Month: February 2024

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: February 12 – February 18

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A pretty good week all in all. Very busy but some good stuff read amid it all. A distinct romance turn to the list though – but then it was Valentine’s Day so that might only to be expected!

Read:

A Surfeit of Lampreys by Ngaio Marsh

Worst Wingman Ever by Abby Jimenez

Death and the Dancing Footman by Ngaio Marsh

Simply the Best by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Colour Scheme by Ngaio Marsh

Grumpy Fake Boyfriend by Jackie Lau

Linda learns to Type by Patricia Baldwin

Started:

The Love Wager by Lynn Painter

Mr Hot Shot CEO by Jackie Lau

Still reading:

The Antiques Hunter’s Guide to Murder by C L Miller*

The Last Action Heroes by Nick de Semelyen

Travellers in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd

Five books bought – two kindle and three paperbacks. And a preorder arrived too, although that was the Susan Elizabeth Philips, which I read immediately so that’s already off the backlog, so maybe it doesn’t count?!

Bonus photo: it’s starting to get lighter in the mornings on the walk to work. If only it was lighter when I get on the train!

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

not a book

Not a Book: Houseplant update!

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Yes, yes, my plant obsession continues. I’m hoping that everything has survived the winter and that worst of the cold weather is over.

I’ve got a bit of repotting to do – the mini Christmas tree was a gift and I’ll get it properly potted up now the decorations are down, but also the Pothos needs a bigger pole to climb – and maybe some kind of encouragement to put out some more shoots for the other side of the pole! And the ficus just needs some support. And if you’re thinking that the downstairs window sill is looking a little emptier – never fear, that’s not because they’re dead, it’s because I moved a few of them upstairs in January when we went on holiday and they haven’t come back down yet because I quite like my bureau top of plants.

See- it looks pretty good doesn’t it. Here is the newest of my spider plants, Cecily, along with Palmeria and in the background my Christmas cactus, and the fishbone cactus and tucked away right at the back a variagated Croton which is probably the most at risk of not making it through the cold snap.

And here are the big ones – the umbrella tree finally seems to be happy, Roger the monstera keeps flinging out new leaves and the bulbs are gearing up to floor. The banana plant is a little more of an unknown quantity, but I’m hoping when it warms up he’ll be ok too.

This is just a selection of the plants – I’ll try and do more at some point soon, but more dusting and tidying is require to show you more!

books

Books in the Wild: The Works update

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So I happened to wander into the works this week, and I think they’ve had a bit of an adjustment in the books that they’re stocking. Previously, the majority of the fiction wall space would be given over to the 3 for £6 offer books – but now they seem to have a lot more new releases and books outside the offer.

So admittedly the Rebecca Yaros and the Richard Osman came out in the autumn and Heartstopper 5 just before Christmas, but House of Flame and Shadow only came out a couple of weeks ago – I know because Gower Street had that event for it. But there are three brand new books here – the Amy Lea, the Tessa Bailey and the Jessa Hastings all only came out *this week* and it’s already on the shelves. Yes there are some old books here too, but this is much newer than The Works used to stock.

And then we have the trending titles – aka stuff that’s not in the 3 for £6 – indivudually priced, no deals. There are two shelves of these and it’s all a bit mixed up in terms of genre, but someof these are pretty new too – stuff that I’ve bought new or had pre-ordered over the last year along with some of the popular warhorses of the moment (HI Colleen Hoover and all those paperback Richard Osmans)

I think you can see as well how cover design for romance is changing – so much of the cartoon pastel covers, that read as slightly YA even when they’re not. In fact Wild Fire and Icebreaker actually have a warnings on the back that they’re not for under 18s – and contain explicit content. And clearly the other big trend of the moment is Title In Huge Words with a misty blurry background. It’s sort of fascinating to see how quickly covers are changing at the moment and how the trends are evolving.

And there were two shelves of the 3 for £6 books – but unlike days of yore, they were all stacked front facing like this rather than a mix of front and piles and a fair proportion were books that I don’t remember seeing anywhere else before – rather than the old pattern which was year plus old paperbacks of romances and mysteries. In times gone by, four of the five sets of shelves would have been the offer – and one would have been the non offer books. I shall monitor the situation and see how it develops!

