Month: August 2018

historical, new releases, Recommendsday, romance

Recommendsday: The Governess Game

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Bonus post this week – because the new Tessa Dare book came out yesterday.  I read it back at the start of the month and really, really enjoyed it.  It is the second book in the Girl Meets Duke series and features the romance between one of the friends of the heroine of the first book and a man you saw her run into in that book.  The Duchess Deal was a BotW back in May, and is also well worth reading.

Cover of The Governess Game

Alexandra Mountbatten makes a living by setting clocks in the London houses of the rich.  But when she loses her equipment, she finds herself the governess to two out of control orphans who are in the care of a renowned libertine.  Alexandra knows that what they need is a stable, loving home.  Chase is the heir to a duke and lives by one rule: no attachments.  He won’t settle down and he doesn’t want anyone depending on him.  He knows he’s not to be trusted – all he wants is for his new governess to turn his wards into proper young ladies so that they can find men that they can rely on when they grow up.  And we all know where this is going.  It’s got a grumpy scared to love rakish hero with two children to take care of, a very wary accidental governess who sees the job as her ticket to her own independence and a bit of forced proximity. Bingo, my catnip.

The dialogue is sparky, the characters are great from the hero and heroine, right the way through all the minor characters.  I loved the running joke about the funerals.  You’ll get it when you read it – but if I tell you it’ll spoil it.  Here’s what the author had to say about it on twitter:

And if that doesn’t make you want to read it, I don’t know what will.  Anyway, if I had one quibble, it’s that the heroine’s surname is Mountbatten which I *think* originated as one of the invented surnames for some of the British end of the Royal Family when they were Anglicizing things during World War One – in this case the bits of the Battenburg family that married Queen Victoria’s youngest daughter and one of Queen Victoria’s granddaughters.  It’s also the one that Prince Philip adopted just before he married the then Princess Elizabeth – meaning the current British royal family has the surname Mountbatten-Windsor.  If you’re not a massive nerd like me, it probably won’t bother you, but it made me think of Prince Philip every time it was mentioned.*  I’m sorry if by mentioning it I’ve caused the same issue for you.

My copy came via NetGalley, but The Governess Game is available on Kindle and Kobo and if it’s anything like the Duchess Deal it may pop up in larger supermarket book selections and some of the bigger bookshops when it comes out in paperback in the UK next week.  If not, order it from your local friendly indie.

Happy Reading!

*Oddly not the only romance novel I’ve read recently that has done this.

Book of the Week, detective, mystery, Series I love

Book of the Week: The Mystery of Three Quarters

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This week’s BotW is the new Poirot continuation by Sophie Hannah – which happened to come out last week too so for once my review is actually timely!  Regular readers will know that I love Golden Age mystery novels (witness last week’s reading list which included the complete short stories of my beloved Peter Wimsey and a Patricia Wentworth novel) and also that I have a mixed record with continuations of beloved series, so the fact that this is popping up here today is Good News.

Cover of The Mystery of Three Quarters

As he returns home from lunch one day Hercule Poirot is accosted by an irate woman who threatens him with a lawsuit because she has received a letter from him accusing her of murder.  Poirot has written no such letter but is unable to convince her.  Soon after a young man appears who has received a similar letter.  The next day two more strangers proclaim their innocence to him after receiving letters.  So who is writing the letters in Poirot’s name – and why are they so determined to accuse people of the murder of Barnabas Pandy?This has got an intriguing premise and a solution that I didn’t see coming. I read this across the course of 24 hours and was annoyed that it was over so fast. This is the third Poirot novel from Hannah and I have read the first (The Monogram Murders) but not the second (The Closed Casket) and reading my review of the first one back, I had some concerns about whether it felt enough like a Poirot story – and this one pretty much did to me. I think making the narrator not Poirot is a very good decision – as is not falling back on Poirot clichés like “leetle grey cells”. And as the narrator is a Hannah invention rather than Captain Hastings that also means that there’s freedom to analyse Poirot’s quirks and processes in a different way rather than trying to continue in someone else’s voice.

And maybe that’s why this works for me more than most of the Wimsey continuations do. I’m yet to read an Albert Campion continuation so I’ll see how one of those falls between these two continuations to work out whether that is what makes continuations work better for me. And after this I’ll definitely be looking out for The Closed Casket to read when I get a chance.

