January 2024 – Verity Reads Books (lots of them)

Recommendsday: Cozy Crime Round up

January 31, 2024January 31, 2024 veritywilde

As ever I’m on the hunt for new cozy crime series, this week I thought I would finally publish this Recommendsday – which I have been working on for a literal year. Why has it taken so long? Well it’s been a bit hit and miss – I went on a bit of a request spree on NetGalley in 2023 looking for more series that way, I’ve been borrowing stuff from Kindle Unlimited. I’ve read a lot – and some of them… did not make the cut. And others of course started a total binge on the series – and I’ve written about them elsewhere!

Death Knells and Wedding Bells by Eva Gates*

This is the tenth in the series (although it’s the first of them I’ve read and also the first by the author) and it is an enjoyable murder mystery set around the wedding of the heroine and the murder of one of the guests in the aftermath. I felt it was a little heavy handed at times and I had the culprit pegged pretty early on – but I liked the setting and the set up and there were enough details filling in the backstory that I didn’t feel lost or like I was missing out. I would read more from this series.

In Farm’s Way by Amanda Flower*

This is the third in a series set in Michigan, where our heroine is Shiloh who has recently returned (at the start of the series) to try and save her family farm. I liked the setting and the characters, the mystery was well set up but I thought the solution was a bit rushed and surprising although it did make sense if you know what I mean. I found the characters’ dialogue a bit weird in places – some stuff gets contracted, but other stuff isn’t and there’s no pattern to it that I could find. But that may be because I’m a Brit and not from Michigan or the Mid West! It was nice to have a cozy set somewhere different though – this has ice fishing and lots of talk about the super cold winter weather.

Murder Served Neat by Michelle Hillen Klump*

This is the second in a series about a reporter-turned-mixologist (yeah, I know) and in this she stumbles across a murder while catering an event at This is the first book by this author that I have read and although the heroine’s love triangle gets quite wearing, the mystery portion is for the most part good. It could have used a little more wrapping up at the end – in terms of the other suspects and the reasons they were suspected (without giving too much away!) but it managed to tread the line between the heroine being too stupid to live and walking into danger quite well.

And that’s your lot. Fingers crossed that I find some more in the near future – whether it’s enough for another Recommendsday, or series to talk about on a Friday!

Book of the Week, books, new releases

Book of the Week: The Queen of Poisons

January 30, 2024January 29, 2024 veritywilde

As I mentioned yesterday, lots of rereading on last week’s list, so options for BotW were somewhat limited – and this is a bit of a rule breaker again because it’s the third in the series. But hey, what can you do.

When the mayor of Marlow drops dead in a council meeting, one of the Marlow Murder club is actually a witness. Suzie’s sitting in the gallery of the planning meeting when Geoffrey Lushington collapses. And not just that – this time the police are using Judith, Becks and Susie as civilian advisors from the start so they don’t have to guess about the details of the investigation. But the mayor seems like a nice guy – who would want to kill him?

These fit squarely into the wave of mysteries that have popped up in the wake of the success of the Thursday Murder Club. I mean it’s even got murder club in the title! But what makes the Marlow lot different is that it’s written by Robert Thorogood who is the creator of the TV series Death in Paradise and who had already written four novels based on that series before he started with Judith, Suze and Becks. I think they’re more straightforward cozy crimes than the Osman’s are, but they’re fun and easy to read and not too dark. Plus they’re set in a place that I used to know fairly well and that’s always fun.

I realise that this is more a review of the series in general than the book, but I can’t say much more about the murder plot without giving too much away (although I found the solution this time less satisfying than the previous ones) and I can’t say too much about what’s going on alongside the murder without giving too much away about the previous books in the series. But I do think you could read this without having read any of the others and not feel like you’ve missed out too much.

My copy came from NetGalley but this came out in hardback ten days or so ago and I think it’ll be fairly easy to find in the shops – the others certainly have been. And of course it’s in Kindle and Kobo. There is a TV adaptation of the first book coming soon as well so if you’re a read the books before you watch the series person, now is your chance.

Happy Reading.

