Not my greatest week in reading – but that’s because I did two theatre trips, a weekend in Essex and local elections coverage. It was fun, but it was a lot. And the long runners are still lingering. I will have to try and do better this week. But this week is Eurovision week so…
After a podcast last week, I’m back with a Netflix documentary this week to make it two whole weeks in a row that I haven’t talked about theatre. Even though I did go to the theatre (twice) this week. I actually watched this the weekend that it came out last month – but this got caught behind the theatre posts in the queue because they were more time sensitive.
Trust Me: The False Prophet is a four episode mini-series following Christine Marie and her husband Tolga Katas who move to the Short Creek community in the hopes that they can help members of the FLDS community in the aftermath of the arrest and conviction of their leader, Warren Jeffs. Christine is a cult expert who has a fascinatingly varied prior life, Tolga is a videographer. Both are very much city people and get the sort of suspicious reception from the locals you might expect. But Christine is incredibly persistent and helps the women to start a shop to sell their products and make some money. But during the course of this they discover a new “prophet” is emerging from the chaos and vacuum that has been left by the absence of Warren Jeffs.
I’ve written previously about Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey, which covers Rulon and Warren Jeffs and the Fundamentalist Mormon Church (and was made by the same director and executive producer) but after Warren Jeffs was imprisoned the community was left isolated and leaderless. Then Samuel Bateman appears in town with a group of wives – some of whom look to be underage and the community starts talking. Christine and Tolga decide that they’re going to try and find out what is going on and bring him to justice – and they’re going to film it as they do it. It’s astonishing. And what makes it even more astonishing is that Bateman approached them to make a documentary about him to help him spread his word – as in he thinks this is a good idea.
The big difference from Keep Sweet is that this has all of Tolga’s footage of the documentary that they were filming and so has all of the people that they are talking about in the documentary in their own words on camera at the time that it was happening. Including Samuel. I said in the post about Keep Sweet that the first parts of that were grimmer than I expected (and I was expecting that to be pretty grim) but I think having seen that gave me a really good background coming into this – and although this is pretty horrifying, ultimately it has a satisfying ending (or as satisfying as things can be in these circumstances) to their quest to help the young women that Bateman was marrying*.
I watched all of these episodes back to back in one sitting. I thought it was really well made and realy clever. I admired Christine and Tolga for what they were trying to do – and the nerves of steel that they showed while they were doing it. I have a few questions about the local police response, but that’s not about the documentary! And if you do watch this, this Guardian article from last week and this Hollywood Reporter profile of Christine Maire are interesting reading too.
Have a good Sunday.
*Spoiler: Samuel Bateman was sentenced to 50 years in prison in late 2024
Happy Saturday everyone and I’ve been wandering London’s bookshops again. I don’t think I’ve been to Word on the Water since before the pandemic so it was lovely to go back there.
Word on the Water is a barge on Regent’s Canal, just behind Kings Cross and you can really feel it moving with the water. It’s just lovely.
It has a stove. And lots of comfy spots to sit and peruse the books, or just think about the gentle rocking as the ducks float by outside the window.
I would describe the selection as carefully curated and eclectic. I go to a lot of bookshops and found a lot things in there that I hadn’t seen before to look and and chose from.
There’s a lovely children’s and YA section too and don’t panic there is a section at the front with some of the new release hardbacks as well and some boxes of books on the roof outside too.
It’s a little bit of a trek out of my usual stomping grounds but it was definitely worth the trip.
Happy Friday everyone. If you’re in the UK you may well be watching election results today – as people who’ve been around here for a while will know, I really love election results days so I will be spending my day watching the results come in. But for those of you who aren’t elections nerds, here’s a series post for you.
The Legends and Lattes series are low stakes cozy fantasy novels. Each novel does (sort of) standalone but has a connected set of characters. The first book that was published was Legends and Lattes which was a Book of the Week when I read it a little over a year ago, and that was followed by a prequel Bookshops and Bonedust and then a third book Brigands and Breadknives which was published in the autumn last year.
I think the peril levels are highest in the third book, but there’s still pretty low stakes – and if you’ve read anything about the series you’re pretty sure that it’s going to work out ok in the end because that’ what the promise is. There’s some chaos, there are some weird and wonderful creatures – including but not limited to a creature who lives in a bag and a talking sword – and there are lots of laughs and more than a few feels. They are very easy books to sit down and gobble up in a sitting. And for all that they are cozy and you might think you should read them in autumn, they’re also delightful when read on a sun lounger as I did with book three!
Now if you want to read these, it’s perfectly find to read them in publication order (that’s what I did after all) and the good news is that Legends and Lattes is in Kindle Unlimited at the moment if you’re a member there. And they’re pretty easy to get hold of – I’ve seen them in all sorts of bookstores.
