Well, two nights at the theatre meant less time for reading, but I did finish a couple of things off and there’s an audiobook on there too as well as a comic, but actually it all worked out ok and I even think I have something to write about tomorrow!
A bit of a change this week because I had two nights out at the theatre, both of which were great and both of which were sort of one off things. So I’m bundling them together today because I wanted to talk about them anyway!
So I started the week with a night out at the Jinkx and Dela Christmas show – I went last year and it was fab, and it was equally brilliant this year. BenDeLaCreme is my all time favourite from Drag Race and she and Jinkx Monsoon are a brilliant pair. This years show is a bit meta – they decide they don’t want to do a holiday show, but get trapped by the show and have to do it anyway to try and escape and it’s really a lot of fun. The UK dates are over now, but there’s nearly two dozen across the US before Christmas – and if they’re coming near to you it’s definitely worth the trip.
Tuesday night was Mandy Patinkin, doing a solo concert run in the West End for just under two weeks. I went because he’s a bit of a Broadway legend – Tony award for originating Che in Evita, original George from Sunday in the Park with George – and I like to see the big names from across the pond when they come over here if I possibly can, but I wasn’t expecting him to manage to make me cry – twice! It’s a really well put together show, with loads of songs, some you’ll have heard of, some you won’t (or at least I hadn’t) and it’s just him and his pianist and a chair (and a towel). That’s it. And yet his singing – even at seventy years old – can make you feel so much emotion. Really worth it, even though there is very little legroom in the side of the circle at the Lyric. So very little. I think it must have been where I saw Avenue Q with Him Indoors years ago where we were nearly late and the seats were so cramped that Him Indoors never managed to get into the spirit of the show. I won’t forget again…
I have two more trips planned this week – I’m making the most of the run in to Christmas while I can!
Well, the like was tiny this month for ages – just the Fangirl manga and then… well. The Worrals and the James Bond came from the vintage warehouse (same as the last Worrals did), the Vanderbeekers was a preorder that I had forgotten I had made (the best sort of preorder!), the Pamela Brown was a secondhand purchase after I saw a recommendation and the Dallergut Department Store and the Edward Marsden were the result of a trip to Foyles on Tuesday before the theatre after I’d seen Dallergut mentioned in Waterstones’ new book email and wanted to check it out. And of course I can’t just buy one book, it’s always two! I am going to try and control myself now in the run in to Christmas but I know I’ll have at least one in the photo this time next month – because I already have the dispatch email for it!
Small town romance bonkers premise. Well we’re getting close to Christmas and I’ve started thinking Christmassy recommendations and as I was doing that ended up on a bit of a tangent and I realised that I haven’t written about Susan Mallery’s happily Inc series, so today I’m remedying that!
So this is a small town romance series, set in California and the twist here (because what is a romance series without a gimmick or a twist) is that the small town in question is a wedding destination town. Now bear with me, I know that sounds bonkers, but it does work. The heroine of the first book in the series, Pallas, runs a. Venue called Weddings in a Box, but it is struggling. If she can’t make it work she’ll have to give in to her mum and take a job at the family bank (again, Brits bear with me, small banks are a thing in the States). Nick is the venue’s new carpenter (they need one to assemble the wedding spaces) but he’s actually doing the job between sculpting gigs because he’s an artist from a family of artist s. Which means books two and three are his brothers and by the time you’ve done that you’ve got a bunch of established side characters to follow for books five and six.
I’ve written about Mallery’s Fool’s Gold series before and if you liked those, these are doing a similar thing but with more gimmicks. Like a royalties. And a (small) herd of giraffes. Yes it’s alla bit bonkers, but it’s the fun sort of romance novel bonkers where all the other characters don’t bat an eyelid at whatever revelation anyone throws at them and everyone gets a happily ever after.
And I’ve of the best things about doing this now is that several of them are on offer for either 99p or £1.99, which is nice although they’ve been recovered so I nearly bought a couple that I’d already read again! Anyway, here’s the links to the Kindle page for the series and the Kobo one.
I’ve been reading Alexa Martin since I heard her interviewed on Smart Bitches Trashy Books’s podcast when I was walking around a shopping outlet in Maryland five years ago. Then she was writing romances with NFL playing heroes – informed by her own time as an NFL wife, now she’s writing standalones. So this is a book that I would have preordered, ready to drop on to my kindle on release day, even if it wasn’t adjacent to one of my current obsessions – home renovation. Adjacent because Next Door Nemesis is about two people fighting to become president of a home owners association – a thing that exists mostly in my head as a problem for people renovating homes because of the rules about what you can do to the outside of your home, and the fees you have to pay. Is sounds like a really fun concept for an enemies to lovers romance and I can’t wait to read it!
It’s nearly two years since my original Enemies to Lovers Recommendsday, and I’ve read a load more since, so today I’m back with another batch!
Lets start with The Hating Game by Sally Thorne I loved Thorne’s Second First Impressions and this was her debut novel (now also a movie) which features two rival PAs at a publishing company. I have a few issues with it but in the end they actually weren’t about what I was expecting – which was that their work rivalry would push my buttons for unprofessional pranks, but it actually didn’t because they didn’t sabotage each other. Lucinda does freak out a lot though and that did get on my nerves a bit so your mileage may vary, so generally for me – not as good as Second First Impressions, but still fun and worth reading.