My copy of The Mystery of Three Quarters came via NetGalley, but you should be able to find it in hardback in all good bookshops and on Amazon as well as in Kindle and on Kobo. The paperback isn’t out until next year – although I suspect this will have an airport paperback edition if you’re yet to go on your holidays.

Happy reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: August 20 – August 26

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Another busy week…

Read:

Mrs Roosevelt’s Confidante by Susan Elia McNeal

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 1: Cosmic Avengers by Brian Michael Bendis

The Mystery of Three Quarters by Sophie Hannah

Lord Peter Wimsey: Complete Short Stories by Dorothy L Sayers

The Case of William Smith by Patricia Wentworth

Toucan Keep a Secret by Donna Andrew

Staged to Death by Karen Rose Smith

Started:

Yes We (Still) Can by Dan Pfeiffer

Hillbilly Elegy by JD Vance

Maybe For You by Nicole McLaughlin

Still reading:

The Glitter and the Gold by Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan

The Templars by Dan Jones

Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood

Mrs Roosevelt’s Confidante by Susan Elia McNeal

Early Riser by Jasper Fforde

Two ebooks and two book-books bought.

Children's books, Series I love

Bank Holiday Bonus post: Verity goes to a Book Conference

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I wasn’t sure if I was going to write about this here, but actually, I can’t help myself.   At the end of July I went to the Sixth Bristol Conference on Twentieth-Century Schoolgirls and Their Books.  If you’ve been hanging around here for a while you’ll know that one of my big bookish passions are school stories – and one of my most enduring loves are the Chalet School series.  And this was a gathering of over 100 people who love all the same books as me to listen to talks about them, chat to people about them and yes, buy more of them.

Wills Hall quadrangle

As it’s the centenary of the end of World War One, the theme this year was War and most (although not all) of the talks had that as a theme linking them together.  Now I am quite a young enthusiast in the genre – the last run of Chalet School paperbacks came out when I was in secondary school and they were one of the last classic series left in print – so I discovered a lot of new authors at the conference – and was able to pick up books by some of them.  You may have spotted some of my purchases popping up in Week in Books and Book of the Week posts.

My book purchases!

What was really, really wonderful was meeting up with people who love the same things that I do.  I think I had underestimated how wonderful it would be to be able to talk to other people who have read the same books that I have.  I mean all of my friends – and most of my work colleagues  – know that I love reading and read a lot (some of them even read this blog) and we have conversations about books, but I never really get to talk about this bit of my bookish life because I’m meant to be a grownup reading adult books – and no one has read a lot of these books any way even when they were younger.

Saturday night dinner in the Hall

So I guess what this boils down to is find yourself opportunities to go and hang out with other people who are into what you’re into.  You’ll make some friends, learn some new things and have a marvellous time.  I’ve already got the next conference (in 2020!) in my diary.

Happy Bank Holiday!

Book of the Week, non-fiction

Book of the Week: The Birth of South Korean Cool

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It was very easy to pick this week’s BotW – I raced through Euny Hong’s the Birth of South Korean Cool and found it absolutely fascinating.  It had been on my to-read list for a while after I heard it recommended on one of the podcasts that I listen to – so long in fact that I can’t remember which podcast.  But where ever the recommendation came from – it was a really good one.

Paperback copy of the Birth of Korean Cool

The book’s subtitle is “How one nation is conquering the world through pop culture” and that is exactly what the book sets out to prove – and it makes a compelling arguement.  Euny Hong moved to South Korea in 1985 when her father got a job at a South Korean university.  He and her mother had left 20 years previously to go to graduate school and, like many of their contemporaries had never gone back.  The South Korean government was trying to get them back as they worked on their plan to transform the country from a third world military dictatorship into a first world democracy.  Euny grew up as South Korea remade itself – on a scale that I really hadn’t quite comprehended.

