Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Susan Meissner’s A Map To Paradise, which is out March 18th 2025.

1

The last thing Eva Kruse wanted to do was risk drawing attention to herself, and yet she’d done it anyway.

She’d stayed overnight at Melanie Cole’s house. Spent hour upon hour there instead of leaving at three in the afternoon as she usually did. Slept in the guest room bed as if an actual guest and not a paid-by-the-hour housekeeper who’d vowed to spend zero extra time at the actress’s house.

Zero.

Yet there she stood, at daybreak in a borrowed nightgown.

When Melanie had told Eva she needed her to arrive that morning at six a.m. instead of nine, Eva had explained the best she could manage was a few minutes before eight. The two-bus commute from Los Angeles to Malibu was well over an hour. There was only one bus earlier than the one she picked up in Santa Monica, which still wouldn’t get her there in time.

“It’s just this once,” Melanie had pleaded, as though Eva had said instead that she didn’t want to start her workday when it was still dark. “I’ve an important call from the East Coast at seven thirty. I need my breakfast and a good pot of coffee and my dress ironed-even if no one is going to see me. I need to look and feel confident and poised, Eva. It’s an extremely important call. I need you to come at six. Please. Just this one time.”

“I am sorry, Miss Cole. The other bus does not come to my second stop until after seven.” Eva had enunciated each word carefully so that her accented English couldn’t be misunderstood.

She’d hoped the actress would call Marvelous Maids and at last, at last, ask for a different housekeeper-one who had a car or a husband who could drive or who lived closer or who had access to better bus routes. She was being paid at the top level for this posting-the most she’d been paid for any housekeeping job since arriving in America four years earlier. No one quits a plum posting without it raising questions. But if Melanie had asked for another maid, it would’ve solved all Eva’s problems.

The most pressing one, anyway. The one that often kept her up at night.

“Then just stay over tonight,” Melanie had said. “You’ll already be here when my alarm goes off in the morning, so you can make sure I get up. It’s a very important call.”

“I don’t know . . .” Eva’s mind had spun with possible excuses. Staying over was a bad idea if Melanie was being watched. It was probably a bad idea even if she wasn’t being watched. Sometimes Eva cried out in her sleep. And not in Polish.

“What don’t you know?” Melanie had asked, brows knitted. “Is it the money? I’ll pay you for the extra hours, even though you’re not going to be doing anything while you’re sleeping.”

“No, it is . . .” Eva’s voice had fallen away as words for the reason for her hesitancy fought to take shape in her mouth; a reason she had no intention of giving.

She shouldn’t be working for Melanie Cole, plain and simple. The Hollywood starlet had been suspected of communist ties six months earlier and been blacklisted. No studio, big or little, would hire her now. Melanie Cole didn’t need anyone in her orbit who might reinforce the idea that she wasn’t a patriot. The actress hadn’t been singled out; Eva knew that. There were plenty of other Hollywood people caught up in the long and ongoing hunt to rout out socialist sympathizers, including that famous actor Melanie had starred alongside and who was paying the rent on this house.

And who slept over when he was in town.

That film with heartthrob Carson Edwards had apparently been Melanie’s first big role, and audiences had adored her. This Eva had learned from her landlady, Yvonne. Eva herself hadn’t seen the movie. Fans and the tabloids had loved even more that Melanie and Carson were “an item,” but when he’d been named a suspected communist and summarily blacklisted, Melanie had been, too. Guilt by association. The adoration of the public had evaporated as quickly as morning dew. Yvonne had told her all of this, too.

Everything Melanie Cole was doing or had done was now being scrutinized. Or so Eva surmised.

An overnight stay would draw unwanted attention to both of them if anyone were in fact spying on Melanie, taking notes on who she spent time with. And if those government men poking into Melanie’s personal life pried next into Eva’s, they might discover she wasn’t, as she claimed, a displaced Pole who refused after the war to return to what was now communist Warsaw. They would discover who she really was and instantly assume the worst, because that’s what people did.