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: January 22 – January 28

January 29, 2024January 29, 2024 veritywilde

Well as suspected, it was an incredibly busy week and there’s a fair bit of rereading – or more accurately re listening on it because I can do that when I’m on the train or wandering around on the way to the theatre and the like. And because I was away from home for three nights I haven’t made much progress on The Last Action Heroes – because I didn’t have space to take any book with me – let along a large format paperback! And I’m equally busy this week so I fear more of the same this time next week!

Read:

Enter a Murderer by Ngaio Marsh

The Nursing Home Murder by Ngaio Marsh

Fillin’ Up by Patti Benning

Death in Ecstasy by Ngaio Marsh

Breathless by Beverly Jenkins

Queen of Poisons by Robert Thorogood*

Fence Vol 6 by C S Pascal et al

Started:

Murder on the Salsette by Edward Marston

Still reading:

The Last Action Heroes by Nick de Semelyen

Lady Thief of Belgravia by Allison Grey*

Travellers in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd

Didn’t buy anything. A minor miracle and something that is sure not to last.

Bonus photo: there were two theatre trips last week – Ive already mentioned Spymonkey, the other trip was to see one of the last couple of performances of Backstairs Billy, from a very cheap but definitely restricted view seat in the upper circle.

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

books, not a book, theatre

Not a Book: Spymonkey’s The Frogs

January 28, 2024January 27, 2024 veritywilde

We finished off our time of work with a trip to the theatre on Monday tonight to see the new show from one of my favourite comedy theatre companies – Spymonkey.

Their latest show is another coproduction with my local – Royal and Derngate. This time they’re doing their version of The Frogs, but with an incredibly Meta twist. The original four monkeys are down to two – Petra is on “ long-term loan” to Las Vegas, where she’s the star of a cabaret show (except when joining the ENO for the Gilbert and Sullivan I saw before Christmas!) and Stephan died (yes, really died) in 2021. So as well as being drama’s oldest double act who go searching for a dead playwright in the under world, the Tony and Aitor double act is also searching for a missing person – and looking to a different future. And while it’s still gloriously silly and utterly bonkers, there is an edge of sadness about it. I was wondering if that’s only because I’ve met the monkeys in real life – I pitched a piece for work about their previous show at R&D and got to interview them and film them rehearsing The Complete Deaths, but Him Indoors hasn’t met them – he’s just come to see that shows with me – and he felt it too.

And because I’ve seen their previous shows is hard for me to judge how someone who hasn’t will see this. There are call backs to their previous shows and the hallmarks of their comedy. And this is the point where I say I’ve sometimes found it hard to work out who to recommend them to, because as well as being quite off the wall in comedy terms, full frontal nudity is a thing that happens in most of their shows, and that isn’t something for everyone! Anyway, we had a great time, I hope non-super fans do too and I’m not ruling out going to see it again when it transfers to The Kiln in London in a few weeks time.

I’m off to watch my DVD of Cooped aka Hysteria. Have a lovely Sunday everyone.

book related, books

Books in the Wild: Back at Birmingham airport…

January 27, 2024January 27, 2024 veritywilde

You knew this was coming. I can’t go on holiday without trying to spot some books. We didn’t make it to a supermarket this time, so I don’t have any Spanish covers for English books this time, you’ll have to put yo with my general exasperation with the choices at the airport W H Smiths.

And it is Smiths, plural, beauty this is the best I could do from two of them – both good sized because I’m not counting the one tiny set of shelves in the one I went in before security. There are a lot of familiar suspects here I really struggled to find two books to buy – one of the reactions I ended up in two skips was because I couldn’t find what I wanted in the first one. So we have Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Lessons in Chemistry, The Thursday Murder Club and Really Good, Actually along with some crime that clearly too creepy for me!

And here we have even more creepy cover crime, more Richard Osman, a Robert Galbraith, some literary fiction and fantasy and the new Victoria Hislop.

This one is a little better, but I have In At The Deep End in the kindle backlog, the Lucy Score is in Kindle Unlimited (I even had it borrowed at the time even if I still haven’t read it), I’ve read The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and the new YA Ali Hazelwood along with even more Richard Osman, literary fiction and some Colleen Hoover.

