I’ve written a lot about Gail Carriger’s Parasolverse before, but it’s been two whole years since I last wrote a post about it, so I think it’s only fair to do this week’s new book post about the omnibus edition of the Soulless manga, which came out on Tuesday. This is exciting because the individual editions which you can see in my picture are out of print and have been for a while (I’m very glad I splurged on them back in the day) and so it means that (hopefully) it will get a bit of a new life with the omnibus.
The manga covers the first three books in the story of Alexia Tarabotti, namely Soulless, Blameless and Changeless. I would tell you where that takes you to in her story, but that would be a spoiler so all I will say is that there are two more books – Heartless* and Timeless – after this, which haven’t been turned into manga (and won’t be) but it does work as a trilogy. I’m a graphic novel reader rather than a manga one, but I really did enjoy these and I’m glad to have them on my shelf. I will also be telling the comic book store to make sure they get a copy of the omnibus because I think there will be a customer or two who would like it.
*I’m still angry that my Heartless is a different size to the rest of the series, and if I ever see a copy that is the same size as the others I will be buying it so I can shelve them in order by chronology not by size because you can see from my photo what an absolute mess it is.
Happy Wednesday everyone, this week I’ve got a mixed bag of first books in series that I have recently read – we’ve got one fantasy, one historical mystery and one cozy crime, which may not be entirely representative of my general reading over the year, but is actually fairly representative of where my reading is at at the moment, minus a romance but I’m mostly reading standalone romances rather than series at the moment so I didn’t have one I could include!
Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett
After having enjoyed Agnes Aubert’s Mystical Cat Shelter so much last month, I went out and bought the first in Heather Fawcett’s previous series (yes I know, I’m repeating an author, but hey I make and break my own rules) about a professor who studies faeries and folklore. Emily Wilde has gone to visit a village in the far north to study the Hidden Ones, their local fae. She doesn’t want to talk to the locals and she is less than pleased when one of her colleagues from Cambridge turns up to help her. I really loved the world building and the characters are great. I felt like Fawcett did a really good job of explaining how the world works without info dumping on you and the two main plot strands – what are the fairies up to and who is Wendell Bartlett – provided plenty of action without being too stressful. Cozy fantasy so good I have already acquired the rest of the trilogy…
Murder on the Eiffel Tower by Claud Izner
This is the first in a series of books featuring bookseller Victor Legris in late nineteenth century Paris. In this it’s 1889 and Paris is a buzz with the World Exposition. Victor witnesses a woman’s death on the viewing platform of the brand new Eiffel Tower and doesn’t think that the official explanation is the right one. Soon he’s ducking and weaving around Paris trying to work out what happened and who did it and more people start to die. The original French version of this won the Prix Michel-Lebrun in 2003, which is a prize for French crime novels, which I thought was a good sign, but I was obviously reading it in English and although the mystery is good I found the writing style quite hard going, but that could of course be the fault of the translator. I bought this on my trip to Paris about 18 months ago so it’s taken me a while to get to and I do have the second on the shelf already ahving spotted it cheap second hand. So I’ll give that a go at some point and see if it grows on me.
Jammed with Secrets by Selina Hill*
This is the first in a new series of small town cozy crimes and sees Sadie, a disgraced chef return to her home town to try and rebuild her life. She’s trying to do this by running food trailers at a local music festival when a member of a 90s boyband is found dead in one of them. Not satisfied with the police investigation, Sadie starts to investigate herself to try and save her business. The actual murder mystery plot was pretty good – but the problem here is Sadie. There are some issues with her backstory that make it hard for the reader to sympathise with her and entirely understandable why the people in town wouldn’t want to eat her food. This is a problem entirely of the author’s own creation – and made me wonder why it wasn’t set up differently. And that’s all I can say without spoilers, but this is in Kindle Unlimited at the moment if you want to go and find out what I’m talking about!
We’re less than a month away from the release of Rainbow Rowell’s new novel Cherry Baby, so I thought I could probably risk reading her previous adult work now. You know what I’m like about saving things sometimes. Anyway, I wasn’t feeling very well last week so it seemed like a good potential treat in a week when I needed one. And here it is, this week’s BotW,
Shiloh and Cary were best friends in high school. The two of them and the third member of their trio Mikey were inseparable. But it was Shiloh and Cary that everyone thought would end up together. But they didn’t – and more than a decade later they’re going to meet for the first time in years at Mikey’s second wedding. Shiloh’s divorced with two small kids and Cary’s in the Navy, spending months at a time at sea. But is this the time that they will finally work out that they’re meant to be together?
