REVIEW: A Pair of Aces by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray

 

Synopsis

A gripping novel about two trailblazing women on opposite sides of the law—a prosecutor and a madam—who team up to bring down notorious Mob boss Lucky Luciano in 1930s New York

Eunice Carter, assistant district attorney for the City of New York and Manhattan’s first Black female prosecutor, has her sights set on the one and only Lucky Luciano, head of New York City’s five largest organized crime families. Other prosectors have tried to bring down Lucky, but they’ve all focused on the crime syndicate’s traditional businesses—bootlegging, gambling, loan sharking, and drug dealing—or tax evasion. No one has thought to approach the Mob through its role in prostitution. Until Eunice. But she can’t get Luciano alone.

Polly Adler has worked long and hard to build up her high-class brothel business. Her client list is filled with well-known names, both the famous and the infamous, who all know her booze is top-notch, her music first-rate, her food exquisite, and her girls the best. But Lucky has gone too far, putting her girls in danger, and Polly finally sees the chance to end his reign once and for all.

Together, Eunice and Polly fashion a case utilizing a network of women. Bridging the enormous divide between them and risking their own lives, they assemble evidence bit by bit, under the nose of the man they’re trying to convict. It is this very alliance—of two women from vastly different worlds—that launches the most sensational trial New York City has ever seen.

Format 390 pages, Hardcover
Published June 2, 2026 by Berkley
ISBN 9780593637937 (ISBN10: 0593637933)

About the Author(s)

Marie Benedict is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of Daughter of Egypt, The Queens of Crime, The Mitford Affair, Her Hidden Genius, The Mystery of Mrs. Christie, The Only Woman in the Room, Lady Clementine, Carnegie's Maid, The Other Einstein, and the novella, Agent 355. With Victoria Christopher Murray, she co-wrote the Good Morning America Book Club pick The Personal Librarian, the Target Book of the Year The First Ladies, and the Reese's Book Club Pick A Pair of Aces. With Courtney Sheinmel, she co-wrote the first in a middle grade historical adventure series called The Secrets of the Lovelace Academy.

Her books have been translated into thirty languages, and selected for the Barnes & Noble Book Club, Target Book Club, Costco Book Club, Indie Next List, and LibraryReads List.

Up next is her March 2, 2027 release, THE WITCH OF WALL STREET, about the richest woman of the Gilded Age, a self-made one with holdings that rivaled those of men like J.P. Morgan -- the brilliant and controversial Hetty Green whose legacy was erased by her fellow tycoons.

Learn more about the author

Victoria Christopher Murray is the New York Times and USA Today best selling author of more than 30 novels, including the New York Times Instant Best Sellers The Personal Librarian and The First Ladies. Both novels, Victoria co-wrote with Marie Benedict.

A native New Yorker, Victoria Christopher Murray attended Hampton University where she majored in Communication Disorders. After graduating, Victoria attended New York University’s Stern Business School where she received her MBA in Marketing.

Victoria spent ten years in Corporate America before she tested her entrepreneurial spirit. She opened a Financial Services Agency for Aegon, USA where she managed the number one division for nine consecutive years. However, Victoria always dreamed of writing and in 1997, she pursued her dream. 

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My Thoughts

I became a fan of Victoria Christopher Murray after reading Harlem Rhapsody, and she has a real talent for bringing historical figures and eras to life. A Pair of Aces confirms that gift, this time in partnership with Marie Benedict, telling the story of the 1936 takedown of mobster Lucky Luciano with the help of infamous NY madam Polly Adler and Eunice Carter – the only female, and the only Black female, assistant DA in New York City in 1935.

Polly Adler was a diminutive, physically unremarkable woman who built an extraordinary life against incredible odds. Sent to America alone as a young girl, she worked through her teens to send money home before being introduced to prostitution – a field she came to "excel" in, building a brothel that young women vied to join. She was known for taking care of "her girls" and running a top-notch operation: lavish surroundings, clean and cultured women, a high-end experience. Digging into her real history after finishing the book, I learned her brothel entertained the likes of Walter Winchell and Milton Berle, along with mobster Dutch Schultz, who's also spotlighted in this novel.

That's the real Polly Adler. The authors appear to take some liberties connecting her directly to Eunice Carter, the first Black female assistant DA in New York, who was the one who first identified Luciano's ties to major prostitution rings and became essential to his downfall. The novel puts Polly at the center of that effort, feeding Eunice information and helping rally witnesses – though I'm not aware of any solid evidence that she played that direct a role. However, my eBook was an uncorrected proof without the authors' notes on their research, so I couldn't confirm how much is fact versus informed speculation, but it seems other historians have floated an Adler-Carter connection before.

