Verity Reads Books (lots of them)

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.

And that’s your lot today – Happy Humpday!

Book of the Week

Book of the Week: The Love Haters

March 17, 2026March 16, 2026 veritywilde

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 latest Katherine 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.

Happy Tuesday!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: March 9 – March 15

March 16, 2026March 16, 2026 veritywilde

It’s really starting to feel like the weather can’t make up its mind what it’s doing at the moment. One day it’s so warm you barely need a coat, another it’s blowing a (freezing) gale and raining. I dislike this because it’s impossible to dress for but also because I don’t know if I want to read cosy autumnal books or spring-y new start ones. I’ve got such a huge to-read pile that I really should just pick one and go with it, and yet I find that really hard to do. A solid week of reading though – a couple from the NetGalley list, a couple from the shelf and one break-glass-in-case-of-emergency read because I wasn’t feeling very well. Onwards…

Read:

Murder at the Spirit Lounge by Jess Kidd*

Death at the Bar by Ngaio Marsh

The Corpse in the Waxworks by John Dickson Carr

Death Waits in the Dark by Julia Buckley

The Pie and Mash Detective Agency by J D Brinkworth*

Veiled Threat by Patti Benning

Murder on the Eiffel Tower by Claude Izner

The Love Haters by Katherine Center

Started:

Death with a Dark Red Rose by Julia Buckley

Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Fairies by Heather Fawcett

Still reading:

Game Changer by Rachael Reid

Square Haunting by Francesca Wade

Ritual of Fire by D V Bishop

Pet Shop Boys, Literally by Chris Heath

Four ebooks and two books bought, two pre-orders arrived.

Bonus picture: Tower Bridge by night on the way to the theatre last week.

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

Exhibitions, not a book

Not a Book: Seurat and the Sea

March 15, 2026March 15, 2026 veritywilde

Happy Mothering Sunday everyone, and I have been doing some more high culture to report back on today, with one of the first of the big London art exhibitions of the year and one which is very much in my area of interest.

Georges Seurat’s most famous paintings are Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte and Bathers at Asnieres. I’ve never seen the first which is in Chicago, but the second lives at the National Gallery and I will go and look at it every time I visit. In Washington back in 2018, I went to the National Gallery of Art where they have a selection of his works and wandered around that. So it’s no surprise that I would be very excited to go and see the first dedicated exhibition of his seascapes which is on at the Courtauld at the moment.

The Courtauld says this “major, focused display is the first devoted to Seurat in the UK in almost 30 years” which I can believe – because I don’t remember another one, and I have had my eye open for one since I first saw Sunday in the Park with George in the summer of 2006. This exhibition has 26 paintings, oil sketches and drawings that Seurat made during a series of summers he spent on the northern French coast between 1885 and 1890 before his early death at the age of 31 in 1891.

I find it really hard to write about art but there is something about the light and movement in Seurat’s works that always gets to me – and these seascapes are really something. They are arranged chronologically so that you can see the his technique and style developing of the the years, as well as seeing some of the studies alongside the major works that they were preparatory for. They have a sense of stillness and calm, despite the fact that they are seascapes. I spent some time standing on the far side of the gallery staring at them from a distance when they look almost like photographs and the effect he was aiming for with the pure colour is at it’s most effective. But up close the detail is incredible too.

The Courtauld also has other Seurats, including studies for la Grande Jatte and others in its regular collection along with other works by the impressionists, so if you’re interested in this period in art, this is well worth the entry fee. This was one of those occasions where I bought myself the exhibition poster and am now spending a stupid amount of money on the frame for it. And I’ve added to my postcard collection too, only to discover that I’ve got a mix of landscape and portrait postcards so I still don’t have enough to fill my big postcard display frame! Anway, if you want to go and see this, do your planning now because there are already some dates that are sold out. It’s already been extended so instead of ending in April it now ends in May and they have added late night opening on Fridays to cope with the demand.

I leave you with some Sunday in the Park with George, from the Sondheim Prom to mark his 80th birthday back in 2010. I’m bracing myself for the bunfight that will be ticket sales for next summer’s revival with Jonathan Bailey and Ariana Grande. Pray for me – and my wallet!