And finally, some non-fiction. They had Arnie, and Guenter from Drive to Survive, Matthew Perry, Jada Pinkett Smith and finally the book I had been looking for – David Michell’s Unruly. And if I tell you that the copy you see is the only copy there was, you’ll understand why I felt lucky to get it, even if it was a bit bumped and the spine was already broken. At which point I went back and picked up a novel I hadn’t heard of before from one of the previous shelves, but I’m not telling you which, so it can be a surprise when it pops in Books Incoming!

My conclusion from all this is that our September holiday clearly happened after all the big autumn books for the airports came out, and this one was too soon for anything else to have supplanted them. Hopefully but next holiday though…

Have a great weekend!

books, series

Bingeable series: Real Estate Rescue

January 26, 2024January 26, 2024 veritywilde

For this Friday’s post, I have the very definition of a bingeable series – as I read them back to back to back. I have reservations – which I will explain; but the fact remains that I read the lot

Our heroine is Flora, when we meet her she’s doing a job she hates and boyfriend has been cheating on her. So with the help of some cash from her aunt, she decides to change her life and become a house flipper instead. The house she buys is in a small town in Kentucky (hello 50 states challenge) and soon she’s making friends in her new home – but also stumbling over bodies left right and centre.

At which point we come to my first minor issue: the whole series covers the renovation of this one house. So that’s a lot of bodies in one small town in not a hugely long period. I’d you thought Jessica Fletcher had corpses following her around, she is nothing to Flora. And because each instalment is only 100 – 120 pages long, there is not a lot of complexity to the plot. If you think you know who did it quite early on, you’re probably right. And yet, as I said, I read the lot. There is just something about them that makes them slightly addictive. And they’re in kindle unlimited and so you just tap straight on to the next one. As a publishing model it’s pretty clever – and I fell for it hook line and sinker. I’m not proud of myself, but Patti Benning has other series so I’ll probably do it again.

I can’t however forgive her for the fact that despite using the same cover design for each book but with the house slowly getting renovated, I couldn’t get the scale to match to do a composite image for the main one on this post. I tried both ways too:

Have a great weekend.

Book previews

Out today: The Breakup Tour

January 25, 2024January 25, 2024 veritywilde

The Roughest Draft by Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka was a BotW in March last year – and they’ve got a new book out this week – actually today in the UK (it was Tuesday for the US version). And given that I was talking about second chance romances yesterday it’s quite apt that this is about a music superstar who ends up back on tour with her college boyfriend after she asks him to go public as the inspiration for her breakout hit. And I’m not going to lie, this has a strong sniff of Taylor Swift inspired plot to it – i mean check out the US cover – but hey there’s a bit of that about at the moment, and I’m trying to judge the books on the actual writing and content and I’ve liked the guys before! I’ll probably be picking this up as soon as it’s at a price I’m prepared to pay…

books, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: Low Angst Second Chance Romances

January 24, 2024January 25, 2024 veritywilde

This whole post was inspired by the first book – which I’ve already mentioned on the blog so I’m breaking my own rules again, but hey, who cares!

Knowing Me, Knowing You by Jeevani Charika*

This is a second chance romance with a sciencey twist: Alex spent a perfect New Year’s Eve in a bar together five years ago – but for what we shall call Romance Reasons it went no further and now New Year’s Eve guy is the one who got away. Until he turns up in her lab as the man charged with trying to get the medical tech start up she works for out of trouble. There was a little bit of “a simple conversation have solved all this” air to some of the conflict in the novel. That said, it’s charming and because you have sections from both the hero and heroines point of view it’s pretty low stress for the reader (even if maybe not always for Alex!) and as a bonus if you’ve read the previous two books from Charika you get to see some of the characters from those again.

The Ex Hex by Erin Sterling

This one has magic and a curse – but actually turns out to be less dramatic and angsty than you would expect from a plot like that. Rhys comes back to his old town because the key lines are running out of magic – but once he gets there the curse Vivienne put on him when he broke her heart. This has banter and is really quite sweet – much less angst and violence than you usually get in paranormal romances.

