Broken Summer: A Novel by J.M. Lee

At the height of his success, Lee Hanjo is a famous and envied artist. Then, on his forty-third birthday, he discovers that his loyal wife has vanished, leaving behind a book she had secretly written on the shady history and dubious morals of an artist with a trajectory similar to Hanjo’s, which is shortly to be published. He is aware that his life is about to fall apart and that his old demons will eventually surface. Why did his wife do it, though? Why now? Hanjo is compelled by the novel to think back on a summer in his youth when a fatal falsehood brutally and irrevocably decided the futures of two families.

The Marriage Portrait: A novel

Tuscany, about 1550. The grand duke’s third daughter, Lucrezia, is content with her hidden position in the palazzo and enjoys having the freedom to explore its treasures, keep an eye on its covert operations, and focus on her own creative endeavours. However, Lucrezia finds herself unintentionally propelled into the spotlight when her older sister passes away just before her wedding to the ruler of Ferrara, Modena, and Reggio. The duke is eager to ask for her hand in marriage, and her father is just as fast to accept on her behalf.

One thing becomes unsettlingly obvious as Lucrezia poses in tight finery for a painting meant to preserve her image for years to come. She has one responsibility in the eyes of the court: to produce the successor who would secure the Ferranese dynasty’s destiny. The destiny of the new duchess, despite her status and nobility, is completely uncertain till that time.

In an astonishing depiction of a brave young woman’s struggle for survival, Maggie O’Farrell, who previously enlivened the Shakespearean canvas of Hamnet with beauty and pathos, transfers her skills to Renaissance Italy.

Killers of a Certain Age

For forty years, Billie, Mary Alice, Helen, and Natalie have been employed by the Museum, an exclusive group of assassins. In a time when technology is valued more highly than human skills, their abilities are now outdated and nobody recognises their value.

The foursome is targeted by one of their own when they are taken on an all-expenses paid trip to celebrate their retirement. The ladies are aware that they have been marked for death since only the Board, the top-ranking members of the Museum, has the authority to order the elimination of field agents.

Now that they realise working together is the key to their survival, they must turn against their own organisation in order to survive. They rely on experience and one another to complete the task. The Board will soon learn what it actually means to be a woman—and a killer—of a certain age from them.