This jumps backwards and forwards between the characters’ present day, high school and college showing how things were, how it fell apart and how they’re trying to make it work. I ended up really enjoying this, but I did have a few frustrations about it. Both characters needed to use their words more and have actual conversations, but I understood why they didn’t as teens because both had complicated home situations that they were working their way through. However, being inside Shiloh’s head made me anxious some of the time because the self sabotage was very real. But perhaps that’s what makes you root for them so much. This made me feel quite on edge through the final third, waiting for it all to fall apart again, but actually the resolution was pretty good. I can find military heroes a bit trying, but I understood why Cary was joining the Navy and what it was doing for him, but it was very much in the subtext and I felt like Shiloh’s lack of understanding about as a teen that was quite out of character for her considering how smart she was in other ways.
I can see that it won’t be for everyone – common threads in reviews that haven’t enjoyed it are around Shiloh being too hard to care for because of a perceived “too cool for school” or “not like other girls” type personality, or the characters not changing/developing as the years pass, but honestly I read Shiloh more as stand-offish and not letting people get close to her because if people are close they can hurt you (or judge you) more than anything else, and I think they did grow and change although it’s mostly in the subtext rather than one character overtly saying “OMG you would never have done that when we were at school” or similar. But I read this across about 24 hours and was smiling at the end, so that’s a pretty good recommendation and if you look at how much I’ve written about it, it will at least make you think!
My copy of Slow Dance came from NetGalley (yes I know, I told you I was behind) but it’s out in paperback now as well as in Kindle and Kobo. Rowell has a new book out in April, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see a price drop on the ebook price next month to go with the new release. You should be able to find it in bigger bookshops relatively easily too.
Genuinely cannot tell you how please with myself I am for getting the two longest runners off the list this week. Sadly it happened mostly because I was poorly for a couple of days and stuck at home, but the point is, I did it. Yay me. And aside from that a pretty good week in reading too – I read the new Katherine Center short I mentioned in last week’s BotW and strangely that is one of two on this list which are a second chance romance with hero who is in the Navy. So long since I’ve had a military hero pop-up in a book and then two come along at once. Had a bit of a day out on Saturday – more on that to come – but it was an eight book (purchase) day. Which is great in terms of new reading material, bad in terms of size of the shelf!
Happy Sunday everyone. I thought I’d make this a bit of a themed week and follow up on the Vanderbeekers series post on Friday with a family show that children will really, really enjoy in case you’re looking for something to take them to in the next school holidays.
My Neighbour Totoro is the RSC’s stage adaptation of the 1988 Studio Ghibli film of the same name. It tells the story of two young girls who move to the countryside with their father, to be closer to their mother who is being treated in hospital. In the countryside they meet magical creatures and make new friends. That’s a very simplistic description of the plot, but if I try and do any more then it gets really long and spoilery and no one wants that.
This is a really clever mix of real actors and puppets, with adults playing the child characters and human puppeteers who run the many, many puppets of hugely varying sizes. I just thought it was breathtaking – clever and beautiful. I think children will love it – and adults will get something out of it too, because a story that is about adventure and exploration and magical creatures for children has layers that work differently for adults. I hadn’t seen the movie when I went to see it – and it was such a hot ticket at the Barbican and when it first moved into the West End that it’s taken me a while to see it and I was a bit sceptical about whether I was going to like it, but I really, really did. As you can see from the photo I was really close (I got a rush ticket on the day) but I don’t think it spoiled anything for me being able to see all the tricks up close – if anything it enhanced things for me, because I do like to see how things work and how things are done. There aren’t a lot of shows on in the West End at the moment that I would consider going back to, but this is definitely one of them. It was magical.
And I love that something magical is in the Gillian Lynne. This was the first West End theatre I ever went to back when it was still called the New London to see Cats when I was in primary school. I can remember being completely blown away by the magic and specatcle of it – and although Totoro doesn’t use the revolving stage the way that Cats did, I think this would be a similarly special first show for children.
