Verity Reads Books (lots of them)

It’s the second Wednesday of the month, and you know what that means: my monthly encouragement to spend money on cheap Kindle books. And just before I start, a mini rant that Amazon seem to be majing it harder and harder to find which books are on a (really good) offer by constantly only offering me about twenty recommendations per category in books that it thinks I will like – rather than the old school long lists of best sellers per genre. I hate everything about this.

Lets start with the mystery books and there are two Anthony Horowitz on offer at 99p this month – the latest Hawthorne and Horowitz A Deadly Episode and The Magpie Murders – I assume because the adaptation of the third book in that series is currently on the TV. The Killing Time, the second in Elly Griffiths latest series is also 99p as is the Rivers of London novella Winter’s Gifts, the second in Simon Brett’s latest series Major Bricket and the Body in the Belfry, and Graham Norton’s debut Holding which I think counts as a mystery and was turned into a really good TV version.

Moving on and Katherine Centre’s The Shippers is 99p which is almost annoying because I’ve been waiting for an offer since it came out on Kindle but they clearly waited until the paperback came out – which was the backup that I had pre-ordered (and which arrived last week), the new Maria Semple Go Gentle, Travis Baldree‘s Legends and Lattes is 99p, as is Libby Page‘s The Lifeline, and if you’re in a Halloween-y mood, then Olivia Dade’s latest book World’s Okayest Oracle (reluctantly) Seeks Demon is 99p. In historical fiction there’s Leonora Nattress’s The Bells of Westminster, the second Shardlake mystery Dark Fire and Tom Hindle‘s A Fatal Crossing. I’ve been on a run of translated fiction recently, so it would be remiss of me not to mention that former BotW What You Are Looking for is in the Library is 99p as is the third Before the Coffee Gets Cold book, Before Your Memory Fades.

In the nonfiction lists there’s former BotW Hello World from current Celebrity Traitors start Hannah Fry and Trevor Noah‘s Born a Crime. Among the stuff that I haven’t read but which looks good or has been recommended there is An African History of Africa by Zainab Badawi, Satnam Sangera’s Empireworld, which is the sequel to the award-winning Empireland, Otto English’s Notorious (which I have on the pile from a previous holiday airport purchase), Anthony Beevor’s The Second World War, Tracy Borman’s The Private Lives of the Tudors, Alice Roberts’s Crypt and Lucy Worsley‘s Queen Victoria. I bought Victor Sebestyen’s Weimar Germany to add to the heap of books about 20th Century Germany I have waiting for me to read, as well as Peter Cozzen’s Deadwood and Adrian Tinniswood’s The Power and the Glory.

The Terry Pratchett is Thud! which is the seventh in the Watch series; the John Le Carré is The Honourable Schoolboy which is the sixth Smiley book and also the second in the Karla trilogy (the first being Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy) and the Georgette Heyer is An Infamous Army which is the fourth (and my least favourite) in the Alistair-Audley books which are the only time(s) that she revisits any of her characters in her historical fiction. If you’ve never read any of Nancy Mitford’s novels, the Penguin Complete Novels is 99p and would be worth it just for The Pursuit of Love or Love in a Cold Climate let alone those two plus six more. I’ve been doing some more Mitford-related reading recently, so watch out for a follow up to my Recommendsday on them in the near future*. Also in if you haven’t read is Jeannette Winterson’s Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit which I read as an A Level set text along with The Color Purple. The 1300 lines of Wordsworth’s Prelue was worth suffering through to get those two novels…

In books that I keep seeing advertised to me, there is The Road to Tender Hearts which has The Wedding People and The Correspondent as comps, which are both waiting on my to-read pile, so I probably should read one (or both) of them before I pull the trigger on that one! I did however buy Jeeves Again, which is a collection of Twelve new stories in the world of PG Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Wooster by people like Jasper Fforde and John Finnemore which I must some how have missed when it came out last year.

And if that’s not enough for oyu, I don’t know what would be! Happy Humpday and best of luck to your wallet!

*by which I mean hopefully before the end of the year!

Book of the Week, Book previews, historical, mystery, new releases, previews

Book of the Week: The Shadows of Kensington Gore

October 13, 2026October 10, 2026 veritywilde

This is a slight cheat again this week but for a different reason than the last two weeks have been. I did read this last week – but it’s not out until next Thursday so that’s where the rule breaking occurs. But as I always say, I make the rules so I’m allowed to do what I want about them in the end. It was my favourite thing I read last week though so it totally deserves this spot.