Eva would not only lose her job with the agency, but she’d likely be deported for having lied on her immigration papers. And Melanie? The actress would probably never work in Hollywood again, which was Melanie Cole’s worst nightmare. Eva had heard her talk about it with that screenwriter Elwood who lived next door. That man never came out of his house, but Eva had heard the actress talking with him-both through an open window and also on the telephone. Eva knew all Melanie Cole had ever wanted was to be a film actress. She had finally made it as one, and suddenly that life had been taken from her.

Melanie was no communist; Eva was certain of that, and she would know better than anyone. But she also knew it didn’t matter what a person said about themselves; it mattered only what others said about them.

Eva hadn’t learned of Melanie’s predicament until two months after she started working for her, and it wasn’t until a full month after that she came to understand Melanie’s associations-that is, who she spoke to, spent time with, had over to the house-were likely being scrutinized, too. People like her. Eva had known then she needed a different posting. Producing a good reason for asking for one was tricky, though. She had a highly desirable assignment. When she’d asked her supervisor, Lorraine, for a change due to the hour-long commute each day-a rather good excuse, she thought-she was told that Mr. Edwards had expressly chosen Eva. She was the preferred Marvelous Maid for Melanie Cole, and so she’d now be compensated for the two hours on the bus each day as well as for her bus fare.

Lorraine had beamed when she’d said this. No Marvelous Maid had ever earned the hourly rate while riding a bus to get to work, let alone been reimbursed for bus fare.

“I have extra nightgowns, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Melanie had added, her tone having warped from expectant to annoyed. “And it’s just one night. I really don’t think I’m asking too much, Eva. I will pay you the extra in cash. The agency doesn’t have to know.”

In the end Eva had agreed. It was just one night. There was at that moment no stray car on the cul-de-sac with a strange driver sitting inside it, peering at the house. And the extra money? If she was going to need to start over again with a new job, the extra money would sure help.

She’d slept fitfully in Melanie’s spacious guest room and risen before the sun to make the requested coffee and breakfast and to rouse the actress if she slept through her alarm.

But when Eva emerged from the guest room, the actress was already up. Melanie stood now in the dark at the slightly open sliding door that led to the back patio, smoking a cigarette.

“Oh! Good morning, ma’am,” Eva said, startled.

The actress turned to her. Dawn was only just beginning to steal across the sky, and the actress looked beautiful in the gleaming light of the still-visible moon. Melanie Cole had all the features a camera surely loved. Golden brown hair that fell in soft waves past her shoulders. Eyes the same verdigris green as meadow grass in springtime. Slender legs and a small waist and nicely proportioned everywhere else.

Even with her hair tousled and no cosmetics on her face, Melanie was stunning. Eva had the same build and nearly the same hair color, but she knew she was merely pleasant-looking.

“I couldn’t sleep,” the actress said, as though replying to a different comment than Eva’s morning greeting.

“I . . . Would you care for your coffee now, ma’am?” Eva asked.

“Can’t you just please call me Melanie? I feel like an old woman every time you call me ma’am. I’m only twenty-five.”

“Certainly, ma’am. I mean . . .”

“Melanie.”

“Yes. Melanie.”

Eva waited for an answer about the coffee, but there wasn’t one. Instead, the actress brought the cigarette to her lips as she turned back toward the glass doors. A dry breeze instead of the usual morning coastal mist was ruffling the sheer curtains. Melanie tipped her head back, drew in a breath, and then exhaled. Smoke swirled above her head and out the narrow opening at the door like a streamer made of gauze.

She pointed to the neighbor’s house with her cigarette. “Elwood’s sister-in-law is out there digging up his roses. Why in the world is she doing that?”

Eva fumbled for an answer. “You mean, so early in the morning?”

“No. I mean, why would June tear up his rosebushes? Elwood is very fond of them. He told me so. They’re not hers.”

“I . . . I don’t know, ma’am. I mean Melanie.”

“Come look.”

Eva closed the distance between them and looked out toward the neighbor’s backyard. The patio lights were on, and Eva could see the head and shoulders of Melanie’s neighbor, June Blankenship, just over the fence, bending out of view every few seconds as she drove a shovel into the ground. The woman lifted what appeared to be a rosebush, took a few paces, and then disappeared from sight as she bent forward with the bush and lowered it to the dirt.

“I think . . . I think she might be planting rosebushes,” Eva said. “Or moving them around maybe?”