My Neighbour Totoro is currently booking until August 2026, and they seem to have a bunch of offers to try and make it more affordable for families too which is great.
It’s Saturday and I’ve been touring the bookshops recently so I’m back with some posts for my recent visits over the next couple of weeks. I’m starting with The Works, because I use it to analyse the trends of what’s selling in popular fiction.
So the main thing for me here is that a couple of books I thought were really good from the last couple of years have made it here now – namely The Favourites and I’m Glad My Mom Died. Aside from that, the romance selection continues to be dominated by dark romance, sports romance and cowboy romance.
The romantasy and fantasy section continues to expand – and once again it’s the crime section that is contracting to fit it. There is still Frieda McFadden though – so it’s the cozier/traditional end of the crime shelves that are losing ground here. I feel like I’ve gone from having read a lot of authors on the shelves here to very few. But there’s still Not in My Book at least.
There are a couple more that I’ve read here though – Mrs Porter Calling is great as are the other books in that series – Dear Mrs Bird is tucked at the top of the bottom rack stack; down the bottom left is one of Kate Claybourn’s Chance of a Lifetime series and Paper Towns too. I guess it’s good for my bank balance that there’s next to noting in the three for… any more, but it does make me sad that my tastes are diverging from popular fiction, even if I have enough books on the shelf waiting to last me for years at this point!
Happy Friday everyone, and this week I have a middle grade-series to talk about to make a bit of a change for you!
The Vanderbeekers is a series of seven middle grade novels about the Vanderbeeker family. There’s mom and dad and five kids, and they live in a brownstone in Harlem. In the first book the family are at risk of losing their home when their curmudgeonly and reclusive landlord decides not to renew their lease. Across the series they face various challenges in a sort of kids on a quest sort of way, but dealing with a range of real life issues – gentrification, financial problems, family problems, growing up and (potentially) leaving home and culminating in the most serious in the final book where one of the siblings is diagnosed with cancer.
What I really love about this series is how well drawn and well developed all the child characters are. They each have distinct and different personalities and there are different relationships between then depending on their ages and their positions in the family. It feels like a very real and realistic portrait of a family. It’s also a lovely depection of a community – the Vanderbeekers are very rooted in their area, which is why the threat of losing their home hits so much in the first book. It’s not just about the fact that it is upheaval, it’s that they will find it hard to find somewhere else in their neighbourhood – let alone somewhere else that’s big enough considering their current (beloved) home is bulging at the seams already. I’m not sure the book ever used the word gentrification, but that’s what’s going on as the families who have been living in the area find themselves being priced out and squeezed out of the area. And the importance of community is a big theme through the books. In a time when the internet and online culture can make the world feel more fractured than ever, it’s great to have a middle grade book series that is set in the present, but stresses the importance of real life community and friendships.
Now I’m not going to lie, this are a little harder to get hold of in the UK. I read a lot of the series via my US library card when I had that, and then when it expired I ordered the last two in paperback as they came out – which was a year behind the hardback releases. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen them in UK stores, but it’s definitely orderable if you want, and they’re also on Kindle at a sensible price – the second one is even in Amazon Kids at the moment.
A bit left field for this week’s new book because Alan Bennett is a legend. This officially comes out today, but the copy I pre-ordered for my little sister arrived on Tuesday. So you may already have your copy too. Enough Said is the fourth volume of Bennett’s diaries, taking you from 2016 – 2024 when Alan turned 90. He will be 92 in May and so every new thing at this point is a blessing and a treat. A Question of Attribution was on TV over Christmas, and I’m waiting for The Choral to pop up on a streaming service so I can catch up on that too.
Happy Wednesday everyone. Having recently read a mystery that was set in and around the Tower of London – and walking past it on my way to the theatre, it got me thinking about books that I’ve read set there. And so here I am with a very mixed bag Recommendsday for you.
Now obviously there are any number of history books that feature the tower given that it was the major seat of power and royal residence from the eleventh to about the fifteenth century and then less a residence more a prison from the Tudors onwards. So you can basically pick a history book about a major figure in English history and the Tower will feature in it. I’m not good with recommendations for history pre-Tudors, but I have read two of Dan Jones three books of medieval history (The Plantagenets and The Wars of the Roses, also known as The Hollow Crown) and I have the third one (Henry V) ready to go on the Kindle. And if you want to read Tudor history, the David Starkey books are an accessible place to start.