I really enjoyed The Murder at Worlds End and so I was looking forward to this follow up – and I was not disappointed. Stephen and Miss Decima are now in London, installed in a mansion block near the Royal Albert Hall. Miss Decima is and running a detective agency from it. But all the cases she is getting are household pilfering and she’s is getting bored. Stephen is finding is feet in a new neighbourhood and is growing frustrated that he’s not as involved in the detecting as he was hoping – and that he’s running the whole household on his own and having books thrown at him when he’s not doing things as quickly as Decima wants him to. But all this changes when they go to a Suffragette meeting ahead of the Coronation and Stephen is first on the scene of a murder. This also means he’s the police’s prime suspect – and so he and Miss Decima are back on the case again.

The atmosphere of pre-Coronation London is great – and so is the portrayal of the various factions within the movement for women’s suffrage. Too often this can get flattened to just the suffragettes, but this has got the peaceful and the militant factions in the thick of it – as well as all the various movements trying to prevent women from getting the vote. It’s also got the working class – or more accurate the servants class view, all of which makes for an intriguing mystery to solve. It’s also funny – Stephen’s antics as he tries to find his place in the neighbourhood are great, as is Decima and her various foibles. The body count is fairly high – but it manages to balance the light and the shade really well. Miss Decima hasn’t changed her character since the first book and so she’s as cantankerous and difficult as ever – and the book is trying hard not to soften her into fluffy old lady, which must be a temptation given the rest of the genre.

I raced through this and I really hope that there is a third book coming because this showed that there is plenty of material for mining in London for these two.

My copy came from NetGalley and as I said it’s out on the 22nd so you can pre-order it now if you’re desperate to read it after this rave review. Here are the Kindle and Kobo links. It’a a hardback release but should be fairly easy to find in the stores when it does come out – Waterstones have a signed version for preorder which is usually a good sign for availability and I’ve seen Murder at Worlds End all over the place since it came out last year. There’s an audiobook too – which looks like it might be dual narration between Joe Jameson and Juliet Stevenson which would be fun.

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: October 5 – October 11

October 12, 2026October 12, 2026 veritywilde

So here’s the thing… I’ve been on holiday. And I was on holiday this time last week is true. So today’s list is huge. In fact the holiday list in general is massive and I’m pretty pleased with myself because my goal was to read some non fiction (done) and to try and make progress on the NetGalley list (done). And I know what I’m picking for tomorrow too, so I will break the streak of writing about books I finished on Monday! This week I’m back down to earth with a bump so we’ll see what happens to the list now, but I think we already know it’s going to be *much* shorter.

Read:

Julia at the Drive-In by Rainbow Rowell

The Final Problem by Arturo Perez-Reverte

Murder at Canterbury Cathedral by Jim Eldridge

Regime Change by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan

Winter Breakage by David Levithan

The Price of Admission by Dustin Thao

The Spy and the Snake by M J Rowbotham*

Lord Peter Views the Body by Dorothy L Sayers

The Shadows of Kensington Gore by Ross Montgomery*

Death in the Dressing Room by Simon Brett

The Bloodshed in the Bookshop by Simon Brett

Miss Hortense and the Last Rites by Mel Pennant*

Pride, Prejudice and Peril by Jessica Bull*

Started:

Take a Chance, Sasha Sinclair by Ashley Herring Blake

Still reading:

Any Way the Wind Blows by Rainbow Rowell

Eight ebooks bought (offers post writing does tend to do that to me), one pre-order put in and another pre-order turned up. I’m expecting another pre-order this week so we already know there’ll be at least one book on next week’s list.

Bonus picture: a picture from (nearly) the top of Teide, the third highest volcano in the world. There was sand from the Sahara in the air so we couldn’t see as far as you usually can, but we still got all the effects of being 3,500m above sea level…

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

concerts, not a book

Not a Book: Martha Wainwright

October 11, 2026October 11, 2026 veritywilde

Yes this happened a couple of weeks ago now, but it was a one off concert that Martha slotted between her gigs supporting Snow Patrol at the Royal Albert Hall so it’s not like I’ve missed out on alerting you to an ongoing tour by not posting it sooner.

