A super quick hit today – just to take a quick look at which of the recent releases I spotted in Gower Street last week.
Hello hardbacks – no surprise it’s Emily Henry and Curtis Sittenfeld getting the front facing spots for romance along with Tom Hanks and the new Emma Cline. The Happy Couple was a new spot for me, but Death of a Book Seller has been popping up all over.
If you’re after paperback romance, this is what they had – and I’ve read four of the ones in this side and own another one.
And on the other side of the table I’ve read two, and own two more. And no I’m deliberately not telling you which, apart from Dead Romantics of course!
And finally, they’re not new, but here’s a bonus picture of a lot of Amelia Peabody in the wild. And yes, I did sit down and read all the best bits of Thunder in the Sky, because it is my favourite and if you have it as an actual book it’s so easy to find the best bits…
Happy Friday everyone, I hope you’re all having a good week and have a delightful weekend planned. Allow me to usher you towards it with a post about a 1960s-set cozy crime series!
It’s the 1960s and Eleanor Trewynn is a retired widow who is living over the charity shop she’s running in a Cornish village. Her niece Megan is a police detective who has recently transferred to the local force and now finds herself with a commanding officer who doesn’t really think female officers are a good idea. There’s an artist living next door and a cast of side characters who work in the charity shop. Eleanor and her husband lived all over the world working for a charity and this life experience means that she can handle almost anything and is used to trying to solve problems. And thus you have all the ingredients for a satisfying mystery.
As I’ve mentioned before, I really like Carola Dunn’s other mystery series – the 1920s-set Daisy Dalymple series. I don’t love these quite as much, but they have good puzzles to solve and an interesting premise and it’s nice to read a series set in the 1960s – there are lots of interwar historicals, and some immediately post war and 1950s ones, but not as many sixties ones. Yes Inspector Alleyn gets into the 1960s, but none of them are my favourites, his age is getting a bit fuzzy and Ngaio herself was in her 60s when she was writing them. There are only four of these which is a shame but I’ll take what I can get in these cases.
My copies all came from various bookshops – I read most of them when they first came out a decade ago, but the last one came out a year or two later (as you can tell by the non matching cover…) and I hadn’t seen it in the flesh (or at least I don’t remember seeing it) until I spotted it in Gower Street Waterstones the other week when I was on that little buying spree. What a fortunate circumstance. They’re also on Kindle and Kobo.
Some of you may remember that I read Rev Richard Coles’ first detective novel last year – you actually saw it in the bookshelfie at the weekend and it inspired a whole Recommendsday post about detecting vicars. Well the sequel is out today – and sees Canon Clement investigating a suspicious death in his newly expanded parish. I don’t have this one pre-ordered because it’s a hardback release and my TBR backlog is huge, but I’m fairly sure I’m going to pick it up when I see it it on a decent offer either in the stores or on Kindle! The first one has been absolutely everywhere in the shops so I’m expecting this one will be the same. And there’s already a third planned too – or at least there is according to Amazon.
Only one new release in this month’s quick reviews after a couple of months of all new stuff. Which is interesting as I read a lot of new stuff last month, but I’ve already talked about most of the bits of it that I wanted to. Anyway, to the reviews
Summer Read by Jenn McKinlay**
I mentioned this on release day, and as you know I mostly read Jenn McKinlay’s cozy crimes, but the premise for this summer romance was very appealing – a return to a childhood home for the heroine who is at a bit of a crossroads in her professional life, and a newly arrived on the island hero who is searching for the keys to his family history. It’s sometimes a bit of a tough sell for a book to have a lead character who hates reading – after all we’re all readers because we’re reading it and so it can be hard to sympathise – but I think McKinlay does a good job of explaining Sam’s dyslexia and the issues that it causes for her. I’ll add that I’m not neuro-divergent – so I can’t speak to how accurate the depiction is, and obviously different people will have different experiences, but it all felt pretty plausible. I had a few minor quibbles – mostly around the fact that everything is very black and white and there’s a lot of jumping to conclusions going on at times in the romantic relationships. There’s also quite a lot of plot strands and that means even though the book is quite long, none of them really feel as completely explored as they could. But I enjoyed it and read it in two days so that says something too. I suspect it will work perfectly for people who are looking for something to read on their sun lounger – it’s a beachy summer read with a summery setting.
Proper English by KJ Charles
This is an Edwardian Murder mystery romance, set at a remote country house during a shooting party. Pat is a shooting champion, although she sometimes faces trouble from men who don’t like women being allowed to use guns. The party is at brother’s best friend’s house, where along with Jimmy’s family she meets Fenella – who deeply inconveniently is Jimmy’s new fiancée… I enjoyed it a lot and now need to read the other book that crosses over with this. I picked my paperback up in a second hand buying spree a couple of months back – a rare occasion when I’ve seen a physical copy of an early KJ Charles!
Strange Bedpersons by Jennifer Crusie
And finally for this month we have a Jennifer Crusie from the early 2000s. This is a fake relationship type set-up that sees Tess agree to pretend to be her ex’s fiancée for a business trip in order to help his career. In many ways this romance is quite of its time and I was never quite convinced that the hero and heroine belonged together (and even less so if it was a Democrat and Republican in our current political climate) but I do like filling in the gaps in author’s back catalogue and the snark and banter in this is great. This is a lot of fun to read if you don’t think about it too hard – and I read it in one sitting if that helps at all!
A recent release for today’s pick – Joanna Nadin’s Calamity of Mannerings came out at the start of May so I’m only slightly behind times. I’ll take the small wins where I can, they happen so rarely. Well compared to how behind I am on so much anyway!
