Verity Reads Books (lots of them)
In which our heroine attempts to tame the to-read pile
We’re a few week behind the US but it’s It’s that time again – the latest Veronica Speedwell has come out in the UK. My love of Deanna Raybourn’s writing is well known here – after all I’ve written an about it Veronica, her Lady Julia series and Killers of a Certain Age (which is getting a sequel). Anyway, this is book nine in the Speedwell series – I have been saving book eight so I think I can read that now – but I always look forward to seeing what she and Stoker are up to.
It’s that time of the month again – where I buy even more books in the process of compiling the list of books on offer on Kindle this month. It is a slightly shorter list this month because there seem to be a lot of repeat offenders (so to speak) on offer this month, so I’ve tried not to duplicate too much this time. It wasn’t any less expensive a post for all that though!
So let’s start with one that I bought – and it’s The Excitements which is about two nonogenarian sisters who are World War Two veterans. On a trip to France to receive the Legion D’Honneur their nephew starts to suspect that they may be hiding some secrets about their past. This has a for fans of Richard Osman tag, but also blurbs from lots of authors that I like including Jenny Colgan and S J Bennett, so I’m looking forward to reading it. Talking of SJ Bennett, A Three Dog Problem, the second in the HM the Queen investigates series is also on offer this month.
Going back a long way to pre-BotW days, and Libby Page’s The Lido was a holiday reading pick – a sequel has just come out which I suspect explains the offer at the moment. A little more recently, I reviewed Tom Hindle’s Fatal Crossing back in January 2022 – he has two more since then, both of which are on my tbr pile, but this first one is on offer at the moment. I read Emily Henry’s Beach Read a bit more recently than that and would recommend it – I’ve read a couple of warring writers books in the last couple of ears and I think this one is my favourite – so 99p is s steal. Coming even more recently in my reading and I read Days at the Morisaki Bookshop not that long ago, and really enjoyed it – it’s 99p so if you fancy a slice of Japanese bookshop fantasy, it’s a steal.
Mhairi McFarlane’s It’s Not Me, It’s You is a book I loved in the days before this blog – I haven’t been back to it since I first read it in 2014, but my Goodreads review is positively glowing and I’ve enjoyed many of her books since so I’m not too worried about recommending it despite that. In a complete tonal about turn, Emma Cline’s The Girls is also on offer – it’s about a sort of Manson-y situation in the US in the 1960s and I enjoyed it but it was on the edge of what I can cope with – so I haven’t read her second novel, The Guest, which looked entirely too creepy for me on the basis of the blurb. Another book I enjoyed in the pre-pandemic days when I still read literary fiction is Brit Bennet‘s The Mothers.
And there is the usual offers on my favourite authors. The cheapest “proper” Georgette Heyer edition is Devil’s Cub at £1.99. And the 99p Julia Quinn is Just Like Heaven, the first of the Smythe-Smith series. This month’s Terry Pratchett is Making Money, the second Moist von Lipwig book and source of this genius quote:
‘Look, I can explain,’ he said. Lord Vetinari lifted an eyebrow with the care of one who, having found a piece of caterpillar in his salad, raises the rest of the lettuce. ‘Pray do,’ he said, leaning back. ‘We got a bit carried away,’ said Moist. ‘We were a bit too creative in our thinking. We encouraged mongooses to breed in the posting boxes to keep down the snakes …’ Lord Vetinari said nothing. ‘Er … which, admittedly, we introduced into the posting boxes to reduce the numbers of toads …’ Lord Vetinari repeated himself. ‘Er … which, it’s true, staff put in the posting boxes to keep down the snails …’ Lord Vetinari remained unvocal. ‘Er … These, I must in fairness point out, got into the boxes of their own accord, in order to eat the glue on the stamps,’ said Moist, aware that he was beginning to burble.
Making Money by Terry Pratchett
Oh and I also bought the latest Mary Balogh, Always Remember while I was writing this. Oops.
Happy reading
As I said yesterday, I didn’t get a lot read last week – but I did finally get around to reading Jennette McCurdy’s memoir (it’s only been sitting on the shelf for fourteen months!) and hoooo boy.