Have a great weekend!

bingeable series, books

Series I love: Chicago Stars

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I said yesterday that I was going to try and resist buying the new Mary Russell mystery if I could – and so far the main reason I could is because I had pre-ordered the latest Chicago Stars book and it dropped onto the Kindle on Tuesday morning, just in time for my post Super Bowl slump- and so I’m taking the opportunity to write about them today!

So this is a series of connected romance novels what the characters are linked to the (fictional) Chicago Stars NFL team. Susan Elizabeth Phillips has been writing these for a while now (twenty-ish years) so we’ve been through a generation (in sports terms) of players at this point, but I think that’s a good thing! What thus series specialises in is feisty women and men who are used to having it all their own way – and’s that’s a dynamic I can really get on board with. I’ve written about couple of the other books in the series already, so I’m going to focus on the latest one next.

Simply the Best is the story of Rory, half sister of the Stars’ quarterback and Brett, a hot shot sports agent. They definitely shouldn’t have hooked up at a party, but even worse they’re now having to work together to try and track down a missing football player and solve a murder. There’s tones of snark and banter – and I loved the addition of a mystery to the plot. The last couple of books in the series, I’ve thought they might be the last one, but I’m fairly optimistic that there is going to be another one after this one at some point!

Happy weekend everyone!

books

Out this week: New Mary Russell mystery

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There’s a new Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes mystery out this week! It’s been three years since Castle Shade came out, but in the world of Mary and Sherlock The Lantern’s Dance picks up straightaway- as they arrive in the south of France to visit Damian Adler after the events in Transylvania. That’s what the blurb tells me – and what the first few pages of the Kindle sample suggest, but I’m not sure how much more I dare read without risking buying it, and we all know the pile is huge right now and kindles of new release hardbacks are expensive. Anyway per the blurb, Damian and his family are missing and while Sherlock leaves to hunt for them, Mary remains behind and discovers crates of memorabilia and a secret to decode within. How will I resist buying this? Probably by telling myself that if I read this now I’ll have to wait years for the next one…

book round-ups, books

Recommendsday: February Kindle offers

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It’s the second Wednesday of the month so that means it’s kindle offer day and it’s a bumper crop this week.

First up, it was only was BotW a couple of weeks ago – but now Capote’s Women is 99p to coincide with the TV series that we still can’t stream over here. Not that I’m bitter about that. Also in the former BotW stakes, just from varying degrees of time ago are another few 99p deals: Ashley Poston‘s The Seven Year Slip, Annabel Monaghan’s Nora Goes off Script and Jenny Jackson’s Pineapple Street which is a great rich people problems novel and I think is on offer to coincide with its paperback release I think.

I read The Vanishing Half a lot longer ago than the rest, but it’s really good and stuck with me – it’s 99p too. 99p. Lissa Evans’s Old Baggage which is chronologically the first in her trilogy of related books (even if it was the last one published) is 99p and I really, really loved it.

In books I own but haven’t read (yet), Curtis Sittenfeld’s The Man of my Dreams is 99p as is Love in the Time of Serial Killers is 99p. And I already mentioned this offer, but The Breakup Tour is 99p this month, if you haven’t already had enough Taylor Swift in the aftermath of the Super Bowl (congrats Tayvis). In the related category of TV series I have watched but haven’t read the books of, Graham Norton’s Holding that the TV series was based on is 99p.

The Shadows of London, which is sixth in the Restoration mystery series about James Marwood and Cat Lovett is 99p – I’ve read this one and a couple of others in the series but with some gaps – so I can vouch for the fact you don’t need to have read all of them for it to make sense, and in fact if you don’t like on page sexual violence, you should probably avoid the first book in the series completely.

In series watch, this month’s cheap Terry Pratchetts are Night Watch at £1.99 and in his non-Discworld stuff The Long War from the Long Earth Trillogy he wrote with Stephen Baxter is 99p: The Georgette Heyer is Unknown Ajax is 99p as is the Bridgerton adjacent The Sum of All Kisses by Julia Quinn. And in Peter Wimsey it’s the second Peter and Harriet book Have His Carcase which is 99p – one of my favourites as you know, featuring the death of a dancer at a large coastal hotel. It’s actually better to read than listen to, on account of a section of code breaking that is really just a string of letters read out loud as an audiobook!