In Beach Read by Emily Henry, Augustus and January are maybe more misunderstood rivals than they are enemies, because he is a Serious Writer of Proper Fiction and she writes best selling romances. They’re spending the summer living next door to each other at the beach and in an attempt to tackle both of their writers blocks, they challenge each other to switch genres… Anyway, there are complicated families and a warning for parental deaths in the backstories, but this is still a delightful feel good romance where two people discover that they really like hanging around with each other and that being together makes their lives better. Swoony. Oh and Henry’s Book Lovers would also fit this genre too.
Ali Hazelwood’sLove Hypothesis got a mention in the last post on this topic, but her Love on the Brain also fits this trope – the heroine of that finds that the downside of her dream job at Nasa is that she has to work with her grad school arch-nemesis. It’s another teeny tiny heroine and Great Big Hero, but your mileage on that may be different to mine, which I think is coloured by the fact that I’m 5’10! I will never be tired of competency porn though, and Bee (and Levi) are very, very good at their jobs. I was expecting one strand of the plot to be A Bigger Thing in the resolution, but actually the whole of the end wrapped up very quickly – but it was very satisfying.
And before I wrap this up, I want to give a mention to Mia Sosa’s Worst Best Manwhich I did also touch on in my romances with weddings post in the summer but would also fit for this.
Yes, this was one of my impulse purchases while compiling the Kindle Offers post; yes, I read it immediately; yes it’s now book of the week. I’m predictable like that.
Sebastian, Lord St Vincent is licking his wounds after a failed abduction of a potential bride when Evangeline Jenner finds him to make him a proposal: marry her to save her from the machinations of her relatives. A marriage of convenience seems to be the solution to both of their problems. But it’s never actually simple is it and feelings get involved that means that shy wallflower Evie comes into herself and her own power and a notorious womaniser is tamed.
This is the third in a set of four novels and I’m pretty sure if you’ve read the previous two (which I haven’t yet!) you have seen Sebastian being pretty awful – I mean the woman he abducted is one of Evie’s friends and is engaged to his best friends – so this is a reformed rake resumption story on a par with Eloisa James’s Villiers. Add into the mix a gaming hell and a bit of the seamier side of regency life and it’s incredibly readable and a lot of fun.
Devil in Winter came out back in 2006 when the historical romances tended to stick much more to the haute ton, Almacks and house party side of things – so Lisa Kelypas was doing interestingly new things at the time even if it might be more common now. If you’ve read Sarah MacLean (and I’ve told you to enough) and haven’t read this, then go back for this immediately – it’s even on offer to make it easier for you!
I read this on Kindle, but it’s also on Kobo and it’s on offer for 99p there too. You may be able to get hold of a paperback too if you look in the right places. And if you read this and want some more reformed rakes then I have a post for that too!
A fairly steady week of reading all things considered. Some Christmassy stuff is creeping in now, and a mix of new releases and a dash of things I thought while writing the Kindle offers! This week is looking busy though so we’ll see what that does to the list next Monday.
I’m planning a quiet day this Sunday, but this year I’ve been thinking a lot about my great uncle Harold – because he’s popped up in a family history content. He signed up to fight in World War One when he was underage, and was wounded very early on – and left with a permanent leg injury. He worked at a model making company for his professional career, including making the model of the floating harbour at Arromanches that you can see in the museum there. How many other stories like that are there out there the people don’t know about?
After the disappointment of the airport last week, I have actually spotted some of the Christmas releases in the wild, so here we are with this Saturday’s post!
So to start with, thank you Sainsbury’s for being super useful, and not just for decaf coffee for my mum and dad. Their chart selection has a lot of those Christmas new releases if you’re thinking about gift buying and getting some loyalty points to help you in January! Obviously the Britney Spears memoir has had huge amounts of talk, and I’ve already mentioned the Patrick Stewart book too, but they’ve also got Arnold Schwarzenegger’s new book, Dawn French’s tour tie in, Billy Connelly and one I’ve been keeping an eye out for, Phillippa Gregory’s non fiction book about women in history. And then there’s the fiction options, with the latest batch of celebrity novels and some big names like Sophie Kinsella and Sarah Morgan.
Next acrosswe have some more of the Christmas releases – I saw Michael Palin at work the other week while he was doing the promotional trail for his book Great Uncle Harry, and David Mitchell has done a bunch of the talk shows for his book about the monarchy as has Miriam Margolyes about her latest memoir. We also have a sighting in the wild of the new V E Schwab. Then there’s the usual batch of cook books, the traditional Alan Partridge book and Clare Balding. I’ve also read a bunch of Dan Jones’s history books but haven’t read any of his historical fiction yet – Wolves of Winter of the second in what going to be a trilogy – if you’re in the US, this second one doesn’t come out where you are until January.
Next up, more cook books, plus Strictly start Johannes Radebe’s memoir and buzzy autumn release Yellowface, which I have read and didn’t love but I know lots of people who have really entered it. Plus the usual batch of best seller authors like John Grisham and Jo Nesbo. Then there’s an Anthony Horowitz James Bond and Lessons in Chemistry – the adaptation of which has just dropped on Apple TV!
The next shelf was a bit patchy, so I’m skipping it, but you can see the interesting bits in the edges of this photo and the last one – so Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and the S J Parris on the last picture and the Mary Berry baking book on this one! Finally, right down the end her we have some Colleen Hoover (because is it even a book selection without her at the moment!) plus a few more of the high selling, long running favourites. And then there’s the kids books obviously!
And that’s your lot for today, hourly is been at least somewhat useful as you plan your Christmas book purchasing – and don’t worry, I’ll have some recommendations coming up in the next few woods to!
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 