Melanie shook her head. “Elwood is going to flip. He is very particular about those bushes. I don’t think she should be doing that.”

Eva didn’t know what to say to this. She’d never actually met the next-door neighbors, though Melanie had told her that the writer who lived there, Elwood Blankenship, had been in a bad accident some years back and now never came outside. His twin brother’s widow, June, lived with him and did his grocery shopping and laundry and all that. Eva also knew that when Melanie had been blacklisted and Carson Edwards moved her from Hollywood to Malibu to get her away from the press and prying eyes, she’d found a friend and unlikely confidant in Elwood Blankenship. Elwood was an accepted member of the Hollywood universe Melanie had been kicked out of, and therefore on good terms with all the people who now refused to hire her. He was additionally, near as Eva could tell, good at giving advice. She hadn’t meant to overhear their telephone or over-the-fence conversations, but Melanie wasn’t one to whisper. Especially when she was upset.

The last conversation Eva overheard had been a little over a week ago when she’d been in the backyard, shaking out a rug. Melanie was at the side of the house, talking with Elwood across the fence as he stood at an open window on his upper story. It would have been impossible not to hear them.

Melanie had been telling Elwood she’d gotten a letter from Washington laying out for her what the government’s expectations were if she wanted to prove her innocence.

“I’m not un-American!” Melanie had been shouting up to the window. “I was a Girl Scout, for heaven’s sake. I sang the National Anthem at my high school football games! I have done nothing wrong, Elwood. Ask anyone at the studio! Anyone.”

“But this isn’t about what you have done or not done, Melanie,” Elwood had said, his voice gliding down unhurriedly to Melanie’s side of the fence. Eva got the impression he didn’t often raise his voice. “It’s about who they think you are. And who you associate with.”

“You mean who I sleep with,” Melanie had shot back, and only slightly less loudly.

“Especially who you sleep with.” His voice had still been gentle.

“Even if Carson is a communist-” Melanie had begun, but Elwood cut her off.

“You should probably just assume for the moment that they know something about him that you don’t. I would.”

“Why? Why should I do that?”

“Because word gets around in Hollywood, especially in the writers’ circles, where there once were quite a number of Party members. And because you’re only on the list because he is.”

“But even if Carson is a communist, that doesn’t mean that I am one!”

“I think perhaps those men in Washington suspect that you’re not.”

“Then why is all of this happening to me?”

“They suppose, if you are guilty, that you must know a great many people who are communists. Because you are in an intimate relationship with one. And that must mean you sympathize with a communist and what he believes in. Communist sympathizers are as great a threat to national security as communists. Maybe worse. That’s how they see it.”

“That’s not what I am!”

“But this is what they see.”

“They are wrong!”

“I am inclined to agree with you. The problem is not that they are wrong but that they are in a position to make your life difficult because they think they’re right. They have power that you do not.”

Eva had stopped shaking the rug but was glued to the spot as she listened.

“So I should do nothing?” Melanie had sounded on the verge of tears. “Is that what you’re saying?”

“You can only do what is in your power to do, of course. That’s all any of us can do about anything. But you can begin to do something by adjusting what they see.”

“And how am I supposed to do that?”

“Well, for one thing, you can stop sleeping with a man they say is a communist.”

“But I don’t think-”

“They think he is. That’s what you need to remember.”

“He’s paying my rent.”

“And you don’t see that as an additional problem here?”

“I can’t afford this place without his help.”

Elwood had sighed. He’d sounded tired to Eva, very tired, and it had been only a little past ten in the morning.

“And he’s not even here right now,” Melanie added.

“But he’ll be back at some point, right? Don’t you have family in Nebraska?” Elwood had asked wearily but still kindly.

Excerpted from A Map to Paradise by Susan Meissner Copyright © 2025 by Susan Meissner. Excerpted by permission of Berkley. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

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Historical fiction fans rejoice as Susan Meissner has a new novel titled The Nature of Fragile Things. I recently sat down with the author and asked her some questions about her new release, book recommendation, and more!

Your new novel, The Nature of Fragile Things, is out now. If you could only describe it with five words, what would they be?

Things aren’t as they seem.

Now, tell us a little more!