The pile

Books Incoming: Mid-March 2026

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As you can see, all restraint on the ebook front was out of the window in the actual book purchasing. Here we have the Liza Minelli pre-order, the Game Changer from Birmingham, The Scandalous Life of Ruby Deveraux was my purchase in Old Hall bookshop Dress Code was an extra purchase in the charity shop after Old Hall because they didn’t have any change and didn’t take card for less than a pound so I needed a second book on top of Death at Nonna’s Kitchen. The three Mirabelle Bevans and Take Six Girls all came from the same secondhand bookshop so I was making a postage saving (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it), Beatie Cavendish and the White Pearl Club is the book that precedes the Beattie Cavendish I read last month and finally Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Faeries was this week’s Foyles purchase after I enjoyed Agnes Aubert so much. So any work I was doing getting the size of the physical pile down is clearly straight out of the window…

book adjacent, theatre

Book Adjacent: The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

March 13, 2026March 11, 2026 veritywilde

I know it’s meant to be a series post on a Friday, but I’ve seen so much stuff recently that if I save it all for Sundays, some of it will nearly have finished by the time I get to it. So you’ve got a bonus theatre review today – of the musical based on Rachel Joyce’s The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry.

The story, for those (like me!) who don’t know it, is about Harold Fry a retiree in Devon who receives a letter from Queenie, a former colleague from 20 years earlier saying that she is in hospice care and dying of cancer. He writes a (not very good) letter back – but when he gets to the post box, can’t bring himself to post it so walks to the next one, and then the next one until he decides he’s going to go and visit Queenie – all 600 plus miles – on foot. As he goes he thinks about his life, his marriage and his son and starts to work through the issues in his past. His journey also acquires a cult following – people following it on social media and even joining him along the way.

I haven’t read the book that this is based on but that really didn’t matter to en joying the show – it just means that I can’t tell you how far this deviates from the book in terms of the story.There is darkness and sadness in the story as it unfolds (which I haven’t gone into because: Spoilers) but ultimately it is a life affirming slice of a normal man’s life who decides to do something abnormal on the spur of the moment. Mark Addy is great as Harold, but Jenna Russell is really heart breaking as his wife Maureen – she was actually nominated for an Olivier award for this last week, and I think she really deserves it. I’m not sure there was a weak performance – but I thought the puppet dog was particularly effective.

The music is by Passenger, who I couldn’t have named a song by but when I looked it up I did know Let Her Go (video below so you can see if you know it too) and I would describe it as sort of folk inspired and fitted really well with the design of the show too. This started at Chichester last year, and I’m glad it’s got a London run so more people can see it.

This is on at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket until April 18th.

Book previews

Out this Week: Liza Minnelli memoir

March 12, 2026February 28, 2026 veritywilde

Honestly I’m torn between excitement and fear for this one. Kids Wait Until You Hear This was one of the books I mentioned in my anticipated books post, and as I said in that her discipline in maintaining her public persona is iron clad – as you could see in the authorised documentary about her last year – that I’m dubious about whether there will be anything new here but if there is it will be fascinating. I’ve also been a little bit worried about the AI dance track that she contributed vocals to along with the uptick in content she’s been featuring in on her socials given how frail she looked on Drag Race and in her appearance at the Oscars a few years back, but hey, hopefully all of it is her choices. I have my copy pre-ordered anyway…

books on offer, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: March 2026 Kindle Offers

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It’s the second Wednesday of March and so I’m back with some Kindle offers. There’s a big old Kindle Sale going on at the moment which means that there was a lot to chose from and also that it was a relatively expensive post to write – so I hope you appreciate it!

The first one is a new release from last month and one that I already told you that I was excited about: the new Chicago Stars book from Susan Elizabeth Philips, And the Crowd Went Wild is 99p and I clicked on it just as fast as I could and as you know I have already finished it! Also from the very recent releases (which I also haven’t read) is And Now, Back to You by B K Borison, the second book in their Heartstrings series, which features competing meteorologists and the storm of the century. Former BotW and 2024 Emily Henry release Funny Story is 99p as is Christina Lauren‘s The Paradise Problem, Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date from Ashley Herring Blake‘s Bright Falls series, Casey McQuiston’s Red, White and Royal Blue and one of the books I mentioned in last week’s Quick Reviews, The Fundamentals of Being Good Girl.

