This week, we bring you a variety of intriguing and thrilling historical tales.

In First Impressions, Kristen Loesch's The Last Russian Doll covers three generations and 100 years of Russian history in a skillfully spun plot.

Our online book club is discussing The Nurse's Secret by Amanda Skenandore, in which a young woman on the run from police enters a nursing school in 19th-century New York City.

And in Editor's Choice, we highlight a new Edgar Allan Poe biography, A Mystery of Mysteries by Mark Dawidziak, which covers the iconic writer's life and the strange circumstances of his death. Our accompanying "beyond the book" piece looks at Poe's possible literary influences in Philadelphia, and we invite you to explore more articles in our "Places, Cultures and Identities" category.

With best wishes,

Davina Morgan-Witts

BookBrowse Publisher

Each month we give away books to BookBrowse members who live in the U.S. to read and review. Here are their opinions on one recently released title.

"A thoroughly engaging work of historical fiction that blends characters in two different time periods in Russia. In 1991, Rosie (Raisa), who is of Russian heritage, becomes a research assistant to a famous dissident writer, Alexey Ivanov. His research involves Russia, so Rosie accompanies him to find answers and face demons related to her childhood. Concurrently, Loesch spins a tale of Antonina (Tonya) and Valentin as they experience life, love, upheaval and betrayal during a turbulent period of Russia's history (1916-1943). While it may appear that the characters in their respective time periods are discrete, Loesch uses a combination of fact, fiction and fairy tale to weave a thread that unites their stories in a meaningful and intriguing way. I found this book exciting because of its Russian history, the dimensionality of its characters and the mystery associated with the relationships between all the characters." - Mel F. (Auburn, MA)

"A dual narrative epic saga spanning 100 years of Russian history, The Last Russian Doll by Kristen Loesch hooked me from the start. At first the idea of reading about Russian history wasn't my cup of tea, but the prose, plot, story and complex characters took me into another world which was fascinating." - Cindy R. (North Miami Beach, FL)

"The Last Russian Doll is one of the best interpretations of this historical era I have read. The Russian Revolution of 1917 in and of itself is a story of drama and tragedy that has always held a fascination for me. The author, Kristen Loesch, has written an excellent story bringing three generations of Russian citizens together in an intriguing way. It is beautifully written and descriptive without being difficult to understand. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in historical fiction and shall suggest it to my book club." - Jennifer B. (Oviedo, FL)

Based on Florence Nightingale's nursing principles, Bellevue is the first school of its kind in the country. Where once nurses were assumed to be ignorant and unskilled, Bellevue prizes discipline, intellect, and moral character, and only young women of good breeding need apply. At first, Una balks at her prim classmates and the doctors' endless commands. Yet life on the streets has prepared her for the horrors of injury and disease found on the wards, and she slowly gains friendship and self-respect.

"My favorite genre is historical fiction. I think Skenandore did a great job of displaying this slice of life in late-19th-century New York City beautifully. This reader fell into the setting, enjoyed the plot and the various rounded characters and learned a great deal about this time and place. In my opinion the definition of a good novel." - shirleyl

"I thought this was a fascinating book. I appreciated the up-close look at how patients were treated at Bellevue, particularly those with addiction or mental health issues. I thought Una’s character showed how difficult it was to try and change your social status—without fake papers she never would have been given the opportunity to become a nursing student. The book also shows why judging someone based only on education, clothing, address or gender does not provide the entire picture of the person." - acstrine

"I love a book that teaches me something while also having a captivating story to tell. This book does both. It was so interesting to see what the early days of nursing were like and the expectations placed on those women who bravely stepped into this new endeavor." - jdd

In the latest issue of The BookBrowse Review, you can read reviews and "beyond the book" articles for the novels Daughter in Exile by Bisi Adjapon, Moonrise Over New Jessup by Jamila Minnicks and Exiles, the third and final installment of Jane Harper's mystery series featuring Aaron Falk, along with 11 other books. You can also explore the most popular book club books of 2022, a new Wordplay and more.

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Edgar Allan Poe biographers have an advantage over other writers because they don't have to come up with a hook. Their subject, the still-famous author of "The Tell-Tale Heart" and other spine-tingling treasures, took care of that by dying like one of his characters might have; at a premature age, of undetermined causes, soon after being discovered on a Baltimore street, delirious and wearing someone else's clothes. It's standard to wonder: Was he marked for death? Haunted? Born under a bad sign?

Yet in this enlightened century, when we've used artificial intelligence to scan Poe's writings for thought patterns consistent with clinical depression, when we've tested extant locks of his hair for traces of lethal chemicals that may have entered his system via a loose gaslight, most of us probably don't honestly view the unexplained phenomenon of his death as particularly sensational. Besides, in Poe's lifetime, when tuberculosis took one in seven lives, wasn't everyone kind of cursed by our standards?

The author of A Mystery of Mysteries: The Death and Life of Edgar Allan Poe, film and television critic Mark Dawidziak, wants this new biography to leave you curious about the complexities of the masterful poet and storyteller's life, rather than satisfied with a tall tale, which modern fans still sometimes prefer in spite of all the unromantic truths that belie it. ... continued

By 1838, Edgar Allan Poe had earned a reputation as a sharp literary critic and skillful editor while based in Richmond, Virginia. To make the most of his talents, he had to move to a bigger and better arena. Boston was the center of book publishing, and New York led the nation in daily journalism and newspapers. But the magazine trade and American Gothic fiction, Poe's niches, flourished in Philadelphia, which was at that time, in the words of The Library Company of Philadelphia, "perhaps the most enlightened, genteel, urbane, and humane of American cities." In Mark Dawidziak's Poe biography A Mystery of Mysteries, scholar Edward G. Pettit of Philadelphia's Rosenbach Museum notes, "During the first half of the nineteenth century, more Gothic works [were] published in Philadelphia than in any other American city."

For reference, while he was living in the City of Brotherly Love from 1838 to 1844, Poe's creative development moved from "The Fall of the House of Usher" (1839), a tale taking place in a declining country estate, concerning insanity, the suggestive power of art, heredity and doom on various symbolic levels, to "The Tell-Tale Heart" (1843), which explores mental illness much more intimately, practically simulating it.

Proto-Gothic texts about madness and the seduction of innocents, such as the bestseller Charlotte Temple (1791) by Susanna Rowson, begin appearing in Philadelphia in the late 1700s. ... continued

For every book we review, we also write a "beyond the book" article that focuses on a related cultural, historical or contextual topic — a great way to discover books!

You can explore many articles in our Places, Cultures and Identities category, in addition to the one on Edgar Allan Poe and Gothic fiction in 19th-century Philadelphia above, including:

🔒Individual members and patrons of subscribing libraries have full access to all articles, while others have access to only some in full.