Month: December 2024

book adjacent

Buy a last minute gift for Christmas 2024

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The last posting dates are gone (unless you’re prepared to pay a fortune on the postage) but if you’re still a few presents short, here are a few ideas that you could get from an actual shop in the few days remaining…

I’m a big fan of a Christmas jigsaw puzzle – and there are some really nice literary ones at the moment. Last year I bought myself the Hercule Poirot one – this year I’ve gone for Miss Marple. But Waterstones has a stack of options – Bridgerton-inspired, Sherlock Holmes, Jane Austen, Great Gatsby – and they’re usually pretty near the front if you’re trying to dash in and dash out.

We have a designated jigsaw spot where it’s just out so that anyone can have a little pick at it if they’re at a loose end. But if you want something you can do together, you could try a board game. Again Waterstones are really good for this – and also for games accessories if you have a dungeons and dragons or role playing gamer you need to buy for.

Depending on which bookshop you’re going to, you might also be able to find book pouches. These also make a nice gift for the bookish – I have a couple that I can swap in and out of my work bag if I have a paperback I want to take to work and make sure it doesn’t get all beaten up. One is from Persephone and the other is from Shakespeare and Co – so it’s something you might be able to find a special version of in your local indie as well as on the accessory racks in the big chains.

Or you could just plump for a tote bag. I have a Strand bag from my New York trip in 2018 that’s my regular weekend bag, a Big Green Book one that was my emergency bag in my work locker but is now storing some hard-drives for my team. And I bought a really gorgeous one from the John Singer Sargent exhibition in the summer.

I’ve never been a big fan of the pre-made book journals, because I read too many books to want to hand write a review for them all (also I put all my reviews in good reads) and I like lists and making my own, but there are a fair few choices of those if you’re not buying for someone quite as quirky and set in their ways as me!

Good luck!

bingeable series, Christmas books

Christmas Series: Under the Mistletoe

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After I mentioned this on release a couple weeks back I tthought it was only fair to report back now I’ve read them all!

So as I said in my previous post, this is an Amazon special Christmas novella collection featuring some big name romance authors. I did try and pick a favourite – recency bias wants me to say Only Santas in the Building, but reviewing the others there wasn’t really one I don’t like – they’re all pretty good. I guess my least favourite was Merriment and Mayhem, but even that’s just a relative thing!

If you want a quick blast of Christmas spirit to read in between wrapping presents, decorating or preparing food ahead of time, these would make a good choice. I read them in order but you could start with your favourite (or least favourite!) author and go from there. I do recommend …only Santas or All By My Elf though.

These are Amazon exclusive – but also free if you have Kindle Unlimited. Here’s the link to the series so you can decide for yourself

Have a great weekend!

Book previews

Out this Week: Something Extraordinary

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It’s the end of the year and there aren’t a lot of books being published at the moment, but Alexis Hall has a new one out this week so here we are. Something Extraordinary is the third in Hall’s Something Fabulous series and I have somewhat mixed views here. I really like a lot of Hall’s modern set books like Boyfriend Material but I really disliked the first in this series to the point where I nearly didn’t finish it. And o didn’t finish the follow up to Rosaline Palmer Takes The Cake. But these are now in KU and this one has a marriage of convenience (which is a trope I like) and Highwaymen (which I can also quite like) so I may give the series a second chance…

Christmas books, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: Christmas Novellas

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It’s the week before Christmas and I have a stack of Christmas books that I want to read – but I’ve mostly only managed novellas so far because of the fact that I haven’t finished that pesky 50 states thing. So for this week’s Recommendsday I wanted to mention a few – some that I’ve read in previous years and haven’t written about yet, and one that’s new this year!