Count Your Lucky Stars by Alexandria Bellefleur

This was a BotW back in 2022 (you can read that review here) but this is a second chance romance between two former high school best friends who meet again a decade after their friendship turned into something more for a week and then end up temporarily living together for some more of those Romance Reasons. This suffered a bit from Just Have A Conversation syndrome and One Too Many Conflicts, but it also has wit and warmth and is a lot of fun to read.

And that’s your lot for today, but I’ve realised I have a ton of second chance romances still on the tbr pile – so you never know, I may be back with this trope relatively soon!

Book of the Week, books

Book of the Week: The Golden Hour

January 23, 2024January 24, 2024 veritywilde

Always an interesting choice for Book of the Week after a holiday week, but actually this time I’ve picked a book that has a bit of a beachy feel about it – in one strand of the story anyway. Sadly my book poor planning means I didn’t take a photo of it on the beach with me, but you’ll just have to trust me that I was reading it there. You also can’t see the sand I shook out of it while I was taking this photo back at home!

Anyway, to the book: The Golden Hour is a twin timeline story about two women in the first half of the twentieth century. The first (and main story) is Lulu who, newly widowed, heads to Nassau to try and get an interview with the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. It’s 1941, most of the world is at war and the ex-King has been made governor of the Caribbean island. Lulu’s pinning her future on getting an interview with the former Wallis Simpson, but as Lulu gets closer to her, she realises that all is not quite as it seems in the Windsor marriage and in their circle. At the centre of it all is Benedict Thorpe, a scientist who has a lot of charm and even more mystery around him. And then there is a murder. Meanwhile in the very early years of the twentieth century, Elfriede is at a Sanatorium in Switzerland recovering from what would now be known as post natal depression after the birth of her first baby, but while she’s there she meets someone who will change the course of her future.

This is not the first time that I have recommended a Beatriz Williams book – she’s written a bunch of novels by herself and also with Lauren Willig and Karen White, all of which are usually twin timeline type stories. She’s one of the authors that I’m always looking out for – and this book particularly appealed to me because it mentioned Windsors in the blurb and I have always been really interested in the abdication crisis and what happened next – as you’ll know from the fact that Gone with the Windsors is one of my favourite novels and Traitor King was one of my favourite books of 2021. And this is where I need to flag that David and Wallis are leas central to this story than the blurb would have you believe. Yes, they’re there and they’re involved in the story, but the 1940s end of the story is mostly about Lulu and what happens to her and what she gets involved in. But if you want some World War Two espionage and two strands of romance then this is for you. It got me all teary on the beach at the end – and that’s a good thing.

And if you want more books from Beatriz Williams, I would recommend Her Last Flight – which is about a female pilot who disappeared on an attempt to break a flying record or Along the Infinite Sea, which is the third of her linked Schuyler sisters novels but which also has a connection to The Golden Hour. And I should also mention The Lost Summers Newport which is one of those collaborations I mentioned earlier which was BotW back after my last holiday!

I had a paperback copy of this one that came from the to read pile, but you can also get in on Kindle and Kobo. It looks like physical copies might only be in the very biggest of bookstores – Waterstones Piccadilly claims to have click and collect, but none of the Foyles do.

Happy Reading.

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: January 15 – January 21

January 22, 2024January 22, 2024 veritywilde

Well that was a fun week. We’ve been on holiday – which was delightful but also involved more sightseeing and less sun lounger time than usual, so the reading list is not as long as a post holiday one can sometimes be. This week is looking incredibly busy too, so who knows what next week’s list will look like – it’s all a bit of a lottery really. But still – what more could I have asked for – a lovely sunny week off work and good books to read in it.

Read:

Bustin’ Loose by Patti Benning

Missin’ Out by Patti Benning

Role Playing: The Wedding by Cathy Yardley

Animal, Vegetable, Criminal by Mary Roach

The Golden Hour by Beatriz Williams

A Death in Diamonds by S J Bennett*

Knowing Me, Knowing You by Jeevani Charika*

He Shall Thunder in the Sky by Elizabeth Peters

It Happened One Fight by Maureen Lee Lenker

A May Lay Dead by Ngaio Marsh