Author: veritywilde

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

Books in the Wild: Airport update

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Him Indoors is on a jolly to the Med this weekend and kindly helped me out with some photos from the airport bookshop – bless his cotton socks he only sent me three, and it’s all fiction, but he’s trying and working out what he took photos of has been fun!

So we have biggest books – which is a very strange mix of stuff, but appears to be mostly classics, literary fiction and a few odds and ends of other bits and bobs – including that latest Richard Osman in the airport paperback.

Now I’m not going to lie, this doesn’t look very different from the selection when I went away in September – which is a maybe not a surprise – because he’s gone for the actual paperback fiction shelves – not the airport special editions – so its the big authors and big paperback editions – Lessons in Chemistry, older Thursday Murder Club, Coleen Hoover, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and the Monica Heisey which appears to have been the big paperback release of the autumn – which surprised me because the hardback only came out in January.

And finally, even more paperback fiction and along with more of the same from the previous shelf, I see new Sarah Morgan, All the Light We Cannot See – which has a Netflix adaptation out this week, Babel by R F Kuang which seems to be popping up more places now that Kuang’s Yellowface is doing so well, the Secret Diary of Charles Ignatius Sancho and the new Janice Hallett Christmas mystery. From the glimpse of the airport non-fiction shelf next to it, it appears to have lots of the Walter Isaacson Elon Musk book and new Future of Geography book and potentially not a lot of the Christmas memoirs *but* Him Indoors might not have noticed them for photos – or understood the difference…

So what have we learned? Don’t rely on the airport for your big autumn memoirs, and that despite living with me (and reading some of my airport format purchases) I’m not sure Him Indoors notices that books come in different sizes!

Have a great Saturday!

books

Series I love redux: Parasolverse

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Shelf of Gail Carriger books

It was Halloween this week, so it seems an appropriate time to remind you all of one of my favourite universes – and one of the not many I read that feature the supernatural. I’ve mentioned my slightly iffy relationship with books with vampires, werewolves and the like before, and my total inability to work out in advance what sort of supernatural series I’m going to like, and which I’m not. But Gail Carriger’s Parasolverse is definitely in the like category. There’s loads and loads of detail in my original Series I Love post – from back in 2020 – but they’re steampunk Victoriana in three different series and three different generations. The Parasol Protectorate series were written first but chronologically come in the middle, and feature the adventures of Alexia Tarabotti, then The Finishing School series of Young Adult novels are about Sophronia Temminnick and are connected to Alexia’s story in a way I can’t reveal without giving major spoilers and then the final series written and chronologically are the Custard Protocol, which feature Prudence (also linked to Alexia’s story) and her band of friends and their airship. I would read them in the order they were written for maximum enjoyment, but you can really suit yourself. Generally they’re a lovely witty way to spend some time with a large dollop of adventure, peril and some romance too. Just lovely.

Have a great weekend everyone.

books, stats

October Stats

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Books read this month: 30*

New books: 23

Re-reads: 7 (including 5 audiobooks)

Books from the to-read pile: 6

NetGalley books read: 7

Kindle Unlimited read: 6

Ebooks: 6

Audiobooks: 5

Non-fiction books: 1

Favourite book this month: either A Christmas to Remember or To Swoon or to Spar.

Most read author: probably Margery Allingham because of the Campion re-listen

Books bought: 5 ebooks, two preorders and think that’s it!

Books read in 2023: 313

Books on the Goodreads to-read shelf (I don’t have copies of all of these!): 708

An okish month. It went a bit off course at times, but towards the end I think I was getting my mojo back. Onwards into November and the start of the real run of Christmas reading…

Bonus picture: a houseplant success – I’ve killed one of these before, nearly killed another and yet – this one has got a new shoot coming!!!

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

books, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: October Quick Reviews

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Pinch, punch etc. Just the two for the quick reviews this month because it’s been a fairly re-read heavy month and I’ve already written about a lot of the new and new-to-me stuff! But hey, two is better than nothing right?

Death on the Down Beat by Sebastian Farr

Well this was a lot of fun. It’s both a musical mystery and a story told entirely through correspondence so that makes it a touch different to a lot of the other Golden Age Murder mysteries that you might come across. Our victim is a much-disliked conductor shot dead mid performance, seemingly without anyone seeing anything amiss until he keeled over. Our Detective is DI Alan Hope and the story is told thorugh the letters that he sends to his wife about the case – and the documents he includes in with that – which are a mix of letters from suspects, newspaper clippings and other similar items. It’s a really clever way of doing things – and it’s a shame that Farr never wrote any more, although I suspect it would not be an easy trick to pull off more than once. If you know a bit about music you’ll be able to follow this – I think if you know more about music than I do (grade 6ish clarinet and piano, bad at music theory) then you’ll get even more out of it. How it would work for a non-musician I don’t know!