Ok, so if you don’t know who Jennette is, she is a former child actress who played one of the lead characters in the Nickelodeon TV series iCarly. She won four kids choice awards for her work on that show – but as this memoir shows, behind the scenes she was suffering from the abusive behaviour of her mother, who was the driving force behind her acting career.
And this is the point where I tell you that this book needs all of the content warnings. All of them. I hadn’t read any in depth reviews but I knew a bit about what I was getting into because I had seen and heard people warning that it was a really traumatic read but even with that I wasn’t prepared for the full awfulness of what Jennette went through. I’ll put some specific warnings at the bottom for those who want to know more. But now you’re probably wondering why on earth I’ve made this my book of the week if it’s such a tough read. Well it’s just so well written and for all of the awfulness of it all, I read it in one sitting on Sunday afternoon.
I have long been convinced that a lot of the time the parents of child stars are exactly the wrong sort of people to be the parents of child stars. And McCurdy’s mother is absolutely proving that theory and then some. Debra died in 2013, but had had cancer on and off since Jennette was a toddler and weaponised this against her children. In Jennette’s case this took the form of forcing her to become an actress and become the main financial support for the family and then abusing and manipulating her throughout her acting career.
I really, really hope that McCurdy is in a better place in her life now. If I have one criticism of this memoir it’s that there is not enough of what Jennette’s life is like now and if she’s doing better to counteract 300 pages of extremely bleak stuff. But I get that she is someone who lived a life she didn’t want and is taking back control by sharing what it was really like behind the scenes in writing this and that part of the point of all the changes that she’s made in recovery is that she now has control of what she does and what people know about her life.
So if you’re feeling resilient and you want to have all your fears about child stars confirmed and then some, this is a really good book to read. But you do need to go in prepared for a lot of awful. If it helps you work out whether you can cope with this or not, I would say this is worse than Tara Westover’s Educated in terms of what Jennette goes through, but also because (as I said a moment ago) you don’t get quite the same payoff in terms of seeing how she has recovered and overcome it all.
You should be able to get hold of this really easily – it won a lot of acclaim when it came out – including Goodreads awards and the like. It was in the bookshops in the UK – even though I don’t think she was a massively big name here – as well as being on Kindle and Kobo. And Jennette herself reads the audiobook version – I had a listen to the sample and it does make it feel even more immediate and awful. So be warned on that front too.
Have a great Tuesday everyone – happy Reading feels a bit appropriate today!
Here are those more specific content warnings I promised you: emotional abuse, sexual abuse, eating disorders, alcoholism, addiction, manipulation,
I cannot tell you how busy last week was. But I am back in home in the UK and attempting to get my body clock back onto GMT. And not going to lie – I didn’t get much read last week – I mostly slept on the flights home rather than using it as reading time and I regret nothing to be honest! Anyway, this week should be a return to slightly more normal service. Possibly.
Read:
Buyin’ Trouble by Patti Benning
Murder in Michigan by Patti Benning
Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L Sayers
The Whole Enchilada by Diane Mott Davidson
Gaudy Night by Dorothy L Sayers
The Golden One by Elizabeth Peters
I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy
Started:
The Lantern’s Dance by Laurie R King
Still reading:
Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date by Ashley Herring Blake
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
Three preorders arrived but I think that was about it.
Bonus photo: spotted on the baggage carousel. I would not have any faith it that all having survived a flight unscathed.
*next to a book book title indicates that it came from NetGalley. ** indicates it was an advance copy from a source other than NetGalley.
It’s the biggest night in the movie calendar tonight – or at least that’s what the Academy of Motion Picture, Arts and Science would like you to believe. I do love an awards ceremony – but I tend to record them so I can fast forward through the boring bits, even when they’re in the right time zone for me, so I won’t be staying up for all of the Oscars tonight – but it is the first year in a long time that they’ve been on free to air TV in the UK – they’re on ITV!
