notanotherbookreview

 THE VEILED PROPHET:    Secret Societies, White Supremacy, and the Struggles for St. Louis by DEVIN THOMAS O'SHEA. ( Haymarket Books, 6/26)                                              What was the Veiled Prophet Society? And why might we care about a secret society (now defunct) founded a century and a half ago in St. Louis? Devin Thomas O'Shea's excellent and little-known history, THE VEILED PROPHET : Secret Societies, white supremacy, and the struggle for St. Louis  clarifies how this "prestige brokerage" strongly affected U.S. History and modern political structures.  In 1865, at the end of the Civil War, when Gen Lee surrendered at Appomattox, disillusioned Confederate soldiers, including future Veiled Profit founder, Alonzo Slayback, went looting in Mexico. Their loss of the Southern way of life included property both human...

                                                                         SOMETIME THIS CENTURY (Harper Collins 6/9) by Samantha Silva is a delightful Regency comedy, as well as a modern puzzle. I may not be a typical reader of the Regency genre, having stumbled upon Bridgerton on Netflix and then read all volumes of Julia Quint's witty original. With a 21st century eye, I fixed on the very circumscribed lives of women, privileged or not, when the only acceptable career was "marrying well." Even being a novelist (Austen was known, if not as famous in her lifetime) was a family secret. Silva's novel has a lot of fun with Regency style, tradition and moneyed romance. There's also a sly comparison with our modern social behavior,...