Five words: inspiring, determined, admirable, heroic, solid

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My final word: Fictionalized liberties aside, this is a story about two strong, wily, and brave women taking on the mob in a world stacked against them on every front. Benedict and Murray do an admirable job of breathing life into Polly Adler and Eunice Carter, building two heroines with shoulders that can bear the weight of this story. At a time when the mob were controlling so much of NYC, these two women were a force to be reckoned with. This work is a solid effort and worthy of a read for anyone who likes historical fiction.

Trigger warnings:

prostitution, rape, murder, drug use

My Rating:

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The Cerebral Girl is a middle-aged blogger just digging her way out from under a mountain of books in the deep south of Florida.

I received a copy of this book to review through BookBrowse and the publisher in exchange for my honest opinion. I was not financially compensated in any way, and the opinions expressed are my own and based on my observations while reading this novel. The book that I received was an uncorrected proof, and quotes could differ from the final release.  

TLC BOOK TOUR: A Thousand Painted Hours by Barbara O'Neal

 

Synopsis

An epic, emotionally charged novel about love, art, and survival spanning 1900s colonial India to Blitz-era London by the USA Today bestselling author of When We Believed in Mermaids.

In the shadow of the London Blitz, artist Elsie Turner clings fiercely to her canvases, refusing to let war dim the colors that define her. The bombs test her nerve, but the struggle also stirs memories of her golden youth in India and of the long-lost love of her life.

The daughter of a British civil servant in the Himalayan station of Nainital, Elsie crosses cultural divides to forge an unlikely bond with Tanveer Singh, a Sikh prince with hopes, dreams, and far-reaching ideas. What begins as shared sketchbooks and stargazing becomes first love and a secret correspondence. When Elsie’s father is summoned to England, Elsie is severed from the world she knows—and is determined to preserve it through both her art and a connection with Tanveer that endures through the most tumultuous years of their lives.

Across four decades and two continents, Elsie navigates a journey from lush colonial India to war-torn London, amid landscapes of beauty, protest, and peril. As past and present collide, the most impossible choices and sacrifices are yet to be made in the name of love, war, and survival.

Format 543 pages, Paperback
Published August 11, 2026 by Lake Union Publishing
ISBN 9781662514975 (ISBN10: 1662514972)

About the Author

Barbara O’Neal is the author of more than a dozen award-winning, bestselling novels, including the runaway bestseller, When We Believed in Mermaids, which has been published in 21 countries and spent many months on both the most sold and most read Amazon Charts, as well as the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Washington Post bestseller lists. Barbara is an avid traveler and passionate cook, and discovered the Oregon coast on a pandemic-era trip with her husband. She now lives on that rocky, moody coast in a quirky beach house and writes her books from a room overlooking the sea. She lives with her British husband, who has promised to never lose his accent, and their cats and dogs.

Learn more about the author

My Thoughts

London, 1940

You will think this a story of the war. The war, as if it is the only one, when this century has been so filled with them.

It is not about war. It is about the opposite.

My story begins with cyanide tablets.

A Thousand Painted Hours tells the story of Elsie, the daughter of a British earl, and Tanveer, the son of a Maharajah, and their lifelong, unbreakable devotion to one another.

Elsie is born in India to British parents, and it's there she meets the Maharajah's children who live nearby. The older sister, Gurdaya, is intelligent, disciplined, and every inch the obedient daughter of India. Tanveer is thoughtful, compassionate, and philosophical — and he and Elsie become fast friends almost immediately.

Their friendship deepens into love as the years pass and they grow into adulthood, until the day Elsie is forced to leave India, heartbroken and despondent, to return to London when her father must take his place as Earl of Herewich.

The novel moves between several timelines, but primarily India in the 1910s and England in 1940, during the relentless German bombing campaign known as the Blitz. As Elsie matures, so does her artistic talent, and through her painting she comes to understand herself and her own capacity for self-expression. The narrative is woven through with letters exchanged between the main characters — most often between Elsie and Tanveer themselves.

I fingered the edges, imagining that I could feel his words against my skin, words he'd written in the Urdu script, which we had learned first as a challenge, then later to hide the words of our communication. His father spoke and wrote four languages, but had not bothered with the written script of Urdu. My mother had some skill with Hindustani, even some Persian, but she could not write Urdu. It had become our secret code.

