Month: October 2024

Book News

Just Announced: New Taylor Jenkins Reid

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You know how I sometimes say I don’t know if this was just announced or if I had just not noticed? Not this time. This was just announced yesterday and was not my original plan for today but I couldn’t not do it, given that as soon as I read the email from Taylor Jenkins Reid I clicked on the preorder link in it and preordered the signed edition Waterstones had. And when I came back to my inbox, there was an email from Waterstones telling me about the book that I had just ordered. Ahead of the game I tell you. Anyway…

I don’t need to give you the plot of Atmosphere because the blurb is right there in the Instagram post, but if what Taylor Jenkins Reid said when Carrie Soto came out still holds, this is not going to be linked to that quartet – although whether those characters will exist in this new world (as Easter eggs for us nerds) or not I do not know. I enjoyed those four books so much that I’m a little trepidatious about venturing into a new world – especially because space and sci fi aren’t usually my thing and I am Aware of certain space shuttle related events in the mid 1980s – but clearly not nervous enough not to have ordered that signed copy immediately. A nice treat coming my way in eight months time – the big question is will I remember that I’ve preordered it or will I accidentally order it again before then? Anything is possible…

If you haven’t read the quartet then I’ve written about all off them: there’s old Hollywood secrets in The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Fleetwood Mac-esque music shenanigans in Daisy Jones and the Six (which I even went to a signing for at my now regular haunt of Gower Street Waterstones), sibling rivalries and family drama in Malibu Rising and finally an epic sports comeback and journey of self discovery in Carrie Soto is Back.

Also before I go: there hadn’t been an email from Taylor Jenkins Reid since April and then she sent one on Tuesday with book reccs – so another one twenty four hours later announcing a new book was quite the shock – and delightful surprise because I was disappointed at the end of Tuesday’s email that there was still no news of anything new!

Recommendsday

Recommendsday: Romances with Ghosts

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It s the day before Halloween and in Saturday’s post, I mentioned a bunch of this year’s new releases with a spooky or somewhat Halloween-related theme and of course the newest Jen DeLuca which features some ghostly goings on was BotW last week, so today for Recommensday I wanted to mention a few of the less new books that are also suitable for the season.

Lets start with a paranormal romance series: Darynda Jones’s Charley Davidson books. Charley is a part-time Private Investigator and also a grim reaper, oh and she’s got a thing going on with the son of Satan. It’s been seven years (!) since the first in this series was a Book of the Week pick, and I released while writing this that I haven’t got to the end of the series, so I should probably pick up another one or two and see how it goes. They are on the edge of too dark for me though, so your mileage may vary on that front.

Equally, if you like a paranormal series – I’ve written series posts for several of Charlaine Harris’s series which have varying degrees of romance. Obviously there is the Southern Vampire series – aka Sookie Stackhouse aka the source material for the TV series True Blood (too violent for me on TV, I only made it to the end of series 2, but absolutely fine as books) – but there’s also the Harper Connelly series, although that has less romance to it and then the Midnight, Texas series, which I haven’t written about yet, but reviewed a couple of them here when they were new.

Then there are the standalone romances – and all of these are books I’ve mentioned before (sorry, not sorry). First of all there’s Ashley Poston’s The Dead Romantics, which has a ghostwriter who goes home to her family’s funeral parlour because her father has died, only to have her editor turn up as a ghost at her door. Then there are a couple of newer ones as well – firstly this summer’s Love of my Afterlife by Kirsty Greenwood which has a heroine who gets a reprieve from death – but needs to find the love of her life or she’ll be permanently dead. This has now been optioned for a film by the same production company as It Ends With Us. And finally there’s Sarah Adler‘s Happy Medium which was a BotW back in May and has a fake psychic who spots a real ghost at the home of a sexy and sceptical farmer.

And that’s your lot for today – I hope you have a great Halloween if that’s something you celebrate, if it’s not, I hope you manage to avoid the trick or treaters and have a cozy night doing something else!

Happy Reading!

Book of the Week, cozy crime

Book of the Week: A Dark and Stormy Murder

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This week I’m back in the cozy crime genre for my pick, and with a first in a series so I’m abiding by the rules (yes, those rules I set myself!).

