books on offer, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: August Kindle Offers

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I always think of August as being Peak Summer, but I think that’s because the whole month was summer holidays when we were at school and that sort of thing sticks with you doesn’t it? Anyway, another bumper batch of books on offer for you this Wednesday – hide your wallets!

Lets start with this week’s BotW The Irresistible Urge to Fall For Your Enemy, which I bought last weekend on the recommendation of Portugal Friend who bought it on our pre-Bristol Jolly and have obviously now devoured and recommended. Also on offer are previous books of the week: Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, Cathy Yardley‘s Do Me A Favor, Christina Lauren‘s The True Love Experiment, and although it’s £2.99 not 99p I’m mentioning it anyway: A Case of Life and Limb, the second Gabriel Ward mystery which I absolutely adored last year and have since listened to on audiobook as well.

In other things I’ve read recently there’s How to Lose a Lord in Ten Days (fresh from the July Quick Reviews), Alexandria Bellefleur‘s Written in the Stars, G M Malliet’s Death in Cornwall, the fourth St Just mystery and the first one after the series restarted but it should be said that all four of those new ones are in Kindle Unlimited too. Slightly longer ago (how did I read this last summer already?!) is Alex Hay‘s The Housekeepers and Julian Clary‘s A Curtain Call to Murder. Sadly I’m not seeing Clary as Herod in JCS this summer but he has got a new novel out in October, which from the description looks like it could be a sequel to this so I shan’t complain too much!

Orlando Murrin’s second Paul Delmere mystery Murder Below Deck is on offer (still no news on whether we’re getting a third in that series) as is the third Three Dahlias book Seven Lively Suspects, There’s also Marple, the Miss Marple short story collection I mentioned in my anticipated books post the other week, my mileage definitely varied but others liked it more. The same could be said for Maggie Stiefvater‘s The Listeners which I thought had great promise at the start but then tailed off.

In books I like there’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John Le Carré, the final Ruth Galloway book The Last Remains – but you really should read the series in order, Josephine Tey‘s The Franchise Affair, the second Rivers of London book Moon over Soho, Emma Straub‘s Modern Lovers and Annabel Monaghan‘s Same Time Next Summer.

In things I have on the pile but haven’t read yet, there’s The Secret Lives of Murderers Wives, Kirsty Greenwood’s latest Romantic Hero, and the second in Ashley Herring Blake‘s Clover Lake series, Get Over It April Evans ahead of the release of the third book at the end of September. In things I bought while writing this post, there’s Andrew Ross Sorkin’s 1929 and the new Rachel Lynn Solomons Extracurricular, which has teacher-student stuff going on so may or may not work for me but I liked her previous stuff enough that I’m taking the chance.

And if that’s not enough, I don’t know what would be!

Happy Humpday!

Book of the Week

Book of the Week: The Irresistible Urge to Fall For Your Enemy

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Happy Tuesday everyone, this week’s choice was one of the easiest that I have recently made. I started this one on Sunday night and finished it on Tuesday and I would have finished it sooner if I hadn’t had to work. Anyway, to the book.

Osric is a member of an order of assassins, Aurienne is a healer and a member of an enemy order. But Osric needs an expert healer – he’s injured and his order doesn’t let members retire. Luckily Aurienne desperately needs funding to help find a cure for a disease that’s ravaging children. And that is how the two of them find themselves flung together. As Aurienne (reluctantly) tries to heal Osric, the two of them discover that there may be some thing bigger behind the reoccurrence of the Pox. The trouble is that the longer the two of them spend in each other’s company, the harder it is to ignore the attraction between them – no matter how much they want to ignore it.

This was just a total delight. Really, it absolutely was. It’s got witty banter, two main characters who really don’t want to like each other but who really need each other and the forced proximity is truly epic. If I have a gripe with it, it’s that you don’t get all the answers in this book – but that’s also good news because it means there is a sequel, which came out in July. I wish I’d read this sooner – because the sequel was on NetGalley if only I’d known and now I’m going to have to pay money (and quite a lot of money) for it if I want to know what happens next any time soon.

I have a very mixed record on fantasy, but this is exactly the sort of end of fantasy that I like. It’s not cozy but it’s not to terribly high concept for me to deal with. Snarky banter is one of my favourite things in books and this has some of the best banter I’ve recently encountered as well as a brilliant inner monologue from the two leads to keep you going when they’re not actively fighting with each other. And the slow burn and forced proximity is excellent. it’s just so good. So, so good.

This one is super easy to get hold of – I’ve seen it in bookshops all over the place in the last year and just never got around to picking it up (more fool me) and of course it’s on Kindle and Kobo too. Place your bets now on how long I manage to resist the sequel!

