Author: veritywilde

Journalist, armchair sports fan, book worm and show fiend. There's a sentence you don't hear too often.
Book of the Week, books, new releases

Book of the Week: Brynn and Sebastian Hate Each Other

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Say hello to a BotW that’s actually featuring on its publication day! Make a note, it doesn’t happen very often!

Brynn is just finishing her first week in a prime new breakfast TV job when a hot mic moment threatens to derail everything she has worked for. The small town girl persona that she and the network have crafted for her is derailed when she disparages her home town to her cohost – not knowing that the ad break is over. Her only route to redemption is to head back to that small town and try and make amends. Her host in Adelaide Springs is newcomer (well it’s all relative) Sebastian, a former superstar reporter who disappeared from the journalistic world in mysterious circumstances. Not that Brynn knows that. It’s hate at first sight. Or is it?

The fact that the cover says “A Love Story” on it should give you the clue that it’s not, and it’s a full on grumpy-sunshine enemies to lovers sort of thing. I read it in about 36 hours and although the journalist in me had a few issues with it, they mostly didn’t bother me at the time! I also love a small town romance – especially when they feature someone returning after a long period away so if any of that floats your boat usually then this might be a good one to try. I haven’t read any of Bethany Turner’s previous novels but based on this I would happily read more if they came my way.

My copy of Brynn and Sebastian Hate Each Other came via NetGalley, but it’s out now in all the usual formats – Kindle, Kobo and hard copy. As it’s only out today, I have no idea how easy it will be to find in stores, but you know me well enough to know that I’ll report back if I spot it!

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: August 28 – September 3

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I’m actually quite pleased with this for a week of reading. I was super busy but I enjoyed what I read. There’s a few things that have inspired some thoughts about things to write about too, which I really felt like I was needing. Now it’s September and the schools are going back so of course this week is predicted to be very hot, so we’ll see what that does to everything!

Read:

JFK is Missing by Liz Evans

Harum Scarum Married by Esmé Stuart

Brynn and Sebastian Hate Each Other by Bethany Turner*

Mrs Pargeter’s Point of Honour by Simon Brett

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

Mrs Pargeter’s Principle by Simon Brett

The Betel Nut Tree Mystery by Ovidia Yu

Started:

Mrs Pargeter’s Public Relations by Simon Brett

The Secret Bridesmaid by Katy Birchall*

From Dust to Stardust by Kathleen Rooney*

Still reading:

The Dress Diary of Mrs Anne Sykes by Kate Strasdin*

Travellers in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd

The Other Side of Mrs Wood by Lucy Barker*

I don’t think I bought anything. What restraint!

Bonus photo: it was the open day at the vocational training centre at the weekend – and this is from inside their tropical plant tunnel. It made me feel like I could actually fit some more plants in the house after all…

*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

Not a Book: Untold – Swamp Kings

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The NFL season gets underway this Thursday with Detroit Lions at reigning Super Bowl champions Kansas City Chiefs, so to get you in the mood today I’m talking about the the new Netflix documentary about the University of Florida Gators that dropped on Netflix about ten days ago and which I watched across two nights this week.

The four part series is part of Netflix’s Untold strand and looks at the hot run that the Gators went on in the mid-2000s under coach Urban Meyer and with star quarterback Tim Tebow. It looks at how the team went from massive underdogs to double champions – and how it could have been more. There are sit down interviews with all the key figures and lots of match and locker room footage.

I’m an NFL watcher (although not really college football so much) so it’s maybe not a surprise that I would be interested in this, but why should you watch this if you’re not an American football fan? Well Him Indoors is emphatically not an NFL person, and he came in midway through episode 1 and got hooked and wouldn’t let me watch it without him. And I think that’s because it’s such an interesting slice of culture and sport. In the UK we have teenage sports stars coming through all the time – but they go into teams where the other players are a range of ages and experience. In college football everyone is between 18 and about 22 and in this period they’re also amateurs – they’re playing the sport alongside studying in the hopes that it will propel them in to the NFL. They’re also the rock stars of their universities – with students following them around campus and tens of thousands turning out to watch them play: the Gators’ stadium, known as The Swamp, has a capacity of nearly 90,000 – which is about the same size as Wembley Stadium here in the UK. So these guys playing for the Gators are basically like premier league footballers, but without the salary and while students. And if any of you remember what the rugby team at your university got up to for initiation (it’s always the rugby team, don’t know why) you’ll have a sense of some of the stuff going on in the locker rooms and the sort of ethos. It’s absolutely wild – and a little bit disturbing at times.