And so the plot: Lena’s just landed a job as the assistant to her favourite writer, Camilla Graham and moved to a small town in Indiana. Lena has always wanted to be a writer and now she gets to learn from her idol. Lena’s best friend already lives in Blue Lake – in fact she’s the one who met Camilla first, but Lena quickly gets stuck into small town life and meeting the locals – including a notorious recluse and the chief detective. But when a body turns up on her boss’s land, and strange things start happening at the house Lena can’t help but start investigating…

This has a fairly classic cozy crime set up in many ways – small town, two potential love interests for the heroine and a developing group of friends. But the writing as a profession is fun and the actual murder plot is good and allows the development of Lena and Camilla’s working relationship as well as doing some world building work too. There’s also a secondary investigation going on that is setting up more for the series, so it feels quite action packed – and I mean that in a good way. At the moment Lena seems to be picking my least favourite of the two love interests but there’s plenty of scope for either him to grow on me or for her to change her mind. This is my first book by Julia Buckley, and there another five in this series and she has a couple of other series too so that’s something to look forward to, if I can just get the tbr under control…

I read this one in paperback, but it’s also available on Kindle and Kobo.

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: October 21 – October 27

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So… did I watch three episodes of Rivals back to back on Thursday night and a fourth on Friday while I was staying with a friend? Yes. Did this affect the amount of stuff I’ve read this week. Yes. Do I regret not having Disney + at the moment so I can watch the other four episodes? Absolutely. Is it for the best that I don’t have it at the moment? Also yes, but we’ll see how long my will power lasts because the last episode of Only Murders in the Building series four hits Disney+ this week… Anyway, to the actual books I did read, and I still need to do a bit of work at getting that long-running list down, but I may have got a little distracted by trying to get a couple more states ticked off my 50 states list for the year…

Read:

The Beckoning Lady by Margery Allingham

Murder: The Biography by Kate Morgan*

Digging Up History by Sheila Connolly

Passed in Pennsylvania by Sheila Benning

A Dark and Stormy Murder by Julia Buckley

Sugar Cookie Murder by Joanne Fluke

Started:

n/a

Still reading:

A Jingle Bell Mingle by Sierra Simone and Julie Murphy*

Small Bomb at Dimperley by Lissa Evans

Astor by Anderson Cooper

One pre-order dropped onto my kindle, one book bought in Waterstones Piccadilly and one ebook bought

Bonus picture: my newest houseplant baby, which is growing fast!

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

book adjacent, film

Book Adjacent: The Count of Monte Cristo

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It’s Sunday and this week I have a movie to recommend, and it’s a bit of an epic. It’s not often that I recommend a three hour-long film, but honestly The Count of Monte Cristo didn’t feel that long because there is so much going on and it’s so much fun.

So this is the latest adaptation of the book by Alexandre Dumas (pere), and unlike The Three Musketeers, it’s not one of his that I have read so I can’t tell you how much this new French version has left out, but I suspect it’s a lot because it is a long book and covers a huge period. The early phase of this has a lot of “x years later” slates to get you to the point where Edmond Dantes returns to seek his revenge. But I’ve skipped a few steps. Here is the rough outline of the story, as told in the movie:

In 1815 Edmond Dantes, a young sailor, is falsely accused of aiding Napoleon and is arrested on his wedding day (before the knot can be tied). Betrayed by his friends and convicted by a corrupt magistrate, he is sentenced to life in prison. Some years into his time in prison, he meets an old abbé and while the two of them work to escape the Abbé educates him and also tells him where to find a mysterious treasure. On his escape, Edmond locates the treasure and sets himself up as the mysterious Count of Monte Cristo and in the 1830s arrives in Paris to wreak revenge on the people who put him in jail.

I love a bit of swashbuckling adventure, and this really delivers on that. It doesn’t have as starry a cast as the two recent French Musketeers movies, but it has a similar amount of swagger and adventure, and as I said at the top, there’s so much going on that you don’t notice the three hour run time. You might have to have a hunt around to find a screening of it, but it looks amazing on the big screen – it made me want to go to the south of France again as well as being entertaining.

