Book of the Week, Christmas books, detective, historical, mystery, new releases

Book of the Week: Murder on the Royal Crescent

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As I said yesterday I started my new Christmas book reading last week and it’s only fair that this should be today’s BotW because a) it came out last week, b) it’s really good and c) it’s the follow up to D is for Death which was also a BotW. Yes that was only a pick in April and it’s a sequel so I’m breaking two of my own rules (about repeats and sequels) to post this but it was my favourite thing I read last week so I don’t care!

Cover of Murder on the Royal Crescent

It’s December 1936 and while the rest of the country is consumed with the abdication of Edward VIII, Dora Wildwood is in Bath where a death has happened on the twentieth anniversary of an earlier murder. In 1916 Daisy Palmer was found dead on Royal Crescent and now someone else is dead in front of the house where Daisy’s increasingly eccentric fiancé still lives on the Crescent. Dora discovers that the Georgian houses are a broiling mass of family rivalries and dodgy antiques dealings as well as a wall of silence about what actually happens to Daisy. Oh and there’s a massive schism between people who like the Brontes and the ones who like Austen. Can Dora work out what on earth is going on?

We are a year or more on from the events of D is for Death and this is largely set away from the London Library where that book is set and where Dora still works (when she’s not trying to set up her detective agency) so I don’t think you need to have read that book to enjoy this one, and although reading this first will spoil some of the events of the first book you definitely don’t need to have read that one to enjoy this. In my review of that first book I described it as a historical mystery romp and Dora as a delightfully quirky heroine and all of that is still true but she’s also gained a bit of maturity and experience. The mystery is good – but the portrayal of Bath is brilliant. Townson lives there and she’s made it a real character in the book which is lovely. Sometimes you read a book and the setting feels a bit generic – like it could be anywhere – but this is not one of those books. It’s not as Christmas-Christmas as some of the other festive releases, but it is Christmassy – so if you’re looking to get your festive reading underway it would be a good choice.

My copy came from NetGalley, but this one is out now in hardback and should be fairly easy to get hold of in physical copy. And of course it’s in Kindle and Kobo too.

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: October 26 – November 1

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A three theatre-trip week as I mentioned yesterday and the list reflects that somewhat. I’ve also read my first of this year’s new Christmas books – I’m not averse to reading Christmas-set books at any time of year, but I’m not normally so early with the new festive releases. So I’ll take that as a win for the week. All the usual start of the month stuff is coming up this week, and it is a quieter week so hopefully next week’s list will be a bit better.

Read:

Murder on Royal Crescent by Harriet F Townson*

Death at Victoria Dock by Kerry Greenwood

As You Like It by William Shakespeare

Lion in the Valley by Elizabeth Peters

A Carol and a Killing by Rev Richard Coles

The Murders of Richard III by Elizabeth Peters

Started:

Beware the Trains by Edmund Crispin

Still reading:

N/a

Four books bought – two at Main Character and two while we were in Stratford on Saturday. One ebook as well.

Bonus social post: since I posted my review yesterday the RSC has posted a snippet of As You Like it in the forest of Arden so now you too can marvel at the set (and at the performances)

Bonus picture: The first show I saw last week was at a new to me venue – the Emerald which is under a bridge on the Embankment. I liked the retro vibes of the theatre, but that was about it.

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

not a book, theatre

Not a Book: As You Like It

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I had three theatre trips this week – one of which I disliked (and which ended last night) and two of which I loved. This is one of the loved but I only saw this last night, so I’m not sure my thoughts on it are at their most coherant yet. However as it only has a week left of its run I thought I ought to write about it straightaway – although tickets are at a something of a premium and next weekend is already completely sold out – so if you want to go you’ll have to get your ducks in a row RightNowThisInstant.

This is the RSC’s new production of As You Like It, with an all-male cast led by Jonathan Groff making his RSC debut as Rosalind. In case you’re not across the plot – this is one of Shakepeare’s comedies and I’m going to use the RSC’s own summary because it’s so neat and concise:

Rosalind is banished from the court of Duke Frederick – but not before she and young Orlando fall for each other. Seeking out her exiled father in the Forest of Arden with her devoted cousin, Celia, Rosalind disguises herself as a young man, Ganymede.

In fear of his own life, Orlando also escapes to the forest and soon runs into Ganymede, who pledges to cure his lovesickness. But in order to do so, Orlando has to woo her… or rather, he has to woo ‘him’. Then the games commence.