And, I’m not going to lie, I haven’t seen anything that’s nominated tonight – but there are still a few things I’m rooting for. Firstly I want I’m Just Ken to win the best original song prize, because I’ve really enjoyed Ryan Gosling’s face whenever it’s won all season. I would be all in on rooting for him to win best actor, except that I was an Ally and Larry fan back in the days of season four of Ally McBeal, and it turns out that I’m still not over the fact that Robert Downey Junior’s drug arrest meant he was written out at the end of the season and we never got the happy ending for them that the writers planned. And season five never recovered – because Larry was just so perfect for Ally that no one else could stand up to it. Now maybe if I could rewatch the series I would get over it, because I’m fairly sure it hasn’t aged well, but it’s not on any streaming services so I can’t watch it and find out. All I can do is watch snippets on Youtube. Like this one, the only occasion on which I will voluntarily watch Sting.
I would be rooting for Maestro – because I love Leonard Bernstein, but I’ve got so fed up of Bradley Cooper this awards season, and although I started watched Maestro I gave up after about 10 minutes (does this mean I’m lying when I say I haven’t seen any of the movies? I don’t think it counts because it’s less than 10 percent of the movie). And I know I won’t watch Killers of the Flower Moon (I’m too wimpy for every Scorsese except The Aviator, which I love) but I will be rooting for Lily Gladstone in the Best Actress category.
But beyond that, it may be that a fair amount of fast forwarding is going on – especially if the ceremony is as sad and joyless as some of the recent ones have been. But fingers crossed they get it right this year. I leave you with this video of the best costume nominees – I hope we get something as bonkers as this is:
As the title says, this is slightly earlier in the month than it would usually be, but as you know, I’ve been Away for work and I was planning all of this out before I went and this just seemed to make sense. Anyway, what you’re seeing here are the books in Ann Granger‘s Campbell and Carter series that I haven’t read yet, a book in the Herring series that I picked up in Foyles the other week on a whim, the new Martha Waters that I mentioned the other week and a couple that you’ve already heard about – At First Spite and one of the volumes of the Fence series. I know that I’ve got a lot of stuff arriving in March – because I’ve got pre-orders in but also because I always buy books at the airport and for the trip and I try to go to bookshops in countries that I visit and so there’s a chance there’ll be more from that. So watch this space!
So this week I’m adding the the graphic novel series that I’ve written about in my series posts – with Fence – a series I’ve been reading for years and hope goes on for more years to come.
Fence is the story of the members of a fencing team at the prestigious Kings Row boarding school. The main characters are Nicolas – the illegitimate son of a legendary fencer but keeping that secret, at the school on a scholarship and having had very little formal training but with bags of potential – and Seiji Katayama a hugely talented but deeply mysterious fencer whose presence at Kings Row is a bit of a surprise to the fencing world, who thought he would be at a better school. Because Kings Row is good – but it’s not championship winning good at the moment, so could this year’s team be the ones to change that? There are other members of the team and we see their stories too, but the Nick and Seiji strands are the main ones.
We’ve got to six collected editions now – and we’ve see the guys at school, at practice, in matches and most recently at a training camp with all of their main rivals. The boarding school element is what drew me to it originally – my love of Girls Own boarding school stories is well known here, but the rivalry aspect and the art just spoke to me. And the art has been consistently really good through the whole series so far – there are various different people doing different things here and there and although the styles vary, like with Lumberjanes they’re consistent in their own way and all really nice too look at.
There’s also a couple of novels now – I’ve read the first but not the second and they get more into the other members of the team and away from Nick and Seiji and I’ve enjoyed that as well. My only gripe really is that there is so long between each book. But then that’s a fairly common gripe for me with graphic novels – but I know they take a long time to draw and that they come out in single editions first so I cope!
You should be able to get Fence from any good comic book shop – they’re on Kindle as well and the first one is at a really reasonable price – although my experience with reading graphic novels on Kindle is distinctly mixed so your mileage may vary.
Happy Weekend everyone!
I was hoping the picture for this post would be from an Armistead Mapin in conversation event, but I missed it on Monday night because work have sent me to a different continent, although by the time you read this I should be nearly home. Anyway, this is the tenth Tales of the City novel, you know I love this series and that I’ve been looking forward to forward to filling in the gaps and finding out what Mona was uptown in England in the 1980s. Hopefully my copy will have arrived at my parents house while I’ve been away!
We’re into March so here we are with another set of reviews of a couple of books that I read last month that I haven’t already talked about. And I’ve already talked about a lot of books, so points to me for finding three more to talk about!
