It’s a bit of a NetGalley special this month, with all three reviews coming from there albeit some more recently than others because oh boy I’m so behind. And every month I say I’ll do better, but every month I’m choosing between making the physical pile smaller or reducing the NetGalley list, and the actual pile is in my eyeline from the sofa and so… well. Maybe this month is the month. Anyway, to the reviews.
A Schooling in Murder by Andrew Taylor*
Let’s start here, because this one came out in the US yesterday (it came out here in the UK back in June). This is a murder mystery set at and around a girls boarding school during the tail end of World War Two. One of the teachers left school for the holidays and never came back – the school thinks she’s done a flit, but actually she’s dead and her ghost is lingering around the grounds trying to find out who murdered her and how to expose her killer. I’ve read and enjoyed books in Taylor’s Marwood and Lovett series, and enjoy both murder mysteries and school stories so I was hopeful that this would be in my reading wheelhouse. However I found it quite hard to get into, with very slow pacing and a large cast of pretty unlikable characters to try and get to grips with. I kept going because I did want to find out who the murderer was, but by the end I was more frustrated than satisfied – for reasons which are pretty hard to describe without giving spoilers. So I’m chalking this up as a not for me, more than anything else, although I find myself thinking back on it with more fondness than I had when I was actually reading it!
The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp by Leonie Swann*
Agnes and her friends live in Sunset Hall, as a sort of commune of old people pooling resources so they can stay independent. At the start of the book one of the residents is dead in the garden and just as they’re figuring out what to do about it, a policeman turns up because one of their neighbours has been shot. So they decide the solution to their dead body is to work out who killed their neighbour and pin the murder on them. Except it’s really a lot harder to do than they expect. I finally got around to reading it after seeing the sequel in a bookshop last week and nearly buying it before I remembered I’m not meant to be buying sequels when I haven’t read the first one yet and pulling my finger out. And… I liked the blurb for it more than I enjoyed reading it. I found the writing style really hard to get into and I don’t know if that was the translation (it was originally in German) or just the author’s style, but that combined with the shifting point of view and uncertainty about what was real and what wasn’t just made it a not for me. Which is sad because a group of feisty senior citizens and a murder has often been a thing that I have enjoyed. Hey ho.
Any Trope But You by Victoria Levine*
Romance author Margot’s career has just exploded with the leak of her secret alternative unhappy endings that she has written for all of her novels. She decides she’s going to reinvent herself as a crime writer, and her sister books her into a wilderness retreat to try and get her started. But when Margot arrives in Alaska she finds the ranch is run by a handsome doctor who has given up his cancer research to return home and care for his injured father – it’s like she’s walked straight into a romance novel… This is leaning into romance tropes by amping them up to 11. And I respect that. For me my issues with it fell into two categories: the exaggeration of the trends made the heroine really really annoying to me (she is willfully and wildly unprepared for her trip to Alaska and really refuses to take instructions or listen almost to a too-stupid-to-live level), and I wanted there to be more fun in the fact that this is happening. I wanted it to be more of a fun romp but actually it’s taking itself quite seriously. And given how many of the current crop of romance novels seem to be writing exaggerated tropes with a completely straight face, that meant it didn’t really seem that different to everything else to me. But it did tick Alaska off my 50 states challenge for the year!
And finally, a quick reminder of the Books of the Week this month which were The Celebrants, The Art of Catching Feelings, A Star is Bored and The Wombles at Work, and the Recommendsdays which were Norfolk-set books and Short Stories.
Happy Humpday.
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 
I was a bit disappointed in A Schooling in Murder as I’ve always loved Andrew Taylor’s books before but as you say, the characters weren’t very likeable and and I didn’t really like the ending.
Well done for ticking another state off of your 50 state list.
I didn’t like the ending either – it’s hard to explain without giving spoilers, but I didn’t think it was worth all the reading that I’d done to get there. Does that make sense?
That makes perfect sense. I also felt the ending was quite rushed after the pace of the earlier part.