In THE NATURE OF FRAGILE THINGS, a mail-order bride’s world cracks wide open on the eve of the great 1906 earthquake when she finds out the San Francisco widower she married isn’t who he said he was. Sophie had managed to cobble together a version of happiness for herself despite marrying a stranger but when the quake hits, everything in her world begins to crumble beneath her feet – and I mean everything! Sophie’s fate is soon intertwined with the destinies of two other women, as well as that of the little girl to whom she had become an instant mother and now loves very much. Sophie is thrust onto a perilous journey that will test her resiliency and resolve, and ultimately, her belief that love can overcome fear. It’s a novel about the bonds of friendship and mother-love, and the power of female solidarity.

How did you come up with the title?

The title came to me rather quickly during the writing process and has significance for me for two reasons. First, the 1906 quake was so devastating to San Francisco because the city had been built on the underground boundary of two massive tectonic plates. It was a city of fragile structures, poised on a fault, and piped with gas lines and water mains that were also fragile. By contrast, fragility’s opposite – which is strength – was found in the people that survived it. Secondly, Sophie and the other key female characters in the book lived during a time when women were seen as fragile creatures with very little agency. They go on to prove within the pages of the book that both are false notions. The nature of something fragile is that when hurled to the ground, it will shatter. But I suggest in this story that not everything that looks fragile, is fragile.

What made you decide to set the story in 20th century San Francisco?

California is my home state so its history is already of interest to me, plus living here means the research aspect is easier to approach than other places I have written about. I have also lately been drawn to look for the stories in the places in which I find myself.  For a long while I was attracted to certain historic events and their locales were always secondary. But recently I’ve looked for stories in the places where I am. They are there. Some, I think, are just waiting to be told. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake was one of these stories itching to be told because of how defining it was. I find it amazing that a short, rubbing together of two tectonic plates 120 miles below the ground could bring about such jaw-dropping destruction.

Your main characters are all women dealing with their own struggles. Did you always want your characters to be strong female leads?

I think now more than ever readers appreciate female characters finding their voices and championing their own causes and rising up to be their own knights in shining armor but with this particular book I wasn’t looking to write a story about strong women; the backdrop of the earthquake and the fire – such imposing hurdles – just seemed a great fit. I think what I like best about the female characters in THE NATURE OF FRAGILE THINGS is that they really didn’t know how strong they were until they were cast into a crucible and discovered it. Maybe that’s the way it is for all of us?  I do think every great story features a character on a journey to find the best that is inside them.

Which character do you feel like you relate to most?

This is one of those books where all three of the main female characters have a little bit of me in them, even if it’s just the me I aspire to be if I was put to the test and then found the strength to meet it. Because these characters are revealed to the reader in delicate fashion, I won’t say more about which one I relate to the most, but I will say I don’t think I’m as brave as Sophie. I don’t think I would answer a mail-order bride ad. But then again, I’ve never faced the kind of hardships she faced. Perhaps none of us knows what we would be willing to do to grab hold of security until forced to choose.

What’s one thing you hope readers take away from this novel?

This is the first book of mine in a while to have what I would call a mystery thread at its core with some significant twists and turns, and so I would love for every reader to enjoy the ride. But I would also feel like I’d done some literary good if readers of THE NATURE OF FRAGILE THINGS stopped to consider the constructs of their own lives and what they are building, and to consider that all of it can be swept away in an instant except the love you have for the people you care about. Even if someone is taken from you in this fragile life, you get to keep all the love that you have for him or her. I love that about love. It can’t be taken from you.

What advice do you have for aspiring historical fiction writers? 

Read great works of historical fiction (you don’t have time for fluff), dial into a time period that you love and park there for awhile so that you can begin to feel like you actually lived then, and don’t skimp on the research. You won’t use it all – please don’t try – but you need to know it all.

Lastly, do you have any book recommendations for our readers? 

A few of my favorite reads of late have been THE ROSE CODE by Kate Quinn and THE WOMEN OF CHATEAU LAFAYETTE by Stephanie Dray. Both are gems, both are written by truly gifted wordsmiths, both are expertly researched and brimming with memorable characters and rich, historical detail, and both are releasing in March. These two books are Quinn and Dray at the top of their game. I also just finished THE INVISIBLE LIFE OF ADDIE LARUE by V. E. SCHWAB and I was blown away by the premise (haunting), the writing (utterly delicious), and the construction (flawless). It concerns a young woman so desperate to get out of an arranged marriage she bargains with the devil. The ending is the most satisfying conclusion to a book as I have read in a long time.

