This is another mega week of new books ahead of the summer – I don’t think it’s quite as big a week as the first one of the month, but it’s pretty mega.
Firstly two of my anticipated not sequels post are out – Kirsty Greenwood’s Love of my Afterlife and the new Kevin Kwan. But as the popularity of sports romances increases there’s also a Wimbledon-set Tennis romance Match Point by Katherine Reilly which comes just a couple of weeks before the tournament in SW19 and the same week as the new Roger Federer documentary…
Over in cozy crime corner, Ellie Alexander is starting a new series – with the first two out on the same day. I had an advance copy of Body in the Bookstore – and I’ve read it – and now I have the second, A Murder at the Movies, thanks to the wonders of Kindle Unlimited are both out this week. In historical mysteries there is The Stranger’s Companion which is set on the Channel Island of Sark and A Curtain Twitcher’s Book of Murder which is set in the 1960s
And that’s just the ones on my (virtual pile)! So have a great Thursday everyone, try not to buy too many books…
Now we’re through the quick reviews and the kindle offers, I thought I’d do this week’s Recommendsday with some fiction picks for Pride month. And it turns out, I’ve already read and recommended a lot so narrowing the field down was the tricky bit – but I’ve given it a good go.
Now a lot of the stuff I’ve read the most recently has been romance – and I’ve told you about loads of them already. But that’s not going to stop me from reminding you about some of my favourites. So there’s Alexis Hall’s Boyfriend Material, K J Charles’s Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen and the Bright Falls Series. And of course it’s just a few weeks since Cat Sebastian’s You Should Be So Lucky was Book of the Week.
Talking of recent books of the week – there’s Mona of the Manor and in fact the whole of Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City series. I struggle a lot with comps for these because they’re just so wonderful and the early ones uniquely capture the moment that they were written in – San Francisco in the mid-1970s. But another book that captures the moment that it was written in is Christopher Isherwood’s Goodbye to Berlin – a fictionalised version of the author’s time in Berlin in the dying days of the Weimar Republic. Written a couple of years after his return, it was published in 1939. If you’ve read many/any books set in 1930s Berlin then this is worth a read even if only to see how it was seen at the time.
As I said yesterday, in a rare turn of events, I read all of the physical books I took on holiday with me, and this was one of them – an airport sized paperback version in case you can’t tell from the photo.
This is a potted history of how Formula One came to its current moment – massively popular and finally breaking America for the first time, in part thanks to the Netflix series Drive to Survive. This takes you through the many evolutions of the sport, to explain how the sport evolved into the sport-entertainment behemoth that it is today. The authors are journalists from the Wall Street Journal – who have previously broken down (in book form) the global success of the English Premier League. This is not a history of who won what and when – it’s a look at the evolution of the sport, the key characters and moments and particularly the business of F1.
Now regular readers will know that I’m a big motorsports fan, and Formula One is the series that I’ve been watching the longest* and I know a fair bit about it because I live with a massive petrol head who has been a subscriber to F1 Racing/GP Racing for about 20 years. I’ve watched with interest over the last few years the changes that have happened in the sport since Bernie Ecclestone was deposed from his throne as puppet master in Chief and new fans have arrived in the sport – including my own sister, who despite growing up in the same household as me, has never previously been interested in the sport – and still doesn’t watch the races, she just watches Drive to Survive when it comes out.
And this is a book aimed at fans like my sister (although maybe not my sister, because she’s heard me tell some of these stories before!), who are new to the sport and want to understand a bit more of the history and the personalities. I didn’t learn a lot that I didn’t already know, but I wasn’t expecting to – and it was all put together incredibly well and in a really readable way. I was interested in what stayed in and what got left out – I’m not sure Graham Hill got a mention, and neither really did the trend of the driver pool becoming ever more dominated by sons of previous drivers.
But that’s not what this book is here to do – it’s going to talk you through how the sport started, how Bernie Ecclestone took control of it and made himself a billionaire, the geniuses who have designed the cars that changed the sport – and how it all came together at the perfect moment when the series of Drive to Survive covering the 2019 season hit Netflix just before Covid hit and the world shut down. It briefly touches on the way fears that some people have about the Netflix-isation of the sport, but doesn’t go into the realms of speculation about what might happen next – for which I am thankful!