Across chapters on schooling, han, kimchi, K-Pop, K-Drama and more, Hong looks at all the work and planning that went in behind the scenes and the (relatively) long game masterplan from the South Korean government to transform itself from the inside out.  First published in 2014, some of the details in this about the relationship with North Korea have obviously dated a little, but that is not the main focus of the book and doesn’t affect the central thesis so it didn’t cause me any problems.  I was staggered at the lengths and the risks and the investment that the government went to – I can’t imagine the British government doing anything similar – let alone the American one.  But it paid off – it is paying off – and now armed with all the information and background from this book I’ll be watching more closely to see how the Korean revolution continues to unfold.  I’m not a big pop music listener, but the Korean revolution has even got to me – I’ve been buying some Korean beauty products for a couple of years!

I got my copy secondhand because it seems to be out of print in the UK, so if you want a physical copy that may be your only option – unless you have an amazon.com account where they still seem to have stock.  It is available on Kindle and Kobo though – but it’s £9.99 at time of writing, so you might want to add it to your watch list and see if there’s any variation going on.  I’m off to try and find some K-pop playlists so I can match up the names in the book with some songs.

Happy reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: August 13 – August 19

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A working weekend and a trip to see The King and I (it was brilliant – Kelli O’Hara is amazing) affected the reading list this week.  But still not bad really.  I’m mostly working on finishing stuff that I’ve started at the moment as well.

Read:

Porterhouse Blue by Tom Sharpe

Jewish History: A very short introduction by David N Myers

The Birth of Korean Cool bu Euny Hong

Star Dust by Emma Barry

The Lawrence Browne Affair by Cat Sebastian

Who Thought This Was a Good Idea by Alyssa Mastromonaco

Started:

n/a

Still reading:

The Glitter and the Gold by Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan

The Templars by Dan Jones

Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood

Mrs Roosevelt’s Confidante by Susan Elia McNeal

Early Riser by Jasper Fforde

Two ebooks and a book-book bought.

Book of the Week, Children's books, Classics, Fantasy, Young Adult

Book of the Week: Howl’s Moving Castle

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Two children’s books in a row as BotW? This is totally within the normal range of what I do and what you expect from me. And this is another book that I started during my weekend at boo conference and then got distracted away from by the purchase of more books at said book conference and then by other books on the kindle. So sue me!

cover of Howls Moving Castle

Howl’s Moving Castle tells the story of Sophie, a teenage girl who is turned into an old lady by a witch while she is working in her family’s hat shop. One of the conditions of the curse is that she can’t tell people that she’s been cursed and Sophie doesn’t want her mother or sisters to see what’s happened to her, so she runs away to the hills, where she runs into the moving castle belonging to the Wizard Howl and makes it her new home in the hope that the curse can be lifted. Howl is a temperamental, vacillating young man who is on the run from something and only seems to do things that help himself but Calcifer, his fire demon promises to help her if she can help him with the curse that ties him to Howl. Also living in the castle is Michael, Howl’s apprentice, who, it turns out is in love with one of Sophie’s sisters. And so they move around the countryside, and Sophie tries to figure out how to get her old (young) body back.

That’s the short version of part of the story and doesn’t really do it justice. Before I read the story, I was actually worried that I wouldn’t like it as much as I liked the film of the book which I saw in the cinema back in my high-cinema visiting university days. Now the two are the same basic story: about a teenager who is cursed to look like an old lady and who seeks help from the wizard with the moving castle, but beyond that there are a fair few differences. The movie has a design aesthetic that leads to some differences from the book and it is missing some of the subplots from the book, but it turns out I really liked them both.

I don’t often read the book after I’ve seen the movie, but this time it worked out really well. In fact, this is the opposite experience to what usually happens with me, books and movie adaptations – because quite often I really hate the movie versions of books I’ve loved, so maybe I need to do this more often?! There are a couple more books featuring Howl, which are now on my reading list – and I’m trying hard to work out if I read any Diana Wynne Jones books back when I was the right age for them because I really liked her writing and the style felt somewhat familiar to me.

I bought my copy of Howl’s Moving Castle on Kindle, but it’s also available on Kobo (and it’s 99p on both platforms at time of writing) and in paperback (from Amazon, Book Depository or places like Big Green Books) and audiobook. I think it should be easy enough to buy from a bookshop with a good sized children’s section (not a supermarket because it is no where near new) I suspect it will also be available at some libraries too. And if you haven’t seen the film, you really should watch it too.