Will you be picking up The Nature of Fragile Things? Tell us in the comments below!

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Read on to discover our 2018 February Fiction picks and tell us in the comments below if you will be checking one (or several) out!

The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah | Goodreads

Alaska, 1974. A story of a family in crisis struggling to survive at the edge of the world, it is also a story of young and enduring love. Cora Allbright and her husband Ernt, a recently returned Vietnam veteran scarred by the war, uproot their thirteen-year-old daughter Leni to start a new life in Alaska. Utterly unprepared for the weather and the isolation, but welcomed by the close-knit community, they fight to build a home in this harsh, beautiful wilderness.

As Bright As Heaven by Susan Meissner | Goodreads

In 1918, Philadelphia was a city teeming with promise. Into this bustling town, came Pauline Bright and her husband, filled with hope that they could now give their three daughters a chance at a better life. But then the Spanish Flu reaches the shores of America. As the pandemic claims more than twelve thousand victims in their adopted city, they find their lives left with a world that looks nothing like the one they knew.

The Storm King by Brendan Duffy | Goodreads

Nate McHale has assembled the kind of life most people would envy after becoming a respected New York City surgeon, devoted husband, and loving father. Then a body is discovered deep in the forests that surround Greystone Lake, his childhood home. This discovery brings up tragedy from his youth causing him to reconnect with estranged friends and old enemies. Without a doubt, a reckoning is coming–one that will lay bare the lies that lifelong friends have told themselves and unleash a vengeance that may consume them all.

The House of Impossible Beauties by Joseph Cassara | Goodreads

It’s 1980 in New York City, seventeen-year-old Angel comes into her own. Burned by her traumatic past, Angel is new to the drag world, new to ball culture, and has a yearning inside of her to help create family for those without. She soon falls in love with Hector, who soon dies of AIDS-related complications, Angel must bear the responsibility of tending to their house alone. Recruiting others, they must learn to navigate sex work, addiction, and persistent abuse, leaning on each other as bulwarks against a world that resists them.

The Friend by Sigrid Nunez | Goodreads

When a woman unexpectedly loses her lifelong best friend and mentor, she finds herself burdened with the unwanted dog he has left behind. Her own battle against grief is intensified by the mute suffering of the dog, a huge Great Dane traumatized by the inexplicable disappearance of its master, and by the threat of eviction: dogs are prohibited in her apartment building. Isolated from the rest of the world, increasingly obsessed with the dog’s care, determined to read its mind and fathom its heart, she comes dangerously close to unraveling.

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones | Goodreads

Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of both the American Dream and the New South. But as they settle into the routine of their life together, Roy is arrested and sentenced to twelve years for a crime Celestial knows he didn’t commit. Though fiercely independent, Celestial finds herself taking comfort in Andre, her childhood friend. After five years, Roy’s conviction is suddenly overturned, and he returns to Atlanta ready to resume their life together.

Sunburn by Laura Lippman | Goodreads

They meet at a local tavern in the small town of Belleville, Delaware. Polly is set on heading west. Adam says he’s also passing through. However, they both stay and abandon themselves to a steamy, inexorable affair. Still, each holds something back from the other—dangerous, even lethal, secrets. Then someone dies.

The French Girl by Lexie Elliott | Goodreads

They were six university students from Oxford–friends and sometimes more than friends–spending an idyllic week together in a French farmhouse. It was supposed to be the perfect summer getaway–until they met Severine, the girl next door. Now, a decade later, the case is reopened when Severine’s body is found in the well behind the farmhouse.

Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi | Goodreads

An extraordinary debut novel, Freshwater explores the surreal experience of having a fractured self. It centers around a young Nigerian woman, Ada, who develops separate selves within her as a result of being born “with one foot on the other side.” Unsettling, heartwrenching, dark, and powerful, Freshwater is a sharp evocation of a rare way of experiencing the world, one that illuminates how we all construct our identities.