Have a great Sunday!

book related, bookshops

Books in the Wild: Waterstones Piccadilly (again)

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I think Thursday this week was the biggest book release day of the year, but sadly I haven’t made it into a bookshop in the last two days – but instead I was in Waterstones Piccadilly on Monday and had a good wander.

There is one of those 24th October releases on this photo though – some kind person had put The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year out on the shelves a couple of days early, so of course I snapped that up. Apart from that the romance display was still fairly Halloween orientated – with Casket Case, Haunt Your Heart Out, The Wedding Witch, My Vampire Plus-One and Morbidly Yours from this season’s crop of spooky releases.

I was really pleased to see Kingmaker on a table – and I’m hoping the fact that there’s only five copies means there were more and they’ve sold a bunch. I also keep coming across mentions of Pamela Harriman at the moment, but I’ve got no idea whether it’s because the book has got people talking or it’s that thing you get where you notice things you would have missed because you’ve recently encountered some form of media about them!

And finally, on the new and reviewed history shelf has three of the history hardbacks from this autumn’s releases that I’m interested in – namely the new Helen Castor and Dan Jones, who are two historians whose work I find really interesting and readable even if their areas of expertise are different to the periods that I am usually the most interested in, and then The Scapegoat again, which I mentioned last week.

And that’s your lot. I will endeavour to make it into a bookshop this week to see what else I can spot from the autumn new releases. After all I’m soon going to have to come up with a list of books I’d like for Christmas. Oh and I found a Waterstones voucher in my purse today from my Christmas gifts last year, that I only have six weeks left to spend…

previews, series

Series Redux: Fixer Upper Mysteries

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Number 11 in the Fixer-Upper series – The Knife Before Christmas came out on Tuesday – and as I said in the Christmas series post, this one getting a hardback release, which is new thing for the series and probably a positive sign for the health of the series. And as I do love a series of mysteries about house renovating I thought I’d take an opportunity to talk about them, especially as this is probably the best of the construction-set mystery series that I’ve read – because (and this is a common theme with series that I like) the lead character is good at her job, and her competence (or otherwise) isn’t really used as a plot point.

Our detective is Shannon Hammer, who runs a building contractors in a small town on the California coast. Over the course of the series she’s worked on all sorts of buildings – as Lighthouse Cove has plenty of historic buildings of various types and Kate Carlisle has been able to invent more when necessary without it seeming weird! Shannon has a solid group of friends at the start of the series and has added a love interest as well – which has been a pretty slow burn, which again I like because it’s annoying when (mostly) heroines are married off fast because authors seem to find it harder to find scenarios to put them into after that point – particularly when kids appear for female leads. The blurb for this one has her working at a hotel in the town who are famous for their events between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The family of the owners are less keen on the festivities than their parents are, on account of their potential inheritance – and then of course someone turns up dead. It sounds like a lot of fun – and it’s a shame that I’ll probably have to wait a bit to read it, on account of that non-matching hardback. Hey ho. I’ll get there in the end though.

You can buy it now though, if you’re a kindle reader or don’t mind that non-matching thing – here are the Kindle and Kobo links. You probably won’t be able to find the book in shops – I don’t think I’ve ever seen them in a UK store, but you should be able to order it in.

Have a great weekend!

Book previews

Out Today: New Adele Buck

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Another Thursday, another new book to highlight. This time it’s the new Adele Buck book, The Anti-social Season, which is the second in her first responders series and came out today in the UK – and on Tuesday in the US. The first in the series was Fake Flame which I reviewed back when in May when it came out here. That was about a fake relationship between a university professor and a firefighter after her ex tried to win her back with a public proposal which she tried to set on fire. This time it is Christmas themed and has a female firefighter who is about to hang up her active duty hose and a male librarian who is tasked with teaching her about her new job as the squad’s social media manager. I love the fact that the genders are the reverse of what you normally find in a firefighter romance – or a romance involving a librarian – so I can’t wait to read it – I have it on pre-order so it should have dropped onto my Kindle by the time you read this!