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: August 3 – August 9

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Happy Monday. I would say I’m braced for another heatwave, but to be honest it feels like it has started already. It was really quite hot in London on Saturday, albeit not in the 30s, and it was so hot at home yesterday I was glad we hadn’t gone to the MotoGP at Silverstone – even though the races were exciting – because I would have been absolutely sure to get sunburn and a dehydration headache. Anyway, more excitement coming up this week with at least one more theatre trip, hopefully the air con will be working there. Anyway, on the reading front, it was a fairly ok week. I’m making fast progress down the conference purchases when I’m at home – the beauty of middle grade books is that they don’t take long to read – which is making me feel less bad about the enormous state of the pile in general.

Read:

The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side by Agatha Christie

The Irresistible Urge to Fall For Your Enemy by Brigitte Knightley

Miss Gentle and the Case of the Very Flat Monk by Travis Baldree

The Wednesday Witches Club by Sarah Beth Durst

Helen in Musical Comedy by Linda Graeme

Death at the Dolphin by Ngaio Marsh

The Murder on the Enriqueta by Molly Thynne

Started:

The House at Devil’s Neck by Tom Mead

Helen, Television Dancer by Linda Graeme

Still reading:

Any Way the Wind Blows by Rainbow Rowell

It’s offers post writing o’clock again so there were a few Kindle purchases. No actual books though

Bonus picture: The Strand and its little gaggle of theatres. I often forget that although the West End is (mostly) clustered around Shaftesbury Avenue, these three plus the Lyceum, the Duchess, the Novello, the Theatre Royal Drury Lane and the Aldwych are all very close together too. And on Saturday night it seemed like most of them had finished their shows just in time for their patrons to be clogging the pavement as we were walking back to Euston…

*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, comedy

Not a Book: The Comedy About Spies

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I’m back with my second Mischief show of the year. After Thespians back in May (with an almost entirely new to Mischief cast) today I’m back with a bunch of the OGs in their latest West End show, which premiered last autumn and sold so well I didn’t manage to get to see it and now is back – and this time I was quicker with the ticketbuying finger. And I’m posting this a bit later in the day than usual, partly because I only saw it yesterday and it was a late night home and I needed time to recover but also because tonight is opening night.

It’s the early 1960s and in London a rogue secret agent has stolen plans for a top secret weapon. Hot on it’s trail are agents from the CIA and the KGB all of whom converge on the same hotel to try and track it down and steal it back. However they’re not the only people at the hotel and soon unsuspecting fellow guests are drawn into their plans including an actor preparing for an audition to play James Bond and a baker trying to work up the nerve to propose to his girlfriend. And of course because this is Mischief nothing goes to plan for anyone and it soons descends into chaos and a glorious farce.

As I said at the top this is a revival after a very successful run in the West End last summer, which I suspect might have otherwise extended then if it wasn’t for the fact that most of the cast were already lined up to do Christmas Carol Goes Wrong very soon after this closed – so close in fact that there was probably only just enough time for a holiday and rehearsals to get it up and running. This has a fresh set up and cast of characters but all of the hallmarks of Mischief’s best stuff – slapstick, physical comedy and a joke rate that hardy gives you time to finish laughing at the last joke before the next one hits. I think the second half of the first act, which has a brilliantly clever set split into quarters to make four hotel rooms, colour coded, is the high point of the show but that may be because the stunts and jokes are at their height before the second half has to bring it all to some sort of conclusion. And I did worry about how they were going to end it satisfactorily, but they managed to land it just fine. I shouldn’t have doubted them.

All of the Mischief regulars are turning in great performances, but the more I see him, the more I become convinced that Dave Hearn is the strongest and most versatile actor of all of them. He originated Max in the Cornley shows – who is distracted by the audience, frequently has a complicated love life and is gets relegated to supporting roles. He’s great here as Lance, the CIA agent, turning in a really clever performance for reasons that I can’t really explain without giving huge spoilers which would be mean.

If this sounds like your sort of show, then do try and get to see it while it’s on this summer – the set is so complicated (travelators! that giant dollshouse hotel set!) that I don’t think it would be easy to tour and I think it’s one of Mischief’s best shows in age – I think we preferred it to Christmas Carol Goes Wrong, for all that I love the Cornley characters deeply.

bookshops

Books in the Wild: Mr B’s Emporium

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After last weekend’s Conference book haul, this week we start on the bookshops that we visited around our weekend at conference. You’l have to wait and see what I bought from them though, so sorry about that

Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights is tucked around the corner from the Jane Austen centre near Queen Square in Central Bath. It’s been there 20 years and won a tonne of awards (including the UK’s best independent bookstore twice!) and I don’t know how I hadn’t been there before.