One of my favorite details is the ritual Elsie and Tanveer keep throughout their letters: each one always includes "one beautiful thing" the writer witnessed — a small act of gratitude offered up no matter how broken or despondent they might be. Across the years and through every trial, they never stop reaching for something beautiful to give each other. Their bond is something private and sacred, a thing they protect and treasure above all else.

"...I had an image of a carved box, inlaid with ivory, that held this secret thing, the thing we barely acknowledged even to each other anymore. It is the only thing that really belongs to me." 

"Not your paintings?" 

"Yes, of course the paintings." I grappled with what I meant, what I could say without giving away that sense of private connection, a thing that both lived in the world and not. "But paintings are meant to be public. Even if they're vulnerable or revealing, the entire purpose of them is to communicate with someone else."

The novel also wades into deeper socio-political waters — women's equality, India's caste system, and the toll of war. Elsie chafes against the confines placed on women in the early twentieth century, hemmed in by social propriety and family obligation, in an era when male heirs alone carried on the family name and inherited its wealth and title, while daughters were left to arranged marriages and quiet, uneventful lives.

"You have the freedom to explore your art and your own mind. You have freedom of movement and even the ability to defy the powers that would shape you."

Elsie and Tanveer feel destined for each other and destined to be kept apart in equal measure. Theirs is a love that feels preordained even as the world conspires against it — two World Wars, India's fight for independence from British colonial rule, and the rigid expectations that come with royal titles all stand between them, obstacle after obstacle.

I became a fan of Barbara O'Neal after reading The Last Letter of Rachel Ellsworth. Her gift for setting — the smells, the sights, the people, the food — always leaves me longing to pack a bag and go exploring. She has a rare eye for the human condition and for the private, interior world each of us carries.

Five words: longing, connection, "one beautiful thing"

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My Final word: A Thousand Painted Hours is a story of longing and tenderness that burns with passion — not only of the body, but of the mind and soul. The connection between Elsie and Tanveer is the deepest kind: pure, selfless, and unyielding against the test of time. Barbara O'Neal has a way of touching something in me that few authors can, and I can't wait to read more of her work.

"Here we are," I said, and let myself fly into the darkness lit by ten thousand stars.

Trigger Warnings:

War, domestic violence, alcohol abuse, PTSD

My Rating:

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The Cerebral Girl is a middle-aged blogger just digging her way out from under a mountain of books in the deep south of Florida.

I received a copy of this book to review through TLC Book Tours and the publisher in exchange for my honest opinion. I was not financially compensated in any way, and the opinions expressed are my own and based on my observations while reading this novel. The book that I received was an uncorrected proof, and quotes could differ from the final release.  

REVIEW: Somebody Worth Killing by Jessica Payne

Synopsis

Meet Nadia Davis, a doting mom and loving wife who has a big secret: she’s actually an assassin. And she really needs a babysitter who shows up on time.

Nadia Davis is living the dream as a successful working mom with a career she loves, two adorable little girls, and a devoted husband who has no idea that she’s secretly a hired assassin and psychopath who kills certified bad guys. So when Nadia finds out she’s been “mommy tracked” by her assassin’s agency and is no longer getting the bigger, more exciting jobs, she demands an important mark…somebody worth killing.

But it turns out that big kill is the last person she expects—her husband. How is the sweet, kind, teller-of-dad jokes she’s promised her life to an evil villain who needs exterminating? Has their whole life together been a lie? Now Nadia must choose between the two things she loves most in life, the career that keeps her sane or the family she thought she knew.

Format 304 pages, Hardcover
Published June 16, 2026 by Berkley
ISBN 9780593954706 (ISBN10: 059395470X)

About the Author

Jessica Payne lives in Washington State with her daughter and husband and an internet search history that would raise eyebrows. A firm believer in strong coffee and stronger women, she writes about mothers who know how to handle a sniper rifle and a carpool schedule with equal precision. When she's not writing, you'll find her trail running through the forests of the Pacific Northwest as she plots her next fictional murder. She is the creator of the Substack community One Tired Mother.

Her other novels include Make Me Disappear, The Lucky One, The Good Doctor, and Never Trust the Husband.

