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Recommendsday: April Kindle offers

April 12, 2023April 11, 2023 veritywilde

It’s that time again – summon up your willpower (or not) because I’m about to round up the best kindle deals I could find on books or authors I like!

Lets start with the fact that very recent BotW and one of my favourites of the year, Funny You Should Ask is 99p. I wrote about the London Highwaymen pair of novels in the autumn and The Queer Principles of Kit Webb and The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes are both £1.99 again. Christina Lauren’s The Unhoneymooners is 99p – it’s a fake relationship enemies to lovers sort of story that I really enjoyed back in 2019 and obviously I’ve recommended several more of Christina Lauren’s books since then. Side note, they also seem to be getting reissues of their novels with new covers, so watch out for that if you’re the sort of person that remembers if you’ve read something based on the cover.

I mentioned Before the Coffee Gets Cold and its sequel in a Quick Reviews post back in 2021 – there are now four in the series about a cafe in Japan where you can travel back in time for the time it takes to drink a cup of coffee, but the first is 99p at the moment. Dear Mrs Bird is 99p at the moment – its sequel Yours Cheerfully was another 2021 BotW and the third in the series is out next month and I have a copy so will try and report back. Brit Bennet’s The Vanishing Half is 99p at the moment – it was one of my favourite books of 2020, and my mum has recently borrowed it off me and really enjoyed it as well. And In the Name of the Rose is 99p – I mentioned it in passing in my post about Mysteries with Vicars, but it’s a medieval murder mystery set among a community of monks with a famous document collection.

Just one non-fiction to mention – Paperback Crush is £1.62 – this history of teen fictions in the 80s and 90s was a BotW back in 2018, if you read through any of the era it’s worth a look. In books I have but haven’t read yet, Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers is 99p at the moment

And then in the series that people might be collecting of the Wimsey‘s Whose Body and The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club are 99p, while Unnatural Death is (the very weird price of) £1.28. The World of Blandings – which is the first two novels and some short stories – is 99p. Only one 99p Georgette Heyer this month and it’s April Lady which I really like, but there are a lot that are £1.99 – including some of my favourites like Devil’s Cub and Lady of Quality. Moving Pictures is this month’s cheap Discworld book and I’ve bought it while writing this because it’s been years since I read it and I want to see if my thoughts on it have changed (it wasn’t one of my favourites originally).

Happy reading everyone!

Book of the Week, books, new releases

Book of the Week: Romantic Comedy

April 11, 2023April 10, 2023 veritywilde

Yup, I’m going there. I can’t help it. I was trying to pace myself, but I had it finished before the end of release day so it had to be my pick this week.

So as previously mentioned the plot of this is: Sally is a long time writer at a late night comedy sketch show called The Night Owls – known as TNO and definitely not SNL. She’s single but has watched the show’s actors fall in and out of love with guest stars on the show, but when her friend Danny starts dating a glamorous actress who was a guest host on the show she writes a sketch about average looking – or dorky – guys who get involved with beautiful women and how you never see the reverse and calls it the Danny Horst Rule. That week’s guest host is Noah Brewster – a music star whose romantic history (according to the gossip magazines) includes a lot of models. Noah and Sally hit it off as they work on sketches together but would someone like him ever date someone like her?

The first part of the book covers the production week of the show and then we jump ahead two years to Covid times when Sally is staying with her stepdad in Kansas City and Noah is in LA and they reconnect. It’s playing with the ideas of romantic comedy movies whilst also being a romantic comedy and following a lot of the rules that you would expect but in subtle (well sort of) ways. What I always enjoy about Curtis Sittenfeld’s books are the heroines – they’re always smart often a little (or a lot) neurotic and have interesting and not perfect lives and back stories. It’s fun just to spend time with them – but even more so when Sittenfeld is playing with something that you love – which I think is why I loved her Eligible (modern day retelling of Pride and Prejudice) so much. And this is a good one. If you follow celeb gossip in anyway you can probably work out who inspired the Danny Horst rule, but actually that’s just a device to set up everything else. I’ve read a bunch of books recently where one half of the couple is famous and the other isn’t and while a lot of them give their celebrities similar issues not all the books are good at it. And yes I realise that I’ve now recommended three of them in a very short time – but I’ve read more of them than that and haven’t told you about the rest!