Holiday Hideaway by Mary Kay Andrews

This one is the new this year and has a newly single – and unexpectedly homeless – woman who is using one of the vacation rentals she manages as somewhere to live in the gap before her new home is ready. Except then the house’s new owner turns up to get it ready for sale and suddenly she’s hiding in the attic while he’s staying downstairs. I was slightly sceptical about this as a premise, but actually by the end it did work. This is going to be divisive – because the new owner has a girlfriend back in the city and I know that’s a hard no for some people. But for me it was a fun slightly nonsense read that maybe isn’t quite as Christmas-themed as the cover would suggest. Oh, and I wish Andrews had specified a location in it, it would have made my life so much easier…

Missing Christmas by Kate Clayborn

This is the novella that fits in as book three and a half in Clayborn’s Chance of a Lifetime series, which features one of the side characters from the first book getting his chance at a happy ending with his business partner when the two of them are snowed in at the house of a scientist they’re trying to recruit – so forced proximity and only one bed in the festive season. I enjoyed it and if you like Claybourn’s writing – which I obviously do – this is definitely worth checking out.

A Christmas Gone Perfectly Wrong by Cecilia Grant

How about a historical romance novella with birds of prey? Fancy a falcon this Christmas? Yes? No? This has a hero who is trying to make a perfect Christmas for his family before his sister gets married and things change, and a heroine who is delivering the falcon he’s ordered on the way to a Christmas party. Except that there’s snow and an issue with her carriage and suddenly they’re stuck together and in the wrong place. Yes, I know another forced proximity Christmas novel – but snowed in at Christmas is a trope for a reason: it works really well! This is a prequel to a series of novels about the hero’s siblings, which I haven’t read – but Cecilia Grant says she specialises in high angst-to-plot ratios, so they may not be my thing because: angst. Anyway, if you want a historical novella this year, this worked for me.

Happy Humpday everyone!

Book of the Week

Book of the Week: Cure for the Common Breakup

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Did I finish this on Monday? Yes. Would I have finished it on the train to work if that train had taken ten minutes longer? Also yes. But still. This one was a lot of fun, so it deserves it.

Summer is a flight attendant – and her always moving lifestyle is perfect for her attitude towards relationships. Except… at the start of a long haul flight to Paris, she hears her boyfriend might be about to propose and she’s thinking about saying yes. But then the flight goes wrong and everything changes. Summer needs somewhere to recover (physically and mentally) and heads for Black Dog Bay, a small town in Delaware known as “the best place in America to bounce back from your breakup”. There she finds a small town community ready to welcome her – and a mayor who is definitely not her type and who definitely doesn’t do relationships…

The fact that this is set in Delaware probably gives you the hint about why I was picking this up last week, but often with the books I read at the end of the year to tick some states off, they’re a slog to get through (and I might have given up on them in other circumstances) but this was really nice. If you had told me it was written in the early 2000s I would have believed it too – except for the smartphones! Not because it’s outdated but because there’s just something about it that reminds me of the books I used to read back when I was at university – funny and slightly caper-y, and with a romance but more about the female lead finding herself than just getting the man.

Anyway, this is the first of a series set in Black Dog Bay – and I will happily read more and try and not use them all up as my Delaware option too fast!

I bought my copy on Kindle, but it’s also on Kobo. I suspect any physical copy will be harder to find, but I’m sure the big vendors will try!

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: December 9 – December 15

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A fairly solid list, but the real achievement is that I got four more states ticked off the list as I once again attempt to read a book from every US state. Still a few tricky ones to do, but I’m getting there. And in the real world, it’s fully Christmas now – the tree is decorated, presents are bought (some even distributed) and as well as the trip to A Midsummer Night’s Dream this week, I also went to the kids Christmas show at the local theatre – which is the Jolly Christmas Postman and was excllent.

Read:

Somewhere in the Night by Julie Mulhern

Raisins and Almonds by Kerry Greenwood

Hemingway and Sun Valley by Chris Moore

Holiday Hideaway by Mary Kay Andrews

Murder in Montparnasse by Kerry Greenwood

The Family Tree Murders by Laura Hern

The Winter Widow by Charlene Weir

Started:

Cure for the Common Breakup by Beth Kendrick

Still reading:

A Traveller in Time by Alison Utley

Not in My Book by Katie Holt*

Cher: The Memoir Part One by Cher

Three ebooks bought as I attempt to get those last few pesky states ticked off…

Bonus picture: Last week I was staying out by St Paul’s Cathedral so I got to see the nightscape again. I do love the way it’s lit.

