreeing to protect the older man, a murder shocks Brodie Security, setting off a race through the art world, a Japanese Kendo club, and the backstreets of Tokyo's Chinatown.

Lancet has created a great character in Jim Brodie. He has been compared to Daniel Silva and Jack Reacher. Fans of mystery fiction or Japan will love this well-written series.

Lancet, Barry. (2014). Tokyo Kill. New York: Simon and Schuster.

The Heist (Gabriel Allon #14)

The Heist by Daniel Silva is the fourteen book in his series featuring Gabriel Allon - an Israeli spy and art restorer.

After being in the field much longer than he wished to be and giving up on being able to retire from service to his country and spend time restoring paintings, Gabriel Allon has agreed to take over the Office. In the free time he has left, he has taken a job in Venice restoring an alter in a church. But like all of his free time, it is interrupted.

General Ferarri of the Carabinieri's Art Squad informs Gabriel that he has arrested a friend. Art dealer Julian Isherwood was on a trip to Lake Como to evaluate a painting for sale. When he arrived, the man he was to meet had been murdered. Isherwood is in custody until Gabriel vouches for him and agrees to take the job finding a stolen painting.

Gabriel will travel through out Europe and back to Israel to try to find a stole Caravaggio - that has been missing since 1969. Along the way, he will discover other missing paintings, and come up with a plan to find the person using stolen art to build a nest egg.

Allon is an amazing character who you will want on your side and in charge of your safety. He is one of the best spies ever written. Start the series at the beginning!

Silva, Daniel (2014). The Heist. New York: HarperCollins.

The Gilded Seal (Tom Kirk #3)

The Glided Seal by James Twining is the third book in his Tom Kirk series - and the best one yet. Kirk is a retired art thief who now helps people recover stolen art.

When Tom Kirk is called to Scotland to the theft of a Da Vinci painting, he is shocked to see the calling card of his nemesis - a man who is supposed to be in prison for another six years. At the same time, Kirk's longtime friend and master forger is murdered. Before he died he left something for Tom.

In New York, FBI agent Jennifer Browne is asked to look into an art forgery. A painting by Gauguin is both on the wall of a Soho gallery and listed as being for auction by a Japanese man. Representatives from both Christie's and Sotheby's would like an answer clearing their client.

As Tom and Jennifer separately investigate the possibility of a forgery ring, evidence that Tom's nemesis Milo is up to something big. Possibly trying to break into the Louvre Museum to steal the most famous painting of all time - the Mona Lisa.

Twining combines action, art, and history to take readers through a maze of plot and history. Kirk both investigates a theft, tries to stop Milo and plans a heist. The Gilded Seal is a great book that will appeal to a wide range of readers.

Twining, James. (2007). The Gilded Seal. New York: HarperCollins.

The Black Sun (Tom Kirk #2)

The Black Sun by James Twining is the second book in his Tom Kirk series. Kirk is an ex-art thief who used to help the CIA on occasion, but has retired and now helps people recover stolen art.

When a synagogue in Prague is broken into, it looks to Kirk like the thieves were using the racist graffiti to cover their actual target - a painting by Bellak, a Jew who was killed during the holocaust.

In Maryland, the National Cryptology Museum was broken into and a German Enigma machine was stolen. The Enigma is what created the coded messages the Germans used to communicate during WWII.

In a hospice care, two men break in, kill a holocaust survivor and cut off the arm with his numbered tattoo.

Using these seemingly random acts of violence/crime, the FBI, the CIA and Tom Kirk will follow a trail of clues that will lead to the discovery of an elite troop of SS who were in charge of stolen art during the war.

Twining has a gift for weaving a love of art, our history and a suspenseful plot that will keep readers coming back for more. Fans of mystery, espionage, historical fiction, and suspense will love this series.

Twining, James. (2006). The Black Sun. New York: HarperCollins.

The Fallen Angel (Gabriel Allon #12)

The Fallen Angel by Daniel Silva is book twelve in the Gabriel Allon series. Gabriel is an artist whose career was interrupted when his country needed him, and he spent most of his life in the service of Israel's Mossad. Now he is retired and just wants to restore paintings.

