Verity Reads Books (lots of them)

Recommendsday: Early June New Releases

June 3, 2026June 3, 2026 veritywilde

Happy first Wednesday of the month, and usually this would be where I publish my Quick Reviews for May. However, I have read a bunch of mysteries of various types that either came out yesterday, today or are coming out tomorrow and so I’m saving the quick reviews for another Wednesday and giving you a quick review round up for them. Why isn’t this just the May Quick Reviews repurposed? Well because I read one of them in April…

Played to Death by Mike Ripley*

This is quite a hard one to describe, because it’s told by four unreliable narrators, but I’m going to give it a go. A new murder mystery play is being put on by the Hopewell Players but there are some… concerns. Pantomime Dame and local solicitor Adam Cunningham consults a local librarian (and former crime fiction editor) because he thinks it’s ripping of a lot of Golden Age mysteries. The author of said play is the producer’s father but the future of the production is in doubt when one of the actors is found dead on stage. This is written by Mike Ripley, who also wrote a number of Campion continuation novels and he’s very much using his knowledge of Golden Age mysteries in this, but with a great twist with the shifting narration. I particularly enjoyed the footnotes about which books the various bits of plot had been lifted from. I read this in one day (not quite in one sitting) and immediately went off to read one of the aforementioned Campion continuations after I discovered that his other book featuring Roly the Librarian isn’t available on Kindle. The good news is that this is – and also that it’s out today and included in Kindle Unlimited.

The French Market Murder by Greg Mosse*

This is the third book in Greg Mosse’s series set around a bookshop in a small town in Provence. The first in the series was a BotW not that long ago and I’ve read book two since then as well, but I think I actually liked this the most of the three in terms of writing style and the regular characters but I found the solution to the mystery pretty predictable – I figured out most of it pretty quickly after the body was found, which actually happened quite late on for a murder mystery. But I do really like the setting and set up for this and would happily read more, and every time I read one I think that I should go and read his other series which features a much younger Zoe as a side character to the main sleuth, although without reading them it’s hard to tell how prominent she is but they get plenty of references in these! I really do fancy a holiday to Provence now though…

A Ghost Hunter’s Guide to Catching a Killer by F H Petford*

This is the follow up to 2025’s A Ghost Hunter’s Guide to Solving a Murder which was also a BotW. We rejoin Alma at the gang at the Timperley shortly after the conclusion of that book – and as a warning, if you haven’t read the first book you will find out who did it if you read this one so plan your reading accordingly – and things seem to be going well. Well that is until a guest is found dead in their bed. With the police short-staffed because of officers signing up to fight, Alma is asked to help with the investigation and she’s very willing as the circumstances suggest that the killer may be inside the hotel. The mystery in this is good, and I liked the widening of the group around Alma as well. I’m not really into spiritualism or ghosts, but these are at the end of the ghostly spectrum that I can get on board with. I read this very quickly (across about 36 hours) and I’m so pleased that there’s already a third book planned that I have it pre-ordered already. If you haven’t read book one – and bearing in mind my warnings above you should before you read this – that one is in Kindle Unlimited at the moment if you have that.

Sconed to Death by Betty Hechtman*

This is the second book featuring a heroine who inherited a yarn shop in a small Indiana town and (temporarily) moved there from LA. Annie’s father is a high powered entertainment agent, and in tow with her is Gray, the daughter of one of her father’s most important clients and now her business partner as Annie tries to get the yarn shop ready for sale. In this book the summer residents have descended on town and Annie has a lot of balls in the air, including trying to help Toby who bakes the scones for the yarn shop’s tea room get on a reality show in the hopes that it means that any buyer for the store will keep him on as a supplier. I realise that that sounds complex, and that’s not even the murder side of the plot! There is a murder (don’t worry) which could also be an obstacle to the sale of the tearoom and so Annie is soon low key investigating that. And also navigating a potential relationship and managing Gray’s fractious relationship with her mum. When you write that plot down it’s quite a lot, even with just the bare bones that I’ve given you, but it actually (mostly) works when you’re reading it. The set up of Annie’s presence in town is pretty neat and Gray’s pampered princess life makes for some good tension in the plot and some reasons why Annie wouldn’t just be having actual conversations at various points. The writing style was a little repetitive at times -for example it was reminding me of details that it had told me just a couple of pages prior, but I do wonder how I would have felt if I had read the first book and already knew all the backstory to everything because I definitely don’t think there is anything I was missing about the first book (except for who did the murder so that’s good at least). I haven’t read anything by Betty Hechtman before, but she’s a pretty established author so I suspect this is just her style and it might just not quite be for me, but I enjoyed this enough that I would happily read some more books by her to find that out!

