Kristen Barenthaler
Bio
Curious adventurer. Crazed reader. Librarian. Archery instructor. True crime addict.
Instagram: @kristenbarenthaler
Facebook: @kbarenthaler
Stories (361)
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Historical Fiction: Wild West
Dragon Teeth by Michael Crichton The year is 1876. Warring Indian tribes still populate America's western territories even as lawless gold-rush towns begin to mark the landscape. In much of the country, it is still illegal to espouse evolution. Against this backdrop, two monomaniacal paleontologists pillage the Wild West, hunting for dinosaur fossils while surveilling, deceiving, and sabotaging each other in a rivalry that will come to be known as the Bone Wars. Into this treacherous territory plunges the arrogant and entitled William Johnson, a Yale student with more privilege than sense. Determined to survive a summer in the West to win a bet against his arch-rival, William has joined world-renowned paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh on his latest expedition. But when the paranoid and secretive Marsh becomes convinced that William is spying for his nemesis, Edwin Drinker Cope, he abandons him in Cheyenne, Wyoming, a locus of crime and vice. William is forced to join forces with Cope and soon stumbles upon a discovery of historic proportions. With this extraordinary treasure, however, comes exceptional danger, and William's newfound resilience will be tested in his struggle to protect his cache, which pits him against some of the West's most notorious characters.
By Kristen Barenthaler8 months ago in BookClub
Historical Fiction: 19th Century
Possession by A. S. Byatt Possession is an exhilarating novel of wit and romance, at once an intellectual mystery and triumphant love story. It is the tale of a pair of young scholars researching the lives of two Victorian poets. As they uncover their letters, journals, and poems, and track their movements from London to Yorkshire—from spiritualist séances to the fairy-haunted far west of Brittany—what emerges is an extraordinary counterpoint of passions and ideas.
By Kristen Barenthaler8 months ago in BookClub
Historical Fiction: Renaissance
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco The year is 1327. Franciscans in a wealthy Italian abbey are suspected of heresy, and Brother William of Baskerville arrives to investigate. His delicate mission is suddenly overshadowed by seven bizarre deaths that take place in seven days and nights of apocalyptic terror. The body of one monk is found in a cask of pigs' blood, another is floating in a bathhouse, still another is crushed at the foot of a cliff.
By Kristen Barenthaler8 months ago in BookClub
Historical Fiction: Middle Ages
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer The procession that crosses Chaucer's pages is as full of life and as richly textured as a medieval tapestry. The Knight, the Miller, the Friar, the Squire, the Prioress, the Wife of Bath, and others who make up the cast of characters -- including Chaucer himself -- are real people, with human emotions and weaknesses. When it is remembered that Chaucer wrote in English at a time when Latin was the standard literary language across western Europe, the magnitude of his achievement is even more remarkable. But Chaucer's genius needs no historical introduction; it bursts forth from every page of The Canterbury Tales.
By Kristen Barenthaler8 months ago in BookClub
Historical Fiction: Ancient Greece & Rome
The Iliad by Homer The centuries old epic about the wrath of Achilles is rendered into modern English verse by a renowned translator and accompanied by an introduction that reassesses the identity of Homer. In Robert Fagles' beautifully rendered text, the Iliad overwhelms us afresh. The huge themes godlike, yet utterly human of savagery and calculation, of destiny defied, of triumph and grief compel our own humanity. Time after time, one pauses and re-reads before continuing.
By Kristen Barenthaler8 months ago in BookClub
Historical Fiction: Ancient Egypt
The Empire of Gold by S. A. Chakraborty Daevabad has fallen. After a brutal conquest stripped the city of its magic, Nahid leader Banu Manizheh and her resurrected commander, Dara, must try to repair their fraying alliance and stabilize a fractious, warring people. Nahri and Ali, now safe in Cairo, face difficult choices of their own. As peace grows more elusive and old players return, Nahri, Ali, and Dara come to understand that in order to remake the world, they may need to fight those they once loved.
By Kristen Barenthaler8 months ago in BookClub
Hobby-Themed Mysteries: Home Renovations
Death and the Decorator by Simon Brett Jude's decision to redecorate her cottage leads to a meeting with a local decorator and a surprising discovery behind a wall panel in a Victorian building: a woman's handbag! The discovery becomes serious when the police identify the handbag's owner as Anita Garner, a young woman who vanished in suspicious circumstances twenty years earlier.
By Kristen Barenthaler8 months ago in BookClub
Hobby-Themed Mysteries: Art
Over My Dead Body by Jeffrey Archer In London, the Metropolitan Police have set up a new Unsolved Murders Unit - a cold case squad - to catch the criminals nobody else can. Four victims. Four cases. All killers poised to strike again. In Geneva, millionaire art collector Miles Faulkner, convicted of forgery and theft, was pronounced dead two months ago. So why is his unscrupulous lawyer still representing a dead client? And who is the mysterious man his widow is planning to marry? On board the luxury cruise liner The Alden, a group of wealthy clientele have signed up the for opulence and glamour of a trans-Atlantic voyage. But the battle for power at the heart of a wealthy dynasty is about to turn to murder. And at the heart of all three investigations lies Detective Chief Inspector William Warwick, rising star of the Met. Only Warwick's genius for deductive reasoning, his fierce intelligence and his occasionally rash bravery - combined with that of ex-undercover operative Ross Hogan, reluctantly brought in from the cold - can bring the criminals to justice and put his nemesis behind bars. But can they catch the killers before it's too late?
By Kristen Barenthaler8 months ago in BookClub
Hobby-Themed Mysteries: Knitting
Knit to Kill by A. Canadeo While on a weekend getaway to Osprey Island to unwind before Black Sheep member Lucy Binger's wedding, a prominent member of the community is murdered, turning the idyllic setting into a crime scene. The knitters step into the investigation when the husband of Black Sheep Suzanne Cavanaugh's friend and the group's host Amy is the prime suspect.
By Kristen Barenthaler8 months ago in BookClub
Hobby-Themed Mysteries: Baking
Double Fudge Brownie Murder by Joanne Fluke Life in tiny Lake Eden, Minnesota, is usually pleasantly uneventful. Lately, though, it seems everyone has more than their fair share of drama--especially the Swensen family. With so much on her plate, Hannah Swensen can hardly find the time to think about her bakery--let alone the town's most recent murder. . . Hannah is nervous about the upcoming trial for her involvement in a tragic accident. She's eager to clear her name once and for all, but her troubles only double when she finds the judge bludgeoned to death with his own gavel--and Hannah is the number one suspect. Now on trial in the court of public opinion, she sets out in search of the culprit and discovers that the judge made more than a few enemies during his career. With time running out, Hannah will have to whip up her most clever recipe yet to find a killer more elusive than the perfect brownie.
By Kristen Barenthaler8 months ago in BookClub
Hobby-Themed Mysteries: Sailing
Ocean Prey by John Sandford An off-duty Coast Guardsman is fishing with his family when he calls in some suspicious behavior from a nearby boat. It's a snazzy craft, slick and outfitted with extra horsepower, and is zipping along until it slows to pick up a surfaced diver . . . a diver who was apparently alone, without his own boat, in the middle of the ocean. None of it makes sense unless there's something hinky going on, and his hunch is proved right when all three Guardsmen who come out to investigate are shot and killed. They're federal officers killed on the job, which means the case is the FBI's turf. When the FBI's investigation stalls out, they call in Lucas Davenport. And when his case turns lethal, Davenport will need to bring in every asset he can claim, including a detective with a fundamentally criminal mind: Virgil Flowers.
By Kristen Barenthaler8 months ago in BookClub
