Author: veritywilde

Journalist, armchair sports fan, book worm and show fiend. There's a sentence you don't hear too often.
books, stats

February Stats

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Books read this month: 34*

New books: 22

Re-reads: 12 (all audiobooks)

Books from the to-read pile: 9

NetGalley books read: 2

Kindle Unlimited read: 7

Ebooks: 4

Audiobooks: 12

Non-fiction books: 0

Favourite book this month: Simply the Best by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Most read author: Ngaio Marsh because of the relisten

Books bought: ummm… I think it’s about 20 and a preorder.

Books read in 2024: 72

Books on the Goodreads to-read shelf (I don’t have copies of all of these!): 730

A pretty good month all in all, although I didn’t do very well on the NetGalley front. Must try harder in March!

Bonus picture: wisteria season not yet underway!

*includes some short stories/novellas/comics/graphic novels – including 7 this month

Series I love

Series I Love: Heartstopper

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I’ve been saving writing about this series until after Volume five – because at the end of the fourth book it said five would be the last. Except that it’s not – and as there was a two year gap between four and five because Alice Oseman was working on the Netflix series, I’m not going to wait until after book six!

Heartstopper is the story of Charlie and Nick. They both attend the same grammar school but they’re in different years and their school experience has been very different. Charlie is an anxious over-thinker who has been bullied because he’s openly gay, while Nick is the star of the rugby team and friends with everyone. But when they meet they become friends and both of their lives start to change.

And I don’t really want to say much more because: spoilers ahoy and it all takes a while to develop, but over the course of the five volumes so far we’ve seen the gang experience first love, navigate relationships, deal with school bullies, take exams, go on school trips and in Volume five it’s time to look at universities. I love the art, I love the characters – and I recognise some of their experiences from when I was at school – and I definitely wouldn’t want to be back in a secondary school. And as I mentioned, it’s also been turned into a Netflix series – so here’s the trailer for the first series if you want more of an idea about what’s going on:

I’m not going to lie – I haven’t watched the show yet, because I wanted to wait for the books to be finished first, but that was when I thought it was one book to go. So now who knows what I’ll do – there are two series and series three finished filming at the end of last year. One of my friends *loves* the series and I know he’ll be waiting anxiously for the next one. But if you’ve watch the series and haven’t read the books I can recommend them too. You should be able to buy the books pretty much everywhere – I get mine from the Comic Book Store because I like to support them, but they’re in all the bookshops – and as I discovered the other week the new one is in The Works too!

Have a great weekend!

books

Out this week: Right on Cue

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I’ve had a bit of a moment over the last year about romances with celebrities, especially ones with normal (or normal-ish) people too. And this looks like another one and it came out this week. This features a former actress turned screenwriter who is persuaded back in camera to play the lead when her latest project hits a standstill. Then the leading man changes – to the man Emmy blames for the end of her acting career the first time, blockbuster hero Grayson West. But the two of them are going to have to work together to save both of their careers. Sounds like it’s got potential doesn’t it!

books, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: Romances with grovelling

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After reading At First Spite last week I started thinking about other romances where one of the couple has to do some serious grovelling to redeem themselves. Because as I said yesterday At First Spite has an absolutely epic grovel in it – but it also has some mental health issues that may mean that some people want to avoid it. So here are some other options.

It also turns out that maybe romances with grovels are my thing – because a lot of the books that I came up with were already books of the week! Let’s start with Sarah Maclean because she is maybe queen of the grovel – in most of her series there is a man who has done something awful and who you think is irredeemable and then in the final book of the series, she pulls it off. I could only pick one though so I’ve gone for Day of the Duchess because it is so good – but also because I know some people have had issues with Daring and the Duke because they don’t think Ewan is redeemable – so I think Day of the Duchess is the more reliable recommendation. Of course it’s going to work best if you read the whole series, but it does work on its own as well.

Next up, another historical romance and it’s Sherry Thomas’s Luckiest Lady in London. I can’t really explain this book any more than I did in that book of the week review but trust me, it’s good. A much more recent BotW is Devil in Winter – which is a classic of the historical romance genre and is totally worth reading if you like this sort of thing. And finally in the historical section there’s Romancing Mr Bridgerton by Julia Quinn – which is about to be the third season of Bridgerton and you can read now to get ahead. And if you want to know what he’s got to grovel for, just watch the trailer for the new series…

And now because At First Spite is a contemporary romance, I have to offer a few of those. But I did find this tricky. There are a couple of grovels in the Chicago Stars series, but they tend to be in the earlier books in the series with the most alphahole-y heroes and that’s not necessarily my thing at all. There is also Love Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood, which continues to come up in my posts despite the fact that I have reservations about Tiny Heroines and Giant Heroes (and tell you about that every time!). Then there is Glitterland by Alexis Hall, which I should say I have only read the original version of, so may have changed a bit since I read it but hey. This has a depressed former literary golden boy and someone who Hall describes as a sunshiney glitter pirate. I really enjoyed it a couple of years ago and I really should go back and check the new version. Maybe this is the push I needed? We’ll see.

And finally it’s sort of cheating but I think Olivia Dade’s Shipwrecked also sort of counts for this – although the hero in that hasn’t so much done something wrong as much as waited a long time to prove to the heroine that he’s the guy for her.

Happy Reading!

Book of the Week, books

Book of the Week: At First Spite

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Now I didn’t intend for this to be the BotW because I’ve already mentioned it a few times, but it has one of the best grovels that I have recently seen in a romance so I couldn’t help myself so here we are!