I guess the main difference with this is that because it’s Curtis Sittenfeld it gets a hardback release and a photo cover (in the UK at least) rather than coming out in paperback with a cartoon/drawn cover like Nora Goes Off Script or Funny You Should Ask. But it’s actually much more similar to those in style and tone than it is to a lot of the other stuff that gets hardback releases. And that’s a good thing not a criticism. And it’s also a Reese Witherspoon pick. So that’s fun too.

Anyway, I have a physical copy of Romantic Comedy that is still on its way to me (it was a special edition for indie booksellers which has got held up in the bank holiday weekend post) but I also requested it from NetGalley before the preorder – not expecting to be approved but I was! Hence how I’ve managed to read it before my actual copy has arrived. It’s out now and available in all the stores – I saw it in Waterstones and Foyles at the weekend and it’s also in ebook on Kindle and Kobo and I’m audiobook. I suspect it’s the sort of thing that will also get an airport edition if you’re heading off on holiday and it would make a great sun lounger read.

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: April 3 – April 9

April 10, 2023April 10, 2023 veritywilde

I hope you all had a good Easter Sunday if you celebrate – and if you don’t I hope you at least got a bank holiday out of it. We’ve had a lovely long weekend so far and it’s a bank holiday here today, so who knows what I might manage to finish this week coming – after all I got another book off the long runners list this week so that’s progress. I’m also having a good go at getting through the April NetGalley releases I have – I hesitate to even write that down, but I’m trying!

Read:

Scales of Justice by Ngaio Marsh

The White Lady by Jacqueline Winspear*

Unnatural Death by Dorothy L Sayers

Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld*

The Final Revival of Opal and Nev by Dawnie Walton*

Bookman, Dead Style by Paige Shelton

The Vanderbeekers Make a Wish by Karina Yan Glaser

Started:

If Only You by Chloe Liese*

Shot Through the Hearth by Kate Carlisle

Still reading:

The Dress Diary of Mrs Anne Sykes by Kate Strasdin*

Shadows of London by Andrew Taylor*

The Empire by Michael Ball*

Travellers in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd

Well I went into two bookshops on our trip to London on Saturday looking for a specific book with no luck. I’ve now got it reserved at Waterstones Gower Street – but as I haven’t paid for it yet that doesn’t count right? So it’s just one preorder. Check me.

Bonus photo: Easter Sunday afternoon in the countryside with the little dog after a lovely family meal. Exactly how I like a religious holiday.

*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, streaming, tv

Not a Book: Our Flag Means Death

April 9, 2023March 29, 2023 veritywilde

It’s Sunday again and time for me to talk about something that isn’t a book again, and today it’s Our Flag Means Death – which is a comedy series about pirates very loosely based on a real life pirate.

It’s the early Eighteenth Century, and Stede Bonnet is tired of his comfortable life as a husband and father on Barbados and buys a ship and runs off to be a pirate. Except that he’s a really, really bad pirate. Like terrible. He has no aptitude for killing and his ship is outfitted for luxury rather than anything else. When we meet him at the beginning of the series, his crew are so fed up of him that they’re considering mutiny, but decide that he’ll manage to get himself killed soon enough. Except he doesn’t and soon he and his crew come across the notorious pirate Blackbeard, and they make a deal – Blackbeard will help Stede become a better pirate and Stede will teach Blackbeard how to become an aristocrat. Except it’s not as simple as that. Oh and it’s a romantic comedy.

