The pile

Books Incoming: Mid-August 2026 edition

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So this post is in three parts. First we have the books I bought on the way to conference, then the books after conference and then everything else. If you want to see what I bought *at* conference, you can find that post here.

Firstly we have my haul from The Spicy Librarian and the many, many charity shops that were between The Spicy Librarian and the car park on our way back to the car! From the Spicy Librarian we have Samantha Spük: Paranormal Wedding Planner, Death Meets Cute and Swordheart. I hadn’t come across the first two before but I’ve had my eye on Swordheart for a while and finally succumbed! From the charity shops we have Twelfth Knight which is (as you might be able to guess) a Twelfth Night retelling, but featuing e-sport (which you might not have guessed) and which ended up being a late addition to my friend’s talk about niche sports in children’s books, a Chanel Cleeton which I’ve had my eye out for, Thank you for Sharing which is an enemies to lovers romance and a Penelope Lively that I haven’t read but which is *technically* for my sister!

Then we have the Bath purchases. There are three from Persephone, which was as wonderful as ever, and then two Agatha Oddly’s from one of the charity shops near Persephone and finally A Little Buzzed and Apparently Sir Cameron Needs to Die from the brilliant selection at Mr B’s Emporium.

And as for everything else:

Yes! I managed to resist temptation, and so far in August (book Con was the last weekend in July) I haven’t bought *any* actual physical books. We will just ignore the ebook purchases… and obviously the fact that I’ve already talked about 14 book purchases in this post, let alone the nine I bought at conference, although it should be noted that five of them are already off the pile because I’ve read them already. Go me!

series

Mystery Series: Spector Locked Room Mysteries

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Happy Friday everyone and for the third series post in a row I have a mystery series for you. After current (at the time it was written) with Imogen Quy last week and St Just before that this week (coincidentally both set in Cambridge) this week it’s a historical mystery series – not set in Cambridge!

These are called the Spector Locked Room mysteries, but I think it’s fair to say that Joseph Spector and the police detective who calls him in George Flint are equal leads in these locked room mystery stories. And every mystery may not be a literal locked room (although several are!) but they are so called ‘”impossible” crimes where it appears impossible for the deaths to have been carried out by a human or be anything other than suicides.

Now there are a fair few locked room mysteries in Agatha Christie (Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Mysterious Affair at Styles) but I would say that these are closer to John Dickson Carr’s books. Tom Mead has come up incredibly twisty solutions, that often require a fair degree of concentration to follow as they’re explained, which is not something I’ve ever found with Christie.

These are set in the 1930s – we’ve reached 1939 in this latest one – which firmly puts them in that inter-war Golden Age-esque category of historical mysteries. The other series that has a magician and a policeman working together is Elly Griffiths’ Brighton Mysteries – but those are all post world war two, and tend to be more focussed on Edgar (the policeman) not Max (the magician). The first book in this series, Death and the Conjuror was a BotW in July last year, but I think the fourth book in the series is the best/my favourite – it’s got a creepy mansion that can get cut off by the tide that attracts ghost hunters and people seeking contact with the spirit world.

The first three of these have been consistently in Kindle Unlimited since I started reading them last year, but the fourth one isn’t yet – I was wondering if it would go in when it came out in paperback but it didn’t – although I did pick it up when it was on sale. No news yet on whether there is a book five, but there are a couple of short story collections too that I haven’t had a chance to read yet.

Have a great weekend.

Book previews

Out today: Hot Type

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It’s not often that I do a non-fiction book for this post but I was really glad when this popped up on the new release lists because not only is it right up my street but I’d been struggling to find anything on the fiction lists for this week that I wanted to write about! Anyway, Hot Type is the story of the Linotype machine, which was the invention that replaced Gutenberg’s moveable type. It was at least three times faster than hand setting type for printing and led to the boom in newspaper, magazine and periodical publishing in the late 19th century. The blurb for Jeff Jarvis’s book promises the stories of the characters that were involved – from the inventors, to the media moguls, the machine operators and the journalists. My book backlog is large as you know, but I’m putting this on the acquisitions list!

detective, Forgotten books, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: BLCC mysteries about artists

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Verdict of Twelve was a BotW in July and Sky High back in April, but generally my rate of reading BLCC books has slowed a little this year as I try to do some work on the actual to read pile and the Netgalley backlog. But I’m back now with another BLCC round up. And all of these actually feature artists – which I only realised as I added the last review, it wasn’t at all intentional but as I do like a mystery about artists I’m embracing it and changed the title of the post accordingly – it was originally the much more boring BLCC Summer 2026!

