So after my little moment about Cowboys and Romantic Suspense yesterday, I thought it was the perfect time to remind you about my post about Rebekah Weatherspoon’s Cowboys of California series which I wrote nearly three years ago. As I noted in that, although Weatherspoon has other series which are very much romantic suspense* but these are much lower angst, rich people falling in love on a luxury ranch stories, which are also fairy tale retellings so subtle that I didn’t spot the fact that that’s what they were doing when I was reading them!
Side note: as we’re moving towards illustrated/cartoon covers for ranch/cowboy novels, I’m expecting these three to get a recover at some point in the near future, if the whole of the rest of the genre isn’t romantic suspense!
*some of which are a bit trauma bonding/inappropriate relationship with a co-worker-y
Happy Thursday everyone, and I have another new book out today that I wanted to talk about. So we have a big trend of Cowboy and ranch romances at the moment, but Night Rider is adding in the famous person and normal person trope in this case a a cowboy and a Hollywood starlet. But. But. Look at this cover: Pastel colours, illustrations. Yes there is the word suspense in the Bailey Hannah quote, but does this look like a romantic suspense novel? Because this is the final line of the description:
But that dream is threatened when Nina’s past catches up with her. And when an unlikely predator strikes, she and Maverick must make a choice: to let each other go or face the world together.
So. I have a copy of this via NetGalley because I am behind with the Cowboy/Ranch trend and I wanted to get in on it, but when I was picking it out, I didn’t really peg it as being as Romantic Suspense as the Amazon page says it is. So I’m going to read it, and see how romantic suspense it is, and then go and find some more cowboys to see if they’re all actually romantic suspense and cover signalling has gone even more out the window than I previously thought!
As you know, I’m not reading across the US in 2026 (and if you didn’t you can find my reasons here) but as the last act of my six year odyssey reading a book from every US state each year, here are a couple of the books from the tail end of the 2025 challenge that I have not yet written about for today’s recommendsday.
New Uses for Old Boyfriends by Beth Kendrick
Delaware is always a hard state to do, so after enjoying the first book in the Black Dog Bay series so much that it was a BotW last year, in the absence of anything else from Delaware I came back for book 2 this year. This is a fresh romance story, but linked to the previous one in that the characters from that pop up again. Our heroine this time is Lila who is back in the town she grew up in after her marriage imploded and career as shopping channel host came to a screeching halt. Back home she finds that her family’s money is gone and her mum is in denial about this. The only reason I didn’t like this as much as the first one is that I found Lila (and her mum even more so) a bit grating at the start, she’s such a princess and that’s really not my thing, but the character growth was so good that it was worth reading through my initial irritation! I am definitely going to be reading book three!
Savage Run by C J Box
This second book in the series sees Joe investigating after a massive explosion in his patch which the police say has killed a notorious environmental activist in a stunt gone wrong. But he’s soon discovering clues that seem to point to a conspiracy. These books are right on the edge of what I can deal with in terms of thrillers – the plots are amazing but they’re very violent and the only reason I can stick it out is because I know that it’s a long series so Joe has to make it to the end of the book alive!
Renewing Forever by Kelly Jensen*
This is a later in life second chance romance between two men who were childhood friends but whose relationship broke down just during the summer after high school. It also has as side order of trying to figure out what to do with an old resort in the Poconos for one half of the duo and a difficult relationship with a parent (and some associated money issues for the other). I enjoyed reading it once I got into it, but it was a bit of a case of why didn’t they just talk to each other at some point. I know that for Book Reasons they had to not do it, but 30 years is a lot of stubbornness!
And there you are. That’s the lot from this year, but here’s the equivalent post from last year as well.
Happy Tuesday everyone, and I’m back with a Book of the Week pick after last week’s skip, although I have a slight issue, because although NetGalley says it was out last week, none of the sites seem to have it as out until the middle of February. But as it was the best thing I read last week, I’m still writing about it. Sorry, not sorry. I’ll try and remember to remind you when it comes out.