If you’re struggling to get your head around all this, and I’ll admit I’m not doing a very good job of explaining it (luckily the first series came out in the US a year ago, so I’m hoping some of you will already have watched this and have thoughts to share), but you’ve probably spotted Taika Waititi in the trailer, and he’s also an executive producer. So the easy way to describe this is to say think of the same sort of humour as What We Do in the Shadows, but with pirates in the 1700s (and not a mockumentary). The episodes are only 25 minutes long, they’re very easy to binge and if it works for you (and it really works for me!) it will leave you with a big smile on your face.

If you’re in the UK, the first series is available on the BBC iPlayer to watch now. If you’re elsewhere in the world, you’ll need to look for it on a streaming service – probably whatever HBO Max is called in your territory. Series two has finished filming but there’s no news yet on a release date for it.

Have a great Sunday everyone.

announcement, tv

Magpie Murders redux

April 8, 2023 veritywilde

It’s Easter weekend everyone and if you’re looking for something to watch – and in the UK – the Magpie Murders is being shown on TV at last. The second episode is on this evening but the whole series is on the iPlayer already. I hadn’t realised this was happening until I saw a trailer for it before Match of the Day last weekend, so apologies for the slightly late notice. I wrote about the adaptation of Anthony Horowitz’s book last year when it was on BritBox – you can read that review here.

Have a great weekend everyone.

books

Series redux: Blessings

April 7, 2023 veritywilde

It’s Easter this weekend so I’m taking the opportunity to remind you of Beverly Jenkins’ Blessings series which are very good small town romances with a great cast of characters and which have a strong inspirational/religious element to them. It’s nearly four years since I wrote this Series I Love post about them and I stand by it all. There is an eleventh in the series but it’s not available here in the UK, but I do have it preordered for whenever it does appear. Happy Easter everyone!

Book previews, books

Out Today: New Curtis Sittenfeld

April 6, 2023April 6, 2023 veritywilde

Honestly I think I’m allowed to squeal about this one – you all know how much I love Sittenfeld at this point. I’ve reviewed a bunch of them here, and I got excited about this arriving only a few weeks ago. I’ve got a hard copy ordered and I’ve got an advance via NetGalley – which of course I’ve started – and it’s so good I’m trying to ration myself…

Anyway as the title suggests this is a romantic comedy where a writer of a comedy show that is Definitely Not Saturday Night Live falls for one of the guest hosts. It’s only a week since I wrote about Funny You Should Ask and a few weeks since Nora Goes Off Script and I’m hoping this follows them in the famous people and normal people romance stakes, rather than another couple I’ve read hunting for the magic but which haven’t worked as well.

books, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: March Quick Reviews

April 5, 2023April 1, 2023 veritywilde

And this months quick reviews are all books that came out in the last month or so, which is a record for me I think, and conincidentally several are books that I flagged to you on release day that I’m now reporting back on, which is also a record for me. Savour it for it may never happen again!

Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen by K J Charles*

Well this is really good. Smugglers! Marshes! Beetles! Recovering legal clerks! A big noisy family! Awful family! Genuine peril! If you ever read The Unknown Ajax and thought “well this is good but I want more of the smuggling, less rich people problems and lots of walking on the very atmospheric marsh” then this might be the very thing – as long as you don’t want closed door of course, because maybe don’t read this on public transport. Gareth and Joss have plenty of issues to work through but they both grow and come into their own as they find a way though everything. Lovely.

No Life for a Lady by Hannah Dolby*

From one extreme to the other in some ways – in the KJ Charles there is a lot of… bedroom action whereas in Hannah Dolby’s debut our heroine is delightfully clueless about sex and the like as she tries to figure out what happened to her mother who disappeared a decade earlier. This is charming as well as witty and I’m hoping that it’s going to turn out to be the first in a series. Hopefully enough people will buy it to make that happen because we have Savvy lady sleuths but not so many of the slightly bewildered by the the range of human behaviour ones and I would like more!