At this point my love for Martha Wainright (and her brother Rufus) should be well known, and this was a lovely, intimate gig in a new to me venue – the Tabernacle in Notting Hill. She put out a warning on her instagram the day before that there was no opening act and that she’d be on straight away at 7.30, so of course being perpetually early I was there for the doors opening at 6.30 and got a spot in the front row. Of course then I had to hang around in it for an hour before the show started, but the floor was clean and I had a book (and a pint of cider) so it wasn’t exactly a hardship!

There were a bunch of the old favourites here but the main purpose was for her to preview some of the songs from her upcoming album. I’ve seen Martha a few times, but not doing a solo set like this (ie just her and her guitar) since the very first time I saw her at The Stables near Milton Keynes when she was touring the Come Home to Mama album more than a decade ago. Her songs sound good with a band – but they’re also great when it’s just her on her own. We did have a few songs with her and a sax, but they were the minority. Her chat between songs was hilarious – as she lamented her younger self’s propensity for alternate guitar tunings and her difficulties in remembering them now. All in all, a lovely night and a real treat – and I’m looking forward to the new album when it comes out next year.

Have a good Sunday!

bookshops

Happy Bookshop Day!

October 10, 2026October 9, 2026 veritywilde

It’s Bookshop Day 2026 in the UK – so today please take yourself down to a bookstore – preferably an Indie if you have one near you – and buy some books! Lots of shops are holding events and I would be going to one of my local ones if it weren’t for the fact that I’ve got a day out in London planned! There’s usually a special Books are My Bag bag too – which are often available for a few days after too.

Happy Book-shopping!

series

Series Redux: Charles Paris

October 9, 2026October 9, 2026 veritywilde

There was a new Fetherings book out yesterday (number 22 in the series) which makes today an ideal time to remind you about my favourite Simon Brett series – Charles Paris. Charles is a middle aged, probably alcoholic actor who just about manages to stay the right side of solvent by picking up odd acting jobs. You can find my original post about the series here – I first binged my way through them seven years ago and have re-read or re-listened to most of them since. There are 20 books in the series and if you do them all back to back you will notice that they started in the 1970s and that we’re still going and they’re now in the current day and Charles is still basically the same age, but don’t let that bother you. The floating now nature of the series means that Charles is always coming across new facets of the acting profession to get jobs in.

I sort of think that the series may be complete at this point because there hasn’t been a new book since 2018 – but given that there was a 15 year gap between books 17 and 18 that’s not a given. These are all in Kindle Unlimited – individually (all with fresh covers since I first read them!) and a six book omnibus edition of the start of the series – and there are also audiobooks read by the author, and radio dramas (lightly adapted to bring them all into the present-ish) day starting Bill Nighy as Charles.

Have a great weekend

previews

Out This Week: New Lauren Willis

October 8, 2026October 7, 2026 veritywilde

I know everyone is going supernatural at the moment, but I wasn’t expecting Lauren Willig to join the club. I don’t know why I wasn’t but hey, it was a surprise to me when I saw this pop up in the October releases with the catchy subhead/amazon tagline of “A Supernatural Cemetery Romance of Gilded Age Curses and Second Chances”. The blurb says it’s “a delightfully Gothic romantic adventure, complete with a little bit of demon-hunting.” It promises two people – Jess and Adam digging into the history of a Brooklyn cemetery only to discover a Gilded Age curse, a ghostly socialite and a demonic pact. Now as you are all well aware my record with supernatural stuff in books is patchy, but as I generally like Lauren Willig I will give this a go if it crosses my path at a reasonable price – and that may take some time if previous history holds true. But spooky season has definitely started now, which means I should start reading some of the Halloween books I have waiting on the various piles…

Recommendsday

Recommendsday: September Quick Reviews

October 7, 2026October 1, 2026 veritywilde

It’s the first Wednesday of the month and so here I am with some quick reviews of some books I read last month that I haven’t already told you about. I had a lot of books that I didn’t like last month, but I’ve tried to moderate myself and give you some stuff I actually did like!