A Lady’s Guide to Scandal by Sophie Irwin

As you might remember I read and really enjoyed Irwin’s first book when it came out last year, and so I’ve now come back to report in on her latest. My main critique of the first book was that there was just so. much. plot going on but that it moved so fast that you didn’t notice it. This second book doesn’t work as well – or at least didn’t for me – and the main culprits (I think) are that firstly that the two love interests in the heroine’s love triangle are both not great (at 50% I was wondering if we were going to get a late arriving third contender) and secondly that the heroine is just… hard to root for. She is both a pushover and ridiculously foolhardy by turns and it just gets very wearing really quite fast. And then – like the first book – it’s got a lot of plot, which leaves not a lot of time for it all to be resolved satisfactorily and when you don’t love the main characters you notice that. There’s a big revelation at more than 80% through that there is not time for a redemption for and the final resolution and reveal is just… too much too quickly. I’m sad I didn’t enjoy it more to be honest.

And of course there was a lot of other stuff too – including To Swoon and to Spar, Duke, Actually, 10 Things that Never Happened, Three Times a Countess and lots of Romances – M/m and on reality shows.

Happy Humpday!

Book of the Week, books, romance

Book of the Week: To Swoon and to Spar

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It was a long list last week, and there were a couple of options for this post, but I settled on To Swoon and to Spar because it’s really fun and it’s been a while since I picked a historical romance!

Viscount Penvale has spent his adult life trying to buy back his family’s home in Cornwall. When his uncle finally agrees to sell it to him, there is one condition: Penvale must marry his ward Jane. The two meet and although first impressions aren’t the best, both agree to a marriage of convenience. What Penvale doesn’t know is that Jane has been spending months persuading his uncle that Trethwick is haunted so that he would move out, and she’s going to use the same tactics to try and rid herself of her new husband. What could possibly go wrong?

This is the fourth book in Waters’ Regency Vows series, and Penvale was a side character in the other book in the series that I’ve read and given how close he seems to his friends I assume also the two that I haven’t, so I suspect I’ve read the series you’ll have some feelings about him already. And of course the faux haunting made it a good book to read in the run up to Halloween. It rattles along nicely and the plot has enough turns to keep you wondering what will happen next. I had a few minor niggles with some of the language choices – at one point Jane is surprised Penvale is still hungry as he’s eaten “an entire rasher of bacon” at breakfast – and I’m not sure Jane really would be surprised that Penvale hadn’t read a novel, but I enjoyed it enough that I let it off. Although I suppose as I’m mentioning it here, I haven’t really have I?! Anyway, there is a fifth book in the series coming next year and I’ll keep an eye out for that, and if any of the two I haven’t read come my way I wouldn’t say no to reading them.

My copy of To Swoon and to Spar came from that trip to The Works, so it hasn’t even been on the pile for very long which is unusual for me, and means you should be able to get hold of the paperback fairly easily I think. And it’s also available in Kindle and Kobo.

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: October 23 – October 29

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A really busy week in reading. Lots of books read – and lots of different genres. The audiobook re-listen is now deep into Albert Campion, which is fun. And we’re nearly at the end of October which means all the usual things for the blog this week.

Read:

Tis the Damn Season by Kimi Freeman*

Death of a Ghost by Margery Allingham

Mystery in Provence by Vivian Conroy

A Christmas to Remember by Beverly Jenkins

Flowers for the Judge by Margery Allingham

Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa*

The Case of the Late Pig by Margery Allingham

Death on the Down Beat by Sebastian Farr

A Lady’s Guide to Scandal by Sophie Irwin

To Swoon and to Spar by Martha Walters

Started:

Somebody at the Door by Raymond W Postgate

Still reading:

Travellers in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd

Animal, Vegetable, Criminal by Mary Roach

One pre-order arrived but that was it.

Bonus photo: this is the curtain call (they said we could film and photograph it) at the Coliseum on Wednesday for the final night of the ENO’s production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Iolanthe. My first Gilbert and Sullivan and it was really good and much funnier than I expected – not least because someone from my favourite comedy theatre company was in it!