And there you have it – four reviews of four books out this week. I promise that the quick reviews will turn up on a future Wednesday as will the Kindle Offers.

Happy Humpday!

Book of the Week, romance

Book of the Week: Star Shipped

June 2, 2026June 1, 2026 veritywilde

Amidst all the Marilyn Monroe of yesterday, I forgot to mention that June is Pride Month and I’ve got some bits and bobs planned for that – so keep your eyes peeled on that front as we head through the month. And I’m also coincidentally starting the month off with a m/m romance pick so that’s somewhat serendiptious too. This was also one of the books in my Anticipated new releases post at the start of the year, so I’m really pleased that it lived up to my expectations for it!

Star Shipped is Cat Sebastian’s first contemporary romance and it’s a slow burn enemies to lovers story about two co-stars on a sci-fi TV series. It’s told entirely from the point of view of Simon, who has spent seven years hating his co star Charlie even as the fans analyse their every move on screen to try and work out if their characters are (secretly) in love. Now he’s leaving the show and can get away from it all. Except that there’s a chance that people might think he’s been forced to leave the show because he’s difficult to work with (which he knows he kinda is) and that could cause him problems down the line. Charlie is also worried that he might catch the blame for Simon’s exit because of what happened during his first season on the show. So they agree to stage a public friendship to try and quash any rumours. And then when Charlie needs to leave LA in a hurry, somehow Simon finds himself joining him. Thus begins a road trip that should be everything that Simon hates, but he’s actually sort of enjoying. And maybe they actually don’t hate each other after all?

I read this in less than 24 hours from getting my grubby hands on it (it was delivered to my parents house for *reasons*) and when I was on a family holiday away in Wales and probably should have been being more sociable (sorry family) because it was just so good. I’m going to have to take some time to think about why Simon – a hero with an actual anxiety problem that he’s not really dealing with that well – worked for me when some other anxious main characters have really not, because I’m not sure how I could have enjoyed it more. It also fell exactly on the right side of the enemies part of the enemies to lovers spectrum – mostly Simon’s “hatred” of Charlie consists of being snarky to him (off page, before the book starts) rather than pranks or things that actually affect Charlie’s career, and Charlie never really hated Simon to start with. Then you add in a road trip (love a road trip) with some Only One Bed scenarios and a bit of found family and it’s really my thing. Additionally this is quite low angst on the external front – and none of the angst comes from fear of being outed or homophobia in it’s many forms and I really like that too.

This came out in paperback at the end of April – I had mine pre-ordered from Waterstones in their pre-Christmas discount offer and what has turned up appears to be an American edition but I’m not complaining. I spotted this in Gay’s the Word when I was in there a week or two back, but I’m not 100 percent sure if I’ve seen it anywhere else yet. It’s £1.99 on Kindle and Kobo this month, which is annoyingly a pound more than it was lat month, but it’s not often that Cat Sebastian is on offer at all, so don’t necessarily rely on it dropping back down. That said there are a few of Sebastian’s back catalogue at £1.99 at the moment, so if you have gaps in your library you want to fill in this may be the time.

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: May 25 – May 31

June 1, 2026June 1, 2026 veritywilde

Firstly – Marilyn Monroe would have been 100 today (June 1st) so if you need an excuse to watch Some Like It Hot or Gentlemen Prefer Blondes again, this is it. Secondly, if it seems like I’m on a bit of an Agatha Christie kick at the moment, that’s because after revisiting Caribbean Mystery the other week I’m trying to reread the whole series before the new continuation novel by Lucy Foley comes out and there was a Poirot short story collection that I haven’t read in Kindle Unlimited too. And because I forget about things and get distracted quite easily I’m striking while the iron is hot and getting on with it!

Read:

The Bad Quarto by Jill Paton Walsh

Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie

The Nine of Us by Jean Kennedy Smith

Operation Goodwood by Sara Sheridan

Star Shipped by Cat Sebastian

Edward VII by Richard Davenport-Hines

The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie

Started:

Poirot Investigates by Agatha Christie

Death at La Fenice by Donna Leon

Still reading:

Death and Other Occupational Hazards by Veronica Dapunt

Any Way the Wind Blows by Rainbow Rowell

A few books bought – but mostly not for me so they don’t count!