In fact a lot of this series of Untold looks pretty good – they’ve got a doc about another college football star – Jonny Manziel – and one about the Balco doping scandal that I think I’ll watch, and one about Jake Paul which I’m pretty sure I won’t!

Have a great Sunday everyone.

books, stats

August Stats

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Books read this month: 31*

New books: 24

Re-reads: 7 (all audiobooks)

Books from the to-read pile: 6

NetGalley books read: 6

Kindle Unlimited read: 5

Ebooks: 7

Audiobooks: 7

Non-fiction books: 0

Favourite book this month: Codename Charming

Most read author: Georgette Heyer if you’re counting the Audiobook re-listens, Simon Brett if you’re not – with two Mrs Pargeters.

Books bought: Astonishingly only one ebook, although a pre-order of Codename Charming arrived, and five books – four of which came on one afternoon, mostly in The Works! I’ve added a couple of pre-orders to the list – all stuff that’s coming much closer to Christmas.

Books read in 2023: 252

Books on the Goodreads to-read shelf (I don’t have copies of all of these!): 704

I still need to work harder on the non fiction, and some of those long runners of mine are non fiction so it shouldn’t be as hard as I’m finding it. But basically it wasn’t a bad month in reading all in all. Lots of mysteries, a few good romances and reminders of more than one series I had forgotten about!

Bonus picture: I will never be over the Freddie Mercury auction show, so of course it’s another picture from that. This is the last weekend before it all goes under the hammer and I wish I could go back again for another look.

*includes some short stories/novellas/comics/graphic novels – including 3 this month

books, series, Series I love

Series I Love: Stockwell Park Orchestra

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It’s nearly the end of my 2023 Proms odyssey, and I’m still looking for romances with musicians or orchestras, and I’ve already recommended you some books featuring bands. So now I’m going to take the opportunity to write about a great series that features an orchestra in it – Isabel Rogers’s Stockwell Park Orchestra series.

This is a light comedy series about the members of an amateur orchestra, who meet weekly to rehearse and regularly perform concerts to a pretty high standard. The only trouble is there always seems to be some kind of drama going on in the background. There is a core group of main characters – most of whom are in the orchestra, although one notable exception isn’t – and there are also some regular side character for extra comic relief. So far the adventures have included a dead conductor, a continental tour and a certain level of fame.

There are four books in the series – two of which were Books of the Week. And as I said in both of reviews – I’m a band person, a lapsed clarinettist with a dislike of public performance and love of being part of music happening, but these guys are much better than I ever was. And because of that I find it quite hard to judge how these will land with people who aren’t musicians – or who don’t have experience with bands. But if you are someone who has experience with large groups of artistic types, I’m fairly sure you’ll recognises some of the personality types here. No news yet on whether there will be a fifth, but I’m really hoping it’s going to happen.

They’re available from all the usual ebook retailers, but if you get them direct from the publishers, Farrago Books, you can buy them as a set with a handy discount *and* get a free short story featuring the gang. Here’s the link. Enjoy!

not a book, tv

Book Adjacent: Wolf Hall

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As I wrote about Crazy for You the other Sunday, rather than Dr Semmelweiss, I thought I’d redress the balance this week and add a bit of Mark Rylance to the blog. As I said last week, I think he’s the best actor I’ve ever seen in person and I count Wolf Hall as the start of when he started to cross the path of non-theatre people.

Wolf Hall is the adaptation of the first two books of Hilary Mantel’s trilogy about Thomas Cromwell. Thomas Cromwell rose from obscurity to be Henry VIII’s chief minister and then fell from grace after the failure of Henry’s marriage to Anne of Cleves. The mini series opens as Cardinal Wolsey is about to fall from power because of his failure to get the King’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon annulled and follows Cromwell’s rise to power up until the death of Anne Boleyn. You see his origins in flashback and how he exploits the rivalries and networks of the Tudor Court.