There were genuinely so many pictures from my visit that I could have chosen to illustrate this, but I’ve gone for this one because I think it does a good job of conveying how excellent the selection of books they have is. We were in there for ages – so often you go into a book shop and find the same books that you’ve seen everywhere else (or at least I do) but this is not that. Yes it’s got some of the “usual” stuff in there (like Meet the Newmans – now in paperback!), but it’s also got a whole load of books that I’d never come across before and suddenly wanted to read.

All the fiction is in together in alphabetical order but there are sections picking out highlights from particular genres too – this is a romance one, featuring the new Annabel Monaghan which you know I loved, the TJR I still need to read, the latest Ashley Poston and Alexandra Vasti and some other stuff I’ve seen before along with Rooting Interest which I totally hadn’t and Heart the Lover which has got a Booker Longlisting so I wouldn’t have normally thought at about.

It’s also got a beautiful children’s section, which I managed to catch looking like there’s no one in it (there was) because I do try not to put pictures of unsuspecting people’s children on the internet so you’ll have to trust me that it was busy because there’s a whole area behind that you can’t see with the picture books where the toddlers were hanging out. And it has friendly staff, in every section but particularly the children’s one, who will ask you if they can recommend you anything or find you anything or order you anything. We were in there late morning on a Monday it it was doing such a steady trade in customers that it was a delight to see.

I leave you with the Terry Pratchett hardback corner, which is basically all you would have needed to show me to demonstrate that this was a bookshop I would love. I have so much trouble resisting these beautiful hardbacks – I’m writing this looking up at my fancy bookshelf where I can see my copies of Guards! Guards, Monstrous Regiment, Going Postal, Making Money and Raising Steam all of which you can also see here – still sort of regretting that I didn’t buy another one to add to them. On the wall to the side just out of shot is also a poster guide to where to start and the interconnections of the series which is a really good touch because as I have said before, you don’t need to start these at the beginning and in fact unless you’re a regular fantasy reader you probably shouldn’t.

Basically, if you’re in Bath don’t miss this one – I think between the three of us we came away with six books at least – and this the day after Book Conference at a point when we all had made resolutions not to buy too much stuff!

books, stats

Reading Stats: July 2026

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Books read this month: 32*

New books: 26

Re-reads: 7 (5 audiobooks)

Books from the to-read pile: 9

NetGalley books read: 9

Kindle Unlimited read: 6

Ebooks: 3

Audiobooks: 5

Non-fiction books: 2

Favourite book: The Shampoo Effect

Books bought: We’re not going to talk about this, because after a Very Good Books Incoming in the middle of the month as you all know I went to Book Con and it all got a bit excessive. You’ve already seen the Book Con purchases, but there are a stack more that you haven’t yet from the days around the actual conference. And then there were another 13 ebooks…

Most read author: Three Dimsies (middle grade, not loads of pages) vs three St Just mysteries probably means that GM Malliet is th most read on page count

Books read in 2026: 233

Books on the Goodreads to-read shelf (I don’t have copies of all of these!): 588

A pretty solid month in reading – except for the number of books coming in. Yes I may have sold more than than I bought, but the stuff I bought is now on the already bulging to read pile, and the stuff I sold wasn’t taking up as much space. But I did have a wonderful time!

Bonus picture: A summer garden party I walked past on the way back to the station one day…

*often includes some short stories/novellas/comics/graphic novels – but not this month!

Book previews

Out This Week: Meg Langslow 39

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It’s the first week of August which apparently means that it’s new Meg Langslow day – and this time it’s book 39 with the amazing punny title of Probably Caws. In great news for long-time fans, this one sees Meg back at some blacksmithing when she’s called in to help with a huge influx of horses at Ragnar’s estate after a horse rescue organisation lost its premises and of course murder ensues. I am currently two books behind the latest in the series because I am trying to pace myself and be sensible, but I do find Ragnar’s menage hilarious so who knows if that resolution will hold!

book round-ups, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: July 2026 Quick Reviews

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It’s the first Wednesday of the month and you know what that means – it’s Quick Review o’clock. So here we go with three reviews of books I read last month that I haven’t already talked about!

Unselected Journals of Emma M Lion by Beth Brower*

It’s 1883 and Emma M Lion has just arrived back in London to take up residence at her home. But there are obstacles in her way as this first volume of her journals from Lapis Lazuli House details. This is novella length and very amusing – but leaves you with a lot of questions about Emma’s backstory, which presumably get answered in the following volumes. It’s a great way to make you read more and more, but sometimes when you’re reading it and missing great dollops of information so that you can decide what’s really going on I did find myself being a little cynical about the drip-drip of information. But the fact that I’ve gave it four stars on Goodreads shows you how much I enjoyed it despite that slight side-eye! Apologies for the terrible photo – I read it on NetGalley but I also spotted it in the wild while I was out in Bath last week!