*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: Colleen Rooney – The Real Wagatha Story

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It feels like I’m doing a documentary recommendation every other week at the moment (ED: you are) and this one is another football-related one after Beckham the other weekend, but hey the Wagatha Christie scandal transcended football (and wasn’t really about football in the first place) so I’m going with it!

In case you missed the original scandal, back in 2019 Colleen Rooney (the wife of former England captain Wayne) posted to her Instagram that she had been investigating the leak of stories from her private Instagram account to The Sune and had come to the conclusion that the culprit was “………Rebekah Vardy’s account”. Rebakah Vardy, wife of Leicester City striker Jamie, sued Rooney for defamation and the whole thing culminated in a High Court trial in the summer of 2022 and the whole case has spawned a string of podcasts, documentaries, dramas and even a West End show. This latest documentary, from Disney + tells Colleen’s side of the story across three parts.

There are elements here that have parallels to the Beckham’s story – Wayne has also been the subject of tabloid exposes and Colleen has been the focus of tabloid attention since she was still at school. But aside from that, this is quite a different beast. Colleen talks the viewer through her life with Wayne, the stories that started appearing in the Sun, the sting that she set up to try and prove who the source of the stories was and then the aftermath of her post. WHile the court case is estimated to have cost around £3m, it’s not life or death stuff and that makes it really good escapist viewing. I’ve already listened to a podcast about the case (the BBC’s It’s… Wagatha Christie) and the Channel 4 drama – as well as following the court case as it went on and I still found a few bits here that I didn’t already know. But even though I did already know most of it, it’s well packaged and it’s the first time we’ve really heard directly from Colleen and Wayne as well as their lawyers. I’m not saying go out and get a Disney + subscription just for this, but if you already have one, it’s a worth looking this up – or adding it to your list for the next time you do have access to Disney +.

Have a good Sunday everyone.

books, bookshelfies

Bookshelfie: New bookcase!

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For today’s treat, I offer you the new attic staircase bookshelf. I said a few months ago that I was looking for one, and now I have it! This is a second hand oak bookcase, probably 1950s-ish and came from the vintage warehouse place. At the moment it’s a mix of Trisha Ashley, Agatha Christie, Josephine Tey, British Library Crime Classics and cozy crime. But the aim is to have stuff on there that people sleeping in the spare room might want to read so that may yet change. And it means that I now have space downstairs to do a bit of rearranging. So watch this space…

books, new releases, Series I love

Series I love again: Blessings

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I know. I’ve already written about Beverly Jenkins Blessings series more than once, but the latest book in the series came out here this week – after a gap of three and a half years so how could I not!

You can find my first post about the people of Henry Adams here, but the basic plot is that when she divorces her rich but cheating husband, Bernadine Brown uses part of her divorce settlement to buy a historically black town in Kansas on eBay. Over the course of the series you can see Henry Adams come back to life and flourish. There’s a regular cast of characters who cover multiple generations, there’s always a romantic element – although it’s not always the main focus – as well as whatever is happening in the town. It’s strongly influenced by faith – after her divorce Bernadine wants God to tell her what her purpose should be after being so fortunate as to get so much money – and buying the town is what she feels that he wants her to do. And the latest in the series is mostly focusing on Reverend Paula and the new guy in town.

I realise I’ve got this far without really talking about the narrative structure – which is that it moves around from character to character looking at the different strands of the story. Its a bit like Tales of the City – although Blessings isn’t written to be read in episodes and the overarching plot is more connected together than TotC tends to be.

Anyway, A Christmas to Remember came out this week, I had it pre-ordered and had finished it within two days despite all my efforts at moderation (and it would have been less except that I had to work and also had theatre tickets). Last week I mentioned Sweet Mercies and if you’ve read that or Small Miracles, the first book about the Sisters of St Philomena, this has lots of similar vibes – although those have less romance than these do and maybe a bit more God. Or at least a different way of dealing with God. And the narrative moves around in a similar way.

Ms Bev writes brilliant historical romances as well – I’ve written about a couple of them – so there’s plenty to go at in her back catalogue if you read one of these and like it.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Book previews, books

Out this week: Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date

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I just wanted to mention that the third in Ashley Herring Blake’s Bright Falls series of F/f romances has come out this week. I read the first two back to back earlier this year and have been waiting for this one to finish off the set. Iris has been a secondary character in the other two and I’m really looking forward to seeing what her happy ending looks like. This is very much a trilogy (or at least I think it is) so do try and read the others first for maximum effect. And I promise I will report back when I’ve read it.