Learn more about the author

My Thoughts

If it weren't for the fire ants crawling up my leg, I would be thoroughly enjoying the evening. It's another steamy Texas night, the wind scented with oncoming rain, and I'm tucked in the crook of a sprawling oak tree in the backyard of a multimillionaire's estate. He doesn't know it yet, but I'm going to kill him.

If you've ever wondered what would happen if Killing Eve and Dexter had a baby, and that baby grew up watching a slightly less ambitious version of both shows, Somebody Worth Killing is here to answer that question.

Nadia is a sociopathic assassin who only takes out "bad" people, which is a neat little moral loophole that lets us root for her without feeling too guilty about it. When she's not on the job, she's juggling soccer-mom duties for daughters Evie and Eliza, wrangling a very good pup named Bear, and playing devoted wife to Brian—basically living the ultimate double life. 

My emotions may be blunted, I may not feel love often or easily—but despite the common belief that those on the spectrum between sociopathy and psychopathy feel nothing—I do feel things. Sometimes. For some people.

Things kick off when Nadia, bored with her usual assignments, asks her bosses for something more challenging. Naturally, she gets exactly what she asked for, and then some.

They are prey; I am a predator. It's simple math without any rules, and so I have embraced the guidelines my grandmother gave me. They've gotten me this far.

Here's my honest hang-up: Nadia spends a lot of page time telling us how much she loves killing. I get it—that's the premise, that's her whole character—but after a while it started to feel less like chilling insight into a sociopath's mind and more like the book repeating itself to make sure I got the memo. It's the literary equivalent of someone explaining a joke after they've already told it. Once was intriguing. By the fifth time, I was bored and ready to move on.

The writing itself is perfectly serviceable—nothing dazzling, nothing offensive, just solidly gets the job done. And the plot, while entertaining enough to keep me turning pages to the end, doesn't really do anything new. 

Five words: predictable, familiar, derivative, competent, forgettable

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My final thoughts: All that said, I did finish it, and I wasn't miserable doing it—that counts for something. It's a fine airport read or beach book: low commitment, moderate payoff, and a fun-enough premise even if the execution (pun slightly intended) doesn't fully capitalize on it. Familiar territory, competently handled, but Nadia could've dialed back the murder monologuing. 3.5 stars—solid enough to enjoy, forgettable enough that I probably won't remember much about it in six months.

Trigger Warnings:

Murder, violence, mental health issues, kidnapping

My Rating:

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The Cerebral Girl is a middle-aged blogger just digging her way out from under a mountain of books in the deep south of Florida.

I received a copy of this book to review through BookBrowse in exchange for my honest opinion. I was not financially compensated in any way, and the opinions expressed are my own and based on my observations while reading this novel.

TLC BOOK TOUR REVIEW: Playthings by Ilan Mochari

 A Review of Playthings in poetic form 

These poems arrive like riddles in disguise,

small locked boxes that beg for your eyes.
I turned them around, tried each clever key,
ruminating on what they meant to me.

The author writes love notes to life, to the wild and the weather,
finds the sacred in spiderlings, bubblegum, feathers—
the mundane gets lifted, given wings, given flair,
proof that wonder hides in the mundane somewhere.

Some poems made me laugh, some left me undone,
tragedy and comedy sharing the sun.
Every page beautiful, none of them thin—
an aperitif that leaves you wanting seconds again.

So, call it a snack, an amuse-bouche, a bite—
but I finished it hungry, and read into the night.

About the Author

Ilan Mochari is the author of the poetry collection PLAYTHINGS and the novel ZINSKY THE OBSCURE. His short stories and poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Cincinnati Review, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Salamander, Hobart, Juked, J Journal, North Dakota Quarterly, The Louisville Review, Valparaiso Fiction Review, and elsewhere. His work has been nominated for multiple Pushcart Prizes, as well as the Derringer Award for crime fiction, and he has been the recipient of a Literature Artist Fellowship grant from the Somerville Arts Council.

PLAYTHINGS is now available on Bookshop.org and Amazon!

My Rating:

I would like to thank TLC Book Tours for including me on this tour. 

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The Cerebral Girl is a middle-aged blogger just digging her way out from under a mountain of books in the deep south of Florida.

I received a copy of this book to review through TLC Book Tours and the author in exchange for my honest opinion. I was not financially compensated in any way, and the opinions expressed are my own and based on my observations while reading this novel. 

REVIEW: An Infinite Love Story by Chanel Cleeton

 

Synopsis

When an astronaut is lost in space, his wife relives their epic love as she attempts to unravel what truly happened to him, in this sweeping love story set against the backdrop of the 1960s Space Race, from the New York Times bestselling author of The Lost Story of Eva Fuentes.