The third Theatreland mystery featuring stage manager Hattie comes out today and the fact that I’ve picked this to highlight this week should probably not be a surprise to you as the first book was a BotW back in February and the second one was one of my favourite new books of last year. According to the blurb, Hattie Breaks A Leg sees Hattie struggling to find work because of all the enemies she’s made. And that’s why she finds herself working on a one night only vanity project. But when a friend comes looking for help to escape serious trouble, she finds herself sucked into a cat and mouse game with some shady types. I really enjoyed the first two books and I’m really looking forward to reading this when my preorder arrives (hopefully today). And because I think it’s a bit under the radar I’m happy to keep banging on about these because I think they deserve it
Hattie Breaks a Leg is out today in paperback, on Kobo and in Kindle Unlimited. I’m hoping that it will relatively easy to find in bookshops too – I’ll be keeping an eye out and reporting back!
It’s the first Wednesday of the month and of course you know what that means. So here I am with three reviews of some of the other books I read in April.
Madonna of Darkness by Hugh Morrison
This is the latest book in Hugh Morrison’s series about Reverend Shaw, a vicar in the 1930s who also has a bit of a sideline in stumbling across murders and intrigue. This one sees him at a fete in a neighbouring village where a new vicar has been causing ructions within the community with his views. But when the troublesome minster is found dead in the church shortly after cancelling the fete he starts to investigate. This has got religious art, more of Morrison’s son than we have previously seen and quite a lot of adventure-thriller along with the mystery.
The Geomagician by Jennifer Mandula*
I’m reporting back in on this one as I featured it in release week. As I said in that post, I was hoping for something in the Emily Wilde, Legends and Lattes ends of the spectrum when I started reading it, but having finished it’s actually closer to the Shades of Magic ends of the spectrum. It’s not a apocalypse-end-of-the-whole-world scenario here but it is very much life and death and future of society one. It’s also got a lot more religion in it than I was expecting – I wasn’t expecting a religious inquisition and battle between church and magic type situation from the blurb either. It felt a lot like Philippa Gregory Tudor fiction-type stakes but in a Victorian setting and with dinosaurs (and Gregory does have magic in some of hers so maybe that’s fair?) and that wasn’t really what I was hoping for – and I’m note sure that’s what the blurb is selling so there may well be a mismatch of expectations of readers going in with what is delivered. There is a second book and there are plot threads left hanging, but I’m not sure I care enough to slog through it when it comes out to find out!
Mr Campion’s Fox by Mike Ripley
One of my holiday reads was a new murder mystery by Mike Ripley that’s coming out at the start of June. I enjoyed it (more on that closer to the time) and when I was looking at Goodreads I realised that Ripley has written some Albert Campion continuations and that I had some of them on the pile and went back to try one. This is 1960s set and sees Campion recruited by the Danish ambassador to observe an unsuitable man that his daughter has become entangled with. But when the daughter goes missing and the boyfriend turns up dead, Albert – along with his wife and son – are in the middle of a mystery again. This has got all the regulars that you could hope for in a Campion book and the setting was reminiscent of Sweet Danger (one of my favourites of the season) but I didn’t love the actual writing style – it wasn’t quite Allingham and I think I might like Ripley more when he’s writing as himself. I do have another of these on the pile so I will give that a go and see how that one pans out.
A slightly rule-breaking choice this week on an author repitition point, but I have a valid reason for this apart from the fact that this one comes out this week and so is timely. Read on and all will become clear. I promise.
Sierra and Benji were meant to be together – until the stillbirth of their baby ripped them apart. After their devastating loss, they struggled to carry on working together at Sierra’s family’s ranch and so Benji got a new job as a wrangler across the border in Utah. But when circumstances mean Benji is needed back at the ranch, the two of them have to find a way of working together – and may be that will also see them finding their way back to each other.
Now the baby loss isn’t mentioned in the blurb for this – it’s just called “a devastating twist of fate” but given that this has a big warning from the author before the book about the book being something you might want to avoid for people who are struggling with starting a family that I feel like it’s only fair to mention it. Also Blue Devil Woman is the second book in Sloane Fletcher’s Hunt Ranch series and it is mentioned in the first book because Sierra and Benji are the main secondary side characters in that. And that is one of the reasons that I wanted to write about it is because when I previewed that first book, Night Rider, and then reviewed it in Quick Reviews my main point was that the cover didn’t reflect the content – ie that it was very much a romantic suspense novel. So I wanted to read this second book both because I wanted to see how Sierra and Benji worked it out but also whether the working out of it was going to be a romantic suspense as well.
And the answer is that it’s much more of a straight romance novel. The tension in it doesn’t come from an external threat as it does in Night Rider, it comes from the loss that Sierra and Benji have suffered and the different ways that they are dealing (or not dealing) with it. And so the warning at the start about who this might be suitable for is very apt. I do think that for people in some circumstances this is going to be too much grief and loss. But with that said, I though that it needes something else within the plot to help propel it along – I felt like there was a lot of time spent covering the same ground over and over rather than moving the narrative on (*slight spoilers at the bottom) and then when we got to the resolution it was over a little quickly and felt a bit rushed.