Bonus picture: Sunday afternoon in Wales.

*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: End of the Rainbow

May 31, 2026May 29, 2026 veritywilde

Happy Sunday everyone and I’ve got another theatre trip for you this week. I was going to save this for next weekend when we’re into Pride month, but this is a limited run and the tickets are getting very limited so I thought I’d maximise your chances of getting to see it by posting it sooner.

End of the Rainbow is a play by Peter Quilter about Judy Garland at the time that she was doing a series of concerts at the Talk of the Town. If you know your Judy lore, this is less than a year from her death and at the time that she was engaged to Mickey Deans who would become her fifth and final husband. This is the struggling with her addictions latter day Judy, and her relationships with both Deans and her pianist and friend Anthony are somewhat strained. This is a play with music – with rehearsals with Anthony in the hotel suite as well as performances with a band at the club. It’s also the source material for the movie Judy, which won Renée Zellweger an Oscar back in 2020.

If you’re a drag race fan you’ll know that Jinkx Monsoon did a very good Judy in Snatch Game on her All Stars season and she’s had success on Broadway in the last couple of years in musicals in Chicago, then Pirates! The Penzance Musical and then in the play Oh, Mary! but this is her first non-comedic acting role. And it’s a big one to take on because this play exists essentially as a showcase for whoever is performing as Judy – they need to be able to sing in a good enough facsimile of Garland and act their hearts out across comedic and tragic moments. And Jinkx is really, really good – better in the comedy and the singing than the tragedy, but pretty good all around. The audience that I saw it with went absolutely wild for it – and I enjoyed it just not as much as them!

But that said this isn’t my first time seeing End of the Rainbow – I saw the 2011 tour with Tracie Bennett, ahead of the transfer to Broadway. And my opinion on the play itself hasn’t changed – it’s a great concept and a great showcase, but it’s a bit long and doesn’t quite stick the ending and really hammers home Anthony’s role as an avatar for Judy’s gay fans in the second half in a way that is totally unsubtle and overdone (for me anyway). However it has a great band and great performances and they make up for a lot. If I’m nitpicking, I would say that the lack of height difference between the characters means that part of Judy’s force of nature character is lost. Garland was under 5 feet tall – and Tracie Bennett is about 5’2″ – and the way that Garland’s voice and charisma dominated the room and the people about her despite her diminutive size was part of the wonder of the performance. But Jinkx is the height she is, and male actors are not a tall breed, and they do make great work of the steps on the set to try and set her at a disadvantage to Mickey at various points to help with that.

This production has been getting four star reviews from the professionals – and I would basically agree with that. It’s worth seeing if you’re a Jinkx fan – and the audience reaction (and sales!) have been strong enough that I wouldn’t be surprised if this goes over to Broadway next season and that this time next year Jinkx is factoring into the Tony award conversations.

End of the Rainbow is on at the Soho Theatre Walthamstow until the 21st of June – and it’s worth the trek up the Victoria Line to zone 3 to see it.

bookshops

Books in the Wild: Recent releases

May 30, 2026May 29, 2026 veritywilde

I’ve been in a lot of bookshops recently, so this Saturday I’ve got a quick round up of some of the new releases that I’ve spotted in the shops.

I’m starting with the new book from Maria Semple, because it’s been a long, long time since her last book came out and I’d almost forgotten about her. Which is a terrible thing to say, but it’s a decade since Today Will Be Different and 14 years since Where’d You Go Bernadette, so I don’t think that’s unfair. Accordig to the blurb, Go Gentle is about a midlife transformation of a divorcée complete with romance and globe trotting. I have a mixed record with Semple – I loved …Bernadette, hated This One is Mine and quite liked Today Will Be Different, so I’m sure I’ll read this at some point even if just to see if my assessment back in 2016 of when I like Semple’s books is right or not!

There’s another author back from a long hiatus in this shot of the bestsellers (in Waterstones Gower Street) too. Kathryn Stockett’s The Help was a huge hit when it came out in 2009 – it won a bunch of awards and was turned into a hit movie starring Emma Stone, Octavia Spencer and Viola Davis (among many) in 2011. But it was also polarising and Stockett faced criticism for writing the story of black maids through the eyes of a white woman and the controversy over it has only increased over time. In fact in the run up to the publication of The Calamity Club, Stockett told The New York Times that her publishers cancelled her contract in 2020. So after such a big gap and so much controversy The Calamity Club – which is more than 600 pages long and once again set in Mississippi but this time in the 1930s – has had a relatively low key release. I’m fascinated to see how it does. Apart from that, you can also see the new Matt Haig, The Midnight Train, which is set in the same world as his mega hit The Midnight Library, the new Elizabeth Strout and also that Murder at Worlds End is now out in paperback.