If you want to buy it, it’s available now on Kindle and Kobo. And as a bonus, Fake Flame is 99p on Kindle and Kobo at the moment too.

Recommendsday

Recommendsday: Upcoming adaptations

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Autumn is new TV season, and the run up to Christmas (and THanksgiving in the US) is the big movie release season, so I thought this week I’d mention the books that are about to hit the screens of various sizes before the end of the year.

I’m starting with the one you’re most likely to have already seen a trailer for even before I put it here, and that’s Wicked. It’s based on the musical which is quite a long way away from Gregory Maguire’s novel, but as they’ve split it into two parts, it sounds like they have used more of the book material for the film – which makes sense because the second half of the musical is less obviously spectacular than the first and the most well known songs are in the first – including the iconic Defying Gravity which is the ending of the first half in the musical and has been so heavily featured in all the promotional material that it has to be in the first part!

Excitingly Interior Chinatown has a brand new trailer today – ahead of it’s release in the US in mid November. Charles Yu has adapted it himself from his novel, which is about an background character in a police procedural drama who longs to be the main character. It won a National Book award the year it came out and was nominated for a couple more prizes. I read it in 2020 and although it was not entirely my thing (as we know that’s not unusual for Award-winners) but I thought it was really clever, inventive and mind bending. It’s on the list of things I might be able to watch with Him Indoors. Or at least let him start watching it to see if I’ll be able to cope. I just need to get Disney+ again first!

Already out there in the US, but frustratingly still without a confirmed date in the UK is the Moonflower Murders. I did mention this the other week when I posted that there is going to be another book in the Atticus Pünd/Susan Ryeland series, but I don’t care, because I think these are so fun and clever and I’m looking forward to seeing how book two translates to the screen – I doubted Anthony Horowitz before the seeing the Magpie Murders and I’m not making that mistake again. I’m sort of expecting that this is going to be in the Christmas TV offerings, so I might still have two months to wait…

This one is a bit of a cheat on two fronts because it’s already out there *and* I haven’t read the book, but the trailer made me laugh so I’m going with it anywhere. I’ve read about half a dozen of Carl Hiassen’s books – but not Bad Monkey – and I am a little worried this is going to be a bit too violent for me on screen – the novels fall into the same sort of humours crime-thriller-adventure area as Stephanie Plum does, but with a lot more gore on the page. This one is on Apple TV+, which I hardly ever have, so it may be a while before I can set Him Indoors on it to check it for me.

And finally, this is the one that I have no clue how I would be able to watch as it’s a Hallmark Movie, but the book itself sounds intriguing: The Chicken Sisters. It’sabout two families feuding over whose restaurant serves the best fried chicken and two sisters who have ended up on opposite sites try to settle it by taking part in a TV cooking show. It’s at least partially set in Kansas too – so if I can get hold of a copy of that, it might help me with one of my harder to get states in the 50 states challenge…

Happy Reading!

Book of the Week

Book of the Week: Haunted Ever After

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Oh I’m super predictable aren’t I? I finished this last week, it’s fast coming up for Halloween so of course it’s my pick today. I’m sorry. Well I’m not but i have to say I am.

As I said in my release day post, our heroine is Cassie, who moves to out of the city to Boneyard Key, which has the reputation as being the most haunted place in Florida. Her new house has just been renovated by a flipper but she soon discovers that it’s some what legendary on the local ghost tour and starts to investigate whether it is in fact haunted with the help of local cafe owner Nick. Nick’s lived in Boneyard Key all his life and he’s very wary of people who move in ti the area because they don’t stick around. So he’s got a tourists only rule for his relationships – or really situationships, but is Cassie the one who is different?

This is lots of fun. I’m not always great with books with the supernatural or paranormal but this hits just the right side of everything for me. It’s fun, it’s flirty and it knows what the rules of the world are. If you like Jen DeLuca’s Ren Faire series, this has the same sort of humour and sensibility but it’s in Florida and it’s got some ghosts. I really enjoyed it and I look forward to seeing what the next hook in the series is.

You can get it in kindle and kobo now, and theoretically paperback, but I haven’t spotted it in a shop yet – and I have been looking

Happy Reading.