I studied this period at A-Level and I can tell you it is some acheivement to make Thomas Cromwell a sympathetic figure, and yet the combination of Mantel’s writing and Rylance’s acting does it. I still haven’t read the final book in the trilogy because I’m not sure I want to see it all fall apart – and I’m struggling so much with reading things that are not cheerful or that I don’t know end well at the moment (by which I basically mean the last three years). When Hilary Mantel died almost a year ago, Peter Kominsky who directed this said that the script for the final book was underway, but there’s still no news on whether it is happening, and given that it was meant to film this year and Rylance has been in the West End all summer you can’t help but feel that it may not year have happened. But after the way they did Anne Boleyn’s beheading, I’m not sure I can bear to to see how they would do Cromwell’s execution anyway. We rewatched the series recently and I had to look away for that section.

Anyway, that aside, it’s well worth watching if you like historical dramas – and probably easier to watch it than read the books – which are very long and although beautifully written (two Booker wins and nominated for the third too) are not light reading. And you can play spot the locations too – I’ve been to Montacute House, Lacock Abbey and Barrington Court which are among the National Trust Houses that feature in the progamme, and the photo below is the steps leading up to the Chapter House at Wells Cathedral which we visited in January.

If you’re in the UK you can watch Wolf Hall on the BBC iPlayer, if you’re elsewhere, it’ll likely be on whichever streaming service gets BBC or PBS programmes where you are.

books

Recommendsday: Romances with weddings

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On Sunday I wrote about The Wedding Singer on one of the biggest wedding weekends of the year, so for Recommendsday today, I thought I would recommend some romance novels set in or around weddings, because there are a lot of them – including a few that have come out recently.

I’m going to start with a new release – Jackie Lau’s Four Weddings to Fall in Love, which came out at the end of July and I read in early August. Max and Kim have a one night stand at a wedding – it doesn’t go brilliantly, but both of them think they’ll never have to see the other again. The universe is against them though and they then proceed to run into each other at more weddings. But it gives Ma a chance to redeem himself and over the course of the book it turns out that they may be a better fit for each other than that first encounter suggested. This is the steamiest Jackie Lau yet, but it still feels like her if that makes sense. I didn’t love the lack of resolution of Kim’s problems with her mum, but this is the first in a series, so I’m hoping that maybe her mum’s comeuppance is going to come later. I mentioned A Piece of Cake in the June quick reviews, but Mary Hollis Huddleston and Asher Fogle Paul’s previous book Without a Hitch is also set in the wedding industry – so if you liked the new one, go back and read the previous one to see why I struggled with the redemption of Claire so much!

A few years old now is Mia Sosa’s The Worst Best Man, where a wedding planner who was left at the altar has to work with her ex-fiancé’s brother for Romance Novel Reasons. I think you can see where that is going. This was on a bunch of the best romances of the year lists when it came out in 2020, and although I didn’t find it as funny as some of the write ups suggested I did like it, and made a note to read Sosa’s next book when it came my way (which it hasn’t yet). I really liked the Washington DC setting though – as I recognised a lot of the places that were mentioned from my time there!

Christina Lauren’s Unhoneymooners was a BotW back in 2019, so it’s out of the statute of limitations – although Christina Lauren as an author isn’t – you can read a full review if you click the link, but it’s a forced proximity, enemies to lovers romance, where the hero and heroine are the only two people from a bridal party not to go down with food poisoning after the reception and go on the honeymoon instead of the bride and groom.

Older Again is Jasmine Guillory’s The Wedding Date. This was her debut romance back in 2018 and features a meet cute when a lift breaks down and a fake date to a wedding type scenario. I enjoyed it back when I read it – although her subsequent books haven’t always worked for me – but it should also be fairly easy to get hold of, I think I’ve even seen it in paperback relatively recently!

And that’s your lot! I’ve found a bunch more wedding-y books on my tbr while writing this, so you never know – there may yet be a follow up…

Book of the Week

Book of the Week: Chef’s Kiss

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And it’s a rare graphic novel pick for this week’s BotW because it was what I needed last week and the art is great.

Ben is freshly graduated from college with his English degree. He and his friends have got a flat share and are starting out on their working lives. The trouble is Ben can’t get a job in the areas he’s looking at because he doesn’t have any experience. Running out of money and downhearted, he sees an advert for jobs – no experience necessary – at a restaurant. He goes in and gets a chance to land a full time job in the kitchen. He’s always like cooking, but can he take it to the next level and impress the owner – and his pet pig? And what about his crush on Liam, one of the other chefs at the restaurant…

This was exactly the sort of low stakes story I needed last week. The drawing is lovely with a great aesthetic, and it’s quirky and charming and has the best looking food I’ve seen in a graphic novel in ages. I think it needed a little bit more resolution about Ben’s parents at the end, but in the main it was a very satisfying read.