It’s 1949 and Beattie Cavendish works for GCHQ. Officially she works in admin and training secretaries, but actually she’s a covert operative. When her bosses send her to Scotland to investigate a disappearance at a a listening station. The staff there are suspicious of her, and she has a job on her hands to find out what is going on. Her uncle lives near the station but when she goes to visit, she discovers that his cottage is empty and looks like it was left in a hurry. Beattie becomes convinced that the two things are related and starts to dig in to what is going on in the Highlands with the help of private investigator Patrick Corrigan, who is all to happy to leave London for a bit after having caught the attention of some Russian gangsters.
This is actually the second book featuring Beattie, and although I haven’t read the first it didn’t really cause me too many problems with the plot. There are some throwbacks to that previous novel but enough is explained that you can follow along – although it did make me interested in reading that earlier book. This is the first book by Mary-Jane Riley that I’ve read but also the first Cold War set historical mystery that I’ve read in quite a long while. And this is specifically Cold War (rather than generic 1950s) because of Beattie’s work and all the circumstances of the mystery. And I enjoyed it a lot.
There are some commonalities in Beattie’s back story with other characters that I have liked in inter-war-set mysteries – I can’t really tell you what because it’s spoilers – and it makes for an interesting character. I’m also interested in the friendship with Corrigan and the context around that – this is where I did feel that I was missing some context – he has a fiancée and without having read the first novel I wasn’t sure if I was meant to be rooting for him to break it off with her for Beattie or not – because from the information given his fiancée had helped in that previous mystery even if her actions in this one seemed to be slightly against what Patrick wants in terms of his future. So definitely up for reading a third book to see what happens there.
My copy came from NetGalley, as I said at the top it’s not out until February 19th. You can however pre-order in Kindle or Kobo. There is also apparently a paperback edition coming in the autumn.
Not quite back to normal service after Sheffield because it was a very, very busy week but I’m getting there. And as we’re hurtling towards the end of the month that’s probably for the best. Hopefully now I’m back up to date with everything and I can get down to finishing some more books and not just starting them!
Bonus picture: I love an old school logo, and this moving van in Fitzroy square felt like such a mix of modernity and tradition that I had to take a photo!
*next to a book book title indicates that it came from NetGalley. ** indicates it was an advance copy from a source other than NetGalley.
Happy Sunday, it’s documentary o’clock again, and this is one that came out around New Year, so I’m even kind of topical for once. Check Me.
I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not is a documentary film exploring the life and career of Chevy Chase. For those who are younger than me: Now in his 80s, Chevy Chase was the breakout star from the first season of Saturday Night Live in 1975 and left the show in its second season to go to Hollywood. In the 1980s he was in a string of box office hits – in Caddyshack, three National Lampoon’s Vacation movies and the one I remember being repeated on TV when I was a child: Three Amigos. But as the 90s progressed his movie career stalled out and he only really returned to prominence when he was cast in the sitcom Community in 2009, and then that ended badly. As you can see from the trailer, this has interviews with the man himself, his family, some of his costars and others who have worked with him behind the scenes and a few other famous talking heads.
Now the other thing that you need to know about him is that he’s got a bit of a reputation for being an “asshole”. I read Nick de Semylen’s Wild and Crazy Guys back in 2023 and he didn’t come over as particularly sympathetic in that. And he’s not helping himself out in some of the interviews that he does for this either. There are some glaring absences among the talking heads of people who have worked with him. So he’s not a massively sympathetic figure a lot of the time. But his childhood sounds grim and he’s been married to the same woman for more than 40 years and so that helps soften him a little. And he’s been ill recently – with time in a coma which has left him with some memory loss, which along with the coke addiction may mean that he’s not (always) lying when he says that he doesn’t remember doing or saying what others say he did or said.