The Double Turn by Carol Carnac

Adrian Delafield used to be a celebrated painter, but these days the old man is a recluse at his home in St John’s Wood, jealously guarded by his housekeeper Miss Trimming. But when she is found dead at the bottom of the stairs, and Delafield is found badly hurt after seemingly trying to help her, the police – and some of people around the household are not convinced it was an accident – despite the fact that the house was locked tight. This is a relatively recent release, hot on the heels of the success of other Carnacs for the BLCC and it’s a really good one. This is a nice variation on the theme – Delafield is very much a relic of a prior artistic era, a curiosity that has been (mostly) forgotten. His household is fascinating – and has that staple of the mystery genre: a religious fanatic, but there is a backstory to it (more than you get in many of these!) that means you do come to understand how Miss Trimming might have turned out the way she did. Well worth a look – probably my favourite of this selection.

Death Knows No Calendar by John Bude

This is the second half of a BLCC double bill of John Bude. I did read the first one as well, but I’m focusing on the second one (which is the better one of the two). It’s a locked room mystery in an artists studio with plenty of candidates for the killer to be investigated by local retired soldier Major Boddy. This has a more adventure-y streak than a lot of Golden Age Crime, but Bude does tend towards that at times. This is listed as being part of the Inspector Meredith series, but don’t be fooled – he’s not in it, but it is apparently in the same universe as the ones that do. If you haven’t read any Bude before and you’re not wedded to reading a book about an artist, I’d start with The Lake District Murder or The Cheltenham Square Murder.

The Spoilt Kill by Mary Kelly

Cover of the Spoilt Kill

The artist in this one is primarily a designer of pottery patterns, so it’s maybe a little stretch, but she’s clearly doing other drawing in her spare time (you see them as part of the plot) so I say it counts! Anyway an old established pottery company in Stoke on Trent is having its designs stolen by the competition and then undercut. So they call in a private detective to investigate where the leak is coming from but while Hedley Nicholson is investigating, he finds more is going on than just industrial espionage – even before a worker is found in a vat of liquid clay. This isn’t quite in the common way of mystery books as it’s very character driven and introspective and feels noir-ish in the way it paints a picture of the Potteries and the people Nicholson encounters while he’s investigating. I think I liked The Christmas Egg more, but both are grittier and darker than many other BLCCs – and are also set in the post-war period rather than the interwar one. There is another book featuring Nicholson available in the series and I suspect I’ll read it when I get a chance.

That’s your lot – this time… Happy Humpday!

Book of the Week

Book of the Week: Honey Bee Mine

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It’s Tuesday again and I’m back again with another romance book pick – but this time it’s a bit of a weepy one, in a good way though, not in a not-really-a-romance-because-someone-dies way. I previewed Sarah T Dubb’s second book in the lookahead at the start of the year and so it’s probably not a surprise that this would be my pick once I read it.

Penny Becker is a bee keeper, and she’s also trying to keep her family’s farm going. She grew up on the farm with her mother and grandmother – after her grandfather and her father upped and left their relative partners. Penny never stops working – and she never relies on anyone other than herself because it always ends in tears. The last time she did try to let someone in, it resulted in a failed expansion plan, the loan for which is the reason the farm might be about to be foreclosed on. She really needs the annual honey festival to be a success to save the farm. Zander Bouras spent his childhood summers on his grandfather’s farm next door and he really, really hated it. He is not at all happy to be back in town for the summer, but his ex-wife wants to spend summer in town with her parents and where his son goes, Zander goes. And so he’s back in town and he’s taking the summer off from his life as a restauranteur to deal with the property his grandfather left him. As a teen he hated Penny for her perfect life, but his son is really into bees and so he and Penny are forced into each other’s orbit and need to learn to work together.

I was expecting the enemies bit of the enemies to lovers trope to last a bit longer than it did, but actually Zander and Penny get past their issues relatively quickly and this is more of a small town romance where one half of the couple really, really isn’t planning on staying in town and where the other is keeping some pretty big secrets. And I’ll admit I did want Penny to use her words and explain what was going on to someone, anyone other than just her co-worker, but he was encouraging her to let people in and Penny’s reluctance to ask for help felt very logical given the circumstances of her life. And this isn’t always doing what you expect it to do, and there’s one particular thing I was half expecting to occur that didn’t and in the end, I didn’t really mind because I was too invested in how Zander and Penny were going to find their way to a happy ending.

Sarah T Dubb says at the start of the book that this wasn’t the second book that she was planning to release after Birding With Benefits and this did make me a bit teary eyed at times – in a good way, not a miserable one which I don’t remember from Birding, but honestly, like her prior novel this has relatable characters who are imperfect and dealing with it – even if it’s a completely new group of people in a completely different state to Birding – and maybe one day we will see the original second book too. Either way, I’ll be looking for the next book from Dubb whenever it appears.

This one is available in Kindle and Kobo. I pre-ordered the paperback but when it turned up (back in March!) it was definitely an American edition and I don’t think I’ve seen this in a store yet so I don’t know how easy it will be to get a proper copy. If I spot it I’ll try and mention it though.