*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, theatre

Not a Book: A Midsummer Night’s Dream

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Actual proper culture from me this week with some Shakespeare. Although to be fair, Conclave got a bunch of Golden Globe nominations this week so maybe it’s two weeks in a row.

The RSC are back at the Barbican this winter with A Midsummer Night’s Dream. This had a run at Stratford earlier in the year and has transferred in and as you can see from the programme, the big name here is Matthew Baynton (of Ghosts fame) who is playing Bottom. When I started writing this, I thought this might be the first time I’ve seen Dream done professionally* but I had totally forgotten that I saw the Michael Grandage Company’s production with Sheridan Smith and David Williams in it a decade or so ago. This is much better than that one. Much.

This isn’t one of my favourite Shakespeare’s (that’s Twelfth Night) but this production is a bit like a minimalist fever dream – with 80s inspired costumes in a big black space where lights and ladders can appear and the actors at times seem to materialise from no where. Baynton and the mechanicals are genuinely funny and their final performance capped a riotous evening that seemed to go by in a flash.

It always feels like A Decision to go and see some Shakespeare – so long, such language, not always funny when its meant to be but this was an excellent choice for a wintery evening – and as I happened to be there on press night, I also spotted several of the other Ghosts stars in the audience (to be fair I mainly spotted them in the bar at the interval) to support their colleague. A very satisfactory night out.

*although technically it was the first Shakespeare I ever saw – because Class Six did it as their leavers play when I was in Class Five, but I don’t think that counts. In case you’re interested, I spent two years in Class six (village primary, only six classes for seven years of school when I was there) and we did Bugsy Malone – I was a dancer at Fat Sam’s, and Twelfth Night – I was a recorder player at the court of Duke Orsino. As you can tell acting was not my forte

The pile

Books Incoming: Mid-December

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Will this be a three Books Incoming month? Probably. Anyway, this is the state of things at the moment – after the Christmas-themed books (which mostly arrived last month and should have been in those bumper piles) and before any Christmas gifts arrive. Fingers crossed for something(s) from the wishlist. So we have: We Solve Murders – which I’ve already read, Cher’s memoir who ch is already underway and the the last Kate Shackleton that I haven’t read.

Happy Saturday everyone!

bingeable series, series

Bingeable series: Busybodies

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Happy Friday everyone. This week I’ve got a series of mystery novellas for you, just in case you’re not quite in the mood for Christmas reading yet!

This is another of Amazon’s original story series, where they commission popular authors from across a genre on a single theme and then make them available for free to Kindle Unlimited subscribers and at fee to everyone else. The blurb for this one from Amazon is:

Every nosy neighbor, gossipy friend, and meddling relative is just one good mystery away from becoming a detective. From behind locked doors or out in broad daylight, driven by chance or curiosity, amateur sleuths get in over their heads in these six hair-raising, hilarious stories.

I’ve read two of the authors before – Nita Prose and Jesse K Sutanto and I have some Alicia Thompson on the to-read pile. But I actually quite liked all of these. I read them in order and sometimes with collections like this there is a weak link, but they were a really consistently good set. If I had to pick a favourite, I might go for Crime of Passion. I think the Nita Prose is the creepiest but there’s nothing particularly graphic or horrible – as the covers sort of indicate. None of them are particularly long, so they make a nice easy way of passing a few hours all together. And one of them ticked me another state off the list too…

As I said, these are Amazon originals, so that’s the only place to get them – the link to the series is here.

Have a great weekend!

Book previews

Out This Week: Not In My Book

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I was trying to get this finished in time for today, but I totally failed because: theatre and reading challenge completion attempts. But if you’re in the US, you can get your hands on this now. It’s comped as The Hating Game meets Beach Read, one of which I loved – the other triggered some of my issues with people behaving unprofessionally. So far this is skirting on the edge of them being too awful to each other for redemption, but I’m only a third of the way through. I will report back…