Him Indoors hasn’t read it yet – and I await his verdict when he does, because he knows the history more than I do and will undoubtedly spot some errors – but the only glaring one I spotted was late on when they described the famously Finnish Valtteri Bottas as Estonian – which given how his most famous Drive to Survive moment is probably the one where he’s naked in a Sauna (and he’s posted another Sauna videos on Instagram just three days ago as I write this) and he’s the latest in a long line of Finnish F1 drivers (many of them quirky) and Estonia to my knowledge has never had an F1 driver is a bit of a howler, but I’ll forgive them (as long as they fix it in the paperback!)
My copy came from the airport bookshop, but it’s out now in hardback if you’re not at the airport – my hometown Waterstones has click and collect copies available so you should find it pretty easily – as well as on Kindle and Kobo.
*I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the three things I watched on TV with my dad when I was little were Formula One, Star Trek: The Next Generation and Worzel Gummidge. How many episodes of Worzel we actually watched I don’t know, but it stuck in my head. The other two, we watched a lot.
So we’ve been on holiday! A week in the sunshine means I’ve read a lot of books – and I finished Travellers in the Third Reich!!! All it took was (another) holiday and I got it done. And it is very good – the only reason it’s taken so long is because it’s long and a tough subject. Anyway, my other major holiday achievement was that I finished all three of the actual books I took with me – one from home and two that I bought at the airport. I think this is the first time this has ever happened.
Bonus picture: A scene from our holiday hike. That’s me striding away from the camera on my way to the bottom of the giant rock. And it might look flat here, but this is the plateau after a bit of a steep climb!
*next to a book book title indicates that it came from NetGalley. ** indicates it was an advance copy from a source other than NetGalley.
On a slight tangent today, because the 2011 movie was on TV the other night and if I come across it I can’t help but end up watching it.
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is John Le Carré’s Cold War spy masterpiece, where a retired spymaster is brought back into the fold to try and track down a mole in the British secret intelligence service. George Smiley had been forced out after a failed assignment which had secretly been to investigate the same mole- but is contacted some years later by the minister to investigate the potential mole. The title refers to the code names the former chief – Control – had given to the suspects in the case. What follows is a chess game of a book as Smiley tries to unravel what is really going on from a group of men who are used to obfuscation and secrecy.
This is one of those rare occasions where I have read the book, watched the TV series and seen the movie – and I’m pretty sure I read the book first to see if I could cope with the movie, and then the TV series was repeated on BBC Four after the success of the movie. And they’re all brilliant. The TV version was made in the late 70s, so less than a decade after the book was set, and has the authentic contemporary look as well as more time to tell the story, the movie has an all star cast doing excellent work and the adaptation to get it down to film length is very neatly done.
Warning: don’t look at the comments on the TV version of you haven’t read the book/seen the movie because it gives the culprit away.
I’m not normally a thriller watcher – or reader really – but the movie for such good reviews I made an exception and it’s really worth it. I wish they had made a sequel – there are more Smiley books and they did with the TV series – but I think too much time has passed now for it to be feasible. But in the absence of more, I’ll happily watch the film again. And again.
An eclectic selection this month. There are two Lumberjanes that I somehow didn’t get when they first came out, the two books I bought on the way to Lagos, the first Cesare Aldo which I ordered second hand after reading the first on holiday in April, a non-MaisieJacqueline Winspear and a Lauren Willig that I preordered ages ago and seems to have only just become available in paperback in the UK.
And what I realised after I took this photo is that – despite the fact that there is one Winspear in here so it should have jogged my memory, I forgot to include the final Maisie Dobbs in it. Now is that because I genuinely forgot or because my brain didn’t want to admit that I’d walked down to Waterstones Piccadilly on release day to buy it – and it a hardback at full price too. Thank goodness for a £10 Waterstones loyalty card reward. Even if that means I’ve already spent a lot of money there. And it’s not even the only bookshop I use…
Amidst all the romance releases last week, the sixteenth (!!!) in Jenn McKinlay’s Cupcake Bakery series also emerged into the world. I’m still a few books behind – I still haven’t spotted number 14 in the bookstores that stock cozy crime, Amazon wants more than £11 for it in paperback (which is mad) and it’s not on kindle in the UK so I’ll have to wait. But this is my favourite of McKinlay’s series and the one where I think there’s the most potential for different locations for the characters to find bodies – particularly now they’re franchising the bakery. Although given how many bodies they find, would you want to franchise with them?! Anyway, go read my original series post about them and I’ll go off and chunter in a corner about the cost of US cozy crime mass market paperbacks in the UK!