When Joe Mitchell launches into space, the world is watching. It’s 1968, and the country waits with anticipation and excitement for another successful mission, another celebration as America sets its sights on the Moon. And then comes the knock at the door.

Joe Mitchell’s spacecraft has lost contact. He and his fellow astronauts onboard are feared to be dead. It’s his wife Vivian’s worst nightmare come to life, her grief suddenly taking center stage as the nation waits and mourns. In her quiet moments, Vivian relives their memorable story, unable to accept that this is the end to a love that felt as though it was written in the stars.

As the investigation surrounding Joe’s lost spacecraft intensifies and the mishap is written off as an operator error, Vivian is determined to clear her husband’s name and uncover the mystery of what happened in space. When someone starts sending Vivian messages—messages she believes only Joe could send—she begins to wonder if their love is stronger than space and time, and she’ll do whatever it takes to bring her husband back to her.

Format 352 pages, Paperback

Expected publication July 7, 2026 by Berkley

ISBN 9780593816936 (ISBN10: 0593816935)

About the Author

Chanel Cleeton is the Cuban American New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of many novels, including Reese's Book Club pick Next Year in Havana. Originally from Florida, Chanel studied in London where she earned degrees in international relations and global politics. In law school, Chanel discovered her passion writing novels and embarked on a new adventure following her lifelong love of books. 

Learn more on the author's website

My Thoughts

"Come back to me," she whispered to the sky.

Vivian is practical, with no patience for egos or nonsense — a woman carving out her place in the male-dominated world of 1960s television news. A few months after Viv begins sharing an apartment with Polly in Arlington, VA, the two women meet Joe and Frank, fighter jet pilots with astronaut ambitions. Joe is romantic and impassioned, focused and driven — an adrenaline junkie who loves motorcycles and jets and burns with the dream of reaching space.

"I've never felt more at peace, more in awe of the world around me, of life, than when I'm in the air. There's a poetry about it, a simplicity and beauty to how very small you feel when confronted with the vastness of the universe and your place inside it. It humbles you, I suppose. Or makes you feel like anything is possible. Maybe that's the humbling part. I can never decide."

Polly and Frank fall in love quickly and marry. Viv and Joe are more deliberate — the sparks are immediate, but complications keep them at arm's length for a time. Eventually they find their way to each other. Joe achieves his dream of becoming an astronaut, while Viv quietly sets aside her own dream of becoming a news anchor to support his. Then comes that fateful day when mission control loses contact with Joe's spacecraft, and Viv is left suspended in time, reliving their life together.

"She'd known when he went up that the chance of him coming back to her alive was as good as a coin toss. Now those odds seemed decidedly worse and stacked against her.

How could they lose a spacecraft?"

The portrayal of astronaut families and the politics of space exploration feels richly familiar — very much in the spirit of The Right Stuff, which the author apparently read in preparation.

"Astronaut wives had long been subjected to public fascination and consumption, and considering the army of reporters camped out on her front lawn waiting for a glimpse of her, they didn't care that this was one of the absolute worst moments of her life."

Around 70% in, the story takes a turn that carries a distinct Interstellar quality — though told from a wife's perspective rather than a daughter's. It's a clever blend of romance, sci-fi, and emotional depth that keeps the story feeling fresh: Interstellar meets The Time Traveler's Wife.

But at its heart, this is a love story — many love stories, really. There is love between people, love for dreams, love for life itself. Yet threading through all of it is Viv's story, and it is hers above all else.

Five words: sentimental, mind-bending, slow ride, romantic, murky

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My final thoughts: This is ultimately about Viv and Joe — a love that transcends time, a meditation on loss and the quiet rebirth of love. The story moves slowly and tenderly, and while the sci-fi elements raise questions that remain unresolved, I still found myself deeply absorbed in their journey. For fans of emotionally resonant sci-fi like The Time Traveler's Wife, I'd recommend this one if you're looking for a gentle read that stirs your heart, nudges you to contemplate the vastness of the universe, and leaves you comfortable sitting with more questions than you started with.

My Rating:

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The Cerebral Girl is a middle-aged blogger just digging her way out from under a mountain of books in the deep south of Florida.

I received a copy of this book to review through BookBrowse in exchange for my honest opinion. I was not financially compensated in any way, and the opinions expressed are my own and based on my observations while reading this novel.