This is directed by Marina Zenovich, who also made Lance about Lance Armstrong (which is really good) and Robin Williams: Come Inside my Mind (which I have on my to watch list) as well as other documentaries including two about Roman Polanski and another about Richard Prior. So she has plenty of experience with making films about comedians and it shows because the clips she’s picked of Chevy in his comedy prime are really good. If you weren’t around for his hey day (which I wasn’t) it’s easy to just dismiss him because of the stories about what a nightmare he can be. But he’s hard going when he’s not playing a character. He really is. Just read this New York Times interview he did with Zenovich to promote the documentary if you don’t believe me.
This is on Sky Documentaries and Now TV in the UK and on CNN in the US at the moment. It is due to appear on HBO Max at the end of January
Happy Saturday everyone. As you know, I was in Sheffield last week watching about 35 hours of figure skating. But in the mornings before the action got started I had a lovely time wandering around the town and of course I visited some bookshops. So here we are today with one of them.
Tucked away down a side street off one of the man shopping streets is Juno Books. It’s an independent, feminist and queer bookshop, where the majority of books are by women and queer people and have a really strong focus on showcasing books and voices that are under-represented and/or marginalised. You can read their manifesto here.
It’s a really cute store and a really interesting and clearly very carefully curated selection. I saw a lot of things that I hadn’t seen elsewhere – I would definitely have bought In Love with Love if it hadn’t been in hardback and I wasn’t going to have to lug it around with me all day at the skating (don’t worry, I did buy something, more details to follow) as I had about about two miles still to walk and I already had sandwiches and drinks in my size-restricted bag (which was a shoulder back because rucksacks were banned…). Anyhow, rant over. I also hadn’t see the Crystal Jeans either – I read The Inverts a couple of years ago – and The Girls Who Grew Big looks interesting too.
I also hadn’t seen anything about the Gish Jen, which looks really interesting, as does Read Yourself Happy and Vulture. Obviously there’s more than just the tables, but it’s a small shop and it was quite busy and I do try not to be a pain when Im in a shop. But I had a lovely wander, could havebought a lot of books, resisted because of my poor shoulders. If you want to support Juno books, their bookshop.com page is here. You’ve already seen my actual purchase in last week’s Books Incoming – it is Just As You Are, which as I said in that post is a Pride and Prejudice retelling, but is set in and around a queer magazine in New York that has just been saved from closure by two wealthy lesbians.
As you know I didn’t read a lot last week, but I did get intermittently very cold feet watching the figure skating, so for today’s series post, I wanted to point you back at my post about Trisha Ashley’s books set in Lancashire. Yes it is late January and several of these are Christmassy, but hey, I’m allowed to go a bit rogue!
I have an extra review this week because A Very Novel Murder came out on Tuesday and I have already read it – back in December in fact. This is Elllie Alexander’s new series which is itself a spin-off of her Secret Bookcase series. So if you’ve read that you’ll already be familiar with our heroine Annie, who is now opening her own private dectective agency with her friend Fletcher, as well as continuing to run the Secret Bookcase bookshop. I can’t really say any more about the backstory than that, because if I do, I’m spoiling the previous series for those who haven’t read it – but you can find my post about the series here.
Anyway in this first in the new series, Annie and Fletch take on their first case when an elderly woman asks them to investigate the death of her neighbour, a promising surfer whose death the police think was either accidental or suicide. There is also a new running story for the series, in the same way that the thread that ran through the Secret Bookcase was Annie’s quest to find out who had murdered her best friend.
I enjoyed this – it’s got some set up going on for the series, but because it’s an established group of characters from the previous series Alexander hasn’t felt the need to go overboard there (also it would have been spoilery!). I had the culprit for the murder pegged relatively early, but there were enough side twists that I didn’t mind too much when I did turn out to be right. My issue with the final Secret Bookcase was that the running plot meant that the mystery of the week (so to speak) got less complex to allow time for that, this was better than the last couple there, so hopefully we won’t see the same thing again in this series. I’m looking forward to reading the next one.