And as you know there is a lot of fiction written in and around the Tudors – I’ve written about Philippa Gregory’s series before, but there is also the Shardlake series where the Tower pops up, and obviously Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy – which I’ve read two of but can’t bring myself to read the end of because I know how it ends for Cromwell and Mantel has done such a good job of making you like him!
If you only know one thing about the Tower of London, it may be the story of the Princes in the Tower, aka Edward V and his younger brother Richard, who disappeared after being put into the Tower by their uncle and guardian the Duke of Gloucester, who then turned himself in to Richard III. What actually happened to them is one of the big debates in history and so crops up in a lot of fiction. The most famous is probably Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey, where her series detective Alan Grant is ill in hospital and uses the time to try and solve the mystery himself. It regularly crops up in lists of best mystery books ever. The Chronicles of St Mary’s series also hits up this time period in Plan for the Worst, but given that this is book 11 in a quite complicated series, I wouldn’t advise starting your St Mary’s journey there.
Now one series you can pick up midway through without being completely lost are the Daisy Dalrymple books by Carola Dunn. Book 16, The Bloody Tower, sees new mum Daisy picking up the threads of her journalistic career by writing an article about the Tower of London. It sees her spending a night there so that she can witness the ceremony of the keys – and then stumbling across a dead body the next morning. I think this was the first novel I read with the tower in it – and it’s got a lot about the day to day of the Tower in the 1920s in it as well as the murder mystery.
And then that brings me up to the book that got me thinking about writing this post – Murder at the Tower by N R Daws. Mrs Bramble is a palace housekeeper at Hampton Court, but when her friend Reverend Weaver is accused of a murder at the Tower of London after a congregant drops dead during a service, she heads there to help clear his name. At the Tower she finds secrets and feuds and a long list of suspects. And a long list of suspects is the thing that I think caused me the most issues with this – the huge cast of characters meant it was hard to follow who was who. I also didn’t love the writing style which just added up to a bit of a disappointing read for me overall. This came out earlier this month and I requested this from NetGalley because I really like a historical mystery – and I wanted to see whether being in conjunction with Historic Royal Palaces made for any different details than other mysteries that I have read that are set in and around the Tower of London. I didn’t realise this was the second book featuring the same characters or I might have thought twice because I do like to read in order.
I mentioned yesterday that I had to crack out an emergency book over the weekend because I wasn’t feeling very well and that’s what I’ve ended up picking today: the latestKatherine Center, The Love Haters, which came out in paperback back in November. And it’s particularly good timing because it turns out that Center has written an Amazon Original story that is out today too.
Katie Vaughan is a videographer. For her day job she works for a small media company who make corporate and promotional video. For herself she makes day in the life videos about people who have done something heroic. The trouble is the passion project doesn’t pay the rent and there is a massive round of layoffs happening at the day job. So that’s why when her boss Cole offers her a last chance job she takes it. Trouble is, it’s filming a coast guard rescue swimmer and Katie doesn’t swim and the swimmer is Hutch, Cole’s brother. Hutch is internet famous after his rescue of a dog went viral, but he’s turned down every interview request since. But Katie really needs her job, so she heads off to the Florida Keys, where she finds that everything is just a bit different – and Hutch is definitely not what she was expecting either.
So I had a few qualms at a couple of points when I was reading this. Firstly there was a point where I was worried that this was going to have too much comedy based on humiliation, then there was a big third act twist that I was a bit dubious about and then I was concerned about the finale. But every time, it pulled it around – for me at least. I can see from the reviews that some people have found the plot strand around body image too much for them, but as someone who grew up in the terrible times that were the early 2000s I could totally understand where Katie was coming from and found her evolution on that front quite satisfying. Hutch is a great character – I wasn’t really aware of Coast Guard Swimmers being a thing before this book, but it was the perfect match of character and job and makes total sense for the way that the ending plays out. I don’t know that it’s my favourite of hers – I think I love The Rom-Commers the most, and it’s not a surefire recommendation for people because for reasons that may be apparent from what I’ve already written, but I read this in the space of an afternoon and evening and really enjoyed it.
This is out now in Kindle, Kobo and paperback. It’s showing up as being in stock in some of the London Waterstones so I think you should be able to get it in stores too.
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 