On to some murder mysteries in hardback (some of which came out la little longer ago) and we’ve got the Sophie Hannah Poirot continuation that came out in the autumn, the latest Judy Murray cozy crime, and the Jennie Godfrey that I’ve seen everywhere. The House of Fallen Sisters was one I hadn’t come across before – set in Covent Garden and the underbelly of 18th century London and I’ve now seen various of Andrey Kurkov’s Kyiv Mysteries around so much that I think it might be a message for me to try one! Amin Ahmad’s A Killer in the Family sounds interesting – the blurb calls it “A caper, social satire, and propulsive thriller rolled into one” the first two of which are totally my thing – but as we know thrillers can go either way for me! And strangely this also has Elizabeth and Marilyn about the meeting between Elizabeth II and Marilyn Monroe in the summer of 1956 and which I didn’t have down as being a mystery but am even more interested in now that I’ve seen it in this selection!

I mentioned Emma Straub’s American Fantasy when it was released the other week, so it seems only fair to mention that I was right that I would spot it in the shops a lot (this wasn’t the only time I could have taken a picture of it in a store) and also that it’s blurbed by Taylor Jenkins Reid.

Also in the now out in paperback is Andrew Lownie‘s Entitled – which as you can see from the cover has had more material added since the hardback edition. This makes me wonder whether if I had bought it on Kindle I would have got the new material added automatically, or whether I would have had to buy it again. As it is, I bought a physical copy at the airport (partly to escape any redactions that might later happen!) and so now I have to figure out how much I want to read Lownie’s take on everything that has happened to Andrew Mountbatten Windsor since Entitled first came out last summer when he was still known as Prince Andrew.

And finally for today we have Katja Hoyer’s Weimar, which is one of the anticipated history books of the year – examining the town that gave its name to the government of Germany from the end of World War one until the Nazi regime took power. It was also a key location in the rise of the Nazi party as well as the home of the Bauhaus movement. Hoyer is looking at the town and it’s people from 1919 until 1939 charting how it all happened. I’ve got a stack of books about German twentieth century history waiting on the various to-read piles but I’m still really tempted by this – as depressing as I suspect it may be.

And sorry to end on that miserable note, but there we are, that’s the way it goes sometimes. Enjoy your weekend everyone – I hope the weather is good where you are.

series

Mystery Series: By the Book

May 29, 2026May 29, 2026 veritywilde

It’s Friday again and it’s not due to be quite as hot today as it has been earlier in the week, for which we should all be very thankful. Britain is not built for 30+ degree heat – let alone in May. Anyway, I hope you’re somewhere suitably shady, while you read this week’s series post.

The By the Book Mysteries are a series of three books about Tess Harrow, a mystery writer who moves back to her grandfather’s rural cabin in Washington state with her teenage daughter in the aftermath of her divorce. Once she arrives there she stumbles upon a real life murder. The first book in the series was my Book of the Week back in December and by the end of that she’s decided to make Winthrop her permanent home. In book two Tess is renovating her grandfather’s former hardware store into a bookshop when she discovers a body and in book three they’re preparing for the opening of the bookstore when the murder occurs.

As well as Tess and her daughter Gertrude, the other regular characters are the town’s sheriff (who looks disturbingly like the hero of Tess’s books); Nikki who runs the local book mobile and from book two onwards Jared, who works at the local logging concern. As well as the murder of the week, there is a running plot about whether the loggers are up to something illegal and a will they won’t they romance between Tess and Sheriff Boyd. These are very easy to read, with some nice humour and enough going on that they rattle along nicely and make for an enjoyable way to spend sometime.

There are three books in the series with the third coming out back in 2023 – a gap which suggests that Tamara Berry may be done with the series as they were published at a rate of about one a year until then and Berry having published two books in a new series since then. And so I issue a slight warning: book three doesnt’ feel like it was intended to be the end of the series and not all the plot strands are tied up at the end it. I’m fairly used to series that I like just stopping at unexpected points so it doesn’t bother me too much, but it would be remiss of me not to alert you. So your mileage may vary on that front – at least I’ve read them for you and warned you appropriately!