Punishment by Scott J. Holliday | Goodreads

Detroit-based homicide detective John Barnes has seen it all—literally. Thanks to a technologically advanced machine, detectives have access to the memories of the living, the dying, and the recently dead. But extracting victims’ experiences firsthand and personally reliving everything up to the final, brutal moments of their lives—the sights, the sounds, the scents, the pain—is also the punishment reserved for the criminals themselves. But Barnes has had enough…until a masked serial killer known as Calavera strikes a little too close to home.

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton | Goodreads

At a gala party thrown by her parents, Evelyn Hardcastle will be killed–again. She’s been murdered hundreds of times, and each day, Aiden Bishop is too late to save her. Doomed to repeat the same day over and over, Aiden’s only escape is to solve Evelyn Hardcastle’s murder and conquer the shadows of an enemy he struggles to even comprehend–but nothing and no one are quite what they seem.

Sadness Is a White Bird by Moriel Rothman-Zecher | Goodreads

In this lyrical and searing debut novel written by a rising literary star and MacDowell Fellow, a young man is preparing to serve in the Israeli army while also trying to reconcile his close relationship to two Palestinian siblings with his deeply ingrained loyalties to family and country.

Like the sound of any of these books? Tell us in the comments below!

The post February Book Releases: Fiction appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

In Matilda Empress, debut novelist Lise Arin sets her sights on a young and widowed Empress, Elif Batuman explores the year emailing revolutionised the world, and Susan Meissner’s A Bridge Across The Ocean tackles both the 1940’s and the present day.

Check out these six new books hitting the shelves this month!

Will you be adding any of these books to your list? Let us know in the comments below!

Matilda Empress by Lise Arin | Out Now | Goodreads
Matilda, a young and widowed 12th-century Empress of the Holy Roman Empire and daughter to Henry I. She returns home to become married against her will to a minor continental nobleman. After her father’s death, their family loses the throne to her cousin, despite their secret love affair and as anarchy reigns, the only hope is the Empress’s growing faith and their illegitimate son, whose rightful claim to the English throne could finally halt the bloody, endless war.

Girl in Disguise by Greer Macallister | March 21 | Goodreads
Inspired by a true story, respect is hard to come by for the first female Pinkerton detective. During the tumultuous years of the Civil War, the streets of Chicago offer a woman mostly danger and ruin, unless that woman is Kate Warne as she descents into undercover operations. She infiltrates the seedy side of the city in ways her fellow detectives can’t. From seductress to an exotic foreign medium, it all depends on the day and the robber, thief, or murderer she’s been assigned to nab.

The Idiot by Elif Batuman | Out Now | Goodreads
The year is 1995, and email is new. Selin, the daughter of Turkish immigrants, arrives for her freshman year at Harvard. Almost by accident, she begins corresponding with Ivan, an older mathematics student from Hungary and with each email they exchange, the act of writing seems to take on new and increasingly mysterious meanings.

The Confessions of Young Nero by Margaret George | Out Now | Goodreads
Built on the backs of those who fell before it, Julius Caesar’s imperial dynasty is only as strong as the next person who seeks to control it. As a boy, Nero’s royal heritage becomes a threat to his very life and he is dealt a harsh lesson: it is better to be cruel than dead. His mother is a cold-blooded woman whose singular goal is to control the empire and Nero’s determination to escape her thrall will shape him into the man he was fated to become, an Emperor who became legendary.

A Bridge Across the Ocean by Susan Meissner | March 14 | Goodreads
February, 1946. World War Two is over, but the recovery has only just begun for Annaliese Lange and Simone Deveraux. The two women join hundreds of other European war brides aboard the renowned RMS Queen Mary to cross the Atlantic to be reunited with their American husbands, but when their voyage ends, only one of them will disembark.

Agent 110: An American Spymaster and the German Resistance in WWII by Scott Miller | Out Now | Goodreads
A secret and suspenseful account of how OSS spymaster Allen Dulles led a network of Germans conspiring to assassinate Hitler and negotiate surrender to bring about the end of World War II before the Soviet’s advance.

The post Step Back In Time With These March Book Releases appeared first on The Nerd Daily.