Laura Clark is Away from Her Desk by Helen Russell*

Laura Clark is a 40-something HR manager, married to a golf-obsessd husband with a 19 year-old daughter who is drifting towards the end of a gap year with no idea what comes next and a mother who constantly calls on her to ask for things or complain. But one day Laura doesn’t turn up for work, disappears from her home and stops answering her phone. Gradually the people in Laura’s life find their lives descending into chaos without her there to perform the invisible labour they had all taken for granted. This is told from the point of view of one of Laura’s work colleagues, her husband, her daughter and her best friend and as you read you build a picture of a deeply unappreciated woman moving through her life without anyone doing anything for her. The collapse of everyone else’s lives is humourous to read, but actually I found this suprisingly bleak – the idea that Laura had been slogging on through all of their grunt work without anyone noticing is chilling. Luckily I thought the ending pulled it around or I might have been really quite depressed by the end!

In Dog We Trust by Beth Kendrick

Jocelyn is a town person and her mother has always told her to stay away from summer people – except for providing them with their clean laundry as part of the family business. But when she is named legal guardian for a pack of pedigree dogs she finds herself thrust into the rich side of town. But along with the dogs comes their owner’s estranged son who is determined to overturn the will…This is the fifth book in this series and I’ve read the first two and really enjoyed them and skipped a few to get to this one and it’s fine – but it’s not as good as the first two. I appreciated the subtle commentary on class but I did want to give some of the characters a bit of a shake at times. I think if I hadn’t enjoyed the previous two so much I would have enjoyed this more – I was just holding it to a higher standard!

When Gavin Met Stacey and Everything in Between by Ruth Jones and James Corden

This is a retrospective on the beloved TV series written by its creators. If you like the show, you’ll enjoy the insider information in this – I really liked learning how the show evolved from its original form into the show that we all loved. James Corden has a bad rap (rep?) as a person these days but Gavin and Stacey is a masterpiece and his rapport with Ruth is charming. If you like the show you’ll like this, but if you like the behind the scenes of how things get made, this is also interesting.

Book of the Week, mystery

Book of the Week: The Final Problem

October 6, 2026October 6, 2026 veritywilde

Yes, yes, yes, I know. I’m doing a book I finished on Monday again. But I have reasons: I’m carrying on two themes – it’s Sherlock Holmes related following on from the new Lady Sherlock coming out last week and it’s also translated – this time from Spanish. So there’s method to my madness.

It’s 1960 and in Greece bad weather has stranded tourists on the island of Utakos where they are staying in the only hotel. Then one of them is found dead in a beach cabana. It looks like suicide but one of the guests Basil Ormond – an out of work actor who is best known for playing Sherlock Holmes in a series of movies – thinks that it may be murder. The police can’t get to the island because of the weather and the other guests depute him to investigate because of his experience playing the detective on the big screen. Can he find the killer before the police arrive – or before the killer strikes again?

This is billed as inspired by Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes and I think that’s pretty accurate. It’s got a clever mystery, an interesting group of characters and it’s got a really nice style about it – I don’t know how much of that is the translator Frances Riddle vs Arturo Pérez-Reverte himself but it makes for a good reading experience. I didn’t have the killer worked out – which is also good – and once it was revealed I thought it was really neatly done.

Pérez-Reverte is a long established author in Spanish – I’ve seen him on the book shelves when I’ve been browsing on holidays in Spain – and upon looking on amazon it looks like an other series of his about a Spanish D’Artagnan type may also be available in English but I’ve certainly never seen them in shops the way I have this one over the last few months. If you like a classic crime novel this is worth a look, and I enjoyed it enough that I’ll be keeping my eyes open for more of his books – and if this does well may be we will get some more of them in English.

It’s on offer for 99p on Kindle and Kobo at the moment, and as I said it should be fairly easy to find in the shops too.

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: September 28 – October 4

October 5, 2026October 5, 2026 veritywilde

Considering how big the finished list is, I really shouldn’t have added a book to the still reading pile, and yet I did. I got distracted and forgot about it until Sunday. And I’m in a bit of a situation for tomorrow too because I did that thing again last week. When will I learn? (Ed: never!) Anyway, let’s see if I can fix that this week coming…

Read:

A Game of Cat and Killer by Jiro Akagawa*

Unnatural Death by Dorothy L Sayers

Murder on the Cornish Train by J M Hall*

Alan Opts Out by Courtney Maum*

The Voices of the Dead by Nicola Upson*

Puzzles of the Parish edited by Martin Edwards

The Gentleman’s Book of Vice by Jess Everlee*

Take Six Girls by Laura Thompson

A Murder at Midnight by Ellie Alexander