So the plot: Panth’s father has died – leaving only a gaggle daughters. This means the family have to move out of their home, into the dower house with their grandmother and slide further down into even more gentile poverty than they were already in. And it’s 1924, so the options for gently born young women are somewhat limited when it comes to earning money, and as a second daughter with an unmarried older sister there’s not a lot of opportunity for doing a social season and snagging a husband. But despite all that what Panth is really hoping for is a bit of romance and if at all possible, a taste of the high life that she’s seen in the pages of Tatler. So when their cousin lets their old house out to a dashing American Bright Young Thing of the male variety, it looks like her fortunes may be changing…
Now as you all know, I love books set in the 1920s and this is a lovely coming of age story about a young woman trying to figure out what she wants and what her place is in the world in difficult circumstances. The blurb for this says it’s for fans of I Capture the Castle and Bridgerton and I think that’s fairly fair – it’s a bit more adult and more modern that I Capture, but substantially less sexy than Bridgerton. It’s also witty and funny and if you’re an adult reading this you can spot some of the other books that it’s nodding to. I could see a few things coming a mile off, but I find it hard to guess what an actual teenager would guess. Whatever is the case on that front this is bundles of fun, and a charming world to spend time in.
My copy came via NetGalley but it’s out now in Kindle, but I can’t find it on Kobo (yet) and should be available in paperback too, although I haven’t managed to scout a YA department in a bookstore yet to try and spot it – I hadn’t read it when I was in Waterstones last week or I would have then.
What a week. It all got a bit busy at work again but then I had a lovely weekend hanging out with friends and watching Buffy Revamped, as well as the Formula One on Sunday. In book terms, I really didn’t mean to read the new Elissa Sussman as soon as it arrived, and I was doing really well until Sunday early evening where I lost all my will power and read it from cover to cover, stopping only to eat dinner. Big whoops because it was great and now I’m going to have to wait a year at least for something else from her. This week is scheduled to be a big week in new releases that are in my personal wheelhouse – so I’m not ruling out accidentally doing the same thing again this week.
Three books bought, accidentally, on a trip to Waterstones Gower Street on Tuesday evening, one ebook and the arrival of the preordered Elissa Sussman…
Bonus photo: Birminghamcanal side onSaturday night.Makes a changefrom London.
*next to a book book title indicates that it came from NetGalley. ** indicates it was an advance copy from a source other than NetGalley.
Happy Sunday everyone. Did I spend my Saturday night laughing about Buffy? Yes I absolutely did, and now I’m going to tell you about it!
In Buffy Revamped, comedian Brendan Murphy takes you through all seven seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in 70 minutes mainly in character as Spike but he does pretty much play everyone at some point or another. But not Riley. Because there would be no point to playing Riley. He was pointless. Anyway, this is full of 90s in jokes as well as all the in jokes about the show and quotes galore. And you’ll get to do a bit of singing too.
I had an absolute ball – it’s funny and inventive and made me feel just the right amount of nostalgia. It’s fast paced and rattles through the events of the series – at the start you wonder if it’s going to get everything you want it to mention in, but some how it does. It’s not surprise to me that it is off to the Edinburgh Fringe in August because it seems like the perfect fit for it. It’s also touring all over the place before and after that – including a couple of nights in London next week. Well worth an evening if it’s coming near you.
Remember how I said I was running out of of space? Well this is my solution. I had a metal book end that I was using on the children’s book shelf upstairs – but that’s now got to a point where it doesn’t need it, so I’ve taken the opportunity to do some reorganising and create a new shelf!
So here you are. And obviously the main issue is that it’s already full. But this does mean I have made some space on other shelves that I can now fill up. So I’ve moved the Kate Andersen Brower books so they’re together – three were in the front room and one was on the bottom shelf of this bookshelf and it’s basically a selection of hardbacks and difficultly sized books from other shelves which means that it’s created more space than you would expect. So we have some Pink Carnation hardbacks, the Richard Coles and the latest Richard Osman along with The Last Hero, a Diane Mott Henry, Hello World, a Paul Charles and my Mallory Towers omnibus from when I was at primary school. And now I have some options for reorganising. So watch this space!
Most read author: If we discount the re-listening, then it’s Josephine Tey (two books) or Michael Cragg (Reach for the Stars is 600+ pages!)
Books bought: 9 ebooks, plus 2 new ebook preorders and then 5 books and 2 arriving pre-ordered books. So quite a few…
Books read in 2023: 158
Books on the Goodreads to-read shelf (I don’t have copies of all of these!): 698
I read some really good stuff in May, but also some really less good. Still not everything is going to be for me and I did have a really excellent April so it all evens out. I’m very pleased with my progress down the to-read shelf – I was on track for a net reduction this month – until a little buying spree on the 31st. Oopsie daisy!
Bonus picture: the downstairs plant shelf enjoying the spring sunshine. I’ve added a few more to the collection this month too…
*includes some short stories/novellas/comics/graphic novels – including 1 this month
The stats are coming, but today I’m disrupting the schedule because I wanted to mark that the new book from Elissa Sussman has just come out. I loved Funny You Should Ask when I read it back in March and immediately preordered myself a (paperback to match) copy of Once More With Feeling. This one is a former popstar who is tempted out of retirement by the former boybander who exploded her career (and his) when they had a one night thing. This is billed as second chance romance and enemies to lovers (and friends to lovers) so it’s all the things that usually tick my boxes. I can’t wait to read it!
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 