I am always a comedy over tragedy person – and like my all-time favourite Twelfth Night, this has characters in disguise. And in fact it goes even further than that does, especially when you have an all male cast because by late in the second act you have a man playing a woman, dressed as a man pretending to be a woman. If that sounds confusing, it’s not, because when you’re watching it onstage it’s wonderfully, gloriously clear.

In fact, I don’t really have any complaints to make about this at all, it was quite simply one of the best nights of theatre I have had in a very long time. It was very funny, the performances were brilliant and I cannot explain how brilliant the design and costume of it was. My photo of the top is of the opening set that is used for the Court of Duke Frederick – and the contrast from that to the Forest of Arden is truly astonishing. I did take a photo, but I’m not posting it because it’s a spoiler and it really doesn’t do the thing justice.

I always worry that I’m not going to be able to follow Shakespeare if I haven’t read up first* and I read the play text this week to make sure I was across what was happening, but honestly I didn’t need to – it was so easy to understand and so clear what was happening. This is Daniel Evans’ first Shakespeare productions since he started as RSC co-artistic director and he has made the Forest of Arden’s residents Welsh, with beautiful close harmony singing on top of everything else that is so clever.

I booked this because my sister and I wanted to see Jonathan Groff, and he was brilliant – but truly the whole production was. Gary Wilmot – who I have only ever see in panto or musicals – is making his RSC debut as Dukes Frederick and Senior but truly I don’t think there was a weak link anywhere in the cast – or indeed the whole production. Truly a magical, magical night in the theatre.

Have a great Sunday.

*I think this is a legacy of seeing a couple of Shakespeares as a teenager where I struggled

bookshops

Books in the Wild: Main Character Books

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It’s Saturday and I’m back with another bookshop post and it’s another post for a specialist romance bookshop, which makes my third this year after The Spicy Librarian and Saucy Books. And I would like to go on record with how happy it makes me that we have specialist romance stores popping up and increasing. I’m not a romantasy reader but I do credit that genre with helping make this happen and so it’s probably apt that I was in Main Character Books (the day) after the new Sarah J Maas came out as you can see from the window.

Main Character Books is in Spital Square, in Spitalfields which is a five minute or so walk from Liverpool Street Station (if you manage to use the right exit, which I am so bad at you wouldn’t believe) and near lots of interesting looking food spots.

I’m staring with their selection of classics because there are some really, really pretty ones. I don’t need any more hardback editions or special-design paperbacks, but they’re beautiful and I’m tempted every time. As you may be able to see at the bottom left there is the Virago Designer edition of Barbara Pym’s Excellent Women that I have on my shelf.

I mostly took this for the merch – not for the SJM, and I’m not really giving you many photos of the romantasy selection beyond this, because it’s not what I’m interested in, but trust me when I say that there is plenty of it, the stuff you’ll have heard of and new things to discover.

What I am interested in is the contemporary section of which this is a small part. Alongside the more usual/common authors and books I found stuff that I haven’t seen in physical copies before, old favourites and quite a few US format paperbacks of books that just aren’t available over here yet (and aren’t on Kindle either) which were very, very tempting.

Among the books I hadn’t seen before was the new Jenny Holiday Book Club Boyfriend which came out in July and has a formerly-famous heroine and a grumpy bestselling author hero and enemies to loves and forced proximity vibes which sounds like it might be fun. (also next to it and partly out of shot is Kate Stayman London‘s vampire book – she has a new one out at the moment which also looks interesting, but I’m not sure I can cope with an enemies to lovers romance set in the world of US politics at the moment – may be after the midterms?

And finally before I go, a copy of Season of Love by Helena Greer in the wild – which I don’t think I’ve seen before and which made me very happy because I enjoyed it so much and feels like I read it more recently than I did but it was actually one of the last things I read in 2025. Yes I did buy a couple of books and no I won’t tell you now, you’ll have to wait for the next Books Incoming.

Have a great Halloween if that’s your thing, otherwise I hope you’ve safely tucked away at home in the warm with some good food!

series

Bingeable Series: Magic and Mystery

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After Wednesday’s Halloween-y Recommendsday, I’m carrying on the spooky season theme with a post on the Magic and Mystery novella series, which I previewed when they came out in July.

My favourites of the six were the first two which happened to include the ones by Travis Baldree and Heather Fawcett who have written two of my favourite reads of the year, which means that’s possibly not a suprise. I hadn’t read any Sarah Beth Durst before though – so I was pleased to see that some of her other books are in Kindle Unlimited so I could try out what else she’s done and see if any of those are to my taste.