How To Lose a Lord in Ten Days by Sophie Irwin*

This was… not what I was hoping for. I should have been more literal with the title’s equivalence to the romantic comedy of a similar name and been more prepared for the prank war that ensued between the heroine and hero for most of the book. It was too cringe-embarrassing for me and I ended up really disliking the pair of them because of it. And I’m still not sure by the end what they actually saw in each other beyond someone to play tricks on, and as that’s not what I think of as a successful relationship I didn’t really buy the ending. I liked Irwin’s first book, liked the second one less and then this one less than that. Her next book is an “official” Georgette Heyer novel (which is why I read this one now) and now I have a slightly trepidatious feeling about that – but here’s hoping it’s more like A Lady’s Guide to Fortune Hunting than what has come since.

Broadcast Murder by J G Colgan

Cover of Broadcast Murder

This is my third Colgan – and I was hoping this would be closer to The Christmas Alibi than Murder on the Bernina Express, but alas it’s the latter. The idea is good but more work is needed on several fronts. Firstly, I had the murderer spotted too early, secondly it needs a bit more research and thirdly it needs a better edit. In fact the thirdly could maybe be the firstly because if you had a good editor they’d spot some of the issues and flag them so they could be fixed. Because some of them are small (but careless) – like the white line that’s at the bottom of the cover design (that I’ve cropped off in my photo) and some of them are small but annoying like this one which I maybe the only person it annoyed but again: “The lift was old. It had the kind of brass fittings that spoke of a time when even functional objects were expected to be beautiful, and the kind of creaking, groaning movement that spoke of a mechanism that had been in constant use for longer than anyone cared to remember.” Why is it annoying? This is a book set in 1937, the lift in question is in Broadcasting House, which opened in …1932. So if you know, it lifts you out of the story and makes you read everything else more critically. So in summary: promising but needs more work before it’s released to the demanding masses (like me!) especially given the British-Library-Crime-Classic-alike cover style.

And that’s your lot for this month – a reminder of the other Recommendsdays in July which were Sports Romances 2, Summer New Releases and First in Series 2 and the Books of the Week were The Shampoo Effect, The Verdict of Twelve, American Fantasy and A Taste for Murder.

Book of the Week, new releases, reviews

Book of the Week: A Wedding Planner’s Guide to Stealing the Bride

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Happy Tuesday and my pick today is back to romance and it is one of the new releases that I read last week and there’s another coming up tomorrow in the quick reviews too.

Kalpana is planning the wedding of her dreams, or at least the wedding of her fiancé’s dreams. Marcus is a literary fiction superstar and Kalpana is a romance writer. He’s from old money and she’s the third generation of her family born in the UK but they’re in Sri Lanka with their wedding planner Sampath to plan the big traditional Sri Lankan wedding that Marcus wants – even though Kalpana isn’t sure those traditions feel right for her. Sampath is a great listener – and seems to hear what Kapana wants in a way that Marcus seems not to be.

I read it across less than twenty four hours over the weekend and it was a real treat. As you can tell from the title this is a love triangle type situation, but I don’t think this is going to ping anyone’s cheating monitor for reasons that I can’t really explain without it being a spoiler. As well as the romance, Charika is exploring feelings of identity and culture and also looking at the place of romance and commercial fiction in the bookish infrastructure all of which is right up my street. It also really made me want to visit Sri Lanka – it paints such a vivid picture of the future places they visit and the potential wedding venues.

My copy came from NetGalley but this came out last week and I’m not sure how easy the paperback will be to find but it’s on Kindle and Kobo for £1.99 at the moment as are some of Charika’s previous novels some of which I’ve written about here like Picture Perfect and Knowing Me, Knowing You.

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: July 27 – August 2

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Welcome to August everyone, all the usual start of the month stuff coming up over the next week or so. In the meantime, here’s the list from last week, which includes three of my Bristol purchases, three new releases (included one I mentioned in the Summer romance releases) and the last of the St Justs I hadn’t read which meant I could finally write that post on Friday! This week it’s meant to be hot and sticky again and I’ve got at least one theatre trip planned so we’ll see how all of that meshes with the reading list.

Read:

A Taste for Murder by Matt Baker

Dimsie Goes to School by Dorita Fairlie Bruce

The Reluctant Ballerina by Linda Graeme

The Unselected Journals of Emma M Lion Vol 1 by Beth Brower*

Death and the Old Master by G M Malliet

The One Where They Fall in Love by Christina Wolf*

Helen, Ballet Student by Linda Graeme

The Wedding Planner’s Guide to Stealing the Bride by Jeevani Charika*

Started:

The Irresistible Urge to Fall Fall For Your Enemy by Brigitte Knightley

Still reading:

Any Way the Wind Blows by Rainbow Rowell

We won’t talk about it – there was a stack acquired in Bath on Monday and a bunch of tempting new Kindle offers too

Bonus picture: my favourite shop name from Bath on Monday!

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