Chef’s Kiss is in Comixology at the moment – which is bundled with Kindle Unlimited. I’ve tried to find it in comic stores previously but without much luck. However, I may just have been looking in the wrong places.

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: August 21 – August 27

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Well. I feel like August has been so busy that I don’t know where I am any more, except for the fact that it’s nearly over, so the school holidays are coming to an end and we’ve had more rain and miserable weather than I would hope for in a summer – even a British one. Still a pretty good week in reading all in, despite not finishing any of the long runners. I spotted the Shades of Magic graphic novel was in Kindle Unlimited and read that to remind myself of the world ahead of potentially reading the new book when that comes out. And I re-entered the world of Mrs Pargeter, which was a lot of fun.

Read:

Arabella by Georgette Heyer

Death at Crookham Hall by Michelle Salter

Suddenly at His Residence by Christianna Brand

Mrs Pargeter’s Patio by Simon Brett*

Mrs Pargeter’s Plot by Simon Brett

The Wedding Piper by Isabel Rogers

Shades of Magic Vol 1: The Steel Prince by V E Schwab et al

Chef’s Kiss by Jarrett Melendez et al

The Mummy Case by Elizabeth Peters

Started:

JFK is Missing by Liz Evans

Still reading:

The Dress Diary of Mrs Anne Sykes by Kate Strasdin*

Travellers in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd

The Other Side of Mrs Wood by Lucy Barker*

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

One book acquired on an evening walk to Waterstones Gower Street. I just can’t keep away…

Bonus photo: Friday night at the polo club (!) pop up restaurant. Possibly even more Happy Valley-esque than it felt last year!

*next to a book book title indicates that it came from NetGalley. ** indicates it was an advance copy from a source other than NetGalley.

film

Not a Book: The Wedding Singer

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It’s the August bank holiday weekend here in the UK, which is one of the most popular times to have your wedding – in fact one of my co-workers got married yesterday. So today’s not a book is one of my favourite films set around weddings – the late 90s Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore classic: The Wedding Singer.

It’s 1985 and Robbie Hart (Sandler) is the singer with a covers band in Ridgefield, New Jersey. Their main gig is weddings, and as the film opens he’s performing at one the week before his own wedding. Newly employed at the venue is waitress Julia Sullivan (Barrymore), who Robbie meets during his break and promises to sing at her wedding which she is just beginning to organise. But it seems that they may both have chosen the wrong people to get engaged to…

I have watched this film more times than I care to mention – and it’s one of those films where if I come across it on the TV I can’t help but stop to watch it. It was in Amazon Prime a month or so back and I watched it again then. In fact, while I was writing this paragraph I went back to see if it was still on Prime so I could watch it again (it’s not, it’s back to being a rental, gnash). I can recite along with large parts of it because it was one of about half a dozen films that my sister and I had on heavy rotation on Saturday nights when we were teenagers – it’s in a group of films* where even now if I send a line from them to her and she’ll message be back the next. It’s one of a couple of Drew Barrymore movies that I love but it’s also maybe the only Adam Sandler film I’ve watched more than once.

There was a musical of the film made in 2006, which falls into the category of shows I’ve never seen but still know all the lyrics to – because it hit Broadway during the period where I was deeply into the BroadwayWorld message board and when YouTube was starting to get videos of clips from TV shows – which happened to include their Tony Award performance. Although the soundtrack to the musical is iconic, the musical has an original score – except for Grow Old With You which is from the movie – which I think does a great job of capturing the energy of the 80s songs of the movie. So enjoy their opening number – It’s Your Wedding Day – from the Tony’s and see what I mean.

Anyway, I love it to the point where I find it hard to believe that there can be any one out there who hasn’t watched it, but if you haven’t and you like the sort of romances that I write about on this blog and you like romantic comedy movies, then you should definitely seek it out at your earliest convenience.

Have a great Sunday and enjoy the rest of your long weekend if you have one.

*The other films in this basket include Bridget Jones’s Diary, Drive Me Crazy, Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill and on the TV front large swaths of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.