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: August 10 – August 16

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After another sweltering week, it’s meant to be getting a bit cooler. I can’t work out if this is going to help or hinder my reading – the heat has made me stay indoors more but also made it harder to concentrate. If it gets significantly cooler it will be very tempting to go out and get some fresh air. But given my recent experiences of getting out have left me a sweaty mess because of the humidity as well as the heat, may be I’ll still be sheltering in areas with air conditioning! We’re at a slightly funny point in the book release cycle – the summer books are already out, but the autumn ones haven’t quite started yet. I should be using this to catch up on things in the NetGalley backlog, but what I’m actually doing is reading books that I bought at Bristol and picking things up from the actual pile, reading 10 pages and then putting them down again. I blame the heat.

Read:

The Lion’s Tusk by Robert Jackson Bennett

A Caribbean Mystery by Agatha Christie

A Labyrinth of Honeybees by Heather Fawcett

The House at Devil’s Neck by Tom Mead

Continental Christie by Agatha Christie

Helen, Television Dancer by Linda Graeme

Honey Bee Mine by Sarah T Dubb

Henrietta by Sophie Irwin*

Started:

The Truth About Love by Stephanie Laurens

Still reading:

Any Way the Wind Blows by Rainbow Rowell

Nothing bought. A very well behaved week.

Bonus picture: a Parachutist on their way down on Sunday at the Balloon Festival. We went to take a look because a) it’s really nearby and b) it seemed slightly cooler. But in fact it was deceptive and the humidity was grim. Still at least we saw the parachutes, even if the only hot air ballons we saw were the baskets waiting to be re-gassed.

*next to a book book title indicates that it came from NetGalley. ** indicates it was an advance copy from a source other than NetGalley.

comedy, not a book, theatre

Not a Book: How the Other Half Loves

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Another theatre trip this Sunday, and I actually saw this before I saw The Comedy About Spies, but it was an early preview and opening night was only Tuesday this week so I was a good girl and saved it.

How the Other Half Loves is a 1969 sex farce written by Alan Aykbourn, it is his ninth play (his 92nd premieres in Scarborough next month) and in fact was one of his first big successes. It follows three couples across the course of a couple of days, with two different homes existing in one set. When Fiona Foster and Bob Philips’s need to hide their affair from their spouses, they use a third couple – the Featherstones – as an alibi. William and Mary have no idea that this is going on as their lives collide with the Fosters and the Philips and much hilarity ensues.

I have seen a couple of Alan Aykbourn plays, with mixed results, but I do love a farce and this has Roger Allam (on whom more later) and so I trotted down to the Old Vic on a ticket deal. And yes it has its dated moments, but it’s really clever and there are lots of laughs. However, I watched a not insignificant portion of it through my fingers because the cringe got too much for me. As I said to Him Indoors on the way home – I think you’d like it, but I can’t put myself through that again to go with you.

It’s got a cracking cast though – led by Roger Allam, who as you can see from the video above is prepared to look ridiculous. I first saw him on stage nearly two decades ago in another farce – opposite Mark Rylance in Boeing Boeing – and obviously I adore Cabin Pressure of which he is a core component. He can do Serious (I’ve also seen him as Prospero in The Tempest) but comedy is where I have enjoyed him the most. And although every character here has their moment to shine, his Frank Foster is brilliant – he’s the department manager of the other two and has the status and pomposity to go with it but he’s also clueless and bumbling and obssessed with trivialities and under it all he’s actually maybe the kindest character of the lot. As his wife Dorothy Atkinson is channeling Margo from the Good LIfe but with more secrets but Laura Elsworthy as Mary Featherstone is doing something really interesting with the shyest mouse you ever did see who manages to do a roar by the end.

It’s is also really cleverly constructed – the in the round set up and the competing action in the two different houses, which culminates in a simulataneous dinner party as the Featherstones have dinner at the Fosters (on Thursday night) and the Philips’ (on Friday) swiveling in their seats to denote which time line they’re in at any time. And I realise that that may sound mad, but it works and it’s not even the craziest thing that Aykbourn has done in his plays – he can make The Comedy About Spies four bedroom set look simple – whether it’s this, Bedroom Farce (three bedrooms, one night and morning), The Norman Conquests (three plays each set in a different part of a house across one weekend) or House and Garden (two plays, one cast, performed simultaneously in adjoining stages). I’m not sure this is the best place to start with Aykbourn, but if you’re interested in plays with interesting concepts and can cope with Alan Partridge without dying inside then this is worth a look. It’s also the reason why I’ve had Peter Sarstedt’s Where Do You Go To My Lovely stuck in my head on and off for nearly two weeks!