Now I get that this isn’t an entirely positive review – and usually Book of the Week is my favourite thing I read in a week, and this doesn’t quite fit that. However it is the book that I read last week that I had the most to say about and so I feel justified in my choice!
My copy came from NetGalley, but it’s out on Thursday in the UK in Kindle and in paperback, although strangely not until October on Kobo.
Happy Reading!
*after a certain amount of time I didn’t any more demonstrations that Sierra was dealing with her loss by ignoring it and keeping busy so that she couldn’t/didn’t think about it, and the way that she kept pushing Benji away started to get almost irritating because it felt like she was stuck in a moment she wasn’t willing to try and get out of. Now that may be a very accurate representation of baby loss, but when it’s the driving element in a romance plot and happening over and over, it started to feel like there wasn’t enough to the plot and the book either needed to be shorter or needed another element to it.
It’s a bank holiday in the UK today – if you’re off work I hope you have a lovely time and that the weather where you are is good. And if (like me) you’re at work – I hope your day is easy and over fast and that you have the next bank holiday off! Anyway back down to earth after the two weeks off and a fairly solid list, helped by the fact that I was on the train every day. This week I’m staying in London a couple of nights and hoping to catch a show or too so the list may suffer accordingly. I am making progress on the still reading books – even though it might not look like it!
Happy Sunday everyone, and after my mega run of Sunday posts about theatre visits, I’ve got a change for you today – a podcast.
The full title of this is Wild Things: Siegfried and Roy and it’s an eight part series about the German magicians and illusionists Siegfried Fischbacher and Roy Horn. They were famous for using big cats in their shows in Las Vegas. Their careers ended when Roy was attacked – and nearly killed – by one of their white tigers during a show at the Mirage. Now I’m not going to lie, I remember the attack happening – and the many National Enquirer headlines about the duo, so I was shocked to realise that it happened in 2003. Time is a flat circle etc.
Anyway, Wild Things isn’t a new podcast, it came out in 2022 – it’s just I only found it recently, probably because it’s being turned into an Apple TV series starring Jude Law and Andrew Garfield. Although the podcast does go into detail of what happened on the night of the attack, it is a profile of their entire lives and careers – starting in wartime Germany through their meeting on a cruise ship in the 1950s and their development of a double act together, initially on cruise ships but the moving to the nightclub circuit and then to hotels and Las Vegas. It also probes the duo’s much repeated claims about the safety of their act through the years and efforts to protect the brand after the attack.
I listened to most of the series back to back across about three nights and then had to take a bit of a break as it got to the grim details of the tiger attack. But that’s because I’m squeamish more than anything and it’s quite graphic and I didn’t want to have nightmares about angry tigers! It’s got good access to some of the people who were close to (as in proximity) the duo as well as people who were involved in the investigation into the tiger attack. As someone who primarily knew about Siegfried and Roy as a punchline (different sorts of punchlines before and after the attack) or from the aforementioned National Enquirer headlines I found this really interesting – they come out of this as three dimensional people – outrageous in their public personas, who inspired loyalty in the people that worked with them but also flawed and contradictory. If you’ve got a long journey coming up, this would make a great listen.
If you weren’t expecting this today, you should have been. When have I ever been able to go through an airport without a) buying books and b) taking photos of the options. And it’s been six whole months since the last time I was in an airport so the choices have changed somewhat!
I’m starting with the non-fiction because when I was thinking about what I might buy at the airport ahead of the holiday, it was the non-fiction selection I was most excited to look at – and then the most disappointed in when I got there. Most times I go to the airport there is either a non-ficiton hardback I’m looking for or I stumble across something I hadn’t heard about that turns out to be good. But this time I already have the Liza, and I read Entitled last holiday. There are a couple of books that I’m sort of interested in, but I already have other books by the same author on the shelf waiting to be read and I’m trying to be better about that.
On the airport (hardback) fiction front it was also a bit of a disappointment. The Impossible Fortune wasn’t out last holiday so that was on the list although as the (normal) paperback is out this week coming I wasn’t averse to waiting for that if there were better choices. But I’ve already read Meet the Newmans, I have at least two Tom Hindles in the backlog, the Dan Brown is insanely long and this format of paperback is unwieldy enough without that! I was tempted by The Ending Writes Itself and Yesteryear but that was about it.
This isn’t the best photo, but it illustrates my problem – the things that I’m interested in like Atmosphere, Heated Rivalry I already own and the rest is Not For Verity. And to be honest, that’s about it. I have other photos, but there is a lot of duplication in them and not a lot of books that I’m interested in. There was more stuff that I have read already – like Happy Place and Before the Coffee Gets Cold – but I was hoping for better from the new book selection. Hey ho, better luck next holiday.
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 