But that’s not to say that the others weren’t good – they’re all solid, just not all to my taste in reading. But I think across the series there’s probably something for all shades of fantasy readers . I would be tempted to try something else by Robert Jackson Bennett, but I can’t work out from the book covers which ones might be to my taste. And lets be honest here, my to read pile is already so huge that it would take me years to get around to it so I’ve put a pin in it for now – but if something by him should happen to come my way, I’ve got a marker down now.

I’ve read quite a few of these Amazon Originals collections now – and I think this is one of the stronger ones, although I think Busybodies might still be my favourite. If you’re a Kindle Unlimited subscriber these are a nice way to pass some time and maybe read some new-to-you authors.

Have a great weekend.

Book News, Book previews

Out this Week: New Sarah J Maas

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This week is one of the biggest release weeks of what has already been a bumper autumn release season with the new Sarah J Maas book. I’m not an SJM reader, but I know a lot of people who are and who have been very excited waiting for this one. And in case you doubted how huge this is, it’s reported that the first print run for this is four million copies. Million. This is the sixth in the A Court of Thorn and Roses series, which started back in 2015, which really was a totally different time in books. And some of the things from that era have carried over to this – I’ve seen midnight launch events (including at Gower Street) which isn’t a thing that we get any more. The seventh in the series is out at the end of January, so I look forward to seeing whether the excitement from this one carries over to that, because in the end the “proper” reviews don’t matter – it’s the reaction of the fans and readers that does for this one.

book round-ups, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: Halloween 2026

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It’s Halloween on Saturday so for this week’s Recommendsday I’ve got some spooky season reading for you. As ever, I had a whole list of books I was planning to read for this, and managed to only read a few of them, but a few is better than none right?

A Murder at Midnight by Ellie Alexander*

Halloween is coming in Redwood Grove and along with the rest of the town Annie and Fletcher are preparing for spooky happenings. When they get a phone call from a TV company looking to film an episode of their ghost hunting show in the bookshop it seems like great publicity – they get the Haunted Bookshop on TV on a show with a big fan base. But when a member of the crew dies, it seems like the only publicity they’ll be getting is bad, unless they can figure out who did it. This is the fourth in the Novel Detectives series but can absolutely be read standalone because there’s very little of any of the ongoing story lines in this, it’s mostly the mystery of the week. And it’s a fun set up – if you remember the Most Haunted TV show of the early 2000s this TV show will feel familiar to you and the crew working on it have plenty of tensions and rivalries to provide a motive for murderer. My favourite in this series in a while – more of this please and less of the running background stories!

Ghost Business by Jen DeLuca

This was Jen DeLuca’s new book for 2025 – the second in the Boneyard Key series. This features Sophie the ghost tour guide from Haunted Ever After and Tristan a newcomer who runs a ghost tour business and is there to open a new franchise. He’s surprised to find there’s already a ghost tour and she’s horrified that his ghost stories are made up. Then they go viral when their two tours run into each other, but both of them are actually fighting their attraction to each other. This is actually pretty gentle for a book that features an actual hurricane, and I enjoyed it although there was a bit of a case of just have a proper conversation going on at a few points in the plot, and Tristan needs to just grow a bit of a backbone! I don’t think this is the pairing that people were expecting for Sophie from book one but it did work, so I look forward to seeing what DeLuca comes up with for the next book in the series.

Scared Off by Barbara Ross

This is a novella length story that fits into the Maine Clambake series between Shucked Apart and Muddled through and sees Julia trying to solve a murder when a Halloween party her niece is at is gatecrashed by local high schoolers. If you’re following the series and haven’t read as far as Shucked Apart yet, this will give away a big plot development, so bear that in mind, but if you are (relatively) up to date, this is a nice addition to the series. The mystery is complicated enough that you don’t find the solution too fast, but not so complicated that the story feels rushed, and that’s not something that you can say about all novellas. Worth a look if you only want something short.

Happy Humpday!

Book of the Week

Book of the Week: Apparently Sir Cameron Needs to Die

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It’s Tuesday and whilst this isn’t a book with ghosts and ghouls, it does have dragons and elves, which I think makes it Halloween-y enough to be on theme for this week. And it was definitely the book that I have the most to say about of the ones that I read last week!