And that’s your lot – it’s a potentially expensive post depending on your reading tastes – I got off quite lightly writing it but I did also get four or five samples while I was writing this so I may yet regret saying that!

Happy Reading!

Book of the Week, books, mystery, new releases

Book of the Week: Knife Skills for Beginners

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I mentioned this on release day the other week, but I really did enjoy it and the list was short last week, so here we are…

When Paul Delamare’s old friend Christian inveigles him into teaching a course at a Belgravia cookery school in his place, he doesn’t expect to end up as the prime suspect in a murder investigation. But that’s what happens when after the first night of the course a body is discovered. And of course it doesn’t help that Paul taught a knife skills class in the first day and everyone knows that chefs are short tempered don’t they? Except that Paul’s pretty sure there are some people with secrets among the people at the school and that they had much better motive and opportunity than he did. And as the course continues alongside the murder investigation, he tries to solve the crime and avoid being arrested for murder himself.

I really liked this. I was hoping it would be good and fun, and it actually exceeded my expectations. And a lot of that is because Paul is a much more interesting character than you expect from the blurb so it makes a change from the usual cozy-crime sleuths. The actual murder mystery plot is also good and plenty twisty enough for me although I’ll admit to having some doubts about the solution. This is written by a cookery writer so it has recipes as well as the murder and .I really liked them too – I know a lot of American mysteries have recipes but they’re often not ones I actually want to cook and of course the measurements are all wrong (how much butter is a stick anyone?) but with these ones I did think “oh that sounds nice”. I hope there is a sequel – there was certainly enough left hanging when it comes to Paul’s life to sustain another book with him at the centre…

My copy came from NetGalley, but as you can see from the photo it’s out in the shops now and should be fairly easy to get hold of in hard copy as well as on Kindle or Kobo.

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: February 5 – February 11

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I’m not really quite sure what happened last week to be honest. My brain just wouldn’t concentrate on reading and as I kept falling asleep on the train I’m going to chalk it up to general exhaustion. I’m away a couple of nights this week again, so we’ll see what that does for the list.

Read:

Overture to Death by Ngaio Marsh

Knife Skills for Beginners by Orlando Murrin*

Death at the Bar by Ngaio Marsh

Press Story by Marjorie Riddell

Heartstopper Vol 5 by Alice Oseman

The Exception to the Rule by Christina Lauren

Started:

The Antiques Hunter’s Guide to Murder by C L Miller*

Still reading:

The Last Action Heroes by Nick de Semelyen

Travellers in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd

Four ebooks bought – a couple in a series that seem to be rotating on and off offer and one I’ve had my eye on for a while that’s also gone on offer

Bonus photo: not my photo, but it’s been somewhat damp this last week, although I suppose we should be glad that it’s not snow!

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

not a book

Super Bowl Sunday again

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It’s the final word of the NFL season against, and this year the Vince Lombardi trophy will be handed out in Las Vegas. I don’t think I’ll be staying up to t watch this year, but I might try and make it to the half time show, which this year is Usher.

I’ve written about the NFL before – here are my posts about me and the NFL, the Chicago Stars series and Swamp Kings. I’ve just finished watching this season of Hard Knocks, which was following the Miami Dolphins, and I’ve also been watching The Franchise, which has been following the Kansas City Chiefs – defending Super Bowl champions, who play the San Francisco 49ers tonight.

I was talking the other week about trends in romance – we’ve had famous people and normal people, we’ve started getting Taylor Swift-influenced romance s – and u expect in the next little while we’ll start getting pop star and NFL player romances. Mark my words!

Enjoy the game if you’re watching – enjoy whatever else tire doing with your Sunday if you’re not!

books

Books Incoming: Mid-February

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Well, this isn’t going help get that to-read pile down any is it? We’ve got two books from the airport, two books from the comic book shop and two more cozy crimes – one from the internet and one from my wander around Waterstones Gower street the other week and one pre-order – the Jasper Fforde that I mentioned in anticipated sequels and had lost track that it was out already!

Have a lovely Saturday everyone.