A Murder Inside by Frances Brody
This is the first in a new series from the author of the Kate Shackleton series. This though is set in the 1960s and our lead character is the newly appointed governor of a women’s open prison which is taking over the premises of a former borstal. And of course there’s a suspicious death – and the newly arrived residents come under suspicion. I really enjoyed this – I ended up staying up way too late on a work night trying to get to the end, before I eventually gave up and I’m looking forward to a sequel, although I hope it doesn’t mean no more Kate Shackleton books.
Grumpy Fake Boyfriend by Jackie Lau
This is the first book of Lau’s pair of books about the Kwan sisters. The sister in this is Naomi who needs a fake boyfriend to take for a long weekend at a Lake House with her friends – and her ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriend. The fake boyfriend in question is Will, a massive introvert and science fiction author who happens to be friends with Naomi’s brother. Will is only doing this because he doesn’t have many friends and doesn’t want to risk losing one of the ones he has, but despite the fact that the two of them are chalk and cheese, there’s clearly some sort of spark between them. I liked the split narrative in this one – and watching the two of them figure out how to navigate a relationship – fake or otherwise – all while under the full glare of Naomi’s friends. It’s not the longest novel but it’s great fun and it zips by. I read it in a day and went straight on to the second book!
Lady Thief of Belgravia by Alison Gray*
This features a thief and an aristocrat teaming up in 1870s London to try and steal back some important documents. And firstly, let me just say that the cover is beautiful. But beyond that this is a bit of a weird one for me because I just couldn’t figure out what it was trying to be – and that’s why my plot summary is so short! The pacing was wrong for it to be a romance, and equally the espionage plot was too thin for it to be a mystery. And because of the fact it hadn’t decided what it wanted to be, both sides fell flat for me. There’s not enough characterisation and character development in either of the leads – you don’t really ever know why Della and Cole are into each other or what they like about each other. The turning Della into a lady lessons are a nice device but she seems able to grasp a ridiculously large amount of knowledge in not a lot of time and the combination of all that just made it all just a stretch too far for me. Never mind.
And that’s your lot – the BotW were The Belting Inheritance, Knife Skills for Beginners, The Love Wager and At First Spite. And the other recommendsday posts were about mid-twentieth century careers books and xxxx.
I said yesterday that whatever I chose today was going to be tricky for one reason or another, so I’ve gone for a rule breaker on the repeat front, rather than tell you (again) how much I love the Peter and Harriet books in the Wimsey series. If you want to know about that, you can go and read this post. So, instead I’m back on the Susan Elizabeth Philips train with a book from her Wynette, Texas series.
This plot is quite a lot, so hold on and bear with me. Our heroine is Cornelia Litchfield Case, widow of the President of the United States and also daughter of a former vice president. She’s found herself being pushed back into the role of First Lady and it’s killing her from the inside. So she gives her secret service minders the slip and escapes DC for a cross country road trip. Our hero is Mat Jorik, a disillusioned journalist whose ex wife has just died and is now taking charge of her children – but only to deliver them to their grandmother on the other side of the country. Nealy and Mat’s paths cross at a service station, and soon they’re on a cross country road trip together -in an RV with a surly teenage girl and a baby. The sparks fly between them – and this is the first time ever Nealy has had the chance to get to know a man who doesn’t know all about her baggage and her background, and who has no expectations of her. What could possibly go wrong?
So this is a road trip romance with a side of found family. I loved Mat from the start – he’s an absolute softie with a heart of gold that he hides behind a bit gruff exterior. And Nealy is one of the more interesting heroines you’ll encounter – her backstory is wild. I wasn’t quite sure how this was going to work itself out at the end, but it did and it was really quite neatly done – although it did all happen quite quickly, which is always annoying. But basically this is a fun read with a bit of an unusual set up and is all the better for it. I have the next two books in the series lined up (because they were on offer, although this was not) so I look forward to reading more of the series – and maybe seeing a bit more of the Wynette of the name!
I have no idea if it’s possible to get this in paperback for a reasonable price – but it’s available on Kindle and Kobo. And yes, I did break my usual pricing rules while buying it, but I’m blaming the jet lag!
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 