Moving on to mysteries, Jeremy Vine’s Murder on Line One is on offer too which I’m assuming is because the sequel comes out in late April. Elly Griffiths‘ first Brighton Mystery, The Zig Zag Girl, is 99p as is Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Sutanto (which is also in Kindle Unlimited), The Witness at the Wedding (the sixth Fetherings book), The Marlow Murder Club and Death Comes to Marlow (that’s the first two in that series), the second Canon Clement A Death in the Parish and the first Dahlia mystery The Three Dahlias,

Just a couple of non fiction books to mention: Jennette McCurdy’s I’m Glad My Mom Died is 99p, as is comedian Adrian Edmondson’s memoir Beserker! and Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez. It’s not on offer on price, but Anderson Cooper and Katherine Howe‘s Vanderbilt is is currently in Kindle Unlimited. And Laurence Rees’s The Nazi Mind is £1.99

Still on the shelf waiting to be read are Gill Hornby’s The Elopement, Maz Evans’s Over My Dead Body which are all 99p this month. I still haven’t read the first Castle Knoll Files book but the second, How To Seal Your Own Fate, is 99p because the third is out next month too. We have to wait until the middle of May for the second series of Rivals, but if you’re bored of waiting, the fitfth in the Rutshire series Appassionata is 99p this month.

Rebecca Yaros’s The Fourth Wing is on offer again – I still haven’t read this, and the to read pile is so huge I’m residting the urge to buy it because it will be literal years before I get around to reading it, but it has been incredibly popular and well reviewed obviously so is a good deal. In other things that I haven’t read (although to be fair I did try and read this one but gave up!) is Outlander, the first in Diana Gabaldon’s series of the same name which is a very successful TV series too. Catch Her If You Can, he latest Tessa Bailey is 99p too – I’ve decided (after reading three of hers and giving up on a fourth) that Bailey is not my thing, but she’s tremendously popular which is why I came back and tried again (and again) after disliking the first one of hers that I read.

And finally, there are two Terry Pratchett’s on offer: Men at Arms so you could start the City Watch series and Tales of Wizards and Dragons which is a short story collection for young readers and ne of my favourites, Regency Buck, is the Heyer on offer.

Happy Humpday!

Book of the Week

Book of the Week: Murder at Gulls Nest

March 10, 2026March 8, 2026 veritywilde

Happy Tuesday everyone I’m back with the offers post tomorrow, but for today I’m back with in the mystery realm with a book from the to-read pile. I really am trying to reduce the size of that. Not least because the overspill is currently on my jigsaw table and I have two that I got for Christmas that I want to do… Anyway, to the book:

In Murder at Gulls Nest it’s 1954 and Nora Breen has asked to be released from the monastery where she has lived for the last thirty or so years to try and find out what has happened to a former novice whose letters have abruptly stopped. Nora heads to Gore-on-Sea on the south coast and to the very boarding house where Frieda was living to investigate. When she arrives there she hides her connection to Frieda and starts to dig. But when another resident is found dead, she starts to worry that Frieda may have found herself caught up in something even more worrying than Nora feared.

Nora is a great character and I really like the way that she is rediscovering the world and herself as we go through the book. The world has changed while she has been cloistered away and she has decades of habits to break as well. And then the mystery is really good. I think that boarding houses are great settings for mystery books because it’s a way that hugely different people can be forced into proximity and they can feel very claustrophobic. They are also places where there are rules – and rules are something that Nora is used to, just in a different context. Inspector Rideout, who is the police officer that she comes into contact with, also makes for a great foil for Nora to bounce off, but he has depth and complexity of his own too.

This was one of my Christmas books, and there is a second book featuring Nora coming out next month which I’ve already started thanks to the wonders of NetGalley, which just shows how much I enjoyed this first installment. I hadn’t read anything by Jess Kidd before, but it seems like this was a bit of a departure from her previous writing and I’m really glad that she went in this direction because I enjoyed it a lot.

This one should be pretty easy to get hold of – I’ve seen the hardback in a bunch of stores and the paperback is out towards the end of March too. And of course it’s on Kindle and Kobo too where I’m expecting the price to drop when the paperback comes out.

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: March 2 – March 8

March 9, 2026March 9, 2026 veritywilde

I’m starting to thing that March might be the month of shows – I saw two shows last week, and I’ve got two more this week, and I’ve got another two booked for later in the month already. So on that basis, I’m still pretty pleased with the reading last week, even if I didn’t finish anything from that pesky still reading list. I will try again on that this week.

Read:

And The Crowd Went Wild by Susan Elizabeth Philips

Overture to Death by Ngaio Marsh

Murder at Gulls Nest by Jess Kidd

Murder in the Cathedral by Kerry Greenwood

Murder at the Tower by N R Daws*

Thunder in the Sky by Elizabeth Peters

The Bombay Prince by Sujuta Massey