What Happens in the Ballroom by Sabrina Jeffries*

Like the Hellions of Halstead Hall series, this has a mix of high society and earning money. In this case the series is based on a trio of women who have started a party planning business to avoid being governesses. I’ll leave you to decide how realistic you think that is, but I’m happy to go with it, because I like my heroines independent and finding ways to have some choices and control over their lives. Anyway, this is the second book in the series and our heroine is Eliza, a military widow who is building herself a future after the death of her husband. Our hero is her husband’s best friend, who asks for her company’s help to help another young widow find a new husband. Eliza is puzzled about why Nathaniel is taking such an interest in the young woman and her child, but goes along with it. She is burned from the way her marriage unfolded (as well as her parents marriage) and he has secrets that he’s hiding. Can they find a happily ever after? Of course they can. This is a fun and easy read – I guessed a few of the secrets that were going on, but not all, and I enjoyed watching Eliza and Nat grope their way towards a happily ever after. Steamy, but in line with what you would expect from Jeffries. I think.

And that is your lot – what a great month of reading March was. Really and truly I read some really, really good new stuff as well as revisiting some favourite authors and series.

Book of the Week, books

Book of the Week: The Roughest Draft

April 4, 2023April 4, 2023 veritywilde

It may be a new month, but for the second week in a row I’m picking a contemporary romance with a then and now strand to it. Admittedly I did finish this in March, so maybe it’s not the start of a trend, but hey, it’s nice to imagine that there’s some rhyme or reason to my reading!

Katrina and Nathan used to be writing partners. But three years ago after they had finished their second book together, their partnership broke up for reasons neither has ever spoken about. Since then, they haven’t spoken and have moved on with their lives – including Nathan writing a novel on his own. But it didn’t sell as well as the books they wrote together – and now his publisher has passed on his next novel and says they want the third book on his contract with Katrina. And so the two of them end up in the same house they wrote the last book in, trying to write another best seller. But it’s hard to write a romantic novel when you hate the person you’re writing with and the two of them will have to try to work through their differences to get it done.

The book jumps backwards and forwards to show you what went wrong between Nathan and Katrina as well as them in the present day. So it’s sort of friends to enemies to lovers. The reasons for the break up are sort of what you expect they might be – or at least what I was expecting – and the pace of it all is quite slow. It’s very close focus on the two of them – but also manages not to give you much detail about either of their personalities beyond that they are writers. Emily Wibberley and Austin Sigemund-Broka are a married writing duo and have written a few YA romances – which perhaps explains some of the above. And I know that sounds like I didn’t like it, but I actually really did. I read it in less than 48 hours and bought the next book from them to see how they handle something that’s not writing about a couple writing! Given that this was their debut rom com and only came out in October, I was surprised they already have a second out but who knows the mysterious ways of publishing in the TikTok algorithm era.

If you are only going to read one of the picks from the last two weeks, I would probably go with Funny You Should Ask, but if you like YA or New Adult romances then this might be the one for you. I read this on Kindle, but it’s also on Kobo. I haven’t spotted it in a bookshop yet, but that doesn’t mean you won’t.

Happy Reading.

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: March 27 – April 2

April 3, 2023April 3, 2023 veritywilde

Oh my goodness. I’m making progress on the long runners! Two finished and more progress on the others. I will get there. I will. Anyway we’ve reached the end of the first quarter of the year – and as you can see from the stats I’m on track with the bookshelf challenge, even if the books come from the pile in front of the shelf! And considering how busy last week was, it’s a good list really. Go me. I’ve reached the point in the Alleyn’s where I’m past my favourites and I don’t already own the audiobooks so to conserve my credits I’ve started to re listen to Peter Wimsey as well as given myself permission to skip any Alleyns that I fancy – like the weird one with the kidnapping and the smugglers. Even if it does have some Troy in it. But I make the rules so I can break them too!

Read:

The Roughest Draft by Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka

Whose Body by Dorothy L Sayers

The Plantagenets by Dan Jones

Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead

Rogues by Patrick Radden Keefe

Clouds of Witness by Dorothy L Sayers

A Wrench in the Works by Kate Carlisle

A Very Merry Bromance by Lyssa Kay Adams