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: August 6 – August 12

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Actually did quite well this week.  Finished one from the long runners and a couple of others that had been going for more than a week, so I’m getting there.  What I need to do now is have a proper sit down with the Templars and get that finished…

Read:

Together We Rise by the Women’s March Organisers

If Only They Didn’t Speak English by Jon Sopel

Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

Whatever’s Been Going on at Mumblesby by Colin Watson

Vinyl Detective: Victory Disc by Andrew Cartmel

Miss Bunting by Angela Thirkell

Lumberjanes Vol 8 by Shannon Watters et al

Fatal Inheritance by Rachel Rhys

Started:

The Birth of Korean Cool bu Euny Hong

Jewish History: A very short introduction by David N Myers

Still reading:

The Glitter and the Gold by Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan

The Templars by Dan Jones

Porterhouse Blue by Tom Sharpe

Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood

Mrs Roosevelt’s Confidante by Susan Elia McNeal

Early Riser by Jasper Fforde

Who Thought This Was a Good Idea by Alyssa Mastromonaco

One book bought, and one pre-order arrived.

Uncategorized

Book of the Week: Autumn Term

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Given the fact that I’ve been on a school story binge after my weekend at the book conference, it’s hardly a surprise that I’d pick a boarding school book as my BotW at some point.  I picked up a copy of Antonia Forrest’s Autumn Term at Bristol for free – its owner was giving it away to someone who hadn’t read it, as the first few pages were loose so it was unsalable.

Copy of Autumn Term by Antonia Forest

Autumn Term is the first book in the Marlow series and tells the story of Nicola and Laurie Marlow’s first term at boarding school  Their older sisters are already there – one is the headgirl in fact – and the twins are confident that they know exactly how things are going to play out for them.  Except that it doesn’t go how they expect.  They get in a row before they even arrive, then they’re not in the form that they expect to be in and that throws all their plans into disarray.  How will they recover from this – and will they recover from this – is the subject of the book.

This is one of the best boarding school books I think I’ve read.  I can imagine that if I’d read it at the “right” age for it, I might not have loved it, but as an adult it completely knocked my socks off.  This has possibly the most complicated and rounded set of characters that I’ve come across in Girl’s Own fiction. Everyone has flaws and weaknesses – even the one’s that you’re meant to like.  There are no perfect paragons or cartoon baddies here.  Everyone has strengths and weaknesses and over the course of the book you get to see their triumphs and disasters.  You can cheer them on as things go well, or hide your head in your hands as they plunge themselves into trouble without thinking.

I’ve read one book in this series before – but it’s a holiday book and although it turned out to be quite an exciting spy adventure in the end, I didn’t really understand the characters the way that I do now having read this and there is a lot of naval and sailing detail to get bogged down in.  But having read this, I’ve put getting my hands on more of the Marlow books well up my acquisitions list.

As I mentioned, my copy came for free at a book sale (don’t worry, I bought other things from the same stall as well) and it’s out of print so if you want to read it you’re going to have to go secondhand as well as it’s not available on Kindle.  Abebooks has some for under £10 including postage – or you could try your local charity shop with a large childrens section.

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: July 30 – August 5

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A steady week’s reading – but not as much progress on the long-runners as I would have liked – probably because I spent 2 nights away from home and away from the physical book pile which most of them are on.

Read:

Bingo Love by Tee Franklin

Autumn Term by Antonia Forest

The Governess Game by Tessa Dare

Duke by Default by Alyssa Cole

Cloche and Dagger by Jenn McKinlay

Cat Among The Herrings by LC Tyler

The Victorian Guide to Sex by Dr Fern Riddell

A Lady’s Code of Misconduct by Meredith Duran

Started:

Vinyl Detective: Victory Disc by Andrew Cartmel

Early Riser by Jasper Fforde

Who Thought This Was a Good Idea by Alyssa Mastromonaco

Miss Bunting by Angela Thirkell

Still reading:

The Glitter and the Gold by Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan

The Templars by Dan Jones

Porterhouse Blue by Tom Sharpe

Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood

Fatal Inheritance by Rachel Rhys

Mrs Roosevelt’s Confidante by Susan Elia McNeal

If Only They Didn’t Speak English by Jon Sopel

Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

After the excesses of the book fair, this week I was very restrained and didn’t buy anything!