Have a great weekend!

Book previews

Out This Week: New Annabel Monaghan

May 28, 2026May 24, 2026 veritywilde

Happy Thursday everyone and this week’s new book to mention is the new Annabel Monaghan, Dolly All The Time which came out on Tuesday. According to the blurb, this is about self sufficient, problem solving, single mum Dolly who moves back to her seaside home town and finds herself in a fake relationship with the wealthy, workaholic son of one of the town’s major families. I loved, loved, loved Nora Goes Off Script back in 2023, and I have enjoyed the three books of hers I’ve read since, although none of them have quite hit the same buttons for me as Nora did. But that’s a very high bar. I had this pre-ordered, so I already have my copy waiting for me but if you weren’t planning that far ahead, it’s out now in paperback, Kindle and Kobo.

Recommendsday

Recommendsday: Mysteries set on Islands

May 27, 2026May 28, 2026 veritywilde

It’s Wednsday again, and this week I’ve got a post for you about mysteries set on (usually small) islands. This is a popular setting for detective stories because it gives you a clear group of suspects who can’t escape the investigation. I’m doing this today because the latest Lady Hardcastle mystery came out yesterday and so I’m going to start there with something new!

Murder on the Rocks by T E Kinsey*

This is the thirteenth in Kinsey’s Edwardian-set series featuring a female crime fighting duo. In Murder on the Rocks Lady H and faithful Florence are spending a weekend on an island off the Devon coast when (as often happens) murder happens. The weather means they are trapped on the island with no hope of police assistance and so they promptly set out to solve the crime themselves. This has got a good group of characters as suspects as well as our intrepid duo and this is probably the smallest of the islands on this post with the least amount of people and buildings – meaning they really are cut off from assistance. It’s a fun and cozy read but with plenty of twists to keep you guessing about who might have done what.

Queens of Crime on Islands

Several of the Queens of Crime have written books set on islands – which may explain why its such a common device for authors today. I think at this point almost everyone knows that Agatha Christies And Then There Were None is set on an island, but it’s not the only one. If you’re a Poirot fan there is Evil Under the Sun. I’ve watched the movie version of this one loads (Peter Ustinov! Maggie Smith! Diana Rigg! Cole Porter music!) but it had been years since I read the book so I have had a re-read to remind me of the differences between the book and the film and although the movie makes some changes (including moving it from Devon to the Adriatic!) it’s more faithful to the book than I remembered it being and it’s a really good murder plot and solution.

If you’re a Miss Marple fan there is A Caribbean Mystery which sees Miss Marple’s holiday to a resort in the Caribbean (thanks to her nephew Raymond) turn deadly when one of her dinner companions dies – seemingly of natural causes but of course she isn’t convinced. This one of my personal least favourites of the series – but that’s mostly because the Joan Hickson TV adaptation version scared me witless when I was 11 to the point where I had to stop watching the adaptations all together! Even now, it’s the adaptation I rewatch the least – I’ve may be seen that one half a dozen times max, whereas with some of the others I’ve watched them so many times I can almost recite along with them – and have done a compare and contrast with the different edits available across different platforms because some of them are available as one giant episode as well as two or three individual ones. That said, I did go back and revisit it while I was writing this – and it is a pretty good mystery (once I disconnect the bits of my brain that remember the TV version) and really well put together.

If you’re a Ngaio Marsh reader, then Dead Water is set on an island where miracles are supposedly occurring at a spring. Now I’ve mentioned adaptations I should say that although this is one of the ones that was done by the TV series, but it has quite a lot of changes to the plot including the location of the island and the inclusion of Agatha Troy at all (let alone the point in the Alleyn-Troy relationship it occurs at). There’s also Last Ditch, which I have to say is one of my least favourites in the series and features grown-up Ricky (son of Alleyn and Troy) going to an island to try to get away from distractions so that he can write a novel and then getting kidnapped, forcing Alleyn to the rescue. Even later in the series there’s Photo Finish, where Alleyn and Troy are on a New Zealand island where a famous opera singer is trying to escape from the paparazzi. This is from the point in the series where you have to not think about how old Alleyn should be given that it is basically set in a contempoary period to it’s publication (1980!!!) but if you can manage that – which is much easier if you’re reading it in isolation rather than as is my habit as part of a read/listen through of the series – it’s pretty good.