I got my copy via NetGalley, but it’s out now and in Kindle Unlimited, which of course means it’s not on Kobo at the moment except for as an audiobook. I’ve never seen these in the shops, but Amazon claims it’s available in Paperback (and that that came out in November) so who knows.
How long has this post taken me to write? A long time. Did I start it in summer 2025 when I saw that there was a sequel to The Socialite Spy coming? Yes. Has this see-sawed wildly in the writing between abdication books and Edward VIII books? Also yes. Am I posting it now because yesterday was the 90th anniversary of Edward VIII’s accession? Yes. Was that the thing that finally gave me the push to post it? Yes again. Anyway, here we are.
Andrew Larman’s The Windsor’s At War is actually his second book in a trilogy about the Windsors. The first, The Crown in Crisis, followed the events leading up to the Abdication, and this follows the relations between the now-Duke of Windsor and his brother the new King from 1937 and through to the end of the Second World War. The final book in the trilogy is The Power and the Glory and examines what happened after the Duke of Windsor’s wartime activities emerged and finishes with Elizabeth II’s coronation. I’ve only read this one of the three, and I’m not sure this told me anything I didn’t already know – and the writing can be a bit dry at times. But if you’re after an in-depth look at the situation this – and the others in the trilogy – might be a good option for you. I’ll be keeping an eye out for them, at a sensible price of course!
I’m following that with Abdication by Brian Inglis, which was actually written in 1966 for the 30th anniversary of the abdication, by an author who remembered it happening when he was a school boy and who had access to lots of the people involved because they were still alive. And it’s definitely got a different sort of sensibility to the more modern books, but those eyewitness reports are worth it if you’re really interested in the minutae of what went on and already know a bit about the characters. Which I am, and I do. It’s especially good on the political context of the time and who the different non-royal characters were. But probably one for the completists.
Next up is Anna Pasternak’s The American Duchess, which is a 2019 biography of Wallis Simpson originally called Untitled, but renamed for the paperback publication. Pasternak says she’s trying to understand the woman behind the headlines, and as is often the case with Wallis biographies says it’s “her story as it’s never been told before”. Having read that, I would say that the way that it is different is that it is giving Wallis a very easy ride – putting the best possible interpretation on her behaviour and ascribing the worst interpretation to everyone else’s actions. It was published before Lownie’s Traitor King, which led to a re-evaluation of the Nazi sympathies of the couple, but even bearing in mind what was known before that Pasternak glosses over the pre-war visit to Hitler and the events surrounding it. It gives a lot of weight to Diana Mosley’s views on the Duchess – without giving the context of Mosley herself – married to the head of the British Fascists, who was friends with Hitler and wrote an incredibly partisan and gushing biography of her friend. The Anne Sebba is better on pre-war Wallis, the Lownie better on post war.
Talking of Diana Mosley, I have also read her book about The Duchess of Windsor and I cannot recommend it. My goodreads review from back in 2016 reads: “I was expecting this book to be partisan, but it was much, much more biased than I had expected… Worth reading only as a lesson to retain your critical faculties when you read any non-fiction book to remind yourself what the author’s objectives may be.” I need say no more.
Moving on… The Kings Loot by Richard Wallace is a look at the astonishing jewel collection that Edward bought for Wallis and the origins and provenance thereof. Like the Brian Inglis, it’s probably only one for the truly interested because the writing style is hard going. But there is some really interesting stuff in there about Edward VIII’s potential raiding of the royal jewellery hoard which had been gathered from colonising the world and marrying into various European royal families.
There are still a couple of books I’m yet to read – the Phillip Ziegler Edward biography and the Michael Bloch Wallis biography as well any of the Andrew Morton about Wallis. I’ve tried some of the Alan Lascelles diaries and never managed to get through them, but I may yet give them another go. I have the Larman that precedes Windsors at War on the Kindle as well. And of course it’s a source of endless fascination to historians, particularly in the current climate, so I’m sure there will be more in the pipeline…
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 