Sir Cameron is *technically* a knight, but he’s spent his whole career turning up just after the battle has happened and avoiding any chance that he might get killed, after all he’s just too handsome to die right? The battle against the mad sorcerer Merulo has been going on for years but a new prophecy has just been handed down by the church and it’s bad news for Sir Cameron: the only way to defeat Merulo is for Cameron to die. He’s (understandably) not keen on that idea, so runs away to throw himself on the mercy of the only person who doesn’t want him dead: Merulo. Merulo is less than pleased with this development: Cameron is vain, spoilt and attention seeking, but turning him into a vulture is entertaining. This is just the start of a voyage of discovery for Cameron but will he make it through alive? And will Merulo – because Cameron is getting strangely invested in the sorcerer’s survival…

I cannot adequately describe how bonkers this book is. Cameron getting turned into a vulture is only a small portion of the madness. It is totally, totally ridiculous and isn’t taking itself too seriously. It opens really strongly, and although I don’t think it quite carries through that promise, it’s still a fun read. It’s got a concussed elf as a (vengeful) side character and it keeps adding new twists and turns. And I think that’s where the problem is: it’s trying to do too much – the Amazon blurb includes the phrase “genre-bending” which doesn’t even begin to cover it really and it means it doesn’t quite do everything (anything?) as satisfyingly as you would like. I wasn’t sure how it was going to manage to resolve everything satisfactorily and I definitely didn’t expect how it did end, but it was a page turning way to pass some time on a wet and windy weekend.

I bought this one at Mr B’s Emporium so it is in some shops at least (and hasn’t spent too long on the pile in the grand scheme of things) but it’s also on Kindle and Kobo although I would wait for a price drop given the issues that I mention above – and the fact that is has really quite mixed reviews on Goodreads which suggest that other people had a bit less tolerance for it than I did! It has got a great cover though.

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: October 19 – October 25

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We are now in Peak Halloween season, so I’ve got a week of appropriate content lined up for you. But before we get to that, here’s the list from this week, and you may notice that I’ve finally given up on the third Simon Snow book. I’ve tried, and I’ve tried, but I can’t get into it, it’s feeling like a chore to try and read it and I’ve been trying for so long with so little success that it’s making me feel bad about myself. Maybe I’ll come back around to it, maybe I won’t but for now it’s off the list and gone. The rest of the list is a bit audiobook heavy – lots of wandering around listening to audiobooks last weeks – combined with the PHP outage which seemed to slow down the flow of podcasts for a few days. I’ve got three theatre trips this week (!), so we’ll see what that does to the reading…

Read:

Murder at the Ritz by Jim Eldridge

Ruddy Gore by Kerry Greenwood

The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club by Dorothy L Sayers

The Long Game by Rachel Reid

Away with the Fairies by Kerry Greenwood

An Inkling of Death by Anna Beer*

The Mummy Case by Elizabeth Peters

Apparently Sir Cameron Needs to Die by Greer Stothers

Started:

The Murders of Richard III by Elizabeth Peters

Murder on Royal Crescent by Harriet F Townson*

Still reading:

N/a

Two books and one ebook

Bonus picture: Halloween cakes spotted out and about in Soho

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

not a book, theatre

Not a Book: Heated Rivalry (The Parody Musical)

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Back with some theatre this week – this time Off-West End again with my first trip to the Underbelly Boulelvard Soho!

The full title here is Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody and it’s arrived in Soho after a run at the Edinburgh Fringe and is also running off Broadway in New York. It’s based on series one Heated Rivalry, which is in itself an adaptation of the book by Rachel Reid. If you’ve managed to miss this phenomenon so far the short hand is “canadian gay hockey romance” and the longer version is that Shane Hollander and Ilya Rosanov are both star hockey players and professional rivals as they play for different teams (and are from different countries) but who secretly in a relationship.This is parodying the tv series and and retelling it through the eyes of a “wine mom”.

Now this is the point where I admit that at the point where I saw the show (despite all my best intentions) I’ve only seen the clips and memes of the TV show, although I have read the book that it’s based on. But I don’t think that held me back because I still laughed a lot. The framing is really fun and the cast is great. Aside from the actors playing Shane and Ilya there are three other cast members who take on all the other roles and they’re doing a great job. I don’t think I’d seen any of them in anything before, but they were doing a great job and getting the absolute most out of everything. I was disappointed that some of the backdrop elements of the set look to be made using AI – once I’d spotted that on the menu for the juice bar it made me give everything else in the set design a closer look and a bit of side eye, which is a shame. But the songs are great and there is a cast recording of the Off Broadway cast out now if you want to have a listen.

This is at the Underbelly Boulevard in Soho until November 1 – it was packed the night that I was there and seems to be selling well, so if you want to go and see it you’ve still got time if you’re quick

Have a great Sunday!