If you want to read a Campion book there’s just the one: the second in the series, Mystery Mile, sees Albert trying to protect a judge from forces that are trying to kill him by hiding him on an island off the Suffolk coast. Margery Allingham set more of her series in London than Christie or Marsh – possibly because they can be more concerned with the criminal underworld and can tend towards the adventure story than the other two do.

Other authors

Islands are incredibly popular for mysteries as you can tell from the Queens of Crime – and so many other mystery authors have done them too it was an embarrasmment of riches putting this together. A lot of the cozy crime series have got island-set entries (as an homage to the Queens maybe?) including the second Meg Langslow book Murder with Puffins, Clammed Up the first in the Maine Clambake series, A Likely Story the sixth in the Library Lovers series and Susan M Boyer’s Liz Talbot series which are set on a South Carolina island. And of course there is (relatively) recent book of the week pick The Murder at World’s End, and Nicola Upson‘s The Dead of Winter which I mentioned in my Series at Christmas 2 post.

I have several island set mysteries on the pile waiting to be read – including Displeasure Island (the sequel to Grave Expectations), the first in the Death in Paradise tv-tie in series (which Robert Thorogood created and wrote before he started on the Marlow Murder series) and Rachel Rhys‘s Island of Secrets which is set on Cuba.

And that’s more than enough for today – Happy Humpday!

Book of the Week, new releases, romance

Book of the Week: The Paris Match

May 26, 2026May 28, 2026 veritywilde

Happy Tuesday everyone. It’s absolutely roasting hot here so it seems fitting that this week’s pick is summary book with a lot of wandering around Paris and lovely weather

I mentioned The Paris Match on the day that it came out but just a recap for you of the plot: it’s about Layla, who is going to Paris for the wedding of her ex’s sister. Layla has been like a sister to the bride but now she’s divorced the bride’s brother and this is the first test of the “amicable” part of their divorce and whether she can still be part of the family now she’s not officially in it any more. After a night out with the bride and her best friend, the bride decides she wants to break off the wedding and tells her fiancé it’s because of something Layla said. Thus Griffin, the best man, turns up at her room door and tells her she’s got to fix it. And so here starts Layla and Griffin trying to fix what’s gone wrong with the potential bride and groom for their own different reasons and in doing that they get to know each other and maybe fall in love.

This isn’t an all hearts and flowers book and that’s one of the things that I really liked about it. There’s some pretty serious backstory going on for both characters: Layla has her divorce and Griff has got some chronic illness and chronic pain that he’s dealing with. And a real feature of the book is how he moves through the world and how he is perceived in the world. But despite what you might think after reading that, it’s not super heavy or miserable read. And actually one of the things I really like about Kate Clayborn – and she’s done this in other books – is the way that she can manage to have quite serious subjects in the character’s lives and their back stories and yet the books don’t feel like it’s heavy or a slog. It just feels delightful watching these two people find each other and and fall in love – and not be fixed by their relationship per se but their lives made better by it. And I really found that with this.

I basically read it in about a day – I started it one night and finished it the next afternoon which speaks to how much I enjoyed it. I was gonna save it for a time of need but it turns out the time of need came a little bit sooner than I was expecting and I regret nothing about that decision. I love Paris and I loved watching Griff and Layla move around Paris and recognise bits of my experience. Paris is such a great city a great setting for this and works so well with the story. If I have any complaints it’s that I wanted a bit more comeuppance at the end for some people that have done the hero with heroine wrong, but I can live with it because I think that the ending that the characters got was pretty perfect.

This should be a fairly easy one to find. I had the paperback pre-ordered but the Kindle is actually on offer at 99p this month and I’m impressed with myself for resisting the urge to buy a Kindle copy as well as my paperbacks so I could read it while I was away from home so you should be able to get hold of this pretty much everywhere.

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: May 18 – May 24

May 25, 2026May 25, 2026 veritywilde

A really solid week in reading, helped by a series of football matches that meant that I stayed in watching/listening to them while reading a book rather than going out to the theatre. And then the weather got really hot so it seemed like the sensible thing to do was to stay inside in the cool and read books. This week is due to be even hotter though…

Read:

A Ghost Hunter’s Guide to Catching a Killer by F H Petford*

The French Market Murder by Greg Mosse*

Windsor vs Windsor by Bert Tyler-Moore*

Debts of Dishonour by Jill Paton Walsh

Game Changer by Rachael Reid

Murder Off the Books by Tamara Berry

The Paris Match by Kate Clayborn

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carré