Have a great Sunday

bookshops

Books in the Wild: The Spicy Librarian

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Happy Saturday, I’ve got another bookshop this week from the Bristol Odyssey and this time it’s The Spicy Librarian, a relatively new romance specialist (and bar!) in Leamington Spa. And it’s even great timing because today is Romance Bookstore Day in the US so I’m vaguely timely for once.

Firstly, I want to say that it’s big! I know their instagram says it’s Europe’s biggest independent romance bookshop, but I was not prepared. And it’s got a lovely corner plot too so hopefully everyone going past gets a good eyeful!

And let us take a moment for how pretty this is! Look at the indoor tree! And the rug! And the seats and tables for you to have a drink and a sit down with a book.

And this is the table underneath it, which I think gives a good idea of the selection – which felt very carefully curated. There’s authors here that you will see in other stores – Tessa Bailey, Lila Sage, Josie Silver – and then Kayla Olson, whose first book didn’t get a paperback release over here, the second did and now the third is getting into more stoies and then some stuff I hadn’t seen anywhere else (r at least don’t remember seeing anywhere else!) like The Singer Sisters (actually two years old), Fallen Willow and Forsaking Midnight which was a very new release at the time.

I was expecting the store to be really heavy on the romantasy and also on the self-published, but actually it’s more balanced than that. It has got a big romantasy section but as well as the usual suspects there were some lesser spotted ones – or at least lesser spotted by me, admittedly not a romantasy reader or connoisseur.

But there was also a lot of other romance as well – this is part of the contemporary romance section – with quite a lot of sports romances but I promise there were other things there too. I could easily have bought more than I did. I’ve spent a lot of time in various romance sections of bookstores and there were plenty here that I hadn’t seen before – including a bunch of US imports that aren’t in Kindle in the UK.

And finally as well as the (licenced) bar, there is merch. I’m not meant to be acquiring any more tote bags and although I did acquire tote bags over the course of the weekend, on Friday afternoon my will power was in tact. It was also about 30 degrees so I managed to resist the hoodie, but whether I’d be as strong on a chilly day in the autumn who can tell.

series

Mystery Series: Imogen Quy

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Happy Friday everyone and I’ve got a mystery series pick for you today – back in May I picked The Wyndham Case as a BotW and I enjoyed it so much that I immediately bought and binged the rest of the series and now a couple of months has elapsed and I feel it’s only fair I should tell you about the series.

Imogen Quy is the college nurse at the fictional St Agatha’s College, Cambridge. In fact she initially started training as a doctor but dropped out to move to America with her boyfriend – who was also training as a doctor and had got an opportunity over there. After he dumped her, she moved back and finished her training but this time as a nurse. Now she’s in her thirties and living in the house her parents left her in Cambridge, complete with a couple of lodgers (who change a bit from book to book) and across the four books stumbling across some mysteries.

As the college nurse, Imogen has a good reason to be called to look at a body when it’s found in college, and her role in college means that she sits outside both the students and academics of the college. She has a group of friends which includes some of her lodgers, some of the other people at the college and also a local policeman. The first mystery is connected to a historical book collection held by the college, the second is a half-written biography of a mathematician which seems to be burning through authors, the third is about the death of a prospective benefactor to the college and the final book about the mysterious death of a college scholar who fell while attempting a spot of night climbing. All of them are well constructed and pretty clever – and you can draw your own conclusions about how much I liked them based on how quickly I read them!

As I said in my review of The Wyndham Case, I had been wanting to read the Imogen Quy series since I first read one of Jill Paton Walsh’s Wimsey continuations – in the introduction to the first one she writes about how inspired she was by Gaudy Night and so I wanted to see what she did with her own Oxbridge college mystery series. And I wasn’t disappointed. I didn’t like the final book quite as much as the others, but I would happily have read more if she had written them. Paton Walsh was a prolific author and also wrote novels for younger readers and more literary fiction. She wrote the first two in the early 1990s before she worked on Thrones, Dominations and alongside other things and then are sandwiched between A Presumption of Death and the third and fourth of her Wimsey/Vane novels as the last five books she published.

I picked all of these up second hand – but they’re also available on Kindle and if I hadn’t already started buying them and wanted the set (and as matching as possible!), I might have been tempted by the Kindle editions so I could read them quicker rather than waiting for the postman.

Have a great weekend!

books

Out this Week: New Olivia Dade

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Happy Thursday – it’s new Olivia Dade week. This time it’s a second paranormal romance following on from last year’s Zom Rom Com. In World’s Okayest Oracle our heroine is Gwen, who can see the future, but only the mundane stuff for humans – not the life and death of civilisations stuff. But then brain eating zombies escape and she gets her first world-altering vision and she needs help. Hugh is the help. He’s a demon and he watched her fail her oracle test back in the day and now they have to work together. The fate of the world is at stake – but also maybe if they do save the world, might their future be together?