How does Athena Grayson find herself living in a tiny house in between her former fiancé and his brother? Well it’s because she impulsively bought the spite house as a wedding gift for her husband before the engagement imploded. Now she’s stuck living in it – attached to her ex’s house and with the man who is the reason her fiancé broke up with her across the alley from her – and visible from every window. So she does what every woman living in a house with spite in the name would do – tries to get petty revenge. Except that Doctor Matthew Vine the Third may not be quite the uptight judgemental jerk she thought he was.

You know where this is going, but I will admit to having my doubts when I read the blurb about how Matthew was going to be redeemable. But luckily it’s pretty clear early on what his issue with his brother’s marriage is and that makes it all better or easier for the reader anyway. This has however got a portrayal of serious depression in it, which there is a warning for at the front so I’m not spoiling anything, and may mean that you need to approach with care depending on your own situation.

This is the first book in Olivia Dade’s new series set in Harlot’s Bay and it sets up a delightful community and set of secondary characters for the reader to revisit in the next books in the series. I’m really interested to see who the next person to get a book is – it feels like it maybe should be Athena’s ex, and yet I’m not sure how I feel about getting on board with him as a hero – he doesn’t seem to fit the sort of hero that Dade creates. So I look forward to seeing what the next one is when we get more information on that – whenever it maybe!

I had my paperback copy preordered, but you can also get it on Kindle and Kobo.

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: February 19 – February 25

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Well this list looks a lot longer than it should because of the short stories from Improbable Meet Cute and a graphic novel. And obviously it has last week’s BotW on it because it was one of those weeks too. I’m off on my travels for work this week – proper travels out of the country – so we’ll see what that does to the list. I’m going to try and get that long running list down, but we will see. Service here should continue as usual though, even if I am in a different time zone.

Read:

Died in the Wool by Ngaio Marsh

The Love Wager by Lynn Painter

A Death Inside by Frances Brody

Final Curtain by Ngaio Marsh

At First Spite by Olivia Dade

With Any Luck by Ashley Poston

Drop, Cover and Hold on by Jasmine Guillory

Royal Valentine by Sariah Wilson

Rosemary takes to Teaching by Patricia Baldwin

Fence Vol 5 by C S Pascal et al

Started:

Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date by Ashley Herring Blake

The Whole Enchilada by Diane Mott Davidson

Still reading:

Mr Hot Shot CEO by Jackie Lau

The Antiques Hunter’s Guide to Murder by C L Miller*

The Last Action Heroes by Nick de Semelyen

Travellers in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd

Two ebooks bought and one paperback preordered.

Bonus photo: somewhat flooded on the way to work last week

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

streaming

Not a Book: Drive to Survive is back

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I mean that’s pretty much the message. The new season dropped on Friday and so thats what we settled down to watch on Friday night after work. You all know how much I’ve enjoyed the previous series but they had lots of on track action to work with so I was very interested to see what they did with the 2023 season which, spoiler alert, was not the most exciting on the actual racing front. If you want to watch, it’s on Netflix but if you haven’t watched before go back and start with maybe season two (not all the teams did season one) and go from there.

books

Books in the Wild: Stuff I’ve spotted!

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This Saturday I’m taking the opportunity to noodle a bit about a few things I’ve spotted in my wanderings around the various bookshops. You’re welcome.

First up, this was the window display at the Euston W H Smith bookshop this week. I haven’t read Katy Brent’s debut, How to Kill Men and Get Away with It, because I’m fairly sure it’s too dark for me, but I do love the design they gave it and this second novel looks just as cool. And it’s clearly getting g a bit of a push in the shops.

This is one I spotted in my local Waterstones – I do like a Hollywood story, and I’m curious about behind the scenes at Disney, so this one has in the list of stuff I want to read just as soon as I’ve got the to read pile down a little bit!

And lastly, this was the hardback fiction tower at that same Waterstones. The books that jumped out took to me were Over My Dead Body, which has a murder victim stuck in limbo unless she can prove she was murdered; Kiley Reid’s second book because I’m curious to see how she follows the massive success of Such a Fun Age; and Sara Sheridan’s The Secrets of Blythswood Square because I used to read her Mirabelle Beavan mystery series and I’m interested to see what she’s doing now. But like the others, it may have to wait for a smaller backlog! Perhaps by the time they’re in paperback.,.

books, series

Bingeable series: The Improbable Meet Cute

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Happy Friday everyone, it’s nearly the weekend and today I’m looking at this year’s Amazon original story offer for Valentine’s Day – the Improbable Meet Cute series of short stories.

So the idea behind these is finding love when you least expect it, and they feature improbable first encounters that lead to a special connection, each one written by a different best selling author (or duo in the case of Christina Lauren). I would say I really like fifty percent of the authors here, and have a… more mixed relationship with the other half. So I thought it would be fun to read them all and read them in order and see what I thought.

And the answer was I really liked the ones by the authors that I usually like – Christina Lauren, Ashley Poston and Sally Thorne – and was agreeably surprised by Abbie Jiminez’s story. The Sariah Wilson was my least favourite – which wasn’t a surprise because I didn’t really like the full length novel of hers I had previously read, and this featured royals which I always have a mixed record with.

But overall, it’s a nice collection with something for most people and they don’t take too long to read as and they’re all around the fifty page mark. And if you have Kindle Unlimited they’re free.

Have a great weekend everyone.

books

Out this week: At First Spite

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How excited was I to read the new Olivia Dade? Well, it dropped onto my doormat while I was at work on Tuesday and as you can see it came on the train to work with me on Wednesday. This is an enemies to lovers romance where the heroine was previously engaged to the hero’s brother. And the hero is the reason the wedding didn’t happen, so that’s going to be an interesting one to try to sort out. The only problem is that when I find out how that’s done, it’ll all be over and I’ll have to wait for the next book from Dade!