He is currently working on a Caravaggio for the Vatican. But when a woman is found dead in St. Peter's Basilica, Monsignor Luigi Donati asks Gabriel to investigate. Donati had asked the woman to catalog the art and artifacts in the Vatican in order to make sure they each had a provenance and there would be no surprises. Just after she called to tell him she found something, she ended up dead.Now Gabriel is pulled back from his retirement and into the center of an international ring of looted antiquities, murder, and terrorism that spans the globe.

Daniel Silva writes espionage thrillers better than anyone else. He is a master of sucking in readers before the first paragraph has been completed. Gabriel Allon is an amazing character that readers would follow anywhere.

Silva, Daniel. (2012). The Fallen Angel. New York: Harper.

Heist Society (Heist Socetey #1)

Heist Society by Ally Carter is a great art heist book.

Katarina Bishop comes from a long line of art and jewel thieves. Kat's greatest con to date is getting accepted to a great boarding school. She is determined to leave the family business behind and get an education. But when someone steals the Headmaster's car and put it in the fountain with water shooting out of its headlights, Kat finds herself being framed for it.

When her oldest friend, W.W. Hale picks her up at school, she is not overly surprised. Hale is there to tell her that her father just stole five priceless paintings from a very dangerous man.

Her father has a solid alibi - he was pulling off a job in another country when they were stolen - but the man will give Kat two weeks to return his paintings. The only thing she can do is to find out who really took them, re-steal them, and return them.

Carter has written a fast-paced, fun, heist story with talented and endearing characters. Fans of all types of books will enjoy this race around Europe and the planning behind the ultimate heist.

Carter, Ally. (2010). Heist Society. New York: Hyperion.

The Rembrandt Affair (Gabriel Allon #10)

The Rembrandt Affair by Daniel Silva is the 10th book in his Gabriel Allon series. Gabriel is an art restorer of the highest quality and a Mossad agent to keeps trying to retire.

The only thing that could pull him away from his cliff-side cottage, his wife Chiara, and a beautiful painting that needs his attention is the theft of a previously unknown Rembrandt. The painting was being restored quietly in Glastonbury, England when the restorer was killed and the painting disappeared.

But in the way of Daniel Silva's books, the painting is only one piece of a puzzle that will include international intrigue, murder, conspiracy, and more. Silva is a phenomenal writer whose books are addictive.

Read the series starting from the beginning with The Kill Artist.

Silva, Daniel. (2010). The Rembrandt Affair. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.

Janes in Love (Plain Janes #2)

Janes in Love by Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg is the sequel to The Plain Janes.

The members of PLAIN still want to create public art, but Jane is starting to feel like all of her ideas get people into trouble. Soon all but one member of the group is doing community service.

To try another track, PLAIN appeals to city council for permission to create an art installation that everyone can enjoy. The council, most of whom think that PLAIN is a group of young terrorists, deny their request.

But art cannot be stopped. Jane will find a way not only to create public art but find funding to begin larger projects. After all, there are some people in town who thing the art they create is beautiful.

Castellucci, Cecil. (2008). Janes in Love. New York: Minx Comics.

False Impression

False Impression by Jeffrey Archer is an intriguing race through the world of fine art.

Anna Petrescu is an art expert who works at appraising art for a bank. The owner of the bank, in fact, only allows large loans to be secured with art - with the hope that instead of being able to pay back the loan, he will add another priceless painting to his private collection. He is currently being investigated by the FBI.

Anna doesn't realize her boss is a crook. She loves art and likes her job because it allows her a look at art in museums and private collections all over the world.

Beginning on September 10, 2001 False Impression takes readers on a thrilling ride through the world of high priced art on three continents, the attack on the world trade center, the mind of an assassin, and a family who has been collecting art for centuries. The novel is filled with art history trivia.

Archer, Jeffrey. (2006). False Impression. New York: St. Martin's Paperbacks.