Now I haven’t read this one and so I can’t tell you if it’s another Tinye Heroine and Giant Hero, but there is a new Ali Hazelwood out this week. It’s another STEM romance – this time it’s a biotech engineer who gets caught up in a hostile takeover. Apparently this is also her spiciest yet as well. I’ll try and remember to let you know when I think when I pick up a copy – which I’m sure won’t be that far in the future knowing me!
Hello I’m back again to tempt you into spending more money on Kindle books to add your to-read piles, which I’m sure are already bulging, but we’re heading into summer holiday season, so if you needed an excuse to buy a book (or two) make this it!
The third Emmy Lake book is 99p at the moment – I reviewed Mrs Porter Calling when it came out last year, but it’s got a fresh cover (I assume for the paperback edition) in case that’s confusing you. I’m still hoping for a fourth in the series too, but no news yet and it’s usually two years between these so it’s not “due” until next year so I’m not worried yet. It’s got a new cover since I bought it, but K J Charles‘s The Gentle Art of Fortune Hunting is 99p – the second in this series (although it will be standalone) is out next month as well.
Carley Fortune is a new to me author, but I’ve seen lots of good reviews of her other books and her latest This Summer Will Be Different is 99p at the moment – I bought this last month – but it’s still on offer as I write this. In other new books that I haven’t read yet, Sarah Morgan’s summer novel is 99p at the moment – it’s called The Summer Swap. And I mentioned Kirsty Greenwood’s new book in my Summer of Not Sequels post, so it’s only fair to mention that another of the Novelicious crew Cressida McLaughlin has a new book out this summer too and The Happy Hour is 99p.
We’re only on series three of Bridgerton, but book five in the series – aka Eloise’s story – is on offer at the moment. I really like To Sir Philip, With Love, but I know that it’s not everyone’s favourite and if you’ve watched the series before reading the books it may be a bit of a shock to you! In other TV tie-in news, we have The Magpie Murders at 99p – I loved the books, I loved the TV series and I’m on record as wishing Anthony Horowitz could write more of them. I’m almost embarrassed about how many times I’ve mentioned Curtis Sittenfeld’s Romantic Comedy now, but I did love it so much that I can’t really be sorry. It’s 99p, read it on the beach.
My dad recently discovered that there was a Discworld book he hadn’t read – I wish I could have a similar moment but sadly I know I’ve read them all. But it’s that time of year again where I’m thinking about which Discworld book to re-read – and Guards! Guards! is always right up there and if I didn’t already own it, it’s £1.99 at the moment and is a great place to start the series. GNU Sir Terry and if you’re wondering, the one that Dad hadn’t read was Equal Rites. Talking of my family, Ralph’s Party by Lisa Jewell was one of my sister’s favourites back when we were teenagers, I thought it was new at the time – but doing the maths as it has a 25th anniversary edition out now, it really can’t have been!
Last week was a bumper week of new romance releases, and Annabel Monaghan’s new book was one of them. And this choice may not be a surprise to those of you who study the reading lists each Monday.
Ali’s mum died two years ago, a year later her husband left her and she’s been trying to keep her head above water ever since juggling her kids and her career as a professional organiser. But the first time she put proper clothes (ie not joggers and a baggy t shirt) on in months to take the dog to the dog park she meets a man who she is fairly sure is flirting with her. And the more she gets to know Ethan, the more she likes him. But he’s only in town for the summer, so it’s just a summer romance – isn’t it?
As you may remember, I really loved Nora Goes off Script – but I didn’t like Monaghan’s follow up last year the same way. This however was a lovely return to what I wanted. It’s pretty low stakes and low conflict between the romantic leads, but there is plenty of stuff to work through for the heroine to get her happy ending. And I was rooting for her the whole time. My only real complaint is that I wanted more comeuppance for Ali’s ex husband for being so horrid and dismissive of her. But she’s definitely the winner in the end – and she does it for herself too, not because Ethan makes it happens for her – which is my biggest gripe with the Legally Blonde musical vs the film and I can rant at you about that all day if you set me going!
I had a copy of Summer Romance pre-ordered (although I also got approved for it on NetGalley on release day!) and it’s out now on Kindle and Kobo for your summer enjoyment.
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 